This is just me and I appear to be different than a lot of people but when I'm rested it's easier to get a higher HR. Maybe you are more rested and not have a suppressed HR?

jaretj

Hydration and ambient temperature can affect heart rate, but unless I'm coming down with a cold I find that HR is actually a pretty reliable training metric. A power meter is definitely better but if you are doing steady state intervals (2x20 for example) I think HR has advantages over perceived exertion. A higher than expected HR is often a sign of fatigue too.

Not to alarm you unduly, but take a look at the posts by vibrolux, and why he had to hang it up.

John

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Thanks, I did have a stress echocardiogram this summer and that was fine, so hopefully it's nothing like vibrolux has.

" . . .suppressed HR" (jaretj)

I'm curious by this: what do you mean by this?

I think I know what you mean, but just want to hear more.

If you ruled out problems with the strap, then in order I'd suspect.

Now riding indoors, you get much hotter indoors for a given power
Same idea but you are indoors and changed what you are wearing or the fan or position of the fan.

Fatigue, you are cooked and need a few days to come back.

When I'm deep into a training cycle my HR will be much lower than when I'm rested. That goes for resting HR and training HR.

Like a long run HR after tapering I will have a HR in the mid 140's. 6 or 8 weeks into a training cycle it will be in the mid 130's for the same speed and conditions. My resting HR at the same period will be in the mid to low 40's then when rested it will be high 40's to low 50's.

There was an article here that I think Slowman wrote on German cyclists that would have that issue, when they found they couldn't get their HR up then they would rest a bit to recover. After a while when they could get their HR up they resumed training.

I'll look for the article

What has recently changed in your life? new medicines? less sleep? house humidity? pollen season? What are you doing before the workout, same thing as before?

It's been like that for as long as I've been in triathlon, 10 years.

Try going to your power - Calibrate screen...recalibrate that sucker....or your powermeter battery might be about to die...i know my powermeter was all over the place when the battery was dying...and i'd lose the signal every ten minutes or so...the calibration seemed to be needed for my older powertap ant+ every month or so. maybe you just need to do a session where you calibrate?

Thank you for your response to my question. This is very helpful.

Have a good weekend!

Increase in pop tart consumption?

Jamie

My best advice would be to just stop worrying about it. Heart rate can be elevated by the anxiety that you're feeling about your high heart rate...

Then it's a good thing I train by pace and power instead of HR

Are you a vegetarian? Low iron levels can kill your power. Giving blood during a major training block is kind of you but I would not do it.

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Here is the article that I was looking for:

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...l#Anchor-HEART-49897

What symptoms prompted having the echo? How long have you had the higher than "usual" exercise HR? Do you know for sure that your power output is lower?

Higher than usual HR at lower than usual power output/exertion level is not a sign of overtraining. Rather in your case, I would suspect reduced cardiac performance (was stroke volume normal on echo?) or reduced oxygen content of blood (has your hemoglobin returned to normal?).

Everything jaretj said is true with me as well.

Remember, it's a heart rate MONITOR, not a heart rate commander.

Put this episode in your notes, so when (not if, when) it happens again you might be able to see exactly why.

BTW, how old are you?

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you need to refill your Viagra prescription, if you can't get it up :)

I was starting to think I was the only one that had that experience.

jaretj

Overtraining can cause heart rate to creep up pretty quick. How has your recovery from workouts been? Does the workout feel like the heart rate you were training at or power/pace?

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Thanks everyone, I will try to answer some of the questions. I had the stress echo because I was feeling some skipped beats from time to time and my doctor thought it would be a good idea. II'm 43 years old. t was actually kind of entertaining to do the stress test, apparently they don't get a lot of triathletes for stress tests. The cardiologist just comes in, looks at my test and says "That's impressive. Why are you even here?" The skipped beats thing was nothing, he says lots of folks have them and it's no big deal at all.

I use a power meter, have the same indoor setup and lots of prior data to compare it to, and I also use the speed sensor/Kurt Kinetic trainer as a bit of a backup to verify the power numbers. I don't think it was a calibration issue or anything like that. For whatever reason yesterday's workout was an outlier from all the prior ones; the workout seemed easy but the HR was much higher than expected for the level of perceived effort. Other recent workouts have been trending in that general direction, which I dismissed due to giving blood, but yesterday I was way off.

Someone asked about iron and meat and to be honest I had to think for a bit to remember the last time I had red meat. My current theories are that maybe I am still not built back up from giving blood 6 weeks ago, or, perhaps it has something to do with sodium intake? I had a lot of sodium last weekend but in the days before my most recent workout I had barely any sodium at all. So perhaps the fluid changes had something to do with it. I tend to restrict sodium, so if I eat a lot of sodium I get super thirsty, then when I go back to low sodium, well, let's just say that fluid has to go somewhere.... I have prescribed some red meat for iron and pizza for sodium as a treatment to see if that helps!

I rode again today, rode outside, and didn't use the power meter, but for my level of perceived effort the heart rate seemed more in line today. I had the pizza yesterday so I am still thinking perhaps the sodium may have been the issue; hard to tell until I go back and do the same indoor workout again.