I did a fairly hard interval workout this morning (~20 min total time in zone above FTP…plenty of rest between intervals). It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary but I went rather hard. Day off yesterday and ate a ton yesterday and this morning…fueled the ride decently.
After my intervals I rode light for 5 min then wanted to do some high Zone 2. As I pedaled along I felt some pretty intense burning in my legs (mostly hamstrings and gluts). I was able to put out the power just fine but it just burned pretty bad.
A) Just wondering what was going on? I guess I wasn’t clearing the lactate? My breathing was a little higher than normal at that power but not quite as much as a threshold ride.
B) if that happens again should I just keep going? Is that some kinda stimulus I’ll break through and be stronger after? I kept going for 45 min because I was kinda just curious…I only stopped because I had to go to work. I felt like I could have gone another 2 hours like that. (Feel totally fine now a few hours later.) or am I just flooding myself needlessly?
Just more curious than anything. I’ve gotten burning before but it just went away really fast.
I’ve found it can take the legs a while to recover from hard intervals but they may feel better as the ride goes on. 20 min above FTP is hard going, so I don’t see the need for hight Z2 straight after, just ride easy for a bit.
That’s the fatigue in your legs which hasn’t been cleared yet. It is totally expected.
Yes — if you can recover from the efforts.
From personal experience (N = 1) I can recover better following your strategy (tacking on some endurance work after a workout) than adding another endurance workout of equivalent length to my schedule.