I’ve been feeling very muscularly fatigued for a good 3 weeks now and have noticed a decline in performance. Work rates that were very manageable a month ago feel very hard now. Recovery seems not existent despite nutrition (on bike and off) being really good, as far as I can tell, but maybe it hasn’t been good enough. Sleep has been really good, but I’m still waking up tired.
In looking at my calendar I have had some “hard” weeks/rides and a hard race, but nothing out of the normal at this point of the season over my last 7 years of cycling. I’ve even laid off the strength training. I felt awesome towards the end of May.
I got some blood work today and one thing that stood out to my doctor was how high my CK (creatine kinase) levels are. Which in short can indicate muscle damage or rhabdomyolysis.
I think we’re onto something here…Just not sure what my approach should be outside of more rest. I’m thinking another 3-5 days of complete rest (no cycling, no running, nothing hard) and re-evaluate, but to be honest, I’m kind of apprehensive. We might be talking weeks of rest, I don’t really know.
Could you start resting immediately until you have a plan in place? Are you going to get your bloodwork done again? If so, maybe rest until you feel recovered, get bloodwork done, if CK is better, return slowly to training.
Ps, this isnt what I would do. What I would do is keep training, make myself worse, and the have an even longer road to recovery.
Oh, and there’s a lot of red days in that calendar. I’m a bad girl but even I don’t get that many. You’ve definitely been smashing yourself.
You could also have Covid, or some other infection. So far, the symptoms of Covid have attenuated to the point where it’s more of a nuisance than a ‘life threatening’ illness, but it can still zap training for the duration. Getting tested was always a mess for me (I always tested negative no matter the symptoms) so now, with a drop in effort, I assume it’s that and just coast for a week. Not stopping all training, but do more zone 1 thru 3, and more weights and floor work. Just an idea… The biggest symptom of the latest Covid is ‘throat of razors’, and I woke up with a sore throat this morning. YIPPEE!!
(I still see people around here with masks in the stores, and thinking it might not be as extreme due to the allergy season coming and, groan, Covid again (so sick, no pun, of that crap). sigh)
EDIT: Oh, and one surprise decades ago: I was feeling really tired. Like on Saturday’s, I would often get up, eat, and sleep to near noon, and still pass out at 10p. Work wasn’t too bad, but I wasn’t my ‘bouncy self’ according to coworkers. Went to my doc, and they ran some tests, all came back negative. Then they did a mono test, and bingo - I had mono! Apparently it was going around the university like wildfire, and many were coming down with it. No idea how I got it, but it took a while to recover from that. (Not saying you have mono obviously, but it could be Covid, etc)
Thanks for chiming in. I also noticed a lot of red. One of the red days came after an endurance ride of 0.64IF. I was surprised by this because that’s a pretty “easy” ride for me. In looking at my calendar, I never rode on a red day outside of one short 36 min recovery ride on June 1st. So I’ve been good about following TR’s advice.
Either way, I’m obviously cooked and need more rest. In looking back, I don’t think my protein intake was nearly as high as it should be. I need to bump this up.
Illness is something I have been trying to tease out. Am I just sick, but don’t know it? That sort of thing. FWIW, I had mono in high school. That was awful.
I checked my past blood tests but apparently we didn’t check that specific marker. My fatigue issues were due to low ferritin and getting that in check has greatly improved my energy overall. Now, we’re trying to figure out why it’s low in the first place, but that’s another story.
Yeah, mono wasn’t fun. There didn’t seem to be a clear cut recovery methodology either. Some docs prescribed antibiotics, but to little effect. I just lived it and it passed.
Another thing to consider is ‘current issues’. It’s hard for me to not somehow feel overwhelmed by the crazy that is happening in the world.
So looking for ways to ‘detox’ in a highly toxic environment is becoming a thing right now. I post this because it can affect and effect ‘life’ in complex ways. Trying to ignore this distorted ‘new reality’ is going to be a hard thing to pull off, but I have to, we all have to. Limiting doom scrolling helps. Limiting tv and internet content helps too. Blocking out the noise…
Exercise is a positive force in our lives. Focusing on that should help drown out that noise.
I’ve been in a similar situation for over a week now. Although off the bike I’m not too tired, when I ride my legs feel stiff, sore and weak. I managed to push through only on one day and I did a sweet spot workout, otherwise most days I simply can’t ride over endurance pace.
I don’t remember the last time I felt like this for that long, so now my plan is to take a kind of mid-season break. Like 3/4 days off with really light activity at most and then restarting with some easy riding to see how legs feel.
Judging by the red on the calendar it’s not abnormal fatigue. You are fatigued due to overtraining. Or riding too much.
I’m guilty as well. We had a stretch of good weather. I went out every day to ride. TR warned with a red day. I went out and felt the need to drop an e bike. Don’t ever give me the bell on an e-bike. That’s another story. Got home. Washed up. In bed by 8. Next morning I was cooked. If only I had something that could predict I was already overtraining or riding with no structure. Hmmm.
I appreciate you weighing in. I think it’s easy to see red days and assume “too much”. I would agree if I had been pushing through and training on those days, but I have rested on all but one red days.
I’m used to a much higher training load (300-400 TSS/wk) and I’m currently 6 days into a rest week, and by that I mean zero endurance activities and am feeling tired legs when walking my dog. I know when something is off.
I have started tracking my sleep again and something that has stood out is my time at deep (restful/repair) sleep has dropped significantly. I used to consistently achieve 60-90 minutes in stage 4 sleep and it’s dropped down to 15-20 minutes.
I just don’t think my body is repairing itself the way it used to.
Understood. If we were training closer to as planned we should not see red. Maybe a yellow. Or two. Resting red is a tad late imo. Especially weeks in a row.
If you had fewer red days /weeks would you sleep better or recover better?
I’m a magnesium supplement guy when I’m not getting deep sleep. I hate the dreams but it works.
I’m no physio and I’m just a guilt of the red weeks so what so what do I know? Let us know what you find out.
I’m not on a training plan currently, just sort of riding by feel. Looking backward, I have only 4 hard days in the last 6 weeks. Really not that demanding given my training history. I don’t know why TR is showing so much red. For example, I did a ride on May 31 that was 1hr 26min @ 0.71IF. I don’t believe that should yield a red day.
I will admit that this is likely a combination of sub-optimal sleep and perhaps not enough post-ride protein. At 92kg I probably need to get in 150-180kg of protein daily and that is hard for me w/o over-supplementing with protein powder.
I was surprised by my CK value having not ridden hard for 5 days prior. I will plan to get a follow up test next week to see how it is.
I truly appreciate all input. Time to figure out what is causing sufficiently long enough, but poor quality sleep. Started taking 400mg of magnesium oxide once daily last week as well as vitamin D, and fish oil.
Good luck tracking this down. Of course go to instagram for help. Someone will tell you just a little cold soak in an ice bath will do the trick.
What are your carbs like? Just thinking about what I do to fight fatigue during a multi day event.
Morning:
Egg whites Avocado sandwich with Rye.
Mid morning snack:
Ritual or arbonne protein.
Lunch:
Penne pasta salmon and pineapple/oranges
Dinner:
Olive oil spaghetti and big ass salad with fish. Sip skratch lab recovery drink if I have ride.
Not sure if carb-ing when I’m fatigued truly works but my n=1 bro science it does. Good luck!
I try not to drop this card too often in casual conversation, but I am a doctor (but not your doctor!)
Your CK being <4-5x the normal URL of the assay does not tell you anything.
After eccentric exercise in particular, CK often does not peak until 3-5d after when you did the exercise.
And again, a level of 368 is within normal in someone who is physically active on a regular basis.
Your personal physician may not be familiar with the normal variation in lab work ranges in people who exercise regularly.
If you or your actual doctor are concerned about a medical cause for your fatigue, then follow up with them!
But a CK of 368 after a few days of rest in someone who is very physically active does not get my attention at all.
And again, based on what you’ve said here, there is a good chance this is just nonfunctional overreaching, and 1-2wk of relative rest (or less if you feel better sooner) is something that you can personally do as a useful and easy diagnostic test while you wait to see if there is concern about an underlying medical cause.
Just take it easy for a while, and follow up with your doctor. Don’t overthink this.
