Should I do a recovery ride or skip a day?

[Mish]

Thanks for the hill climbing info and HR vs avg. speed info.
My hills are faster and my avg. speed is up.

I usually have 3 days in a row that I can ride then I may not be able to ride for 3 days.

If I ride at an average 70% max hr. for 40 to 60 miles with some hill intervals is it ok to do the same thing 24 hrs. later?

What would be a good program for my 3 on 3 off schedule as I try to increase fitness and be able to do relatively fast centuries?
Also, what is a recovery ride hr%?

 

[noonievut]

Thanks for the hill climbing info and HR vs avg. speed info.
My hills are faster and my avg. speed is up.

I usually have 3 days in a row that I can ride then I may not be able to ride for 3 days.

If I ride at an average 70% max hr. for 40 to 60 miles with some hill intervals is it ok to do the same thing 24 hrs. later?

What would be a good program for my 3 on 3 off schedule as I try to increase fitness and be able to do relatively fast centuries?
Also, what is a recovery ride hr%?

I'd think you make your 1st ride your longest/hardest as you've come off lot's of rest, followed by an easier (recovery) ride than I'd give it again on the 3rd as you have three days to rest.

 

[Doctor Morbius]

Thanks for the hill climbing info and HR vs avg. speed info.
My hills are faster and my avg. speed is up.

I usually have 3 days in a row that I can ride then I may not be able to ride for 3 days.

If I ride at an average 70% max hr. for 40 to 60 miles with some hill intervals is it ok to do the same thing 24 hrs. later?

What would be a good program for my 3 on 3 off schedule as I try to increase fitness and be able to do relatively fast centuries?
Also, what is a recovery ride hr%?

If your average for the 40 - 60 miles is at an average of 70% Max - inlcuding the hills/intervals - then I would say you could possibly repeat that ride amost adinfinitum. Let your legs be your guide. Your cardio system should be able to handle that and recover within 24 hours and be ready to go. But if your legs have a little soreness in them then schedule some down time or an easy ride.

Considering your schedule of 3 on/3 off, depending on your age, fitness levels and life's little stresses, you should be able to do quite a bit of work on the bike with that much recovery time afterwards - perhaps even using a bit brisker pace on the shorter rides.

As far as doing recovery rides, schedule a few in for a couple of weeks and see if they do any good. For example, 3 days between 40 - 60 miles at ~70% MaxHR followed by 1 day of 30 minutes at 65% - 70% MaxHR. Then see how your legs feel the following 2 days.

Some people tend to classify a recovery ride as 60% MaxHR and below. That's vacuuming the carpet! I tend to do them between 65% - 75% Max but cut the ride short at 30 - 45 minutes. It'll also depend on what kind of workout I've done prior as to what intensity of recovery ride I use. If I push myself at >85% Max for 90 minutes, then the recovery ride will be quite light. If I'm doing 75% Max for 90 minutes I may skip it altogether.

Experiment around with them and see how it works. Fortunately, recovery rides don't take too long to complete! You could also do some walking. Anything that will stimulate active recovery will do the job so just be sure you don't work hard enough to stimulate an adaptive response. My take is if you are still bound time wise to 3 on/3 off then you could most likely skip them and just use the 3 off days for supercompensation.

There are many century programs that can be found via google, but they don't have the limitations of your schedule. You're going to have to be somewhat creative with your training. Fortunately, you can forget about sprint training.

 

[RapDaddyo]

Maybe I've got the wrong idea about recovery, but I define a recovery ride as a ride of any time and distance in which my intensity of effort doesn't exceed 75% of max 40K TT power or 75% of max HR. I actually manage my ride with power but check the HR after the fact. Flat courses are the easiest to stay in the target zone, but rolling courses are fine too. I just try to avoid courses with long climbs greater than about 5% because the bike speed gets too slow. It takes a little focus to keep the intensity down on the climbs; I have to consciously back off or my power will jump up above my target. My recovery rides range from 40-60 miles. I haven't noticed any soreness or other issues that suggest I am not getting adequate recovery following hard efforts. I ride every day. So, based on my experience, I don't think you need to take any days off, but I suggest a recovery ride sandwiched between two hard efforts.

 

[noonievut]

Maybe I've got the wrong idea about recovery, but I define a recovery ride as a ride of any time and distance in which my intensity of effort doesn't exceed 75% of max 40K TT power or 75% of max HR. I actually manage my ride with power but check the HR after the fact. Flat courses are the easiest to stay in the target zone, but rolling courses are fine too. I just try to avoid courses with long climbs greater than about 5% because the bike speed gets too slow. It takes a little focus to keep the intensity down on the climbs; I have to consciously back off or my power will jump up above my target. My recovery rides range from 40-60 miles. I haven't noticed any soreness or other issues that suggest I am not getting adequate recovery following hard efforts. I ride every day. So, based on my experience, I don't think you need to take any days off, but I suggest a recovery ride sandwiched between two hard efforts.

My recovery ride involves riding with my wife, at about 15km an hour because that's what she enjoys. I still get to stretch the muscles and work on other things. Try different things and settle on what you like.

 

[Doctor Morbius]

Maybe I've got the wrong idea about recovery, but I define a recovery ride as a ride of any time and distance in which my intensity of effort doesn't exceed 75% of max 40K TT power or 75% of max HR. I actually manage my ride with power but check the HR after the fact. Flat courses are the easiest to stay in the target zone, but rolling courses are fine too. I just try to avoid courses with long climbs greater than about 5% because the bike speed gets too slow. It takes a little focus to keep the intensity down on the climbs; I have to consciously back off or my power will jump up above my target. My recovery rides range from 40-60 miles. I haven't noticed any soreness or other issues that suggest I am not getting adequate recovery following hard efforts. I ride every day. So, based on my experience, I don't think you need to take any days off, but I suggest a recovery ride sandwiched between two hard efforts.

You sure? He's not doing what you would define as hard efforts though. His 40 - 60 milers are probably what you would classify as recovery rides. You'd still recommend he do a recovery ride between two of his 40 - 60 mile rides at 70ish% max heart rate, even though he has 3 days following to recover?

Or are you suggesting he do harder efforts than what he's doing with a recovery day between them and his typical 3 on/3 off routine?

 

[RapDaddyo]

You sure? He's not doing what you would define as hard efforts though. His 40 - 60 milers are probably what you would classify as recovery rides. You'd still recommend he do a recovery ride between two of his 40 - 60 mile rides at 70ish% max heart rate, even though he has 3 days following to recover?

Or are you suggesting he do harder efforts than what he's doing with a recovery day between them and his typical 3 on/3 off routine?

You're right on the mark, Dr. M. If he is doing 40-60 milers at <75% MHR, I don't think he needs to take a day off or ride at recovery pace, especially if he is only riding 3-4 days/week. Rather, I was taking the OP's statement on its face,

What would be a good program for my 3 on 3 off schedule as I try to increase fitness and be able to do relatively fast centuries?

If that's what his objectives are and he rides 3 on/3 off, I think he should go hard (zones 5+) for two of the three days, with a recovery ride sandwiched between the two hard days. I guess I was leaping ahead, assuming that he was interested in what recovery rides are because he planned to do hard efforts for at least one of the 3 days. Good catch. Personally, I don't even do what I would call a pure recovery ride unless I spend significant minutes in zone 4 and above or if I do 2 consecutive days with significant minutes well into zone 3. A classic case in point is this weekend. Today in my group ride (3:41 total) I spent 21 minutes in zone 3 and 24 minutes in zones 4/5. Tomorrow will be similar. I won't do a pure recovery ride until Monday.

 

[Mish]

I went back over my log for the last 3 months and my average hr for similar rides used to be 82% of max hr based on a calculator that places my max at 181 for me at 42 years old.

The last 3 weeks my avg hr has been around 75% max. for 40 to 60 miles.

I should probably ride the first day at a high rate, the second day at 75%, then the third day could be a high rate with intervals and maybe a longer ride.

What is the standardized zones based on hr% of max?

 

[Doctor Morbius]

I went back over my log for the last 3 months and my average hr for similar rides used to be 82% of max hr based on a calculator that places my max at 181 for me at 42 years old.

OK, it's time to ditch the Max HR formula for an actual test. It sounds like you're fit enough now to do one without having a heart attack so go for it. I don't have a good one unless you want to calculate your zones off of Joe Friel's LTHR (see spreadsheet).

If you're using the "220 - Age =" or some such formula your zones could be off by quite a bit. Those formulae are for populations of people and the statistics for them look like a standard bell curve. Your standard of deviation could be off by as high as 15 BPM or it could be spot on. It just depends on your physiology. That's why you need to do a test.

What is the standardized zones based on hr% of max?

It seems every coach has their own zones and prescriptions for calcuating them. Here's a spreadsheet that covers some popular ones. The Kornovan formula for zone calculation is quite high compared to the other methods. You'll need to adjust your training efforts downwards if that's the one you use.

 

[dhk]

Average HR on a long ride doesn't really tell me much; believe time spent at or above LT or at max HR is a better indicator of stress and recovery requirements. Hard effort climbs or surges in the middle of a long ride burn a lot of reserves, but may not affect the average HR much because they don't last very long.

For example, yesterday my HR on a 66 mile ride varied from 110 to 170 (vs a 184 max). Spent majority of the ride around 125-130 (70%), but was at or above 85% for about an hour of the ride. That high-effort duration seems to be bigger consideration for recovery than the HR average, for me anyway.

Hit the 92% at around the 45 mile point on some rolling hills when the effort wasn't all that high. The sun was getting hot, and I probably wasn't drinking enough. The HR came down after about 10 minutes of sitting in at the back and drinking a lot of my water and Gatorade bottles. Thought I'd have to drop off the back at one point when I kept hearing Phil Leggett saying "he's in a spot of bother".....

 

[Mish]

Average HR on a long ride doesn't really tell me much; believe time spent at or above LT or at max HR is a better indicator of stress and recovery requirements. Hard effort climbs or surges in the middle of a long ride burn a lot of reserves, but may not affect the average HR much because they don't last very long.

Hit the 92% at around the 45 mile point on some rolling hills when the effort wasn't all that high. The sun was getting hot, and I probably wasn't drinking enough. The HR came down after about 10 minutes of sitting in at the back and drinking a lot of my water and Gatorade bottles. Thought I'd have to drop off the back at one point when I kept hearing Phil Leggett saying "he's in a spot of bother".....

The voice I hear says "it looks like he's been put into difficulty"
I am considering going to a local college (Meredith) that does many tests (VO2 max, HR/Power training zones, lactate, etc) and getting to the bottom of what my max HR is. I've also seen a test you do on a wind trainer. (from Florida Cycling)

I agree that the time spent at or above LT is most important with regard to recovery. I could do a heavy set of intervals and with rest between and after, my avg. rate may be low but the need for recovery could be high.

Once I find a more accurate max HR, what is a good source for training and more specifically training zones?

 

[RapDaddyo]

I went back over my log for the last 3 months and my average hr for similar rides used to be 82% of max hr based on a calculator that places my max at 181 for me at 42 years old.

The last 3 weeks my avg hr has been around 75% max. for 40 to 60 miles.

I should probably ride the first day at a high rate, the second day at 75%, then the third day could be a high rate with intervals and maybe a longer ride.

What is the standardized zones based on hr% of max?

As Dr. M said, if you are going to get more serious about high-intensity workouts, it would be worthwhile to do a max HR test. A quick and dirty test is to find a steady grade hill of 1.5 miles or more with a grade of 4% or more. Warm up for about 20 minutes then start up the hill at a pace that you are sure you can hold to the top (probably 75%-85% of your max). Note your speed. Every minute increase your speed at least 1/2 mph until you can't increase your speed any more. You should feel maxed out as in, "I couldn't go any faster up this hill if I had a bengal tiger on my tail." Hold that for one minute more and check your HR. Your max HR is about 5 bpm more because most of us can't actually take our HR to max (too painful). I know I can't. As to zones, as Dr. M said there are many schema in existence. Personally, I follow Andy Coggan's schema for four reasons: (1) Dr. Coggan is a scientist as well as a competitive cyclist and this is his field of expertise; (2) his zones make sense to me and my HR matches up with his HR zones; (3) I think his baseline for zone definition (40K max power TT) is a good benchmark for overall cycling fitness; and (4) his zones are incorporated in CyclingPeaks power meter software which I use. Using his schema, I have realized the predicted results.
http://www.peakscoachinggroup.com/PowerTrainingChapter.pdf
Your workout plan makes sense. I would save my hardest and longest day for the third day because you will get a couple of days off. If it were me, I would do hill repeats in zones 5/6 on day 3 until my legs felt like spaghetti.

 

[RapDaddyo]

I am considering going to a local college (Meredith) that does many tests (VO2 max, HR/Power training zones, lactate, etc) and getting to the bottom of what my max HR is. I've also seen a test you do on a wind trainer. (from Florida Cycling).

Sounds like overkill to me. Let's look at what we're really talking about here. The zones that matter are 4 and above, because they trigger specific adaptive responses. So, let's say that your estimate of max HR is 5bpm off. Bottom of zone 4 is 83% (per AC schema). That translates to 4bpm difference in terms of defining the bottom of zone 4. So what? Anyway, at the same intensity of effort, your HR varies a few bpm from day to day and within the same day. So, it's like trying to make a precise cut with a meat cleaver to begin with.