Seriously painful calfs

[thefensman]

Hi and hope i,m posting in correct forum. Been road riding for around 18 months or so and have been really enjoying it. Dont do massive miles, did metric hundred a month or so back and do on average 100 miles a week with no ill effects. However over last couple of weeks I have upped my miles a bit and as we,ve had some good weather I have ridden almost daily, usually 20 or so miles after work of an evening and have taken in a few new routes, as a result i,ve began to tinker with my bike set up as I felt as the miles have crept up my riding style has changed a little. I,m taking in more hills so obviously climbing more and vice versa more down hills. As a result I have fitted a slightly longer bar stem as I felt I was to hunched up when on the drops downhill, and moved seat back around 10mm. Have also raised my seat 3 times around a half inch each time as I felt I was not really getting the correct leg extension, if thats the right word. On my last ride on thursday evening I was a little over half way into a planned 20 miles when I got a cramp in my right calf which I managed to ease a little by stretching my foot/ leg for a couple of minutes while still trying to ride. Shortly afterwards and same again in left leg which put an end to my planned ride and I had to limp home, litteraly. Upshot is for two days now my calfs are so painfull and it actually hurts to walk if I am not on the move constantly. Only ever had cramps when I started riding to loose weight over 2 years ago and then nothing till now, have I just over done it, have I made too many changes at once to my bike or have I just had an unfortuntate ride? Any thoughts?

 

[mrandmrspoves]

As you say the cramps started after you had nudged your saddle up, I would guess you may be over stretching a little bit (do you ride clipless?)
Another possibility is simple dehydration, or loss of salt through sweating - which will quickly lead to cramp, and if the cramp is severe residual pain for a few days after.

 

[thefensman]

Hi and thanks for reply, I ride clipped pedals(spd sl) and have had very few problems apart from one or two hairy moments when I first started to use them. As I stated even tho I have been road riding a while it just seems that the last couple of months every thing began to kind of gel together and I am feeling that I can take on more miles and hills that 6 months ago I would have avoided, but buy the same token should I have needed to make the changes to my bike? Dehydration may have been a factor, as I was only planing on being out for a little over an hour I hadn,t taken a drink and the back lanes that made up the first half of my ride were a lot warmer than I thought they would have been. Lesson learnt there.

 

[mrandmrspoves]

Hydration is really important - and dehydration can creep up on you very easily especially in hot weather. It can ruin a ride and certainly make you feel lethargic and easily tired.....and cause cramps. For rides up to about 20 miles I tend to take 750mls of squash, but if riding longer than that I would have a 2nd bottle with Hi5 or similar in it. Some would suggest just adding a pinch of salt to your squash rather than spending money on sports drinks. For rides of 30 miles and over I would have the 2 bottles of drink and also fit in a coffee stop for a large cappuccino and a slab of cake (the cake is probably not performance enhancing!)

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

You've upped your miles recently and this has coincided with a spell of hot, humid weather. Sounds like dehydration to me and a lack of all the bits and pieces we sweat away in hot weather. More water and electrolytes I feel!

 

[The Brewer]

I suffer with terrible calf cramps if I don't drink a pint of milk after a long ride, doctor told me about it ten years and it still works. Sorry don't know the science I just know the pain if I forget

 

[thefensman]

Hi again folks and many thanks for taking time to respond to my thread. Lots of good advice to consider as is the norm on here. With regard mrandmrspoves replys I cant believe how stupid I was not taking a drink with me. Where I live its a ten minute ride to the sea and quite often its easy to tell what a ride will entail simply by looking out of my front door and checking wind etc, and a ride around the sea front/ marina is normally pretty predictable. However 10/15 mins riding inland often throws up a whole differant kettle of fish as i,ve found out previously, using my simple " take a look out the door method" it appeared that there was no wind to speak of so off I went to the back lanes only to find that is my elevation grew so did the wind. Boy did some of those inclines that normaly present only a minimal effort make for hard work, still turned out to be a fine ride as if its not challenging then its not really worth doing I think. Anyway just took a look outside and were covered in a thick heavy fog which is likely to hold in a lot of the heat from the past few days so hopefully if my calfs feel better later today I can get back in the saddle and put some more miles in, only after i,ve dropped my seat a half inch and mixed up some fruit juice/salt to keep me going. Oh and cake or flap jack which I am a huge lover of. Cheers folks

 

[vickster]

Did I read somewhere that you smoke? Time to quit if so, probably totally unrelated but smoking is appalling for your vascular circulation as well as pretty much every other bit of you

Apologies if not a smoker