I did a workout yesterday that was very simply 12 x 30 second “sprints” with 3 minute recovery between each.
Some information that may help in the reply:
I do not currently have a Power Meter on my bike. I know that this may make a reply to this post a bit difficult.
It was cold, at least I was! The average temperature my Karoo read was 31 degrees
I did a short warmup (20 minutes) as I’ve read that all-out type workouts are better executed from a physiological standpoint when a short warm up is used (maximize O2 deficit).
I soft pedaled and even coasted down the hill I did the intervals on. I wanted to maximize the effort on the intervals themselves. I followed essentially the same pattern for all of the intervals.
All that stated, what I found was that my HR popped pretty good for the first 4 intervals but then began to peak at a lower HR.
My TH HR is 175 BPM with a max of around 190. In the first 4 intervals I was seeing 170 but from intervals 4-9 I noticed that I didn’t see a HR value above 166 or so. I cut the workout short as I saw/and felt that I was no longer getting the intended physiological benefit from the session.
Is what I was experiencing an acute cardiac response where my body was essentially telling me I was toast? If this indeed what was going on then it was corroborated by the fact that I was not able to stand for the entire 30 seconds on intervals 8 and 9.
Thanks in advance for your response.