LowCel 

Just thought I would post a picture to give some of you an idea of what my heart goes through during a race. This was from yesterday's race at Bob Evan's Farm in Rio Grande, OH. The course was awesome and the people were great! Can't wait to go back next year.

This is my highest average heart rate to date. It seems like I can handle a little more every race. At the start of this season my average heart rate was in the 165 - 168 range.

Anywho, here it is. Check out how close my average heart rate was to my max heart rate.

mtnbiker66

OK....I have no idea what that means. I'm really gonna need some help on this getting faster stuff.

santiago

It seems like you really enjoyed the racing experience. How did you find the exertion when climbing? Did you find it hard? If you did, LowCel can fill you in on how to train for this kind of stuff but basically you have to training for this to get your heart rate up. I think the training for this is referred to as Intervals.

I started taking a spinning class (your next step as a weight-weenie during the off-season!) and find it's helped me a LOT for climbing and stuff.

Flak

Why does the idea of mtnbiker66 being an XC racer make me laugh so much?

Taerom

What are the big dips in the blue bar? Mini heart attacks?

LowCel 

The blue line is altitude. The red is heart rate.

Siu Blue Wind

DylanTremblay

Huh?...If I knew what the hell that meant I'd comment.

Roxter

Man, you're my idol. How many miles was that race?

dminor 

Man, you held that without exploding Those are some pretty big numbers, there, LowCel. Good job! Hey, is it my imagination or was there a descent in there that put a lump in your throat (about a third of the way in)?

Zeggelaar

Hey Lowcell,
That's some serious effort. It's pretty similar to mine. Your zones are also pretty similar. My last three events (last Sunday exluded, see racing thread) averaged 171, 173 and 174 with progressively better results. What's your Max HR? What kind of monitor are you using? Did you do a lab test?
Sorry for the direct questions but it's nice to get this kind of feedback from other racers.

Cheers

mirona

lowcel, you must be a roadie on the side

Siu Blue Wind

Yeah he's on the OTHER other side.

LowCel 

Nope, I play both sides of the field.

LowCel 

It was relatively short but didn't offer too many opportunities for recovery. It was a 13 mile race.

LowCel 

I never once said I didn't explode! I did get sick twice during the race, unfortunately some of the goodies inside my tummy wanted to be on the outside.

There was a pretty decent downhill, not nearly as long as it appears on the graph though.

LowCel 

My "max hr" is around 185 - 188. Now I'm not including what I hit once in a blue moon. On rare occasions I will hit around 192, very rare though.

For mountain biking I use a Polar S725 heart rate monitor. On the road I use a PowerTap SL. That thing is extremely accurate and tells no lies.

I haven't done any lab testing yet. I found my threshold hr by doing a 30 minute all out time trial on the road bike and using the last 20 minutes of that as instructed by Joe Friel in the Cyclists Training Bible (and the Mountain Bikers Training Bible). I need to redo that test in the future though.

I just found out a few days ago that there is now a place around here that does VO2 max testing and some type of laser body fat testing. I may try that here in a month or so just for kicks. They only charge $75.

erhan

LowCel, that's really crazy. I mean, 66 minutes in zone 5 is a lot of pain and suffering. Just amazing. I personally can't stay in that zone longer than probably 20 minutes.

Anyways, I'll post one of mine. This one is from yesterday doing some hill repeats. Looks kind of funny

LowCel 

erhan, very nice. I see you made the same mistake doing hill repeats that I make, did the first one a bit too intense.

Here is a graph of one of the days I did hill repeats, this one is pretty old and I am turning out numbers a bit better these days.

LowCel 

Oh, forgot to mention. The race I did Sunday before this one was pretty intense as well. Here are some basic numbers from that one.

zone 1: 0.5 minutes
zone 2: 1.08 minutes
zone 3: 3.92 minutes
zone 4: 21.5 minutes
zone 5: 75.25 minutes

I did a little more recovery during that race. My average heart rate was "only" 172 bpm.

santiago

Must control urge to buy new gadget like a heart rate monitor. Oh no, I'm heading towards Ebay.

Help me!!!!!!!!

erhan

Geez man... 75 minutes . How do you deal with the pain for that long? Is it just motivation?

Oh yea, I did that mistake of attacking the hill Lesson learned though

LowCel 

I'm not sure how I deal with it, all I know is that it HURTS!!!!!!!

erhan

That's for sure . Anyways, that's really some excellent effort. Keep it up!

apclassic9

So, can you point out the spots where you stopped to puke?