HRM conditioning

[llayman@neorx.com]

     Angie, 
     
     I found a similar way to do cardiac conditioning as your Trail Blazer 
     article explained, only this is at the beginning of the ride season, 
     and can be done without stressing the legs or using a trailer...
     
     I went on a 7 mile mostly walk ride yesterday. This was first time 
     we'd been on the trail since July, due to injury followed by intense 
     rain that washed out my trail in several places and turned some rocky 
     sections into deep sand so I can start training for Dubai. We had been 
     doing fairly intense dressage workouts, but that was in a soft arena, 
     and the trails I ride are hard and mostly rocky. So I didn't want to 
     over stress him, yet I wanted to get in some form of conditioning.  
     
     So out we went. First there was the dirtbikers. Even when we couldn't 
     see them, we could hear them. That kept the heart rate spiking up to 
     150 with rest periods averaging around 60. So he recovered quite well. 
     As the ride progressed, and the trail washed out, we were walking 
     along a cliff with the river 20 feet below. That's when the shooting 
     started. On the other side of the river, there were people on a 500 
     foot cliff shooting clay pigeons over the river along which we were 
     walking. That got my heart rate quite high until we were at least past 
     the cliff part. But the shooting continued and I noticed spikes in 
     Jake's heart rate up to 200, again with recoveries down to 60 
     periodically. The highest spikes were seconds after the actual 
     shooting when the remnants of clay pigeons shattered on the rocks by 
     the river. That seemed to also exercise his jumping muscles. But as 
     his excellent recoveries continued, I realized I was not working him 
     too hard, and continued.  The shooting workouts continued, and some 
     more dirt bikes came into the picture, playing chicken with us. 
     Luckily they pulled off before actually hitting us and the noise they 
     made as they crashed through the bushes five feet off the trail was 
     enough to send his HR back up to around 180 with a spike to 210 as the 
     shooting and shattering clay once again commenced. Finally the 
     shooting and the dirt bikers were left behind, with the sound muffled 
     by the trees and we were able to rest a bit as we continued on through 
     the forest. Then he jumped suddenly to one side as a Blue Heron flew 
     up from nearly beneath our noses and the HR went off the scale. Would 
     that be considered a fartlek?  He did recover within 10 minutes, so I 
     again concluded I was not over working him. The two walkers with their 
     dog way up ahead sent his HR to about 130 until they disappeared off 
     the trail, and then it shot to about 220 as we flushed them from their 
     hiding place. Another fartlek? The bicycle riders we met later gave us 
     another fartlek that concluded when they started talking to us and 
     Jake realized they were human. As dusk fell, we returned to the ranch 
     with a full 1/2 hour of no elevated heart rates and as I put him into 
     the cross ties, and removed his tack, his resting rate fell under the 
     recording sensitivity of my HRM and I had to manually count it at 24. 
     Again, I concluded I had not worked him to hard, and put him away for 
     the evening with a nice warm beet pulp mash. 
     
     So, is that the proper way to use the HRM without stressing the legs?
     
     Anybody that would like to join me and Jake for 5 mph interval 
     training, is welcome to come out any Saturday. Dirt Biker density is 
     at it's highest between 2pm and 5pm, so plan to come out around that 
     time. The density stays higher, longer, as the dusk falls later so 
     workouts can be extended during the spring and summer. And these 
     bikers are polite in that they don't chase or purposely attempt to 
     dehorse riders.
     
     Cheers,
     
     Linda-Cathrine