What Sobriety Does to the Data
No alcohol this week.
That's it. That's the variable that changed. No camping, no margaritas, no World Cup extra time, no retirement parties. Just a normal week coming down off a camping trip with a long Monday at work and the camping gear finally back in storage where it belongs.
The body noticed immediately.
Seven consecutive valid HRV readings — 7.0, 7.4, 7.8, 8.0, 7.6, 7.6, 7.1. The most consistent week of HRV data in this entire rebuild. That 8.0 on Thursday is tied for the highest single reading we've seen. Sleep averaged 7.8 hours, the best week of sleep since April. The correlation isn't subtle and it isn't complicated. Remove the alcohol and the recovery metrics move in one direction.
The weight this week needs an asterisk. The scale isn't recognizing my profile and has been pulling someone else's numbers — so 166.4 belongs to someone else in the house. I'm solidly at 175, which is still down roughly nine pounds since late March and still moving in the right direction. Just not quite that dramatically.
The training itself was lighter. Four days, 307 TSS, 4.6 hours. Coming off last week's camping crash and the call shift that ate Saturday's long run, the body needed a step-down week and got one. Average HR across all sessions was 110 — controlled, aerobic, nothing forced. The long run didn't happen yesterday because of call. I'll try to get it in tomorrow. The camping gear is put away. The week is closing.
Nine weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.
Here's what this week actually showed me, stripped of everything else: the training is one variable. Recovery is another. And the recovery variables — sleep, alcohol, stress — have been moving the numbers just as much as the sessions themselves. The HRV data doesn't lie about this. The weeks with wine in them look different from the weeks without. Not dramatically, not catastrophically, but consistently and measurably.
Nine weeks left. That's enough time to be deliberate about both sides of the equation.
Magei woke me up at 5:52 this morning. Olivia was already at the door. Monday was a very long day. The rest of the week was quiet in the best possible way.
One thing that is not quiet: the bike. ENVE looked at the front rim and recommended a warranty replacement. Which is good news in the sense that they stood behind it, and less good news in the sense that the front rim of your race bike needing a warranty claim nine weeks before a half Ironman is not the kind of administrative project you want on the calendar right now. It is what it is. The process is started.
Onwards.
Weekly metrics: 4 training days · 4.6 hours · 307 TSS · HRV 7.0-8.0 (7 consecutive valid days) · Avg sleep 7.8 hrs · Avg HR 110.1 · Weight ~175 (scale error this week — down ~9 lbs since March) No alcohol week · best HRV consistency of entire rebuild vs. last week: 4 training days · 8.5 hours · 587 TSS