Finish screen view for today’s 10,000 meter session.
Last night everything was normal about heart rhythm and I slept wonderfully well.
Today’s 10,000 meter rowing session was done at a steady pace which averaged 2:35.0 and heart rate was steady within a few beats per minute of 100 for the entire session.
I didn’t realize how much stress there was with atrial fibrillation happening. But after 8 days of continuous Afib, it feels extremely peaceful without it. It’s a very peaceful, easy feeling.
Today’s main workout was the 10,000 meters indoor rowing. There were also four 50 Calorie pieces on the SkiErg, each done at a pace of about 3:00 or slower and one supplemental rowing piece of a little more than 2,000 meters. But the only screenshots featured in this blog post are of the 10,000 meter session.
Finish screen for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Today was the eighth day in a row of continuous atrial fibrillation all day and all night. Last night I was awake all night. I did a lot of praying and thinking about God. It was just before sunrise when I finally got to sleep and then I slept until after noon.
For today’s workout: After a week of keeping the daily 10K rowing pace at 2:35.3, yesterday I decided to tweak it a little bit faster, to 2:35.2/500 meters. Atrial fibrillation continued.
Today, though atrial fibrillation was continuing, I decided to try tweaking the 10K rowing pace by another 1/10th second, to 2:35.1/500 meters. Heart rate seemed to get a bit more stable as the 10,000 meter session continued and by the time the 10K was completed, heart rate definitely seemed better though still not normal. An ECG reading was taken and it reported “INCONCLUSIVE” which means heart rate wasn’t normal but it wasn’t atrial fibrillation either.
After the 10K, I did a couple of supplementary 2,000 meter sessions. After the first of those two 2K sessions, heart rate returned to feeling normal and the ECG reading reported “SINUS RHYTHM” for the first time in 8 days.
Answered prayers? I’m thankful to God.
Report for today’s 10K.
Graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Report for one of the two supplementary 2,000 meter rowing sessions.
Finish screen view for today’s main piece of indoor rowing.
Yesterday a reader and fellow indoor rowing enthusiast commented and said he hopes I’ll continue blogging. So perhaps I will. But because it takes a lot of time, perhaps I’ll only post to this blog once in a while.
For days when I don’t post to this blog and if I do any rowing workouts, their data and graphs may be viewed at this link: my logbook at Concept 2.
For what seems like quite a while, I’ve been bothered by atrial fibrillation. A month ago (Christmas 2019) my wife gave me the gift of a book titled The Haywire Heart. When I opened the gift wrapping to discover that book inside, she remarked “You probably won’t like it.”
The focus of the book is about “How too much exercise can kill you and what you can do to protect your heart.” I looked through the book, read a few chapters and then told her that I liked it very much and that it is the best or one of the best Christmas presents she has ever given to me.
You would have to read the book yourself to appreciate it. It seems that if people indulge in too much high-intensity activity, a result can be that those people will develop atrial fibrillation or injure their hearts in other ways.
I have read somewhere that the most common cause of death for competitive rowers is heart failure.
If anyone has read the non-fiction book, “Born To Run,” by Christopher McDougall, the name “Caballo Blanco” is probably familiar as the name of one of the runners. Caballo Blanco’s name at birth was Micah True. He engaged in a lot of high-intensity, long duration running. And he died of heart failure.
So a simplistic way of summing up the message of the book, “The Haywire Heart” is that there can be too much of the good thing we call exercise. The challenge is to find out how much we can do before it is too much. 🙂
Some of the remedies or treatments for atrial fibrillation involve drugs, surgery and implanted devices which are connected to the heart. Some other possible solutions for atrial fibrillation involve “detraining” (reducing the duration and intensity of regular workouts) and discovering if the person is deficient in anything important such as iodide, magnesium or other things the body needs.
Enough of that for now. On to today’s workout: It consisted of a “detraining” session of 10,000 meters indoor rowing at 2:35.3/500 meters.
I started the “detraining” approach on December 31, 2019 by rowing 10,000 meters and ignoring pace while focusing only on heart rate and trying to keep heart rate at about 100 BPM. The average pace for that session turned out to be about 2:38/500 meters.
Since then, I’ve been rowing a 10,000 meter session daily and have increased the pace a bit. For the past few sessions I’ve been having atrial fibrillation before, during and after each session and so I have left the pace at 2:35.3/500 for each of those sessions and will only increase the pace by 1/10th of a second if and when the atrial fibrillation stops again.
A view of the finish screen for today’s main workout.
It’s been a long while since anything has been posted to this blog because though I’ve continued doing daily rowing and cross-country ski workouts, enthusiasm for blogging has greatly waned.
There have been many, many episodes of atrial fibrillation which have interfered with sleep and hampered working out at any sort of vigorous speed.
After a few too many days spoiled by atrial fibrillation, on the last day of 2019 I adopted the current approach to daily workouts:
On December 31st I was experiencing no atrial fibrillation before doing any workout. From past experience, it seemed that Afib would frequently be triggered by indulging in rowing hard or sprinting. So on Dec 31st I decided to try exploring how fast and hard I could row without triggering atrial fibrillation. My approach was to focus on heart rate that day and try to maintain heart rate at the very low rate of 100 BPM for 10,000 meters.
After that 10K was completed I noted what the average pace had been and rowed at a slightly faster average pace target for the next day’s 10,000 meters on the first day of 2020.
On January 2nd and each day from then until now, I’ve increased the pace by 1/10 second/500 meters faster than the day before, while carefully watching heart rate during each day’s 10,000 meter rowing session. If atrial fibrillation develops during any of those sessions or is happening when it is time for the next day’s 10K, then the target pace for the next day is not increased. But if there is no Afib connected with or following each day’s 10K, then the pace the next day will be increased by that 1/10th second per 500 meters.
Hopefully, this will have a positive effect on whatever has been messing up the heart rhythm.
Atrial fibrillation started during the last part of yesterday’s workouts and continued all night and was still doing its flutter-flutter dance in the chest at the start of today’s workouts, so pace for today’s 10,000 meter session was not increased. After about 17 minutes of today’s 10K, the atrial fibrillation disappeared, heart rate settled down to normal and remained normal for the rest of the 10K rowing session and for the approximately 20 minutes of workout on the SkiErg which immediately followed the rowing.
If I don’t post every day or even every month, don’t be surprised because with no evidence of or interaction with an audience of even one, I have almost no motivation to continue spending time with this blog.
Here are screenshots for today’s workouts:
Report for today’s 10K rowing.RowPro graphs for today’s 10K.
Concept 2 online logbook chart and data display for today’s 10K.
Concept 2 online logbook chart and data for today’s workout on the SkiErg.
Happy rowing to you, whether you have an audience or are all alone in your endeavors on the erg!
