This is a photo of a snail because I felt a sluggish kinship with snails today.
Today was a low energy day but I did manage to include some time on both SkiErg and rowing machine. The sessions and their chronological order were: 2,331 meters warmup on SkiErg at 2:48 pace, 1,000 meter time trial on SkiErg at 1:59.1 pace, 324 meter SkiErg warm down, 5,107 meters on rowing machine which started out with the goal of 10K but I got tired and quit and finally a 1,510 meter session on the rowing machine which started out as a distance session of 4893 meters (the balance of the original 10K) but I got tired and quit that one also.
Screenshot from my Concept 2 online logbook, showing summary listing of today’s SkiErg and rowing erg sessions. The 1K SkiErg session is highlighted because it was a personal best on the SkiErg and ranked in the online world rankings.
Above is a summary listing of today’s sessions. The only screen shot of today’s charts and data is for the 1,000 meter time trial. It was done at RPE Level 8 and everything else was at RPE Level 1.
Chart and data for today’s 1,000 meter SkiErg time trial, the high point of today’s workouts.
Finish screen for today’s 1K rowing session. Notice how much lower heart rate was at today’s finish than yesterday’s finishing heart rate of 192.
Today’s workouts had orderly heart behavior compared to yesterday. The workouts were: a SkiErg session of 182 Calories, a rowing session of 1,000 meters at 2:4.7/500 meters and a super-slow 10K rowing session with average pace of 3:26 including a couple of breaks.
A little chaos is part of the spice of life and is probably so by divine design. But today’s measure of chaos seemed a bit too much. Today’s workout was bothered by excessive chaos of the heart, which has been assigned the medical label “paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.”
If I hadn’t been wearing a heart strap while using the Concept 2 ergs, I might not have noticed it, because it felt a little fluttery but nothing I would notice if my mind was focused elsewhere such as on some physical activity, reading a book, playing a game etc.
But I was wearing a heart strap and its display showed that the little fluttery feeling was correlated with heart rate being too high. When it was regular enough to be displayed. The rest of the time, heart rate was not displayed and unknown.
Today’s plan was for there to be 3 workout sessions. The first was going to be 181 Calories on the SkiErg at a pace of 2:21. But because heart rate was climbing much too high for the effort level, I cut the first session short after 80 calories and took a break, so heart rate could settle. Heart rate didn’t settle, so I did the remainder of the SkiErg workout as a 100 Calorie session, at 2:21 pace. Those two sessions added up to the day’s goal of 181 Calories on the SkiErg.
The rowing workout was a pair of sessions: The first one was the moderately fun session: 1,000 meters at 2:06. The second rowing session was 10,000 meters at an extremely slow pace while I watched a documentary I wanted to see about purifying water.
During both rowing sessions heart rate was very irregular. Other than that, everything was normal. By “everything was normal,” I mean that if I’d talked with a cardiologist about it, as I have about previous episodes of “heart strangeness,” there would have been questions such as “did you feel any chest pains, tightness or shortness of breath?” My answer would have been “No, I was breathing very easy, virtually the same as if I’d not been working out.” None of the workouts done today were hard enough and/or long enough to even make me sweat.
The only session recorded for my YouTube channel today was the 1K. That 1,000 meter session was recorded for those of my 19 subscribers (at last count) and others who would like to row along with it. It is available as a screen recording on YouTube at: Indoor Rowing 1000 meters at 2min 6sec pace 07202019
Chart and data for first of today’s 2-part SkiErg session.
Chart and data for second of today’s 2-part SkiErg session.
Finish screen for today’s moderate 1,000 meter rowing session.
Report for today’s moderate 1,000 meter rowing session. The rowing effort was moderate and breathing was easy but heart rate was excessively high.
Chart showing erratic and excessively high heart rate during today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Chart for the extremely slow 10K rowing session done today while I watched and listened to a documentary. Heart rate was so erratic that most of the time it wasn’t displayed.
Finish screen for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Today’s longest session was the approximately 15 minutes it took to burn 180 Calories at a pace of 2:22 per 500 meters on the SkiErg. Today’s most fun session was the shortest one, which was 1,000 meters at a “notch” faster pace than the previous day’s 1,000 meter ranked session.
The 1K rowing session was uploaded to YouTube for those of you who’d like to use it for rowing along with. To add a non-sequitur here: with every word I type and every sentence that is inserted here, I’m wondering if it will pass the test of being scanned by the local household grammarian and spelling expert. She adds an element of stress, but it’s probably a healthy variety of stress.
Finish screen for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.
Today’s total available workout time was too little, so one of the workouts had to be shortened. The one chosen was the rowing session. It was limited to 1K, but a little compensation was made by increasing the pace to 2:08. The SkiErg session was the same progression as recently. I added one to yesterday’s Calorie goal and subtracted one second/500 meters from the pace belonging to yesterday’s pace target.*
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing session. Gertrude is in the yellow boat.
Today the decision was made to discontinue the 7-day series of 10Ks and increase the pace of today’s 10K from the 2:14 pace which was only done in one session (yesterday’s session) to a bit faster 2:13 / 500 meters.
A pace boat was used to help me maintain a constant pace from start to finish. I gave the name Gertrude to the avatar of the female rower in the pace boat.
The most notable thing about today’s rowing session wasn’t the pace boat or it’s lovely female rower, however. The most notable thing was the lack of any heart strangeness. The reason I was so impressed with the good behavior of my heart today was because of what I was watching on another monitor while rowing today’s 10K.
The other monitor was playing a YouTube recording of an online 10K I rowed on September 30th, 2018. That particular 10K was done at an overall average pace of 2:14.2/500 meters which was slower than today’s average pace of 2:13.0/500 meters. But my heart rate was a LOT higher on Sept 30 of last year than it was in today’s 10K. So it appears that the heart is functioning better now than it was a year ago in September. I wonder if it is related to my significantly improving A1C score?? When the A1 C score improves, the red blood cells become smaller, closer to the size they should be. Could it be that larger red blood cells are more difficult for the heart to pump?
There were differences in the approach to the 10K on Sept 30, 2018: I started out faster and tried to maintain a pace of about 2:08 on that day. But by the time the distance counted down to less than 3,000 meters I could hear myself, on the recording audio track, breathing very hard. At 2,800 meters, I was struggling for breath and finally threw in the figurative towel. I finished that Sept 30, 2018 10K, but at an extremely slow pace.
Today’s workout also included a session on the SkiErg which was 178 Calories at a pace of 2:24/500 meters.
The past 25 days since I’ve been refraining from doing any intervals or speed work have been relatively boring. There was one, isolated 30 second sprint on the SkiErg a few days ago. But other than that for the last 25 days it’s been mostly constant pace on the rowing machine and likewise on the SkiErg.
The current constant pace regimen is an experiment. I’m wondering if the frequent intervals had been a factor in episodes of “heart strangeness” (atrial fibrillation etc). Since refraining from doing any intervals, heart behavior has been 99.9% normal. Heart behavior was normal today too, but the “Heart Strangeness” category is added to this post, because the subject is being mentioned.
Rowing is fun but and maintaining a constant pace isn’t as easy as it sounds. It takes mental focus. But rowing intervals is a lot more fun. However, I will continue being patient and allow more time before including some intervals again.
Today’s workouts featured the last 10K in a series of 7 at a constant pace of 2:15. Also there was a SkiErg workout targeting 176 Calories at a constant pace of 2:26.
The next 10K will be a constant pace but at 2:14 pace. I haven’t decided yet whether to do a series of seven 10Ks at that 2:14 pace. Currently, I’m leaning toward something else instead of a series of seven 2:14 rowing sessions at constant pace.
Stay tuned…
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session.
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing session.
Chart and data for today’s 176 Calorie SkiErg session.
Happy rowing to you!
*To give credit where credit is due, the shirt pictured above was found on a website called TeeShirt21. The website has quite a few other interesting shirts relating to rowing.
I very seldom get comments. There have been a few, very few, comments but the only ones lately have been in Russian. When I use Google translator to render the Russian into some resemblance to English, they turn out to be spam which I won’t dignify with a description.
Comments welcome, but only if they are on a topic shared by this blog (indoor rowing or the SkiErg, etc). No Russian spoken here, though.
Today’s workouts were two: A 10K rowing session, the 6th in a series of 7 at a pace of 2:14. Also there was a SkiErg session which had as its goal 175 Calories at a pace of 2:27.
It’s late at night, 22:00 local time and I’m wondering how quickly this blog post can be posted. Here goes…
Today’s erg workouts were: 10K rowing at a constant average pace of 2:15. This was the 5th in a series of seven 10Ks to be done at that pace. Also there was a SkiErg session, same as yesterday’s except that one more Calorie was added to the session goal and the target pace was increased by -1 second per 500 meters.
