Recovery Readiness Score
Four questions, one green / amber / red verdict on today's session — built on the consensus endurance-science algorithm.
Modify & monitor. Cap intensity at upper Zone 2 (aerobic base). Cancel VO2 / threshold intervals and heavy strength work. Keep volume moderate. Prioritise sleep tonight.
Why
- All inputs at baseline or better — no individual drag on today's score.
- +1HRV / autonomicHRV at or above baseline (+0%): +1
- +0Sleep durationSlept 7.5h (7–8h): 0
- +0MoodMood 3/5 (rating − 3): +0
- +0Soreness / fatigueSoreness 3/5 (rating − 3): +0
- +0Life stressStress 3/5 (rating − 3): +0
- +0Days since hard session1 day since last hard session: 0
How to use this tool
- Set the autonomic signal. If you use a wearable (Oura, Whoop, Garmin Enhanced BBI), enter HRV deviation as a percent — positive if at or above your 30-day baseline, negative if below. No wearable? Enter how many bpm your morning resting heart rate is above its normal number.
- Enter last night's sleep in hours. Be honest — aspirational hours don't predict recovery.
- Rate mood, soreness and life stress on a 1–5 scale. 5 is optimal (fresh, happy, calm), 1 is terrible (flat, sore, frazzled).
- Enter days since your last hard session — VO2, threshold, or a long run. Zero means yesterday.
- Toggle any modifiers that apply — cycle phase, masters age, recent illness, RED-S risk. Illness and RED-S hard-override the score to red.
The URL updates as you change inputs, so you can bookmark a state or share it. Not sure what the number means for your actual plan? Ask Pallie to read it with you.
How the score is calculated
Four categories, summed. Thresholds are the consensus values published across 2023–2026 endurance-science reviews on HRV, sleep-deprivation performance decrements, and subjective-wellness monitoring.
| Category | Input | Points |
|---|---|---|
| HRV deviation 7-day avg vs 30-day baseline | At or above baseline | +1 |
| 1–5% below baseline | 0 | |
| 6–10% below baseline | −1 | |
| >10% below baseline | −3 | |
| Sleep duration previous night | >8 h | +1 |
| 7–8 h | 0 | |
| 5–6.9 h | −1 | |
| <5 h | −2 | |
| Subjective state rating minus 3 | Mood / life stress (1–5) | rating − 3 |
| Muscle soreness / fatigue (1–5) | rating − 3 | |
| Days since last hard session Z4/Z5 or long run | 2+ days | +1 |
| 1 day | 0 | |
| Hard session yesterday | −1 |
What each colour means
High systemic readiness. You are primed to absorb and adapt to high-intensity intervals, threshold work, or a long run. Don't inflate the session because the number looks good — do the one on the plan.
Residual fatigue is carrying over. Cap today at upper Zone 2 (aerobic base, conversational). Cancel anaerobic intervals and heavy strength. Keep volume moderate. Prioritise sleep tonight and check the trend again tomorrow.
The autonomic nervous system is stressed. Engaging in hard training today will cause physiological breakdown, not adaptation. Full rest, or a maximum of 30 min of lower-Zone-1 movement (walk, light spin). Revisit tomorrow.
Special populations
Female athletes — cycle phase
During the luteal phase (roughly post-ovulation until menses), progesterone raises core body temperature and sympathetic tone. Resting HRV naturally drops a few percent regardless of training load. A suppressed HRV reading in this window may reflect normal hormonal fluctuation rather than training distress. Flag the luteal phase in the modifiers — the tool weights your subjective feel more heavily, and you should consider building a luteal-phase baseline over 2–3 cycles and comparing within-phase rather than against the full-month average.
Masters athletes (50+)
Absolute HRV falls with age, and recovery windows extend. When the algorithm returns amber, masters athletes should skew toward the rest side of the amber band if subjective signals agree. The upside of extra rest is larger than the downside of a missed workout at this end of the age curve.
Returning from illness
The 20-30-40 return-to-play rule hard-overrides the score. Forty-eight hours of complete rest after symptoms subside, then 20, 30 and 40 minutes of easy biking or running on successive days before resuming a normal plan. Swimming is delayed to day 3 or later — indoor pool chlorine by-products irritate healing airway mucosa and can trigger acute respiratory regression if reintroduced too early.
RED-S risk
Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport voids the algorithm entirely. Indicators include prolonged unintentional weight loss, missed menstrual periods, recurring stress fractures, and persistent fatigue despite nominally adequate sleep. The fix is nutritional and medical, not a rest day. Work with a sports physician and a registered dietitian before interpreting any readiness signal.
When this tool is not enough
The score is a daily sanity check, not a clinical assessment. Escalate to a sports physician when:
- You have logged three or more consecutive days of red scores without an obvious cause.
- HRV has been suppressed >10% below baseline for more than a week and resting heart rate is consistently elevated.
- Subjective wellness stays at 1–2 across mood, soreness and stress for more than five days.
- You suspect RED-S, post-viral fatigue, depression, iron-deficiency anaemia, or any medical cause of chronic fatigue.
- You are returning from a stress fracture, cardiac event, or any diagnosed condition that was responsible for a training pause.
Ferritin, vitamin D, thyroid panel, and (for masters) a testosterone-to-cortisol baseline are the common blood-work follow-ups. The readiness score is a trigger to ask — not the answer itself.
The framework this tool implements
The algorithm is a compact, rule-based cascade rather than a machine-learned model — on purpose. Every input's contribution is transparent and defensible against published thresholds:
- HRV weighting:a single reading >10% below baseline returns −3, large enough that no combination of green subjective signals can fully overrule it. This matches the overreaching / pre-illness signal documented in autonomic-monitoring reviews.
- Sleep weighting:<5 h returns −2. A 2022 meta-analysis across 31 studies found moderate, statistically significant endurance impairment after sleep restriction, particularly for efforts over 30 minutes.
- Subjective weighting: each 1-to-5 rating contributes its rating minus 3, giving a range of −2 to +2 across the three subjective inputs combined. Self-reported wellness predicts next-day performance roughly as well as nocturnal HRV in most head-to-head studies.
- Hard-session spacing:a single bit of training context — days since the last VO2, threshold or long run — caps the uplift from a good night's sleep when you're still in the 24–72 h autonomic-recovery window after high-intensity work.
For the reasoning behind each weight, read the companion deep-dive on HRV, sleep and training readiness. For the broader recovery framework this tool sits inside — sleep, fuel, rest, mobility, temperature and autonomic monitoring — see the pillar Recovery for Runners.
Recovery Readiness FAQ
How is the score calculated?
Four inputs, summed. HRV deviation from your 30-day baseline (−3 to +1). Sleep duration last night (−2 to +1). Subjective mood, soreness and life stress on a 1–5 scale (each contributes rating minus 3). Days since your last hard session (−1 to +1). Total of +2 or higher is GREEN (proceed). −1 to +1 is AMBER (modify, cap at Zone 2). −2 or lower is RED (rest or lower-Zone-1 active recovery only). The thresholds mirror consensus frameworks published across endurance-science reviews from 2023–2026.
I don't have a wearable — can I still use this?
Yes. Switch the source to "Resting HR above baseline" and enter how many bpm higher your morning resting pulse is vs your typical number. 0–1 bpm above is normal, 2–4 is mild stress, 5–7 is elevated, above 7 is a red flag. If you don't track either, set source to "Not tracking" — the algorithm drops that input to 0 and relies on sleep plus subjective signals. The verdict is still usable but less precise.
What if my score says green but I feel awful?
Trust the subjective signal. Published research consistently finds that self-reported mood and soreness predict next-day performance as accurately as any wearable metric. The score is a floor, not a ceiling — if the human disagrees with the number, default to the more conservative call. Drop mood or soreness to 1 and the score will follow.
How much HRV drop is too much?
A single reading 10% below baseline is a data point, not a decision. Three to four consecutive days of HRV more than 10% below baseline — alongside elevated resting heart rate — is the documented overreaching / impending-illness signal and should trigger an unplanned deload. The algorithm weights a single >10% drop at −3 specifically so it can't be outvoted by feeling vaguely OK.
Should I skip a hard session during my luteal phase if HRV is down?
Not automatically. Luteal-phase HRV suppression is partly hormonal — progesterone raises core body temperature and sympathetic tone, pulling RMSSD down by a few percent regardless of training load. Flag the luteal phase in the modifiers — the tool will note this in the cautions and weight subjective signals more heavily. For a cleaner read, build a luteal-phase baseline over 2–3 cycles and compare within phase.
Does this replace a coach?
No. It replaces the guesswork on a single day. A coach handles periodisation across weeks and months, reads data the algorithm can't see, and knows your history. The tool is a quick sanity check to keep a single bad call from turning into an injury.
Why is the illness flag a hard override?
Returning to hard training before the body has cleared a viral or bacterial infection risks post-viral fatigue, myocarditis, and long-tail performance loss. The 20-30-40 return-to-play rule (48h complete rest after symptoms subside, then 20 / 30 / 40 min of easy work on successive days) is the conservative consensus across sports-medicine guidance. Even a green HRV reading can't override an unfinished illness recovery.
What is RED-S and why does it void the algorithm?
Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport — chronic under-fuelling that disrupts hormones, bone density, immune function and performance. Signs include prolonged unintentional weight loss, missed menstrual periods, recurring stress fractures, and persistent fatigue despite "adequate" sleep. Any readiness score in this state is meaningless because the body isn't recovering regardless of what the dashboard says. The fix is nutritional and medical, not a rest day.