Did my training plans backfire on me?

Yesterday I rode Tour de Cure 2020; the 62-mile route. Comparing my 2020 performance with that of two years ago, it looks like I\’ve backslid!

The two routes are comparable in length, with this year\’s being only 0.6 miles longer; yet I was much slower this time! A shocking 2 mph slower, in fact.

Why? I can think of several possible reasons:

One, in the last two months I did too little riding. I felt persistently tired; possibly because of a recent change in diet. Trying to keep up with both blogging and food logs had me getting to bed too late, too often. Too many mornings I shut off the alarm clock and fell back asleep. My training really suffered because of it.

Two, maybe I didn\’t do enough work to improve my force. The catch is, how much, and how often, is enough? How much is too much? The hardest workouts, they say, should be done only once a week. Older riders in particular need to be wary of overtraining.

Three, am I using the wrong ride food? I\’ve switched from Clif Bars to RXBars in the last few months; the latter are lower in carbs and have more protein. DO I need more carbs while riding? More protein?

About halfway through the ride yesterday, I began to crave something salty and crunchy. In fact, I wanted Combos. They aren\’t at all sustaining, but they sure are salty!

Four, I wasn\’t trying to push the pace yesterday. Tour de Cure went virtual this year (I probably don\’t need to say why), and I wasn\’t worrying about a cut-off time. In fact, starting off too fast can easily backfire on me!