I did the Santa Clarita century on Saturday. I finished it, but in terrible pain. Both my chaffs felt blown out, my right one especially. I have done hard climbs, long distances before, so I can’t figure out for the life of me why this one was so painful. I did it with some friends, they all finished hurting but okay, I usually end stronger than they do on long hill climbs, even on our long endurance rides. I guessing I was just having a bad day. But what I’m wondering is if there might be something happening to me internally that I can’t see? Could it be excess lactic acid build up? Some kind of muscle fatigue? I tapered 3 days before this event, whereas one of my buddies road an excess of 4 days, with nearly 150 miles of riding. What the hell am I doing wrong with my training? It’s driving me nuts.
All I can think of is that you changed something in your position or bike setup. Either intentionally or UN-intentionally. Can you think of anything? Or maybe you trained really hard and the tapering off over 3 days allowed your body to try and "over rest" to make up for it. Kind of like in the Grand Tours, the riders hate the days off as their bodies start to make up for the overload they've been putting down. Try and backtrack your week prior to the race. Looking at your buddies performance will only drive you crazy. Or to drink. oh. Did you drink enough Beer?
I've done hundreds of centuries over 30 double centuries and a triple. So I'll try to help out a little. Number one rule in my book for a ride consisting of anything over 70 miles is PACE. If you ride to long out of what you've been training at or even if you're going to hard even though it may have been less then what you training at, you'll pay in pain. I'm also not a fan of tapering. It may work for some but I believe not most. Tapering down a little is fine but for me I have to keep the mileage up but take the tempo down a little. It works different for almost everyone. Experiment and try doing some shorter rides with experimentation and you'll find what works for you. Pay attention to nutrition.
Yet another opinion...fit. I had some big problems with my Achilles/calf area when I started doing long rides. A professional fitting from The Physical Edge in Arcaida solved all my problems. Jason is a great guy. He is fit both of my road bikes. Ended up I needed to move my saddle back a few millimeters. The fitting isn't cheap ($200) but it allows me to spend 8 hours plus on a bike. Sure beats 8 hours at the office. You might also try moving your cleats back.
To answer this you really need to provide more information. Whats wrong with your training? Well, we dont know what your training was. Whats wrong with your nutrition? Dont know that either. Sounds to me like you did not properly train and you did not use proper nutrition throughout the event. Hard to say really since we dont know much about what you were doing.
Your saddle might be too high; causing you to over work your calves since your foot is too extended at the bottom of your pedal stroke. A quality bike fit will fix this. As for tapering; your body needs 7-10 days to adequately absorb hard training. Your taper ahould be that long and even longer for longer distance events: Ironman athletes will taper for up to two weeks! Last, I have no idea what your training is like, but make sure you're taking it easy every 3rd or 4th week to give your body rest and time to heal all the microdamage training does to your muscles. Hope that helps. Eric
Hey, I rode the Santa Clarita century as well! The head wind was a bit of a bummer, but I really enjoyed the course. I also recommend the bike fit thing, even though I have yet to get one. I hurt more in my knees (couple ACL reconstructions) after/during long road rides than I ever do during or after long MTB rides. This past Saturday was no different; knee pain in my left knee from mile 65 on. I hurt less on the climbs than trying to push a big gear on the flats.
:lol:, nope. But I did after the race! I didn't train much on the road, I took spin classes since it was rainning ever day. I now know I shot myself in the head with my nutrition. I know it was more than 75% of my failure. That head wind sucked major balls! 25 miles of it in the begining. Did you know they posted on their website, that it was unusually windy. Unusually? That wind was nasty, and the crosswind was worse. Other than that, it was a great ride except the newhall pass was a bit hairy.
I used to ride in Boulder, CO back in the day and we would get monster headwinds coming out of the mountains. It turns flats and some downhill grades to uphills. I never got it in the calf but my lower back would be spun for riding aero for so long and with so much torque. As they say, when all else fails its easier to blame nature.
I know I drank plenty of water the week leading up to the event. I think I might have drank too much water during the event at the water stops.
The spin classes were the cause. You couldn't adapt to the different crank lengths and probably the "fixie" difference.
You could be right, those classes felt liked they kicked my ass. It probably didn't help I was taking spin class 4 days a week prior to the race.
