Today’s indoor rowing started out the same way as each of the previous two days’ sessions: I set the distance for a half marathon and rowed for an hour. But today I kept rowing the entire distance and finished all 21,097 meters.
For inspiration, I watched an amateur (very, very amateur) GoPro video of a marathon. It managed to supply enough inspiration, after I’d been rowing for an hour, that I wanted to finish the distance.
I don’t know what was inspiring about it, but it did seem to make a difference and I wanted to keep going after an hour, instead of quitting like I’d done yesterday and the day before.
Today I tried to use a different heart rate monitor strap with the Apple Watch. It is called the Wahoo TICKR. It was advertised and described as working with both Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ devices. The Apple Watch is Bluetooth 4.0 and it would pair with the watch but it wouldn’t work with the Concept 2 rowing machine’s monitor, the PM3, which is ANT+. So I downloaded the Wahoo utility to test it and it said that to test the ANT+, I needed a “Wahoo key”. After a bit more research, I found that it was not true that the Wahoo TICKR works with both Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ devices… unless a person gets another device, for about $50, called a Wahoo Key. The latter device will plug in to the bottom of an older style iPhone (not a newer iPhone like mine, which has a Lightning connector) and it will convert the Bluetooth signal data into an ANT+ signal and then re-broadcast it so that the PM3 or anything else that is listening for an ANT+ signal can use it.
So the bottom line is the Wahoo TICKR won’t work with the PM3 monitor on the rowing machine because it just doesn’t work as advertised and implied in its description supplied to Amazon (which is where I got it). It is on its way back to Amazon. I will just have to be satisfied with the Apple Watch’s built-in HR detector and a separate HR strap to supply a signal to the PM3. The fact that the Wahoo TICKR will no longer work as advertised with the newer iPhones is probably the reason Apple no longer carries it in stock if you check the online Apple Store app.
Here’s today’s rowing screenshots and results:
Happy discovery of inspiration to keep on rowing, to you.