SBR "U" (Page 75)

there are fairly good inferences that can be made correlated to HR, especially over long efforts and in very fit people (I think you are a case that qualifies as both - heh.). With metrics set accordingly I have found my Garmin to do very good job of this, at least as Ben has pointed out when calibrated against power on the bike. It is not so good with short spiky efforts as HR doesn't track well enough with power output. I think the correlation via HR on long runs is good.

Very interesting. I have been reluctant to use HR data, ok, any data really, but this is intriguing.

When we were summiting Mount Adams last week my friends resting heart-rate at our 10,000' basecamp was double. 

It got me thinking that HR really does seem to be the best at taking into account all over the variables including how your body handles different weather conditions and temperature, altitude, terrain etc.

Now the trouble is finding one that works

adrienne - I am fortunate in that I seem to also have a cast-iron constitution and can eat pretty much anything, especially when going long. Back in my adventure racing days the longest race we ever did was 3 days. I am a little embarrassed to say that my "go-to" food was pretty junky back then: nuts, chips, and chocolate. our late nighttime meals were always the most important (not sure if they qualified as late dinner or early breakfast). in racing you have a crew that can feed you, but in training I would always pre-make a couple of egg/bean/rice/salsa burritos to carry with me. Easy to eat on the go, especially in the dark when you are going slow.

Haha well, that is why we are doing this supported vs unsupported. 

I am lucky, in being smaller - sort of. Although, I wonder how the numbers will pan out for the amount of weight (in food) we carry as a proportion of our body weight. 

The amount of water I drink will be my biggest disadvantage. But also an advantage in some ways I guess. 

No advice.  Just damn

Sweet! That changes everything! oh, and you will find that mouthwash is your friend....

All of these methods "work". It's more the person understanding what that info is saying. Different things go into the different measurements of HR, speed (or pace), and power. HR does lag, but it does take in everything too. And for what it's worth, Daniels does give some rationale for using it. 

Rusty, that's good to hear that some of the devices can do reasonably well for running too. What are you having to input for that and how up to date have had to be with it?

It's hilarious you say that because I tend to do a lot of the crappy simple calories when I am doing bigger events. I was at the grocery store buying a pile of snicker bars, sour patch kids, plain bagels and cookies and the woman asked me if I was having a party. I laughed and said, "No, actually, I am climbing a mountain."

I think burritos are a great idea, actually. I need to write this down. I am not sure I knew you did a bunch of adventure racing type stuff. Please let me know if there are things you think about as I am new to all of this. 

I'd like to see a side by side comparison of your guys' power data and HR data.

I apologize,  you have probably covered this a million times I just tend to tune data stuff out

I don't really care about data most of the time but it's much harder to gauge performance with the mountain running I have been doing lately. 

"Junky" stuff is great here because it tends to be fast acting! Funny seeing seeing in all these bike events people going for the "healthy" stuff, but it's going to take so long to get through they'll be done before it has an effect! Then here I am chowing down on cookies at each stop. I like peanut butter & bagels too, but that's been more of a before or after food for me, not during.

I am guessing that there are probably varying viewpoints on this, but for me the holy grail of measurement would be someway to get an accurate reading of "input" or what we normally call "effort." While over short intervals HR is pretty junky as a metric in this regard, over the long haul I find HR to be the best proxy for effort. All of the other metrics we use (power, pace, etc) are actually just "outputs" that have varying degrees of variables to contend with (even power is a function of at least two variables) to infer input. HR is an input, and it does have its own variables to contend with as well, but they are things like heat, hydration, fatigue, illness, etc, again all things that directly affect input, and subsequently output. That is why I find it an important metric to bracket input metrics against other output metrics. For me it helps to paint a much more robust picture of what exactly is going on. 

Yeah. Well, I should say supported at night. So they will bring in dinner/breakfast/camp necessities (mouthwash, apparently) and then lunch/snacks for the next day.

We will have to carry everything we use during the day but that is much less of a burden. 

If only we could isolate each of the inputs and outputs better.

Also, I don't really see HR as an input. You don't control or change your HR directly. It changes in response to something else. You change your effort and then HR will respond accordingly, for example. It's also not really an output as it really doesn't do anything. Changes in HR is still something that happens, but it's the power or pace that comes from it that is the output.

Yup...that pretty much sums it up.  

I guess that is how I would see HR, too.

And I have a really good handle on effort (although it's a bit subjective and not very scientific) so between knowing that and having the HR data it would be pretty useful.

Do you guys say HR doesn't work well for shorter interval type stuff because of the lag? 

So, Jason is climbing a volcano, Adrienne is running for 3 days straight, Rusty is doing a 42k TT with 1600 feet of climbing, Ben is burning 4500 cals in a ride..... You guys are all nuts - makes my 20k TT tomorrow evening with a couple hundred feet of elevation seem a bit tame.  

Of all the stuff I do, the short, all out type of efforts are still the hardest and you can hardly justify cookies, pie and sour patch kids.

Sounds like just a bad day.  Having power drop off by nearly 30% halfway into an effort is not a sign of mental weakness.  Is there anything in your training/racing that you can point to that may have lead to this off day?  Sometimes they just happen...but more times than not you can at least find clues.  Maybe lack of sleep the past week or so?  Were any of your training rides leading in suggesting anything?

As far as mental confidence though, it really is a big leap to go from 5 and 20 minute tests to an hour or more.  I think a 20' test is a good way to ballpark your FTP to set up power workouts...but I much rather use something like a 2x20' workout to better estimate a 40k.  It's also easier to do in training believe it or not.

I had pretty good success this year doing three sets of 2x20' in the weeks leading up to my 40k.  Did them every Thursday...started off the first week pretty conservative and built them up week to week as I gained confidence and my fitness progressed.  My last 2x20' ended up being 281 and 282...and my 40k ended up at 281 for 57:47.

Since Rusty & I have fairly similar threshold HR values, so this might work out without a table or graph (although is that Marc we hear in the background working on one?). My power at threshold is somewhere past 300. I think Rusty still needs a little more time to get there. If we keep HR the same between us, My power will be higher. Similar HR with similar threshold HR will mean about the same intensity, but different outputs. If we keep power the same then Rusty's HR will be higher. He'll be working at a higher intensity to achieve the same output. Training Stress depends on Intensity. Energy usage depends on the actual power used. So we can work just as intensely as each other, but the one putting out more power is burning through more energy.

Even though we look at power so much, in order to know who is actually going faster it's necessary to factor in the resistance. And because I'm bigger I will have more to overcome to go the same speed. More rolling due to weight and more air resistance due to punching a bigger hole.

That hilly TT will be interesting to see. All the ups and downs really add something to the execution.

Yep - it is not a direct input, but just a close proxy. Here is where Friel talks about this concept a little more in depth: http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/efficiency-factor-and-decoupling

These words from Nicole's race report are ringing loudly in my brain:

But will it really be best to hold right at your FTP the whole time for this one? The breaks on the downhills should make this much easier to accomplish, right?

I think I see what he's trying to say, but still don't really agree with it. Just in the first paragraph, power and pace can also be used in the same manner to describe how a workout felt. They do move around more as fitness changes, but once they are anchored they still do much the same thing as HR can in that regard. Then later it seems that he goes with the assumption that because HR isn't really an output yet still is related that it must be an input. I mean, I do see the differences in all three, but not how power and pace can't also be used as a proxy for effort which seems to be his basis for saying HR is.