A lower exercise heart rate on successive days of fairly hard riding, coupled with tired legs, generally indicates "overreaching" not overtraining.

The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but it’s important to understand the difference. Overtraining is long-term chronic fatigue that could take months to recover from. Overreaching is short-term fatigue. You can rebound in a few days.

Overreaching is what racers experience in a stage race. It afflicts recreational riders, too, during a week-long tour or cycling camp. It can even happen during a spell of great spring weather when you can't resist riding farther or faster than normal several days in a row.

Overtraining is debilitating and should be avoided at all costs. Overreaching, on the other hand, is an effective way to stimulate improvement. If you overreach in a controlled way and then rest enough to recover, it can lift you to a higher level. Then you can repeat the process for still more improvement.

It's when you overreach continually without sufficient recovery that you spiral into overtraining. You grind yourself down to a level where your whole life is negatively affected, not just your cycling.

The symptoms you're experiencing -- lower heart rate coupled with tired legs -- sound like the result of overreaching. It isn't a major warning sign as long as you're recovering well between most of your workouts.

Lots of us go through 3, 4 or more drivetrain chains each year. Instead of adding them to the local landfill, here's a better idea: Ship them to a company called Resource Revival. This Oregon outfit will pay the freight and then turn the chains into functional and decorative home items.

Resource Revival has signed up a number of bike shops. You can let your LBS know about this opportunity, set up a chain collection program for your bike club, or simply save your own chains to send in. It's fine for chains to be filthy but not rusty.

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1. Bike fit – Make sure your bike is fitted correctly. It could be a number of things for example such as your stem is too low or too long. Go to a good bike store and talk with a person who specializes it bike fitting.
2. Stretch – Your back, shoulders, and neck need to be flexible and this is only done though proper stretching.
3. Move your hands - There are more than one hand positions in the drops. Use them.
4. Practice - You didn’t ride 100 miles your first time on the bike. Incorporate ridding in the drops as part of your workout. Tack your progress by distance or time and slowly increase the amount just as you would increase your workout to build up for that big race or century. Soon it will become as easy as that 100 mile ride.