Originally Posted by
DrIsotope
Good god, I could have written this. The differences in my situation were minor at most-- my LTHR dropped from 172 to 166, I gained 12lbs instead of 8lbs, etc. It was three months of barely managing to turn pedals, and a good year before I was back to "normal."
That's why the OP's elevated HR leads me to think it's something else-- I still get the depressed heart rate for the ride or two after big efforts, as in an inability to get out of Z1. Go as hard as I can up a hill, HR goes to 133 or 134 and just sits there. Blood not moving enough to clear the legs, so they just turn into sand. Overreached, I call it. Micro-overtraining.
Overtraining or just high fatigue should result in an elevated resting HR and a depressed HR during riding for a particular zone even if you can reach and hold power numbers. Its an easy way to tell whether you should do your intervals for a given day.