I’m that slow right now and it has nothing to do with weight. IDK how some people can be fast year around. My body doesn’t work like that.
festive500 kinda toasted my legs i think. maybe cuz i did most of it in 2 rides.
went to do intervals yesterday, holy shit, legs is rough. worst part about power meter is that it only confirms how not-fast you are as much as it makes you feel fast when you are.
luckily we got a few weeks till racing starts… gotta start trainin’ for that tiny cherry pie hill everyone sprints over.
Well I’m pretty sure I have the flu, so no chance of crashing on Sunday 
Also I might lose some weight! trying to stay positive here
Ah, bummer. You won’t get to see me ejected out the back of the mother fucking cat 4 scrub office park crit pack.
[quote=aerobear]festive500 kinda toasted my legs i think. maybe cuz i did most of it in 2 rides.
went to do intervals yesterday, holy shit, legs is rough. worst part about power meter is that it only confirms how not-fast you are as much as it makes you feel fast when you are.
[/quote]
FWIW; if my legs are super fatigued, I need well over an hour of warm up before doing any sort of intensity.
You going to race in Belgium this year?[/quote]
yeah, just bought my UCI licence a few days ago. prepping my self mentally by watching all of the Belgian races and how most of the racing works out. by the looks of it, its a lot of attacking and throwing yourself out to the wind.
im excited.
I’m excited for your race reports!
Since this is the racing and training thread, I wanted to throw a metabolism/training/other question out there. Sorry, it’s probably boring, but this is the best place I could think to put it. Anyway, I’ve put on some weight recently. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing, but I’m a bit concerned about it, because 1) I don’t think it’s muscle/“good” weight, and 2) I think it’s negatively affecting my performance (power numbers are not increasing - actually going down). I usually weigh in at 105. I’d stuck at that number for several years with only very minor deviations. I think I added a couple pounds at the end of the summer that were from riding a lot, but then cross season hit, and Right now, I’m up to about 112 or 113. I know that’s still a low number, but it feels sort of off. I’ve gained weight from strength training before (I gained 5 pounds when I did P90X), and that felt very different from what’s going on now. I feel like the weight now is all around my midsection (pants are tighter in the waist, about the same everywhere else) and my boobs (which are also sore, which makes me think there might be something hormonal going on?). At first, I thought I was pregnant, but the test I took says I’m not, so yay for that.
Not much has really changed in my life to correspond with the weight gain. I rode less and less consistently during cross season, but that hasn’t caused this kind of issue in the past. My diet has been the same, though I’ve scaled back my intake somewhat to correspond with less riding time. In addition to the weight, I just feel really tired and slow on the bike. I’m definitely not overtrained. I don’t know - it’s not the number on the scale so much as how the weight feels, which I hope makes sense. If I were still climbing well and feeling strong, I wouldn’t bat an eye, but I’m not. I’m very much slower than I normally am, and my power numbers are lower, even for this time of year. It feels like more than an off-season slowness. My legs were tired on my 14-miler yesterday. I was almost double my normal time going up a short local climb that I do all the time. Small efforts feel huge.
Anyone have any thoughts? I’m seeing a doctor on Tuesday, and I plan to ask her about this, but I’m interested if any of you had anything to say. Thanks for reading my boring-ass boringness!
Anyone not female probably is unfit to properly confer on what you could do. That said there are some universal truths that apply.
Taking day to day choices out of a serious athletes mindset is one of the tenets of European school of sport. Our bodies bounce back and forth too much to personally assess all the factors and properly tune a long range plan. Weight gain in and of itself is one of the least worrying factors in what you posted.
It takes years to really see the benefits of sticking to one plan. There are going to be many ups and downs with lots of times it seems like you are heading in the wrong direction. Don’t micromanage every feeling or result.
One thing to strongly consider is the natural cycles everyone’s body goes through over the course of changing seasons. Keeping a mental rein on the need to climb fast or hold a set level of endurance is self defeating. Base is what makes top level skill possible. That means being slow instead of slicing. Are you happy? Sit down and think about how much variety life requires and the fact that what worked a year ago might be limiting you now. Not then, right now trying to recreate it when you have moved on.
Thanks, Rando. That’s some good perspective.
I don’t really worry much about the day-to-day stuff. The reason this worries me is that it’s been ongoing for a couple of months now, and it seems to keep getting worse rather than either evening out or turning around. Maybe it’s nothing, but I felt I’d be remiss if I didn’t ramble about it on Tarckbike.
Could be hormonal. Can’t comment on that. Hopefully your doctor can help.
If the weight doesn’t feel good, then consider your diet. I’m sure you can guess what advice I’d give. Start reducing sugar, bread, pasta, bagels, etc. and see how that works. Not suggesting low carb, just different choices. Get more fat in your diet.
^ sounds like what I feel like after a few weeks of cigarette smoking and excessive candy eating. Honest answer I’d take a full week off and really focus on resting and diet then ease back into training over a week or two after that, assuming you’re not sick or something. I think around this time of year a lot of people simply ask too much from their bodies (you people doing intervals in january for example)
Taking heaths advice (less white flour and sugar) was game changing for me. Granted, instead of high perfoance power numbers, I’m looking at exam scores and clinical performance and reasoning.
I also know that when something is off on the power meter, it’s time to go to the doctor. That hunch that something is off is usually right. Any flea or tick bites? Anything swollen that usually isn’t? These are the things a good doc will look for if they work with athletes (who usually have a lot more insight into their own physiology than the avg patient)
I know just being stressed can mess up a lot.
If they do a blood panel, I might expect elevated cpk, alt, ast, c4 in an athlete who has gradually become overtrained. These are inflammatory markers when seen in healthy people that indicate a lot of training stress and a need for recovery. They can also be disease markers so best to investigate whichever
Come up.
@Dema, I did my intervals on my lunch break… so I had to do a 15-min warm up. Next time I do that I am going to try and get to work early and take a 2 hour lunch so I dont have to rush it, cuz i was definitely struggling through that workout trying to fit it into an hour or so.
[quote=GrandmaJordan]I’m excited for your race reports!
Since this is the racing and training thread, I wanted to throw a metabolism/training/other question out there. Sorry, it’s probably boring, but this is the best place I could think to put it. Anyway, I’ve put on some weight recently. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing, but I’m a bit concerned about it, because 1) I don’t think it’s muscle/“good” weight, and 2) I think it’s negatively affecting my performance (power numbers are not increasing - actually going down). I usually weigh in at 105. I’d stuck at that number for several years with only very minor deviations. I think I added a couple pounds at the end of the summer that were from riding a lot, but then cross season hit, and Right now, I’m up to about 112 or 113. I know that’s still a low number, but it feels sort of off. I’ve gained weight from strength training before (I gained 5 pounds when I did P90X), and that felt very different from what’s going on now. I feel like the weight now is all around my midsection (pants are tighter in the waist, about the same everywhere else) and my boobs (which are also sore, which makes me think there might be something hormonal going on?). At first, I thought I was pregnant, but the test I took says I’m not, so yay for that.
Not much has really changed in my life to correspond with the weight gain. I rode less and less consistently during cross season, but that hasn’t caused this kind of issue in the past. My diet has been the same, though I’ve scaled back my intake somewhat to correspond with less riding time. In addition to the weight, I just feel really tired and slow on the bike. I’m definitely not overtrained. I don’t know - it’s not the number on the scale so much as how the weight feels, which I hope makes sense. If I were still climbing well and feeling strong, I wouldn’t bat an eye, but I’m not. I’m very much slower than I normally am, and my power numbers are lower, even for this time of year. It feels like more than an off-season slowness. My legs were tired on my 14-miler yesterday. I was almost double my normal time going up a short local climb that I do all the time. Small efforts feel huge.
Anyone have any thoughts? I’m seeing a doctor on Tuesday, and I plan to ask her about this, but I’m interested if any of you had anything to say. Thanks for reading my boring-ass boringness![/quote]
I have had breast swelling plus retaining water/fat feeling last for like up to 3-4 weeks before, which was really strange, felt like the longest PMS of my life. But if the weight gain is paralleled with your boobs swelling, it sounds like you haven’t gained fat, but rather are just kinda swollen all over. Which would also make you feel more fatigued and not as fast.
There’s no way that putting on 5lbs would make you that much slower and i also doubt that you easily put on 5lbs of fat, since that would be a fairly difficult feat for someone built like yourself. But I definitely agree that it sounds more like a hormonal thing, as I have experienced similar problems, just not as prolonged as you’re describing. For me it depends a lot on how much I am riding. The more I ride, the less fluctuation I get in my hormones. If I time a rest week wrong, i get much more hormonal and get worse boob swelling, etc - everything kind of gets exaggerated. It can be kinda tough for me to bounce back out of it too as the first few rides I do feeling that way I am tremendously slow.
I dunno. I can feel a 10lb difference pretty significantly at my weight when I’m climbing.
In any case, I wouldn’t worry too much about the weight other than keeping an eye on sugar and really simple carbs. Probably, that stuff isn’t really required, even for the most insulin sensitive athletes unless they’re doing >z4 stuff and are having a hard time replenishing glycogen.
5lbs of fat would be a slower, but not 2x as slow and esp not lowering your power. I have gained up to 7lbs in water from hormonal swings i am pretty sure, cuz all gone within a week, and back to normal. Trouble is getting back to normal so it drops off again and you feel normal.
I have to eat a lot. I can’t do endurance riding without tons of eating. Even in my daily life, a slight calorie deficit leaves me drowsy and hungry. And I have a quite a bit of weight on jordan and a bit more body fat to sustain the miles, but once my blood sugar drops i’m fucked.
Went a little low on food on my 90 mile ride on tuesday… took me till about 9pm to recover from the glycogen deficit and raging headache. At home I ate a ton of food (rice, veggies, curry), drank water, electrolytes, even ate a hammer gel just for the sugar, tried to nap but couldn’t sleep, ate a sandwich, drank another beer for the carbs… hours later I felt human again.
My first impression was she is seeing gains from killing herself since day one of moving when they are least expected. Rest and coming down from that much self enforced stress make sense from afar.
I should have also said, I took christmas week entirely off, coz in Canada with no bike, so it’s not an issue where I’ve been training hard since last January. I’ve definitely taken adequate rest, and have scaled back riding in the last couple months.
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. Amy, that’s interesting to know you’ve experienced something similar!
Not disputing anything here, but I want to make clear that my advice to reduce sugar and refined carbs has nothing to do with attempting to reduce calories. I firmly believe that calorie reduction is bullshit and should be avoided.
Thanks, Heath. I have been working on reducing both sugar and refined carbs from my diet. I’m not interested in reducing calories.
“I’m bloated and my boobs are sore.”
I hear that from my wife every month.
Great training crit this morning. Wasn’t even kinda in danger of getting dropped. Feeling good.
Great seeing you out there Matt. Hopefully you’re feeling better for next Sunday.
base is finished, started up VO2 stuff this last week – was only a 5-6 seconds off “fit” times on some 4-5min hills, so that’s sort of encouraging.
I’m at 170, which is about as big as I’ve ever been, but I’m hungry all the time as it is. I’m not fucking with some stupid diet to get back down to 165.
I don’t care about any races past Feb, because I’m not chucking a whole Saturday in the bin by driving three or four hours to some bike race and back. The Feb races are all within an hour of my house.