Day 29 of 300: The 7-Point Jog
Busy Friday. Packed schedule, so I was on the treadmill early before the day swallowed me. Training readiness at wake-up: 21. Acute load at 329, that’s 2.4x chronic, deep into overreaching territory. Garmin’s verdict: “Time to slow down.”
The plan was a recovery jog with a strict 130 bpm heart rate cap. 2.8 kilometres in 25 minutes. My kids could walk faster than this.
- Distance: 2.80 km
- Time: 25:01
- Pace: ~8:56 /km (avg)
- Heart Rate: 125 bpm (avg) / 151 bpm (max)
- Calories: 280 kcal
- Feedback: Improving Aerobic Base
Average heart rate of 125, so I mostly stayed under the cap. That max of 151 is suspicious, either a spike during a pace change or the watch lost contact. Body battery only drained 7 points from the whole session. Barely counts as exercise, but that’s the point.
Sleep
Score of 73. “Fair,” but the best in two weeks, up from a 63 average. Six hours nineteen minutes. REM was low at 11.9%. Still not enough sleep for someone pushing load this hard, but it’s trending the right direction.
- Deep sleep: 63 min (16.6%) / REM: 45 min (11.9%) / Light: 4h 31m (71.5%)
- Overnight HRV: 47 ms / Sleep stress: 15
Resting heart rate dropped to 59 today, lowest I’ve seen recently. Stress was almost nonexistent, average of 18, 88% of the day in rest state. The body is recovering even if the readiness score hasn’t caught up yet.
The weekend plan
Training readiness after the jog: 10. Recovery time estimate: 30.6 hours. The algorithm wants me on the couch.
Last weekend I drank and it cost me four days of training. Readiness cratered to 13, body battery was gutted, and I spent three sessions just clawing back to baseline. Four days to undo one night.
This weekend I’m not. Saturday is a full rest day, no alcohol, early to bed. The plan is to actually give the body what it’s been asking for all week instead of pouring beer on it. If I can string together two decent nights of sleep, the readiness score should be in a completely different place by Sunday.
Seven hours of sleep would do more for my fitness age than any workout. Time to test that theory.
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