genejockey 

It not JUST the highs, though that's where it's most obvious. It's every part of my HR Zone range. I've been riding for 25 years, and over that time, my HR zones didn't really change. The fitter I got, the more time I could spend in the higher zones, the farther I could go, and the faster I could go, but the borders between the zones stayed the same.

Since July, it's like they've ALL shifted downwards 5-10 bpm. The zones still feel the same as they always have, but the actual HR in each is lower. I never used to see anything less than 125 on a ride. Now I'm seeing 115. Tempo used to be 140-160. Now it's 135-150. LT used to be 164. Now it's 159. In July I could still hit 176 with a little work. Now, even harder work gets me to 167.

When you've ridden for a couple decades, most of it with a HRM, you get used to the numbers aligning with perceived effort. To have it change so much in such a short time is weird. The fact that it's not accompanied by worsening perfomance, falling average speeds, or lower endurance is what keeps me from calling the doctor.

If you go up to MinnMan's comment above and click on the link, you'll see that he's experiencing the same thing - the HR zones he's used to are changing, but his performance isn't dimiishing. He and I are within 3 years in age - he's 59, I'm 62. Both of us riding for years, suddenly experiencing this shift. So I'm curious what's happening.

Iride01 

I still can't quite wrap my head around what troubles you. Every thing you've mentioned seems to be a positive thing. Sure things under the hood change a little over time. But so far everything is still working to give you better performance than before.

I'm 62 yo also. I've only got a little more than 10 years of data. I didn't ride for just over six months after a crash that gave me a severe concussion in July 2019. I started back riding in February. In late March or April, I was also seeing some stuff in my numbers that made me ask myself similar stuff that you, MinnMan , and a few others have been asking or hinting at this year. But for the most part my numbers are looking more normal now that I've gotten a couple thousand miles on the odometer. Or at least since everything about my performance is better than most of my data prior to my crash, I'm happy.

At 62 yourself, you should probably establish a relationship with a heart doctor. If for no other reason, just so they can get their own baseline of what you are currently. Since I've cycled for some time in a fairly high effort way I've always pestered my other doctors about HR questions and their answers were less than forthcoming and never seemed to take into consideration the high intensity I exercised at. I went to a heart doctor at the first of 2019. I found that he could answer satisfactorily all my questions about my heart and high cardio exercise that the other doctors wouldn't or couldn't.

Since my heart doctor continues to say my heart is in excellent working order I just think that when my numbers start decreasing, then that's just old age doing what old age does. Maybe I'll have to get with a group of younger cyclists that ride slower and can't climb. <grin>

genejockey 

Reading MinnMan's thread, I found that he ran into the same thing - people not getting why we were bothered. We've been led to expect gradual, steady change as we age, but instead we've both seen fairly sudden changes. Sudden changes involving something as important as the heart can be, if not unnerving, then certainly something you wonder about.

And inconvenient! All the HR zones that I've been living with for decades are now completely different. I first REALLY noticed it after a ride where I went out feeling fast, and pushed the whole ride. Every time I was spinning along at what for me was a pretty good clip, I'd think, "Can I go faster?" and I'd try, and sure enough, I went faster! It was like I had reserves I had never appreciated. I ended up riding the longest ride I'd done in 2020, and scoring 45 'Achievements', with 21 PRs on segments I'd ridden dozens, even over 100 times. It felt amazing!

But the "Relative Effort" score was only 81. And when I looked at the 'Time In Zones", 80% of the time, I was in Z1 or Z2, which simply didn't feel right, and didn't match how hard I'd been working.



Just one week before that, I did a ride 10 miles shorter, on the same roads, about a whole mph SLOWER average speed. "Relative Effort" was 127, and over 50% of the time in Z3 and Z4.



The earlier ride is much more representative of what I've seen from Sunday rides for years. The later ride was very different.SO, this change was pretty sudden. Right around mid-September, I got A LOT faster, and started getting a bunch of PRs on every ride, while at the same time my "time in zones" shifted dramatically.

So part of the problem is that, for example, on long climbs I have always gauged my effort by HR, because I knew where my zones were and how long I could maintain an effort that elicited a particular HR. Now, I don't know anymore. I've figured out new zone borders, but I don't know if they'll stay that way. Complicates things a lot! But again, since it seems to be accompanied by improvements in speed and endurance, I'm not worried by it.

Iride01 

I don't expect it to be gradual steady decline. I don't remember if I've ever seen a study that focused on individuals as they aged. They were always talking about groups. And none can I remember where tracking the results of those groups as they moved into the other age groups of the study.

I have seen some opinions from a few that stated that athletes won't see their HR drop much as they age. But nothing more than anecdotal and some data that was circumstantial at best. Wish I could remember where I found them, they were more than just someone like me babbling opinion. But still not quite scientific.

I sort of suspect that certain events will impact our HR as we age. What those are, I don't know. I was worried that the period I wasn't riding was going to be one of them, but now I'm thinking all is good.

We should compare notes in 2038. Although my spark death test I took in the mid to late 90's says I'm checking out in February of 2035. <grin>

Carbonfiberboy 

I get why you're bothered. Stuff goes wrong. Doing a lot of hard riding as one ages increases the likelihood of things going wrong. We know that. The only way to investigate these issues is with a cardiologist and getting a complete workup. Sonogram, nuclear stress test, CT scan, the whole works. If there's something wrong, they'll find it.

Hermes

Old La Honda? One of my favorites in the Bay Area. Although, OLH is 3.4 miles average 7.3% so it may be a different climb.

It is interesting that you have not assumed that the change in HR ie lower means added headroom to increase FTP power. I used a coach who liked to monitor HR along with power. The workout was prescribed with power targets based off of FTP but lower HR for a given power was indicative of potential FTP gains.

Now capitalizing on the HR headroom is a different matter entirely. It is very hard to increase HR and speaking for myself, I can develop a happy spot. I am going pretty fast, I feel good, legs feel good but my FTP is the same. To increase FTP or VO2 max for me takes a goal and a lot of motivation and hard efforts over a long period of time. Otherwise, my happy spot of less beats per watt is just great. I need someone to drive me.

And you may not want to put in the work to get the HR back up with a corresponding higher power level. A 27.5 minute climb time is very respectable for 3 miles and 8% grade. You can just declare victory. Or hire a coach and beat the crap out of yourself and see if the HR increases and performance increases and you routinely run sub 25 minute climbs. I suspect it will but maybe not. YMMV.

Another thread could be ... Capitalizing on HR headroom

genejockey 

Yeah, it's OLH. WRT grade and length, I'm just going with Strava's numbers, using the "Bridge to Stop Sign" segment.

27 1/2 is good, but my all time best (20 years ago) was 24:45, so I've got a ways to go. If my HR zones were still the same, it would be a lot easier to pace myself and know I'd get to the top just as I hit the red. As it is, I'm going by mph and time. The 27 1/2 didn't leave me wanting to throw up when I hit the top, though, so I think I'm being too conservative in my pace.

Iride01 

You might need to ask yourself if HR controls your pace. If you let your HR dictate your pace entirely, then you may not improve your LTHR as much as is possible thereby staving off some of your fears of declining maxHR.

Do you ever use just perceived effort? I got over concentrating on HR during my rides a long time ago. I use it mainly for post ride assessment of how hard or not I may have been going on a particular segment.

Try leaving your HR strap at home or taking that field off your screen for a few rides. Let your own sense of effort tell you how hard you can go for the entire 30 or 40 miles and for extra effort to get up climbs. You might find your times improve.

Carbonfiberboy 

Heart rate range has been a constantly changing thing since I started tracking it in my mid-50s. I don't know why anyone would think that max effort HR or LTHR would stay the same while one aged and while one's fitness changed with the seasons. My HRs were constantly changing. I tested at least once a month if I had not done a ride recently which would test at least LTHR. Usually I had.

If you don't, you're really lost in the woods, not knowing how hard you can go. I knew my exact maintainable HRs for most of the local climbs. It's not hard - just go as hard as you think you can and see what happens. Next time, go either harder or easier, depending. Remember what those numbers were, log them. Most climbs of equal time will have the same numbers. Knowing your numbers will really pay off on the big rides, where you'll know exactly where to park your HR. If you're right, you'll hold those HRs to the end and wind up not being able to dismount the bike. Perfect. It's not possible to see the future many hours away as accurately just gong by feel - or going by power or speed for that matter.

Those numbers always changed as my fitness changed with the seasons and slowly went down at a fairly even and increasing rate as I got older.

If one is using an HRM and doesn't know those numbers, that means that one can go harder, simple as that. If you don't seek your limits, you won't know where they are. OTOH, not everyone is driven to seek them. Maybe it's not even a good idea.

genejockey 

I DO ride by perceived effort, which is why the sudden split between perceived effort and observed HR is so odd. And I'm already MUCH faster than I had been. What I'm observing is LOWER HR at the same perceived effort combined with HIGHER speeds. Plus more endurance at the same perceived effort, which I attribute to fitness improvement - "Training doesn't mean you suffer less, it means you suffer longer", someone once told me.

The reason I use HR on climbs is to avoid starting out too hot and blowing up before the top. A half-hour or 45 minute climb requires pacing, and I used to know what HR I had to hit and maintain, and as I got fitter, that same HR would get me to the to faster. Now, if I hit the HR I used to do most of the climb at (160-170 with occasional peaks as high as 180), I can tell I'll blow up.

BTW, I couldn't get out for a long Sunday ride yesterday so I did Zwift instead. I did the Ramp Test, and was able to get my HR up to 174 before stopping, and it definitely wasn't the "hit the wall" feeling I've had previously when hitting my MaxHR. But 174 felt like 180 used to.

Iride01 

That's a good thing.

So there isn't really a concern. Or would you prefer do the same perceived effort with those higher speeds at a higher HR?

genejockey 

I give up.

I appreciate your trying to understand this, really I do. But I still feel like nobody gets what I'm saying.

And that's okay, because like I said, the lowered HR ranges - which I've never experienced in 25 years of riding - are not accompanied by lowered performance, so it's not so much a matter of 'concern' as it is an anomaly. Imagine you'd been driving the same car for 25 years, and then over the course of a couple months, your car became both faster AND got better gas mileage. You'd see that as anamalous, even as you gratefully accept the changes, right? But you'd wonder why it happened.

As a scientist by trade and training, I simultaneously need to understand the anomaly AND accept that I may never understand the anomaly. That's life.

Iride01 

Well a lot of the things we are doing with HR in training is relating it to make some assumptions that we can't directly measure with HR. Which mostly is power. So to me, it's very conceivable that suddenly after many years I might see a noticeable change all of a sudden. HR, time, distance just doesn't give us all the info we need.

And if like Carbonfiberboy you were not re-establishing your LTHR periodically, then you left off a key set of data that might show you some more accurate assumptions over time than picking data from rides that might be affected by whether you were solo or group. Or even if there was someone you saw further ahead that you worked hard to pass and then worked extra hard not to let them pass you.

That's part of why they say not to do your LTHR with others.

Time and distance are my main pieces of data. HR is only to lend some support for if I can go harder or went too hard. I'm just happy to be doing better at my age still, I try not to think of it as the light bulb burning brighter just before it burns out.

genejockey 

I'm a cranky misanthrope, so I don't do much of anything with others.

Iride01 

I might resemble that too. At least the cranky part. But if I see someone else up ahead, all my huffing and puffing pains get muted and I try to catch up or pass. That has to skew my data some with mind over body.

On a sailboat, there are no passengers. Everyone is crew. Likewise everyone on a bike is the competition, whether they are racing or not. <grin>

genejockey 

The presence of cyclists ahead often spoils the plan for a 'mostly Zone 2' ride.

Funny thing, though - I still have the expectations of someone less fit. That is, even though I've lost weight I'm still larger than most road cyclists, so I often roll up on people on downhill sections. Because I've also been slower than most, I avoid passing them so we don't start playing leapfrog on the next rise. But again and again recently, I find myself passing them on the rise because I want to go faster than they're going, and then I drop them. I'm not used to that.

I probably better not get used to it, either....