• Morning heart rate: Your heart rate when you first wake up in the morning provides an indication of your recovery. It is important to check your heart rate soon after you wake, because it increases as soon as you start thinking about your plans for the day and by about 10 beats per minute when you get up. In addition, waking to an alarm can increase your heart rate and make the data less reliable.
• To find your resting heart rate, therefore, take your pulse immediately upon waking for several days. Your true resting heart rate is the lowest rate you find. If your morning heart rate is more than 5 beats per minute higher than usual, this may be an indication of inadequate recovery or illness. An elevated morning heart rate can be particularly useful in preventing illness, as the increased heart rate is often the first sign that you are not well.
• Environmental conditions: Record the temperature and humidity on hot days. Because of increased core body temperature and dehydration, your body undergoes substantially more stress when you run at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) and 80 percent humidity than at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius) and low humidity. If you train hard or compete on a hot, humid day, the heat you generate can overwhelm your body’s ability to eliminate heat, causing your core temperature to climb, which can greatly increase recovery time. Similarly, as discussed in chapter 2, dehydration also increases recovery time. There’s great variation in how runners are affected by heat. Your training log will reveal patterns that can help you make needed adjustments during a stretch of hot weather.
• Hours of sleep: The number of hours of sleep that you obtain is not particularly important for any one night. Over several nights, however, your quantity of sleep can influence your recovery and ability to adapt positively to training. Your quantity of sleep is one of several measures that, in combination, can explain a lack of recovery and can indicate needed lifestyle changes to help prevent illness or injury.
• Quality of sleep: The quality of your sleep is arguably more important than the number of hours. Evaluate the quality of your sleep each night – How soundly did you sleep? Were you awake a lot in the middle of the night? Did you get out of bed feeling refreshed? – and try to be as consistent as possible in your assessment. A reduction in quality of sleep is often associated with overtraining. Reduced sleep quality can also be caused by nonrunning stressors, but the result for your running performance is the same.
• Diet quality: Evaluate the overall quality of your diet each day – Were each of your meals balanced? Did you get so hungry that you binged? Did the bulk of your calories come from fresh grains, fruits and vegetables and lean sources of protein? – and try to be as consistent as possible in your assessment. Often, a lack of energy can be traced back to poor diet in the previous few days.
• Hydration leveclass="underline" Dehydration has an immediate effect on running performance and slows recovery from training. Evaluate your hydration level each day – Was your urine clear throughout the day? Did you drink small amounts regularly so that you seldom felt thirsty? Did your mouth and throat often feel dry? – and try to be as consistent as possible in your assessment. Your daily weight provides a good indication of your hydration level.
• Muscle soreness: It is not unusual for runners to have slightly sore muscles most of the time. An increase in muscle soreness can be due to a hard workout or running downhill. Evaluate your general muscle soreness each day – Were any of your leg muscles much more sore than others? Did your soreness lessen after a few miles of running? Did your soreness seem explainable by your most recent workouts? – and try to be as consistent as possible in your assessment. If increased general muscle soreness lasts more than 4 or 5 days, then it is likely that you are ill or overreaching. Soreness in a specific muscle indicates a potential injury, whereas more-general muscle soreness provides an indication of your recovery and adaptation to training.
• Energy leveclass="underline" An assessment of energy level is one of the best indications of recovery from training. Evaluate your energy level each day – Did you have the energy to accomplish your running and daily life goals? Did you feel alert and focused when running or performing a task? Were you willing to undertake activities that required effort, or did you dread them? – and try to be as consistent as possible in your assessment. If your energy level is reduced for more than 3 days, it is important to determine the cause of the reduction. Typical causes of reduced energy levels are lack of carbohydrate intake, training hard too many days in a row, illness, low iron levels, dehydration, and lack of sleep. By reviewing your training log and considering your lifestyle factors, you should be able to identify the likely cause of a low energy level.
• Heart rate at a standard pace: If your heart rate at a set pace is more than about 7 beats per minute higher than usual, then you may not be recovered from your previous training sessions. For example, if your heart rate at an 8-minute-per-mile pace is typically 145 beats per minute, and one day you find it is 155 beats per minute at that pace, then you likely need additional recovery before doing your next hard training session. Heart rate during running at a given pace varies by a few beats per minute from day to day, and it is also influenced by factors such as dehydration and hot or humid conditions, so take this into consideration in evaluating the implications of a higher-than-usual heart rate.
In some cases of overtraining syndrome, a contributing factor is an imbalance between calories consumed and calories used. When you have a caloric deficit for a prolonged period in combination with hard training, your body’s hormonal system undergoes modifications that are associated with overtraining syndrome. In this situation, body weight may stay the same or only slightly decrease because your metabolic rate drops as your body attempts to adjust to fewer calories. According to Suzanne Girard Eberle, MS, RD, author of Endurance Sports Nutrition (2007), “It appears that the combined effects of chronic dieting and exercise may induce the body to conserve energy (calories) or become more efficient at using the available energy”(page 145). She notes, “Frequent colds, slow recoveries from workouts, nagging injuries, chronic fatigue, and, for women runners, the loss of menstrual periods are the true red flags that you’re not consuming enough calories to meet the energy demands of training and racing.”
Increasing caloric intake while simultaneously reducing training load will eliminate the caloric deficit and should allow your hormonal system to return to normal.
Techniques to Speed Recovery
In addition to finding the correct balance in your training and optimizing your diet, there are a variety of techniques you can use to enhance your body’s rate of recovery. Two traditional aids to recovery from marathon training are hot/cold contrast therapy and massage therapy; compression apparel may also be helpful. Adequate postworkout nutrition and thorough cool-down practices have well-documented recovery benefits.
Hot/cold contrast therapy was initially most popular in team sports but is now widely used by endurance athletes from a variety of sports. Olympic marathon medalists Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi are known for placing great emphasis on this therapy to speed their recovery.