The Comeback

February is always a nice month. January feels like a year in its own right, then we’re graced with a 28 day month to skip us straight into Spring. The weather also turns, generally, as we move away from the consistent rainy days and find some breaks with some sun. But February hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows in my world.

My almost one year old has been having an amazing time at nursery, so much so that he’s decided to collect every illness possible and share with us at home. This month, though, hit hard. Hand foot and mouth. An illness I thought was only reserved for cattle found its way into our home and took me out for a fortnight. Right as I was building momentum from January and peaking for Lisbon Half Marathon in March. Two weeks and my activity and fitness levels dropped off while I prioritised recovery.

Lisbon Protection

The last two weeks of this month have been about restoring some of that fitness, while not damaging my chances of performing well in Lisbon. This has been a balance of monitoring recovery, such as sleep, heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate (RHR), while exposing my body to predominately aerobic stimuli.

I’ve actively monitored HRV in my training for a while now; now that I’ve established a consistent baseline, the trends in data have been very accurate in highlighting periods where I’m overstrained. It could be an impending illness, too much training load too quickly, or just my body struggling to adapt to training due to additional stressors in life. That’s what I’ve found useful with HRV.

Physiologically we don’t distinguish between the stressors put on our central nervous system; whether it’s family, work, or training, they all affect our body’s regulation of the autonomic systems. This has been a key piece in my recovery picture, to understand when I can increase load, and when I need to ease off.

Recover to Perform

These weeks have been a mindset shift, and I’ve really dived into monitoring recovery, and walking that fine line between increasing fitness and keeping fatigue low for my next race. Lisbon Half Marathon is next week, and although my fitness isn’t where I want it, I’m going into the taper feeling confident.

I’ve monitored metrics and sensibly increased load, to prime my body, expose it to a suitable level of stimuli (with some at my half marathon race pace) and I’m responding well.

The proof is in the pudding, but for my first abroad race, where I’ve got to negotiate the added stress of travelling, collecting my race bib the day before and getting to the start line, completion is success. I’m looking forward to the experience, and the week off exploring Lisbon afterwards, where recovery will once again take centre stage!

The Margin

This month’s taught me a lot about recovery, but what key lesson am I taking forward in future weeks?

While data is just a part of the picture, I’m going to continue monitoring HRV and sleep data, as well as adding in RHR. These key metrics will help keep my training physiologically on track; any sustained suppression is generally indicative of too much load, and that’s when I need to step off the gas. I’ve got big plans this year, getting to the start lines in peak condition will only happen by sensibly managing load, and prioritising recovery when it’s needed!