New HR monitor

Good session this am. Kinda a breakthrough of sorts.

This training plan is all about time in a particular zone. The whole first 10 weeks is all zone 2. I have never trained with HR zones before.

I was worried that zone 2 would be pretty easy once I got out on the bike, but I was mistaken. My zone was between 126 and 146. I found out quickly that in past training I coast too much. I also found out that it is super easy to peg your HR and get out of your zone quickly on climbs. So I found that in the past I work too hard on the climbs and not hard enough on the downhills.

It was pretty easy to cruise along on the flats and maintain a nice easy 135 BPM. Once it turned uphill I had to make conscious effort to dial it back and spin a little more. Once I crested the hill it was very easy to watch the HR plummet to one teens. I had to work pretty hard to keep it above 126.

The result was a much more even keel training session. The av speed was slow, just super slow but i am not supposed to worry about that. My training plan says it is about hours in the zone, not miles done.

I was more sore when I got off the bike than I expected. Felt more like a spin class than a training ride. I spent much more time climbing since I was going slower, trying to control my HR.

I think that this was one of the smartest rides that I have ever done on a bike.

So today was 1:12 of ride time. 17 miles. av HR was 137 max of 157. calories 933 time in zone was 54:40.