With the recent time change, I’m doing my after-work sessions indoors, and with the current heat training trend, I’ve been doing some of my workouts without any cooling fans. I’m fairly well trained and rarely experience HR drift, especially during the sub-2hr endurance rides, but without cooling, my HR steadily ramps up while holding steady power. Interestingly, even with higher HR, my RPE or sense of lactate accumulation remains unchanged. I do sweat profusely and keeping sweat out of my eyes becomes the biggest annoyance. Contrary to my last statement, I tried a sweet spot session without cooling and it was miserable, after about 30min, I turned on a fan and it felt like the effort to hold the same power was cut in half.
My normal routine is to do a hard group ride on Sat and a long endurance ride on Sun. After starting heat training, I’m performing better on Sat’s group ride and have noticed much better recovery leading into Sunday’s ride, to the point where Sunday I feel as good, if not stronger than Saturday. My training has been very consistent, so I’m naturally gaining fitness but feel like I’ve had a nice bump in the last couple of weeks and the only thing that I’ve changed has been the heat training.
I’m somewhat aware of the science around using sauna to improve fitness and wonder if the heat training is having a similar effect.
Anyways, just wanted to share and see if anyone else can relate or add to this in the constant pursuit of getting fitter and faster.