Today’s indoor rowing was done on earth, the best planet for that activity. The above photo might at first glance resemble a Martian landscape, but at second glance it can be seen to be infinitely more lush than any landscape ever photographed of Mars. It is a view of some unknown location in the Sonora desert.
The atmosphere where I did my rowing was indoors, so it wasn’t as fresh as any outdoors atmosphere in the Sonora desert, but it was fresh enough and far more oxygen-rich than the hostile-to-humans Martian atmosphere.
Today’s rowing was 10,000 meters done online but alas alone. It was followed by another 5 minutes of supplemental rowing for the sake of a few more meters.
After doing the rowing, I glanced at one of the new features in the Apple Watch (photo and screen shot above) for the heart rate recovery display. I don’t know what use, if any, to make of it yet, but from what little I’ve read about it, the steeper the angle of decline for the graph of recovery heart rate during the first two minutes after a workout is logged as “done” on the watch, the better. Of course, it would seem to depend on how hard or easy a person had been working out in that workout, so I don’t know if there is a chance of comparing apples to oranges by looking at the heart rate recovery results after workouts of different intensities and duration.
Some of the things I did for fun were to aim for an almost constant, gradually increasing pace and heart rate, with a maximum heart rate target today of around 130. Some other things I did for fun, were to close my eyes and count the strokes until an estimated 1,000 meters had passed. That was done about ten times, so I rowed with my eyes closed most of the time. If other rowers had been rowing with me, I would have watched their avatars to see their stroke rate and watched their numbers for distance separation and pace, on the right of the screen. But nobody else joined, as I’ve already said… so I rowed with my eyes closed and spent a fair amount of time flying through the ethereal realm of thoughts.
Happy non-Martian rowing to you.