Recovery, how long, how difficult can it be????

[ayceejay]

"Upping the miles is more recent but I have been upping things quite slowly I haven't gone from 50 milkes a week to 150 miles. The soreness did/does occur at lower mileage but at a much lower level, I guess it is just a case of adapting and I'm looking for a miracle."
I would say that there is no miracle beyond a body's ability to heal itself (recover), you just need to discover what works for you, for instance there is no way an ice bath would work for me! I find that active recovery works best and so a hard ride is followed by an easy ride, or a series of hard rides is followed by a couple of easy days with a complete day off occasionally.

 

[Garz]

On another note - I went for a run as I was pressed for time and it was pissing it down to mix up the cardio. The DOMS that ensued was painful enough every time I went down the stairs for a couple of days. I recall in my late teens to being well into weight training and never experienced DOMS like I do now that I am beyond thirty. At least I know that it is due to as others have put it 'training' and not hurting as say my shoes not fitting or gait are causing me discomfort.

 

[400bhp]

Sorry I should clarify this a bit.

I got a bike fit done at Windymilla, near Franham. The set up was done on their fiting bike/machine and the measurements replicated on my own bike by the fitter. I then received an e-mail with the settings on a drawing and this is where the confusion began.

The measurements on the e-mail showed a BB to saddle nose dimension of 100mm and a saddle nose to centre of handlebar dimension of 585mm. I tried to use these same measurements on my winter bike and found that the 100mm seat to BB measurement was impossible to achieve and then measured it on the bike I took with me to the fitting and found the 100mm measurement to be wrong, it was more like 70mm and the 585mm from saddle nose to centre of the bars was spot on.

Does this now make some sense?

Did you pay for this? Did they look at your clean position and shoe angle too? How were they carrying out the fit-based on your biomechanics (gait in particular)? It seems a very very odd way to do a bike fit. You need to be on your own bike. As Rob intimated, handlebar width, saddle length and shape are going to make a difference. Also things like crank length and angle of the hoods and the bars will make a difference too.

I was talking to a mate tonight-i used to suffer sore quads and now and again sore hamstrings. I got a bike fit for my two road bikes and 3 pairs of shoes about 3 months ago. I now get none of these pains. I do about 150 miles a week on average (before and after the fit). FYI, my winter bike had to be a bit of a compromise due to the more relaxed geometry. The biggest change the fitter made was to the cleat position. There is absolutely no way I would have been able to get the position he did which was down to my gait (he filmed me walking and then appeared to replicate my biomechanics of that on the bike)

 

[Ningishzidda]

Feelings of fatigue are quite subjective, and not always 'truthful'. Sometimes I think I am really sore, but then produce good numbers, other times I feel okay, but the numbers are poor. Having access to an objective way of measuring your performance obviously helps.

The whole point of training is to push our bodies into over reach, if it's not hurting, it's probably not training.*

*Disclaimer: O fcourse I don't mean hurting in the injured sense, but in the fatigued sense.

+1
The problem I have always had with training the juniors is I cannot demonstrate what 'hurting' feels like. Its up to them to get their own measure of how hard to push, and I won't use a Lactate tester on 'minors'.

 

[Ningishzidda]

"Upping the miles is more recent but I have been upping things quite slowly I haven't gone from 50 milkes a week to 150 miles. The soreness did/does occur at lower mileage but at a much lower level, I guess it is just a case of adapting and I'm looking for a miracle."
I would say that there is no miracle beyond a body's ability to heal itself (recover), you just need to discover what works for you, for instance there is no way an ice bath would work for me! I find that active recovery works best and so a hard ride is followed by an easy ride, or a series of hard rides is followed by a couple of easy days with a complete day off occasionally.

+1

During the first twenty five years of my racing career, I spent a lot of time trying many 'recovery' strategies. Some worked, some didn't. Some worked and then didn't, so I repeated the strategies that didn't work initially to see if they worked when repeated.
What worked and now work for me might not work for someone else.
Just be prepared to commit some time to investigation. It won't be wasted time, it will be experience gained.