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The Post-Ride Nap

07.31.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

napIt started a few years ago. I’d come home from a ride, especially one of our Sunday morning club events, shower, eat…and soon, I’d be on the bed, dead to the world.

My post-ride nap was a refreshing interlude.

Now, this from a guy who has never really napped in his life. I tend to sleep very little — maybe 5-6 hours overnight, and I can function just fine. If I ever did feel tired during the day and I made an effort to take a nap, it never worked. I just stared at the ceiling.

So when I started napping after longish bike rides, it came as a bit of a surprise to me. My wife joked that nothing would get done around the house until late in the afternoon, because I’d be conked anywhere from one to three hours. In fact, she found it a bit exasperating after awhile, because sometimes the lawn wouldn’t get mowed, or the edges wouldn’t get trimmed, or some other chore that I normally did on Sunday afternoons didn’t get done.

Of course, anyone who does nap at all is aware that you can overdo it. If I’m down for three hours in the middle of the day, I’m not one hundred percent afterwards. A little bit of drowsy clings to me. I walk through the rest of the day in a bit of a fog, and I’m not really alert until well into the evening.

But lately, my post-ride nap on Sundays has spread over all my ride days. I can do an easy 20-25 miler close to home, and I’m out. In fact, every time I ride, I can count on at least a short snooze.

Over the past two days, I sneaked in a short mountain bike ride after getting home from work. Just about an hour, on single track trails in the neighborhood. Not particularly hard work, although I know that I work twice as hard on my mountain bike as I do on my road bike. Our family routine has us watching the TV show “Jeopardy” from 4-5 p.m., then news, then some other syndicated fare. I don’t sleep through all of it, but now I’m sleeping through some of it — sitting upright in my chair in front of the TV. These naps last only 15 minutes or so, but I might get in two with some awake time in between.

Now, I look forward to my naps. Unless I’m down for a couple of hours, I wake up rested and refreshed. I know I wouldn’t be able to do that without the bike ride to prompt my body in that direction.

Do you nap sometimes, always, or never after rides?

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Categories // fitness Tags // napping

Why I Bike

04.29.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

Maybe you’ve already seen this one. If so, my apologies. But I thought it nicely summed up why I bike. (Or why I like to think I bike.)

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Categories // fitness, food, training Tags // food

Use It Or Lose It

11.10.2013 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

Not riding much lately, and I can really feel it. Not as fast, way less endurance.One of the side effects my kitchen remodeling project is having — besides disrupting our meals and our household routines — is its effect on my cycling. Often, when I would expect to head out for an hour or so, I’ve had to scrap the ride to be at home when the carpenters or painters were in. Although my wife runs her business from our home office, she spends time nearly every day out of the house, making sales calls or running events. My riding has effectively been cut back to Saturdays and Sundays only.

Perhaps that wouldn’t be a big deal, but on Saturday’s ride, I could really feel it. I chose a neighborhood route that would net about 19-20 miles. It’s mostly a flat route, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Whenever I did try to put some effort into my pedaling, nothing happened. On the Veloway, where I push it in a couple of sections, I was halfway through those sections before I realized I wasn’t pushing.

A glance at my bike computer showed my average speed for the route was well below my usual. And to top it all off, a feeling of tiredness washed over me. I couldn’t wait to wrap up the ride and head home.

My poor performance could be ascribed to a variety of causes. My diet lately is terrible, since we’re getting take out for dinner every night. My weight hasn’t suffered as much as I thought it would — I’ve gained three pounds — but the food isn’t doing much to build my reserves. My hours have been thrown off because of the remodeling project, and I’ve been getting about an hour’s less sleep than I should. And finally, as I alluded to a few posts ago, I’m just not riding as much.

The lesson is: Use it or lose it. The falloff in my riding has caused me to lose my certain level of performance. Not that I’m fast or anything — I’m not, as regular readers of this blog know well — but to feel that I’m putting out more effort on gentle hills, and climb them even slower, hurts.

What’s the cure? That’s easy — ride. I got out early for my Sunday morning ride. This was done solo, because I had to be home earlier than the club ride would get me there. It was much hillier than the Saturday ride. And you know what? I attacked the hills with verve. I shifted one gear higher on the flats, and got up out of the saddle to get a good start.

The good news is — even with a period of sub-par performance, getting back to normal is fairly easy to do. I’m looking forward to better riding in the weeks to come.

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Categories // fitness, training Tags // training

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