Quote Originally Posted by SadieKate
The purpose of recovery is to have some motion and circulation without stressing the muscles. Intense training (riding or otherwise) that stress leg muscles actually put micro-tears in the muscles. The muscles will only rebuild without this stress. I personally would not consider racquetball a recovery activity at all. Since you say you're not tired after riding, your cycling is more likely the recovery activity for the racquetball.
Are you saying I'm not riding hard enough? I admit that my legs don't bother me at all after my rides. Should I be riding harder? But if I do continue riding the way I do I don't really need to worry about recovery, right? I wouldn't classify the riding or the racquetball as intense...in the sense of there being mico-tears and I need to rest to recover.
Just a question for you – how did you come up with that max HR? Formula? Other?
That is the highest number I've seen on my HR monitor...and that was going up a hill trying to keep pace with someone else. I could barely breathe at that point so I think it's pretty accurate.
You also didn't say what your goals are. If you are happy riding at a comfortable pace three times a week, then it sounds like you have a great plan going. If you want to get faster, ride longer, do harder rides, then you need to alter your riding plan. But you didn't say that. Hard to give a suggestion when we don't know what the goal is.
I would like to be able to ride faster (an average speed of 15-16 mph) and longer (I would like to ride a century next year - I did a metric this year). Nearly all my rides have been 20-25 miles with 3 or 4 50-62 mile rides. But I have ridden over 1300 miles so far this year. I guess I'd classify all of my rides, exceptions noted, as base miles.