Sunday, October 16, 2016

Athletic Adventures Part 4 : Rest Week Analytics

Not much time to write folks, although I would like to tell you all about a fascinating recovery week between the 10th and 16th of this month through some images. No, it's actually shocking.

The shocking aspect was realizing how carried away I can get in the act of "sitting around", i.e pure idleness on a chair in front of a computer punching buttons all day. Unfortunately, I size heavy industrial oil/gas equipment for a living where there's a predominance of mental loading than physical loading. I suppose the physical loading comes when you did something you weren't supposed to and get called into the boss' office... 

Not all days of this past week did I wear my activity tracker to work, but when I did, it clearly registered around 8-9 hours average of sitting down (in my defense, some of those hours were spent at home studying quick and dirty ways to get fast before a time trial at the end of the month, so I propose to count these hours as 'mindful' sports-contributive sitting and if there's no such thing I say we define one now)

My wife regularly poked fun at me when I wore my watch to sleep for around 5 nights this past week. The plan was exactly that, to get some idea of how much snooze I'd be getting. I highly recommend you not do this, atleast not after a heavy dinner when one of you, either you...or your loving partner rolls over onto your wrist and crushes the buttons of the watch while in mindless slumber.

So here are the clock plots for your criticism.


Day 1 


Day 2 

Day 3


Day 4


Day 5



Biomarkers. On the evening of the 6th day, I got a quick orthostatic test done to check my HRV. Although this was done towards the later part of the day, I assess the 77 RMSSD resting as good and 40 RMSSD standing as perhaps indicating I've too much on my mind. Maybe my fight or flight system gets activated, don't know. That said, a result in vacuum doesn't indicate much, but I plan on taking down multiple readings to establish a baseline.

A comparison between similar tests done 2 months back indicates that in general, my RMSSD's have gone up and that's a good thing. Besides, a datapoint during a recovery week is good to refer back to in future. (actually, these statements might all be fancy ways of saying that the hole in your credit card for the month is valid, that such and such expensive measuring device you bought is highly relevant and it gives new meaning to your normally mundane and unquantified life)



Boy. Between now and the end of the month, I take a trip to London where between my work hours, I can squeeze in some run training under colder conditions.  The time trial, a B race, will be in Abu Dhabi at the end of the month which I hope I can attend only if my boss doesn't ask me to stay longer in Britain. Between hoping that I don't get stabbed on a UK train post-Brexit and I don't catch a fever (I'd rather get stabbed than get a fever), I'll hope to push a decently sized peak into the race season in November.  

Stay tuned for more fun...

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