ridecamp@endurance.net: Confusion on Heart Rate

Confusion on Heart Rate

Wendy Milner (wendy@wendy.cnd.hp.com)
Thu, 20 Mar 1997 10:57:42 MST

Yesterday I played hooky in the afternoon and went riding.
Drake now has me totally confused about his heart rate.

For background for those that don't know Drake -
He is going on 7 years old, mostly Arab, has run on a large mountain
area for most of his life, and is in pasture all day long.
We did a couple of 25s at 4, a 25 and 50 at 5, a couple of 50s
last year, and this year plan to do more 50s and do them a bit
faster.

Our training ground is mountains. The basic ride I do has a
short uphill, a bit of ups and downs, then a long uphill that varies
from mild (5 degrees), lots of moderate (10-15 degrees) to a killer
tough climb (20-30 degrees). Afterwards we walk down the hill,
go a bit futher down, the do another moderate to tough climb,
before heading down the final slope. This covers about 12 miles.

I bought a heart rate monitor in January and have been throughoughly
enjoying it. Till yesterday.

Drake's resting rate is 30-33. At a walk, it goes to about 80.
I usually trot up the hills, and find that the rate is 145-155.
If it goes higher, say above 160, I'll slow down for 15-30 seconds,
till it drops below 130 and then trot more. When I get to the
killer hill, I let Drake go full out run up the hill. I used to
think that the monitor just could not keep up with the jump in
heart rate. Heart rate would be about 115 and stay there until
we stopped. At the stop, his rate would climb rappidly to 180,
and then slowly drop. At a minute of rest, the rate would be
below 90.

Yesterday, Drake kept telling me enough with this trotting business,
he wanted to canter up the hills. OK. I can handle that. It
is time to step up the program a bit. So, on the long up hill,
we start to canter. Before we started, his rate was at 135 or so.
After a few seconds, it started to drop. Within a minute his rate
was at 104. For the entire time we cantered, it was in the range
of 100 to 105. Drake told me he was winded so I slowed him down.
His rate climbed fast to 150, then came down as we walked, back
below 90 within a minute. When I started to trot, he was back to
the 140 range, canter and the rate would drop, stop and the rate would
climb fast then drop. I raced up the killer hill at a rate of 110,
stopped and it went up to 170, let him cool off and it was back below
100 within a minute.

So, confusion has set in.

Drake's heart rate is much lower when we canter than when we trot.
But, it appears that he is working harder since when we stop, the
heart rate will jump fast.

Durning training, I want to get a certain level of work out of him,
pushing him to go just a bit further than I'd ask at a race.
So, where do I put him? Should I make him trot up those hills,
or let him canter (this is a rocking horse canter, almost fully
engaged, not a lunging type of canter).

Drake's final recover was OK yesterday. After a 10 minute walk
down the hills, he was at 60 and dropped to 44 after a minute.
Previous recoveries were 57 when I stopped and 40 after a minute.
The minute recovery seems to be where he stays the entire time
I untack and clean him up. So I know that he worked more yesterday.
I just don't understand the readings.

Can anyone explain this?

--
Wendy

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Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Hewlett-Packard Company e-mail: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop A2 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-2038

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