The Bottom: I felt great last season and my Garmin stats were solid which made me feel even better. Here’s a comparison of my health stats from then and now.
Fitness age: was 55.5, is 63 now: actual age 65 then, 66 now;
VO2Max: was 46, 'Superior' in Garmin parlance, now 37 'Good';
Resting heart rate: was 56-62, is 64-70;
Body battery: was 50-90 each morning, rarely crests 30 now;
Stress levels: showed me resting and recovering well at night, now my body screams days and night;
Weight: was 160, now 170 ugh!
Turning the Corner: I started training again November 30th 2023, the day after the doc took the bandages off my foot. I couldn’t walk well, but I could limp into the gym and do some weightlifting, and I could do partial PT workouts. Anything that didn’t stress my feet. After a few days I could ride a stationary bike and added that in. My stiches came out on December 13th. I traded the stationary bike for walking the next day and I added in swimming on the 19th.
I have been working out for nearly 4-weeks and I have slowly built up to hour or longer workouts 6-days a week, but there is no magic. The workouts are moderately paced. Walks, easy swims, PT and weights. No running, mountain biking, or skiing—there’s little snow so far this season. There’s also the fact that I have been down for a lot longer than a few weeks for foot surgery. It started with Covid/bronchitis in Ireland in mid-September. When I recovered from that, house projects beckoned until the day of my surgery. Until recently, I hadn’t worked out since mid-September.
My foot continues to heal and I should be running and skiing—snow permitting—soon. I expect that getting my fitness level and Garmin stats back to where they were is going to be a long slow process. The thing that stands out most is my stress levels. I rarely achieve a resting state. My levels are low, moderate, even high all day and most of the night. This is why my body battery doesn’t recover, this is why my fitness age is 63, this is why my Garmin tells me that I slept poorly each night: “You did not sleep well enough to bring down your stress levels.” This is the report even after 8 hours of sleep that feels good to me. I get this even though I have (mostly) abstained from alcohol for weeks now. Ugh!
I knew that I was going to lose a lot of my fitness during this period, but seeing it happen takes my theoretical anxiety about my ability to recover from this and makes it shockingly real. The training I’ve done for the past nearly 4-weeks has made me start to feel more vigorous. I now have to constrain this vigor lest I build up my training too quickly and injure myself.
Another concern was that I wouldn’t have the drive to build back. I am finding that I do. I am out pushing myself—moderately—most every day. Training is a part of me. I have been preparing for races for years, and I have not lost my desire to get workouts in. I hope to be back in the mountains soon trail running and skiing—once snow begins to fall.
I plan to make changes to my training program for next season. I want to continue to mix in weights, and after a period of slogging which makes me comfortable that I have regained my aerobic conditioning, I plan to start adding in tempo runs, etc. earlier in my training cycle. I also have plans to do a biking—backpacking biathlon near the summer solstice that will have me building in biking as soon as the weather allows.
Overall, I have an exciting season ahead. Looking forward to building back into peak condition.
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