Yesterday was the big heart rate test for the bike, and it was actually a lot of fun. The test went like this: start with a 10-15 minute warm-up. Then, while keeping a cadence around 90-100, start on a low chain, pedal for 60 seconds. Then shift to the next hardest gear and pedal for another 60 seconds. Continue doing this, which increases your speed and heart rate, until you reach your top gear. Pedal on that until you're ready to throw up, and see what your heart rate peaks at. Here's my speed chart for the 10.40 mile ride:
The part inside the red box is the test, peaking at 26.8 mph. About 10 seconds after shifting to the final gear (right at mile 5 on the map), I reached a part on my neighborhood loop where it turns onto a major road for about half a mile. There was a car sitting in the turn lane yielding to traffic (despite having a full turn lane to use), so I had to slow down prematurely. I was at 189 bmp when I slowed down, and I had maybe 15-20 seconds left in me before I felt like I was going to throw up, so I'm estimating that my max heart rate would have been between 192-194. This means my training zones are:
Z1: 122 - 151 (recovery)
Z2: 151 - 165 (endurance)
Z3: 165 - 180 (anaerobic)
Z4: 180 - 194 (red line)
Most of my training will be done in Z2, though once a week I will do intervals in Z3. I'll pretty much never go into Z4.
I'll probably test it again in a few months, but for now that's good enough for me. I also did mile #4 in 2:33, which gives me a good idea as to how fast I can go. After the test I finished the loop and did one more as a cool down, and was tempted to do a 4th loop, but decided not to push it and went home. I'm glad I chose to do that, because I had crazy bad saddle sores on the inside of my thigh and nether-regions. These go away eventually, right? Right?
The next morning my thighs were crazy sore, more than they've ever been. Glad I stopped at three loops. I'll be testing my max heart rate for running on Wednesday, so it will be interesting to see how it compares. I'm guessing it's up over 200.
Monday Lunch:
-Leftover broccoli and beef stir fry
-4 oz colby jack cheese
-Black bean and quinoa infused chips
-2 glasses of milk
-4 peanut butter cookies
Monday Dinner:
-Black bean and quinoa quesadillas
-2 glasses of milk
-2 protein shakes (one with creatine)
-A handful of peanut butter M&Ms (THESE ARE BAD TO HAVE IN THE HOUSE)
The part inside the red box is the test, peaking at 26.8 mph. About 10 seconds after shifting to the final gear (right at mile 5 on the map), I reached a part on my neighborhood loop where it turns onto a major road for about half a mile. There was a car sitting in the turn lane yielding to traffic (despite having a full turn lane to use), so I had to slow down prematurely. I was at 189 bmp when I slowed down, and I had maybe 15-20 seconds left in me before I felt like I was going to throw up, so I'm estimating that my max heart rate would have been between 192-194. This means my training zones are:
Z1: 122 - 151 (recovery)
Z2: 151 - 165 (endurance)
Z3: 165 - 180 (anaerobic)
Z4: 180 - 194 (red line)
Most of my training will be done in Z2, though once a week I will do intervals in Z3. I'll pretty much never go into Z4.
I'll probably test it again in a few months, but for now that's good enough for me. I also did mile #4 in 2:33, which gives me a good idea as to how fast I can go. After the test I finished the loop and did one more as a cool down, and was tempted to do a 4th loop, but decided not to push it and went home. I'm glad I chose to do that, because I had crazy bad saddle sores on the inside of my thigh and nether-regions. These go away eventually, right? Right?
The next morning my thighs were crazy sore, more than they've ever been. Glad I stopped at three loops. I'll be testing my max heart rate for running on Wednesday, so it will be interesting to see how it compares. I'm guessing it's up over 200.
Monday Lunch:
-Leftover broccoli and beef stir fry
-4 oz colby jack cheese
-Black bean and quinoa infused chips
-2 glasses of milk
-4 peanut butter cookies
Monday Dinner:
-Black bean and quinoa quesadillas
-2 glasses of milk
-2 protein shakes (one with creatine)
-A handful of peanut butter M&Ms (THESE ARE BAD TO HAVE IN THE HOUSE)
Hmmm, your training zones look high to me. I have pretty much the same max HR as you on the bike, but your training zones should be from Z1 to Z5. Most of your training should be done in Z2/3 out of 5.
ReplyDeleteSo, since you did not do a lactate threshold test, you should do the following:
Take the last 10 min of your test from your highest HRM backwards. Average this HRM, this should be your lactate threshold. Imagine the LT is 165, then head over to beginnertriathlete.com and compute your zones using the LT method. This should give you the most appropriate training zones for biking in a triathlon.
If your LT was 165, your zones would look something like this:
Z1 108-136
Z2 136-147
Z3 148-154
Z4 155-167
Z5 165-180
In Z2, it should feel really easy and boring as hell. In Z3, you can start feeling your HR raise a little. Believe me, you will get frustrated to stay so low, but this is the key in building slow twitch muscle fibers needed in long distance training.
You should read more here:
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=633
Do you think the lactate threshold method is more accurate than the Karvonen method that I used? Looking at some other resources, it does appear that my ranges are pretty high. I'm estimating a resting heart rate of 50, though that may not be entirely accurate.
ReplyDeleteI might need to redo the test for the lactate threshold instead of using yesterday's data, since my max heart rate test was only for about 7 minutes.
Thanks for the feedback! Any and all advice is appreciated.
Usually the LT test is considered the most accurate, so maybe you can do that for the run and see how it compares with your bike results. You may not need to redo the bike if you have a good LT test done. In general you can get the bike zones by substracting 5-10 beats from the run zones, depending how alike your max HR is.
ReplyDeleteGood idea, I'll do that for my run test tomorrow and see how it compares.
ReplyDelete