A little more, a little less

Second session on the bike this week, and it was almost the same as the first. 65 minutes, planning on hitting zones 1-3. By the end of ride, I discovered I had put out a little more power than Tuesday (about 5 watts on the average), with my heart rate averaging about 3 bpm less. Last time I tickled zone 3, this time I got close enough to look at it, but didn't really cross over.

I know there are many people who argue that HR is not as good a measure as power, and some even believe that it is at best misleading or at worst flat-out useless. I'm not of that school of thought. I use HR in my training, specifically for the lower-intensity work. It helps to rein in my effort so that the easy stuff remains easy. If my HR spikes at an effort that should be easy (5-10 bpm higher than normal) than I know that I need to back off, and perhaps take some extra rest. If my HR is low for a given effort, and there's consistency across a few workouts, then I take that as proof of fitness improvement, and can readjust my paces.

But things change when looking at high-intensity work. For intervals and harder work, I guide the effort based on power, pace and RPE, and HR is only tracked. The HR zones are so tight, that any small change could easily lift me out of a zone, so as a "on-the-fly" measure, I don't find it nearly as useful. In retrospective analysis, I can track fitness changes, but that's how I use it. With the LSD work I'm doing now, I can regard a session like tonight, and say more power at lower heart rate is indicative of a fitness boost. And that's always nice tosee.

Bike: 65 min, zone 1-2 (lots of upper zone 2)
Run: 2 miles @ 7.0 mph