a few days ago I ran the London marathon and now it's all over I'm thinking about recovery and ultimately when I can start running and training again and there is one stat that I'm paying close attention to on my watch and that is HRV heart rate variability can give you a really good indication of how your body is really doing so let's dive into the data and go through what I've learned from this experience and the Garment experts and in this video I'm going to go through what is HRV how can we use it in our running and a week on from London am I recovered yet [Music] good morning it is exactly one week to go until the London marathon and I'm going to be checking my HRV on my Garen every single morning and today it is 95 nice and balanced in the green so let's head out for a run so firstly what actually is HRV well generally speaking HRV is an indirect measurement of stress the higher your HRV the less stressed you are and there are lots of different ways that we put stress on our bodies one of which is by running this is supposed to be nice easy run one week to go before the marathon and it's slowly turning into this is marathon pace does this feel good just need to keep nice and slow now you might not know that your heart does not beat in a perfect regular rhythm in fact it's perfectly normal and healthy for it to vary from beat to beat and it is the variation in time between consecutive heartbeats which is called your heart rate variability so now for the sciency bit so your autonomic nervous system is responsible for around 90% of your body's involuntary functions and it has two parts the parasympathetic and the sympathetic the parasympathetic also known as rest and digest causes a decrease in heart rate when your body is in a relaxed State whereas the sympathetic also known as fight or flight causes an increase in heart rate when you're in a stress State both of these send competing signals to your heart rate which causes a fluctuating HRV so a week before the marathon I want my HRV to be in a Balan state which I'll come on to more later 5 days to go 5 days to go until l Marathon I'm definitely starting to feel it so far my sleep has been unaffected but I feel like I am waking up more and more nervous each day so my HRV yesterday was 95 same as a week too today it's 94 still in the green still balanced it's nice and easy to see whether it's balanced cuz it just comes up as green but I wonder if it's going to go down anymore before race day having a higher HRV compared to your Baseline means that your body is responding to both part part of the nervous system which is a sign of balance and that your body is adapting to its environment and performing at its best having a lower HRV compared to your Baseline often means that one part is dominating usually the sympathetic nervous system this can be a good thing at times but there's definitely a time and a place like running a race when you want your body to focus on getting your legs moving so it's quite interesting tracking HRV cuz you can see how life stresses affect it over time so a few weeks ago I went to Jamaica for 4 days and my HRV understandably went from being balanced to unbalanced due to a combination of not a lot of sleep jet lag and being on the go all day what's interesting though is that it took a while to come back into being balanced and I think my brain is so good at forgetting stressful events so a few days on I'd kind of moved on from the trip was ready to just jump back into everyday life but actually my HRV was still unbalanced which goes to show that one good night sleep does not fix a few days of not so great sleep and jet lag so it's a really good reminder to take things easy and actually focus on recovery which I'm going to have to do next week because tomorrow it is race day one more day to go until I take on the marathon I'm so nervous but HRV is looking pretty good we've had 94 94 94 and then today it's 93 so we're still in the green sleep is definitely starting to be a little bit affected I was awake for quite a lot of last night just panicking about the marathon but hopefully one more good night sleep and then it's time to go it's worth noting that HRV is incredibly individualized so what might be normal Baseline numbers for me might not be the same for you it's affected by things like age gender and endurance levels but also is worth noting that some really high Lev fit athletes might have a lower HRV the best way to assess your own HRV is to analyze your own Trends things for example like a downward trajectory might be an indication that you're overtraining stressed or getting ill right now it's time to guess what happens to to my HRV post Marathon have a guess in the comments right now make sure you're subscribed and we're going to pick one of you to win a Garmin watch so there probably no surprise to anyone that a marathon can make your HRV go from Balan to unbalanced and that is exactly what happened to mine on the day of the marathon my HRV was 93 and then the day after it was 88 is my HIV score this morning there was nothing quite like the pain the day after running a marathon and my prediction is probably that my HRV will stay unbalanced for a few days but I'm interested to see how long because my legs don't feel too bad compared to other marathons that I've done but I don't know whether that is Rose tinted glasses looking back on how I felt and I'm sure two days after when the delayed on set muscle soreness really kicks in it will start to feel worse good morning day two after London Marathon I have never been happier to live in a flat without stairs HRV though has gone up by 1 we're now on 9 so that's quite good still very much done balanced um but I'm actually feeling pretty well rested which hopefully is a good sign that it will go back into being balance soon HRV is such a valuable stat to have after a hard race because it can give you an answer as to how you're recovering and how your body is actually feeling we've all had the runners high after a big race you want to jump straight back into training and chase another PB but it is so important to listen to your body to avoid overtraining which could lead to injury so is one week on from the marathon I'm back out doing some easy miles but how am I actually feeling and more importantly what's my HRV doing well oh it's windy by day three my HRV had crept up to 91 it was still unbalanced but I was going in the right direction and then on days four and five postm marathon on Thursday and Friday it went back down to 90 on both days and was still on balance and it looked like it was going back down now this correlated with I started getting a cold I started feeling ill I was in the office on both days so it was quite a busy day and I got less sleep so then Friday night I think I got like 9 hours sleep and it jumped up and went up to being balanced again which is great and I actually feel so much better and now Sunday it's gone up even more so definitely back to being balanced but it just goes to show that you know 4 days after I was feeling recovered I kind of slipped back into my normal routine and then my body kind of screamed at me going like no no no we still need to recover or we're going to stay on balance for a while so having a nice restful weekend and prioritizing recovery has made a huge difference to that number so what I've learned is that it is completely normal for your HRV to be a little out of whack following a marathon but there are some ways to keep it on track both in the leadup and in your recovery here are my top tips we can push ourselves in harder sessions but we need to make make sure that we're giving ourselves enough time to recover so when you plan out your week make sure to leave gaps in between Doing Hard sessions rather than doing them back to back this will give your HRV a chance to return to Baseline before going hard again make sure you stay hydrated this will help with your circulation and your body's ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles try to get your body into a good routine things like waking up and going to bed at similar times each day eating good nutritious food and at normal hours and generally trying to maintain your circadian rhythm if if you notice a decreasing Trend in your HRV it could be a sign that you're stressed or that you have an oncoming illness so it's a really cool stat to use in your everyday life as well not just in running HRV also feeds into other stats on your garment watch like training readiness and training status which can help you recognize when to go hard in training and when to ease off so HRV is always a stat that I'm going to look at before and after racing because it just gives you such a good indication of how your body is actually doing especially when you're very eager to get back out running after a race and you actually should be listening to your body um but let me know is it a stat that you look at or have I now convinced you to look at your HRV let me know in the comments and go and check out the video where Andy and Jess compared their watch data for Valencia Marathon it is very interesting