Hello,

All last season I did all my steady state/ zone 4 training at about 160 ish bpm. When I would do these workouts, I would really have to work to get through the 2x20 workouts.

Since Oct I ve been doing all my rides around 150 bpm.

Now... all of a sudden I am doing my rides and runs at the 160 ish bpm. I am talking rides in excess of one hour. These workouts arent that difficult for me to complete.

(I dont look at the HR while training. I check it afterwards)

What do you think might be causing me to be able to ride at a higher HR with less effort? I am not getting any younger.

LOL..... Did I finally have my break through after 10 years of racing!

Thanks,

Gall

this is one nice illustration of why a powermeter is a good training tool: it is hard to know how to functionally interpret heartrate along the lines you described. If you were unable to complete your workouts at a presribed 160bpm (the period you mentioned since Oct), the standard explanation would have been chronic fatigue. The fact that you can now elevate your heartrate for 160bpm for sustained times suggests you're more recovered, but without some other measure it's impossible to correlate that with a change in performance. I switched to powermeter training this season and have found it far more helpful than I had imagined. It not only allows these correlations to be made by providing an objective measure of output, but also quantifies other components of training (or at least the cyclingpeaks software does).

+1 to what Steve said. HR just "is," it doesn't make you fast or slow.

That said, I had a similar experience to you after riding for a few years... my "threshold HR" went up over time. I think that I just got used to a level of suffering that was initially very uncomfortable. It did coincide with me getting faster, but I don't believe that there's any correlation to that... rather just a reflection of a long period of chronic training.

+1 to what Steve said. HR just "is," it doesn't make you fast or slow.

That said, I had a similar experience to you after riding for a few years... my "threshold HR" went up over time. I think that I just got used to a level of suffering that was initially very uncomfortable. It did coincide with me getting faster, but I don't believe that there's any correlation to that... rather just a reflection of a long period of chronic training.
I think what you described accounts for the perceived difficulty from missing even a few days of riding -- you start getting too used to not hurting, and it's hard to go back to hurting.

Could be a few things but here are my guesses.

1. You are in better shape and your LTHR is now higher. Get tested or test yourself.
2. All that lower zone riding made you fresh/rested. If this is the case in a few weeks it will go back to what you expect.