Cycling Career Saved

 

My last post was about how my back problems had negatively impacted my cycling. It concluded with the question "Is this the end of my second cycling career?" Although I continue to suffer from my back problems and although it continues to impact my ability to get things done, the good news is that I have managed to restart my cycling - my second cycling career has been saved. However, I am still not back to normal. In particular, despite the fact that I have drafts written for three or four future posts, I haven't had the energy to complete any of them, so decided that I shouild write a quick, short update as to how I am doing, and here it is.

Two posts ago I described a new approach to tracking my riding over time, converting the heart rate data from my TranyaGo Sports Watch into Load and then using the Banister model to estimate my Fitness, Fatigue, and Form. As shown in the graph at the top of this post, I have been tracking this for about a year now. The green line at the bottom of the graph shows the Load of each individual ride, a combination of how long the ride is in minutes and an Intensity value calculated from my average heart rate during the ride. The blue line is the Banister estimate of my underlying Fitness, a good estimate of my training progress. The yellow line is the Banister estimate of my Form, how I actually feel given both my level of Fitness and the Fatigue that resulted from the training I did to develop that Fitness. I do not separately plot Fatigue as I have not found it helpful to do so. I watch the yellow line to make sure I am not training too much and the blue line to see if I am making progress.

So now to the topic at hand. The space between the red lines on the graph above delineates the time interval that led to the dire predictions of my last post. The good news is that since then, my riding has returned to a more normal level. My Fitness is not back to where it was before this break in my cycling, but it is on target to get there.

Looking at the graph reveals that this was not the only time interval during the last year where my Fitness decreased significantly. What made this one different? It was that each of the previous decreases had an explanation, something transitory that, when it went away should allow me to regain my Fitness. Back in October, the decrease resulted from the normal, planned recovery after a Metric Century. In November, it was a case of the flu. In March it was extreme weather.  By contrast, the slump indicated by the red lines in the graph above seemed to come out of nowhere. When I finally came up with an hypothesis to explain it (issues related to my back) there didn't seem to be any reason to think they would go away. Finally, it was the largest slump of the year.

But the slump did end, my cycling did recover. What changed?

1. As noted in my last post, I reduced the strength building exercises for my back from seven days a week to four days a week. (I consulted with my therapist before doing so.)
2. I think those strength building exercises have worked and as a result that the same exercises are making me less tired.
3. Similarly, my physical therapy is working so that I experience less back pain than I used to. I think the pain itself caused fatigue, so reducing that pain increased my energy levels as well.

As I said above, I am still not back to normal. If you look carefully at the graph at the top of the post, there is a short relapse in my cycling during my most recent six weeks. All it took to create this relapse was a modest increase in my babysitting and an overnight house guest. I am much more fragile than I used to be. However, I now have hope, I can see a path forward.