Increased mileage and recovery

Maybe you ramped up the mileage too quickly.

Try to schedule some easy days or rest days on a regular basis. The harder you ride, the more you need to pay attention to rest and recovery.

Towing the trailer may also be putting a lot more stress on your legs than solo riding would. (I don’t know for sure since I’ve never towed a bike trailer.) My only thought would be to keep the bike in an easy gear when you have all that extra weight. Avoid hills when you are towing the trailer.

Try to eat soon after any of the tougher or longer rides, preferably within 20-30 minutes. Get some carbs and a small amount of protein too. Try some post-ride stretching. I always stretch after I run but not always after I ride. But I do stretch after tough workouts and long rides.

Drink enough water throughout the day, although you don’t need to force yourself to drink a set amount.

Great thread. Lots of good thoughts so far. I’m also happy to see your enthusiasm for doing things by bicycle. You are my hero!

Listen to your body. If you’re getting on the bike, feeling tired and that feeling isn’t replaced with a bit of energy pretty quickly, then you likely need a rest day.

The two previous posters mentioned things that help you be ready for the next day’s riding.

Recovery drink: Within 30 minutes of completing your ride, having some kind of recovery drink or food is a great idea. It really makes a huge difference. It gives your muscles what they need to re-energize for the next day. The best recovery drink that I’ve ever had is chocolate milk. I like ovaltine in 2% milk. Skim milk is okay too, but I found 2% works better for me. If I’ve done a really hard day in the saddle, I’ll have 2 glasses. If it is something truly epic, I’ll have 3.

Eat right: Having a meal that balances lean protein with some good veggies is a good idea for refueling for the next day. Try to avoid stuff that is too fatty, as it slows the absorption of the stuff that your muscles need. Same goes for alcohol, unfortunately. If you can hold off on the PRB (Post-Ride Beer) for 60-90 minutes, it will help the next day’s ride.

Stretching is good. It makes a difference and helps promote flexible, supple muscles. It also gives you a chance to take inventory of what’s going on with your body. I know that is sometimes hard to do with kids running around. When I was training and caring for a friend’s kids, I made a game of the stretching and got them into the act too. They didn’t really “get it”, but it got them rolling around and goofing off in easily superviseable proximity, which gave me a chance to stretch.

Figuring out how much rest you need and when is sometimes difficult… even for those of us that have been riding hard for many decades. I use the first 5 minutes when I wake up in the morning to take inventory on how I’m doing. My second waking act is to take my resting pulse. It should be pretty close to the same every day. I slowly get my legs moving and see how they’re feeling as I make my way to the cat food bowl and coffee maker. My legs are often really dogged at this point of the morning, but as I go through my routine, they ease up a bit. If they don’t, I know it is a good sign that I need to take it easy that day.

The resting heart rate is a big deal. I had one of those “even those of us who have been at it for decades have trouble with this” moments last fall. After a series of really tough weekends I knew that I needed to relax and spend some easy weeks on the bike. I got tempted into doing a few hard rides with friends and kinda skipped the rest and recovery part of my season. One morning I woke up and my resting heart rate was elevated by 7 bpm (beats per minute). The next day it was 10. To make a long story short, it was a sign that I needed some rest… deep, serious rest. I didn’t stop riding, but I cut way back and got rid of all riding with any intensity.

I know that answers a lot more than you were asking. I thought I’d just share some of what I’ve worked through.

Have a great week.

Pete

What Dirt said, especially the stretching.

http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/runningworkouts/tp/BestCyclingStretches.htm

I feel your pain this morning, jrenaut. First thing, the weather’s been so incredible this winter that we’re probably all putting more miles than usual. I know I am. It just seems like every day’s a decent day and my bikes start to get all quivering with excitement and demanding to be ridden. They’ve been getting all pouty if I try to take a day off.

Then, last night I had my first flat of the whole winter. (Serves me right, those tires probably had roughly 4k miles on them, and my commute has lots of gravel and debris and rough pavement in spots — it’s tough on tires.)

But I couldn’t find the source of the leak, so I just replaced the tube and hoped for the best. But after 5 miles or so on the way home, it started to go flat again. So decision — no more spare tubes or tube repair kit, it’s dark, and I’m about a mile from a Metro stop in either of two directions. So I decided to pump it up again and see if it would hold — maybe I could limp closer to home or to Metro. Worked OK for a while, so I just kept heading home. After about 3 miles, flat again. Pumped it up again and made it 2 more miles. Pumped it up again and made another mile. Finally, got to within a couple miles from home and called for rescue.

But the bottom line was that after a long week and a big month for January, and then riding home most of the way on an average of maybe 15psi last night, this morning it was a.) way hard to get out of bed, and b.) a leg weary ride in! To top it off, my commute buddy was burning up the trail this morning.

Maybe we do need a blizzard or something just to get in a few recovery days!

I started back getting professional massages every other week. Deep tissue massage hurts like hell, but WOW does it get results. I call it “The Massage of Death”, but it definitely gets the kinks out.

@CCrew 14158 wrote:

Have a buddy that’s Cat2. His thought on that? “It doesn’t get any easier, you just go faster”

Your buddy is Greg LeMond? He’s generally attributed to saying that…

Great thread. I am reading this one with great interest. Some days my legs are killing me. Other days they feel fine. I ride the same distance everyday.