training readiness

When you look at the recovery hours, does the watch says that you are recovery as expected?

10 minutes ago I received a notification that my recovery time had improved due to rest. I was chatting with a friend for a couple hours on a video call. When I look at recovery time on the watch it is now 65 hours - "Improved by Good Rest". It says "Nice! Your restful day has sped up your recovery. Your recovery needs are still high, so  take it easy today."

However, the Training Readness is still pegged at 1. In the details it says that "High recovery needs from previous workouts have reduced your training readiness." (Those workouts were the parkrun on Saturday morning, a 5km hill run on Monday night and long run - prescribed by the watch - on Wednesday afternoon.)

I suspect that there's a faulty interaction between the calculation of recovery time and the jet lag advisor, which I activated for the trip. The advisor says that it feels like I'm 30 mins ahead of local time (having flown from London to Boston on Monday.)

PeterQuirk said:

"Improved by Good Rest". It says "Nice! Your restful day has sped up your recovery. Your recovery needs are still high, so  take it easy today."

Then everything is working as expected.

You still have a low readiness because your recovery needs are huge. They are huge because your training load was low after the weeks or inactivity, followed by a few runs that could have jacked up your training load, maybe even beyond the upper limit of the green zone.

As you go back to a balanced training, your training load and recovery needs will go back to normal.

Yesterday's long run left me with 50% stamina. The exercise load was 197. I could have run further or done a base run today. I just don't feel that strained.

Resting heart rates may fluctuate and remain slightly higher than 1 or 2 beats the day after you resume training.
When they return to your minimum value, your training readiness will also increase.

After another night of good sleep and with a body battery of 100, my training readiness has risen to 17. This is coincident with the jet lag advisor reporting that I am now 100% acclimated to the new time zone. HRV is still balanced. My training status has changed from overreaching to productive. The GDSW recommends a recovery run at 8:15/km (very slow) for 22 mins. RHR for the last 7 days was 52, 51, 54, 54, 54, 50, 51. Recovery time is 51 hours.

I don't buy it. My training readiness has risen 6 points in 4 hours since the jet lag advisor said I was fully acclimated. In the previous 36 hours it was stuck on 1.

If I shouldn't train until the recovery time returns to zero, why does GDSW recommend a recovery run today? Isn't that training? I'm 72 years old. I have often done a parkrun when the recovery hours are non-zero (typically less than 12) and followed this with a Sunday evening run and my regular Monday night hill run without pushing my training readiness below the green.

PeterQuirk said:

If I shouldn't train until the recovery time returns to zero, why does GDSW recommend a recovery run today?

If you ask the watch for a recommendation every day, it will give you one. It doesn't mean you should be training every day.

PeterQuirk said:

Isn't that training?

Well, recovery runs are supposed to help with recovery. Many athletes over do these very easy runs and they end up not being recovery runs.

PeterQuirk said:

I have often done a parkrun when the recovery hours are non-zero (typically less than 12) and followed this with a Sunday evening run and my regular Monday night hill run without pushing my training readiness below the green

As I posted above, the aerobic TE is mostly accurate (assuming your Max HR is set up correctly and your VO2 max data is not biased), but your anaerobic TE can be underestimated, depending on your activities.

At your age, you are probably doing 2 to 3 challenging strength training a week as recommended to maintain your muscle mass. This will lead your watch to underestimate your recovery needs, so you would have to compensate by being conservative with your recovery needs.

Listen, each train the way they want and the watch provides certain guard rails against over training. On the downside, the training load/focus metrics have virtually no maximum. Even the HRV and load ratio move their boundaries over time. So if you have chronic underestimation of the the training load, you are still in risk of overtraining.

Some athletes (been there, done that) will find that the upcoming injury is the only true limit to their overachiever mindset :-)

You're right! On running he is very imprecise with recovery times because Garmin doesn't distinguish a run on the treadmill from one done on the road or on the mountain.

When I do a 50-minute anaerobic workout on the treadmill, I get the same hours of recovery as a 50-minute road run (same pace) and it is clearly wrong.

The treadmill workout is very light for my legs, even if I finish the workout with a TE 3.0-3.0, while the road run (always 3.0-3.0) tires my muscles!

Probably the cardiovascular system is ready after 12/24 hours, but my legs ask for more rest after running on the road.

For cycling it is much more precise.
Evidently the power data on running is not as precise as that detected by the bike sensors.