Time in Zone 5
I'm finding that it's hard to accrue time in zone 5 on the bike. Today's 4 x 4' at 110% was the first meaningful chunk of time in zone 5, but only about 4 minutes total. (Last week's 5-minute power test showed about 2.5 min in z5)
4 minutes in z5 seems like a short chunk of time, considering there were 16 total minutes of intervals. And I really have to push hard to get my HR past zone 4 - average power today was 304. Part of this I'm sure is not having much experience with these intervals (this is just my 7th week of EN training).
Is such a relatively small amount of time in z5 typical? Could my HR zones be off?
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Thanks @Al - I'm anxious to see what the numbers look like in OS week 14. Power progression has been near-linear through six weeks -- that's highly motivating; but I know the curve will start to flatten out.
@Tim, @Robert - thanks for the good insight. I tried to hold the power number steady throughout each 4-minute interval. Frankly I wasn't sure if that was the objective -- as opposed to crushing the power to get in z5 quickly and then hanging on in that zone for dear life as power drops off.
TrainingPeaks shows a 5A and 5B zone on the HR by Zones graph. Last week I did the 5-minute VO2 max test ... that pushed my HR into 5B for a few seconds. It was supposed to be at 120% of estimated FTP.
This is the way to do it. If you are using power/watts, just pay attention to that metric. Ignore your HR. The fact that your HR is not getting into Z5 is a good sign, indicating your fitness has improved. Power/watts is a more direct measure of your work than HR, anyway. Also, for many of us, HR @ Z5 watts (while cycling) will often be lower than the is HR when running @ Z5 pace.
If you tried to hold Z5 (110-130% of IF) watts for longer than, say, 4-5 minutes, your HR would eventually start to get higher. Probably just before you collapsed.
Bottom line, when doing cycling intervals, if you have access to power, you can just ignore what your HR is. Coach Rich for years (until last year) trained purely by power on the bike, never even wearing an HR monitor.
What about during races ... do you race solely by power or do you also use HR?
The short answer to your question is, if you have power, that's your primary metric in a race. HR & Perceived exertion can be used as a cross check to that especially in the latter stages of a bike leg.