They’ve patched it now, essentially using a high-tech tubeless repair kit.

@beej – GWS, but thanks for the mental image of some bloke stabbing an anchovy through your rib cage 😉

Incidentally, how do you work out your actual maximum heart rate? – I know that the theoretical max is 220 – age (which doesn’t add up to my experience, being 57 and reasonably ok with going over 163)

Incidentally, how do you work out your actual maximum heart rate?

A few options here…

https://www.cycling-inform.com/how-to-test-for-your-cycling-max-heart-rate

The 220 – age is just one of a set of formulae that supposedly predict your max heart rate. Unfortunately they are all just guesswork and might approximate the true figure for many people but equally they’ll be completely inaccurate for many more, they are for me.

I’m 60 so 220-age should give an MHR of 160. Somewhat odd then that I can sit at 177bpm for at least two minutes. Based on that I suspect my true MHR is in the 185-190 territory, I’ve never actually properly tested it. Working out my HR zones on 160 is going to give significantly different values to those based on 185.

I am also increasingly tired all the time at 41.

Last bit about sleep – have a read of “Why we Sleep” by Matthew Walker.

There’s a high correlation (but not necessarily causation) between sleeping for short durations (< 7hrs) and poor health.

It’s a great fascinating book but some people genuinely just can’t sleep for 8 hours. I lie down for 8-9 hours in the hope of 8 but average about 6. Recently been wide awake after 4 or 5 hours several times a week which suuuuucks.

Using a sleep app I have discovered I have what I guess might be sleep apnea, which probably doesn’t help.

I felt exactly the same way after becoming a parent at the ripe old age of 36. Looking back it was to do with sleep disturbance and probably a poor diet (too many microwave meals as my life was turned upside down by the new addition to the family). For the most part it was down to sleep disturbance though.
I do sympathise as it is quite dispiriting if you think that your body should be capable of more than it is when doing the thing you enjoy.

My sleep pattern is much better now and I feel that my energy levels are where they should be (for someone with a desk job)

Drink enough water. What do you define as an ok diet? If u eat alot of carbs that can make u feel sluggish esp if white bread.
U say you have you g kids so maybe you have a viral bug as kids can bring stuff like that back from school etc
But again your 48 but not drastically old but like me it does affect tiredness.

I know you said you dont want to pay for fuel, but i would ditch bike commute for a while. You may even get more sleep if your cimmute is faster by car. You can get up later and be home earlier for your chores.
That way you may be more rested. Cime ogf the beer and try hard to eat fresh veg and no orocessed food.
I second the tv…sometimes its good to unwund. Sometumes its a habit that sucks your will to live.
Vitamin supplements may help too.
Ian

I’m 46 and I have the same knackered feeling from time to time.

As I understand it, when blokes get older you start losing muscle mass and testosterone production slows.

If you go down the gym and do some weights and a load of press ups you’ll increase your muscle mass and your testosterone, and feel better. But not the day after the gym, that will hurt for a while. Strength training will help, channel your inner Rock.

This worked for me.

I know you aren’t quite there yet but….. I recommend reading “Fast After 50: How to Race Strong for the Rest of Your Life” by Joe Friel. There’s a lot in there that will help you understand yourself better. My hunch is you are doing too much and you can’t recover properly in between. As we age we need to pay attention to that recovery time.

I’m 60 so 220-age should give an MHR of 160

It’s 220 – AGE plus or minus 20. Everyone ignores the prediction interval. You are one of the 19/20 that is well-prdicted.

TBH in all the years that it’s been bandied about I’ve never seen the prediction interval (nor have I for any of the other formulae). plus/minus 20bpm is a chuffin’ huge range and makes the formula even more worthless on which to base any HR zones, you might as well pin a tail on a donkey!

Err, last I checked 185 was a little bit more than 160 + 20, that puts me in the 1/20 that isn’t well predicted (wildly guessed).

Fill your boots. Here’s one:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935487/

Standard error of the estimate is 12bpm. Double that is plus or minus 24bpm. The population mean is 220-age. But everyone ignores the prediction interval.

Want more?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Max+Heart+rate+age+prediction+220&sort=date&size=10

There is an apparent linear(ish) decline in max heart rate with age, that may be offset in trained athletes. But whilst the slope may be about 1 bpm/yr, there is variability in both that slope and the intercept (220). A mixed effects model is better, but Fix was in the 70s

The most obvious thing to do (for me anyway) would be to take some time off the bike for a few weeks. Rest up a bit. Then start up again and see how you feel. Christmas seems the ideal time to do that.

Mince pie anyone?

Fair enough but the last paragraph of the conclusion from the first link states:

In conclusion, our results fail to validate the effectiveness of either of the two most widely used age-based HRmax prediction equations in sedentary, healthy adults. These results suggest that it may be very difficult, perhaps even impossible, to predict with a low SEE HRmax from age. They stress the importance of finding and validating other measures to be used in exercise prescriptions for the determination of intensity of exercise, the estimation of fitness levels, and as a criterion for achieving maximal exertion.

Basically the age related formulae are next to useless as the standard error is too great. Want to know your HR zones? Do a valid test and work them out from there.

The OP doesn’t actually need to know his exact HR zones he can determine top end HR zone2 by simply being able to hold a conversation, any harder than that and he’ll be speaking in short bursts.

A friend and I are both 50, so theoretical max hr of 170. From ramp tests mine is 183 and his 207!

Woody – also 48. My max heart rate is 192 at the moment.

Yep, 49 here are clocked 193 the other day. I generally try to get a high HR on my commute, just to maximise calorie burn…

Some max HR graphs, shows that the crude formulas are only best fit lines to very noisy data. NB The only reason 220-age is still used is because the maths is simple; it 50 years old and no longer recommended.

https://theskepticalcardiologist.com/tag/hr-max/

Cheers all, definitely some food for thought. I’ve got a decent Xmas break which won’t involve much riding so I’ll see how I feel in the new year. I pegged it right back yesterday coming home, to the point where I felt I was going backwards at times. That gave me an average HR of 136 and a max of 156, it is a lot less hilly on the way home however (I work at the top of a big hill, so roughly 1000 ft of climbing on the way in, 750 on the way home).

🙂

It’s the Christmas malaise, it happens every winter. Come spring and summer you’ll be bouncing around like a new born lamb again