Had a 2 hr zone 2 ride today and due to weather had to complete it inside. After the ride I noticed I spent 80% of the time in my tempo heart rate zone and 93% in zone 2 power. Should I be paying more attention to my heart rate? RPE wasn’t bad besides sitting there haha. I had a fan going but it was actually freezing in my garage and I think turning it off may have helped. Thoughts?
Did you sweat at all?
Oh yeah. I’m a big time sweater.
Generally speaking, air movement outweighs air temperature due it being a more effective method of heat transfer. You’re actually hurting yourself by not moving some air, probably. If a drop of sweat hits the ground your body is definitely wasting energy trying to cool itself and your heart rate will go up.
I’m in a ~65 F basement indoors and always start off in bibs, shirt, and a full zip hoodie with a fan or two on…high flow fans. By the end of any workout I’m down to bibs only but the fan(s) never get turned off. I would worry about cold tendons and muscles if it is freezing but it’s what you have to work with. Maybe knee warmers and such are necessary so you can use a fan(s).
I started out with a sweatshirt on. Will try knee warmers next time and move fan to come more of an angle and not straight ahead. Just want to make sure I’m not messing up my training with my heart rate going higher.
Yeah you would be better off with the fan on. Need the air movement. Your heart rate will be higher indoors and this is typical. Even RPE is usually higher indoors.
As long as your heart rate is not a lot higher and more importantly it does not effect your following workouts you are ok. Typically our zone 2 days are followed by an off day. When you get to higher interval training you will want to make sure you monitor this more as you don’t want it effecting your workouts. In our Sweet Spot 4 plan we specifically say go off heart rate regardless as we don’t want going too hard. During the early base period you should be ok for the most part. I just wouldn’t have it getting up into zone 4 heart rate or anything. If so dial back the power.
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I have found my base hr to be about 5-6 bpm higher inside even with 3 fans. Maybe this is also due to 100% pedaling time?
Ed K