Stress Analytics and Training Load

Been tweaking the training up a bit lately and shortening my weekend rides, just getting too bogged down and tired on my long-ish loop to Page Mill. Rode last weekend with a pretty fast friend who races and it was suuuper hard, this week got the nice fitness bounce and I'm also getting better at staying on the gas. So this ride was all about staying pegged at 90 RPM and about 180 - 210 watts. It left me pretty knackered and it showed up clearly in my Firstbeat stress analytics afterwards.

Training ride:

This is from the Firstbeat Lifestyle Assessment (https://www.firstbeat.com/en/wellness-services/individual-wellbeing/ ) and you can clearly see the stress all afternoon and even into my first few hours of sleep. The light blue "activity" periods in the afternoon were literally getting off the couch to get food then a short drive to run an errand.

Post ride stress/recovery analytics:

Monday I got up and worked out moderately hard again and even that night's sleep was also pretty disturbed

It's pretty enlightening to see the data on this and realize how real it is, if you've never done any HRV based measurements it's worth doing. For me it's also a good brake on how hard I work and a way to make sure I rest.

In other news, testing out bike saddles and trying the SMP Evolution this weekend, so far after just one short indoor trainer ride I'm liking it. I always had good luck with them when I ran my bike fitting studio so it was a natural product to try out.