Training ride revisited

They say that you can get an idea of what your max heart rate should be by subtracting your age from 220. That would mean that my mhr rate should be 182. Since this is the number that my heart monitor uses as my baseline for workload and workout sessions, it is something I really want to know.

I didn't want to accept that my mhr was a 38 year old's. I'd rather have a 204 rate like some of the teens around here have. Of course, I know that isn't going to happen, but I was willing to bet that I could be closer to 190. Well, tonight I hit 188 beats per minute!

I really think I could get even more. I hit 188 without noticing any effects other than just starting to run out of gas. I'm told that when you hit your max heart rate, you will feel light headed and you'll start to freeze up. I just crested the hill and started monitoring my breathing and before long, I was back in the upper 160s.

The ride was my "regular Greenville training ride." I made my first training ride about two months ago. On that ride I averaged 16.4 mph for the trip. What a difference two months make. Tonight, I did the route and averaged 18.3 mph.

It had been sometime since I had done the ride because I have started riding much farther than 12 miles. However, tonight I wanted to push myself as hard as I could. That is how I managed to set a new max heart rate.