It's not exactly easy to go by heart rate. You have to notice if your heart rate is spiking and slow down quickly and reaction is delayed by your body. You can't plug in the headphones and rock out and zone out.
If any of you out there have trained to heart rate, you know what I'm talking about. I rode like a snail and ran like a turtle last weekend. It's nice in the fact I'm not shredded and can function, but it does draw out workouts to take longer than they did in the past.
Check out some data from the training:
 |
| Long Ride |
 |
| Long Run |
Numbers
BIKING - 67 miles
RUNNING - 20 miles
SWIMMING - 2500 meters - sad I only got one swim in last week!
TOTAL MILES - 90 miles
TOTAL TIME - 09 : 29
I wanted a strong week in prep for a recovery / rest week and God's Country off road duathlon is coming this weekend. It's more for fun, but I don't want to over-train and then race and hurt myself. My left knee has noticed the added outside riding and needs a rest week, which hopefully I'm hitting the pool a lot this week and lessening the impact training.
Hope everyone else is having a good week of training.
Anyone else working with heart rate training and can verify sticking to it will improve your racing?
3 comments:
It's how I train, and it can be frustrating as hell going for long z2 runs and rides. To break up the monotony, I do a couple mile repeats in there at z4, or sustained z4 intervals on the bike to break it up a bit. I've found it really tough to maintain the z2 rides on hilly terrain, but just try to keep it as close as possible. And you are right about paying attention to the levels, it sucks. I just make a workout on garmin connect and load it to my watch, and listen to it beep at me when I get too high.
Over a month of sticking to the easy stuff, you'll see your pace quicken at the same ave HR in z2. When I started, I was around 9-10/mile, but now z2 is mid 8s. (well, it was. some running injuries have lowered it, i'm sure...)
I think the HR training is great for long course stuff, and I will be sticking to it till IMKS. After that, though, I will use it sparingly for short course training.
It took a little while to get used to it, but it works with the "You have to go slower to get faster" adage. And it's very useful when doing intervals. You can really see how your body responds to heat.
You'll find the results are that your VO2 max and likely LT will increase, which can be measures in a test (I used to volunteer as a lab rat for VO2 max testing at a local university - too cheap to pay for it myself).
Thanks for the feedback! If only I could remember to pack my heart rate strap in the gym back for lunch or gym workouts! doh!
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