Heart rate seems to be recovered as of yesterday, Wednesday.
A new way of gauging if the heart rate is recovered is as follows,
Using a Heart rate monitor.
During Aerobic work, the heart rate has a fairly Linear relationship between blood pumped and distance covered.
This means, during Aerobic work, it will take an athlete a certain number of beats to cover a specific distance.
For instance, if one can cover 10km in 35min at an average HR of 155, the Maths = (35 x 155) = 5425 beats per 10,000m, or (10000/5425) = 1.84 meters per beat.
This same athlete could expect to cover 10,000m at 40min and 45min with the same ratio… so at slower speeds the average heart rate will drop to maintain the ratio.
So therefore, if we know it takes 5425 beats to cover 10,000m of a know course, we can more or less predict what he should average for different aerobic times over the same course
If he takes 40min, the the 5425 beats will give an average HR of just over 135, and at 45min, it will drop to 120 average.
The exact ratio will vary according to bio-mechanics and can improve over time with better aerobic development and leg strength. So it’s good for Short term training blocks. (then re-test)
This sort of record keeping will determine when it’s safe to resume Hard training again. Systemic acidosis will elevate resting HR, and glycogen depletion with muscular tiredness will lower stride distance
The athlete simply has to go for a very easy morning run over a known course and determine the ratio. If it is back to normal, he is running eficiently again, if not, he should look at easier recovery until ready.
The set course should remain largely unchanged (ie road) and doesnt have to be accurately measured. So long as the same set course is used for such tests, the ratio over that course is all that matters