I raced for an hour and a half recently, and according to my hrm averaged 178bpm with a polar-estimated max of 190. I don't think I could have gone any faster, and I was hurting the entire race, much more at the end. Is there something wrong with my polar max estimated hr of 190, or is it reasonable that I spent an hour and a half at nearly 94%?
I did a lot of hill sprints and various types of intervals in preparation for this race. I've never seen more than perhaps 186-189 on my hrm in feeling like near death efforts (except for a couple of momentary 220s, but I'm pretty sure those were due to electrical interference since the polar software "fixed" the hrm data upon upload).
I raced for an hour and a half recently, and according to my hrm averaged 178bpm with a polar-estimated max of 190. I don't think I could have gone any faster, and I was hurting the entire race, much more at the end. Is there something wrong with my polar max estimated hr of 190, or is it reasonable that I spent an hour and a half at nearly 94%?
I did a lot of hill sprints and various types of intervals in preparation for this race. I've never seen more than perhaps 186-189 on my hrm in feeling like near death efforts (except for a couple of momentary 220s, but I'm pretty sure those were due to electrical interference since the polar software "fixed" the hrm data upon upload).
Your HR during a race will always be a little higher than you will experience while training on your own. This is primarily due to the added mental stimulation (greater adrenaline release) and motivation to push harder than normal. As regards your Polar HR max: while this may give you a good estimate, the only way to know for sure is have the proper test conducted. See cyclecoach.comarticlesOpen ↗ or feel free to contact me at [email hidden]
Yes, thanks for your reply and link! I and my mates just thought it was a bit eye-poppingly high. I also was slightly short on sleep which probably didn't help either - far too excited to sleep properly. It was my best result by a long way too.
I don't pay a huge amount of attention to the hrm since I rather go on how my body is feeling during the race. In this case decidedly wobbly, close to loosing control a few times.
