Hello. Have a question. I have noticed over the years that in some races i feel great but legs will be super sore day after; whereas other races i dont feel great and legs hurt during but next day legs feel great! Can someone help explain this?
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hey, same here, and in my case It depends on the proportion of anaerobic contribution during the race.
I do MTB races and it depends a lot on the course route and elevation; if the number of anaerobic efforts is high or they are longer than usual, the next day the legs are still very soft.
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Some things I can think of:
- What Everman mentioned (they are more fatiguing e.g. faster-twitch muscle fibers (which also recover slower) as well as using up more glycogen + how close you were to task failure (per effort))
- How many carbohydrates you took around/after the race (for recovery afterward)
- The CTL you had at the time (as well as what workouts you did/adapted to and whether they reflected the race well or not)
- How fresh you were during the race
- Perhaps when your legs don’t feel great during the race, you (unconsciously) back off a bit, which decreases the strain, so you have less to recover from
- Perhaps you modified your bike in the meanwhile (e.g. saddle higher/lower, bike geometry e.g. TT bike vs. more upright mountain bike)
- Differences in cadences/torque with their respective power outputs
- Whether you did some active recovery/cooling down/light workout (immediately/a couple hours/a day afterward)
- Warming-up beforehand
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