I have a power meter on my road bike, but not on my MTB, so will have to train with HR on the MTB. I have established an estimate of my FTP via the CTS 2x8 minute test done on my road bike with the power meter. As part of this, my average HR for the best 8 minute test was 161. Do I enter this into TP as my threshold HR? I see there are different methods of calculating the HR zones, one of which is ‘CTS Cycling’ with ‘Lactate Threshold’. So, the HR value that I enter for using that calculation method - should it be the 161 average HR for the best 8 minute test, or something else? (Based on some other recent rides that I’ve uploaded, TP is suggesting a LT HR of 156, so not real far off, but I don’t want to screw myself out of a few extra beats of pain/gain, if I should be entering the higher number. I suspect that TP is looking at max X-minute heart rate to come up w/ the 156?)
For those 8 minute efforts your heart rate can be much higher like a Vo2 max effort, especially on that second effort. Chances of holding that heart rate for an hour, which would be threshold, seems unlikely.
Do you have any past races or group ride training files you can look at? Look for peak 1 hour heart rate, this would be a good starting point. Of if you have done 20 minute threshold efforts. Look to see what your heart rate is for those efforts compared to your power. If your power is right at your threshold chances are your heart rate average is pretty close to as well.
156 probably sounds more correct and true threshold heart rate. Just below that 161 bpm of your 8 minute test.
You can choose the type of calculation. Right now on Trainingpeaks it is set to auto. But choose Lactate Threshold. Then under method choose Coggan. Than you manually have to enter sweet spot. Take your threshold heart rate and multiple it by .88 for low end and .97 for upper end.
