Why My Cycling Sucks

Last weekend, I posted about figuring out where my 6-year-old injury came from. (Still lots of unanswered questions, but now I know what caused it to flare up, and what NOT to do with regards to that specific thing in the future.) This past week, I realized why I've been so uninterested in biking all summer.

Here's a look at a good week of training from mid-June:

As seen in this post.

I noted it was a great "all around" week of training, but that was in terms of workouts. In terms of the general weekly layout, I've been having swim, bikes, and runs on these days for the last year or so. In my mind, it's 3 days/week of running, with 2 of swimming and 2 of biking. T/Th/Sat are my run days, M/F are my swim days, and W/Sun are my bike days.

But I realized something else this past week. It's ALSO 2 rounds of "swim, run, bike" in that order (Fri-Sun and Mon-Wed) each week with an extra run thrown in there on Thurs. That's an important distinction. That means during these last 10 months of "solid" running with decent workouts, *ALL* my bike rides have happened the day after a run.

"Oh, you just had a real fast 11 mile long run yesterday, so it's probably just OK to spin your legs easy today on the bike."

"Yeah, my legs are a bit tired from intervals yesterday. I shouldn't do a hard bike workout."

...and so on...

This could be a BIG reason why I haven't been excited to bike much this year. I've just been pooped when thinking about getting on my bike!

There's a 2nd part to this as well. I've been putting in decent running mileage and NOT getting injured. So there might be something good about this where 2 out of my 3 weekly runs happen after days in the pool (which are easier on my body). And, for what it's worth, those 2 days of running tend to be my harder days. (Not always, though. But I've had a few good stretches of good long runs on Tuesdays, which is the day after a swim.)

So, now I KNOW why my biking isn't great this year, but the funny thing is I'm not going to do anything about it right now! That last point about possibly keeping me injury-free is pretty big. So I'll just try to be aware that there's a reason why I don't always want to get on my bike, but I won't change the order of my training right now. I'll just try to power through and get in that good ride anyway.