July 9, 2010 – Due to an unfortunate error Catharine Pendrel’s (Luna Pro) Rest and Regeneration article for her MTB Frontlines column in Pedal June 2010 did not make it into the issue. Pendrel shares the column with Geoff Kabush (Maxxis-Rocky Mt.) and readers will notice that while her pics made it the text is actually Kabush’s column from Pedal May 2010. Here’s Pendrel’s column with apologies all round.

Rest and Regeneration

When athletes get run-down, the problem is more often that they are under-rested rather than over-trained, which, according to physiologists, is quite rare. Even for a full-time athlete, under-resting happens because, well, life happens. You get sick, sleep poorly, have responsibilities and commitments that can be draining, travel a lot and have stressful training loads. Making the ideal decision to best benefit your training all the time can be unrealistic and definitely a lot less fun, so you end up choosing when you need to prioritize rest or life – hopefully arriving at a sensible combination of both.

This winter, under my coach’s encouragement, I met with a sports physiologist to learn some techniques for monitoring recovery. One easy method is monitoring your morning heart rate. The method I was taught was the Rusko, which involves checking your heart rate over eight minutes while lying in bed, and then standing and monitoring the change over two minutes while standing. A rested athlete’s heart rate might be something like this: resting heart rate of 47, heart rate peaking at 93 when standing and returning to 64 while remaining standing. Over time, you begin to see what a normal response is for you and how it changes during the week or through training cycles.

Rarely under the weather, I sometimes forget that becoming ill by pushing myself too much on and off the bike is still possible. This winter I did get sick – twice – both after training trips. The second time I knew something was wrong even before I got out of bed. My husband was sick, and I had been monitoring my a.m. heart rate, having just finished a hard training block while on the road. The further into my rest week, the higher my heart rate rose. Three days in and it was 74, then went up to 117 standing and then back down to 114. Yikes. I felt fine though and got up to start my day and prepare for the school presentation I was giving that afternoon. An hour later, I had chills and I shivered through the presentation wearing two hoodies and a vest. Driving home, I began burning up, and by the time I got home, I had a solid fever and spent the next three days alternating between tank tops and icepacks, and hoodies and toques.

For the first time ever, I missed a race and had to take several days off from training. My symptoms eventually disappeared, but my heart rate stayed elevated for weeks, reminding me my body was still fighting to become healthy again and I needed to be patient, take it easy and be smart with my training and recovery.

Why did I get sick this winter and not others? Probably because there were many viruses floating around, but also because I didn’t see the whole picture. I wasn’t respecting how hard my workouts were because I wanted to do everything. I wanted to be involved in the Olympic energy and I was helping and visiting family and friends and traveling for training trips, however, I didn’t respect the energy that I expended or the demands of my training. While training in Victoria and helping my brother scrub floors to get his new bike shop open in under a week, I quickly gained an appreciation of how demanding my job as a cyclist really is – not to mention the manual labour I put in!

The reason I am a full-time professional athlete is so that I can train hard, train smart, recover and do it again. Taking the time to recover properly is expected of me and is an equally important part of my job. Although I like to quote Zombieland – “Does a lion limber up before it goes out and takes down a gazelle? No.” – I know post-ride stretching is important and that Waldek will be on my case if I can’t kick my own butt on the massage table.

Sometimes you can do the thing that is more fun. Hopefully often. Sometimes you don’t have a choice and you have to put in a hard day at work, a long day of travel or follow through on commitments. But it’s a barter system, and if life is crazy and tiring, you may have to reduce your training load. When you need to prioritize training stress or racing, remember to focus on recovery as well. Over time, you learn better ways to manage recovery, training and everything else that must get done, and when you forget, rest assured your body will remind you.