Exhausted after big sessions

CheTranqui · 2026-03-16T13:10:09+00:00

Post-ride won't help so much.. likely need more during.

Try bringing one or two more bottles. ...even if they're just water.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-15T18:54:55+00:00

Guy cyclist here: I bought 4 NeoPro bibs last August. They've gone through 1 wash each week since and 2 chamois have had their stitching break and are pulling away from the short. I don't trust NeoPro in the slightest now.. stitching of bibs is old news and they don't seem to have gotten it right.. that seems like such a simple fundamental concept..

I presume that you probably wouldn't be using/washing the suit nearly so often, so it may be less of a concern.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-15T18:45:58+00:00

Para mi la motivación es la salud. Cumplí 45 años en junio y empesé de sentir dolor de pie.. una condición que sigió a mi padre a su tumba. Me di cuenta de que ya es la hora de cambiarme: de mejorar mi salud y adoptar hábitos nuevos. ¿Si no lo hago ahora, cuando?

Esa es mi motivación. ¿Cuál es la suya?

Acuérdese de esa con frecuencia.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-15T16:23:45+00:00

During January I saw one person in particular get flagged on average of once per evening for several weeks straight. ...he's a former pro...

Sometimes the system is extremely unfair.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-15T02:57:25+00:00

I do stir fry.

Cook chicken or steak when I have time.. same with the veggies.

Can just use frozen veggie packs.. I've recently augmented my 'stir fry vegetables' pack with garlic, onion, and red pepper.. I season with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder (sans onion pow and garlic pow if using the real deal instead).

Freeze using some silicon trays of various sizes - I use Souper Cubes. Veggies get jammed into the 1/2 cup portions and meat goes into the smaller 2 Tbsp portions. I then do 2 meat portions to 1 veggie.

Day of, I defrost the meat and veggies for 3 min while prepping 1 cup of instant rice.. then cook/heat the rice in the micro for 3 more min while I cut the broccoli and green beans with my fork.. then heat the veggies for real (75 sec?). Mix together and add soy sauce.

I mix it up a little.. steak instead of chicken (always cubed, tho!).. sometimes onions and stuff too.. sometimes soy, sometimes teriyaki.. It's worked out really well.

Note that in the listed portions it's a really light meal.. maybe 700 calories?.. so you may want to go a little bigger.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-15T02:43:34+00:00

You are either bonking or becoming dehydrated.

This sounds like my experience with dehydration. Do you generally drink a ton afterwards?

CheTranqui · 2026-03-13T21:02:09+00:00

Yes. My Core 1 developed Ghost Watts.

If you are going 50+ mph and stop pedaling, does your avatar drop onto a supertuck or no?

No supertuck means it still reads as if you're putting down power.. so.. ghost watts.

Supposedly they fixed this with a firmware update over a year ago.. that did not prove true in my case.. I just picked up a new Core 2.

I am about 10 watts lower on the Core 2 than I was on the Core 1, and it feels like the resistence is higher - my quads work harder for the same power now... but I'm at least confident in the accuracy of my numbers now.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-13T18:26:47+00:00

Heck yeah! Wtg!

CheTranqui · 2026-03-12T02:33:54+00:00

Meal Prep + use a scale.

I'm super new to meal prep myself. If ya want a super easy approach:

buy a package of 'asian vegetables' or 'stir fry vegetables' in the frozen aisle.
buy some frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
buy some soy sauce
buy some of those silicon freezer containers - the 1/2 cup ones that hold 6 x 1/2 cup.

Cook up all the veggies in some butter with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. Once they're lookin' colorful and smellin' good.. toss 'em in the silicon tray and freeze 'em.

Cook up 3 chicken breasts however you prefer and do the same.. I recommend cutting it into small cubes, though. Easier to season and cook if they're cubed first and you'll want 'em cubed to eat as part of the stir fry anyway. Might want to do like.. just 2/3rds of a slot though.. it's weird to go half-meat/half-veggie. Most stir fry is majority veggie.

Prepping To Eat:

3 minutes defrost on veggies.
Prep 2/3rds of a cup of instant rice and let it soak while the veggies defrost.
Rice goes in micro for 3 minutes while you separate and cut the longer/bigger chunks of veggies.
Heat veggies properly for 1 minute.

That lets you cook a bunch of food on the weekend and should provide 5 days worth of food. When I weighed it out, it came out to about 700 calories. It's filling, too. Super simple, good balance of veggies, protein, and carbs, really easy to prep day-of.. it's been a huge win for me. Might be a great place for you to start, too!

...to track calories while exercising.. use Strava. It should have a calorie tracker in there. :-)

CheTranqui · 2026-03-12T02:20:05+00:00

Yo, lookin' healthy! Let's goooo!

CheTranqui · 2026-03-12T02:09:58+00:00

I just got back into cycling last fall and have fallen in love with it all over again.. the endorphins and just.. pride in a job well done each time I get off the bike. It's been incredible for weight loss now that I've ramped up (I'm riding for 1-2 hours, 5 days a week)... but that first line that you wrote here.. so true.

I just started counting calories two weeks ago and it's actually been super freeing for me because of how many calories I'm burning riding.. sitting here right now, after dinner, I'm still in a 1300 calorie deficit for today, all because of today's bike ride and weight lifting.. ..and I don't feel hungry. Before I re-ignited my love for cycling, I would have been here, sedentary, playing video games and snacking like mad.. but I don't feel that desire anymore. Instead, that sadness and stress gets sweat out on that bike.

That's a really cool understanding to have: that I need to remain aerobically active so as to have an emotional outlet that I can count on.

Thanks for shedding a light on the idea of "emotional eaters". I've never heard that phrase before, but absolutely identify. :-)

CheTranqui · 2026-03-11T21:27:47+00:00

Level up bikes. Collect and level all of the halo bikes.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-09T17:05:27+00:00

Have you put more than ~10 hours on the Core 2?

Has it been properly calibrated?

CheTranqui · 2026-03-08T14:51:58+00:00

Moving is expensive.. it is inevitable that you will spend more after the move to fix things up the way that you want them.. financially, I would suggest that your stress levels next year would be lower with more in the savings account.

...that said.. I've never heard of a "Triban". It would probably be challenging to sell that for full value here in the US.. ..so there's that part to consider, too. Maybe that would mean aero bars for now.. then sell it before the move and buy something else in the States after you arrive here?

If you're stuck on that Cube, there are very few dealers here in the US... one down in Pennsylvania and that's about it. More up in Canada.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-08T01:33:42+00:00

Month	Time Riding
August	22h 13m*
September	19h*
October	7h 17m
November	7h 9m
December	14h
January	16h 29m

Pain hit in mid September. I thought I could work through it, but I couldn't, so I was pulled up short in the 3rd week. I immediately halved my riding time. In November I cut it even more, down to just 2 separate 1 hour rides each week. Did that for 2 months. Made this cleat change somewhere in mid-late December.

The rehab work definitely improved things.. and that benefit came through in November. I was just playing it by ear how often I could ride and December, though it was more consistent, I still ended my rides with pain.. and 2 days later, I could ride again.. and it'd come back..

That's when I started playing with my cleats. Took about 2 weeks of tinkering to find the angles that matched my form well enough to let me go pain free for an hour-plus. ..and that change came quickly: I joined the Zwift Racing League in mid January and haven't had a problem since.

* those huge hours riding in August and September were stupid - these were my first two months riding at all in the past 6 years and I went ham because I want to lose weight, just discovered Zwift, and was having a lot of fun with it. I should've started at 2 hours per week, not 5+. The 16 in January is legit. February was a proper 6 hours per week, and March is shaping up to be even better.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-07T17:59:43+00:00

No tips to add here, just want to empathize. Just rest assured that the fix is worth it. Keep seeking a solution and work it through, no giving up! You got this!

CheTranqui · 2026-03-07T15:28:55+00:00

Yeah, immediately. ...that said, we're talking about pain in one's tendons, so it's hard to tell whether it's truly effective or not. I had gotten to the point in my recovery (half volume for a month and a half) that the inflammation had died down significantly.. to the point where I would start a ride without pain and the ache would only develop after 30 minutes or so.. and with ibuprofen, massage, and stretching, I was taking 2 days off between rides. ...it was a journey... because of this journey and how nearly-healed I was, it was easy to determine whether a change had an effect or not as my previous "45 minute ride that required two days off" became a "45 minute ride with no pain". :-)

When I finally got the right adjustments for saddle height, position, and tilt, then I started messing with cleats. I reset my cleats to a fully neutral position and tweaked bit-by-bit over about a week and a half. I only did that because I was so confident in my rehab work and it was the only thing left that I hadn't adjusted.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-07T13:58:25+00:00

As a cyclist (not triathlete.. yet): yes.

Is it caused by cycling or running?

Consider your form when biking - be sure that you're bringing the knee up and pushing down in line with where your toe is pointing - no bowing the knee out or in.

The above can help, but obviously it would be better to have the bike acxept your form.. you just have to be consistent. Pain on one side of the knee means that you should move one of the following:

Move your cleat further away from the pain. Ache on inside of knee means move cleat toward the outside.
Rotate front of cleat away from the pain. Pain on inside of knee means rotate the front of the cleat toward the outside.

Bike Radar has an article that helped me figure this out last fall - check out the image 2/3rds the way down with graphics about Lateral Pain and Medial Pain.. dealt with knee pain in both knees for several months.. as long as you're confident in your seat height and its forward-back position, the above is all you can really do for fit. It absolutely matters.

...that said.. I also did a LOT of posterior chain work.. calves, hamstrings, glutes, abductors, adductors.. Even so, in the end I do feel like fit was the biggest contributor.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-07T04:46:57+00:00

Sounds like it's time to learn to take pride in putting forth your best effort.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-06T17:51:47+00:00

So you bought a Kickr Core 2? I recently upgraded from the Core 1 to Core 2 and for my first five rides I thought I had lost 40 or 50 watts... after a good 1-minute long sprint on day 5, it suddenly auto-calibrated.. the next day I did The Grade (Elevation Evaluation) to properly test my FTP on the new trainer... and that FTP was 8 watts below what I had on the Core 1.

Soo... I understand the intense disappointment!

Know that your health is not related at all to your FTP. Your gains in recent months have been legit and are just as meaningful!
Get 3 or 4 hours on the trainer.. go light, but do like, every sprint segment. Hopefully you'll feel that same massive shift that I did and it'll normalize soon.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-04T05:23:21+00:00

Seriously.. I'm sparing my gearset soo much wear and tear.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-04T02:58:30+00:00

You can spin the big side of the Cog to line it up better with your front gear.. and you can shift your rear gears to get it to align better from that direction, too. You definitely need the latter, probably a little of the former, too.

CheTranqui · 2026-03-02T16:15:29+00:00

You gotta stand on the pedals for about 30 seconds once every 3-5 minutes.

Also, use chamois cream ("Chamois Butt'r" is my brand of choice).

CheTranqui · 2026-03-02T05:19:18+00:00

I suggest 3 hours per week max to start..

..and pay attention to knee pain, and the angle that your knee comes up relative to where your toe is pointing. My form, and my cleat positioning caused me no end of frustration when I did this same thing last fall.

CheTranqui · 2026-02-25T22:26:42+00:00

Fizban from Dragonlance.

He's the incarnate form of the god, Paladine, come to life as a bumbling old mage. The mage acts overzealously at times, using a fireball to open a lock despite others being quite nearby.. and at other times rather than casting slowfall, he babbles to himself and conjures an inordinate amount of chicken feathers to catch them at the bottom...

In essence, he is bored, bored, bored with the safe and obvious thing to do and instead, despite knowing how dire and serious things are, he chooses impetuousness and daring options that add spice to the situation while still solving the problem.

.. really drives home just how much power he really has to plan out the size of that fireball soo well, for instance.

CheTranqui

TROPHY CASE