Author: dad

Oiled The Chain

This is the kind of oil recommended by Concept 2 for occasional oiling of the chain on the rowing machine.

Today there was no rowing or SkiErg session, but I did oil the chain on the Concept 2 rowing machine. It doesn’t need to be done very often.

Today’s HRV morning readiness score continued to be good.
Last night’s sleep made up for the previous night’s insomnia, at 8 hours and 55 minutes logged.

Happy rowing to you.

Yesterday 400 Meters, Today 400 Less Than Yesterday

That’s right – yesterday I only worked out for 400 meters. It was, however, at RPE level 10. The 400 meters yesterday consisted of four 100 meter sprints on the Concept 2 SkiErg. Summary screenshot below:

Of the four 100 meter sessions, the lastest was the fastest at 22.8 seconds, so I included it in the Concept 2 Online Logbook World Rankings for 100 meters on a SkiErg. I placed second to last…
Second to last is …. better than last, but not by much!

As today’s title implies, there was no workout on rowing machine or SkiErg today. But… the daily EliteHRV readings and sleep log graphs were captured and those exciting screenshots are displayed below:

January 17, 2019 EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading
January 17th, 2019 logged 7 hours 10 minutes sleep in spite of a bout of insomnia.
Today (January 18, 2019) also had a good Morning Readiness reading.
Only logged 5 hours 20 minutes sleep on the morning of January 18th, after a longish bit of insomnia and the necessity to get out of bed with an alarm clock, to assist in keeping a doctor’s appointment for my better half.

Happy rowing to you!

A Little Of Each

Today’s workout consisted of 5,027 meters on the SkiErg followed by 5,027 meters on the rowing machine. All done indoors, of course.

Today’s EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading was okay for any workout, though the HRV score wasn’t as high as yesterday’s.

The day began with a green light from EliteHRV (see above) and a good night’s rest of 7 hours 40 minutes (see below)

The first of the two workout sessions was set up to be 10K on the SkiErg. That’s what yesterday’s SkiErg session was supposed to be also, but I quit that one yesterday after about 2 miles. Today I got further with it and quit today’s 10K on the SkiErg after a little over 3 miles, logging 5,027 meters.

So for today’s rowing session, I set the rowing machine for the exact same distance, 5,027 meters to compare results. You can see from the session reports that I went a lot faster, with a lower heart rate, rowing than SkiErg-ing.

For those who like to row-along or ski-along, screen recordings are available at the following two links: Indoor SkiErg 5027 meters 01162019 and: Indoor ROWING 5027 Meters 01162019

SkiErg session finish screen.
SkiErg session report.
SkiErg RowPro graph
Concept 2 Online logbook chart for SkiErg. The chart is messy with black lines because there were many false readings for strokes, with the SkiErg connected to RowPro.
Finish screen for rowing the 5,027 meter distance.
Today’s rowing report
Today’s rowing session RowPro graphs
The Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s rowing session is a lot cleaner looking than the SkiErg chart because it is displaying correct data for strokes and stroke rate.

Happy rowing to you!

Water Skiing On Digital River

This morning’s EliteHRV readiness reading was good, but the most remarkable thing was the HRV score of 54. This was the first time HRV score has ever been higher than mid 40s.
Last night’s sleep was interrupted by a long stretch of insomnia from about 2:30 to about 5:00 AM. One thing I did during that insomnia was to resort to an emWave2 device and breathe following its breath pacer, which resulted in a longest-ever “meditation” of 36 minutes in a state of “coherence”. I wonder if that was a factor in getting the higher-than-ever HRV reading with EliteHRV today?

Today’s main indoor rowing session was indoor skiing on a Concept 2 SkiErg. I connected it to RowPro for the sake of logging it and getting a bigger screen display of data. Since RowPro is only designed with rowing machines = boat avatars in mind, it looked like I was rowing a boat on the digital river. Something was going on with the stroke rate not translating well to the display and instead of displaying what should have been a stroke rate in the 20s or 30s, it was all over the place and very frequently displaying a false stroke rate of over 100 SPM. But the other data looked okay.

I preset the distance to 10,000 meters on the SkiErg, but by the time I reached between 2K and 3K I was breathing hard and sweating profusely, though my average pace was a mere 3:00 minutes/500m. So I guess it will take a lot of getting used to as an unfamiliar workout for my underused upper body.

Instead of going the full distance of 10K, I stopped skiing after about 2 miles, which was 3,250 meters. Since I’m brand new to the SkiErg, I started out with the lowest possible damper setting at 0 (zero) and that was a Drag Factor of about 51 according to the PM5.

I rated both the SkiErg 3250 meters and the rowing machine 1,000 meters as each RPE 5.

After the shortened session on the SkiErg I switched to the familiar Concept 2 Model D and rowed 1,000 meters plus a 750 meter warm down.

For those who’d like to row (or ski) along, the SkiErg session screen recording is here: Indoor Skiing 3250 meters 01152019 and the 1K rowing machine session screen recording is here: Indoor Rowing 1,000 meters 01152019

The SkiErg/RowPro finish screen after skiing 3,250 meters and calling it quits.
Finish screen view for the 1,000 meter piece.

Happy rowing to you!

A Text Message Invitation To Row

Do you check your email frequently or have notifications turned on so that your phone alerts you every time you receive a new email? I don’t. Too many emails. So the only time I know there’s new email is when I log in to the email account.

A problem with that, it turned out, was that once recently when one of my training partners wanted to do a rowing session online, I didn’t see his email until too late. So I told him that it would be okay if he wanted to send a text message for any scheduled online rowing sessions, to make sure I knew about them enough in advance to say yea or nay.

Today, he took me up on that and sent a text message. (Screenshot of that text message is at the top of this post.) About 40 minutes after his text, we were online and rowing an hour session together even though we are each located somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 miles away from each other. One of the nicer “wonders” of the internet. Even though it is “virtual” company when you row online with one or more other people, it makes the session a lot more enjoyable than rowing alone.

Today’s EliteHRV Morning Readiness analysis was that any kind of workout would be okay.
Plenty of sleep last night, at 7 hours 15 minutes.

So the main rowing done today was a 60 minute piece, online at a breezy pace which felt like RPE 2. A screen recording was made for those of you who’d like to have it to row-along with. It is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 60 mins online 01142019

After the 60 minute piece, I rowed a 4 minute session. Did that because I hadn’t yet rowed a 4 minute session this season and I thought it would be nice to put it in the rankings. It was done with a pace boat and a target pace of about 2:05. It felt like about RPE 4. A screen recording for rowing-along with it is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 4 minutes 01142019

Finish screen view of today’s 60 minutes online.
Finish screen view of today’s 4 minute piece.
There was only one brief moment of heart strangeness (Afib) today and it happened during the last half of the 4 minute session, where you can see a downward spike to zero in heart rate. That’s where heartbeat fluttered briefly, becoming irregular and the heart strap transmitter couldn’t provide a coherent signal to display.
Concept 2 online logbook chart of today’s 4 minute session.

Happy rowing to you!

Maybe Tomorrow

Not as good as yesterday, but still a very good EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading today.

Though HRV reading (above) was good and sleep (below) was likewise, there was no rowing done here today. 🙂

6 hours 50 minutes sleep last night seemed quite sufficient.

Happy rowing to you!

Heart Strangeness In Uncharted Territory

This morning’s EliteHRV Readiness reading was optimal for any kind of rowing…

Today began with a good HRV reading, so there were no restrictions regarding rowing. Also, it followed a good night’s sleep, which was another plus.

Seven hours and forty minutes of good quality sleep last night.

Today’s indoor rowing consisted of two sessions. First, a one minute session which was done just for the sake of putting anything in the rankings for the 1 minute sprint category. Second, was a longer session of 8,224 meters, which was done just for the sake of logging more calories for a current Concept 2 challenge.

The one minute session was preceded by a 750 meter warmup and followed by a 750 meter warm down. The one minute sprint was done with a target pace that would rank me at about the lower 25% of those who had ranked 1 minute sessions to date. That was a pace target of about 1:49/500 meters. I didn’t want to row any faster than that, because the warm up was too short and I wouldn’t really be warmed up enough for an all-out 60 second sprint.

After the one minute sprint was finished, I did an easy 750 meter warm down and that is when the “heart strangeness” happened. It felt like a bit of fluttering and heart rate spiked and remained higher than it should have been for the easy warm down pace. Another strange thing about that strange heart rate behavior during the warm down was that when it spiked, it spiked up to 150 BPM, which is exactly as high as heart rate managed to climb, before the ultra-short 1 minute sprint was finished. Was that a coincidence? Or was that the heart’s way of saying it wanted to sprint for longer than one minute? One minute wasn’t enough indulgence in sprinting? The heart is eager, and “rarin’ to go” racing?

That “strangeness” happened in uncharted territory, because the warm down was tacked on to the 1 minute RowPro session and RowPro does not include tacked-on warmups or warm downs in its charts for the main session report. Below is a screenshot of what heart rate looked like when it spiked during the warm down.

Heart rate had been in the mid- to low-120s during the warmdown, until abour 426 meters remaining, when it spiked up to 150 even though rowing effort remained at a constant, easy level.

A screen recording was made of the entire 1 minute session including its warmup and warm down, so if you view the screen recording, you can see how it acted in real-time on the RowPro screen. The one minute session screen recording is here: Indoor Rowing 1 minute sprint 01122019

For those of you who’d like to row-along with it, a screen recording was also made of the 8,224 meter session and it is available at this link: Indoor rowing 8224 meters 01122019

After the warm down following the 1 minute sprint, I thought I’d have to stop rowing for the rest of the day, but within a few minutes the Afib went away and heart behavior returned to normal, so I did the 8224 meter session in order to bring the day’s total to 10,000 meters and burn a few more calories.

Finish screen for 1 minute sprint.
Finish screen for 8224 meter session.

Happy rowing to you!

That Puzzling HRV

An unexpectedly unbalanced HRV analysis today. There were no artifacts to potentially “skew” the results, so I have to take it at face value.

Today’s EliteHRV morning readiness reading was expected to be good but it was not. Plenty of sleep last night at 7 hours 45 minutes. No rowing done today.

A good night’s sleep (7 hours 45 minutes) with little in the way of interruptions. Does that mean I was especially tired and there is something lurking beneath the “face value” of today’s poor EliteHRV morning readiness reading??

Happy rowing to you!

Worst Ever HRV!

On the brink of death or what? This morning was the worst reading I’ve ever had.

Yes, this morning’s EliteHRV reading was the WORST EVER reading since I’ve been taking the daily Morning Readiness reading. But I ended up discarding it, because though my actual HRV reading might have been poor, it also might have been good… the results were skewed and basically worthless because there were too many data glitches. See additional screenshot below, for what EliteHRV said about today’s reading.

The “artifacts” were due to the fact that I was having a little bout of heart flutter AKA atrial fibrillation.
I got plenty of sleep last night, at 8 hours and 20 minutes. But you can see that heart rate was elevated from about 5:30 AM through the entire remaining time of last night’s sleep – that’s when the heart fluttering happened.

Other than the fluttering heart, I felt okay. It stopped fluttering around midday and I decided to row late in the afternoon, at a moderate pace.

Today’s rowing session was 17,000 meters done for the sake of burning calories. The hope was to burn at least 1,000 calories and that goal was almost reached, with a total of 988 or 989 calories. (The finish screen reported 988 calories and the report says 989 calories).

A screen recording was made for those of you who like to have it to row along with. It is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 17000 meters 01092019

Today’s finish screen

Happy rowing to you!