Season Wrap-up: a Lesson in Proper Recovery

With the IRONMAN World Championships in the rearview mirror, our busy 2022 racing season is finally over. I was thrilled to get my groove back with the Bayshore Marathon and Ironman Michigan 70.3, in addition to several smaller races. There was nothing small about Ben’s season with four full-distance triathlons in just four months! Basically, we had all of the endurance feels, loads of unique challenges, and blaring reminders of the importance of recovery.

If you are still trying to wrap your head around that four-140.6-races-in-four-months thing, Ben put together a recap of his season, which you can read here.

For this blogpost, I want to focus only on recovery and share data from a study I recently reviewed.

What do you Consider Recovery? 

Taking a rest day or two? Drinking more water? Swimming or Yoga instead of running. Sure, that may be part of recovery (and many athletes even struggle with that). But real recovery is so much more. It’s multidimensional and complex with physiological, psychological, emotional, and social facets.

Check out the list of recovery strategies in the graphic to the right. Any surprises?

My Recovery

Physiological recovery is built into my life. Foam rolling and stretching are a part of every session with my personal training clients, and for some clients, we just work on mobility for the entire session.

Good nutrition and quality sleep are part of the routine at our house. The kids keep us so busy that I absolutely must take a day (or two) off each week. Adjustments, ample time in my hot tub, and a massage or facial are a part of my regular schedule. My friends are always up for a social ride or hike, so I get plenty of active recovery.

On the emotional and social side of recovery, which helps athletes deal with stress and anxiety, I am equally fortunate. I have my people that I talk to openly about my endurance struggles of late: low iron, balancing training with family, coming back from pregnancy as a different (slower) athlete, and the reality about heading towards menopause.

Yay for Kari – a coach who has nailed recovery!  At the risk of sounding self-absorbed (that seems to be where this post is heading), I promise that is not my point. So, don’t leave yet.

Barriers to Proper Recovery

I do understand my reality is different than others. Recovery is not as easily attainable for many athletes, including Ben.

Ben’s job is demanding. He is at the office and on his game for 9-12 hours a day. Lately, he has had to travel for work. He is also an involved family man who does not miss a game, helps with rides and willingly gives me time for weeknight things and weekend training. We have a house and a big yard that needs taken care of, and he has friends and hobbies too.

We had scheduled a recovery date night where we would do Erin Carson’s Mobility Monday session together, but then Dirt Dawgs began, or maybe it was volleyball or football… somewhere recovery date night got put on the back burner.

Proper active recovery takes time. Time is not a resource readily available for many athletes.  Ben basically has a few hours before he goes to work in the morning to squeeze it all in.

Despite limited time, he has made it work and always raced well. He nails so many other recovery techniques. He eats well, hydrates, makes time for relaxation and reading, tries to get quality sleep, has strong social connections and never misses a rest day.

So, What Went Wrong?

This year was different. Ben had an incredibly tough race schedule with Ironman Des Moines (qualified here!) in June, then Challenge Roth in Germany in July, Michigan Titanium in August and finally Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October. As the fatigue mounted, he pushed aside the little red flags his body was sending. He prioritized his big training sessions, as we’ve all learned to do. The fatigue was not just from training, it was our busy family schedule, traveling, work and just trying to do it all. 

You know where this is going… 

His big season ended with a tough day in Kona at what was intended to be a celebration of all his hard work.

The lesson. Recovery also requires a great deal of self-regulation and self-assessment which can be just as tough for an athlete as the peak weeks.

Yes, even experienced athletes can exhibit poor self-assessment skills from time to time. I watched Lionel Sanders Kona wrap-up video and it reminded me a bit of Ben’s situation.   You can catch that here.

Recovery for Endurance Athletes: A Study

Another thing about recovery is that it is unique to each athlete. Age, experience, and gender change how we recover. A recent study took a consensus of recovery strategies of a large population of endurance athletes (1). The following were the top 10 recovery techniques in order of use.

1. Hydration
2. Nutrition
3. Sleep
4. Rest
5. Stretching
6. Foam rolling
7. Active recovery
8. Self-massage
9. Massage
10. Socializing

The study reported that women use more recovery techniques than men.  Also, individuals who reported placing top three overall in competition used significantly more recovery strategies than those who did not place.

An unusually high inverse reaction was noted with age, suggesting that the use of recovery strategies decreased as athletes got older.

Also worth noting is that while most participants believed that active recovery, nutrition and rest were useful post-race, they did not report using these strategies.