am i a cry baby?

Budarz

I am a sprinter type (track), and that might have something to do with my situation. My legs are used to intense intervals of 5 to 30 seconds, and high cadence.
Lately I have been trying to do some longer intervals of 3-15minutes. I have a problem though: When I do these intervals, my HR only gets to 158-161ish. My max HR is 196.
For instance yesterday I was going at 350W on my Tacx imagic. My HR was 159 at the end of 4 minutes. The problem is that I was only pedaling 80rpm. If I went faster (but still at 350W - since the system will do that), my legs would burn too much, but at the rate I was going, my heart was not beating as fast as I think it should. I can't seem to ride at 85% max HR for more than a moment - either my legs burn too much at high cadence and power, or I drop the cadence and keep the power, but the HR drops!! What does this mean about me? Are my two systems (cardiovascular and muscular) completely in different states of fitness?
ANy help would be appreciated. I hope it's not that I just don't know how to tolerate pain from lactic acid and that ultimately I'm just a cry baby when it hurts.

byron27

do you stretch and massage your legs regularly?
i had a similar thing where my legs couldnt keep up with my heart but i find regular stretching (everyday) and a proper massage or even just self massage while your watching tv, reading a book ,etc works wonders.
Remember, the bending tree will tolerate the storm better than the rigid tree so keep your legs flexible and supple

Aztec

I am FAR from an expert, but what you describe is what I recall thinking myself when I first started riding again. And I often hear people who rarely ride say their legs burn (my wife mentioned that when starting spinning classes for the first time). They usually don't mention that their heart was racing.

Maybe try building up to that intensity and duration over time (like weeks/months, not days). Build some endurance, an ability to clear that lactate.

dhk

I'm no expert either, but suggest you may need a lot more time at endurance levels to develop your cardiovascular system. One of the big coaches used to recommend starting the season with 200 hours of base riding in a low gear, say 39/17, with no real pressure on the pedals. He said this length of time was necessary to develop a capillary system which would then allow the legs to do higher-level aerobic work later in the year.

Dan