Hello! I'm pretty new around here, and didn't start cycling again until the last year, so I have lots of questions, but I'll keep this thread to just one.
I tend to rise pretty hard, mostly because it feels good. I have no specific training regimen, although I'm think about one for the near future. Anyway, I've noticed that at about mile 18 of a 35 mile ride, I no longer feel any discomfort or pain in my legs from lactic acid. They just feel totally fresh, and pushing harder doesn't cause me to feel the burn at all. That doesn't mean that I can accelerate very much, but I don't have the burn to accompany the effort. Is this normal? It always freaks me out a little, since the burn gets worse and worse and then - gone. It doesn't happen on every ride; maybe 60% of them Why does this happen? It doesn't seem to be related to eating, because on many rides I go out without a powerbar; just Gatoraid or something similar. Any ideas?
I do a similar distance training ride and often find a similar phenomenon...the second half is better than the first and some of the initial pain/soreness is gone in the second half. I think, for me, this is related to three things:
1. Warm up - pretty simple? Granted 18 miles is the first hour or so but I'm confident that as my HR goes up I'm flushing out some of the residual waste products from the prior day or two's training. I have tried a 30min warm-up on a trainer and have not experienced the early soreness you may be referring to.
2. Recovery - When I'm well recovered I don't experience early ride leg soreness and don't experience the mid ride euphoria of "hey my legs don't hurt as much."
3. Food/Hydration - If I've not eaten well or am Glycogen depleted from several days of training I've noticed on occasion to get a boost mid ride from a gel but that is pretty short lived and I'm usually in for a little more suffering later in the ride.
Don't know if any of this applies but it has gotten me more aware of these three. Good luck.
Yeah, Russ, that sounds like what I'm talking about. You're probably right that it feels so good only by contrast to the normal discomfort. I'll try to warm up more. I wonder if eating more would help make the sore period of the ride more managable. I've tried eating once every hour, but I'm pretty well blasted if I wait that long, then it takes another 20 minutes for the powerbar or whatever to kick in. Is there any conventional wisdom about timing caloric intake?
On the warm up I just treat the first 30 minutes of the ride as just that and keep a moderate pace most of the time, unless I'm riding with my wife as she thinks we're racing, God help me. Generally that works as there is a little climb about 30 minutes into the ride. I too struggle with eating as I'm trying to loose weight.
Conventional wisdom suggests a meal 2 hours prior to a training ride. I think that can work but it isn't always practical depending on when you train. So depending on when I'm going out to train if I haven't eaten within 2 hours I have a gel or bar and an electrolyte/energy drink 15-30 minutes prior to getting on the bike. I use Cytomax but there are many that work. I too drink Gatorade from time to time but when I do I watch my sodium intake, fyi. As for how long it really takes for food to become Glycogen and ready to produce energy I'm not really sure and I suspect there are some smart folks here that can more accuratley comment.
I'm sure there are some more sophisticated approaches to eating for training and I picked up on a reference to Friel's book "The Cyclists Training Bible" in another thread so I'm going to check that out.
I also thought these two articles/pages informative:
Yes, my wife likes to race me too. She is quite fast!
I try not to ride within two hours of a meal. Any closer and I just have no energy. I dont' know anything about energy drinks and all that. Guess I need to look into it.
this is sometimes called "getting your second wind" in running, and i know personally the same applies to me, if i just go straight out and ride i blow myself up, but if i warm up a bit it isn't so bad, and then after a little while (say 10-20 minutes) the effort becomes much easier, and the "burn" dwindles away
this is sometimes called "getting your second wind" in running, and i know personally the same applies to me, if i just go straight out and ride i blow myself up, but if i warm up a bit it isn't so bad, and then after a little while (say 10-20 minutes) the effort becomes much easier, and the "burn" dwindles away
I dunno..... after 10 minutes, I wold call that getting my FIRST wind. I ran last night, and I suspect my "issue" may have to do with insufficient stretching before the ride. I never stretched before, but in my advancing years, maybe a new strategy is in order. I might add that last night, like most times I run, my cardio-vascular system works great, but I usually have to quite becuase of pain in my hamstrings. I can stretch it away, but that is only partially effective. Either I'm not stretching enough during warm up, my shoes are junk, my hams are not developed enough for running, or I just have to learn to live with it. I really hope it's not the latter.
