Trev The Rev wrote:
That is exactly my point though. Due to the cooler conditions your heart rate was lower for the same pace/ power.
So suppose you were cycling at 250 watts for an hour at 50F one day then 90F the following day. Both would score the same TSS, but the ride at 90F would be at a higher heart rate.
My view is the ride in high temperatures should be scored higher because the training stress was higher and the higher heart rate reflected this.
For testing though using heart rate you need to control the conditions. But then temperature affects power output too.
You're making a huge assumption there, that your _training stress_ is higher on the hotter day. Is that true? And by how much?
I think everyone will agree that you're likely getting a ton more heat acclimation on the warmer day, but when I hear "training stress", heat acclimation is only one small part of it. I'd bet that you're only having a _slightly_ higher physiological adaptation on the 90F day than the 50F day. You can be as heat acclimated as possible, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can bike fast. But, to the contrary, if you're in great bike shape but you've only biked in 50F weather and go out into 90F heat, you'll probably still do decently.
I think it's likely that if you go out and hold your HR constant at 50F and then do another ride holding the same HR at 90F (likely at a lower power), you'll likely receive LESS overall physiological adaptation (caused by training stress) at the 90F. Put another way, I think if I had to choose an overall training temp, it probably wouldn't be the 90F day.