England : West Yorkshire Another hilly ride from Hebden Bridge, 54 km (33 miles), a Saturday in second half of April?!!

[Jameshow]

Maybe the flat Garforth one? Or even a shorter route round that neck of the woods?

How about a canal ride?
Hebden bridge to Halifax?
Saltaire to Skipton?

 

[ColinJ]

Maybe the flat Garforth one? Or even a shorter route round that neck of the woods?

How about a canal ride?
Hebden bridge to Halifax?
Saltaire to Skipton?

I will wait until I have done a few decent trouble-free turbo sessions before I do any more forum rides now. I can't keep arranging and cancelling rides, but I also don't want to get 30 minutes into a ride and have to abandon it!

I suspect that my coming Devon holiday will not involve much cycling, but if I can get going again down there then we can do this ride after I get back. Maybe 18th April or 2nd May? The Garforth ride 2-3 Saturdays after that.

Hopefully, more people will be interested then.

Anyway... POSTPONED AGAIN FOR NOW!

 

[PaulSB]

But then... back to the numbers from the 4th March!!! My latest turbo session spiked my heart rate to 140+ bpm at just 120 W so I had to reduce my effort to a weak 100 W, which wouldn't really get me up any of the significant hills round here!

I was just talking to a friend as we did a short walk in the sunny conditions here today. I said that I had barely been out in sunshine since mid-November. In fact, I have probably only averaged 5 hours a week outdoors in that time. She suggested that I might have a vitamin D deficiency due to lack of sun exposure. Damn, that could very well explain why my immune system seems to be on strike!! I do take a small daily vitamin D supplement but probably nowhere near enough.

I have spent the last hour sitting in the sunshine and will try to get out on the bike as much as possible on coming sunny days, even if I am only crawling up and down the valley roads, doing 100 W.

Anyway, still no significant rides for now. Normal service will be resumed ASAP!

While this is a really nice way to spend an hour it will do nothing for your vitamin D levels. What were you wearing? I guess at most your face and hands were exposed to sunlight, perhaps forearms if you stripped to a T-shirt.

Anyone living north of a line through Birmingham cannot manufacture vitamin D through the winter months. The sun is too low, it doesn't appear for days on end and we cover our skin in clothing. You said you go outside for five hours a week in winter, basically zero exposure to sunlight. For many people even the summer months are useless.

The only worthwhile solution is to take a supplement year round.

 

[ColinJ]

While this is a really nice way to spend an hour it will do nothing for your vitamin D levels. What were you wearing? I guess at most your face and hands were exposed to sunlight, perhaps forearms if you stripped to a T-shirt.

Anyone living north of a line through Birmingham cannot manufacture vitamin D through the winter months. The sun is too low, it doesn't appear for days on end and we cover our skin in clothing. You said you go outside for five hours a week in winter, basically zero exposure to sunlight. For many people even the summer months are useless.

The only worthwhile solution is to take a supplement year round.

Yes, I thought that after posting!

The vit K2 supplement that I already take also has vit D3 in it. I have now checked the amount and it is actually 250% of the NHS recommended minimum daily dose. It is about 25% of the recommended maximum daily dose so I could take more, but vit D deficiency probably isn't the issue after all.

My sister and niece took several months to get over one of their winter bugs so maybe I have just been unlucky like them.

I feel okay as long as I don’t exert myself but my elevated heart rate soon limits me when I do make an effort. On tonight's turbo session I had to drop my power from 120 watts to 100-110 watts to stop the rise to 135+ bpm. I can normally do 160+ watts at that heart rate. Some of it will be due to detraining but the sore throat is a reminder that I haven't recovered properly from the cold (or Covid, or whatever else it is).

It is a bit frustrating but at least the gentle turbo sessions are keeping me ticking over until I feel healthy again.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

The NHS vitamin D guidelines are quite low iirc, since the covid pandemic began six years ago almost to the day, I've usually taken 4000IU of vitamin D most days... Especially September to March inclusive, when the UK sun is too weak for us to produce it by direct skin exposure (windows block it).

Your recent health struggles sound similar to me, I had to drop power right back to normal z1 levels for about a month, only in last week or so I've been able to do normal z2 and very small intervals of z4/5.