Thursday, October 21, 2010

I Heart Biking! Help My Heart!

I know you were all wondering "Hey, where's Track Coach?" It does appear that I have gone off the deep end, and you wouldn't be completely wrong to assume that. My training has gone right down the crapper. I did something to my knee the Monday before last and haven't been able to run since then. I've tried to make up some training time by biking, but I have been mostly unsuccessful. I'm hoping I'll be back up and running next week, but for now, biking is about all I have.

So, just in case biking is all I have for a while, I figured I should probably get the best out of my Trainer training. Tonight I was just going out for a long ride and was able to get a little over an hour on the trainer. I wanted to pay attention to my heart rate because I always read a lot about heart rates, and it makes me feel guilty that I have no idea what my heart is doing because I just kinda go as hard as I feel I can. I don't know what kind of heart rate I'm supposed to be targeting during my long rides, short rides, or whatever I do.

I started my ride and after about 15 minutes, after a nice good warm up and once I started to get nice and sweaty, I checked my heart rate and it was right at 180 BPM. I figured that was a good a heart rate as any, so that was my target for the rest of the ride. I was able to keep that up the rest of the ride and was able to end on a good couple minutes at about 200 BPM.

This is where you come in... I don't know if that is what I'm supposed to be doing or if I should be trying to go harder, backing off a bit, or what. I think I have a slightly higher base heart rate than normal, with my resting heart rate being right around 65-70. Am I off on my BPM targets? What do you do with your workouts? Am I on the wrong track completely, thinking that it matters what my heart rate is doing?

I also am in need of some ideas for breaking up the rides. I've got the one legged thing and Big Daddy Diesel gave me a good idea for a type of interval, but I still need more ideas. What do you do for your training? HELP!!!

4 comments:

Julie @ HotlegsRunner said...

this post got me more excited to get my bike! =D

Patrick Mahoney said...

I think it's great that you got your heart rate so high after not being on the bike for awhile (I think that's the case). Typically, it takes a rider some time in the saddle to have the strength to work the bike and keep the heart rate that high.

I bet BBD has tons of good riding tips. I just tend to go out and ride, tackle the bigger hills twice if I have the time, intervals here and there, group rides as much as possible, etc.

Aimee said...

Good job on your bike ride.

Have you looked into get a spinervals dvd?? Those are hard, but awesome!

Big Daddy Diesel said...

I second the idea of spinervals, they literally leaving you begging for mercy.

here are some more interval workouts. The trainer should be used primarily for intervals, its to practice what isnt safe to do out on the road.

First, make sure your knee is healthy

always start off with a 5-10 min w/u

a) spin ups, in your big ring up front and your easiest in the back, for 30 seconds, spins at least 110rpm, recover spin for 90 seconds, repeat 8-10 times

b) big ring up front(53) click 5 times for your rear (15) and do 30 seconds as fast you can. Then click to your front granny gear for 2:30 mins of recover, this will hurt around set 5, its sets 5 thru 8 that make you the champion

c) after the warm up, start in your big ring up front, and one click in the rear, go for 5 mins, each five mins click to one more larger gear, at the end you should be 6 clicks out. This is continous, no rest, and it burns, but a great leg builder.

all these are seperate workouts, email me tri_diesel@yahoo.com if you have questions, I hope this helps.