June 29, 2014

And it's hotter than...

And we continue on with heat training.  It wasn't that it was so incredibly hot today but the humidity was at 95%, and The Spotted Wonder was chugging along rarely topping over 160 bpm,  Her numbers are going down at the canter now, instead of up, and the tough hill climb that was pushing her into the 180's-190's...now we have to trot the entire hill and we still don't push that high.  I'd say heat training seems to be working to our good.  She's only been doing about hour to hour and a half sessions though, so at a competition?  Meh!  I just don't know!  But at the very least, it should be better than it would have been otherwise.

I'm all about data and today's chart looked really good.  Sometimes it is hard to wait for change and this in fact took me nearly three years to accomplish.  We are finally training at a level that should be beneficial from the cardio aspect vs. always working in aerobic.  Don't get me wrong...aerobic is good, but not being able to switch up the gears and rest / use different muscle groups had to be fatiguing for her.

Since she isn't the only one the heat affects I have been trying some new things for myself as well.  Haven't had a metabolic melt-down of my own yet.  Though why I decided to go to a ride in July beats me!

Lovely big wide blocks of blue at 8 mph or above with the dips being the downhill walk at the end of each loop to give her a cooling period.   The chart only indicates the first six miles of our ride, I reset the Garmin then and did slow hill climbs for the next three miles.  It took her seven minutes to cool out and that is because we cantered in the last little bit on a grade.  I'll take it!

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