Who is taking time off this year?

I do not understand why this time of year everyone talk about being off the bike. First off the weather here during the Fall is awesome for riding. But from the standpoint of being tired unless you are a pro I can not see why you would need time off other than maybe the mental issue. Most of us are putting in anywhere from 10-20 hours a week I imagine which should not cause burn out.

I guess it depends how well you pace yourself throughout the year.

-js

ecandl said:

My last race of the season was a week ago and my motivation if gone. I have been riding several times with some hard efforts (2x20s, 3x5s). I have been mixing in some easy efforts and just riding. It is hard for me to focus on my next race in April. My legs are a bit tired but not too tired. Just set a PR on a local 3 minute climb. My plan is a steady diet of 2x20s with some 2 hour trainer rides every week or so until Feb./March when I will go with some higher intensity.

How many of you take a set amount of time off the bike? How long do you stay off and when? I thought I would mix in some running but soon realized how much I hate running - so slow and tedious. Now that I am running out of daylight, I will be back on the trainer soon and that is always a hard transition.

jsirabella said:

I do not understand why this time of year everyone talk about being off the bike. First off the weather here during the Fall is awesome for riding. But from the standpoint of being tired unless you are a pro I can not see why you would need time off other than maybe the mental issue. Most of us are putting in anywhere from 10-20 hours a week I imagine which should not cause burn out.

I guess it depends how well you pace yourself throughout the year.

-js

I know. Every couple of weeks I just go for a "pleasure cruise" on the bike and I have to fight the feeling that I'm just "wasting my time." That is so understandable when you're a competitor with unreached goals, and so absurd when looked at from every other point of view (like that of normalcy!).

jsirabella said:

I do not understand why this time of year everyone talk about being off the bike. First off the weather here during the Fall is awesome for riding. But from the standpoint of being tired unless you are a pro I can not see why you would need time off other than maybe the mental issue. Most of us are putting in anywhere from 10-20 hours a week I imagine which should not cause burn out.

I guess it depends how well you pace yourself throughout the year.

-js

I rarely make it to 10 hours a week but without a race within a couple of months it is difficult for me to really push hard in my training. If I am not pushing hard, why bother with the training. Does suffering in October make me faster in May? My training time is early in the morning so that is another factor. I can always use a little more sleep.

I am not a hard-core racer. I raced 7-8 races this year and am ready to upgrade to a cat 4. I don't see myself going any higher than that unless 35+ b races count as higher. Yes, pathetic, but I enjoy it.

ecandl said:

... Does suffering in October make me faster in May?... .

Not necessarily, but neither does taking time off... necessarily make you faster in May. 😄

I only take a couple of weeks of easy riding, plus some forced days off are more than enough to give my body rest. I took a month off in April/May because of injury and seeing how long it takes to come back it's not something I will do willingly every fall.

The funny thing I would never be described as "normal" by others. Ever since I did my first trek to Boston, I became the poster child for cycling amongst everyone I know. It reminds me of the post of ko and his story of riding with the TT kid or Dave and the long ride with some of his friends. I believe they have become the poster child for cycling amonst their friends. When my wife or daughter are amongst family or friends I am always introduced as "your the guy who rides the bike and races right." or something along those lines.. It is nice to be the poster child but take a day off and my doorman gives me a smirk "hey where you yesterday morning?".

But back to the original intent of the thread, I meant maybe because of the gym regimen for so long I do not know what I would do if I do not put in atleast 2 hours almost everyday in some sort of physical activity so to me be it cycling or weight lifting I can not see how people putting in upwards of 20 hours need time off. Maybe a change up in your schedule or try something different like now all I do 3-4 days of CX on trails and than weekends longer rides where I can hold atleast a descent pace. Once I feel myself loosing too much power, head back home.

-js

Pendejo said:

I know. Every couple of weeks I just go for a "pleasure cruise" on the bike and I have to fight the feeling that I'm just "wasting my time." That is so understandable when you're a competitor with unreached goals, and so absurd when looked at from every other point of view (like that of normalcy!).

Not me! 😉 Tyson

How about general fitness? Long term health .... just being able to look at yourself in the mirror and not want to gauge your eyes out from the size of your belly...for me that makes up 50% of the reason I get up at 430am in the morning.

Because if you are going to take the argument to the end, I would say unless I am a pro and plan on making this my life why should I train hard at all. I believe a mix is needed and fitness should be a big part of it, IMHO.

-js

ecandl said:

I rarely make it to 10 hours a week but without a race within a couple of months it is difficult for me to really push hard in my training. If I am not pushing hard, why bother with the training. Does suffering in October make me faster in May? My training time is early in the morning so that is another factor. I can always use a little more sleep.

I am not a hard-core racer. I raced 7-8 races this year and am ready to upgrade to a cat 4. I don't see myself going any higher than that unless 35+ b races count as higher. Yes, pathetic, but I enjoy it.

Piotr said:

...I only take a couple of weeks of easy riding, plus some forced days off are more than enough to give my body rest. ....

That's pretty much my approach. I don't take a rest "season" but I do back off and stop the focused training sessions. I ride this time of year because I love riding bikes, I'll ride fast if I feel like it, long if I have the time and motivation, easy rides with friends, basically whatever strikes my fancy. But I'm not doing any focused 2x20s, 5x5s or forcing myself to stick to any sort of training schedule.

I'll do this for about a month and then it's back to rebuilding base with SST/L4 work and preparing for next season. I look at it as mental R&R more than a physical necessity but it's a good chance to take care of stuff I've backburnered during the race season and a chance to just enjoy the bike without structured goals.

-Dave

jsirabella said:

How about general fitness? Long term health .... just being able to look at yourself in the mirror and not want to gauge your eyes out from the size of your belly...for me that makes up 50% of the reason I get up at 430am in the morning.

Because if you are going to take the argument to the end, I would say unless I am a pro and plan on making this my life why should I train hard at all. I believe a mix is needed and fitness should be a big part of it, IMHO.

-js

4:30 in the morning?!?

No choice really....I have to wake up at that time to atleast get in 2 hours between commute and training. I have a 13 year old who I must drive to school every morning and she must be there by 815am. Therefore the routine goes as follows:

Wake up at 430am, take caffeine pill, drag ass to bathroom, shave, brush teeth.
Get into bike clothes.
Go to kitchen, make protein shake, bottle gatorade, couple gels. Drink shake, take beta alanine, shake has bcaa, glutamine and creatine already, some potassium pills and t-bomb which has zma and other stuff for t-levels. Leave house by no later than 515-530am.

Make it to CP by 530-545am. Sun beginning to rise at 6am. Get in 1-1 3/4 hours, book it home.

Get Car out of parking lot, daughter meets me infront of building at 745-8am. Get her to school by 815am.

Go back home, put away car, take quick shower, pack clothes, take bike to office (bout 20 minutes each way) and make it into office no later 915am.

Have breakfast, protein shake or mix with cereal or toast with jam.

Repeat again tomorrow... till weekend where I can wake up real late bout 6-630am.

-js

On a side note I go to sleep bout 8-9pm every night to get in the proper amount of recovery sleep time and have casessin protein shake before sleep time. Make it home by 630pm, dinner, watch TV with family for an hour or so and back to sleep!

The life of a weekend warrior!

Pendejo said:

4:30 in the morning?!?

I'm on the same 4:30 am schedule 🙂

I get two breaks a year from training in general.

The first one is when my wife and I go on vacation and this one we usually do something active. This year it was hiking in the North Carolina mountains off the Blue Ridge Parkway. I was actually more worn out and sore at the end of vacation week than my normal training week.

The second I typically take completely off the week of or after Christmas to visit family.

jsirabella said:

No choice really....I have to wake up at that time to atleast get in 2 hours between commute and training. I have a 13 year old who I must drive to school every morning and she must be there by 815am. Therefore the routine goes as follows:

Wake up at 430am, take caffeine pill, drag ass to bathroom, shave, brush teeth.
Get into bike clothes.
Go to kitchen, make protein shake, bottle gatorade, couple gels. Drink shake, take beta alanine, shake has bcaa, glutamine and creatine already, some potassium pills and t-bomb which has zma and other stuff for t-levels. Leave house by no later than 515-530am.

Make it to CP by 530-545am. Sun beginning to rise at 6am. Get in 1-1 3/4 hours, book it home.

Get Car out of parking lot, daughter meets me infront of building at 745-8am. Get her to school by 815am.

Go back home, put away car, take quick shower, pack clothes, take bike to office (bout 20 minutes each way) and make it into office no later 915am.

Have breakfast, protein shake or mix with cereal or toast with jam.

Repeat again tomorrow... till weekend where I can wake up real late bout 6-630am.

-js

On a side note I go to sleep bout 8-9pm every night to get in the proper amount of recovery sleep time and have casessin protein shake before sleep time. Make it home by 630pm, dinner, watch TV with family for an hour or so and back to sleep!

The life of a weekend warrior!

what does the protein shake do to help you???
add ammonia to you blood for the beta alanine to counteract?

The protein shake is a Whey shake in the morning which has creatine, bcaa and glutamine added to it. I do believe your body does need protein during a ride and I do not want to experience any muscle breakdown from all the riding and I believe it helps with recovery especially the Cassesin protein shake at night. In my gatorade I will put some malodextrin (sp??) which will give me the fuel I need for the ride or workout. I can thank someone here for the advice about malodextrin, it does work and makes you feel full.

I have been experimenting with some of the supps that my euro friend recommends. I have added iron and oxydrene, optygen and even race day boost. My experience has been that iron is a must while the other three are optional. Race Day Boost definitely gave me the most immediate results though.

I actually wish there would be more threads bout nutrition and supps but it seems to not be so popular amongst cycling forums. Where on tradtional body building forums it can make up more than 50% of the posts. I really think recovery and nutrition can be more important than the training itself.

-js

On your questoin about the beta alanine I use it so my body can convert it to carnosine which is beneficial for riding.

potenza said:

what does the protein shake do to help you???
add ammonia to you blood for the beta alanine to counteract?

OK, then, here's my typical daily schedule:

11:30 AM, dog insists I wake up
11:30 - 11:40, I beg dog to leave me alone
11:40, I give up and get out of bed
Noon to 1 PM, answer emails, check to see how much my stocks are down
1 to 2 PM, breakfast
2 to 6 PM, whatever needs doing at the moment, which could include writing, paperwork, errands, or napping
6 to 8 PM, biking, cool-down, etc.
8 to 8:30 PM, shower
8:30 to 9 PM, prepare gargantuan dinner
9 to 11 PM, eat gargantuan dinner, cleanup
11 PM to 2 AM, This is time I save for ME. Could include guitar playing, reading, or watching a movie
2 AM to 3 AM, read in bed.

And to answer two obvious questions: I have no kids, and my wife works out of town.

I'm not taking any time off from exercise this year.

But October is going to be a month of free-form "training". I plan on running a little, mountain biking (the trails here in Korea are great and the trees look awesome then), and doing a couple group tours that are long but pretty slow. The views on some of the roads here can be spectacular, and it will be nice to get out there and look around instead of being hunched over in a lactate-induced trance.

I'd also like to break out the stability ball and make doing some core exercises a habit. I swore I'd do it this year on my recovery days, but I chose to sleep in a little more and only do my recovery rides. :o

Pendejo, I didn't see a 9-hour block of work in that schedule. Oh how I envy you!

after finishing the Deathride back in July I think I've only ridden the bike twice on the rollers. My back wheel is still trashed (the back tire just stays on there - which made for some interesting decents at 50+mph LOL) from the Deathride and I just haven't felt well enough to do anything on the bike. A rather saddening gain in weigh means that I'll have to do something about the wheel and starting riding again.

No time off here as well....I'll do some CX races for "fun", nothing serious, just stay in touch with friends and change it up a bit. I tend to ride my MTB more as it gets colder... warmer in the woods during the cold months. I'll commute to work on my fixie for a change (42X16 keeps the legs spinning)... I'll start doing stuctured training starting around mid-Nov (L2-L4 work). I feel that if I take any significant time off... it's hard to get motivated to train again.

Very apropos as I did my last road race (that I actually care about) yesterday and today begins my official end of racing season rest period, which will probably be about 10 days long.

I've been running on "E" mentally for a couple of weeks now so I need this time off. I timed my training to give me good fitness this month and it worked really well. When I start piling on the L5 and L6 to bring on a peak, I have to be very careful otherwise I get mentally fried to some degree (this is why I keep telling people to go easy on the L5 intervals). I'm still determining my limits and I overcooked it a little last month. I produced some record NP numbers this month but emotionally I could have been better. Unfortunately some of the races I wanted to do were canceled or just sucked for reasons out of my control. This made it harder to get through this month. C'est la vie.

Even if I wasn't a little crispy around the edges, I always plan take a post-road-racing season break and a mid-season break as well, each about a week long. This year my mid-summer break came a few weeks earlier than planned when I was hit by a car on May 29th and took a week off to get my act together again. I was chomping at the bit for training and racing in July and August though and I give some of the credit to the break.

I think it's a little different for people doing a lot of races (with lots of travel, etc.) as opposed to a lot of you guys who are striving for good FTP and CTL and all that. Both are worthy goals, IMO, I just think that all the ancillary stress of racing can add up a lot more. I can't imagine keeping up with Tyson's schedule even if it was applied to my needs. 🙂

Once I get back on a bike, It's going to be a few weeks before I do some structred stuff. I've got a few things to do around here (painting bits of the house, finish building my new 'cross bike, making sure that I don't get fired from my job 🙂, etc.) I'm going to do some running this fall, some cyclo-cross later on (using it as a sneaky way to get some threshold time in November and December), some hikes in the mountains, etc. Structured training will begin in November or December.

Here are some articles written by Adam Myerson about taking breaks:

cycle-smart.comfind.phpOpen ↗

http://cycle-smart.com/articles/find.php?search=43

I have been racing at least 2x a week since january, and training between 16 and 24 hrs a week since November. Estimate a good 20,000km ridden, of which about 8,000km were competitive. (numbers right off the top of my head)

I have just finished my last race of the year (a tasty 12th place in a cobblestone crit - not bad for a 68kg anti-sprinter) and I am now planning a month without any dedicated cycling training.

I am more tired than I ever thought possible; always sore, sleeping 10hrs a night and still can't get up, irritable, hungry all day etc. but more noticeable than that is mental fatigue - getting motivated to race has been so hard recently, and the temptation to go drinking alcohol, eating [censored], staying up late was getting so strong.

My team has big plans for next year - UCI 1.2 races, stage races etc. and to build for that I am going to need a lot of volume over the winter. The only way I can realistically achieve that is to get enough time off the bike in the autumn that the hunger and motivation come back stronger than ever. Get all the drinking and partying out of my system, rest and recover and then actually look forward to base training in November and December....at the moment I am dreading it, but with each day of rest (and each hangover) I am feeling more like it will be possible to start building for an exciting new season.

Sure, it's scary to take whole weeks off without training - but you take rest days every week, rest weeks every month - why not a rest month per year? It makes sense, right?