Recovery time, and analysis of a race

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hello,

I have a few questions regarding advises and analysis from my Garmin Fenix 5.

I train quite a lot (4 to 5 jogging a week, 6 to 8 hours), VO2 max being around 57

I do both "trail race" and "race" mode. Usually when training, the analysis provided by Fenix is accurate (if the training was good, what is the recovery time...)

But for long trail, the Fenix is totally wrong. I ran yesterday an ultratrail (110Km, 4500D+) and when recorded, I got a recovery time of 23H! and of course, bad performance, training effect bad. Even the weekly stats on "workload" is low.

(sorry, but I try to translate the mode and indication on my watch which is in French)

Any idea why those information are so inaccurate when running ultratrail?

0 tmk2 over 6 years ago

Was your HR reading accurate for that race?

0 mcalista over 6 years ago

I'm not sure about the recovery time, but TE and TL are based on peak EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) levels reached. EPOC "rewards" higher intensity efforts and shorter times between interval efforts, considerably more than the more traditional Training Stress Score approach, but long slow efforts score quite low where you can rack up massive TSS through long duration.

The EPOC approach probably does better reflect the impact of high intensity efforts, but it is likely to underreport efforts where you are deliberately trying to keep your HR as low as possible, such as an ultra race.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

@ TMK2: yes, the HR was accurate. On race, I am using an external chest strap, which is much more accurate than the optical
@ mcalista : you are probably right, the average HR was quite low compare to a marathon for example. But this is still a bit disappointing after such a long effort to have those results....

0 JoesLost over 6 years ago

Recovery Time, VO2 max etc. doesn't work well during a Trail Run. (There are just too many variables to take into account.) That's why the Performance Condition feature is disabled in Trail Run mode.
Road Running however gives reasonable results.

0 surfer63 over 6 years ago

I have had the exactly same expiriences Franck_V: Running Ultras, even in Road Running Mode, gives you a completly wrong workload! I ran for an example a 24h Race and my workload even droped to very low numbers!

0 mcalista over 6 years ago

Recovery Time, VO2 max etc. doesn't work well during a Trail Run. (There are just too many variables to take into account.) That's why the Performance Condition feature is disabled in Trail Run mode.
Road Running however gives reasonable results.

VO2Max is disabled in Trail Running, but Recovery Time works just fine. (Assuming you have an accurate VO2Max figure in there from previous runs).

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I found that the work load and recovery are not great and therefore moved over to 3rd party analysis.
The watch itself is great during racing and training but when it comes to analysis I trust 3rd party analysis.
Garmin estimates my VO2 waaayyyy too high and gives me a theoretical race time I am not sure I will ever achieve in 5/10/21.1 and 42.2km.
I found Stravistix and Runalyze waaaay better, especially at their predicted time, fitness etc.
My fatigue is also captured correctly.
I would have a 48 hour recovery according to Garmin, go for a 1km easy jog and then my recovery drops to 4 hours.
What happened to the other 44 hours?
With the others you see a small movement in fatigue depending on how "easy" my heart rate was.

Garmin I love your products but, just like the Golf section where I use 3rd party, your software and analysis still needs work to catch up on the competitors.