Notes RSS feed

August 10th review

This was probably the weakest NeuroForge cycle so far.

I did not notice anything extraordinary. No unusually deep thinking, no obvious increase in verbal fluency, no feeling of being cognitively “on” in the way I sometimes had in previous cycles.

At the same time, this was also a poor cycle for testing cognition properly.

I somehow did not have the same drive to push hard. Almost no chess, no piano, and very little deliberate learning.

Most of the effort went into work and preparing for another certification. That was probably the one area where I performed at a very high level.

So the result is mixed.

The cycle felt weak, but the testing conditions were weak too.

And NeuroForge 5.0 Light may simply have been too light.

Compared with earlier versions, I removed Alpha-GPC, Rhodiola, Ashwagandha, Thorne 2/Day, Lion’s Mane, and Gotu Kola, while Citicoline was never added.

That may have cleaned the stack up too aggressively.

I may simply have removed too much.

That needs another test before drawing a stronger conclusion.

Started using mySASY alongside Garmin as an additional recovery signal.

Current split:

• Garmin - passive, continuous trend data: overnight HRV, resting HR, sleep, stress, training load.
• mySASY - standardized morning HRV measurement with HRM-Pro plus a more explicit training recommendation.

So far both systems have told the same story.

During the post-infection slump, both showed poor recovery. When the rebound finally came, Garmin metrics improved sharply and mySASY moved into supercompensation (myCompensation: 131) and recommended increasing training load rather than staying conservative.

The morning measurement is useful because the protocol is more controlled from day to day. That does not automatically make it “better” than overnight HRV - just a different, cleaner measurement context.

For now the rule is simple:

Use mySASY as another sensor, not an oracle.

What matters is convergence between morning HRV, Garmin trends, resting HR, actual performance, and how training feels.

Unplanned break: Kefalonia, then infection immediately after returning.

Recovery

• Back from Kefalonia: July 23.
• Heavy runny nose / infection from July 24; symptoms mostly gone by July 28-29.
• Running form dropped hard.
• Resting HR: about +4 bpm at the worst point.
• HRV: about -30% at the worst point.
• Strong rebound only came 8-10 days after the infection itself had ended.
• August 8: resting HR down ~3 bpm, HRV back from ~110 to 138; still ~130 the morning after a very heavy gym session.

Training adjustment

I did not try to catch up.

• Strength: repeated Week 3 for two consecutive weeks.
• Running: ~50% volume, then ~75%.
• Today: likely back to ~100% because the recovery metrics finally agree.

Unexpected result: legs

After roughly two weeks without heavy leg work:

• 120 kg leg press, previously a real working load, suddenly moved like nothing.
• 150 kg moved explosively - it felt closer to a warm-up weight than a working set.
• 65 kg squat also felt materially easier.
• Knee-height box jumps for sets of 8 are now comfortable.
• Hip thrust did not show the same rebound.
• Upper body did not show the same rebound either.

Second time I have seen this pattern.

Working hypothesis: my legs may accumulate enough fatigue from running + strength work that a longer break exposes strength that was already there.

Operationally: keep continuity for running and upper body, but test whether legs benefit from deeper periodic unloading.

June 17th, 2026 gave me the first very practical proof that all this running and strength training is not just a collection of numbers in Garmin and gym logs.

I had to collect porcelain tiles for the new apartment. The truck arrived, dropped the pallet, and left me with the actual work: twenty packages, around 30 kg each, 120 × 60 cm. Garage to elevator. Elevator to corridor. Corridor to apartment.

Annoying, but manageable.

Then I saw the 120 × 120 cm slabs. Eleven pieces. Around 50 kg each. Heavy, awkward, and with no civilized way to grip them. I tried to find someone I could pay to help. Nobody wanted to.

So I carried them myself.

For about 75 minutes, one slab after another. Each one was heavy. None of them was pleasant. But the strange part was that my stamina did not disappear. I could keep going. Not fast. Not elegantly. But consistently.

That was the functional benefit.

Not a better race prediction. Not a nicer chart. Not another abstract fitness score.

Capacity on demand.

After getting home, I slept for an hour. Then I still went to the gym and did a very hard strength session. That part surprised me more than it probably should have.

To keep the story honest: sleep that night was destroyed. The body clearly took a serious hit. Recovery always sends the invoice. Very polite of it. Very German.

But at 46, there is something deeply satisfying about knowing that when real work appears, the system holds.

Not heroic nonsense.

Just a body that can still do the job.

Second progressive test on the treadmill. Oxygen, lactate, heart rate, the ramp to failure.

It drove me into the ground.

I hit 195 and that was it. My legs got completely cut out from under me. Toward the top the technique fell apart, and at 18 km/h there was no hiding it. Both the friend filming me and the guy running the test pointed at the same thing: badly untechnical, no economy, power leaking everywhere.

The next day I had to sleep for an hour in the afternoon, which almost never happens to me. It took more out of me than I expected.

I am a little disappointed, because the heart rate climbed hard the whole way. That bothered me more than anything else during the test.

But there is the other side. At 18 km/h I held 45 seconds. Last time I did not get there. So on the top end, better.

Now I wait for the analysis. The oxygen, the zones, the lactate curve. The feeling is one thing. The numbers will say what actually happened.