When do you know you're recovered?

Triathlon Forum
1

So…I think I dug myself into a hole this fall. Was training for a marathon, built up too fast too soon and noted a lot of the warning signs - resting HR slightly elevated, disturbed sleep, grouchy, straining during workouts, recurrent headache, concentration issues, tired quads, race results plateauing and not quite matching training. I ignored them because I attributed many of them to bad fall allergies and others to fatigue from marathon training that would resolve with the taper. (and yes, I’m sure that they’re not indications of some other health issue)

Mea culpa. And I know that there’s one way to fix, and that’s rest. And I know that there’s no set time to rest, just rest until you’re recovered. Right now, I’m limiting myself to walks, gentle yoga, and a bit of easy pool-running and swimming. Plus eating well and not setting the alarm clock, plus some massage.

My question is: how do I know when I’m recovered? My plan is to wait until my resting HR has returned to normal for several days, my sleep has been normal for a week, and the headache’s been gone so long I’ve forgotten about it. Then I’ll start back with some running and some harder swimming, ramping up carefully. Anything else that I should be monitoring? Should I wait for longer than a few days after feeling normal again? I have spring races that I’d like to do, but I’d rather miss them and be sure I’ve kicked this.

I am female and 40, if that affects the answer.

2

In my n=1 personal experience I haven’t found resting HR to be all that reliable. Mood also isn’t very reliable. For me.

I’ve found HR at a sub-threshold effort to be more reliable. I use HR at 200W using a powermeter. If you don’t have a PM, then HR @ 10:00/mile (or whatever) running pace might be a good indicator.

For me I know that when I’m good my HR will be <110bpm after 5min @ 200W. If it’s >120bpm, something is usually wrong. It’s actually been very reliable at predicting when I’m going to get sick before I feel any symptoms.

Of course this is most useful when you have a non-overtrained baseline to compare against…

The most reliable is a full threshold fitness test. But the problem with that is it adds a lot of training stress, which can be counter-productive. The above method can be done daily during a warmup with essentially zero stress.

3

Waiting for the signs to go away is a good start, as you mentioned in your post. How long ago did you notice these symptoms, and what was your workload like (miles, hours per week, etc) before and after the fatigue?

-Physiojoe

4

How long ago did you notice these symptoms, and what was your workload like (miles, hours per week, etc) before and after the fatigue?

The backstory is that I was injured on and off from about July 2013-June 2014 (high hamstring tear, plantar fasciitis). Prior to that time I had trained successfully for several years, and normally held about 65 MPW when not marathon training; peaking at 80 during marathon training.

During that time, I had some weeks that were just very light swimming with a pull buoy, and other weeks that were a mix of swimming and running. At one point in early 2014, I was good enough to start marathon training (weekly mileage was 16/24/20/26/38/45/52/58, and then PF erupted again) Once I got that fixed, I was averaging about 40 miles per week in May and about 50 MPW in June (with variation in weeks). In June/July I also added in some speedwork. In July I started marathon training, and built up mileage from the 60s to the 70s to the 80s, with a cutback every 3 weeks. Speedwork was included in this each week, though I did skip some workouts if I was feeling really beaten up. All throughout the cycle, I had hard days and easy days, and I took every Monday off except for a gentle yoga class and foam rolling. Also did about 2000-6000 yards of easy swimming/drills split as 2-3 sessions during the week.

I felt tired throughout the build-up, though I excused that as due to the build-up. I struggled with many of the speed workouts throughout, but attributed that to being out of shape, low ferritin (which I did manage to get back up), summer humidity, and allergies. I have horrible fall allergies, and so having a constant headache and underperforming in races each fall is a norm for me - usually it turns around with first frost.

The sleeping problems and the high elevated HR and the irritability really showed up starting in mid-September. They weren’t consistent - I’d note them, cut back for a few days, and then things would improve and I’d go back at it. Quads felt like they would be about to fail me at the end of workouts, but I just dealt with it. By October, the sleeping problems and elevated HR were more consistent (about 5BPM), but it was also cooler, and I managed to pull out a few good workouts. And I’d still have some good days, sleep and RHR-wise. I was still pretty irritable at work, but I excused it as justified irritability (work is annoying for us all, right?).

In November, I tapered for the marathon - RHR and sleep improved some and then worsened again, and I had a bad bit of indigestion and elevated HR in the last days before the marathon, plus insomnia. I attributed that to race nerves. Felt a bit shaky on the start line, but thought it was race nerves. Ended up doing a 10 minute positive split on the marathon - my quads started hurting at 10 - I hung on till about 18-20 ish and then they spasmed on me completely. Finished the race out of a combination of stubbornness and the knowledge that if I finished I at least had a BQ if I ever needed to use it (it’s nice to be female and 40).

I’m pretty beaten up now - my RHR is elevated (though falling a bit each day) and I’m still having sleep trouble and the sense of being unable to “turn off”, if that makes sense. I’m sure a lot of it is the race itself, and I also wonder if I didn’t pick up a minor stomach bug during the last week of taper. But all the warning signs during the fall, which were a bit consistent with the race crash itself, lead me to believe that I need to worry about recovery this time even more seriously than I normally would after a marathon. I really miss training and want to get back into it, but I also think that I’ve been hit over the head with a warning sign, and better pay attention this time.

5

similar to what @trail replied… I use Heart Rate vs pace (run) or power (bike) to determine recovery

But, first you need to determine the baseline values (which it’s too late for you to do), so my advice will only help you “next time”, unless you have some data you can look back on. I do these “low HR” benchmarks regularly throughout the season, since they are a good benchmark for IM performance (improvement in the benchmark should correlate with increased IM race performance).

run: low HR TT - run about an hour with your HR capped at a certain bpm. It doesn’t really matter what bpm you choose, you could try “MAF” (180-age) as a starting point, or your average IM run HR if you have race data at hand. The important thing is to be consistent and use the same bpm across tests. The goal is to run faster without going over your cap. So for me, I measure my run splits over 60-90 mins with an average HR of 145. To test recovery after a race, I want to see season best numbers, or at least better than my last test, before I ramp up training again.

bike: similar test. I do 20-30 min intervals on the trainer at 134 bpm (again, the actual bpm is not important, just be consistent, and choose something low enough to be aerobic). I measure the avg watts for each interval. I usually do this any time from 1.5 - 3 hours indoors (again to keep the test consistent). Approaching an IM, I make this test longer, since a sudden spike in HR at the same power will show me whether or not my endurance is sufficiently trained for the distance I’m racing. For a recovery test, I usually just do 60 mins as 4 x 15 or 3 x 20 min. I know pretty soon whether I’m going to “pass” or not

6

Your story makes alot of sense…ramping up after an extended period of low volume. If the more major symptoms started mid-September, you’re going on 10 weeks or so right now. Granted, a couple of those weeks was your taper, but I’m guessing your mileage was enough during the taper to keep you in that fatigued state.

If I were you, I’d start with 4-5 weeks of low volume…if that means 50% of your recent mileage, so be it…if it ends up far less, that’s ok too. This isn’t really anything too scientific, it’s just how I would advise someone I was coaching if they were in your situation. I’ve also been overtrained / deeply overreached myself, and I know that it takes more than a couple weeks to fully come back.

This is probably the best time of year to be in this situation, because you’ve still got plenty of time to ramp back up sometime in the spring and get on with the rest of 2015.

Good luck!

-Physiojoe

7

Thanks - that’s very helpful. I’m thinking wait until symptoms have completely resolved for several days, then build up as if I was coming off of injury, making sure not to exceed 50% of mileage in the first 4-5 weeks (when you said 4-5 weeks, do they extend from when I start running again or from now?).

And yes, I agree this is the best time of year for this. Ain’t nothing wrong with a reason to hold off on training during the holiday period. And work should hopefully be quiet also, further enabling recovery.

Thoughts on what activity I can do? My thoughts were that completely avoiding all activity wouldn’t work - I frankly will find it impossible to comply :). And I work from home in a small apartment, so if I don’t get out, I will go nuts, which is less than helpful. Thus going with gentle yoga, walking (not TOO far), and some easy aqua jogging and swimming. Maybe 20 minutes of very easy cycling. But no hard cross-training workouts, no running, no weights, no high-level super intense crazy pose yoga.

8

BTW, thanks to you and RobGray for the comments about power meter and HR while running. No power meter. I do use my HRM while running (use it to keep a lid on my easy runs, so my easy run pace actually varies day to day, while the HR stays constant). I could use that to check, but there’s also a lot of variability due to weather conditions (I don’t generally do treadmills as they tend to aggravate some injuries).

9

for running, choose a flat course that’s repeatable, or maybe even a track. My local trail is pancake flat but gets very windy which skews the results, so I now use a track.

For biking, even you don’t have a power meter, and if you have an indoor trainer like the Kurt Kinetic, you can use speed vs HR since that is a good proxy for your power output, provided you always set up your trainer the same way.

10

Thanks - that’s very helpful. I’m thinking wait until symptoms have completely resolved for several days, then build up as if I was coming off of injury, making sure not to exceed 50% of mileage in the first 4-5 weeks (when you said 4-5 weeks, do they extend from when I start running again or from now?).

And yes, I agree this is the best time of year for this. Ain’t nothing wrong with a reason to hold off on training during the holiday period. And work should hopefully be quiet also, further enabling recovery.

Thoughts on what activity I can do? My thoughts were that completely avoiding all activity wouldn’t work - I frankly will find it impossible to comply :). And I work from home in a small apartment, so if I don’t get out, I will go nuts, which is less than helpful. Thus going with gentle yoga, walking (not TOO far), and some easy aqua jogging and swimming. Maybe 20 minutes of very easy cycling. But no hard cross-training workouts, no running, no weights, no high-level super intense crazy pose yoga.

I’m not sure you should avoid running altogether- but I’m a bike racer, so I might not have the most runner-specific advice! Cycling is probably preferable, especially if you live in a place that allows outdoor riding this time of year (or own a mountain bike).

Coming from someone who also goes stir crazy working from home, riding the trainer might not be the best, but then again I tolerate it pretty well. Some people can’t do the trainer much, especially if you are the outdoors type.

Hiking might also be good this time of year. You could jog the uphills and walk everything else to minimize impact.

-Physiojoe