After a couple of what felt good months cycling, I get this.
Ok I’d already seen a bigger jump a while back but it’s still over 30w down on a couple years ago.
Celebrate all achievements, or cry?!
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Definitely celebrate - the direction is right 
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OK, so I got another couple today… 
The sun was shining today, and very little wind, which just felt so nice after what has been either windy or rainy or both for so long. It was a joy to ride! 
I was intending to do some intervals at ftp, but after the first one I felt so good I decided to just push myself and see what I was made of. I think that was probably the hardest 8-10 mins I’ve ever done! The last time I got an increase in max HR was a while back on a long hard hill climb, and have only ever seen jumps off 1 bpm per ride previously, whereas here I jumped from 184 to 189. I’d been at 183/184 for a few years I think.
Interestingly intervals clipped the HR so I went back in and changed it in settings and reanalysed, seems to have fixed it. Had my heart rate strap on and didn’t look like a spike so I accepted that. I actually didn’t know max HR would change at my age but I’ve been surprised each time I’ve had bouts of fitness training and squeezed a bit ore out of it (or just actually found the value).
So couple of questions here.
After a few days feeling rough I was amazed how good I felt today, even after broken sleep etc with an ill child coughing. I mean I just felt on fire. yet only a 2W ftp increase - I was sure I would have smashed it!!! So I guess that’s just my true ftp?
Also I went really hard at the end as I had energy and was running out of road (it turns very much downhill after and im not into going flat out at super high speed at my age). Had I paced things better, and not saved so much for the end, could I have achieved a better result at higher consistently power (if that narks sense).
Presumably I should just go back to my zone 2 and proper intervals now, rather than keep testing the ftp, dont wasn’t to totally derail my (not very much of a planned) plan.
As an aside: even at my peak of running, where I’m told it’s easier to hit max HR, I never got within a few beats of max even after the longest/hardest sessions. Maybe as I’ve cycled most of my life it uses the heart differently when I run, who knows, just through was interesting and curious if anyone knows the science behind that?
Dr. David Seiler has done some work on Max HR as part of his research. Necessary of course because he uses Heart Rate Reserve as the basis for his lactate and zone work. What he found from his group of very fit riders was that the time on the bike to achieve max HR varied widely, from under 1 hour to over 2 hours. Obviously there was a lot of riding going on at lower intensities.
In a non-scientific way I find this true for myself. Shorter sessions of intervals may get me close, but very, vary rarely to my Max HR. But, when I get up to a couple hours on my bike on varying terrain and effort, hit a hill at a max effort and high cadence, I’ll always see it. This is of course why Max HR or HRR is not widely used, because it can be so inconvenient to find.
Edit:
Max HR is different for running than cycling.
VO2 max can change and indicate improvements in cardiovascular fitness. I’ve heard Max HR referred to as genetic max. Apparently in reference to our inability to change that as athletes. Also I believe why HRR is used to account for fitness with an athlete’s decreased resting heart rate.
It’s not easier to reach max HR in running, it’s just that HR max for running is for most people a couple beats higher then the max for cycling. This has to do with more muscle mass involved while running.
Long efforts will rarely reach HR max. It’s more while doing some shorter repeated high intensity bouts, followed by that all out sprint that you will reach HR max.
HR max isn’t really ‘changing’ or even trainable. It’s you, who become more familiar with the feelings/demands of that challenging effort, that can push yourself a bit further, or can hold that effort a fraction longer. It is correct that HR max declines with age, but the decline is much slower for regular athletes compared to non-sporters.
Congrats on the milestone FTP estimate. A few comments from personal experience:
Realize that FTP fluctuates daily and you won’t be at that level every day (and some days you’ll be higher without knowing it because your ride may not be hard enough to have shown it). Some combination of bad sleep(s), a few days of poor nutrition, improper pre-ride or during-ride fueling, life stress, fighting a virus you don’t know you have, high training load, etc. could contribute to you not being able to hit 190W on any given day. (I speak from recent experience with hitting PB FTP numbers, then two weeks later not even being able to hold onto 5% lower in a workout.)
When I’m fresh, my HR will be noticeably higher for VO2 and threshold efforts than when I’m run-down or at the end of a hard training block. Lower peak HRs during high intensity typically correspond with you not being recovered, and for me higher overnight and resting lows accompany this; overnight HR is my go-to indicator that maybe I need to be cautious. Last night, for example, my overnight HR was back to baseline (the lowest it gets when sleep/diet/stress are all good), and today I hit a 2min power PB.
Based on your workout data, it looks like there is room for improvement as sustaining a slightly harder effort for this medium-length intervals (despite how awful it feels).
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