How do you know when you are fit enough to start doing intervals?

[Aztec]

I have a little over 500 miles in now, since starting up after my multi-decade layoff. And I've found that I'm no faster, no more capable than I was after mile 50. My HR shoots up to 170 on even modest hills, although my legs and lungs have plenty left in them at that stage. Today into a light headwind on near-flats, I was doing but 13 mph and my HR was 160! My max HR appears to be about 190 (I'm 37).

The only improvement I can speak of is that I can now ride 40+ miles rather than 15 at a 145-155 bpm pace.

Given that I'm not improving much on a plan of 3-5 rides/week, 12-40 miles each, trying to keep HR 140-160, what should I do? Is it still too early to start doing 180bpm intervals? Any other ideas? It looks and seems like my HR is the limiting factor, so getting that down, so I can train harder without having to be in the 90%+ range seems the proper priority since right now my perceived effort is WAY lower than HR I'd expect.

 

[zakeen]

well a few guys in here think there is no or little point in doing intervals at all!!!!

But I think they are a key to training so I think you should do them! Remeber intervals dont have to be hard or flat out!

I always start my interval work at a low heart rate and built on it! I do my first sprint on 145 and then depending on the amount of reps I add a little heart beat to every rep untill I get to the max that I wish to aim for!

So gve it a shot, dont kill yourself and start low! even if you do ten with your rep at 160 and your recovery at 120 and build from there!

Not only are intervals great for the heart rate recovery they also do a great work out for the legs!!!! and remeber the legs and the heart are two different things!