I know this happens from time to time, but posting for some therapy and to remind myself I’ve not become rubbish at bike riding overnight.
I had one of my favourite sessions yesterday, practice 50 mile TT, 1 hr 15 at tempo, then lifting to sweetspot for the final 45. The first hour is usually lovely cruising around!
Relevant excuses:
I’d raced on Thursday and cramped quite badly afterwards, recovered ok, but my calves were still quite tight yesterday.
Ate later than normal on Saturday and had two glasses of wine to wind down (never usually am issue).
Sunday morning was reserved for the kids, so I went out in the afternoon. It was hot and humid, and you could smell the weeds so I guess pollen was high.
Everything felt off from the start. My shoes felt too small (heat?), my saddle felt too high (tight legs?), and tempo felt like hard work. Felt a bit short of breath too! I couldn’t even manage 10 minutes on the aero bars riding at tempo . I stopped pedalling quite a few times and had to convince myself to start again
The sort of day where I’d just get off the trainer and try again tomorrow, but since I was out in the sun and have three 50s in the next month I just gutted it out!
I have another 10 mile race on Thursday before a 50 mile TT on Sunday morning. I’m tempted to skip the 10, and prioritise the 50
Anyone else want to share their stories of a “jour sans”?
We’ve all been there! Had one a few months ago, a regular early morning group ride where we do a fast but not flat out rotating paceline for ~30 minutes until we get to 3 x 5-6 minute hills which everybody does at their own pace, regroup as necessary and then ride to a coffee shop. Group of 8 that morning, there were definitely a couple of people I was expecting to drop me on the climbs if they went hard, but I was one of the stronger riders in the group overall and definitely one of the 2-3 strongest on the flats so should have been fairly comfortable at least until we got to the hills. Knew something was wrong almost immediately, HR was just very high for the pace/power and I was sweating more than usual. Already felt like I was into the red as we got onto a draggy false flat section before the first hill. Did my turn, was rotating back trying to breathe deep and get some recovery, got to the back of the group and just kept going backwards, running on empty! Shouted at the others that I was fine and to carry on. Then had to get off my bike and sit down for 5 minutes before cruising gently home. Luckily was a quiet work day and I felt absolutely drained so I just went back to bed and fell fast asleep for a couple of hours. Then slept another 10 hours that night. Took it easy for a couple of days after that but felt normal and haven’t had anything like it since. Still not sure what happened. I’d gone to bed early and had enough sleep. I’d fuelled the same as I usually do for those rides. Hadn’t done any hard training the day or 2 before that would have left me unusually fatigued. I assumed at the time I was getting sick with something, but no other symptoms ever materialised and I felt fine 24 hours later. Have had jours sans on other occasions where there’s an obvious explanation with hindsight - fatigue, fuelling, life stress, etc. Hopefully this was a one off!
I’ve sorted out my mechanical problems that were a slight excuse for my eraticness but I’ve become even more erratic and I’ve lost the motivation which infilled a lot of my flaws
Saturday was the latest in the line of my Jour Sans. Id went for a gravel ride the day before but annoyingly had to steady my self into a bush/ stingy nettles so I never had the best sleep whilst that settled down, which started my Paranoia going. I woke fairly OK despite only having 5hs sleep. Got to the HQ a bit too early and was one of the first there but that shouldn’t have been a problem but I went to collect my number and found it missing. Apparently the person who had it last had took it home by mistake but would return it. So I spent too long hanging about during that time what little mojo there was had gone and gas had started to build up in my system. So I had a bit of a sloggy start which on top of my lack of bottle my start was poor. Only after the turn did I start to settle down and put decent power out (in fact power wise it was a SB for the latter half but my CdA was a terrible 0.26). The net result the folk I finished 2-3 mins ahead of the week before on a sporting 15miler finished 30-40s faster than me on Saturdays 10mile.
. I stopped pedalling quite a few times and had to convince myself to start again 
