Everyday commuting? How?

[KLizotte]

But the poster said he has been at this for two years and it seems like he has been alternating days already. I’m a bit concerned that he is that tired by Tuesday (presuming he didn’t ride at all over the wknd). Are you riding wknds too?

If I were you, I’d buy a rack and get the backpack off your back and make sure you are replacing your electrolytes, esp in the summer. I know that when my electrolytes have gotten too low due to excess sweating (or drinking so much plain water that I diluted my system – yes it can happen!) that my legs felt sluggish and I felt exhausted. For that much riding on a single day in the summer, you need a bottle of Gatorade or some sort of homemade replenishment drink. I know I do. Look up the symptoms of low electrolytes.

If you have time on your commute, go a little slower in easier gears. No reason to go all out every time. Also, if you feel stressed out because you have to get to xx place by xx time so am pushing yourself, that takes the fun out of it and causes you to tense up and push yourself more than is healthy.

Allow adequate rest time in between rides but do a little exercise on those days to keep the muscles moving in your legs, like going for a long walk around the neighborhood.

And lastly, not everyone has a body that takes kindly to that much riding week after week; you may have a body that likes more variety in its exercise routine (which is actually more healthy if you think about it).

Best of luck!

[ian74]

Fellow forum dwellers, you all give great advice. I think almost all of you made great points. Some things I realize, yes I hammer it in and especially home since I’ve already got the downhill momentum. I think it’s using fitness apps that’s messing with me. Strava and Endomondo. Always looking for little trophies, always looking for a faster speed in and out. I want to keep track of my total riding miles but maybe I should step away from the apps. Strava especially, I follow some heavy duty commuters and they really just go and go.

I think I will try to keep alternating, which I had been doing before, I just pushed myself hard during Freezing Saddles, and am still trying to cling to that mileage. I had several weeks over 200 miles. I also like weekend rides too, but since our baby came in early April I had to take a break from some of those. Family time…

I also think the hot weather has been doing a number on me. Even those 70 something degree mornings, if the humidity is really high I show up at work and I have drenched my clothes with sweat. Like I can wring out liquid from my jerseys. I’m also probably not taking in enough electrolytes, since I was able to ride more often during the colder months.

So many things are probably just adding up.

[ebubar]

My round trip is from 30-35 a day. I find that nutrition is the most essential part for me to not be exhausted by Friday. When I don’t eat enough, I feel it. It’s useful to hear about the Gatorade tip too. Even with eating and drinking throughout the day, I’m still tired on really hot days. Perhaps some electrolytes will help with that…

[PotomacCyclist]

My commute is much shorter, about 5 miles. When I’ve tried to ride every day in the past (usually for the National Bike Challenge), I eventually got worn down even though I was only riding a couple miles on some days. It gets to be a mental grind. I’ve decided not to do that any more. I ride when I want to. If I miss a day, it’s no big deal. I’d rather feel good while riding fewer days, than to be miserable trying to ride every day. I don’t want to make cycling feel like a boring job. If that happened, I might stop riding altogether. Fortunately, I’ve figured out ways to keep things fresh.

One good way is to take a break once in a while. I usually take some time off in the early winter when I do very little commuting or serious riding. (I don’t run or swim much during that “offseason” break either. I sometimes train for triathlons.) Even when I’m more active in the late winter, spring and summer, I like to take a bit of a break every 3 months or so, including a really easy week or two in midsummer.

[wheelswings]

Hi Ian,

-If you stand on your pedals like I do, then gravity will do some of the work for you. And your arms will take over some of the pulling and pushing, so your legs won’t get so tired. It may not be the most efficient, but honestly it makes things easier.
-That’s really interesting about the fitness apps. Toss ‘em. Take the time to soak in the beauty and enjoy ‘the journey’ ‘cause ultimately it’s a heck of a lot better than the destination (well, I guess that depends on your religion).
-I think you’re smart to focus more on the liquids. I need to do the same. Even this evening, barely an hour into my ride, my intense thirst turned to nausea and I could feel the beginnings of heat exhaustion.
Time to start carrying a drink!

Happy riding. w&w

[KLizotte]

I live in a high rise apartment building that retains heat in the winter very well; therefore, I usually only turn on the heat for 30 minutes before I go to bed to heat the room up. One night I forgot to turn it off and woke up drenched with sweat; so much so that I had to change the sheets. I quickly sprinted back to bed but didn’t drink anything cause I was annoyed and impatient.

The next day I woke up extra tired and with a low grade headache. For the next *four days* I felt tired, weird, and no matter how much ibuprofen I took the darn headache would not go away. I kept waiting for a full blown version of the flu to hit but it never came. Finally I remembered what had happened that night and ran to the store to pick up a couple of bottles of Gatorade. Guzzled them down, an hour later the headache was gone and by the next day I was completely back to normal. And to think I was only sleeping when my electrolytes went too low!

Another time my electrolytes went too low my legs felt like they wouldn’t work correctly; sluggish was the word that kept coming to mind and I felt like I didn’t have any energy. No headache this time. Long story short, it was one of those god awful DC summers and I had been guzzling a *ton* of plain water in order to avoid dehydration while biking a lot. Turns out if you drink plain water in sufficient quantities, you lower the sodium levels in your blood. This is called hyponatremia and can be mild to quite serious. Again, a few bottles of Gatorade/Powerade and cutting back on water for the day restored me to normal.

Now having learned my lesson, if I’m going to be out for quite a while and sweating a lot, I take a 50/50 mix of water and Powerade. I would love to find a more natural version of Powerade (I don’t like the additives, sugar) but have yet to find one. I don’t think coconut water is sufficient for replacing sodium but need to research that topic.

There’s a reason most people feel energized more come fall….cooler temps and less humidity. Humidity sucks!

A note to Ian, if you just had a baby I’m presuming you aren’t sleeping through the night? Plus, a new kid is a lot of stress no matter how much joy they bring.

[rcannon100]

To start with, Orange juice.

* http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2011/Projects/J0622.pdf
* http://www.cwu.edu/sports-nutrition/compare-sports-drinks
* http://electrolyteproject.weebly.com/resultsdata.html
* http://www.proarmwrestling.com/healthiest-drinks-on-earth.html

If you need to throw a pinch of sodium into your OJ to feel better, then just do it

But if your gonna do the sports drink thingy, I think I have read that Gatorade is the only one that even counts. The rest are koolaid
* http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/08/05/sports-drinks-myths-busted/

[KLizotte]

Thanks for the info rcannon!

Looks like I’ll be switching to a 50/50 mix of coconut water and water, or OJ and water with perhaps a dash of salt. I just hope OJ doesn’t go bad after being out in 90+ weather for an hour or two. Now that I think about it, there is OJ mixed with bananas in the store so that would provide potassium too. I’ve never been completely comfortable drinking the fluorescent stuff even though it has saved my bacon a number of times.

I can’t believe I just read something on Fox News. Sigh.

[hozn]

The Nuun or Zyme tablets are great for electrolytes (unless one of those studies says otherwise, in which case they are great placebos). And they don’t add calories (shouldn’t need calories on bike for rides < 2 hours). I don’t use electrolytes for ~1-hour commutes, but if I am gonna be on the bike for a couple hours, I do. On long, hot rides I use salt tablets too. I think doing > 30 miles daily needs to be worked up to. And rest. My goal is to hit my mileage goals by Friday and then basically rest on the weekend; sometimes I will do a 1-hour ride on one of the weekend days, but all my riding is concentrated during the week. Unless i am racing on the weekend (like today). I vary my rides quite a bit too. Tuesdays are long days for me and usually one other day has an extended commute or group ride before the commute. It sounds like you are already mixing things up, but for me it is definitely helpful keeping the body guessing. Getting enough rest is hard for me too, though; I don’t like to give up the commutes and so I pay for that a bit in terms of overall training and race performance.

Maybe also consider whether you are getting enough sleep. It’s been my experience that being over-tired quickly makes the exercise routine extra draining and a mental chore.

And finally, riding with others can be a powerful motivator and help time pass easily. Perhaps there is someone that does a similar commute at a similar time that you could coordinate with?

And finally, finally, you might want to consider faster tires to help the miles roll by faster. Tires make a big difference.

[rcannon100]

I think there in might be the rub. Gatorade might be more transportable. OJ will ruin the inside of a plastic bottle, I believe (assuming that most of us clean their bottles about as much as I do). That said, OJ is as available at quickie marts as gatorade is.

> shouldn’t need calories on bike for rides < 2 hours Go away Hozn!!!! Cycling = pie and beer!!! I need pie and beer!

[dcv]

@hozn 119941 wrote:

And finally, riding with others can be a powerful motivator and help time pass easily. Perhaps there is someone that does a similar commute at a similar time that you could coordinate with?

My motivators for commuting are the coffee clubs and low fives on the trails, there’s coffee M-F on my route. Sorry I don’t know what would make it easier, I feel sore most of the time.

[kwarkentien]

Skratch Labs makes a good hydration mix that’s light and tasty. It’s not as “Kool-Aid-y” as Gatorade or Powerade but works well. Also comes in individual “straws” so you can carry it with you to add to your bottle mid-ride.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I’ll offer an (semi well-informed) alternate view…unless you’re doing some pretty serious endurance training, or simply aren’t eating well enough, you should be getting all the electrolytes you need through your normal diet. And normal exercise will cause your electrolytes to concentrate, since you sweat out more water than salt. So on a commute or fun weekend ride, your main priority is fluid replenishment, not electrolytes. You may need to replenish electrolytes after a few hours of hard riding in the heat, but again, you’ll generally get these through your food if you stop and snack. For most people, anything other than water is just empty calories.

[trailrunner]

My current round-trip bike commute is 23 miles. I’ve been bike commuting over ten years now, but it’s rare that I commute all five days in a week. Sometimes it’s because of logistics, such as an off-site meeting I have to get to, sometimes I need to run an errand after work, and sometimes I just want to run instead of ride. And sometimes I get lazy and don’t feel like it. I don’t have any guilt over it.

As far as Strava goes – about the time I started to bike commute regularly was when I was slowing down on the bike races and triathlons. I told myself that commuting was going to be easy riding and not hard training. And most of the time I’m riding my 25 year old mountain bike weighted down with panniers, which is definitely not a go-fast setup and makes me care even less about trying to go fast. Every now and then I get lucky with a strong tailwind and I’ll get on the leaderboard for a Strava segment, but that’s pretty rare, and certainly doesn’t motivate me much.

[dkel]

I’ve hidden all the Strava segments on my commute, because I got frustrated constantly tracking them. I put two or three private segments on for the climbs I do care about, and now I only track my own progress on those, which means I am only competing with myself.

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