My heart's status? Beating. Steadily.
That pretty much summed up my knowledge of HRs.
Now I've got a coach, and am actually in training for bad-assness, as opposed to my old gameplan: overtraining for overuse injuries. As part of this new regimen, I am employing the aid of a heart rate monitor. My very own beeping aerobic monitoring pal.
Now one would think that having a HR monitor would make riding the bike easier. For a normal person, this may be true, but for me, one would be wrong. I've always like to have perceived exertion as my guide. This wasn't the best approach, as I always wanted to FEEL the exertion on the bike. Not feeling it meant, in my mind, not working. Thus, I never really had any true recovery days; I couldn't help myself.
I'm feeling a whole lot of not working lately.
I know that this is not the case. I know that I am rebuilding my base, which is perhaps the most important part of cycling training; without a solid mileage foundation, intervals, hill repeats, and other such workouts are pretty much useless. Keeping my heart-rate in the magic endurance range means that I'm SAFELY preparing myself for some serious self butt kicking down the line.
But I'm getting sick of the beeps. Beep! Slow down! Beep! Watch out! Beep! I know you want to cruise at 20 but you need to drop it back to 16! Beep! I know you're getting passed by every other cyclist out there but you need to let it go!
The most recent example? This morning I went on a fabulous ride with two of my amazing girlfriends. It was the first time riding with either of them since the Big Blowout. I was psyched. I was also psyched because I was allowed to do two 2x10 intervals where I could get my heartrate up into my current "Sweet Spot": 160-165. High endurance.
First interval? Awesome. I'm riding my new carbon sexy speed demon bike, sporting the Garmin, and flying down Air Harbor at 24mph. Heart rate? 164ish all the way.
We come to Church right at interval's end, turn down Spencer Dixon, and chit chat as recovery. HR goes down to 135-145.
At the end of Spencer Dixon, we wait at the stop light and see a group of Tri Geeks (term of affection people, hackles down) race past. Time for interval number two.
Mary to me and Genisis: Want to catch them?
Me and Genisis: Sure.
And we're off.
HR monitor creeps up. 150, 155, 160. 165. That's it for me. I top out at 20mph on the slight uphill of 150 towards Lake Brandt.
And watch Mary go racing past, still in hot pursuit.
I wanted with every muscle to jump on her wheel and max out, push it, catch those guys and fly by them.
Beep beep beep! 169. I can feel that I am no longer in endurance mode; I couldn't keep this pace up for any great length of time. Downshift to a spinnier gear goes I. Away goes Mary. Down goes HR.
Mary, always a gentlewoman, sees that I'm not with her, and starts to soft peddle as I catch up. She finishes the interval with us, and we all slow way down for recovery.
I know that it was a good thing I let Mary drop the hammer (she would have caught them had she not stopped for me) without joining in the festivities. My recovery schedule also thanks me. My coach and my physical therapist both thank me. But heartrate training is not as easy as one would think. It actually requires MORE discipline and self control than going by feel, because there are concrete numbers to pay attention to rather than perceived exertion levels (which I always ignored for the most part anyways).
Athletes like myself, who are all about GOGOGO, have a hard time saying STOP. That's where the beep comes in. Beep! Stop!
As my heart gets stronger again, my HR will naturally drop, and I'll be able to be back at the smithy with Mary once more.
In the meantime, though, I'm chained to a monitor.
Son of a beep.
love the son of a beep ending. those tri geeks won't have anything on you in a few month's time
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