Current Status: Overreaching
We are all overreaching.
I remember in high school everyone started getting timex watches, yes, I’m that old. We were constantly timing how long it took for us to complete a route one day and comparing the previous days. We didn’t have the distance or any other accurate metrics (unless coach went out with a wheel, which sometimes he did)…. But we still obsessed over the time. Being the leader on a team that went 72-0 across a 6 year span, I had a responsibility. We took it serious and I was always looking and analyzing the watch … until one day coach took the watch away from me. He didn’t call it RPE like we do now (Rate of Perceived Exertion) he called it: intuition.
Now everyone has a watch… and it tells you a little bit of everything. I had a coach that really wanted me to understand me. And I did. I raced without a watch from 2001 to 2012 when I started marathon training. I’m the watch wearer that forgets to charge it, forgets to hit start and stop, doesn’t select the right activity, or just starts running without satellite connecting. I have never been one to get caught in the day to day metrics… until recently.
Because of my legs, pregnancy, and postpartum, I’ve been out of the “training” game for a while but still trying to find ways to track what I am doing since consistency is my only real form of success. For my birthday in November, my husband got me a new garmin watch since I had lost my old forerunner 10… and even if I found it (which I did… literally on my birthday minutes before opening my gift) Matt thought the newer one tracking my sleep would be helpful since It would also inadvertently help track the baby’s sleep at night and give me a pulse on my general fatigue.
Now, if you’ve followed me at all on any social media platforms YOU KNOW how I feel about Heart Rate training (basically… it’s a tool not a rule) but the two things that surprised me the most with my new watch was
My resting heart rate STILL being really low. I’m the least fit I’ve ever been and 46 is a high night. It goes to show that genetics are a huge factor and lifetime miles matter.
My baseline stress level is WAY higher than I thought.
I take the later with a grain of salt… Do I think my watch really can quantify my stress? Not necessarily… but overtime I’ve been watching my own trends and I’ve learned one thing that the watch has to at least be in the ballpark of accurate: I AM OVERREACHING AND HAVE BEEN FOR SO LONG I THINK ITS NORMAL.
So as a fun experiment (and since I have nothing else, fitness wise, to strive for right now) I’ve decided to use my body battery, sleep, and recovery recommendations to help me decide if I do a hard ride, or some gentle yoga.
What happened?
I was always ending my day on E
I was almost always starting my day below 80% “charged”
The day my HRV came up unbalanced I was sick for the next 3 days but I was able to course correct quicker than usual.
My leg fatigue was predictable based on sleep. Granted I’m automatically going to fatigue easier than most people because of occluded arteries, but it was empowering to feel like “recharging” could help.
I put off household tasks to recharge and was able to better predict the direction things would go if I picked battles with my kids that probably weren’t worth picking without the energy to follow through.
My days were consumed with how to regain energy not how to use it… so I relax more… and I’m still losing weight.
I’m the least stressed I’ve ever been but according to my watch I’m VERY FUCKING STRESSED
TLDR: We are overreaching.
As a SAHM this year who’s number one objective of staying home is to restore balance and improve mental and physical health, it has become abundantly clear that the ask of parents is too high.
Working multiple jobs, the cost of housing, cost of childcare, the strain of our own stress on our kids and on their friends, the political tension, no time for ourselves and if there is time, no energy. Caffeine to survive but at a high price (actually high price but also) of increased anxiety, decreased sleep, body battery on E, rushing, rushing, rushing.
It’s all so much.
My family, we live a pretty privileged life, and we’ve been given opportunities not everyone has been given. We have also worked hard and seized the day and squeeze as much as we can out of each opportunity that comes our way… as such, in the grand scheme of worries and stressors our family is faced with, we have fewer than most, and yet…. I’m overreaching.
Always overreaching.
We all are
We need to do better
(Vote)