Confused by HR Zones

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02-27-24, 06:38 PM

#26

Carbonfiberboy

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Quote:

Originally Posted by jemaleddin

I do not know what to do about that either. I did a metric century today on the NCR trail (a rail-trail that goes 40 miles form the Baltimore suburbs to York, PA, mostly packed crushed stone and dirt) today and for the first 2 hours I tried to keep myself in zone 2, but when it was time to turn around I was behind schedule (stupid eating, slowing me down) and just rode "fast" without looking at my HR very much, which means that I ended up doing it mostly in zones 4 and 5. But HR drift meant that I had to keep slowing down at the end of 2 hours to stay in zone without creeping up, and I'm not sure how to deal with that either!

(And of course the question of, "Are theze zones even right?")

Edited to add: is there a way to attach images without them being... ginormous? SORRY!

As I've said, you can tell if your zones are about right by going by breathing to find the top of zones 2 and 4, then extrapolating to the the rest of them The Europeans are more sensible about this, using only 3 zones: below our Z2, between our 2 and our 5 and above our 5. Why? Because those zone limits have a physiological basis while the US zone system does not, PITA. My Z5 outside limit is about 15', uncontrollable panting, so I guess you didn't have that much time there. Most folks can hold Z4 for about 20', of course much longer with training. How you deal with zone creep is ride lots, pushing your limits at least once a week, doing intervals, that sort of thing. Hours. Periodized training is interesting in theory, but not in real life, at least not for us non-pros/duffers. I basically don't worry about it, just ride lots and see what happens. Noticing what happens is everything. Then compare your resulting numbers to what happened, look for correlation. Experience will happen.

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