Very interested in your CRP data! Inflammation has been a sort of hot-button with athletes in general over the past few years. Whenever I was talking to someone that mentioned they were adapting their diet to include items that would help with inflammation, I would always ask how they knew they were suffering from inflammation and could never get a satisfactory answer. No one really knew. I did a little Googling and found the CRP test, talked my doctor into testing me on one of my regular checkups and chatted him about the test and results. Bottom line, I exercise 10-15 hours per week almost all year round and I'm not close to having an issue. I also had the hs-CRP test done a few times. According to my tests, optimal results should be <1.0 mg/L. High risk is over 2.9. In 2017 I had 0.3 and 2014 0.4 mg/L. I eat reasonably well but nowhere near extreme. (Looks like my results were per L, your ml so just move your decimal 3 places to match mine - giving you a 1.8 mg/L I think).
So I was wondering if you monitor inflammation regularly, eat anti-inflammatory foods (for example see here: http://www.activebeat.co/diet-nutrition/the-top-8-inflammatory-foods/). Something to ignore if you don't suffer from it or something you are proactive about "just in case".
@Tom Glynn Yes inflammation is big these days.... While it is real, I believe most of it to be marketing "something" ... Your link was for inflammatory foods not anti-inflammatory food ???... I do NOT purposely consume anything in attempt to control inflammation (However the simple act of being a VEGAN avoids many of the top inflammation lists and includes many on the top of the anti inflammation lists without even trying) Yet another plus for plant based diets... Good to know at the same age and training work loads our hsCRP numbers are similar.... Again I think anyone who trains like us will show various markers of inflammation(you can even argue we want inflammation) and over training (like Cortisol and Testosterone). In order to put these numbers into the averages I would not be able to be competitive :-)
@tim cronk my link was just a quick grab showing people thinking about food as flammatory or inflammatory. My thoughts were that we should get ourselves tested before we head down the path of eliminating certain foods in our diet.
If it were easier to test, I think it would be fascinating to watch inflammation markers through a complete training cycle. It would really help determine rest days. (As aside, I tried this with the HRV metric but it just wasn't that predictive.)
@Tom Glynn totally agree and agree with HRV as I think we have discussed before... Not really the place for this conversation but since we have drifted off the Race/Study/Inflammation into more of a recovery predictor I thought I would just throw this out and get your thoughts as well.... You know I'm not a HR guy other than to collect data but To be honest I have been watching Garmin HR recovery time (time predicted to recover after a wko displayed on my 920xt screeen when I save wko file) and the Garmin HR recovery message on the 920xt in the first 10 min of the next wko and find them to be quite accurate... We do a lot of wko's and 95-99 times out of 100 I get the "recovery is good message" and every once in a while I get the "recovery is fair message" correlating those with how I felt at the time proves to be quite accurate... Garmin HR also predicts the recovery time quite well, I have had some ridiculously long hard runs in the heat and recover times show upwards of 48+ hrs, but usual work is in the 1/2 day to full day recovery range... Today I raced a 5k , absolute HR redline , and Garmin said 36hr recovery.... I really think Garmin correlates well to the recovery prediction and actual recovery... Crazy since I am not a fan of Garmin stuff... But its simple, automatic , and much better than say HRV at least for me...
@tim cronk Interesting thoughts on the Garmin HR recovery. It's funny but I recently gave up collecting HR data. I've collected it for 20+ years but long run HR is always 120 bpm +/- a couple and my long ride is somewhere around 125 bpm. Intervals rarely get over 140. Maybe it's time to put it back on again.
I've got the 920XT, which I love and have seen the recovery metrics for a long time. I never really thought anything of them, probably because they gave me the information I didn't want to hear . For example, if I was doing two workouts in a day, it may tell me to recover for a day after the first one, when, of course, I was going to do the second workout. Also, after long bikes, in particular, I was pretty sure it sometimes gave me recovery times in excess of 24 hours. For me, being shelled after a long bike means resting for the remainder of the day and having an easy workout the next day, so maybe short easy run or swim.
If you got a recovery time of 48 hours would you take the next day off or go easy?
Let me get the HR strap back on and do a couple of hard/long sets and see what it says.
Comments
So I was wondering if you monitor inflammation regularly, eat anti-inflammatory foods (for example see here: http://www.activebeat.co/diet-nutrition/the-top-8-inflammatory-foods/). Something to ignore if you don't suffer from it or something you are proactive about "just in case".
If it were easier to test, I think it would be fascinating to watch inflammation markers through a complete training cycle. It would really help determine rest days. (As aside, I tried this with the HRV metric but it just wasn't that predictive.)
I've got the 920XT, which I love and have seen the recovery metrics for a long time. I never really thought anything of them, probably because they gave me the information I didn't want to hear
If you got a recovery time of 48 hours would you take the next day off or go easy?
Let me get the HR strap back on and do a couple of hard/long sets and see what it says.