Why can’t I keep up with others despite training

[eddie]

We’re learning so much a bout fueling with every passing week/month/year.

I’d agree that 40g/hour isn’t nearly enough, and if you’re coming into those rides without your stores totally full, you’re not going to get nearly as much out of your body as you potentially could.

I’d shoot for at least 90g/hour and start to work your way up from there on harder/longer rides.

We’re learning that all of these endurance efforts are so dependent on carbs. For someone like you who often rides 12+ hours/week at your current weight, you should be looking at ~585g of carbohydrates each day. That’s 13 cups of brown rice for reference, and if you get back into the volume you were doing over the summer, that number will only increase.

If you’re not currently getting nearly that much in, I’d recommend starting to incrementally work your way up and take note of how you’re feeling along the way. Each of us is unique, and this graph is just one guideline, but I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot!

[ScottBarrow]

From a deeper language perspective, I notice the phrase “sucking it up” and wonder what the use of it really means for you, and whether there could be fertile ground/blockages contained within exploring that. Perhaps you could come up with a different expression or phrasing which may work better for you.

[nebur86]

i feel your pain as tall and skinny rider. Best solution I found is just eat more basically. night and morning pre-ride and during ride at least double your intake. I’m doing 90g carbs/hour with bidons alone. Feel more powerful now

edit: also if you have difficulty geting enough in with just eating. Add supplemental shakes. They worked wonders for me because im not a big eater. So I just CANT eat that much, shakes changed everything.

[mwglow15]

@Boysey95

races are a no go for my confidence and if I can’t be at the pointy end in fast group rides races would be a step above.

IMO, group ride performance and race performance don’t always correlate. Especially in my area (urban, super hilly) the group rides are very different to most of the races. Not only does the open road part of it play into my personal risk/reward equation but they are just races and ridden differently.

Also, keep in mind that most A group fast group rides are going to be composed of a decent amount of Cat 1-3 racers. If you started racing you’d be racing against Cat 4-5s. It’s like getting to high school and being dropped on the varsity football team instead of the freshman team.

As for the fueling, it does seem like you could benefit from eating more. Both on the bike and in general.

@Boysey95

am on TRT but the expected increases in mass, recovery and strength haven’t really presented themselves yet.

I’m sure you know this but Testosterone by itself won’t cause those things to happen. You still need carbs, protein, etc to build mass and strength. Higher T helps make those things more effective but if you’re underfueling you’ve just turbo charged your engine but not given it more fuel. You gotta increase the fuel flow to match the engine’s power potential.

[ArHu74]

With an FTP of 248W (assuming aiftp is correctly but imho that’s a big if) and a weight of 64.5kg you won’t be the fastest rider but you should be at around the top 25-35%, plenty of faster riders around you but even more slower riders. Is your bike in order (fast race tyres at the correct pressure, proper drive train, no rubbing brakes, is your position aero enough, is your gear nice, tight and aero??

[Boysey95]

I think the position could be faster definitely, feels less aero than it could be. I also don’t think my power transfer is as maximal as it could be with the current position.

[AlphaDogCycling]

Assuming for the moment that generally you are fit enough compared to the group, do find some of the early TR Podcasts on YouTube where they analyze Nate’s race performance, and then apply this same rigor to your group ride performance.

Are you getting dropped consistently on late, short (e.g., 1 or 2 minute) efforts? Mid length efforts? Can you hang at these same wattage levels early in the ride, but not late in the ride? Are these efforts simply more than you can do fresh?

Without really understanding the situation where you are getting dropped makes it hard to provide useful advice

[OreoCookie]

@Boysey95

I eat about 30-40g per hour on the bike but still feel I’m lacking that ‘get up and go’ on the bike despite being a lighter rider than many in my cycling group.

@Boysey95

I’m neither fastest up the hill la nor strongest on the flat.
My Body fat is very low to be honest. I’d guess around 7-10%

Let me start zoomed in and then progressively zoom out.

Fueling
If you already feel you are zapped for energy, alarm bells should go off.

First off, you are under fueling to a significant degree. The general recommendation these days is 90–120 g/h. I’d fuel every single workout, even recovery workouts. You don’t need to fuel recovery rides with 120 g/h, but you should take in something. The absolute minimum I’d use is 60–80 g/h, which is a factor of 2 more.

But lack of energy could be a broader problem. Your body fat percentage is very, very low, so I’d look into whether you are taking in enough calories, period. Given with your history of orthorexia, this is definitely something you might want to tackle with a professional.

But to give you one point of anecdata that I have heard from e. g. Chad and Amber is that increasing your weight and body fat percentage might make you stronger. I was at my strongest when I was weighing a few kilos more.

At my lightest, 71.5 kg, my FTP was around 322 W if memory serves, so 4.5 W/kg. During Covid I decided to put on a little weight to make myself a bit more robust against illness and I peaked at 348 W, which corresponded to 4.7 W/kg at 74 kg.

Are you recovering/can you handle your training and your group rides?
Another point is recovery: hard group rides = hard workout, and if you don’t plan that in (or skip them!), then you compromise your training. Training more ≠ becoming faster, that’s only true if you can recover.

Why are you training in the first place? Are you comparing yourself to the right people?
You can find group rides with people that are substantially stronger than you and they will drop you, period. Put another way, you can compare yourself to the best of the best, locally, and fall short.

So maybe take a step back and ask yourself why you are doing all of this training in the first place? In my mind, unless you are having specific race goals, health should be a primary factor. Structured workouts and structured training are doing wonders for my mental health, for example.

[NealeH]

Some great info from folks much more qualified/experienced to answer than myself, but this was the info that stood out for me:

“…I try to eat very healthily, a lot of veggies with a portion of carbs with every meal. I partake in frequent but not excessively intense weight training around my mid volume TR plan. I eat about 30-40g per hour on the bike …”

OP, as others have said, way underfuelled on the bike. The other thing is that I saw zero mention of protein in your post, ensure you are getting enough, you’re on a MV plan and adding weight training, you absolutely need ensure you are getting enough to reap the training benefits. This in turn is going to bring an improvement w.r.t. ‘mass, strength, recovery, body image’ etc etc…

You talk also about the ramp up in training intensity. Are you answering the post-workout surveys accurately? I had a tendency to underestimate how each felt, and this could affect the ramp rate. Now I click the ‘?’ each time before answering and ask myself honestly. I’m answering a lot more ‘Productive’ VO2 and threshold workouts as ‘very hard’, which they should be IMHO if your progression levels are correct.

You’ve got this

[ArHu74]

@NealeH

You talk also about the ramp up in training intensity. Are you answering the post-workout surveys accurately? I had a tendency to underestimate how each felt, and this could affect the ramp rate. Now I click the ‘?’ each time before answering and ask myself honestly. I’m answering a lot more ‘Productive’ VO2 and threshold workouts as ‘very hard’, which they should be IMHO if your progression levels are correct.

Trainer road falls a bit short with how it implements rpe, to few options and no suggestion. I use a different app rpe goes from 2-10, before the ride ends I pick a range (eg 4-5) my app suggests 7, I pick the closest in my pre-determined range, so 5. Imho It is much harder in trainer road because of the lack of granularity…

[NealeH]

IMO, TrainerRoad intentionally keeps it simple with the 5 options. Yes, sometimes I find myself flip-flopping between 2, but just end up picking whichever is the closest and moving on. It does have suggestions in the app, I click on the ? and it gives guidelines for making each choice.