As a triathlete or an athlete, have you ever wonder if you got your full amount of sleep?

For example, you head to bed at 10:30. Light out at 11 and up at 6:00 am. Sweet, 7 hours of sleep! Think again.

It has been over 1.5 months since I started using the Whoop and I can’t believe how much I am really loving this thing.

Click HERE to see my Rulon Rules: Rest & Recovery, when I talked about my workouts and my recovery when I was sick back at the end of January, beginning of February.

I also gave you five “Rulon Rules: Rest & Recovery” as recovery is SO CRUCIAL for all athletes.

So, let’s chat about my recovery from the last three weeks with some heavy training days, as I am preparing for 70.3 IM Galveston on April 2^nd AND I am dealing with allergies and Upper Respitory Infection…again.

Let’s get into the nitty gritty about The Whoop. There is a Strain Score and a Recovery Score. Let’s explain this set up.

The Whoop Strain Score is on the scale from 0 – 21 and it is a consistent measure of the exertion of your heart. Zero would be your resting heart rate and 21 would be your maximum heart rate. Here is the scale:

The Whoop Recovery Score will teach you how well your body is returning to your baseline (which you will fine after 4 days). Recovery Score is based on 0 – 100% scale and broken into three levels. See the chart below:

Now, let’s look at the last three weeks of my training for 70.3 Ironman Galveston and getting sick.

Monday, February 27th – March 5^th

For the Week: Left Side: Strain Score. Right Side: Recovery Score.

You will see that I did not have any 0 – 9.9 strain but one 18 – 21 nor 0 – 33% RED numbers for recovery. Overall, I had a FANTANSTIC week of training. Here are my numbers from Training Peaks:

Swim: 2:00

Bike: 5:45

Run: 2:37

Lift: 1:45

Total Hours: 11:47

Monday, March 6th – March 12th

For the Week: Left Side: Strain Score. Right Side: Recovery Score:

Once again, you will see that I did not have any 0 – 9.9 strain, but had two 18.0 – 21.0 and no 0 – 33% RED numbers for recovery. Another solid week of training and recovery really well this week!  Here is what I noticed. On Thursday pm, I started feeling “off.” I was coughing at night, didn’t feel 100%. I sucked up my training because I had to get stuff done and I felt like I was recovery well. Right? I slept a TON over the weekend. That Sunday, March 12^th was a long bike/fast run and I felt pretty decent. I was tired at the end of the week.  Here are my numbers from Training Peaks:

Swim: 2:40

Bike: 6:00

Run: 3:05

Lift: 1:45

Total Hours: 13:00

Monday, March 13 – March 19^th

For the Week: Left Side: Strain Score. Right Side: Recovery Score:

I had one 0 – 9.9 strain and NO 18 – 21 and one 0 – 33%. Check out Tuesday. Coughing all night. Went into the living room not to wake up the Silent Partner of Rulon Racing and was coughing all day. I was exhausted. I was supposed to do a hard 2:00 interval bike. I reached out to Brandon (my coach) and he told me to ride for an easy hour and if I was up for lifting, go for it. I couldn’t lift. Wednesday, I ended up swimming and running, that day but I was coughing in the pool and during my run. I managed but you can see it in my numbers in my run. So, I went to the doctor on Thursday, got a steroid shot and more antibiotics and took two days off.  Here are my numbers from Training Peaks:

Swim: 1:40

Bike: 3:16

Run: 1:30

Lift: 0

Total Hours: 6:26

Now you ask, “What is the point of all this information?” Not to worry, I have your very own:

“Rulon Rules: To the Whoop”

1. As a triathlete, rest and recovery is CRUCIAL for your success. For a device to show you what you are getting vs. what you are not getting, will ONLY help you succeed.
2. The Whoop keeps your ass accountable. Did you have alcohol before bed? Did you read on your lighted device? This plays a HUGE role on your recovery.
3. The Whoop measures your HRV (Heart Rate Variability). It will show if it is going up or down. HRV increasing means you are improving your fitness.
4. As a triathlete, we really do have to listen to our body but guess what gets in the way, our ego. This Whoop device will show you when it is time to pull back, if you haven’t recovered enough!
5. We don’t only have stress from our workouts but we also have daily stress that sometimes we truly disregard. The daily strain score will show that as well.

Are you convinced yet to grab The Whoop? Well, if you order TODAY with the code:

JRulon17

Moving forward, I will do another blog on April 21^st after my 70.3 Ironman Galveston AND heading into heavier training over the next few months. It will be really interesting with my training to 70.3 Ironman Lubbock and Ironman Mont Tremblant!