Went for a run today. First run since the Half Ironman 3 weekends ago. Since that race, I've been mountain biking a lot at high-intensity. There were 2 big mountain bike races on the last 2 weekends. Since last weekend, I've been resting and relaxing (a couple mid-effort hour-long bikes, but keeping the HR under 155bpm as I felt tired).
My HR max prior to today was about 176 bpm. I haven't seen it above this in a few years (and I pretty much always train with my HR monitor on). My max for the mountain bike races on the last two weekends was about 171 bpm (peak in a 2 hour race). My usual running/cycling threshold is about 168bpm for a 1hr run/2hr bike.
Today, however, something different. I maxed out on my run at 182bpm. I haven't seen my HR this high in probably 5 years. So what's going on? I would say that this is an outlier on my HR monitor. However, it's the same monitor I've been using. I had good HR connection for the whole workout. And it wasn't a short one-off reading. The graph clearly shows a clean incline up to 182bpm (Garmin Forerunner 305, recording every second). If the elevation/pace looks jumpy, I was in the trees, so GPS may not have been great, but HR is independent of that.
So what's the deal here? Is this a new max indicative of some superior fitness that I've achieved this year? Or, is this a product of a few weeks of peak races and a week of rest and recovery? Or...what?
I suppose the next workout will be telling...
Have you managed to hit this HR since?
ReplyDeleteNope. Haven't been trying that hard lately though. :)
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