[Closed] What's going on with my commuting times?

Tyre pressures? 🙂

Tiredness?

you enjoy your ride home.. you're not mashing your [s]snarling discontent[/s] [b]anxiety[/b] out through your pedals..

Hill?

change in prevailing wind conditions??

Who gives a shiz

This happens to me, for me it was a combination of not enough food or recovery time

Could be food. I'm often quite hungry on my way home. I will eat before I set off if I'mm planning on going fast.
Plus, a days sitting down doing hard work can make you quite tired.

Is your commute a race, a TT perhaps?

It's always a race. At the very least, a race against me yesterday.

I'll always have an apple or some carrots and homous 30 minutes before heading home. It could be food but that routine hasn't changed. The hills a slightly in favour of the ride to work but they've always been like that. I'd like to think the extra mileage/effort of all this commuting is the reason I'm getting faster on the way in. Just don't know why the ride home is getting slower.

I guess it could be recovery time. I'm surprised that an 8 hour day isn't enough to recover from a sub 30 minute effort though.

And I'm watching the cadence both ways so I don't mash gears. Normally around 100 rpm, try not to drop below 90, never drop below 80 and sometimes hit 140 on the sprinty bits.

Don't always ride the same pace. Ride slowly Monday, Wednesday and Friday; go balls out on the way home on Tuesday and do lots of short maximum sprints on Thursday. See if that helps 🙂

Oh, and do your fast work in the evenings, make every morning a slow one. Make sure you eat an hour before leaving for home too.

Cheers, might give that a try. Mate of mine is always telling me I don't know how to ride slowly!

Yeah - mixing it up is very good for your legs.

Yep... maybe you're knackering yourself out in the morning.

Do you have a heart rate monitor? If so I suspect you'll find your HR will be lower on these slower return rides, which can indicate fatigue.

How far is your commute and do you do the same route every time?

Nothing to add to the above, but my ****yphone tracking thing tells me that my ride to work has no downhill at all and 150m climbing in just 3.5 yummy Devon miles. So not so suprising that with traffic lights being 'average', my getting home time is about 60% of my going to work one.

Yeah - mixing it up is very good for your legs.

Why's that?

(Genuine query)

Your body does all sorts of different things at different intensities and durations. As does your brain and nervous system.

If you only ever do the same thing in terms of pace and time, you'll just train that one system, and when it comes to do something else you brain and nervous system will automatically tend to make you do what they are used to.

Right.

I need to look into fitness in more depth I think. Been at a bit of a plateau for a year or so now. Won't hijack Onza's thread. Might be some more threads on the subject coming from me!

Feel free to highjack. I don't use a hrm on the bike but do check it occasional mornings. It's typically around 45. The route to work is just over 8 miles and I don't really vary it. As it's short, I just try to cane it in and out while keeping the revs up.

That used to be exactly what my commute was like. I find I was just tiring myself out and getting slower. It's worth riding slower and doing some longer routes home sometimes.

The route to work is just over 8 miles and I don't really vary it. As it's short, I just try to cane it in and out while keeping the revs up.

8 miles... you should be caning it!

I find if I ride into to work 29miles each way it generally takes 10-15mins longer on the way back normally due to be tired/not eaten enough in the day.. plus tends to be headwinds on the way home and traffic is different

best time in so far was 1hr 23mins cadence av 96 and max 139 (it is a single speed)

on the way back av cadence drops to 90 and the max drops to 130

I'd definitely recommend mixing up the routes as well.

Not only will it make it a bit more interesting mentally, you'll get more benefit training yourself for longer distances.

My two regular routes are 11.3 and 13.3 miles but with minor adjustments I can easily add another couple of miles to each and still comfortably keep the trip under an hour.

Otherwise I have six or so other routes that vary between 15 and 50 miles. On Fridays I try and do a long distance trip (30+ miles) either in or on the way home.

99% of my commuting is on road bikes but I do on occasion ride an mtb on't one of my road routes.

My commute home was always faster, depite the precieved effort being lower and work was ~50m lower than home.

My reasoning was:
*The 5 miles closest to work were flood plain and the steepest hills were in the other 10 miles nearer home so I was always fighting myself up the hills in the morning without properly warming up.

*I ate bucket loads of crap all day to compensate for burning 900-1000 calories each morning/evening so the morning was probably done on healthy food, the afternon was regulalry powered by a family bag of Harribo, a packet of jammy dodgers and a few ice creams.

*I'm not a morning person, so was generaly more 'awake' in the evenings.

This was back in the days when I was fit and had no idea about training so did every ride balls out and never got any faster as a result 🙁

You fancy someone at work more than the Mrs? 😉

I'll always have an apple or some carrots and homous 30 minutes before heading home

Try giving the hippy food a miss, you'll get more energy from a large sausage or chocolate bar.

Most of the above makes sense, not wholly convinced about the chocolate sausage...

I'm always slower home due to headwind, over-all height gain and doing a physical job = I'm more knackered. Hydration also makes a big difference. Making sure I keep well hydrated all day rather than forgetting + necking a load before heading home makes allot of difference.