When to return to training?

I completed my A event a little over 2 weeks ago,(340 miles/1200TSS). When do you think it would be ok to return to training? I’ve been doing some riding(mostly short/easier stuff) I was all ready to return starting tomorrow. Then yesterday I did 43 miles and it just felt harder than it should have been. That has me second guessing if maybe I should take another week of easy riding? Or is it just that my A event killed that much fitness and it’s time to start over again?

Last time i did a 320 mile event, it took my HRV a month before it got back to where it was pre event.

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Did you wait until it returned to ‘normal’ to return to training or did you ease into training before that point? I’m considering doing the a LV plan for awhile to ease back into my Mid to High load weeks.

When is the next event you are training for?

Your fitness won’t have dropped from your A event. What’s massively increased will be your fatigue. I’d suggest waiting till the fatigue seems to have left you, before starting trading again.

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I took a full week off and then just rode for the next 2weeks, unstructured, basically just rode how I felt. After that, I then picked up with a three week block of race specific training to get ready for my next race, which I did pretty well in.

Go by feel, ride easy when you want to, ride structured when you feel the desire. If you start a ride and it feels too tough take a break.

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From personal experience, last year I was doing a 200-300k ride every week or two for may and June. I then had a 400k followed by a 600k two weeks later, both at 0.65-0.7 IF. It was about 3wk before I was doing anything other than z1 or z2, and 4-5wk before I felt completely normal and able to do threshold and VO2 work meaningfully.

The lag was needed for both physical recovery, and mental recovery - I was not interested in being on the bike at all for the first 1-2wk.

Mid August. The Last DAMn.

That’s just it, mentally I’m ready to get after it.

If you’re mentally ready then it’s a question of the physical. The distance you quote I’ll generally leave a couple of weeks before another event. But if you felt tired or not quite there then just do the lower intensity riding till you feel ready again. If next event August you can afford to not be training for a while.

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The TSS / fatigue models always show a recovery from a 600K, 1000K, or 1200K in just a few days. The reality is that it takes WAY LONGER as you’ve noted.

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It didn’t kill your fitness. It generated a metric butt ton of fatigue that is going to take time to recover from fully. It might take a month or more before your legs feel any kind of fresh again. That’s not abnormal. It can be frustrating because mentally you’re ready to hit it… but listen to your body.

One thing I’ve learned is that my first hard effort after a hard block and a bit of recovery always feels harder than it should. Once I’ve got that one in my legs, I can usually rebound the next week and hit it.

So my advice would be to ride easy most of this week, but pick one day to do a short sustained SST effort (say 30-45 min) or so, then recover from that, and try again next week. I’ll bet you feel better.

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Took last week easy, and did a ramp test today and lost 25 watts, I’m just gonna run the plan at that wattage until it doesn’t feel right anymore.

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Not a bad idea. Kind of a forced “recovery” by operating at that lower training level. It’ll come back… that was one hell of an amount of work you just did. Let your body be the guide!

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That was my thought. Just take the next 4 weeks at this nice reduced effort level, get my consistency going again.

You could just take some time and just ride for fun only. You won’t lose any fitness from just enjoying yourself, especially if you are there mentally. Do some sight seeing! When the legs feel normal again, then go back at it.