I struggle on the morning after a day when I do an afternoon session, apparently even when the session is short and easy like last nights 30′ L4.

I started with a plan to do repeats of a fun 20′ “mountain”.

• 3′ @ 18 (180W)
• 3′ @ 19 (190W)
• 3′ @ 20 (200W)
• 2′ @ 21 (210W)
• 3′ @ 20
• 3′ @ 19
• 3′ @ 18

This is a lower intensity than the sessions that I did on Sunday and Monday, but today it was too much for me and I could see it my HR and RPE at the end of the first mountain.

I pushed on and tried to stick to the plan through the second 20′ mountain, and it was pretty miserable.  I started the third mountain, and after a few minutes, I decided to ease up.  I just shifted to a steady state 180W at 20 spm, which is a lighter, easier stroke.  This brought my HR down to about 70% HRR and I felt a lot more comfortable.  At the end of this 20 minute piece, I measured lactates and it was 1.3 mmol/l.  So, I could push a bit harder.

For the last 20 minutes, I did just that.  I brought up the wattage to 190W and the rate down to r19.  It was pretty hard work, and I was curious how hard.  By the end of 20′, my HR had gone up to around 155 (80% HRR) and my lactate was up to 4.0mmol/l.

So the take away for me is that even though there is no firm correlation between HR and lactate, if my HR is high and my RPE is high, I should dial back the watts, in most cases 10W dial back should be enough.

Tomorrow: 4 x 2K / 5′ rest.  Pace target 1:48.0 (same as the avg for last time)