Struggling to hit zones.

[sarequads]

I'm following a routine that specifies time and training zone. 38’UT2, my UT2 is 103-132 BPM (55%-70%) and the suggested s/m for that zone is 18-20. My 2k time is 8:00 and the recommended pace for an 8min 2k time person in UT2 is 2:18.

Zone Pace HR S/M
38’UT2 2:18.0 103-132 18-20

My problem is that to hold 2:18 at 18-20 s/m my heart rate jumps up to 148-152. I was ill with the flu there just over a week ago for 12 days.
I'll continue at least for a week to see if my fitness picks up again.


My question is what's more important, pace or heart rate?

[Anth_F]

Well if you're really following that training routine just ease off the gas and train within your specified UT2 HR range until you get back to good health and fitness. The pace will follow!!!

[Ollie Russell]

Just after christmas i was ill with a virus, i trained through it and made myself worse with a chest infection. You should really be resting.

BUT

To answer your question, pace is more important in my opinion. Its pushing past what we think is possible that makes us stronger...not training to a certain zone that our heart finds comfortable.

[sarequads]

Well if you're really following that training routine just ease off the gas and train within your specified UT2 HR range until you get back to good health and fitness. The pace will follow!!!

Thank you

Just after christmas i was ill with a virus, i trained through it and made myself worse with a chest infection. You should really be resting.

BUT

To answer your question, pace is more important in my opinion. Its pushing past what we think is possible that makes us stronger...not training to a certain zone that our heart finds comfortable.

Thats me pretty much 98-100% feeling not ill. I gave it ages and had 4 very gradual sessions seeing how I was feeling until I hit this longer row that was still low intensity.

[jackarabit]

Nothing sacred about 2k pace + 18”. Try 2k+20 to 25. Or cap HR to stay in zone and see if bread n butter pace gradually improves toward 2k+18 over a few weeks. It’s UT2 for cat’s sake. They ain't giving medals for racing it.

[Dangerscouse]

If you're feeling the after effects of illness then just take it easy for now.

I find 2k +18 is too fast to comfortably stay within my UT2 zone. 2k + 22ish is a better pace and for UT2 your HR is the primary focus otherwise it's not a UT2 session, especially when you reach those sort of HR levels. Pick a HR cap and slow down when you reach it. Your progress in these sessions is based on discipline and keeping it easier and on target. Don't let your ego dictate the pace.

Pace has its place but only when you are supposed to be increasing the intensity. Don't race the slower sessions, but make sure, when you're feeling better, you do challenge yourself on the shorter sharper sessions. If you're going slow, you also have to incorporate faster sessions if you want to make progress

[jamesg]

I'm following a routine that specifies time and training zone. 38’UT2, my UT2 is 103-132 BPM (55%-70%) and My 2k time is 8:00

How old are you? Try using Karvonen- HR range, not a flat % of max. 103 is not even warm up.

Or use your 2k time to set pace bands. Forget HR, you'll know if it's too high, it'll stop you.

[Allan Olesen]

2k pace +18 seconds doesn't relate very well to the difference in power output across fast and slow rowers.

If you have a 6 minutes 2k time, your 2k power is 480 W, and your power at 2k pace +18 seconds is 278 W.
So you will train at 58% of your 2k power.

If you have a 8 minutes 2k time, your 2k power is 203 W, and your power at 2k pace +18 seconds is 133 W.
So you will train at 66% of your 2k power.

Why should it be better for the slow rower to train at a 8 %-points higher percentage of his 2k power?

If the 8 minutes rower instead trains at 2k pace + 24 seconds, he will also be training at 58% of his 2k power. Sounds better to me.

(One could argue that the 8k rower did a less anaerobic effort, because he had to keep some juice for the additional 2 minutes. And consequently, he would have raced closer to his anaerobic threshold, so he actually should train at a higher percentage of his 2k power, if he wanted to train at the same percentage of his FTP. But on the other hand, the 6k rower would probably have better endurance, which would probably cancel out that effect.)

[hjs]

Follow hf, pace will follow, if you want to follow pace you are not doing the program. Fine but its something else.

In general people don,t have the patience to go slow enough on the easy stuff and don,t go fast enough on the hard. Result, everything ends in nomans land.

[max_ratcliffe]

Follow hf, pace will follow, if you want to follow pace you are not doing the program. Fine but its something else.

In general people don,t have the patience to go slow enough on the easy stuff and don,t go fast enough on the hard. Result, everything ends in nomans land.

Guilty of this.
It's hard to get past the intuitive feeling that training benefits must be linearly correlated with effort.

[hjs]

Follow hf, pace will follow, if you want to follow pace you are not doing the program. Fine but its something else.

In general people don,t have the patience to go slow enough on the easy stuff and don,t go fast enough on the hard. Result, everything ends in nomans land.

Guilty of this.
It's hard to get past the intuitive feeling that training benefits must be linearly correlated with effort.

Yes it is, but that feeling should be used for racing, training is not racing, we should try to keep in mind what the purpose is for a given training.

[Anth_F]

Forget HR, you'll know if it's too high, it'll stop you.

He is following a training program with the whole purpose of training within his UT2 HR zone... what goods forget HR going to be to him?

Training willy nilly where your HR is high enough to stop you sounds more like a TT than UT2

[Gammmmo]

I'm following a routine that specifies time and training zone. 38’UT2, my UT2 is 103-132 BPM (55%-70%) and the suggested s/m for that zone is 18-20. My 2k time is 8:00 and the recommended pace for an 8min 2k time person in UT2 is 2:18.

Zone Pace HR S/M
38’UT2 2:18.0 103-132 18-20

My problem is that to hold 2:18 at 18-20 s/m my heart rate jumps up to 148-152. I was ill with the flu there just over a week ago for 12 days.
I'll continue at least for a week to see if my fitness picks up again.


My question is what's more important, pace or heart rate?

I will just add that although I rarely train with a HRM, just be aware there are lots of factors that will skew it including illness obvs. This time of year heat will be an issue. You say your HR goes to 148-152 (that in itself is a red flag IMO as far too narrow a band to get picky about) but what is your max, what is your AVHR over say 2K, or 5K or 10K etc? That may be low - certainly when I was in my early 20s I could hold 155-160 for hours and hours on the bike (subject to cardiac drift obvS).

[jamesg]

Follow hf, pace will follow, if you want to follow pace you are not doing the program. Fine but its something else.

In general people don,t have the patience to go slow enough on the easy stuff and don,t go fast enough on the hard. Result, everything ends in nomans land.

Guilty of this.
It's hard to get past the intuitive feeling that training benefits must be linearly correlated with effort.

More likely with mileage. That's why watermen were banned from amateur rowing: they were much too fast.

[sarequads]

Thanks for all the replies. Perhaps I wasnt feeling it the other session there as I had a session today and almost kept in all the zones. What I did today was followed it exactly and then when my hr started to creep out of the zone i backed off the pace and then got right back on it once my hr was back on track. so i was on pace around. Todays session was 24 minutes of 2:14 and my average was 2:20 with decent chunks on the 2:14 pace. So happy with that.