Heart rate doesn't directly/reliably tell you how hard your body, or for that matter even your heart, is working. Your perceived exertion, OTOH, does.

As for "being married to a power output on a hot day", that is a straw man argument.

To reiterate: if you know your power, then at best heart rate is redundant, but at worst it is misleading.

My training program hasn't changed much either, in part because I've been training on ergometers for so long. Nonetheless, the small tweaks I have made along the way have a had a significant impact on my performance, especially when I am targeting a particular event.

Since perceived exertion is always available, knowing your heart rate is rarely if ever better, and sometimes even worse, than knowing your actual power output.

Whoa, does putting a lot of questions marks behind your sentences make your points more logical???? How come nobody ever told me that trick???? ;-)

More seriously, I have two words for you: straw man.

DD,

50-60 HIM files and you're using those to make comparisons as to what you think occurs over an IM??? You think a 4-7hr event is interrelated with a 8-15 hr event??

It's like trying to compare a 4 cyclinder motor with a 6 cylinder motor, they will both get you from A to B but how they get you there will be vastly different.


Seriously show me 50-60 IM files and my ears will start to prick up......... the biggest mistake IM athletes make with IM training is that they follow HIM training plans. They develop superior fitness to allow them to race really well for about 4-8hrs beyond that the wheels come off.......that is a fact the results prove that beyond a few files we all have on our databases.

Hell I even bet your best races DD, and even the athletes you coach, will be over HIM races and not IM races??? DD, I'm not having a go at you or anything, but I think will still have alot to learn, in terms of racing beyond 8hrs, AND, it shits me tears to constantly how often people believe they can substitute distance with intensity.

You gotta to handle to distance before you can handle going faster.


Paul

Well for starters, what I have said is that heart rate in competition is usually higher than in training, not always. IOW, you, like others in this thread, have put forth a straw man argument.

For finishers, was the difference 7 beats/min, or was it 2 beats/min? And just how "similar" were the actual average and normalized power outputs? (Normalized power is relevant here because the greater the variability in power output, the lower the average power:average heart rate ratio tends to be.)

Don't you???? I mean, do you think that a 4-7 h event is somehow more closely related to a 4-7 s event than it is to an 8-15 h????

Yep...as I was reading all this I was thinking "He's second guessing his power numbers based on VERY limited knowledge of his true FTP." Look up posts from AC about "the 7 deadly sins"...and may I suggest getting familiar with the "Monod method" of estimating FTP? It's really a "non-intrusive" (training schedule-wise) way to get a decent handle on FTP in my experience...

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

G'day AC,

Not sure what you mean by straw man, cultural thingy perhaps????

Re: questions marks, yeah at least it got your attention, mission accomplished. (don't even know how to insert smiley stuff, pink font stuff)



Could you expand on this point.

I'm genuinely interested in how you use a powermeter to adjust to the heat? (one question mark only ;-0).

To expand, how would you set up a IM bike plan based on power, for an athlete from Europe, that is doing Hawaii?? How do you account for the heat? (Only using methodologies that are exclusive to powermeter users of course, otherwise I could save myself lots of money, LOL).

Paul

My bad, I also have 30-40 IM files and ~ 250 files from rides>4.5hours.

Have a go at me, I don't care. I know my shit, just search my user name, and my athletes rarely falter in fact even athletes I've had for 3-5 years still keep getting faster current vs prior vs prior year.



Or in order to handle the distance, maybe of block of intensity would help? A raising tide lifts all boats. There is a pretty strong correlation to increasing the left side in order to raise the right side of the power curve. The majority of IM athletes try to lift their power curve from right to left though and we see how well that works.

But you do it your way and I'll do it my way. We can have coffee and discuss outcome results sometime.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

http://lmgtfy.com/...traw+man+argument%3F



Sure: heart rate is an indirect indicator of the strain on the cardiovascular system. Performance (and perceived exertion), OTOH, are determined by a whole host of factors (e.g., metabolic events in exercising muscle), not just cardiovascular strain. That is why, e.g., it is possible to race at heart rates higher than "normal" under certain conditions (e.g., heat, altitude, lack of sleep, recent infection). The latter would obviously be impossible if heart rate per se limited your performance ability.



There are various methods one could use to attempt to pre-acclimatize (and anyone who doesn't avail themselves of such approaches is making a serious mistake).

As for use of power data, my suggestion would be doing some race rehearsals under environmental conditions comparable to those one expects to encounter, and determining an approximate target based upon that experience. (Of course, come race day you primarily go by perceived exertion.)

Maybe some research will help you AC

For starters look at the average times for women (esp Pro's) over HIM events compared to IM events and compare those to males and you'll find some patterns that go beyond poking and proding an individual.

Human psychology plays havoc with science at times, frustrating when it comes to trying to eliminate all the variables to ensure the science sticks!

So hell yeah, a 4-7hr event is much more closely related to an IM event than a 4-7 s event, it will always be that way, too may variables come into play.


Will an athlete always reach their max hr on any given day?

paul

Being the target of your derision when you made this claim I don't remember your claim being so variable. In fact, you made a comment I made during that thread part of your signature, apparently in support of your original contention that the HR is always elevated in a race compared to training for the same effort. Your only caveate was the amount couldn't be quantitated because it was variable. It seems you must have missed this by Desert Dude in post 13 of this thread: "Hr's for many of these files are similar, even at above target watts, to what they had in training." Not to mention the data of the OP.
I can accept that greater variablility could increase HR but wouldn't this be the case in training also? Aren't we talking about everything being the same except the race number on the shirt?

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

So are you agreeing with me, or not????

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...post=2956980#2956980

Note the qualifier "almost".


Differences in terrain or the presence of other cyclists may, or may not, have caused there to be greater variability on race day. Since bespoke hasn't posted the data from any of his training rides, though, we don't know whether this was a factor.

G'day DD,

Would love sit down and have a coffee with your over this. Like yourself, I've been in this game for a few years now with some success (do it out of passion), throwing out my resume, I have a sub 4:30 50year old, sub 9hr 40year and an athlete that has gone from 15:56 to 9:45 in 2years, but that is not important, as you would know.

Like you said we all have OUR ways, I like yours, and I appreciate more than anything else you can back up what you say. In summary, if I'm not sure, I'll ask.

paul

Yes, but when questioned on this by me this is what you provided.Your "almost" modifier is the kind of thing that someone puts in because they don't want the rare exception ruining their argument. I might point out that the OP's HR was lower during his race (7 bpm) than your graph shows HR is typically higher (6 bpm).

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

G'day AC,

Tried that with an athlete that came from Europe to race IM China. The poor guy spent months on a W/T in termals in a small room with heaters to try and replicate the heat and humidity with IM China. Didn't work. In fact, it didn't even work with an experienced sub 9hr athlete coming from a summer to race in IM china. Still went 1hr slower.

So what I'm asking essentially is, how can a powermeter provide me with more information that HR monitors, a speedo and or RPE can't provide, because if a powermeter can, I will buy one tomorrow.

I'm big believer in the the environment,and the terrain having a big influence on how we can execute a race..........?

Paul

Shocking...


Maybe some good will come from this discussion. Welcome to this decade.

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The Triathlon Squad

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I don't believe the correct question is about more information, a PM clearly give you that because it is different information. What you and everyone needs is better information. Where is the data that even suggests that, for the purposes of racing performance, a PM gives better information, let alone proves the case.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

In reading all the threads about Power, Coaching, Powercranks, scientific anecdotal evidence and the like, it seems that the basic problem with Power as an assessment tool is that Powercranks can't work with a Powermeter.

The PC design just won't align with a Powermeter on a bike.

If they could be put together, then the question could finally be answered, and our long national nightmare would be over.

Mark

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Fast-Finishes.com
Triathlon and Running Race Timing
Athletic Event Management

Did you just have them ride the W/T in a heated room, or did you have them do an actual heat acclimatization protocol? As a reference, I did Ironman Arizona in April 2008, when the high temp (albeit low humidity) was ~100F. I did a proper heat acclimatization protocol prior to the race, and despite not having trained a single day in weather over 70F, I managed to run within ~2min of what I expected to run and rode the exact watts I planned to. Just riding in a hot room is not necessarily enough.

Given that heat acclimatization has been show over and over and over to work when done properly, I'd say this was simply a case of incorrect protocol - aka bad coaching - more than it was any sort of evidence that you can't prepare appropriately using environmental simulations.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

So you're saying that you expected your athletes to be able to go just as fast under such conditions as they do in a more temperate environment?


It isn't so much that it provide more information, but that it provides different information. Specifically, only a powermeter provides a direct and objective measurement of the absolute exercise intensity.

Now whether you can actually leverage that information to go faster depends on how smart you are...