On Wednesdays I ride with the local roadies on what for them is a training ride and for me is a “how long can I hang on?” hammerfest. I finally made it up the one climb where I always get dropped from the front pack, but I was totally maxed out. Looked down at the HRM and saw something I haven’t seen since I was into running 5Ks - 198 bpm I used to max out running at 208, but I’ve never seen anything so high on the bike. Normally when I’m working hard I don’t go above 187 but I REALLY wanted to not get dropped.
I’ve always had a heart that beat like a hummingbird, it freaks everyone out, but its always been that way. Resting is about 55, LT is 177.
Of course I was done after that as it took a long long time to drop back down below my AT and I was full of lactic acid. And of course I got dropped, but I was as happy as could be that I made it to the top of that hill before they dropped me. Baby steps.
If you used the standard formula to calculate HR - 220 minus age, I’d have a max of 182. Be careful when evaluating your training ranges on formulas alone, if I had been doing that all of this time I’d have been training way below anything useful.