80% max heart rate - how long can one hold this?

csales

I'll be doing a a 100km mountain bike race in the near future and have a question...

This last weekend I did a 70km ride and my average HR was 161 (which is about 83% of max). This ride took me around 2:40 to complete. I was obviously pretty tired and my legs are still sore 2 days afterwards. I have done most of my training over the past 2 months on an indoor trainer so its difficult for me to assess my performance by using average speed etc.

Riding for 2-3 hours at 80% of max HR may be fine but at some stage one needs to lower the intensity the longer the event - so I'd like to get an idea of how long I can expect my body to keep going at different heart rates. Are there any sort of benchmarks that have been established for how long a (fit) individual can maintain certain heart rates over long durations?

thanks.

zaskar

hello,ive wondered the same thing after mtbing 3 years i found
that myself i can keep in the 160,s for 3 hours my max is 185
im 37 my threshold is 170 173 bpm i can hold that for 1 hour.
but remember you will get areas that are down hill, slow corners
ect that will help you recover, so its not steady 160,s good luck
in your race!

J-MAT

csales:

You can maintain 80% of max heart rate for many hours.

On a 8 hour, 155 mile ride with lots of hills, my average heart rate according to my Polar was 150 bpm. My max was 182 bpm, so I averaged over 82% of pr max for 8 hours.

At the time, I had fantastic endurance and good speed to boot. Just about every weekend, my training partner and I were doing at least 80-120 miles a day, with at least half of the session ridden as fast as possible, like we were in a 2 man break in the Tour.

We attacked every rider in our sights and dropped everyone who tried to sit on our wheels. Sometimes we would have to accelerate up to 26-30 mph for a several minutes to drop stronger riders to give you an idea of how hard we were pushing.

You need to do some long rides like 100+ miles with hills on a road bike to get ready for 62 miles off road.

If you don't have decent power output in the last hour(s) you will finish poorly and be miserable as you try to finish.

You can only get this long-term power by hammering big mileage rides.

Find a training partner who is motivated and push each other hard on the ride. Don't ride 100 miles slowly at 13-14 mph like many riders do. You need to hammer, recover, hammer, recover, etc.

Ride like you are in a 2 man break, smoothly swapping pulls at speed. When you get tired, chill out and ride easy, but push more when recovered. Ride wheelsuckers off your wheel, sprint for signs, attack other riders, etc. Imagine you and your partner are a freight train and you are both "delivering the goods."

Sometimes people freak when I say to ride 100+ miles. Many older riders in their 60 & 70's do 100+ mile rides every week, some do double centuries.

If you and your partner could average 17 mph, that's less than 6 hours of riding. When you think about it that way, 100 miles really isn't that big of a deal.

Good luck!!!

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zaskar

very well said JMAT, thats how i ride hammer, see another rider i
pass him and hope he challenges ive had my BEST intervals
from other riders attacks! ive never done a 100 miles yet
after 3 hours i bonk i dunno if its because i ride at my fastest
pace and i loose my energy or i just need more time, i ride
around 250 miles a week and today i rode 2 hours 20 min
and ave 19.5 miles per hour and my LEGS HURT!

bstay

Considering your weekly mileage and reasonable speed the most likely reason you bonk is nutrition. Any ride over one hour require either an energy surplus or replenishment. Make sure you eat before the ride (i.e. enough time given for the food to settle) and if you ride for long you should start eating 30 minutes after start. You must also drink. Remember that you're always in need of minerals, so mix in some regular iodine salt in your drink, and/or drink sportsdrinks. Without adding proper minerals to your water you run a higher risk of cramps. Sports drinks can also be used instead of eating. One calorie of carbs is one calorie. Doesn't matter how you get it.

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2LAP

BONK (glycogen depletion) is only caused by inadequate nutrition (i.e insufficent carbohydrate intake).

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zaskar

thanks, i do drink plenty of gatorade, but the eating
thing not good, sometimes i dont eat at all before a ride
say 3 pm i havent ate anything, and if i do eat its 2 -3
hours before i ride i thought that eating under 3 hours before ride wasnt good, i thougt that might cause discomfort.
also i was reading another forum here about hr zones,
i went to a calulater site and looked at the zones for
my max hr, im very suprised!! when i ride i always
try to keep my hr up min 155- 175 i see zones for
long rides they suggest 118 137 bpm!! i think that
will be very hard to do thats like what 15mph!! but
im gonna try the differant zones for differant days
and see if i improve, i always thought no pain no
gain suffer and hammer or its a wasted ride. im
glad i found this place! thanks for the info!

J-MAT

Hammering long rides has always been one of my strong points. You have to build up to it. I highly recommend finding a training partner of similar strength. It makes the miles go by faster, and always gives you a wheel to latch onto when you get tired.

On big rides you have to eat and drink a lot. On that 155 mile ride, we were hammering the entire ride with me pulling about 90% of the time because my partner was weaker from an injury. I ingested 500-1000 calories (food and drink) every hour for the whole ride, with lots of water also. If I hadn't taken in the calories, I would have probably cracked at 3-4 hours or so.

You must eat and drink well in advance of hunger/thirst. It takes time for the stomach to empty, so if you wait until you get hungry/thirsty, it's going to be too late and you will bonk.

Too many riders look at long rides (100+ miles) and think those miles should be ridden slowly. I don't agree. Once you get the endurance, work on bumping up your speed. Think of it as a long-distance time trial.

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2LAP

I eat whenever I get the chance due to a busy day schedule, last night I was eating an energy bar as I left the house to train. I know its not ideal, but better than nothing.

The zones need to be built into some kind of plan. Basicly at the moment I do a hard ride (zone 6 or 5 interval session) followed by easier rides (zone 3 or 1) depending upon how stuffed I am. All I'm really concerned with is getting the quality in on the hard days.

Most people train too hard, but not hard enough! Resulting in poor gains after a while. Some good advice is 'hard training should feel too hard, and easy training should feel too easy'.

2LAP

While I agree with you, that would depend upon the goal for the session and its place in the program.

For instance last week was a recovery week and so I road with my girlfriend 60 miles over a national park, we went pretty slow except for 2 climbs where I rode flat out for 10+ mins and then turned and went back to meet her.

The week before I did the same route but as the goals were different I 'hammered' all the way round (even down hill) trying to keep to HR.

J-MAT

2LAP:

Since the start of the post was about a 100 km mtb race, I wouldn't advise riding big miles slowly once you can ride the big miles slowly. Riders should generally focus on increasing their average speed on rides when not doing structured training (sprints, intervals, etc,) or recovering.

Slow riding doesn't do very much if anything for fitness at all. Lot's of people do centuries at 13-15 mph, which isn't going to put much stress on someone who has been riding regulary, even if they don't race. You will burn some fat, but don't expect those sessions to make you fast. Pace is relative to fitness, but in my experience, even the slowest riders can hold 13 mph for 100 miles.

You need to be able to put out the power in the final hour(s). This skill can only be developed by hammering big rides, not "noodling" them.

The focus must be on gradually increasing the average speed over the ride. Club riders might do 100 miles averaging 16-17, maybe 18 mph tops. Top amateurs/pros might do 100 miles averaging 21-24+ mph. Big difference in speed, big difference in fitness.

Recovery rides and cooling down are really the only times that miles should be ridden slowly. Once you have the miles in your legs, riding 100 miles slowy will only get you more tired without any real training effect.

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2LAP

Originally posted by J-MAT
2LAP:

Since the start of the post was about a 100 km mtb race, I wouldn't advise riding big miles slowly once you can ride the big miles slowly. Riders should generally focus on increasing their average speed on rides when not doing structured training (sprints, intervals, etc,) or recovering.

>>J-MAT, I agree with most of what you said and for racing I think it would be a sin to ride anything less than 100%. Its a bit short sighted to say structured training is limited to specific sessions (sprints, intervals or recovery); rather a structured program is a periodised and specific.

Slow riding doesn't do very much if anything for fitness at all. Lot's of people do centuries at 13-15 mph, which isn't going to put much stress on someone who has been riding regulary, even if they don't race. You will burn some fat, but don't expect those sessions to make you fast. Pace is relative to fitness, but in my experience, even the slowest riders can hold 13 mph for 100 miles.

>>I've argued this 'slow is bad point too' ( http://www.cyclingforums.com/t38207.html ) and I would never advise anyone to do 'empty' miles (i.e. too easy to be a benefit). However, I don't think that riding every 100 mile ride hard is a good training plan!

>>Here are some examples of why I would do an 'easy' 100 miles. (1) In a recovery week in a periodised program, 100 miles would need to be riden at a lower intensity than in a 'build' week. (2) Given that the limitations to power output are VO2 max and LT, and hammering for 100 miles is likely to be a poor stimulous for their development; 100 miles ridden slowly will leave a rider fresh for more specific training'.

>>That said, I do think 'hammering' 100 miles has its place in a program too. It depends on your goals though.

You need to be able to put out the power in the final hour(s). This skill can only be developed by hammering big rides, not "noodling" them.

>>How you train in any single session depends on your goals, what you have done prior to training and what you intend to do in following training.

The focus must be on gradually increasing the average speed over the ride. Club riders might do 100 miles averaging 16-17, maybe 18 mph tops. Top amateurs/pros might do 100 miles averaging 21-24+ mph. Big difference in speed, big difference in fitness.

>>Yes people are different fitnesses, but I don't think riding 100 miles at 16 to 17 miles per hour is a very good way of making the jump to the elites to 21 to 24 + miles per hour!! Building up in that way would take a very long time!

Recovery rides and cooling down are really the only times that miles should be ridden slowly. Once you have the miles in your legs, riding 100 miles slowy will only get you more tired without any real training effect.

>>Again, how you train depends upon your goals. I can even put a good case for including cafe stops in some long rides!!

>>Not sure how 100 miles easy will make you more tired than 100 miles hard?

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ric_stern/RST

If you go flat out for every session, you're soon going to get a) very fatigued and b) burnt out

obviously, i guess it might depend what you mean by going flat out for a 100 miles. you certainly can't go as hard for 100 miles as for 25 miles.

having a long session that possibly in theory looks easy (i.e., ride at zone 1 - 2) is still going to be very taxing over 5 hours.

As others have said, you definitely need to eat well on such long rides and take in plenty of fluids.

Ric

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apachelaz

I believe in this theory..

The biggest mistake of competitive riders is that: They do not push really hard on hard days and do not recover enough on easy days.

these datas may help (from lancearmstrong.com)

Average HR during endurance rides (4-6 hrs): 124-128
Average watts during endurance rides: 245-280 watts
Training miles/hours, endurance rides: 5- 6 hrs / 100-130miles

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