Racing with power regarless of HR

robert boisvert

I am considering getting power and  I am curious about racing using your %FTP.          Does one race his according to his Race pace watts regardless of HR?      What if your HR is 10-15 beats high?      Do you obey one over the other?

Thanks

Rob

Steve West

For me, power and pace are targets.... HR is the governor. Race to the targets but dont blow the engine.

kurshing

I have never put my HR monitor back on since I switched to power and pace. I train with them (power and pace); I have learned how my body feels at different power/pace zones, and I really don't have a use for HR. I know how long I can ride at x power and run at x pace given a nutrition strategy that I have rehearsed from all of the training.

jburbatt

I haven't put on my heartrate strap in quite a long time. Personally I never found it HR a good indicator on the bike. Though with all the talk of A-fib lately maybe I should see what those numbers look like.

Michael Byerts

Rich and company discuss this issue a little in the training and racing with power webinar. In essence, what they say is that it's a good idea to know what your heartrate is on the bike and roughly how that tracks with your power output. If your heartrate is within 10 beats of where it should be, you can ignore it. If it gets more than 10 beats out of sync, something is going on that you need to pay attention to, such as heat, dehydration, or nutritional issues.

Scott Alexander

Bike: Power is primary, HR is secondary. Using Joule and Garmin HR strap.
Run: Pace is primary, HR is secondary. Using Garmin 305 and same Garmin HR strap.

GMAN 19030

Hopefully Chris Whyte will chime in because he has some good thoughts on the subject and made me change the way I thought about it... for a IM at least. I don't give a rat's ass what my HR is during a sprint, oly or HIM. I want to keep my HR in check on the IM bike, especially on a hot day. Like Steve West stated above - it's a governor. I'll go by power but I will keep tabs on my HR to make sure it's not creeping up too high. It's good to have another metric beyond power to keep you in check. Temps were 90 degrees on the bike during IMTX and I kept a constant eye on my HR. Riding at 70% FTP has a different effect on your body when its 90 degrees compared to 70 degrees. I didn't worry too much about an elevated HR at IMFL last year when it was 50-something degrees.

Gordon Cherwoniak

Rob,

Like others i primarily use the gears, % of FTP, but HR is useful when very hot or you are not feeling well.  We not have a heat calculator to help slow you down on very hot races thanks to Matt S and others.  

Gordon

gilliatt

Sprint/Olympic I don't use it, don't worry too much about it.
I'm not sure how to answer as I've ignored it in a 70.3 when it was way high and I raced well. I've ignored it, got dehydrated and really crashed. But to say totally ignore my HR for long course race I no longer think is a good idea.
For me while racing it serves as sort of a sanity check as well as a way to check in to see how my body is doing. If I see a sky high HR I start thinking of some causes and attempt to address them.
Just a few causes:
dehydration
Excitement/nervousness
Overexertion
Hyperthermia
caffeine use
how well rested I am leading up to the race
When I started using power/pace I didn't see much need for it after having some issues I still definitely use those but another piece of the puzzle doesn't hurt.

Coach Rich

All good advice.

The bottomline is that power and pace provide an objective data point with which you can add greater depth to the HR and RPE you may be experiencing. You'll very quickly develop a little mental chart of what HR and RPE to expect at what power and/or pace...then how this changes with regards to length of exercise, temperature, fatigue state, etc.

Personally, I haven't seen my HR on the bike or run since about 2006. I think at this point it would just confuse me. I prefer to use RPE as my secondary, especially on the run. I do a lot of counting when I run, either breaths or steps. I very much have a rhythm in my head of what I should be feeling, breathing, etc at specific paces.

The net was that on the run at IMWI I had a big disconnect between my RPE and pace. My stupid easy pace was NOT as easy as it should and I largely ran by RPE vs pace for the entire run.

MattAaronson

As we all know, HR fluctuates a lot day-to-day and thus HR at a given power output will not always be the same. Hence I use power as the primary. HOWEVER, one thing I have become aware of after several races and one "crucible" is the concept of 'decoupling', when your HR starts to go up and power starts to go down on a ride. That spells bad news for me and I've learned to keep my eye on HR for that reason. My next mission is to learn what corrective actins to take when I see it happening.

Btw, I also use RPE as my secondary on the run. I wear an HR strap but don't have the data on the display. After a summer of training and analyzing data I suspect I could redict my HR pretty darn accurately based on RPE.

kjanracing

Run/ride easy = low heart rate. Run/ride fast = high heart rate. As I got into training by pace and power, I paid less attention to heart rate. Now it's RPE and pace/power. As Matt just said, sometimes I'll track decoupling, but 90% of the time I don't wear a HRM.

cwhyte

Thanks for the mention, Bob.

Yes, when it comes to IM, HR is a different beast, imho. Just keep in mind that I'm speaking in relative terms and I'm using the 80-20 rule. My advice also pertains to people who know how to race close to the edge.

I think it's been been pretty well established that most people can sustain an elevated HR, for whatever reason, at any distance up to and including HIM and perform well. This goes completely out the door when it comes to IM though. You just can't sustain an elevated HR that extends for a period that starts somewhere on the bike throughout the run. I thoroughly believe you will eventually blow up on the run. In addition, I think those who have high cadences on the bike are even more at risk since higher cadences always result in higher HRs. High cadences can make it much tougher to get your HR up on the run and keep it there. If you're going to run to your full potential then your HR needs to get up there. If it's already up close to where you need to get in order to run well by the end of the bike then I think you're going to be in trouble.

I'm a guy who doesn't even say that power is primary. I believe RPE is primary, power is secondary and HR is tertiary. The reason why I'm unwilling to say that you can ignore your HR and depend on your RPE instead is because I've seen way too many people ride and run within what should be a reasonable power and pace target and still blow up due to what I believe was the following: trying to maintain an elevated HR that started on the bike and continued through the early part of the run. It's just way too easy to convince yourself that your RPE is fine, when it truly isn't, when you know you're riding within an acceptable power range. Power of the mind (working against you).

I've had days where my RPE and power were fine but my HR was starting get high about 2/3rds through the bike. It's a really really tough decision on race day but I believe you gotta back down at least for a while.

I truly believe one of the reasons why I've been able to perform consistently throughout these last 7 years is because of the above. I'm sure most people who've seen my results just assume that every IM where I've qualified for Kona was relatively the same experience. They weren't. I've had some really tough days out there that started on the bike but patience and not ignoring things like HR have made the difference for me.

EDIT: I just read Matt's race report. Hmmmm... I'm a brutal honest guy which sometimes pisses people off but I'd say it's a classic *example* of why you can't ignore your HR in IM. His avg HR on the bike was 10bpm greater than normal. I'm surprised he didn't implode on the bike which says a lot about his level of fitness (or maybe more about his youth).

Thanks, Chris