Well being a female in perimenopause would be one… but obviously not going on here.
As an 18 year old male, I would look at other factors such as sleep, school stress, etc. My senior year in college I went through something similar. I had really low body fat % and racing was just off. I was eating everything in sight but we were burning enormous number of calories. I ended up taking a month off racing & focused entirely on training which helped me bonce back.
It would be helpful to see your high level training history if you have a way to share it (training peaks, intervals,icu, etc.). Just a graph of your CTL/TSB over the last 1-2 years would give some insight on where you have been and how long/steep the ramp is.
A Doctor is the best resource on the ferritin issues, but low ferritin is a classic marker for overreaching/overtraining (and specifically too much intensity). How many days a week are you hitting intensity? A common mistake is only counting intervals days as intense days and then throwing crtis, group rides, fun MTB rides, etc. into the mix. Those non-interval days don’t always generate significant TSS or time in high zones, but the intensity still disrupts the recovery process and eventually beat you down. It’s hard to resist that fun stuff, but if you are consistently doing intensity on more than 3 days per week, I’d strongly consider knocking it down. I only do 2 structured interval days a week because I know I don’t have the discipline to always skip the group ride or the fun “B/C” races.
The other potential factor is just overall chronic fatigue. Again, seeing your training history and knowing your season plans would help. If you have been constantly trying to build fitness since October (after big sugar), you are probably running out of headroom. Building fitness is always 2 steps forward, 1 step back. You can’t constantly build on top of each peak without stepping back a bit before building again (not just rest weeks, but macro breaks). When are your peak(s) planned for the year?
Unless you are using RO3 as part of a training block and trying to put yourself into deep hole (which sounds like you might already be in too deep), I would err on the side of rest until the race. And if RO3 was an “A” race, chronic training load should have peaked a couple weeks ago and should be dropping a bit during the month before the race (at least in a traditional training model). With less than 2 weeks to go, you should be getting really fresh and shedding fatigue with enough intensity mixed in to keep the engine primed. If you aren’t freaked out by how little training you are doing in the 2 weeks before a big event, you’re probably training too much.
Again, it’s all speculation without seeing the details, but this points to carrying too much chronic fatigue. It can sneak up on people because you can’t feel it the same way you feel acute fatigue. People get all wrapped up about a really hard day/week/month, but at some point it’s the months stacked on top of months of training that eventually catch up to you.
If you are still engaged with a human coach, what kind of feedback are they providing?
Here is my traning peaks from the last year. The big drop was from when I worked for 3 weeks at a summer camp. Then I tried to train for Big Sugar. Then took a week off workouts and a week of just light runs and learning how to do gym stuff. Since then it has just been building steadily.
It looks like you took some quality time to ramp down after Big Sugar and your ramp rate since then looks reasonable to me. Do you have a date/event you are planning to peak for?
The biggest thing that stands out to me is that there aren’t obvious rest periods during your build except just recently. I can see little dips, but I’d expect to see a bigger “up, up, up, down, up, up, up, down…” pattern repeating and it looks like maybe the rest weeks aren’t being respected as much as they could be. It’s not just about keeping overall ramp rate and stress balance in check, but stepping back far enough to let the body adapt. But everyone is different, so it just a matter of finding the right balance/cycle. Again, that’s all the stands out. Kudos on the excellent consistency.
Besides the rest weeks, maybe revisit how much intensity you are doing as well. If currently doing 3 days, maybe consider dropping to 2 and see how things improve. Particularly if you are adding unstructured intensity like group rides or races on a regular basis. Those should count as one of your days.
Anyways, just some thoughts. If you are still with a human coach, this is they kind of stuff you should be able to lean on him/her for. And obviously the Dr. as well to rule out any underlying health concerns and watching the iron levels. Good luck, I hope to see you fresh and ready at RO3.
Forgive my late reply. I was away for a week. Kinda took a week of without a choice. Went up to CO and it snowed so I was only able to ride one day.
I am peaking for Steam Boat Gravel. Which I was unaware I was doing until February.
I currently only do intensity 2 times a week.
I am still with the Ignition Coach co. I plan on bringing it up sometime this week after I have my blood work done again (they wanted me to check if after I had been on iron for some time).
