On Wednesday, I met Mike, Joe, and another rider (whose name I can't remember...darn) at the Arboretum duck pond for a short but hilly ride. We headed south down Capitol of Texas Highway, then crossed Bull Creek and connected up with Ladera Norte. A screen capture of the route is shown below, and the link to the ride data is here. As you can see, there's some nice terrain around Ladera Norte and Far West. In fact, over the 17 mile ride, there was about 1500 ft of elevation gain (and loss), with 17% maximum grade. It wasn't a killer, but it was a nice lunch hill climb.
In contrast, a few weeks ago I had a great Sunday ride with the Team McAllen "elite" group. The bulk of the ride was in the 22-24 mph range, with a total distance of 53 miles. It was totally flat. I felt really good about my performance, and I also felt that I had physically pushed myself and had ridden a challenging training ride.
Of course, since I'm an analytical engineering type, I've been comparing and contrasting these rides in my mind since Wednesday. On the Duck Pond Ride, I felt like I maxed out my heart rate on the hills, and my lungs opened up and really burned. On the Elite Ride, I sustained a high heart rate, and my quads burned, but I never felt like I couldn't catch my breath. The Elite Ride was much longer, but I felt about the same when I finished as I did when I finished the much shorter Duck Pond Ride.
But what about data? Here's a quick and dirty heart rate distribution:
When I first looked at the data, I was a bit confused. For the Elite Ride, the data is shifted towards Zone 4. For the Duck Pond ride, the bulk of the distribution is around Zone 3. At first glance, the heart rate distribution for the Duck Pond Ride seems to indicate it was an easier ride, which contrasts with how I felt during the ride.
My take on the data is that as you move up in the HR zones, there's a non-linear relationship to the effect on your body and your exertion level. In other words, spending time in Zone 5, even a little time, can wear you out quickly. Since the Duck Pond Ride spent double the percentage of time in Zone 5, it had a bigger impact on my lungs and exertion. Couple that with a healthy amount of time in Zone 4 and Zone 3 during the Duck Pond Ride, and you've got a good lung burning ride.
Oh yeah -- I'm not a physiologist, but I can BS about exercise with the best of them. Just ask my spouse, who is having a birthday tomorrow! Happy 29th, Vic!
4 comments:
so, the Elite ride was the smart ride?
@irongambit They were both good, but in their own way.
Scott was the AT&T/Brain and Spine rider who joined us. I think comparing the rides based on Heart Rate is flawed. Heart rate can be influenced by external factors, like temperature, hydration and overall health. Also there can be a lag in heart rate, where as the shorter hills started to wear on the legs but the heart rate didn't have enough time to elevate. These shortcomings to solely training with heart rate are why there has been a shift to training with power meters. An engineer type like yourself will love the data that a power meter can provide. It really can be used to calculate how fast you'll go up a hill given the incline, weight of the bike/rider and the watts produced. Last week I posted on my ride up the 3 Sisters, the calculations came out almost dead on given my variables. Heart rate can't give you reproducible numbers like that.
I guess it's evident that I need to up the ante for next weeks ride, I took it too easy on you guys.
@Weiland You are absolutely right about the flaws of heart rate analysis, but it's all I've got right now. Sometimes if you want to drive in a screw, all you have is a hammer.
I want a Power Tap almost as much as I want a totally new rig. And for various reasons, they are both equally improbable right now! :^(
What's the next route???
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