Hanging up my jersey for a while. I love cycling, but over the last two years I just feel like crud after any type of hard effort. Just cannot recover no matter what I try, no matter how many doctors I see, no matter how many blood tests come back saying everything is fine. I think I dug myself a big hole and just need some time off the bike.
Started weight training a month ago and it feels so good to be able to hit something hard again without fear that I’m going to be a grumpy prick later that night. I finally have enough energy to play with my kids and put them to bed at the end of the night. Any time I would ride, I would be hanging on for dear life around 9pm. Last time I did a big ride (70miles) I was hungover for two days. Just need to pause for a bit.
Love this program, love this community! When I was trying to solve my symptoms I found so much great info here. Man this cycling stuff can get addictive
There’s nothing wrong with trying other things, I promise, cycling won’t feel like you’re cheating on it.
Two things that helped me re-learn to love cycling again was to really connect with my “why”, and to draw a very clear distinction between training and “playing bikes” (to borrow a phrase from someone I worked with). Drawing the distinction between training and riding shifted my mindset away from one that told me “every ride has to be hard, has to feel like a workout”, which opened the door to enjoying riding for the sake of riding. I could go ride with friends, and no matter how slowly we went, I could just be happy with the experience, and enjoy the moment, because the training aspect was totally separate.
When you feel like you need to take a break, you’re right. Some time away from the bike, in some capacity, sounds like it might give you the space to reconnect with the fun that is cycling.
I took two years away from training and racing. Still rode my bike loads and did some bikepacking which was brilliant.
Did a cross race last autumn and it reignited the fire so I’m training again but very much on my terms with just one really hard session a week, usually a coached crit training evening and loads of roaming round the countryside.
Will probably alternate racing years with non racing years over the next two decades. It’s nice to have a change of pace.
