Garminge

I got  a new Garmin last week and took it out for a ride on Saturday.  A little ride as I was still recovering from Newport 200k but a hilly ride nevertheless and I threw some speed at it to make it count... and because I had a massage appointment to make in the afternoon and didn't want to turn up all sweaty.

I watched my heart rate, mostly because I am interested in increasing the length of time I can ride over zone 3 in any particular day. 

On this particular day though, I sat royally above zone 3 most of the ride.  Which was odd.  Even on a 23 hour ride, I only managed 90 minutes above zone 3 and though my wrist monitor was not picking up most of the peaks, I didn't expect them to have been that numerous or long in duration to make much of a difference... and they'd still be caught by the zone 3 radar.

Back home I've checked the new zone settings onthe new Garmin - in theory they should be those of an average 45 year old hag.

And my own person settings on my Sports Track Ap...

Of course, now that I have properly syncd the computer, it's not quite right, they match. Cue one average hack.

Which led me to check what they should be:

On simple percentage theory.
So at the low end I'm giving myself more HRs to play with but when I hit the zones I've been trying to improve, I'm setting my limits a little too low.

I've gone back to basics and using last weekend's ride to calc LTH (It wasn't really a hard enough ride but hey ho, at least it has reliable recent data) we get LTH = 175.6.  At least, that's what I was blowing going up the steepest section of Mam Nick, in control and sustained for 5:41 with a bloke dangling off my back wheel who eventually couldn't hang on.  So I'm average.  Which is actually slightly fitter than my settings on my ST software.

I studiously recorded the date that I set these - 16th March 2016 - when I was taking qualifying rather seriously, overcookked myself and left little motivation available for racing with, if I'm honest. I used to set these based on Cyclo-cross performance when I'm doing all my racing but actually, I'm probably not as fit as I am when I'm in the middle of a triathlon season or late summer mountain biking - and those heart rates were set before I discovered Alps and bike packing and rediscovered long distance riding and Oh so much water has gone under the bridge!

Before that, my heart rate settings were also depressingly low... those of a 49 year old, though in the year I was recovering from a PE, not surprising.

So there you go.  For some reason I down graded my max HR to 169 and gave myself a HR age of 51.  Not that there's anything wrong with 51 year olds but I'm not one.  So today I'll change the clock again.  Recalibrate myself... and find out just how much time I can spend in a new zone.

The thing is, now my head is spinning.  Am I fitter than I thought I was, or not? I'm fitter than I'd claimed but just average but I'm happy with average, if average is fit...  I mean most average people don't give a shit what their heart rate zones are right?  Which means I'm average for a fit person and as someone who's generally presumed myself to be below average, that's in improvement.  My endurance at higher zones is less than I thought it was... but all that time I was in a higher zone on the flat, I wasn't really.

Changing numbers doesn't make me fitter.  In fact, it proves I've been training less hard! I'm not going to recover any quicker, even though my predicted recovery times will probably now be lower.

When I do set out train hard though, it will at least mean something - not nothing. 

Interesting conclusion to week 9

Tried keeping my heart rate around 150 today as in theory this is where I should be pacing myself in ironman.

It was very weird.  Usually I go flat out on the bits I enjoy and then suffer the consequences of burn-out later.  It seemed like sound Ironman advice to do the whole ride at an effort level that you can maintain all the way to the end, meaning there's still something left for that end-of-the-day marathon.

I found myself climbing hills at 179 bpm and reigning myself in.  Then once I'd got the rate under control, I felt like I was going painfully slowly.  Or I'd drop the rate down to 135 and have to work like hell just to achieve 150 again.

I'd then top out at the end of the hill and hit the flat.  Far from needing to rocket up to speed to raise my heart rate, I found it was running away with itself, racing back up to 190 before crashing down to 135 again when I put in no effort whatsoever.

Gradually as the day went on I managed to learn the meaning of the phrase, "try hard on the easy bits and go easy on the hard bits"!  I had to spin my legs where the road was flat to make my heart work - and I rocketed away because of it.  On the climbs I had to make myself go really slow to keep the rate down but when I got to 44km into the workout, I knew I could get home and in a decent state to get up and do something else tomorrow.

I have to say, keeping to 150 was great for the cold.  I didn't feel like I stretched my lungs too much today although there were some very steep climbs where I could do nothing but ride up them at upto 190.  When I got back to Sheffield some very weird things began to happen.  As I sat back and freewheeled on the approach to lights, my HRM was hitting over 200bpm and I was doing nothing.  I was pretty tired.

It all worked rather well though in the end.  It's amazing the things you learn when you sit back and read for a day.

Introspection

Being off training with a cold, realising how exhausted I am,damaging the foot has forced me to sit back, have a read and learn something.

From now on I reduce the training heart rate to sub aerobic threshold at the weekends and spend more of the week with a relaxed resting mind set. Ironman panic has set in despite my best efforts and I have been reminded that I can't train for Ironman at 'cross race pace.

Actually if I trained for cross this much I'd probably actually be quite good at it.

Now there's something for another year.  

Planning

HR max 176 - 178.

Trying not to go over 20-30% of training above 80% of maximum. 70-80% of my time at 123 - 150 bpm. Given that most of my workouts over the last few weeks have probably (some deffinately - 5 since Jan 29th) been above that it's no wonder I'm burned out and incapable of getting up in the morning.

I listened to my body this morning and stayed in bed. By the time I got up it was too late for a swim and I forgot my bike lock keys so no swim after work either.

I should start wearing that lovely heart rate monitor I paid for.