Whats going on?

hcova said:

Hi, during many years ago I was riding road criteriums in my Country. I had a good performance and around 5 years of 5-6 days/week trainning. During last 2 years I didn´t race anything and I have been riding just the weekends. Last October I decided to start again riding for competence doing around 60 miles/day by 5 days a week. Now I am 42 years old and my main concern is the heart rate. 3 years ago I usually had a max of 180-190 bpm well trained and climbing (210 peak not trained). Today it is difficult for me reach 150-160 climbing and I am feeling that my legs are hard when I do an Climb effort.
My training is based on reps and short jumps. And obviouslly I have more pounds in my stomach.
But I am worried about the HR decrease....Am I overtrained? I am training to overloaded? My heart is more efficient? When I started training in last October and during the first months of training I had a regular heart rate, but during last 40-60 days my HR have decreased to the above mentioned.
Any advice or web place where to get help?
Regards
Hernan

Are you doing any recovery riding at all or is it just hammer for 60 miles a day 5 days a week. I'm no expert, but from what I have read mostly from Chris Carmichael is that he recomends at least one week of recovery riding for every 4 weeks of progressive training. The week would be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday recovery ride at 75-85 cadence and only in zone 1 60-65% MHR. Wesdnesday is a rest day and Friday includes 3 sprints to max for about 10 seconds only with at least 5-10 minutes of recovery between each. Saturday and Sunday are back to normal work again.

I just completed a set of training weeks where last week I topped out at 250 miles for the week. I am in a recovery week now. Yesterday I did 1 hour of zone 1 at 80 cadence. I was going by HR and cadence only and ended up averaging something rediculous like 13.5 mph. My legs are dead right now and anything more than the 65% mhr was causing quite a bit of pain in my legs. Today I did 40 minutes of the same HR and cadence, but my average speed went up as I am obviously starting to recover.

If your legs are feeling dead with no power and your HR has dropped like you say, it sounds to me like you are on the virge of or are overtrained. I would do at least a week of recovery riding, which believe me is hard if you like to hammer, and then test yourself with a moderate ride with short intervals to max. If your legs feel good and your HR is responding better I would then ease back into your normal routine, but keep in mind recovery should be a normal part of your training. If not you may be in for some extended recovery of weeks or months.

You are definetly riding too much!!!

What in the world do you hope to accomplish by sticking to your 60 miles 5x per week schedule?

Scott

hcova said:

Hi, during many years ago I was riding road criteriums in my Country. I had a good performance and around 5 years of 5-6 days/week trainning. During last 2 years I didn´t race anything and I have been riding just the weekends. Last October I decided to start again riding for competence doing around 60 miles/day by 5 days a week. Now I am 42 years old and my main concern is the heart rate. 3 years ago I usually had a max of 180-190 bpm well trained and climbing (210 peak not trained). Today it is difficult for me reach 150-160 climbing and I am feeling that my legs are hard when I do an Climb effort.
My training is based on reps and short jumps. And obviouslly I have more pounds in my stomach.
But I am worried about the HR decrease....Am I overtrained? I am training to overloaded? My heart is more efficient? When I started training in last October and during the first months of training I had a regular heart rate, but during last 40-60 days my HR have decreased to the above mentioned.
Any advice or web place where to get help?
Regards
Hernan

brianmac.demon.co.uksiteindx.htmOpen ↗

Check out max HR on this site. Max appears to decline with age. Perhaps not as much as you're witnessing but I think that another reply suggested that you might be over-training.