I wasn't suggesting 24-48 hours in advance, more like 1-2 hours.
You're probably a hell of a lot fitter than I am, because the Recovery Advisor on my FR235 always give me a recovery target of 24–48 hours even after a 3km run, and never in the single digits unless I was just using Other to track an easy walk to the restaurant or something like that. That's what I meant by 24–48 hours. Even if I look at the Recovery Advisor 1–2 hours before I go for a run, the number it reports would be based on a determination it made 24–48 hours before then (hence in advance); it doesn't check my current state or use newly available data since to form any sort of assessment.
The recovery advisor is flakey under some conditions. For example, I do a lot of steep trail runs and Garmin only sees my pace and my heart rate. So Garmin thinks I must be in terrible shape and need an extensive recovery because I'm running in zone 4 at a 10-11 minute per mile pace. Also, if it cadence locks, which I am still having problems with even with the newest firmware, it can report a higher heart rate than true and skew the recovery advisor. Right now, my recovery advisor shows 36 hours but I am certain beyond a doubt that yesterday's effort has only made me stronger and more prepared for today's effort. I think the recovery advisor is trustworthy for a race or on a flat tempo run... but I would not take its advice for mixed tempo and elevation running.
In fact, I've voiced this many many times. The VO2 max and recovery advisor numbers are completely useless if you are an elevation runner. Garmin does not correct for elevation gain. Right now Garmin is reporting a VO2 max for me of 41 because I've been doing exclusively slow, steep, intense trail running over the past month.... with is down from 52 after running a road half marathon last month. Yeah, I know it's just a number, but it's totally annoying to see it pop up after every run and tell me my fitness level is erroneously suffering. Come on Garmin, it's time to figure it out.
Recovery advisor is VERY high, DCRainMaker has also noted that in his reviews.
Ensure you have your min and max heartrate setup to give results that are at least semi accurate (estimated max HR isn't good enough). The watch will not set your Max either.
Things like recovery advisor can be helpful to let you know the time before your next hard workout. Not a easy mellow run (conversational pace) - but a 'workout' run (usually every other run or every third). Like a significant Long Run, a faster paced Tempo run, or a long hill sprints workout. So if you go and do a faster long Tempo run one night.... the following day when you still have recovery hours left, you could go out and do an 'easy pace' mellow run. (HR in zone1 or 2)
But surely if you take notice of the recovery advisor you would want to know what it said before your run? Otherwise you would have prepared for your run, gone outside, started to get some pace up and suddenly Recovery Advisor says "No!" Take another 5 hours rest or whatever.
Recovery Check on my other watches never said boo until about six tenths of a mile into a run or so, when it would then say "good".
Personally I've never found Recovery Advisor to be anything but a curiosity. My body does a good job of telling me what it's feeling in terms of training load. Maybe if I were thirty years younger the watch feature might be helpful, but at this point not so much. :cool:
