HR in the Mornings

trigirl1203

I feel like I've seen this topic on the forum before, but this morning was my first experience with it.  On the first week of OS and this morning I did 2x6' (2') Z4, the remainder of the workout in Z3.  I did the EN warmup, but for the life of me I could not get my HR into Z4 for those first intervals.  The effort was there!  My Z4 is 169 and above, but I couldnt get over 160 for those first intervals.  By the time I got to the second half of the workout, I was able to maintain a HR of 160-168 (Z3) fine.  Any thoughts or suggestions on how to reach that zone for the first half of the workout?  I was only awake for about 30 min by the time I started the workout, at about 5am.  Thank you!

Shaughn Simmons

I experience the same with the HR at 5:15 in the morning. I literally get out of bed and onto the bike within 15 minutes. I spend about 20 minutes warming up for this reason including a 3X3' Z3 using wattage zones. I note that my HR is lower the first 30 minutes though my power output is hitting the zone. If I do the same workout at noon, HR is higher. All good reasons to train with power once that becomes an option. Until then, try to make sure you have a quality warm up period first.

Brenda Ross

When I used to work with HR and came across the same problem my coach told me to do a couple or three of 3x30sec into Z5 with recovery in Z3 and that usually did the trick. Perhaps you could do that at the end of the EN warm-up before you do the MS portion?

ironmtngrl

I definitely experience this too. Sometimes in the evening, but especially in the morning. I would say go just by your VDOT target paces, and RPE. You most likely know z4 by feel. I've been using pace for the runs and just ignore HR.

Al Truscott

Facetiously I say, Don't try such intense intervals so early in the morning. Me, I hate to do anything other than swim in the AM. This article's abstract contains the following:

The majority of components of sports performance, e.g. flexibility, muscle strength, short term high power output, vary with time of day in a sinusoidal manner and peak in the early evening close to the daily maximum in body temperature. Psychological tests of short term memory, heart rate-based tests of physical fitness, and prolonged submaximal exercise performance carried out in hot conditions show peak times in the morning. Heart rate-based tests of work capacity appear to peak in the morning because the heart rate responses to exercise are minimal at this time of day.

I think you just have to accept what the combination of your life schedule and you biorythyms give you.

Coach Rich

Good advice from Al but the reality for most of us is that AM workouts, hard if you're an EN'er, are the simple reality of life. I'm the same, but am able to give my self 30-45' of coffee time before my AM sessions. Notes:

• We do the work, HR is at best a symptom of the work performed. Sometimes it responds differently to the effort than others (lower HR) but if the work is there, the work is there, regardless of what the HR says. IOW, we go faster because do more work, recover, repeat, not because we did/did not push our heart rates high.
• Another reason to purchase a PM or GPS for the run, if it's in the budgetary cards or you can sell enough stuff in the garage to pay for it.

Gordon Cherwoniak

Lauren,

The only other thing I have to add is the following.   I notice that when I get a little fatigued from multiple days of workouts I find it hard to elevate my HR.  Perhaps this is the case and after Friday off you will notice the HR responding again.  If you are in the first week the FTP and vdot test are a lot of top end work, especially if you max out your effort.

Gordon

jamison.gaddy

What time of day did you perform your threshold testing? Resting HR are always lower in the morning. If you performed your test in the afternoon and are training in the morning you maybe training in the wrong zone which may result in injury.