Try falling 40 to 50 feet down a mountain and then recovering. I’ve been doing so for a year (Saturday is the anniversary). I’m changing things come next year to hopefully improve and one of those is to work on my ability to produce energy. I rode about 6000 miles this year, but that was in fits and spurts. Not going to help.
So, I will go back to what I said earlier. Get with your medical team and have them do a FULL workup. Ask for CBC/Blood Chemicals for blood tests. Have them test your urine for any anomalies. Have them do a stress test (several of the nobility, including myself were found to have circulation issues that took us down a rabbit hole and this test revealed much
). Go from there to see if you can build up your strength and stamina.
Thank you again for the sound advise.
An update on what I’ve been up to.
- Yoga 7 days a week plan (4 wks)
- Strength Level 4
- One GCN ride/week, one recovery ride/week, one endurance ride per week if time allows
- Except this week - been doing the A week with…
- Bought this peanut/double lacrosse ball massager https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L6H4333?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details - I’ve been using it to roll out quads, hamstrings, calves - it hits things differently than a foam roller
- Adding in 5-10 min meditation session each day - hard to be consistent as it feels like I’m trying to wedge it in
- Sourced parts and built a BMX flatland bike
- Trying to get my head around how to better manage time and priorities. I feel guilty about missing all the team rides on Zwift, rides with friends on Rouvy, running 3x per week. Heck, I don’t even have time to watch TV or a movie. My typical M-F looks like this, which I’m guessing is normal?
4:30 am - alarm goes off
5:00 am - start work out / training session
6:30 - wrap up, shower, breakfast
7:30-8 am - start working
Work / pickup + drop off kids and dog as needed / eat lunch / laundry / quickly clean stuff up
6:30-7:30 pm stop working / make dinner for family and myself / eat / clean up
8:30 pm start daily wind down and set out gear for the next day’s training
9-9:30 pm get into bed and fall asleep
Sat + Sun I sleep until 7, eat breakfast, do some chores (yeah I told them GVA said I don’t have to do them, but my wife just laughed), do my training session, run errands and do projects, eat dinner, collapse in a heap and sleep
Things I’ve noticed
- Erg mode really hurts a lot and always feels like riding through wet concrete. Level mode feels a lot better
- I’m sitting differently on the saddle - less time on the bike and more strength has shifted things around
- I’ve ridden the flatland bike 2x - it’s fun and after 18-20 years away I need to relearn everything
- I have no motivation to race this year. I know I need to and I should
- I’ve lost some fitness and gained some weight
- I’m starting to see more green days than yellow days in Whoop. Again, I have a weird perception that always being yellow is normal.
So…life, in a nutshell? 
Feel your pain, there’s never enough time - Pink Floyd was right.
Why? Or as we say in the crisis biz, “how come?” Does your income/fitness/wellbeing depend on racing? I get where the sentiment comes from, and we’re all hard-charging go-getters here, but honestly why do you “need to” race? With all you have going on, and all the improvements and changes you’re wanting to make to get back to where you want to be, thoughts like this can be a dangerous spiral. You can’t do everything. Seems like “I want to recover, get healthy again, etc. etc.” is plenty of goal for now.
Hang in there, keep at it. We’re all pulling for you.
I’ll echo the ‘Why do you NEED to race?’ line. If it’s to satisfy your competitive streak, ok. If it’s ‘just something to do’, then do something completely NEW. Like take that bike out to your local gravel track and give it a go. Maybe find a pump track and have fun. That’s something to do out of the ‘ordinary’ and breaks up the routineness of life. I’ve decided that not every damn weekend has to be saddle time. I’ve joined a new group that does a level three or higher hike a month. Tomorrow it’s nine or so miles on a ‘rough’ track. I also do a two mile hike every week. Trying to improve my fitness.
+1 @ErickT Your plate’s pretty full and recovering and getting healthy is a significant goal in itself. Take care.
Curious, what did the medical results reveal. I am trying to come out of a 6 year slump. Mostly just that life got in the way. However there was a year where things just did not feel right. I could not put my finger on it. Now I never followed a real training program, but I knew my body was simply not responding. Well guess what a few months prior I had a rash on my upper thigh/glute area. I went to a dermatologist and they prescribed some ointment that was not effective. When I eventually went to my GP and described my frustration with my cycling. He started asking a series of questions. Asking if my thoughts were a little cloudy and others until he asked if I had a rash. Why yes, I told him and he took blood samples to confirm his suspicion and it confirmed that I had Lyme Disease. I went through 2 courses of antibiotics and eventually a few months later I started to get my mojo back.
In short, get checked out. You never know.
I WAS SCREAMING “LYME DISEASE” AT MY SCREEN…
Yeah, went through Lyme 3-4(?) years ago now, except never had or saw a rash. 18mo of “brain fog” and just “blah” later, figured out with my GP that it was Lyme as well. And yes, two courses of AB later, began the road to recovery.
@#$% ticks.
I got Lyme a few years ago, but fortunately caught it at the bullseye rash stage. Took 21 days of antibiotics and all was well. I got really lucky that I took a steam that made the rash prominent enough to see.
Hmmm… will add tick borne illness to things to test for.
Update after Dr. office visit, blood work.
- blood work - everything appears to be in normal range. That rules out a lot of things.
- sleep - I need to get more. Ideally, another hour a night.
- Limit my indoor sessions M-F to 30 minutes - this doesn’t mean stop training (in fact was told to not stop), just less time each day
- Getting to bed at the same time every night (Whoop data has called me out on this too)
- work - I need to stop working 10-11 hour days and a few hours over the weekend (!!!)
- prescription meds for allergies and asthma - we are pausing them for a few months. OTC allergy meds are fine. Going into Spring will be interesting for sure
- weight increase, resting HR increase, HRV decrease are all actually within “normal/healthy” ranges/boundaries/variability
So to do this.
- Set my alarm for 1/2 hour later in the morning
- Stick to #1 and don’t set it earlier for any reason except getting to an airport in time
- Limit on-bike week days to 30 min. I’m doing a DIY plan with a 3:1 ratio.
On the 2 weeks: First scheduled a strength plan. 2nd, pick a rest day. 3rd, schedule a speed focused workout for early in the week, a MAP based workout for later in the week, endurance workout mid-week. 4th, Add in daily yoga balancing activation, recovery, mobility. 5th, Weekends 1 BMX flatland day, 1 outside or inside ride alternating between endurance, climbing, racing (trails if tacky/dry, road if not, inside if weather sucks)
On the 1 week: 1 Endurance and 2 recovery inspiration vids, weekend - flatland and zone 2 outside/inside
If I get stuck, explore a custom plan.
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Keep eating the way I have been. My glucose levels are pretty awesome compared to 3-5 years ago.
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Add a hard stop to the work day. Long days should be the exception not the norm. Stop treating responding to emails/messages/etc. like trying to get through Violator.
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Enjoy the fun stuff and do other things
Well no one can accuse you of not having put a lot of thought into this.
Best of luck! Sincerely hope everything resolves for you.
Thanks
How are you going to limit yourself to 30 minutes working out when so many of the rides are way longer? Do yoga / strength count against your time limit or is cardio the focus?
@Cheryl.Vasan I wondered the same. I was actually surprised that there are 49 workouts in the cycling library under 35 minutes. Many of the GCN workouts are very good for a quick HIIT workout within that timeframe and there is also The Cure, Long Scream, Joyride, Cash Register, SUF Idol, Recharger and one ProRide which is a good one. The rest are No-Vids and Inspiration rides.
@ErickT Sounds like a good plan and maybe you get a bit more VO2 max with some of the workouts that are within the scope of your time limitation as a bonus.
Great question
There are some great options using the < 35 mins filter. Others like Goat, could be shortened by dropping the last interval.
It’s 30 min limit on the bike, 15 minutes of yoga is fine since it’s less cardio-vascular strain and can help with recovery. Our goal is to get me out of the fatigue hole while maintaining fitness.
Yeah, repeated efforts are my weakness and it may help raise my MAP and AC and in turn help my HRV get back to where it was.
SUF IDOL! OMG! The Tractor is here!
Hi Erick,
Thanks for sharing your issues with us. I hope you’re making some progress.
The sleep time did jump out at me as being less than ideal in your summary of your day. And it’s also looks like a really full day with everything else you have going on. I hope you manage to carve out some more time for yourself and your family, hopefully by reducing work time.
A book that really helped me actively prioritize sleep is ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker.
If you’re down in the Bend area again, let me know - it would be good to catch up again.
Best of luck with working things out.
@CPT_A expressed my feelings well: