Rewind.
Stop.
Play.
NEVER RIDE HARD ON TIRED LEGS. NEVER. EVER.
This absolute core principle of intelligent training is repeated mantra-like by most of us. And all too often ignored. But do so at your peril, be you race teamer or serious fitness rider.
Who says? Well, everyone. Including Scott Saifer, the Head Coach at Wenzel Coaching, a nationwide apparatus of pro cycling and assorted other endurance sport coaches for riders of all abilities. It matters not your personal position in the Portland Velo food chain 'cuz the maxim is absolute: NEVER RIDE HARD ON TIRED LEGS.
"Riding hard when your body is not ready for it is a bad habit for several reasons," says Saifer. "Riding OTHER THAN RECOVERY (my caps) when you are already tired makes you more tired WITHOUT MAKING YOU FASTER, and delays the time when you will be able to do quality riding again."
Get it?
You DON'T become a stronger, faster rider by bludgeoning the crap out of your legs ride after ride after ride. Riding hard 2, 3, 4, whatever days in a row isn't just extremely unpleasant, it's flat-out stupid. Putting the hammer down on rides you go into with legs already aching makes you very, very good at going hard——without going fast. Who in hell would want to do that? Oh, yeah. An "Animal".
I bring this up to offset the possibly seriously damaging effects of a story The Oregonian ran last Sunday on some guy called the "Big Dog" who believes that every ride has to be some sort of gasping, grunting, squinty-eyed, snot-flying-out-your-nose, gray-viscous-drool-burbling-out-your-lips penance or, you know, it just don't count. You gotta SUFFER, man. On the ride you're currently doing. And the one after that, and the one after that, and so on, in perpetuity. A recovery ride? Ha! Day off? Anathema!
And when your body eventually breaks down into a tortured stew of ripped muscles and fractured bones and you're running a 102 fever? Well, hell, get out and ride as hard as you can, of course! Hurt? Exhausted? Sick? So what? Ride harder! I mean, you got no cojones, or what?
Freakin' wimp.
Okay, so how, exactly, are we defining "tired"? Simple, says Saifer. Not really subjective at all. "My (most successful) clients have learned to go easy on any day they feel ANYTHING BUT TOTALLY EXCELLENT (my caps)." These riders (let's call them The Few, The Smart, The Speedy) "progress faster than other riders who go hard for various reasons OTHER THAN BEING READY AND KNOWING THEY AREN'T. Bad reasons, Saifer says, include wanting to set a new PR on a training loop; slavishly sticking to a laid-out-weeks-in-advance training plan; wanting desperately to "keep up" on a group training ride regardless of how you feel; letting your glands and your ego override wisdom, judgment, and patience.
Moreover, counsels Saifer, it's the recovery days that allow you to take lively legs into your hard rides and really amp it up. And THIS is where you get faster and stronger, how you develop, in Saifer's words, "the ability to ride fast without riding hard, and then the ability to ride tremendously fast when riding hard."
All of this holds true for all of us, from the 17s up through H/N'ers and the race team. Every ride need not be a blood-letting.