A companion piece to “Me, My WHOOP and Tuchel,” in which the strap endures the inaugural Nations Championship and files a formal complaint.
It is Monday afternoon in Alcossebre, and my WHOOP and I are no longer on speaking terms.
Regular readers will know the strap was already braced for one bad night: England versus Mexico at the Azteca, kicking off in the small hours of Monday morning, watched from a bar called El Clan. What neither of us had properly reckoned with was everything that came before it. Because this wasn’t a bad night. This was a bad weekend. A structured, premeditated, three-day assault on my recovery score, and it began; as all the best damage does, with rugby.
Saturday, nine in the morning. Coffee in hand, heart rate resting, strain score a virtuous green. The inaugural Nations Championship opens with the All Blacks against France in Christchurch, and somebody has clearly decided the new tournament needs a launch to remember. Dave Rennie’s first Test in charge. Lead changing hands all game. France, missing half their first-choice side, refusing to go away. Will Jordan and Cam Roigard with two tries apiece, Jalibert barging over late, and the All Blacks hanging on 34-32.
Thirty-four thirty-two. At nine in the morning. My WHOOP registered cardiovascular strain before most of Spain had registered breakfast.
Then Ireland and Australia, who looked at that scoreline and said: hold our pints. Ireland won 33-31. Another two-point Test. Another eighty minutes of my heart rate behaving like a man being chased. By mid-afternoon my strain score suggested I’d done a spin class. I had, in fact, moved twice: once for coffee, once for lunch.
And then, Saturday late afternoon, the main event. The Springboks against England at Ellis Park the altitude game. The one Kevin Sinfield had been talking about all week, preparation and adaptation and oxygen levels, his own watch warning him his body was under stress at 5,750 feet.
Well. About that.
South Africa scored three tries in twelve minutes. Seventeen-nil before England had located the thin air, never mind adapted to it. England, in fairness, produced a response; Genge and Martin with two magnificent solo finishes to make it 17-14 at the break, and for ten minutes hope did terrible things to my heart rate variability. Then the Springboks did what Springboks do at altitude: they simply kept going while everyone else stopped. Seven tries in all. England down to thirteen men at the end. Forty-five twenty-one, a fifth straight defeat, and my WHOOP quietly noting that the wearer had now experienced three international sporting events in one day and appeared to be under the impression this was normal.
Sunday could have been a rest day.
Sunday was not a rest day.
I’ll spare you the details; this is a family publication; but the strap’s Sunday-night summary read less like fitness data and more like a witness statement. Sleep consistency: poor. Wind-down: nonexistent. Recommendation: rest.
And then, instead of resting, I set an alarm and went to downstairs.
You know the rest. England, football’s England, went to 7,300 feet; nearly two thousand feet higher than the ground where the rugby boys had just been dismantled and beat Mexico 3-2 with ten men, at three in the morning Spanish time, while I gripped a table and briefly stopped breathing. My WHOOP flagged my blood oxygen. At sea level. The footballers coped with the altitude at the Azteca better than I coped with a bar stool on the Costa del Azahar.
So here we are, Monday afternoon. Recovery: red. Strain: alpine. Sleep debt: generational. Somewhere in California an algorithm is drafting an intervention.
But here’s the thing the strap will never understand. That was one of the great sporting weekends. Two Test matches decided by two points. A new tournament announcing itself in style. The world champions flexing at altitude. And England, one of the Englands, anyway, winning a knockout tie at the Azteca for the first time in forty years of hurt.
WHOOP measures strain. It cannot measure worth.
Next Saturday: England v Fiji at Everton’s new ground, the Boks host Scotland in Pretoria, and the football quarter-final against Norway at a civilised 11pm.
Rest day? We’ll see.
Seniormash Reflections writing for TalkingRugbyUnion