> At 56, you shouldn't have to take more than 2-3 days to recover from even a kick-yer-a$$ hard ride; and if you go a whole week you're not just resting, you're losing conditioning. <

Oh, I used to the routine of doing a real hard ride and then taking a couple days to recover. That's one reason why I want to go back to 3 days a week instead of 4 or 5 but ALSO be doing rides of more like 40-50 miles - at least once I get things working better again. I can enjoy that IF I can keep up a decent speed.

What I don't know is what to do when I've done 11 or 12 weeks averaging 190 miles - way over my norm. Maybe it makes no real difference in recuperation time, but maybe it does.

> I do agree with KoffeeBrown, you should get a book or two on HRM training - and a HRM to go with them. <

I have a monitor, though I don't use it much unless I specifically want to check something. I have the Lance Armstrong book by Carmichael too, but a lot of the routines are tough for me to do. For example, finding a place where I don't have to stop much - just too many traffic lights around here.

> I think you'll find you're training in the 'dead zone', which IIRC is about 65-80% of MHR. <

I'll have to look it up, but I thought level 4 would be considered pretty aggressive. I can't find my book at the moment either, but thought that was up to 85% of max. My max I've ever reached was 183. If my 85% figure in correct, that would be 155 for the high end.

> I try to include ONE ride per week where I push my HR to about 95% for an hour or so, <

Wow, that would be 174 for me. Don't know if I could push that hard for very long at all. Heck, the 1 minute intervals kill me. While I haven't checked my HR lately, I suspect it isn't much different than that. Can't imagine going that hard for an hour!

Thanks for the info.