Leveraging smart watch data to manage training

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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cheapvega
Posts: 388
Joined: Sun Oct 06, 2019 1:12 pm

by cheapvega

I am a data geek so I watch all my smart watch data stuff like a hawk. Last week I got hit with a sore throat bug after a hard ride and thought I might have been overreaching, but my RHR (which goes up when I get sick) was already climbing before I went out. Now I am watching to see if it goes back down which would indicate the bug is out of my system and I can ride again. I can go by feel but sometimes you can either jump the gun out of eagerness or miss time by being too cautious. So having some data points to reference is helpful.

Looking for any other ways to leverage this data as it's pretty plentiful. For example I have 2 young kids so if they wake up in the night it's good to know exactly how my sleep was affected.

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TobinHatesYou
Posts: 12455
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:02 pm

by TobinHatesYou

My "training" schedule is fairly consistent/rigid, so my vitals are also fairly consistent. The only major swings in HR for me are sickness and temperature. If I'm sick, I'm skipping a ride of course. If it's hot, I might swap an easy ride and a hard ride. Sleep, alcohol, caffeine and other factors have a small effect on HR, but not enough to affect my training rides drastically the next day. For this kind of stuff I'd rather listen to my body than metrics that don't tell the whole story. I'm not distilling my recovery down to a single HRV value measured overnight...that's stupid.

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