Leg Soreness

Just ignore the first hour of your rides.

When I was young, I was always sore and wanting to go back to bed at the start of my rides. I had a modest goal time to my 4 mile turn and my 10 mile driveway. By 10 miles I was feeling good enough to get to the turn around for 50 miles. By 50 miles I was feeling good enough to do the whole ride.

Just because you took three days off does not mean you should or will feel fresh, I would actually say if you rode hard previous and then took three days off you would actually be somewhat stiff. You mention lactate threshold, which would mean you are riding at intensity, if this is the case then a couple hard 30 second efforts after a ten minute low intensity/high cadence warmup may help.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by Neal Barnstable [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I've found that the first few miles of any ride of a substantial distance (for me, anyway...20 miles or more) requires me to ride at least 8-10 miles before I finally feel good and warmed up.

Specifically, my legs feel sore/heavy, and I feel like I hit a lactate threshold really fast. After pushing through that to the distance mentioned above, things finally feel loosened up and I can crank normally. Last week I did a 20 mile ride at a normal pace for me (15.5mph), and then waited 3 days to ride again. Even after the 3 day wait I still had the issues with my legs. I would have thought 3 days would have been enough? My ride yesterday was 34 miles (long for me), and I finished it feeling pretty strong, although I'm a little sore from it today.

Anyone experience similar issues, or have any thoughts on this?

Lots' more info is needed even for free advice from internet pundits. Things like how long have you been riding, and how many total miles (roughly) have you ridden? What's your age and overall health? What do you do on the off days, ie, rest vs work on your feet all day? Are you getting adequate nutrition and sleep to allow for recovery?

When you ride, do you warm up and cool down? If not, try going slow in a little gear for the first 10-15 minutes, tend slowly ramp up the effort and speed. Same thing for cooldown. If you're hitting "lactate threshold" really fast on every ride, and still have sore legs after 3 days, you may be riding too hard for your current state of fitness. A "normal pace" is one that you can ride pain-free, without any soreness the next day. Getting into the pain cave in the first minutes of a ride might be necessary for a TT or crit event, but not for a daily training ride. Training too hard or too long too often will produce injury and burnout; it's not supposed to hurt all the time.

Although I know nothing about you, here's my free advice. Suggest you forget your "15.5 mph normal pace", and focus on riding pain free and enjoying your rides. Try doing your usual ride slower, at say a 12-13 mph average instead of the 15.5. With proper warmup and cooldown, and a reduced pace, my guess is your soreness will disappear after a couple of weeks.