BONK - Heartrate Rises...huh?

Triathlon Forum
1

I should have seen the warning signs…

My wife and I are training for the Capricorn HIM here in Australia on Aug 19.
We have been training for 4-5months for it now and have consistenly managed to get one 2-3hr bike in a week and a good 2hr+ long run weekly as well as some other sessions during the week.

Last Weekend (July21) I managed to crank out a good 4hr bike ride and 1mile brick run…all good.

I actually Feel so good, I back up and do a 2hr:30min Wind Training last Monday and then do a 5km brick off that.

Then comes our Tues swim session (after a 1hour MTB ride) I noticed my fatigue levels were up and my HR up.

Did a 2hr Run on thurs but felt flat and ended up walking half of it… when week prior I did a 13mile run happy and strong.

THEN…

Today went on a 4hr long ride, mega hilly and windy/rainy. Had Perpetium and Water and it was agreeing well with me. Prob was I only had about 4-5hrs sleep last night and at 2hrs into the ride I hit the dreaded BONK, which surprised me considering I thought I had my nutrition covered - heck I had even had a piece of CARROT CAKE at turnaround! :wink:
My wife normally struggles to keep up with me, well she was smoking my ass now after my bonk! (She didnt do the hard sessions I did last weekend) and suddenly I was weak, jittery and…any work on the bike, my heartrate just wouldnt settle. On the first half, my HR was cheering at 110-150 even up hills for the most part, yet on the return my HR was 140-150 even on the FLATS!

I suddenly turned into a bike riding amoeba!

I got the ride done but it wasnt pretty…:-/

MY QUESTION IS:

  • I obviously hit the wall due to my cumaltive stress of a tough training week (not enough recovery and maybe even low glycogen stores due to volume), however I thought when you BONK your heartrate DROPS, when today my heartrate actually wouldnt settle down - so was ELEVATED for the same work output.

Any thoughts/advice? I was intending to do another long ride/brick next weekend before my taper? Good idea or no?

Dean… :frowning:

2

That’s clearly not a bonk, that’s overtraining.

Take a few days easy, sleep lots, eat properly, do recovery sessions - eg 20 mins very easy spinning on the bike. So how you feel after the recovery sessions, if you feel more tired, you still need time off, if you feel energetic, then you have started to recovery.

Sessions where you end up walking (depending on your aims - you train a lot so I assume you want to do well) are kinda useless, you’d be better off with a 6 mile run than a 13 mile walk-run for a HIM. Target your key sessions, and make sure you recover from them. You’re just tiring yourself out with no recovery - you’re lucky you have your wife to train with - when she’s whipping you, it’s time for more recovery!

A bonk is when you have no glycogen left to burn: everything seems impossible, your HR would not go up though.

Take more time to analyse your training, recovery and nutrition, it sounds like you are trying to do too much.