Mental discipline

Today, I have experienced the flip side to Perception of effort vs Actual heart rate.
My recovery ride this morning needed to be below 140 bpm and the closer to 120 bpm the better. This is a really easy ride and took mental discipline to keep at the required heart rate.

I am so fired up to get the results I want, that when training, I just want to rip everything up at 100 mph. So, to make sure I kept in the correct HR zone for recovery, I had to keep checking my monitor to make sure that my perception of effort was in fact where I needed to be - 120 to 140 bpm.

It is really important, for me, to recover after more strenuous training sessions as this will allow my body to adapt to the stress of the hard session from the previous day.
The largest gain in fitness comes from the recovery period rather than the hard session itself!