…so I spent an hour on the indoor bike. The wind and rain was not appealling and I also had some things to do around the house that pushed on until it was about dark.
Actually, I spent about the same time it would have taken me to do 20 miles on the regular bike, so all was not lost.
What I have been looking at recently is heart rate zones and working within them. This won’t be anything new to most of you, and it wasn’t something new to me either…I just haven’t paid much attention to it. My philosphy has been - go as hard as I can for as long as I can!
I’m reading my shiny new book and finding out a lot more about heart rate zones and different training methods that I hadn’t considered. So, before embarking on the program outlined in the book, I used today as a bit of a test.
I have a heart rate monitor on my bike computer which I have been using to an extent, with mixed results. I’ve found the readings it gives to be a little far fetched at times and fluctuating the rest of the time! I do have a second heart rate monitor, this time a Timex Ironman which I haven’t used for a while due to the elastic in the chest strap being pretty much shot, that I decided to try out again today.
One trip (actually my wife went) to the fabric store to pick up a bit of elastic, then a short spell on the sewing machine and I had a new strap and was ready to rock.
The readings on this one are pretty accurate. I spent a bit of time watching the monitor and taking my own heart rate the old fashioned way to confirm everything looked good then set out on the indoor bike for an hour in “Zone 2″ - 123-132 bpm.
It was very interesting watching how my heart rate went through the course of the workout. It took me about 4 mins to warm up into the zone, then holding it was not much of a problem. It was more of a challenge to hold the rate down to 132 than it was to maintain the low end. My heart rate pretty much swung between 126 and 132 for the first 45 mins…after that I would swing a lot further. I’d find my attention wandering and my heart rate would be 134-135 so I would conciously slow down which would take it down to 122-123…then I’d hold it in the zone for a few mins then do a similar wander.
That’s all attention span and conditioning. I’m sure it will get easier to hold steady for longer periods as I keep going.
Something else this exercise highlighted was that it is going to be very hard to maintain such a narrow band while riding on the road. It is almost impossible for me to ride anywhere nearby without encountering some fairly severe hills. I realize the aim is to keep the average in this range, but big hills usually lead to big fluctuations. My current gear ratios (I have a 53-39 up front with an 11-25 cassette) seriously limit how much I can spin up a hill. This could be very challenging.
Another thing of note on todays exercise was how different riding a recumbent (that’s what our indoor bike is) is to riding upright. After an hour in the saddle today I went to stand up and my buttocks said “uhm, no thanks, not today”. That wore off pretty quickly but did show that a very different set of muscles were being used.
How’s that for a bunch of wibble??
Workout:
- Type: General Cardio
- Date: 11/17/2007
- Time: 16:30:00
- Total Time: 1:09:00.00
- Average Heart rate: 128
- Max Heart rate: 135
- Calories: 606
Digg! this story.
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