Paula Radcliffe returning too soon?

In terms of recovery, the birth of a child must rank among the biggest of body traumas requiring adequate rest. It was reported this week that Paula Radcliffe has already resumed running just over two weeks since the birth of her first child.

This might not be so bad, but in continuing the theme of a bias to overtrain and under-recover, this article notes the experience of 1987 10,000m World Champion and serial marathon winner Ingrid Kristensen, from whom Paula reportedly sought advice:-

“Speaking earlier this year, Kristiansen admitted that she had done too much, too soon. She added: ‘I think Paula can come back in really good shape for the Beijing Olympics but she has to be patient. I did a little bit too much.’”

My own recovery seems to be going just fine. A virus is not a baby, after all. I ran intervals today, for the first time pushing the pace element to one-minute. I did this four times, then a four minute break, then another four times. As for recovery between intervals, instead of measuring by time, which I have done in the past, I followed the Bath University Human Performance Centre advice and waited until my heart rate had fallen to the recovery zone. Interestingly, the first several recoveries took a full minute, but thereafter the recovery rate improved to about 40-50 seconds.

Having pushed my heart-rate up to over 170 bpm, albeit briefly several times, it has left me tired, although with a sense of neurological adaptation. The post-run recovery feels quite different, more uplifting than a normal run.

Resting Heart Rate 46

Weight 71 kg

Mood

Exercise Energy Consumed 575 kcal (35 mins interval/fartlek run, 10 mins bike)

Welcome! If you enjoyed this article you might also like my interview with Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, who has been described as the hottest thinker in the world (by the way, the Knackered Hack is one of the few blogs Taleb links to from his own homepage). To stay in touch, feel free to sign up to the RSS feed or for regular email updates. You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here.

Related Posts

1. bertie wooster, paula radcliffe and cold showers
2. heart rate returning to normal
3. deadlines and sleep
4. slowing down is hard to do
5. keep smiley!