So what's in a heartbeat

Training has taken a rare back-seat this week due to our house move unfortunately coinciding with me at vendor meetings away from my office and gym for 2 days. So apart from the weights/kettlebell routine on Monday and a 2 mile ride tonight, transferring my bike from one house to the other, all I have done is the TCTP field test on Tuesday.

Apologies to the 'Time Crunched' authors and any purists out there but for practical reasons I did this on the spin bike. I didn't think I could find a road between home and central London on which to do 1, let alone 2, eyeballs out 8 minute intervals. So I have no readings on power or cadence and for now have to rely on heart rate. Not best but it's a start.

So what do you make of my heart rate chart? I'm curious. I felt pretty good and hand on heart(!) don't think I could have pedalled harder. My cadence was good, the resistance (gear) was not too easy/not too hard but I could not get my heart rate up any higher. The chart doesn't show for some odd reason that my HR did actually peak at 173bpm. Out on the road climbing, I can get to just above 180 but during this test 173 was the tops.

Now what can I expect to happen as my fitness improves? I am confused by this. Instinct says that as I get fitter I would need the heart to beat less frequently to do an equal amount of work i.e. I could do the same work as in this field test but my heart rate would be lower. Is this right? Equally as I get fitter I should be able to do more work so therefore I should be able to push my heart rate higher (without collapsing!).

As always I'd be grateful for any comments. I will try to do the field test out on the road soon and I will do it again maybe on the spin bike at some point in the future to see how it compares. Hopefully I will be able to get out for a ride at the weekend but for now it is unpacking boxes and reorganising home life that takes priority I guess.