Taking Time for Recovery
Taking time for recovery is always an important part of a successful training regime. Whether you are taking time off one or two days per week to recover from training blocks or taking an additional amount of time off because of sickness or overtraining, it is all crucial. At the moment, I am exercising the “taking time off because of overtraining” form of recovery. Starting a new program can be tough and it’s almost like you have to consider yourself a “freshman” or “rookie”, even though everyone on our team has been training years and years even before they joined CXC Team Vertical Limit. Generally when joining a professional team you are introduced to much more travel, more intensity, more training hours, new weight lifting programs, new coaches, as well as new teammates (that may be older leading to potentially having a larger training base than you do). Because you are trying and adjusting to so many new elements of the sport, a skier new to the professional ski racing scene may have a standout year, or they may need a year to adjust, as is the case for me.
At Gustavus Adolphus College I was so used to either training the same amount as my teammates or even doing a little more. During the academic year I was never able to put in too much more training than my peers because of academics, so it was much harder to overtrain in school, than it is out. Joining CXC was totally different because I was suddenly the youngest, and my training plans always were a little less than everyone else, whether it was 15-30 minutes shorter in distance workouts, or 1-3 intervals shorter during intensity workouts. Because just a year ago I was so used to doing the same amount of time or intervals as everyone else, if not more, it was really hard for me to be as in tune with my body as I was at Gustavus. It was hard to think I may be doing a little too much, when I was already doing less than others around me. And because I haven’t had the responsibilities of school work and I worked minimally, it was easy to push over the fine line of being in peak physical condition, or overtrained. For me, the overtraining came on pretty slow. I felt great all summer and fall, but after having multiple races that were further and further from expected results this winter, I realized what was going on.
I confirmed that I was overtrained by taking some advice from a fellow teammate and doing an orthostatic heart rate test. This is a great test for monitoring how your body is recovering from training. It is very simple, the first thing you do when you wake up (without getting out of bed) is take your heart rate. As soon as you have found that, you stand up and take it again. The difference of your heart rate lying down, and your heart rate after standing should be no more than 20 beats difference.
To recover from my fatigue I have taken some time off. Now I am at the point in my training where I am going for very easy training sessions, that are also pretty short, 45min-1hr in duration. My current goal is to be rested and recovered in time for the Birkie. I figure all of my extra training this year gave me a great base for a marathon ;). Throughout this whole thing I am trying to be really positive. I am definitely not the only professional skier who has ever overtrained, and even though I have been training for 10 years, I continue to learn more and more about myself as an athlete which will make me even better in the future.
Luckily, I have been able to keep myself busy during my time off and recovery period. Our coach, Bryan Fish, wanted me to take up knitting so that I could knit him an afghan or a scarf in my spare time, but fortunately I never became that bored. I’m just kidding, I like knitting, I’m just not very good at it. Anyways, here are a couple pictures of activities I have taken part in during my time off:
See you at the Birkie, rested and recovered!
A snow sculpture in the park during Ely's Winter Festival. The sculpture is a troll skiing!
My fish tank I just set up a few days ago full of guppies! Most people give me a hard time for liking guppies, but I think they are awesome.
Heidi Henkel 2:10 am on February 1, 2010 Permalink |
I had a situation last winter in which I was the injured one. I was about 20 minutes of easy skiing away from my car on a very easy, mostly flat community ski trail in a park, one I had skied the day before with a six-year-old at her father’s request. I lost my balance because one of my skis was slower than the other going down a small hill. I decided to “fall” on my butt rather than flail into the woods trying to “save it,” thinking that a sit-down-on-the-trail fall was safer. Well, just under the snow where I sat down, there was a very large, very sharp branch, and it went into the back of my right leg and made a big puncture hole. My leg instantly went numb. I dealt with shock, skiing out with a not very functional leg, getting a ride to the ER (thanks to someone stopping to see if I was OK), massive bleeding, surgery, drugs, systemic infection, more drugs, blood clot which was probably caused primarily by the infection…3 months of one life threatening thing after another. PT involving things like getting the hamstring to contract normally, getting the leg to move normally, getting the muscle fibers to line up normally. 8.5 months of PT. Well I am skiing again, but now I know any stupid thing can happen, even skiing easy on a very easy trail.
I also have had an experience in which I saw 2 skiers collide and I went and asked the one who did not get up right away, if she was OK. Her hip hurt. She wanted to get up and keep skiing, but I convinced her to accept some medical intervention, including a ride in a first-aid sled and an X ray. It turned out she had a femur fracture- it was good that she did not get up and keep skiing.
Yeah, always stop to ask if people are OK. And I definitely give safety more thought than I used to. I guess I learned that stuff does happen, safety is a real thing to take into consideration. And I have a much greater appreciation for simple things like being alive and being in good health.