Rest or recovery ride?

[philinmerthyr]

I did a 50 mile ride yesterday, my longest ride to date. I'm building up to the London 100 in August. My legs feel tired this morning. Should I rest today or would it be better to go out for a 10-15 mile spin as a recovery ride?

 

[Rob3rt]

TBH, unless your training load is high, then you will get the same benefit from either. So do as you wish. As your training load increases, the benefit of recovery rides increases (I am not sure of the mechanism behind this, so won't pretend I do, but I have read this suggestion from enough reputable sources to assume there is some merit in it).

If you do go for a "recovery ride", do it right, get in the small chainring and the easiest half of the cassette and ride around at embarrassingly slow speeds. Most people do not do it right, they don't ride easy enough to promote recovery, yet they don't ride hard enough to stimulate training adaptation, i.e. they are wasting their time!

Also, don't base recovery rides on distance, base it on duration say, 30 mins.

 

[philinmerthyr]

Thanks. I posted this in the beginners forum as I wasn't sure how many people read this section. I think I'll watch the marathon this morning and go out for an hr this afternoon.

 

[Garz]

If you do go for a "recovery ride", do it right, get in the small chainring and the easiest half of the cassette and ride around at embarrassingly slow speeds. Most people do not do it right, they don't ride easy enough to promote recovery, yet they don't ride hard enough to stimulate training adaptation, i.e. they are wasting their time!

Good advice. I am guilty of setting out to do a 'recovery' ride and then either forget to stay in zone 2 or see a rider in the distance and the Neanderthal in me cannot resist speeding up.

 

[Pedrosanchezo]

I tend to do recovery on turbo for this very reason. I simply cannot go out and ride at snail pace. Seems impossible to me so i just do it with the turbo. This way i can control the ride completely. Some days i will just do nothing though. Not sure there is a huge difference at our level tbh.

 

[uclown2002]

According to one online calculator http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/heart_rate/heart_rate_zone_calculator_abcc_bcf.html
my recovery ride needs to be under 104 bpm!

I intend to try this on wednesday but doubt it is possible given the local terrain.

 

[montage]

I remember reading an article that stated that the most efficient recovery (above RICE, massages et al) was 30 mins cycling at about 80 watts - that is more or less free wheeling.

I wouldn't get too hung up about it at this stage, just get out without the bike computer and go by feel. No reason you can't even put another training session in - training on consecutive days is a great way to build your endurance up. Depends what your schedule is already like.

 

[VamP]

According to Dr. Coggan, and he knows a thing or two about a thing or two, anything below 60% of FTP is recovery riding. As to it's efficacy against just resting - I am not sure what data is out there - but I definitely find it better to ride than not ride - this may be subject to individual variance. Go ahead and experiment!