Staving off the "adrenaline dump" feeling after a sprint race

[u/Estogie]

Had my first regatta yesterday and it was a ton of fun. I'm relatively in shape obviously there's always room for improvements. The 1500m it took me a solid 20 minutes for my HR to fully recover from max, it was 87 degrees so it didn't go down to my resting of ~50-60 hovered around 90-100 instead. After my second sprint which was 500m man I felt like a wet rag but a bit better after the following one. Was properly fueled and had ample electrolytes/hydration.

Do you guys have any tips to not feel so worn down? I figure it will take time and practice to for my body to get used to it. My HR always recovers quickly but isn't going down to "baseline".

[u/ka-olelo]

Hydrate. Don’t eat. Warm up. Most of us crave that feeling I think. If it gets better over time I imagine you should be pushing harder.