UKC

Last week I got home from cycle touring in Norway, during which I covered about 750km in 2 weeks and climbed a few hills (on foot) along the way. I had hoped that, after 2 weeks on a loaded touring bike of c. 30kg, when I got back to my road bike at home I would be super-fit, like an athlete returning to sea-level after altitude training, but that doesn't seem to be the case - instead I feel totally worn out.

I think one problem might be that I wasn't able to eat enough while I was away, so was running on a continual calorie deficit, and I have noticeably lost quite a bit of weight (down from 62kg to about 56). I was also camping for almost all of the trip so probably lacking in sleep too.

I did some searching but most articles are just on avoiding over-reaching/over-training rather than recovering from it. I have been (mostly) resting and trying to eat more but, 1 week on, I feel just as fatigued or even worse than when I first got back.

Does anyone have any experience of this or suggestions for what to do / not do?

In reply to psaunders:

I've been given rough advice (for running, not cycling) in an attempt to defeat the plague that I've reached (not a very high one).

I've been told to scrap anything fast from my schedule for at least the next six weeks. All training is to be conducted at level 1 and level 2 - conversational pace, or just a touch faster. The aim is to gradually build the long run and the time spent running over the six weeks and then introduce harder stuff slowly after that.

How this translates to cycling, I'm not certain, but as it's the same system that is likely to be stressed, this approach may be worth reading up on.

My overtraining has not been severe, mainly consisting of pushing too hard on most runs, but two weeks in I feel pretty good. Time will see if it works!

In reply to Auz:

Yeah I guess I'll just have to tone it down for a bit and probably change my expectations for recovery from a few days to a few weeks or months.

I'm going to have to learn to reduce my intensity - my instinct is generally to push myself as hard as possible.

In reply to psaunders:
I understand this from a work perspective - i did a course in July that worked out at as heading towards 7-8k daily calorie requirement and resulted in a lot of fatigue built up from running long distances over uneven terrain carrying a lot of weight under a lot of physical and mental pressure.

I found that it took me about three to four weeks before I could run again not experiencing fatigue or pain - I just focused on a different aspect of fitness, nutrition and maintenance until my body could recover. I ran once a week - slow, maybe zone 2-4, and then swam and cycled, and focused on weight lifting - this helped feed my appetite and helped me put on weight and stimulate muscle growth.

When I came back to it I found I was a good chunk fitter than when I began.

My advice is reduce volume and intensity and deal with the mental pressure by directing yourself elsewhere.

In reply to psaunders: I#m not doubting you#re pretty stuffed, but I'm not convinced you're overtrained as two weeks isn't really long enough. That means you should be able to recover quickly rather than over months.

I would assume I was pretty hammered and look for 8 -10 hours of sleep a day, a good quality diet and some light training.

In reply to wbo:

I agree, it seems like 'overtraining' is a more specific term which seems like a longer term and more wide-ranging sort of physical and mental fatigue.

I basically just mean that I am worn out, performing worse than before and not recovering as quickly as I would have hoped. This is probably more down to lack of calories and sleep rather than the actual mileage (which is not actually all that much).

In reply to psaunders:
You need to get those reserves stocked back up.just eat.
If your already depleted how do you expect your body to recover.if you want to build a wall,you gotta have enough bricks.

In reply to psaunders:

your body is giving you. a pretty clear message! Short rides, plenty rest and good nutrition

it'd be a classic time to pick up an injurt

In reply to psaunders:

You can get some indication of your recovery by monitoring your resting heart rate when you wake up in the morning and before you get out of bed. This information is most useful if you know what it is usually. Overtraining often leads to a raised morning heart rate. As you recover it should return to your normal level. You need to do this for a while as it can vary a bit day to day, so it's the trend you are looking at rather than a single measure. This approach is old school but still useful and doesn't require any specialist equipment, just a notebook by your bed and the ability to measure your pulse. In the meantime as others have said good nutrition, low intensity exercise and good sleep will help.

In reply to psaunders:

You don't say what you are expecting to be able to do. After touring with a heavey bike for a couple of weeks you should be good to ride slowly for a decent amount of time. If you're expecting to be super fast then it's not what your body has been used to so suddenly trying to really push it will still tire you out quickly.

I've ridden long Audax rides, 1400km in 4 days etc and at the end of it can hardly stand. A few days later I'm back on the bike and can happily ride all day long at a certain pace, if I go out on my clubrun I get dropped as soon as the speed properly picks up in the last 10 miles as although I'm very fit I'm conditioned to stamina not speed.

I've also trained very differently for shorter events and can be very quick over shorter distances when I've been training using intervals and hard short hill climbs.

I'm not sure you're suffering from overtraining and without being harsh 750km in 2 weeks is 50km a day which isn't really a great deal of cycling anyway.

In reply to yesbutnobutyesbut:

Yep I suppose the difference is that I was doing moderate distances with a heavy bike and now I'm doing short distances with steep hills (Devon) on a light bike. You're right in that even if I was more recovered it wouldn't be the same sort of fitness.

I agree it isn't true 'overtraining', it's fatigue, but it's more prolonged than I have generally experienced before. The cycling wasn't spread out as 14x50km days which would, I agree, be very straightforward. It was closer to 5x100km days and 5x50km days in poor weather and a few days walking or sitting on my backside during storms and travelling.