Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
[snip] To take morning HRs, after your morning pee, lie down until your HR stabilized, then observe it for 3 minutes. Then stand up and watch it for an additional 3 minutes. Note the approximate average of the last 30 seconds of those standing 3 minutes and take that as your standing HR. The difference between your resting and standing HRs is your orthostatic HR. If your OHR get maybe 10 beats above normal levels, you're probably overreaching. Continuing to train with a high OHR can lead to overtraining. That limit is however personal. You have to take your HRs for a while to see what's going on. 40 resting HR is not unusual, it just means that you adapt very well, a good thing. Two things contribute: increased blood volume and increased heart ejection fraction, which latter is the result of a more muscular heart. The first thing happens pretty quickly, the second more slowly. I have a friend who has "My resting HR is 40" on his RoadID, to prevent tactical errors by EMTs.
My lying down HR average over 3 minutes this morning was about 46. Last 30 second average while standing up was about 60 or 61. I did not ride yesterday (but I did go for a 5 mile walk with a few short rests during it). I also experienced a stressful event at work around 4:30pm yesterday; not sure if that would affect this morning, though.
I'm thinking instead of doing some kind of interval this afternoon I'll just take it easy. Not sure if I should still do a long ride on Friday? Maybe I'll do a flatter route so I don't go into zone 4.