Yeah! completed my first race!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by shming123
i completed my first race today! Anyways, i have one question: on the 3rd and 4th time of that killer hill, of course i was dead tired, but i felt like i could have pushed a little bit more if only i could get more air! during the hill, my heart rate never went much higher than about 185 and found this weird since my max is somewhere in the low 200s, and the highest i have gotten it too recently was 202(prob. my max or close to it.) (by the way i'm 20years old.) and the weird part was, that on the 3rd and 4th time climbing that hill, it felt like i couldn't breath in enough air! it literally felt like my throat shrunk and i had a hard time breathing and getting air in! any help with that ? why it happened? etc..? Thanks.

Did you drink during the race? Over that distance you should have been able to gulp down a whole bottle....

Were you well hydrated before the race?

Did you warm up well before the race.

How was the weather?

In the groups you don't want to or need to push your heart to the max, you want it to stay as low as possible....

You only want to max out about 10 -20meters before the finish line IMHO.

There are many factors that will effect your heart rate in a race....

The heart probably has to work harder pushing around thick dehydrated blood..... as well.....

yes, i drank before the race, was well hydrated, drank 1 and a half bottles during the race, i warmed up for about 15 mins. before the race, and it was 68 degrees F, and sunny.

You did fine. That's racing. It's different than training. The demands on your body are different. The fact that you could push yourself until you couldn't breathe well! Man, I haven't been able to do that in a long time, regardless of how close I am to my Max HR (35yo, ~200 Max). You're doing great. Keep training, and keep racing.

The simple truth is: you pushed yourself to your maximum fitness. Your choices are to maintain, or to push harder in your training. I recommend riding a few hills as part of your regimen.

I wonder a bit about heart rate max's in races too...

Mine can go max quite easily on a training sprint with our Sunday training squad because we go hard on the leg home but in races I also don't get near my max....

I guess there is room for us to go a bit harder in races then which is a good sign....

😕

I am the exact opposite. My HR is always at least 10 bpm higher than I expect it to be, given the perceived exertion. I keep discovering that my max HR is higher than I previously thought -- by looking at race data.