Evening all,

Can anyone who’s experienced in doing really long rides advise me on recovery times.

I did a ride on Saturday that was long and fast (just short of 10 hours riding time at 19mph average).

I’m supposed to be riding tonight but feel shattered still.

How long should I expect to take to feel energized again after Saturday? I would have thought 3 days would be enough?

Not felt like this before on the back of a big ride…

I’m mid 30s (I know how old you are affects recovery times a lot).

Thanks

Depends on fitness, food, energy levels, weather, what your recovery process was, illness and a random factor so I’ll make some assumptions and go 2 days 21hrs and 12 minutes….
Sound OK?

It’s not even the same for me between rides of similar length let alone between two different people. Too many factors but listen to your body, if you feel awful take it easy, pushing yourself too far won’t end well!

Age, fitness etc. Took me a month to feel like riding any distance after doing SDW in a day when I was 40.

Have you got any sort of training plan and / or training goal(s)?

You have to start the recovery before you finish the ride. I took 2 Torq recovery drinks while riding the South Downs Way last Saturday/Sunday and I’ve been cycling to work every single day which also speeds up recovery. I feel ok but not at my best obviously. This weekend I’m riding 500km on the mtb over 3 days but I don’t expect to break any speed record! I’ve done lots of long distance rides/races this past 2 years and that helps. Keep the blood flowing!

How often do you do rides of that length?

+1 on listen to your body.

50 here,think Im still recovering from Ard Rock 😯 😀 and supposedly have Tweedlove King & Queen this weekend, for some reason I thought it was next week 🙄

10 hours riding hard is quite a big one – much more than a 10hr bimble.
Depends how fresh you were going in to it, the size of your base and how you recover.
For me, it’d take 1-2 weeks, but my recovery speed is slowish.

As an approximate rule of thumb,i find 1 day recovery per hr @ race pace fits quite well.

Let’s take a look at the graph…

6 days after Mallorca 312 (12 hours) my TSB on Training Peaks went back to positive.

5 days for Marmotte.

For week long stuff it’s taken a couple of weeks until I’ve felt good again.

Also depends how used you are to riding for that sort of duration

About as long as a piece of string. That ride sounds hard so I’d say you’d be ok for easy rides in a few days but anything harder could be a week or longer.

Last year I did a 700km ride. 2 weeks later I was happy out doing a century and climbing hills steadily but I tried to do a 25TT mid week and was well off the pace, equally I couldn’t climb as fast when racing others. I think it took me a month to get properly racing fit again.

If you feel tired keep resting. Go on a recovery ride. You can check your resting heart rate. If it is elevated you are not recovered.

As others have said, it depends on a lot of factors. A 24hr race and I’m fine a day or two later. I’m still feeling slightly jaded after the HT550 at the end of May but it’s not consistent as I managed a big PB at the YD300 at the beginning of July and felt OK then. I’d not “raced” for five straight days before so it (the HT550) was a new experience for me.

Rode last night. Felt shattered, have woken up today feeling better rested than yesterday.

Think the answer was about 4 days in this situation. Thanks all for the input.

the more you ride the faster you recover. Ride MOARRRRR!!!!

Raced the National 12hr TT on Sunday (22.3 mph average), going to do a masters circuit race tonight. Legs feel OK, back is a little sunburned! So two whole days off the bike – not even some light spinning.

50 in 10 days 🙂

Hoping for a BIG training boost for my Albi race taper – along with the food and wine loading.

What does the free Stravistix “Multisport Fitness Trend” say (presuming you used a HRM)?

10 hours at 19mph average? Jesus wept! I can barely do that for ~20 miles of pretty flat riding. 👿

I hope that you are competing in TT’s or Crits if you can avaerage 19mph for 10hrs
If you are not you certainly should be .

I think I’m generally quite fit, but its taken me 8 weeks to get over the last big ride and I only now feel like I have any pop in my legs… I have tried filling them with beer, pies, curry and chocolate (not ready to try a pizza yet)

I hope that you are competing in TT’s or Crits if you can avaerage 19mph for 10hrs
If you are not you certainly should be .

Nope never done one. I’m trying to get my watts per kg higher before attempt that sort of thing (got a thread going on this 5w/kg).

I was in a group of 6 and shared the load so it wasn’t a solo effort. Still bloomin hurt though!

Few people asked how often I do rides of that duration…. errrr once before I think which was on the mtb around hope Valley and did about 50 miles of very up and very down on the big bike. Long rides are normally about 5 hours for me.

One thing that’s been really noticeable is I can’t stop eating still since this ride!

@robcolliver – your big ride was considerably longer than what most might consider a long ride though 😀

You failed to mention group of 6 at first!
Had us all thinking it was a monster hero ride and it was really a glorified bimble! 😉

Oh, in a group of six, so ~15mph if alone? 😉

Lol. It was no chain gang, definitely more than a bimble… last 85 miles had a 15 mph headwind and was spent with hr at 160bpm (max is 186).

I did a ride on Saturday that was long and fast (just short of 10 hours riding time at 19mph average).

Are we talking hilly?

If you’re not used to doing long rides it’s going to take a fair while to get used to them and then recover from them.

Last year @ Mayhem I didn’t ride a bike for 3 weeks after and then it was just 2 weeks of bimbling on holiday.

This year I rode my lad to school on the Monday afterwards and he dropped me on a climb (he’s 5) !! But then again I raced XC 2 1/2 weeks later and felt pretty good, preceded by a couple of medium length steady rides.