HR and Biking
Since I'm new, I've been following the Intermediate OS plan pretty closely, having only missed a few workouts because of the flu. The run workouts have been good (not as easy as the bike but not exhaustingly difficult). I'm confident that with the next run test I'll be able to improve my vDot. But, when it comes to the biking, after the first four weeks I started noticing that while it can be slightly difficult for me to get up to Z4-5 (generally attributable to working out at 5am), once I'm there I have no problem maintaining it, and in fact it's kind of easy to push to 100%-110% for the overall majority of my time, and then when I'm doing the remainder time I actually have a hard time going at Z3 because it feels like I'm not working, and find myself straying into the Z4-5 range again. I expected that an updated test would solve this, but I noticed that there is only testing for power next week, not HR users. I don't feel tired legs after a hard bike workout as I do after the run workouts. So advice about this? Is this a HR thing? Do I retest HR? Do I talk to RnP about changing my OS plan? Do I add onto my workouts? Should I sit and drink my kool-aid silently and trust that this is how it's supposed to be?
Comments
HR users test next week also. It's right under the power section on monday. Another test will probably get your zones sorted out a little better.
I just wanted to add something I notice about my HR while using my PT. During the 100% my HR is around 170-177. Then in the 85% it is 170??weird. So if you are holding 85%HR it might require a much easier effort to get the HR down. If it were me and tried to get HR to 85% my watts would be maybe in the 70% range,that would feel easy. So that could be what is happening??
Carrie
Jennifer,
If you feel your HR zones might be out of whack, not a problem to test next week rather than do 2 x 20'. Our reason for not testing HR so often is that all an HR test is doing is confirming your zones. If you have a good test with your first HR test, then it doesn't make sense for us to test you 4wks later, only to confirm that, congrats, your LTHR is still 170bpm. Thanks for shattering yourself on the bike for 40', to tell us what we already knew
. Power athletes can extract much more useful information from these tests, which is why we have them testing more frequently.
Bottomline, fine to do the test next week vice the workout.
Also, please bring questions like this, that you might need coaches' input on, into the General Discussion forum. We don't monitor thesew forums for training questions, I just wandered in here as I procrastinate before a run with the dogz.
I have an unrelated HR/Biking question. By having a good test, and setting a proper LT, will that number change much over time? I quess what I'm assuming is that if I did a repeat test outside that my LT would be the roughly the same, but I would be much faster? Another thought is......as my fitness improves, it requires more and more effort to get to, and hold my zones, which will improve my fitness, without requiring frequent testing?
Thanks,
I am a HR athlete. My test next week will be largely based on average speed which I got from my first test.
There is a thread back in EN3 " What is a powerless athlete to do?" that covers this.
I pushed in my pain cave and TT on my bike commute. My LT may not change but I want to see the results.