beison said:... Maybe if there are any other road racers out there who've been doing this longer than me, you could throw some perspective my way?...
Well, I spent nearly two decades following the kind of max HR based training advice you just posted. It never worked, my results were all over the map and I paid some very well respected coaches to prescribe training based on those sort of zones you just described.
A couple of years of power based training and after a quarter century of racing I'm finally getting the kind of results I wanted. O.K., a power meter is a big investment for a college student but I've got half a dozen old HR straps lying around and if my PM breaks I still wouldn't use those to guide my training or racing again. If you must use HR to guide your training then at least base it on your HR that represents long full effort time trials, ideally TTs near an hour in length done on a well rested and highly motivated day. There's some decent correlation between HR at LT(or HR at FTP in powerspeak) and training levels derived from that anchor point. HR max isn't really all that useful.
Personally if I had to scrap my power meters for training I'd go back to training on perceived exertion. It's more accurate in many cases than HR, it doesn't suddenly jump up when a car passes too close nor drop if you're unusually fatigued. Overhead power lines don't disrupt perceived exertion either and as a racer it really pays to tune into your body for pacing with or without other instrumentation.
If you want to target Threshold efforts to bring up your sustainable power for road racing and time trials then do efforts at least 10 minutes long and better yet 20 to 60 minutes long at a steady pace that gets you breathing deeply and steadily. It should require concentration and it will creep up on you by the end of the effort but your breathing shouldn't get out of control or ragged and you shouldn't go so hard that you can't finish the effort. It won't take many attempts to figure out how to pace for a given length effort and that attention to your pacing will pay off big time in time trials and if you get into breakaways during races.
This is even more important for short efforts like 3 to 5 minute VO2 Max efforts or minute and a half anaerobic tolerance intervals. HR is all but useless for these short intense efforts because it just won't respond quickly enough. Just find a pace that allows you to complete the desired time with very little left to spare but enough that you can do several more repeats after short rests. Again you'll find out real quickly what you can sustain and what's too hard to finish.
Funny, an older racer first told me to do intervals just like that over 25 years ago. But then HR monitors hit the scene and high tech was the way to go. Now a quarter of a century later power meter data has made it real clear that he was right on target. Choose a time duration to target a specific metabolic process, find a pace that allows you to just complete the target duration with just enough left in the tank for the desired number of repeats. It's not very high tech, but it really does work.
Good luck,
-Dave
