Fighting fatigue

It's the end of the week; feeling a bit tired on a Friday morning is normal, and we look forwards to a rest at the weekend. Except the weekend is my chance to get in a couple of long training rides. The last few days have been hard. Late nights, a long train ride, intervals, push ups and crunches, and last night was swimming club.

In swimming, technique is critical, but I'm still fairly poor. Compensating with fitness can only take you so far, particularly when your main sport - cycling - requires muscular legs and a relatively light upper body. My arms and shoulders still lack strength, and the heavy legs make it harder to stay flat in the water.

Last night, it really hit me. As soon as I started the warm up, my arms felt heavy. I'd done my hardest ever interval session on the bike the night before, producing 5-minute power/weight that puts me in the cat 5 racer level (nothing special!) - a personal best. I'd also done the latest instalment of the push-ups and sit ups programmes. I struggled through the entire session, and by the finish when we were doing pull (arms only front crawl) breathing every 7th stroke (!) I was worn out, and in some kind of hypoxia-and-endorphin induced "zone". Then we went to the pub, and then I had to cycle home (quite slowly by now).

This morning of course I was tired. My hr sitting at my desk was 90bpm. Normally I'd expect my resting hr to be no more than 60, and sometimes below 50. Today is a rest day: I cycle to work in a gale, walk to the cafe (where I'm writing this) at lunchtime, and hope that the wind has dropped a bit by hometime. Tomorrow's training will be lower intensity, unless my hr remains elevated, in which case more rest is indicated.

Overtraining syndrome could ruin my season, so I'm monitoring my fatigue levels carefully. It's normal to be fatigued after hard training. When the fatigue continues day after day, it's time to take action.


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Location:Milton Rd,Cambridge,United Kingdom