Many people use heart rate zones to do their training.  I wrote an article on the subject and how there are several approaches, including some simple 3 zone approaches and more sophisticated four or even five zone approaches.

My Polar heart rate monitor software allows you to setup what it calls sport zones.  The default is 5 zones all based on maximum heart rate, with the maximum intensity zone defined as 90-100% of maximum heart rate, hard intensity zone of 80-90% of maximum heart rate, and so forth.  With a maximum heart rate of 180 bpm, that would give me a range in the maximum intensity of 180 x 0.9 = 162.  On a recent 95 miles race, with 9,500 feet of climbing I used my Polar HRM and had reset to use the defaults.  But the 7 hours during the race showed 2 full hours in that red zone.  Since this red zone should be above your Lactate Threshold, it indicated that such a range was too wide.

One heart rate zone calcualtor that is more sophisticated because it also uses your resting heart rate.  You calculate the difference between your resting heart rate and maximum heart rate.  For me that is 180-45 = 135.  Now instead of using just 90% of maximum heart rate, you use 90% of that difference plus your resting heart rate (0.9 x 135 + 45 = 167).  That small change from using 162 and 167 results in a reduction of time in that recent race from 2 full hours down to 45 minutes.  Use this handy calculator to use this approach for your own zones.

Today I needed to take my bike into the shop to have the steerer tube slightly cut because when the Trek Store built up with the new frame, they didn’t cut it quite enough so the LBS needed to add a spacer on the top of the stem.  I thought this would be a good chance to do a time trial up Suncest.  All my other times up that hill were part of a long ride, including the recent Warriors race.  It took me 21:15 to make the climb, more than two minutes faster than my previous best.  I was in the “red zone” for 16:30, or most of the climb.  I had an average heart rate of 166 during the climb with a maximum of 176.  That indicates two things.  One that my maximum heart rate is indeed close to 180 and that using 167-180 bpm as the “red zone” is about right.  Below is the heart rate curve from the Suncrest time trial.

Categories: Speed Workout, Training Log
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