Trainerroad

Nah, my heart rate should have been at around 100bpm at that point, not 10bpm below max and climbing - my legs didn't have any trouble, I was on a light, low gear and taking it easy. Cheers, though - I've just done enough of these to know when something is fucked, and something was definitely fucked. That's a special level of fucked-ness, though, and I've never seen it as bad as this.

I don't feel up to riding outdoors at all because I can't hack the activity exertion on top of dealing with traffic, basically. So. Fuck knows what the answer is. Back to the doctor for a moan again, I suppose.

Dunno about the Medical reason. But I wouldnt be doing any short Sharp intervals any time soon.

If Things do improve trainerroad is probably a decent tool to get back into it. So you can watch the HR Development.

Sounds shit though. Hope theres a solution.

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For christ sake don't do 2x20s if you're HR is all over the place.

Just do some spinning in a really light gear for 40mins and smell-the-flowers/armpits. If that was causing issues then I guess something is up.

#notanexpert #badscience

Just do some spinning in a really light gear for 40mins

Yeah, that's what causing issues. And not even 40 minutes, 10 minutes, and we're talking the lowest possible gear, with a cadence of 80rpm. That's pootling-to-the-shops-with-your-granny effort. Pootling to the shops with your granny shouldn't be making anyone's heart go like the fucking clappers unless their granny is Eileen Sheridan, and mine definitely isn't.

It's been like this for pretty much the whole of 2014, apart from one freak episode in October where everything went normal again, suddenly. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with fitness or conditioning, so trying to train through it is pointless - especially as there's no way to do any kind of active recovery when the slightest effort slings me into VO2 max. Counterproductive, even if I did know wtf was medically wrong.

I'm just fucked from an unknown something. It is a shame as I would quite like to ride a bike again like a normal person, but there's not a whole lot I can do about this. I suppose this is the end of my potentially glittering pro cycling career...

Undiagnosed heart arrhythmia sufferer here. Have you ever been to the docs about it? My HR goes bonkers every now and then but especially from being ill (also had viral fatigue that's been running into nearly 2 decades) and also from being tired.
Whilst it's not really stopped me cycling, it's bloody annoying, and docs can't pinpoint the reason why so I've been using alternative methods to control it (heart conditions run in the family)

First, go to docs and make sure you're ok. Second, try holding your breath when your HR skyrockets like that. Concentrate on the beating and you may feel it 'THUMP'... then start returning to normal.

Yup, been going back and forth to the docs and test clinics for ages now and they've not yet decided what the deal is. I don't think it's arrhythmia in my case (tho obvs not a doctor opinion so wild guess) as the increase is pretty predictable and only happens during exercise (or if I've been drinking alcohol, something I've had to pretty much stop doing) - at all other times it stays within a healthy, normal-for-a-fit-person range. It's more like a too-rapid increase in exertional rate, punctuated with the occasional episode of being normal :/

Your two decades of PVF scares the piss out of me, on the other hand, because all this started for me after a viral infection last year and it seems to me that it's too much of a coincidence for it to be unrelated. But without a diagnosis all I have is my trainerroad subscription and my BITTER, BITTER REGRETS.

Mine's similar - 95% of the time it's fine, but sudden activity increase sets it off. Gradual increase doesn't though. Overheating sets it off too. In hindsight, cycling probably isn't the wisest thing to be doing, but hey.
I'm not sure where you're based, but if it's heart related then trying to get referred to a Dr Seigel (sp. Will check that again for you) might be worth it. Literally the only doctor I spoke to who actively wanted to sort my problem out.

Hearts>watts.

Oh, cheers - that might be helpful. I'm based in London. I think I'm struggling to get a doctor who understands sports physiology and that's why it's taking so long to get it resolved. I guess most patients that your average GP sees aren't coming in and going "yeah so my 8-minute turbo test results are abnormal..." so I think they tend to think "there's nothing actually wrong with this person".

http://londonheartrhythmcentre.com/consultants/dr-oliver-segal/

^Knew I'd got the spelling wrong

Having used my turbo and TR quite a lot over early/mid winter, I just all of a sudden can't face it anymore.

I was going to have a blast tonight (first time in about three weeks), but would rather get up at a godforsaken time and go to the park tomorrow morning, which is what I've been doing instead recently.

Does anyone else get this all-or-nothing mentality with turbo?

I'm happy to be thought of as odd, but I quite like the turbo. It's that satisfying feeling of putting in proper sustained quality work, with none of the distractions you get when out and about. Also, being able to really hurt yourself I find much safer indoors.

I thought you may say something like that! I think part of the problem is that i don't find turbo 'works' for me; i don't seem to get the same physiological response to it that everyone else does and it doesn't always seem like a great workout for me.

It's frustrating as I wish i could sit in front of the TV on my bike and get quality training from it.

Do what I do and stop wearing HRMs. Sorted.

If you can see the TV through the sweat and tear stung eyes and you can hear the TV over the blood rush noise in your ears or the sound of another tyre being shredded... you're not doing it right.

Out of interest, how accurate was TR's power profile for your trainer compared to the real thing? I know that TR is supposed to be accurate for Kurt turbos, but am pretty sure it over-reads my power on a RocknRoll unfortunately.

I was really impressed with my Road Machine's accuracy compared to real watts. It did over read (by about 20 watts), but it was pretty consistent along the whole curve. Are you unsure of the accuracy of your vectors?

No, they seem to give me numbers that seem reasonable (albeit depressingly low).

I reckon my FTP per TR and per my turbo is about 20-30W different. Although that sounds like a similar result to what you found, I don't have the FTP of Fabian Cancellara like you have, so as a % it's quite a big difference.

FTP testing question....so this evening I did my third FTP test on TR, and my pacing has improved immensely. However, I am riding the tests essentially as a ramp, picking a target FTP, and riding negative splits at first and rising gradually through the interval so that on average I hit my target. Is this a sensible way of doing these, or should I aim for a more consistent power throughout the interval? Or is it simply get as much power out as you can in any way you can?

In any case, the results of my latest test means that TR is gonna get a lot more painful...

I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that, but my gut feeling is that doing half at tempo/sweet spot and then hammering a bit of VO2 max isn't representative of FTP. I'm probably wrong though.

You can always test your numbers though with 2x20 at FTP. Can you hold that figure? It should feel hard, but sustainable.

Hard but sustainable is sweetspot. But I Guess its a relative term.

The technique that gets you the highest FTP score is the one thats best. I tend to push a target, crash at 15mins, and hold on for dear life. If I started lower I'd stilll crash at 15mins. So this way I get the best result.

Thanks for the replies...just to clarify, none of the test was carried out below my starting FTP, and 80% was above my target FTP....the target average power for the interval being about 30W above my target FTP. I suspect the difference between the methods is mostly psychological, with reduced effort at the start allowing more pain tolerance at the end. It also helps to avoid boredom because of the constant changes in effort!

Anyways, the next session in my plan is 3x9min over/unders. I imagine that should be fairly informative as to whether I've got the right number!

I hope you don't mind, but I noticed your comments from your recent session (Dans) and it got me thinking. Do you feel like the virtual power numbers from your turbo profile are representative of real life? What I mean is, does the RPE of those 50 odd watts translate to the equivalent RPE of doing around 10mph on a flat road, which is what that power would roughly translate to me?

Basically, I am just wondering if your turbo profile is off in TR.

No, I don't mind at all - the virtual power numbers are probably fairly off compared to real life, but consistent with each other, so if I know I can usually hit "156 watts" in TR at a particular HR, then only being able to hit "70 watts" for the same effort is quite a dive downwards, regardless of the actual wattage in meatspace.

When it comes to RPE the interesting thing is that I was able to compare that Dans result you were looking at against a previous session last year that was similarly low-intensity and it had pretty much exactly the same virtual power to HR result - I was a lot more ill day-to-day back then following a virus and the RPE was about 6-ish, as was this one. Both sessions had the old shaking-with-effort sit-down after climbing off - I was holding back a bit on Dans to try to find a sustainable rhythm, but not taking it easy exactly.

I haven't done any mph on a road outside recently enough to compare, but I do recall a particularly unpleasant cycle commute around the time of the previous session where riding along Kennington Road at 15mph took everything I had, and I've got a lot of Strava logs from that time telling similarly scary stories. Pancake-flat commutes that were harder than riding in the Dolomites a few months earlier, that kind of thing. Something is definitely off, but while I'm under no illusions that Trainerroad is giving me a complete and accurate picture from my input, the main thing that's wrong does seem to be me.

The last normal session I did was an 8 minute test last October, and I remember feeling very puzzled and pleased that it was sustainable - for the previous six months I'd become used to crashing out 10 minutes in and having to abandon the session. No changes in setup or profile in between to explain that, so I'm left with biology. Maybe every six months I can look forward to a lazarus-like comeback!

I understand. Here's to the comeback!