Cyclocross Racing - Heart Rate? help me understand where it should be

Ok...I did my first Cross race the other night. I will spare you the details about how awesome it was ...because it was definitely awesome. I'll be back to do it again in two weeks!

My heart rate dilema is as follows:

Our race was 45 minutes long. After warm-up and at the start my HR was at 150 (good starting point I'm thinking). Well...45 seconds into the race my HR is at 175. 15 minutes into the race, I'm dying (like everyone says....but not losing....well....not last anyways). My HR at 15 minute mark, after a run up is 184. Well, I finish the race, spent, but not last.

Average HR was 179:twitchy:
Max was 188
Time in cardio zone (self imposed zone I have set on my HRM of 125-150) was 45 seconds.
Holy crap...I was pegged out the whole time.
When I do my spin class, I thought my previous Max HR of 181 was high. My average HR is usually around 155.

So here is the question:
What and where should your HR be at during the race? Is there a recovery zone/period.
What should I be striving for? Keeping it high and just getting faster or when I actually improve my fitness/speed will it go down some. I am assuming Interval training will help with this.

It would be great if there were some models of what a beginner, novice, and pro hearts are doing and what I should be striving for.

Thanks!

KD

A wise man once said: "It doesn't hurt any less, you just get faster."

Ok...I did my first Cross race the other night. I will spare you the details about how awesome it was ...because it was definitely awesome. I'll be back to do it again in two weeks!

My heart rate dilema is as follows:

Our race was 45 minutes long. After warm-up and at the start my HR was at 150 (good starting point I'm thinking). Well...45 seconds into the race my HR is at 175. 15 minutes into the race, I'm dying (like everyone says....but not losing....well....not last anyways). My HR at 15 minute mark, after a run up is 184. Well, I finish the race, spent, but not last.

Average HR was 179:twitchy:
Max was 188
Time in cardio zone (self imposed zone I have set on my HRM of 125-150) was 45 seconds.
Holy crap...I was pegged out the whole time.
When I do my spin class, I thought my previous Max HR of 181 was high. My average HR is usually around 155.

So here is the question:
What and where should your HR be at during the race? Is there a recovery zone/period.
What should I be striving for? Keeping it high and just getting faster or when I actually improve my fitness/speed will it go down some. I am assuming Interval training will help with this.

It would be great if there were some models of what a beginner, novice, and pro hearts are doing and what I should be striving for.

Thanks!

KD

Heart rate is relative to each user so knowing something about different categories is fairly useless. For your own improvement you should pick up a copy of Friel's Training Bible, and learn about things like heart rate at LT and looking at workouts that improve the time you can spend at that heat rate.

This is why I stopped wearing my HRM during races.

this is why i stopped wearing my hrm during races.

+1