It's only week 1 of training but I was feeling really worked over this week. I lied in a previous post so allow me to come clean here. On Tuesday, I went out to do my workout which consisted of a 20 minute time trial. In the weeks leading up to this plan, I scouted out a lot of locations for workouts just to make sure they would work and to get me away from my local ride up and down the boring Pass here in town. I even did a 20 minute TT because I was curious to see what the numbers looked like and what my training zones would be. When I did the first TT, my average HR was 179 (I spent quite a bit of time in the 183 neighborhood). On Tuesday, within the first 3 minutes, I was not able to get over 172 (try as I did) and the perceived exertion was quite painful. Frustrated...I bagged it all together and decided to use the numbers from the first TT. Then I did a trainer ride on Wednesday that was supposed to be mostly a Zone 3 ride. I went by the numbers and, again, it was very difficult. It's always tough to do a long ride on the trainer but I rode it most of the winter and this was different. Then yesterday I was supposed to do some Zone 5 intervals. By the numbers, I would have been at 184 for the intervals. This was not remotely happening. Now, pissed off, I bagged it and went home knowing that something was wrong.

I spoke with Dave Harris last night about things and we decided to try the TT again today. I had already taken off work today so I got some good sleep, a good breakfast, and hung out with the pups until things warmed up and then went back out to Deckers. I did a 45 minute warm up and started up the canyon. This time my heart rate was pretty consistent in the low 170's. When I turned the monitor on it was reading 156 and it took about a minute to get near 170. There were a few times I saw upper 177 but no higher and I would not have been able to have a conversation with anyone so I was working pretty hard. I kept a pretty close eye on the numbers and, at one point, they dropped to 92. I looked and did a see a telephone line about 100 yards away. I adjusted the strap and it came back to 173 pretty quickly. Maybe the numbers were off last time because of some interference? Maybe I'm just getting into badass shape very quickly? What's interesting is that I actually covered more mileage (4.9 miles total) this time at a much lower heart rate (on an uphill climb at about 8000').

After plugging in the numbers this time, it's no wonder why I'm tired this week. My Zone 3 rides so far have been dead in the middle of Zone 4. I know it's possible for heart rate to fluctuate based upon time of day, caffeine intake, stress, temperature, all kinds of things but I think these are much more appropriate numbers for me. Tomorrow is a 3 hour Zone 3 ride so I'm anxious to see if it feels any better.

Thanks for the help Dave. I was definitely frustrated when we spoke.