Week in Review: 11 - 17 Jan '16

Started the week off with a rest day and was pleased to wake up with a good HRV despite the long run, booze and carbs - full roast dinner at the pub - on Sunday.

As planned last week, I opted to do a MAF test on Tuesday morning but things didn't look too good first thing in the morning. My morning readiness HRV reading was incredibly low for some reason. Recently I've found I've been getting somewhere in the region of 70-72 for my reading. Tuesday morning it was right down at 44 and I can't think why. No booze on Monday night, no carbs, a good night's sleep and no stress so to speak of, yet my HRV was terrible. I can only think this may have been a latency from Sunday.

That said, I still went ahead with the MAF test, just to see how much of an effect the low HRV would have on the test itself. I can say this seems to be a pretty good predictor. The MAF test was terrible showing a increase when really there should have been an decrease in times, though I can't put all the blame on a low HRV as a relatively strong westerly wind picked up just as I started my run and at least half of my MAF test route is heading west.

Wednesday's morning readiness HRV was much better (70) and the weather seemed good so I thought I'd give the MAF test another go to see how much of a different the HRV makes. Well, quite a bit. Definitely much quicker and easier to stay within range than on Tuesday though still a slight westerly breeze. The test wasn't bad but clearly showed I'd not warmed up enough as my kilometre readings between 2km and 6km were quicker than the first two. Overall felt really good and I think this clearly shows poor HRV definitely corresponds with a poor MAF test. Of course, two data points aren't really a good indicator so I'll need to do more experimenting.

Something "dropped" on Thursday and Friday as my HRV readings were great and my runs amazing. I ran many kilometres under 5min with Friday's entire run averaging less then 5:00/km.

The same can't be said for Saturday and Sunday where HRV was down again and so was my pace. That said, it was really nice to be out in the snow on Sunday morning, even if the 2h30min run turned into a 2h40min run thanks to the cold, ice, slush and being a little tired. Enjoyed the run tremendously. The only difference between Saturday and Sunday versus the earlier parts of the week is what I had to drink the night before. Whilst I didn't drink a lot, I did drink a few 🍻. I'm starting to suspect liquid 🍞 may have an adverse effect on my HRV and thus running. This one will definitely need more testing as I really like 🍺, especially the hoppy 🇺🇸 pale ales and IPAs.

So if there's only one take-away for me for this week it's that HRV definitely seems to be a good indicator of how I'll perform and feel on my feet later that day.