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Being a Norseman – The Recovery

In Ironman, Norseman triathlon, Simon Ward, Training of TTC (September 7, 2009 8:30 pm)

I’m just coming to the end of my post Norseman recovery period. It’s been just over 4 weeks since the race and I feel like I am ready to get back into training.

In one respect the Norseman is no different from any other Ironman. Its a big event that takes a lot of preparation and then a lot of effort on the day, both mentally and physically. On finishing it therefore takes a lot of recovery.

The start of Post race recovery

One definitions of recovery is “a return to a healthy or normal condition. That means getting back to where you were before the event.

However, the stress induced by a hard race, and which you need to recover from, includes muscle soreness/damage, energy depletion, dehydration, stress to the endocrine system, central and peripheral nervous system, not to mention mental fatigue. Each of these systems will repair at a different rate.

It’s easy to gauge when muscles are repaired as the soreness disappears but how can you tell if the CNS is recovered?

So how long does recovery take? I’m not sure you can put a time limit on these things. A lot will depend upon the individual. Not only on how long they have been in the sport, the depth of their initial fitness etc but also on their lifestyle, diet, age, gender, body size and a whole lot of other factors.

Personally I like to take at least 4 weeks of what I call “active recovery” training. Finding the right balance is important. Do too little and there isn’t enough circulation to remove waste products from the muscles. Do too much and you slow down the process of healing the muscles and joints. Low stress activity such as swimming and biking are fine at low levels of intensity and I like to add in other activities that I don’t get time to do when training such as kayaking or hiking. More importantly I don’t have much of a structure. I just do what I feel like doing and if I don’t feel like it then I don’t do it. A typical 4 week recovery programme might look something like this….

Week 1 – Just stay active. A bit of swimming cycling as commuting to work and definitely no running but lots of walking

Week 2- More swimming, still commuting to work by bike and maybe some running towards the end of the week (actually this time I was roped into racing at the National Relays – 14 days after Norseman – and boy did that hurt my legs for days afterwards!) I don’t know how OR why AG athletes want to race that soon after an Ironman and I certainly won’t be doing it again

Week 3 & 4- Back into my normal swimming programme still cycling as commuting and running regularly but only for 30 minutes per time and never on back-back days.

Also during this time I relax my eating & drinking habits, but never so much that I completely let go, and try to get as much sleep as my body tells me it needs.

What happens at the end of the four week period is still pretty fluid. I try not to put pressure on myself by entering a race in advance as I know that this will just force me to set a schedule for my body rather than letting my body set its own schedule. So I just play it by ear. This year we have a week in France and then 7 days later I go to Kona to work at the Ironman expo for CompuTrainer. This means that a full-on training programme will be interrupted anyway. Its more than likely that I’ll just be ticking over until the beginning of November and trying not to get to fat or unfit in the process. One thing is for sure, I’ll be chomping at the bit to get back into training, which is just how it should be.

Stay healthy & have fun.

Until next time

Comments (5)

5 Comments »

1
Hi Simon, can you explain the damage done by hard races to the peripheral nerve system a bit more? Thanks. Something I have to understand more, as I up my distance and deal with peripheral nerve challenges. Thanks!

Comment by Donna D — September 8, 2009 @ 11:23 am
2
Great read as always Simon, will be very useful for me next year and to help make the most of end of season recovery in general after Bala this weekend

Comment by Khara — September 8, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
3
Put the cake down, get on with the training and when we having that beer ?

Comment by craig — September 8, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
4
He’s dropped is cake on the floor?!!

Comment by neil walker — September 15, 2009 @ 10:31 am
5
Amazing achievement! I am certainly tempted to try for a black T-shirt now!

Comment by Paul B — September 29, 2009 @ 11:15 am