Riv riding recovery and acclimation advice needed.

[Lungimsam]

Not sure this is on topic enough but as you all seem to "ride" for the love of it and not "train" (and I don't either), was wondering what you think about my conundrum.

I am in good health. I get physicals. Everything always fine. No issues. 47 years old,  5'8", 170 lbs. I thank God for my wonderful health.

Here is the issue:

After some light riding in winter, in spring I start the commuting again. At first I feel fast and energetic, the bikes speeds along nicely. But I quickly feel like garbage within a few days. Just so tired and draggy. I take a day or two off the bike, start again, feel like garbage, etc. on and on all summer, getting a teeny bit fitter, but always feeling slow and draggy after a few days of consistent riding. I can't seem to get to the point where I can commute every day without feeling trashed after a few days.

The riding is all on my Bleriot and Sam drop bar bikes:

Commutes: 34 miles/1950ft. climbing round trip or 1/2 commutes from an area I park in and ride from. I even get wiped out from the 1/2 commutes.

Indian Restauranteuring once a week: ~15 miles round trip. Maybe a second trip a week if meeting other family to eat out. Always Asian food of some kind.

Escorting wife on her bike commute 3-4x/week: 7 Miles round trip, no climbing. Very slow paced.

Recreational road riding to get ready for centuries consist of one 25-62 mile ride every week. Maybe ~3,000 feet of climbing max.

This has been this way for the last two or so years.

You guys do a lot of riding and was wondering how you get acclimated to it. Do you just ride when you feel like trash anyway and your body gets used to it eventually? Or do you need time off, too?

Food:

I like eating everything and my wife cooks a lot of Asian food as she is Chinese. She does health conscious cooking and is fit. I don't do diets of any kind as I know I could never keep one. Just being honest with myself. There is no way.

Anyway. I'm interested in your ideas and experiences with how you get acclimated to your riding.

I do fine on centuries and I did a flat brevet once. I would like to do some more Brevets eventually, but I get so trashed just from my regular riding that I never seem to get strong enough to handle the type of hilly rides they do in my area.

[Joe Bernard]

How is your sleep? Commuting by bicycle is great if you can make it work, but there's only so many hours in the day to get to work, do the work, get back home, have a life, and start again the next day. My first impression is you're starting out the week ok, then slowly wearing down as it goes on. There's really no way to make up for 'tired' by exercising, so you might need to create a staggered schedule of riding some days, sleeping later on others.

[Deacon Patrick]

Uh oh! A diet thread! Sardonic grin. Actually on topic, as Grant's written a book on healthy eating (it's not what you may think).

"I don't do diets of any kind as I know I could never keep one. Just being honest with myself. There is no way."

This is just because no one should diet. We should eat to hunger and eat mostly fat. If "healthy" includes grains, veggie oils, or low fat, then it is as confused about health as most of our nation. My first suggestion is to eliminate grains and veggie oils and sugar, replacing those calories with mostly animal and coconut and other healthy fats. Also, if you eliminate any processed foods (which will generally happen if you eliminate grains and veggie oils and sugar).

[dougP]

How about gradually increasing your mileage?  Say, start out with 1/2 commute distance at a leisurely pace two days a week (assuming you're on a 5 day workweek).  If you feel fine after a couple of weeks, bump that up to 3 days per week, then 5.  As you gradually increase weekly distance, don't push it to the point of feeling thrashed. 

You don't mention your winter routine.  We lose cycling fitness surprisingly quickly, so if you don't substitute something during the off-months, it'll be a lot of work getting back into cycling shape. 

dougP

[Lungimsam]

I sleep fine. I get enough hours each night.
But I do have an occasional night of insomnia where I dont fall asleep at all the whole night or just get two hours. Maybe twice a year.

@Patrick: but that's a diet. And Grant's book is a diet. No way I could keep them. I am on a Seefood diet. I am healthy with that. At 47 I have tried various deprivations before and I don't believe in them anymore. If I had a medical issue I guess I would be compelled to keep a diet if part of the treatment plan.

So I don't want, nor did I intend to start a diet thread. I just showed my diet to defray any questions about how I was eating.

I need to know how one acclimates to more miles and if you just keep pushing or rest. Like how did you mega milers do it. Maybe its a goid question for my local Rando group bit I think alot of them train.

[Deacon Patrick]

Another thought is are you pushing things too hard effort wise? If you haven't maintained an aerobic base over the winter, getting that back takes time and going much slower than you may think.

With abandon,

Patrick

On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 9:01:58 AM UTC-6, Lungimsam wrote:

[Lungimsam]

I do push because I like that fast moving feeling of speeding along with momentum.

But I am not fast at all, and am a weak rider.  There aren't many flats in my area, so its usually effort...coast...effort...coast...slow up...fast coast down...etc. Usually I only hit 8% grades max around here. There is only one of them on my commute. Usually the rolling terrain is in the 4% range I would guess. By the time I get my first century done, The roads start to feel easy. But I still get tired a lot.

Maybe I should just go easy, though one has to push to get up the hills around here. Maybe it's just part of being 47 years old. Maybe it is because of my small stature. I am not a 6'5" guy muscling away on the bike.

I don't know how you do it in the mountainous terrain you live in, Patrick!

[Patrick Moore]

I'm sorry, but I keep forgetting your name. But anyway, I experienced what you are experiencing for years when I commuted eastbound across Albuquerque 26 to (but relatively rarely) 40 miles rt, and for the most part 30-32, several days a week. I usually commuted on a fixed gear, 67" to 75", with a moderate load, and our terrain meant steady if gradual climbing eastbound, and very often stiff headwinds on the evening return. I'd ride on weekends, too. In fact, hills and winds are everyday affairs here.

I did this from age about 42 to age about 53, though in the last 2 or 3 years I began more frequently to combine riding with a halfway trip on an express bus. 

I very often felt tired and found myself very easily catching cold. Long after the fact, it dawned on me that I was simply riding too hard -- in my 40s I'd beat the Rt 66/Central Avenue bus -- pass it downtown and stay ahead of it across all the mile long blocks eastbound on 66. I'd routinely break 16 mph clock running, stoplights included, and often reach 18 on the inbound.

The solution? Slow the F*** down! In the last few years I took a more circuitous route up MLK through the University and up Copper, involving the same climb but now with more frequent stops through residential areas and the Fairground. My clock-running speed dropped, due to age as well as route, and due also to a nascent habit of holding back, to between 12 and 13, but it was overall much more pleasant.

You may be simply overdoing it. There is quite a difference, I found, between 40 and 50 -- though much less than between 50 and 60! 

Different people have different capacities for exertion; I think I'm someone who is best at short relatively intense rides with intervals of rest; doing hard rides day in and day out just wears me down.

OTOH, riding slowly with low gears when needed may allow you to up or at least maintain the mileage. But overall, don't overdue it -- if it's not fun, it's not worth doing!

Good luck!

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[Patrick Moore]

Patrick, don't preach, please. Your diet works for you, but it is by no means universal. Millions of Chinese and Indian coolies do daily hard labor on rice, wheat, and pulses, with a bit of oil and veg thrown in. 

I do agree about processed foods, particularly refined flour and sugar.

No one can honestly and wittingly say that the Mediterraneans who live off olive oil and grains live unhealthily.

Now, I expect that it is true that nomads and pastoralists, eating game, herd animals, and wholly wild plants, probably were as a whole healthier than traditional farmers. But this is not at all to say that traditional farmers were unhealthy -- the entire SW/Central America corn cultures? Japanese rice farmers? Peruvian potato eaters? No way!

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[Deacon Patrick]

I have built up a strong aerobic base over the years. Look into Maffetone to learn how to build up a solid aerobic base. http://www.amazon.com/Maffetone-Method-Holistic-Low-Stress-Exceptional/dp/0071343318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461688806&sr=8-1&keywords=maffetone

But a good rule of thumb is to ride so you can have an easy conversation. Always. For three months. Don't exert yourself more than that. You will find that you go faster with the same effort. After that 3 months, then some occasional sprints are fine, but in general you won't need them.

[Patrick Moore]

I forgot to add, re nomads and pastoralists: one reason they were so healthy, as indeed seems to be the case, is that they were either, as someone wisely said, "either healthy or dead." The weak simply died young. We moderns inherit weak genes from generations of modern "recuscitory" medicine.

[Patrick Moore]

That is probably a very good rule, and it's one that I, personally, find very hard to obey! Even when I am feeling tired, and go out for just a short ride, I tend to push -- not that, nowadays, "pushing" results in great speed. Riders far stronger than I used to tell me, "Slow down!".

Funny, the "personal bests" I've ridden have started out as self-controlled, slow cruises. One more rule, I think, is "never go fast until you have thoroughly warmed up" -- which, for me, takes over 5 miles.

I for one shall keep this rule in mind.

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[Patrick Moore]

I stay off of the mountains -- the Sandias rise to 10K feet from 5K at the river. The hills I ride fixed are either relatively steep but short -- eg, in northern Rio Rancho; or long but gradual -- Tramway or my former commute. But winds -- man, they are as bad as hills!

[Brian Campbell]

Well, I used to do that same distance commute with about the same amount of climbing (In greater Philadelphia area) and I too would get pretty tired if I did more that 4 days of consecutive commuting. I was in my late 30's and early 40's while I did the commute. For me, sleep was the major stumbling block, as in getting enough and also giving my body adequate rest between exertion. Eventually I decided to just commute 3 days per week and take the train the other days. It was just easier and made the riding more enjoyable.

Now that I am older, I have also taken to doing weight training (kettle bells and body weight exercises (push ups. pull ups, sit ups, planking etc.) and that has improved my core strength and endurance while cycling. I did a 200k Brevet last October with a little over 11,000 feet of climbing in under 12hrs and felt good the entire time. I did not do that many long distance training rides prior to the brevet. I did about 100 miles a week for the two months leading up to it, a mix of my current commute (13 miles round trip) some 50-60 mile weekend rides and one, 100 mile ride. I had been doing the weight training for about 6 months prior.

Maybe take it easy on the riding and try some different stuff to develop overall fitness? I am pretty confident it helped me. Oh and I was 48 years old when I did the 200k but I don't think my age was a factor.

[Tim]

I agree with ABQ Patrick that maybe you're just overdoing it. Even though you're not "training" there are some training principles that could work for you. Doing something during the winter to keep a fitness base might help. Treadmills and ellipticals (oh the horror!) if you don't like the cold, jogging, walking, running, cross country skiing, swimming, 3-4 days a week. Mixing in some weight training helps too. Mixing up your intensity once you start to ride in the spring. See Grant's Tabata. You can get that workout done in under 30 minutes and reap tremendous benefits. Mix in a ride or two where you're just putzing along. And a complete rest day. Again, even though you're not officially training, getting fitter will increase your enjoyment. Lastly, I've learned that if I feel bad, it's ok to turn around and put the bike back in the garage. Even while training for PBP there were a few times that I rode less than a mile before turning around because it just wasn't there for me that day. Also, if you mix things up a bit it can chase away the tedium of the same old thing.

[Lynne Fitz]

I don't think you are overdoing it. But I am a randonneur (and just turned 60), so perhaps I have a different ruler.

The two times my riding started going all wrong - annoying gradual decline over a year or so - it turned out to be a Serious Health Problem, which my GP did not catch, either time. First one, back in 2009, it took me a good 5 or 6 months after treatment (no surgery, nasty drugs for 24 weeks) to get back to riding a 200k; the next year was my first SR. Most recently, my riding performance had been declining over a couple of years. I had cancer surgery in February (got it all, no subsequent treatment needed); just managed to pull off a 100k this last Sunday. (Still feeling it :-) ) Not sure when I'll get up to 200k distance. Later this summer, maybe.

Short story long - if you feel nothing should be wrong, yet it is, and your doctor says nothing is wrong, you are fine, which is what I got both times - get a second opinion.

[Mark in Beacon]

Lynne makes a good point, and diseases like Lyme can be hard to identify and affect people to all different degrees. Not sure where you are from, but around here it is sadly an all too common occurrence.

You mention both your rides are drop bar configurations. I might suggest a bar like the Albatross with a somewhat more upright position on one of your bikes. If your rides are starting out energetically then bogging down, you may be leaving the gate too fast, even unconsciously. I recommend the change of bars mostly as a psychological aid. I think the way our bicycles are set up can affect the approach to riding, and being more upright can slow you down not just aerodynamically. It affords a bit more opportunity to be aware of the journey itself. Might also make the slower toodles with your wife's commute more fun. Could be an interesting experiment.

Assuming no underlying health issues, hitting the big 5-0 should not have a huge impact on your energy levels with this mileage. However, with your wife's slow commute added in, and your flagging a bit toward the end of rides, you are probably spending as much time in the saddle as a Cat 4 racer in training, and I would say it is possible you might be overdoing it, at least mentally. I would  keep track of ride times as opposed to mileage for a couple of weeks, and see where that falls. Based on this, I would suggest maybe do the longer ride every other week, with at least one of these a month relatively flat if possible, and try 3 days of half commuting and 2 full, and knock out the restaurant ride for a while. Taking a couple of days off from all riding now and then can also be helpful. Unless you have just finished a major century or brevet, daily riding for commuting and pleasure should rarely leave you "feeling like trash." Aside from an occasional bout of laziness, it should generally leave you ready and eager for another two-wheeled adventure the following day.

As for not wanting to do a "diet" I have news for you, you are already on a diet, unless you are dead. Sometimes it is worthwhile to experiment with how certain categories of food might affect mood or physical energy levels. Many people, athletes or not, have found it to be beneficial, with no sacrifice to their love and enjoyment of food. A diet does not necessarily mean deprivation. That is almost like people thinking that someone who bikes to work is deprived/depraved and is not doing so voluntarily, but under government edict or medical advice.




On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 2:00:32 PM UTC-4, Lynne Fitz wrote:

I

[WETH]

Lynne,

Glad the surgery got all the Cancer.

Lunginsam, There have been much good advice and food for thought.  From my experiences, after a winter of little riding, I begin commuting (on 16 miles round trip) Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays giving me days off in between.  When I have built up to 5 days, I try to take it slow and easy early in the week for a few weeks.

All the best,

Erl

On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 2:00:32 PM UTC-4, Lynne Fitz wrote:

[Mark in Beacon]

Yes, speed play, aka fartlek in Swedish, is a way to not-train. Once you've maybe cut back your saddle time a bit and have a fresher outlook, try gunning it between telephone poles a few times on one ride, then go hard but in the saddle on few small rollers in the middle of another otherwise steady ride.

[René Sterental]

+1 on the "you are overdoing it".

+1 on the Maffetone approach, which I just learned and have been applying for the past 3 weeks.

+1 for the "listen to your body" and if you don't feel like riding, then don't. You'll feel like riding again once it's recovered.

I had the same problems you describe all my life, with much less riding. It seems I couldn't get myself to even commute via bike and train 4 times @ week (total of 15-17 total miles per day, all flat, without feeling completely bogged down.

When I re-started riding last december, it seemed that I could go for an hour 2-3 times a week, but anything longer would be a problem. I started increasing the mileage slowly and managed to do a 38 mile ride with 1000+ feet of climbing, but the way I felt afterwards made it seem like there was no way I could do a metric century. (I'm planning to do the 72 mile ride around Lake Tahoe on June 4)

Then, about 4 weeks ago, I bought Mark Sisson's latest book, Primal Endurance Training, in which he describes the Maffetone method coupled to eating to become fat-adapted, which I've been doing since last may.

The Maffetone method is all about riding at an aerobic intensity, which for most people seems like it's going to be extremely slow, and build a strong aerobic base before adding intensity for up to 3 weeks (4 for athletes). Each aerobic period should be at least 8 weeks before you add the 3 week intensity period. During the intensity period you reduce the volume significantly to allow for recovery.

Another big point that I know I was guilty of, is that most people ride in the "black hole" zone, meaning too high to be aerobic and too low to be truly intense and drive the benefits from high intensity. Essentially one should not ride in this zone (70-90% of max HR approximately) because all one does is stress the body without reaping the benefits. Exercising stresses the body and leads to an overall inflammatory response. This is prevented by riding below the Maximum Aerobic HR, which is rigidly defined as 180 - your age. For me it turns out to be 124bpm, which I thought was silly.

Here's what I found when I tried it 3 weeks ago:

- When fresh, riding at or below 124 (your are warned not to ever exceed it, which isn't easy) resulted in being able to ride for much longer feeling much fresher and also being able to ride back to back days, something I couldn't do before.

- You have to constantly watch the HR monitor, as it's super easy to exceed this limit.

- The reason you should not exceed it, is to ensure you only burn fat but not carbohydrates, which would trigger inflammation and the need to feed yourself with more carbohydrates. You also discover that you can do super long rides without eating anything or having breakfast.

- My speed at that HR intensity is actually very close to the speeds I could sustain when pushing harder like I was before to try to "go fast". After a number of rides/weeks, I can feel the need for additional recovery in how my body feels, so I build that in automatically. If I don't feel like riding, I won't. Then the feeling of wanting to ride again comes back.

- I've been able, for the first time in my life, to ride to work in the morning all the way (15.5 miles) and then in the afternoon, feel like riding back with a nice detour along the Bay (18 miles), so far once a week on the last two weeks. The pace is always dictated by the HR, so this means that with a head wind I ride much slower and on the short overpass climbs, I slow to a crawl and take like a balancing exercise to improve my balance at ultra-slow speeds. It's amazing to not mind riding with a head wind now, something that used to destroy me mentally and physically in the past.

- As you become aerobically strong, and keep developing a stronger base, at the same intensity you'll start riding faster. The aerobic training coupled with the fat-adapted diet creates a lot more mitochondria and allows you to become much more effective while remaining aerobic.

How critical is this if you "just ride"? I do believe it's core to ensuring you can ride frequently and as much as you want. For now it seems like "training" because I'm disciplining myself to ride that way, but the short term effects I'm already feeling are very encouraging. By the time I do the America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride event in Lake Tahoe, I'll be 8 weeks into the aerobic base, and the event will actually be my foray into intensity. Then I'll do another 8 weeks of aerobic base building exclusively and ride the Marin Century on August 6 (Metric Century for me) and compare.

Hope you find this helpful, tailor it to yourself as appropriate.

René

--

[Garth]

      Not riding is as wonderful as riding. Many o day I've gone out even though I've not felt like it and after about 50 feet, turn right around and go home !   If feels wonderful , just like I went for a ride and came back home.  I may then do nothing, maybe go for a casual walk and smell the roses. I have lots of places around with hills and greenery so I'm at no loss for venturing off road on foot.  I really enjoy just being outside with or without a casual walk because you notice all the things you passed by on a bike and may not have really noticed, of sight, sound and smell :)

[Patrick Moore]

Thanks for this, Rene -- your experience tracks mine to a "T". I'm going to look up the Maffetone book.

But really, isn't it just common sense? Start out slow, continue until your base is established, increase as is comfortable? And, for each individual ride, slow down until you warm the f*** up!

I recall my stronger younger brother, some almost-20-years-ago, complaining as we left the driveway on a ride, "19 miles an hour right out of the driveway ... That's stupid." Even the local racers with whom I occasionally rode would tell me to slow down at the beginning of a ride.

[Lungimsam]

Lynne:

I am so happy you made it through and are ok now.

I never realized how tough Cancer treatment was until my Dad got it. I mean we all know and have heard, but we really don't know unless it happens to someone close and we actually see what goes on.

The surgeries, chemo, logistics, finances, care taking, loss of quality of life during treatment, living in fear and uncertainty. No wonder no one wanted to talk about it in the olde days.

I will keep you in prayer and am so happy to hear you are back in the saddle again. Congrats on the RUSA mag articles, too!

[Lungimsam]

 

Lately I have been thinking of riding to my body's needs. Letting it tell me how fast or slow it wants to go while riding. Like recovering while on the bike. And maybe my fitness will increase over time if I let my body just ride how it wants on a given day.

Recently I was tired and just slowed till the mental tension was gone and enjoyed the relaxation of just going slow.

It is amazing how far the bike will coast if you let it do the work, instead of hammering on it. Just coasting over a hill crest is relaxing.

I recently lost my computer and am enjoying my riding more. Much more mentally relaxing. No self-assumed pressure. As if.

I like the Rando ideas of:

1. Relentless forward motion

and

2. Recover on the bike.

I want to keep riding. I don't want to cut back. I want to ride more, but I guess I'll let my body dictate what it is able to do on a given ride/day.

Hopefully one day I will be able to be fast enough to finish Brevets in time and I can do some shorter brevets and see how I like them.

[Clayton.sf]

Yiu might like this book too. Some diet stuff in it, but lots of training advice too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1939563089/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?qid=1461709661&sr=8-2&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=mark+sisson&dpPl=1&dpID=51eAWZRsR1L&ref=plSrch

Clayton Scott
SF, CA

[René Sterental]

That's the one I read a month ago that introduced me to the Maffetone method coupled to the fat adaptation I've already been doing. 

It tells the story very well although it's a bit repetitive at times. But it drives the message. 

After reading it I changed my approach. 

René 

[NickBull]

lungi,

Haven't seen much in this thread about recovery.  You can't get stronger unless you give your muscles lots of low-stress recovery time.  If you're always riding in hard and never letting yourself recover then you're going to feel fatigued and not get much stronger.  To get stronger, you have to overload and then recover long enough for your muscles to build.

What I'm doing now: Ride very slowly to work (10 hilly miles) should take 40+ minutes or I'm not riding easy enough; ride very slowly home (10 hilly and mostly uphill miles) should take 50 to 55 minutes or I'm not riding easy enough, ride very slowly to work, finally BOOM ride very hard intervals on the way home--30 to 40 seconds of maximum sprint and then rest long enough for my heart rate to drop to where I can do it again.  I can do six to ten of  these on the way home, depending on traffic on the trail, ending with two sprints on the way up the final big hill to my house.  Then I'm back to three easy commutes before the hard evening of riding home.  On the weekends I've been riding mostly 200km's the last couple of months.

By the way, sometimes my ten-mile commute home feels like an eternity and I can't imagine how I'm going to ride a brevet that weekend. 

I'm ten years older than you, FWIW. 

[Lungimsam]

Thanks, Nick! That sounds like something I can do. Sometimes I am dragging on my commutes and I also wonder how I'll ever be able to pull off a century or brevet.

Do you not ride the day before brevets to rest up? Or just do the slow commute?

[Utah]

You need to give yourself a lot more credit.  Your commute is "long" IMHO.  I commute 10 miles rt and feel good if I ride all 5 days in a week.  You should feel great if you are only able to bike your commute a couple of days a week.  50 miles per week of commuting is pretty good.  Three days per week would be great!  That averages way over five hours per week of moderate exercise which is probably enough to keep you "healthy".

[Garth]

You are doing absolutely nothing wrong Lungimsam !  

There is nothing more fatiguing that the idea that there is something I'm missing out or supposed to or doing wrong. It's only ideas. Blah blah blah !   Just go on your merry way however you go .

Isn't it fun going "slow" !   Without "an agenda" !   Yes !!!!!!   The liberty of just ridin' along where and how I feel like it.  All the stuff about methods of this or that are just like diets, they're basically "regimes" !   "bootcamps"!   Do this, do that, no! you gotta do this and that to get this and that, you gotta gotta gotta follow the rules . . . . 

The trouble with rules is that they're all made up !  Hence, there's endless rules and none absolute ! 

On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 5:50:57 PM UTC-4, Lungimsam wrote:

[Stephen Kemp]

I have never considered myself as being particularly fit or sporty or fast at anything. My commute is 11 miles round trip and I do it 5 days a week. I second the go slow thing for a number of reasons - I don't want to get sweaty, slow feels right for me, I enjoy taking the time out between work and home and I'd rather have a good "aerobic base" (not that I've ever thought of it in those terms before) than any sprinting or other anaerobic ability. This steady effort prepares me well for bigger day rides (of up to 80 miles though no reason why I can't do a 100 miler - in fact I intend to this year).

Someone above wrote that their warm up takes ~5 miles - exactly the same for me. I often find that my commute leaves me feeling worse than the longer day rides precisely because I'm never fully warmed up. On the day rides it's after 5 miles that I start to feel really good! My approach to longer rides is to think of it in terms of running/walking - there's no way I could run all day but I could walk all day! If you are comfortable on the bike and can keep turning the pedals over at a steady pace then you can go far.

[NickBull]

The day before a brevet I either take it really slow or "cheat" and drive part way.

As "Utah" notes, you have a really long commute.  Your "1/2" commutes are not much less than my full commute.  I'm not sure that I could commute every day doing your full commute.

I've cycle-commuted either to or from work every day since the end of 2003 (except a few weeks after Snowmageddon in 2010), mainly because I like it but partly because driving into downtown increases my stress level while cycling in decreases my stress level, and I found that I kept getting colds when I took the metro.  Once you have it set in mind that that's how you're going to get to work, then there are days where you feel energetic and days where you feel draggy, but regardless you just get on your bike and ride in.  I figure humans evolved to do a couple of hours of manual work a day so there's no reason I can't do it.

Nick

[Lungimsam]

Thanks for the info, Nick! Much appreciated!

[Marc40a]

Do you do any kind of restorative yoga (essentially stretching)? I do a short 20 minute program by and for cyclists and I've found that it greatly affects my performance on the following day. It seems to clear away the cumulative effects of multi-day riding ad re-set the legs, so to speak. 

Do you keep your cadence up?  Do you use a meter?

My commute is 26 miles round trip and hilly. Though I've been commuting here and there over this past winter (because it was so mild), my season is just starting up. I did 3 consecutive days last week and was dead afterwards. 

I used this week to cross train (hiked 2 4000 footers!) and will aim for 3 days next week (probably not consecutive) then 3 days consecutive the following week then try to work up to a 4 day by the end of the month. (2 on, day off, 2 on) 

Then work up to 4 consecutive... etc...

You stated your reluctance to train.. but call it what you want, multiple hours of cardio daily requires proper training. How many people do 2 hours of cardio a day?