Good to Go - Striving to optimize recovery

Gauging recovery has always been a challenge for me — in the past when I have paid close attention to whether or not I am fully recovered and sought to wait until I am totally “good to go” - my training has dwindled to almost nothing. 

Last month was particularly difficult.  I had to deal with preparing for the three races in three weeks in three different sports and incorporate several dedicated, weekly obstacle course training sessions on top of my usual swimming, cycling, hill repeats, and track intervals.   Plus I needed to recover from the stress of the events themselves.  Moreover I had some travel and work issues to deal with.

So in an effort to better assess whether I am sufficiently recovered,  I try RestWise, a “fatigue monitoring system”

I sign up for a month of RestWise and every day I input various objective measures such as resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, sleep quantity along with subjective assessments of mood, muscle soreness, energy level, appetite, etc.

The RestWise app spits out a Recovery Score which informs me whether I should exercise that day:

You can see from the output how I struggled with recovery throughout May and early June.   I was already worn out from doing a variety of training during the Golden Week holiday in early May.  Then, while at first I seemed to have recovered well from the 10k on May 12th, the obstacle race and probably the anticipation of the triathlon took a toll.   Then once fatigue hits it takes a while to get back on track.

I am influenced by the new book “Good to Go” which had positive things to say about RestWise.   And Good to Go takes a very skeptical view of most recovery products.  Good to Go’s focus is on the billion dollar sports recovery industry that has sprung up to accomplish something that is basically just the passive process of resting.   The "active" recovery things we all love (foam rollers, massage, hot/cold baths) do seem to really work and make us feel better — however most of this benefit isn't a direct effect of the treatment, but the fact that the treatment simply helps you relax more.  

I find RestWise helpful.  But unfortunately the process of inputting this data on muscle soreness, sleep quality, appetite, mood, etc, seems to lead to me dwelling on my fatigue and creating a negative feedback loop. 

May 2019 Race #3: Korea Half Ironman Triathlon

Ten members of our triathlon team travel to Korea to compete in a half-ironman event, my third race in three weeks in three different types of endurance event.    

I feel less than “heroic”  — I am the weakest triathlete among our highly driven, focused and competitive group.  Obviously I am not “focused” on triathlon, but this is my best chance in 2019 to test myself, and I want to make the most of it.  

Essentially this is a repeat of my experience last year going into the Cebu Triathlon,

• I am drawn by need to do at least one race per year and identify as a triathlete
• I am more interested in opportunity to travel than race itself (in this case visiting the surprisingly impressive beach in Busan along with the southern Korea dinosaur country) 
• My preparation is strange mix of track intervals, Spartan workouts, short swims at Spa and short indoor trainer rides
• Even though this is my longest race of the season, I don't really consider it my "A" event  
• Getting my bike to the venue is terribly stressful and tiring - this effort strikes me as being more demanding than the actual triathlon

 

The big difference from last year is that in Korea I don’t have the excuse of running in tropical heat, swimming in strong currents and cycling on a tight, crowded course.  Conditions are perfect.   The run is on rolling hills which allows me to mentally break up the effort.  The cycling course is scenic.  The swim is in calm water, albeit roiling around me with other swimmers

I am kicked in the face early in the swim, struggle a bit with water leaking in my goggles, and spend the rest of the swim on the outside edge of course.  I feel like I am making up ground on the bike, managing to maintain what feels to me like a very fast pace through the whole 90k (although I just fail to hit my goal of breaking 3 hours).  

Ultimately I am happy simply to complete the course and be able to legitimately identify as a triathlete for another 12 months.  But I finish well behind 8 of the 9 TiT teammates and 306th among the 1,455 finishers.    Here are my splits:

Swim  - 43:30 

Bike -  3:00:18

Run -   1:38:27

Total -  5:32:35 

May 2019 Race #2 - Obstacle Course Event

The second event of my 3 consecutive races over three weeks is my “A race”  — an  obstacle course race encompassing  25 obstacles over 13 kilometers on a relatively runnable course (versus the earlier obstacle event). 

This is my third obstacle course race, and I am determined to improve on earlier efforts.  

Unfortunately I don’t get off to a flying start — as you can see here I am a bit boxed in and unable to take advantage of the early runnable section of course.  

I come off the first few obstacles gasping and struggling to get back into a running rhythm.  Things improve as I conquer the plate pull, the Hercules hoist and the Olympus -- obstacles I struggled with in my previous events.  I overtake numerous “gym rats” on some long, flat sections of the course and am feeling pretty chuffed.  

However the long bucket brigade takes a toll on my forearms, not to mention the general fatigue of constantly needing to surge and summon "explosive strength" to get over the obstacles, and toward the final third of the race I find myself trudging behind some slower runners on some narrow twisting climbs.  Then I am completely flummoxed by the Twister obstacle  -- which I have obsessed over in the weeks since the event.  

Every other Spartan “warrior” seems to be holding hands and smiling for pictures as they hurdle over the fire jump photo-op at the course finish.  Not me - as I approach the final 500 meters I spot another old looking guy, and feel compelled to sprint until crossing the finish line.  

It turns out this guy was 10 years younger than me and like last September’s Spartan race, there are few other geriatric athletes competing - only 9 guys among the 500 age-group competitors are in my age division.  I manage to outrun all 9 of them and win the division by close to 30 minutes — my finishing time is roughly 1 hour and 36 minutes.  

You can see how jubilant I am to win the prize — a box of laundry detergent - a very suitable prize for after a muddy obstacle event…

…however my box of detergent is still serving as a trophy on a bookshelf.