When are you tired vs when do you need to push through? HR slow to come up

Training
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I’m going to give a couple personal examples and I’m looking for feedback on when to dial it back a bit vs push through. This is my last week before a recovery week. Due to some work travel my usual schedule is a bit upended but that’s ok.
I’ve included a screen cap of last week which was pretty tough.

Screenshot 2024-02-20 at 8.19.11 AM
Screenshot 2024-02-20 at 8.19.11 AM2510×1074 265 KB

As you can see I had two pretty tough rides last week, Saturday which was Moose’s Tooth +2 was quite hard. I did light Z2 Sunday, and an outdoor ride yesterday that was mostly Z2. Today I was supposed to do Ericsson+2 which I’ve done before but at a slightly lower FTP. This is a very doable ride. And indeed I could have pushed through today and done it as well. However, I was pretty achy/sore but most importantly my HR was very slow to come up today. Now there’s many things that impact HR, I could be well hydrated and simply had higher blood volume requiring less BPM. However waking up still a bit sore with heavy legs, I bet on this being fatigue and not something else. As a result, with my HR still lagging a few BPM in that second interval I pulled the plug.
I feel guilty about pulling the plug because this week should be intense and Saturday’s workout won’t be the one on the calendar, that’s simply a place holder. Saturday will instead likely be a 200+TSS outdoor ride assuming the weather continues to look good. I’ll probably empty the tank since it roll into a recovery week.

I’m looking for thoughts on if I made the right decision today pulling the plug and going back to Z2 vs continuing the sweet spot ride as intended. I want/desire to make gains but also don’t want to get into an overtrain situation. My last rest week was somewhat screwed up because my battery in the power meter was failing which I didn’t know at the time and it resulted in the workouts being a lot harder than they should have been. I pushed through but didn’t realize it was a PM issue until after the week was over. As a result I didn’t do quite the intensity I had planned week 1 of this block. I think I need more rest, am I missing anything else?

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My first thought is that if one 8 minute SS interval already has you turning it down to Z2 then it’s probably a good idea to do that. For whatever the reason, you’re likely not up to that workout on that day.

However, for the reasons you mentioned, I would usually not use HR to make that decision. For various reasons (that aren’t related to fatigue or fitness) your SS hr could be +/- 8bpm. The fatigue and raised RPE on it’s own would be enough for me to make that decision.

Don’t, it’s just a plan that can be adjusted on the fly. Your previous week was decently intense so I wouldn’t worry about turning this one down.

At the same time, I wouldn’t worry too much about overtraining. Unless you’ve got a crazy stressful/physical life off the bike, you’re unlikely to overtrain on <10 hours per week.

Then for the rest week you messed up. In the future I would trust your RPE over power numbers on most rides but especially a rest week. For rest weeks power doesn’t matter at all. Just ride easy. If anything power should be used as a ceiling, not a target.

1 Like
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I think you did right to pull the plug. My theory is that the first workouts in a block are more beneficial to the last. I mean if you have a block of training (8 workouts over 4 weeks), then by the 6th workout you’ve probably got 99% of the benefit. I seem to feel a fitness boost at the beginning of a block and none at the end when I’m tired. I’m thinking going to 3 week blocks even though I always feel really good at week 3.

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I do have some stress off the bike for sure. I run a business and it can be a high stress gig at times. I have no idea how that actually impacts me but have speculation on it.