Fitter?

I´m six days into training now and have been monitoring my progress. I´m using a Garmin Forerunner 735XT to record everything. It has a heart rate monitor built into the strap as well as GPS tracking, its quite a good bit of kit but it is expensive what what it is and some features are missing for the price. I paid GBP325 at a duty free shop in Gatwick. I do wonder if an iWatch 2 might have been a better choice. I might do a review of it later but for now it seems to be doing a good job of capturing and  measuring my performance.

Obviously six days isn't enough time for me to get substantially fitter nor is there enough data to be used as a comparison but it gives an idea of the effort I'm putting in. This is a list of the last nine rides I have done. 102kms in six days isn't much for roadies, they can do this in one ride. I think its a start though, and unlikely to get much more than this for now.

I havn´t got a detailed training plan at the moment and I´m not sure if I am going to need one. It´s almost impossible to train to ride 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for 6 months unless you actually do it. It is also one thing riding this much for yourself and its another when you are doing it as a job and for clients that are in a group. I don't have the motivation to ride this much on my own but once I have people relying on me its another story. 

So what I am doing is getting as bike fit as I can. With a mixture of hi-intensity spin classes, fun rides and recovery rides. My aim is to ride everyday and up the time and intensity as I get fitter. I´m also doing some strength training and this week have been to one HIIT and one weights class as well as one light gym session.

I´m not going to go into detail of every ride on this list. What I will do in a few weeks is compare the same trails with each other and maybe take some photos and do a review of them. What I can do  right now though is compare the indoor spin classes I did today with one I did 11 days ago. Todays is below.

You can see from this graph that it was a hi intensity ride.  My theoretical maximum heart rate should be 172 (if you know how this is calculated you will know how old I am) but you can see here my max HR on this ride was 183. My average HR was 147 bpm. 

This graph show the breakdown of my HR zones. So although it was a high intensity ride 50% of my time was in zone 4. The Training effect score is also interesting in that its a 4, this means that "this activity was very demanding" The app also states that I exercised for an hour and burnt 921 calories.

Now lets compare this with the spin class I did on the 7th March. Also took an hour and I burnt 931 calories.



We can see that eleven days previously my average (147 vs. 141) and maximum (183 vs 182) heart rate were lower yet the training effect score was higher, so in theory I was working harder.

On this graph I can see that although I spent about the same amount of time in zone 4 only 8% of my time was spent in in zone 5 as opposed to 19% on todays ride.

The spin bikes in the studio have power meters so I know what power I am generating while in the class and this would be another way of measuring progress. I know I am generating more power on this ride than I was previously but unfortunatley I can´t show it here.

Either way, as I seem to be able to spend longer in zone 5 : 19% vs 8% and the overall effort is lower 4.0 vs 4.2 the this means I am getting fitter right? 

I´m only doing spin once a week, anyone who says spin is cheating obviously has never done it. I would be very difficult to find a trail or a road where I could ride for an hour at such intensity. It is such high intensity that I need time to recover. I have a yoga class booked in the evening and tomorrow´s ride will be a recovery ride, probably along the beach front. I will post some photo´s. Yeah it sucks being me.