Old 03-16-16, 01:53 AM
  #18  
chasm54
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Originally Posted by Dreww10
A pair of questions:

1) For those that have responded, are we all on the same page of a zone 1-5 arrangement? I know some coaches and websites use a 1-3 or 1-4 system. I use my Garmin to display/track my HR data, and it's five zones.

2) In my experience, mixing up the terrain and the routes is a good thing. However, I'm finding that it's impossible at my fitness level to keep my HR in Zone 2 (or even 3 or 4) while riding on the road, in the elements. Even small climbs, in the lowest of gears at a light-footed effort I'm cresting 170-175 bpm (Z5). So, that being said, can I make the needed gains by sticking to entirely flat roads and parking lots for my long rides, or is that just doing me a disservice?

One of the things Maffetone describes is that lots of his athletes resist his HR-based training because they aren't willing to ride (or run) slow enough to keep their HR down to the recommended level. To start with, they crawl up the hills. But their cruising speed for a given HR does increase over time. There's no harm in riding on flat roads if that's what you have to do.

I've can attest to the fact that training exclusively at intensity has a negative impact on endurance riding. A few years ago I decided to race crits. I had been an endurance rider, I could easily cruise at 18-20 mph on flattish terrain with my HR around 120. For crits I switched my training almost entirely away from volume and onto intensity. It made me faster, alright, but by the end of that first season my endurance performance had collapsed, I could no longer cruise like I used to.
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