Today’s workout time was spent with about 3K each on Row and Ski ergs, followed by about 30 minutes of Zwift, riding this route: Yorkshire, Duchy Estate. There seemed to be some kind of a race happening but the non-racers like myself didn’t disturb it.
Happy erging to you.
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:
Happy rowing to you, whether you have an audience or are all alone in your endeavors on the erg!
Today started with a very poor HRV analysis by the EliteHRV app and today’s workouts were both blah.
They were blah, because atrial fibrillation happened throughout. Not only did the heart go flutter-flutter, but it also went way too fast for the low effort level. I thought that maybe it would “straighten up and fly right,” before the end of the 10K rowing or the SkiErg session but it didn’t. Hopefully, it will straighten up today or tonight.
But on the BRIGHT SIDE: Though both rowing and SkiErg workouts were very moderate, at least I was able to work up a bit of a sweat. Eventually… it took quite a while, but eventually, sweat happened during the rowing session and continued, through the SkiErg session. The sweat was not profuse, by any means, but it was drippy like proper, respectable sweat should be.
Happy rowing to you.
Though the HRV score yesterday was excellent and I took it easy, today’s HRV score was worse than yesterday’s! I’m missing something here… unless this morning’s lower HRV score was due to last night’s sleep? (See caption of image below)
Because of the poor HRV reading this morning, I only did easy rowing. The goal for today’s rowing was to total at least 1,000 calories, for the Big Burn Challenge (see image below)
Today’s goal of burning at least 1,000 calories while rowing easy was achieved with two pieces: A 10K followed by a 7,700 meter piece. There was a screen recording made of the 7,700 meter piece, for those of you who’d like to row along with it. It is located at this link: Indoor Rowing 7700 meters 01072019
It is now almost 6 hours since today’s easy rowing was finished. When I do “easy rowing,” it is only done by feel. It seemed that 2:20 felt easy, so I aimed for 2:20 and did each of today’s pieces near that pace. But I’m surprised that now, 6 hours later, I’m feeling slight soreness from the rowing! This isn’t “normal”. Is it because I’m “getting old”? or is it because I’m fighting off some kind of bug?
Perhaps the HRV reading tomorrow morning will shed some light on the answer to that question?
Happy rowing to you!
Today’s two main training signals, amount of sleep and EliteHRV morning readiness reading were both “GO” for it being okay to row as hard and long as I wanted. But my body/and or mind felt reluctant. Where exactly is the dividing line between mind and body? Each hugely influences the other…
But when I sat down to row, I couldn’t seem to find the accelerator pedal. So I took it easy, sampled a few YouTube videos on the topic of using HRV with training and watched two of those videos in their entirety.
The second of those two videos was titled “Heart Rate Variability Training & Grouse Grind // Vlog 001” and it sort of fit with what I was wrestling with, which was whether to push myself to row vigorously or to take it easy. I decided to not take the advice of the EliteHRV app and to do just a little bit of easy rowing. The guy in the video also did not take the advice of his HRV app, only in his case the app told him to take it easy and rest. Instead, he climbed a mountain. The next day, his HRV score had greatly improved. So it makes you wonder about HRV – there’s more to the picture than just the HRV reading, it seems. I’m curious how my HRV reading will react to my having taken it easy today?
There were no screen recordings made of any of today’s rowing pieces. It doesn’t work well, to make a screen recording of a rowing session while watching YouTube videos…
Here’s a summary list of today’s lackadaisical rowing:
Happy rowing to you!
Because today’s EliteHRV reading is the same as yesterday’s, I won’t row a half marathon today and will choose a shorter distance than half marathon and an easy pace. The hope is, that I’ll eventually have an HRV morning readiness score that reads somewhere in the green, like it does this morning, but also in the “Parasympathetic” zone. However… I don’t know yet if that is either desirable or necessary.
So the decision is: Today I will row 10,000 meters again at the same target of steady, average pace of 2 minutes 15 seconds per 500 meters. But first I’d like some coffee…
The rowing is done and it went almost as hoped, with two exceptions: (1) Heart rate was a little higher than expected for the amount of rest (no rowing yesterday) and sleep (7 1/2 hours last night). Perhaps I need more than an average of 7 hours sleep per night?? (2) There were a few skipped heartbeats and two instances where Afib lasted a few seconds, during each of which the heart rate display went to zero on RowPro software display.
The coffee was very good. Ground from fresh beans, full-strength caffeine level (instead of the “half-caff” variety I’d been having which had 50% of normal caffeine).
So anyway… those two un-hoped for things were the only less than desirable observations during the rowing session. Other than that, everything was fine. Could it be that the higher caffeine level of today’s delicious coffee was what led to slightly higher heart rate than the same 10K rowed two days ago?
For those who’d like to row along with the session, a screen recording is available at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K Redux only Better 12142018
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s HRV readiness reading says harder training is okay. But it is still in the “Sympathetic” zone. A bit of ambiguity/uncertainty there, it seems. Because of that ambiguity, the question: Row harder today? Or easier?
The biggest factor which helped improve the Morning Readiness score today was probably sleep. I was able to sleep in and got about 10 1/2 hours total sleep, which completely erased all the recent sleep debt.
So after careful though HRV-reading-inexperienced consideration, my decision is to row a session similar to the recovery sessions of yesterday and the day before yesterday, but to row today’s session at a pace which will be a mere 1 second per 500 meters faster than yesterday’s. The total calorie and Wattage difference between yesterday’s and today’s should be small? We shall see. Now… I’m off to do the rowing and will return to compose and publish the remainder of this blog post afterwards…
Afterwards – The title of this post was relating to HRV before today’s rowing session was done. But during the last 2000 meters of today’s 10K, the heart started acting up, so I deleted the original title and gave it the one you see at the top now.
By the time I’d rowed about the first 8,000 meters, heart rate was lower than at the same point in yesterday’s 10K. I thought that was good news which could be credited to more rest and an improved HRV score for “Morning Readiness”. But things got stormy during the last 2,000 meters. Heart rhythm got so erratic that it sometimes disappeared from HR display. I could feel it flit and flutter in my chest. Other than those two symptoms, I felt the same in every respect. And since I REALLY WANTED to finish the 10K with an average pace of 2:15, I kept on rowing.
Today’s rowing session was screen-recorded for those of you who’d like to row along with it. It’s link will be available in about three hours from now (the current time is 03:45 GMT on Dec 13th) at about 06:45 GMT on Dec 13th, according to the uploading predictor, at this location: Indoor Rowing 10K Through the Storm 12122018
Happy rowing to you.
The influence of yesterday’s target heart rate choice of recovery session rowing is unknown, because sleep issues last night probably had a larger negative influence on HRV than anything else.
After writing the above few words, I had to dash off to jury duty.
I assumed it would last all day and prevent any rowing. But whoever was going to be put on a trial-by-jury decided to plead guilty. So the trial wasn’t necessary and my jury duty only amounted to answering roll call, filling out a form and listening to informational talks. It only lasted half a day, allowing rowing in the afternoon.
Today’s rowing was very similar to yesterday’s, except instead of using a target heart rate as the goal, I aimed for an average pace of steady-state effort at 2:16.0/500 meters. That average pace was 7/10 of a second faster than yesterday’s average pace, but heart rate today was lower, at 128 BPM average, compared to yesterday’s higher heart rate of 131 at a slower average pace than today.
So today’s recovery 10K should have seemed slightly easier to the body than yesterday’s 10K. If I can get a lot more than 3 1/2 hours sleep tonight, then perhaps tomorrow’s EliteHRV Morning Readiness Score will improve.
Once the EliteHRV Morning Readiness Score moves back up into the green zone that indicates I’ve recovered, then I will do harder rowing again to push it back to the yellow zone.
For those of you who’d like to row-along with today’s 10K, a screen recording was made and it will be available in about three hours from now on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K with target PACE 12112018
Happy rowing to you.
Before today’s rowing: I was actually happy to see the YELLOW – CAUTION indication for today’s “Morning Readiness” because yesterday and the day before yesterday I deliberately did some harder rowing than has been typical for two days in a row, to see if the reading would react accordingly on the EliteHRV app.
Happily, it seems to be doing what I hoped it would do. I feel fine this morning, but Heart Rate Variability shows that I’ve dipped into the “sympathetic” or “fight or flight” mode for the nervous system.
So I have a choice to either take it easy and recover today, or do another harder rowing session and see if tomorrow’s reading dips further into the Sympathetic zone. I’m tempted to row another session like yesterday’s and see if the reading will move further in the Sympathetic direction. But then again… I’d also like to see if it responds to a recovery day by moving back into the Green of the Parasympathetic.
Decision is: make this a recovery day with some Overdistance rowing. Without a training partner to set the pace today, I’ll have to make the choice myself. There are so many different ways to calculate what is the “ideal” effort level for recovery rowing. But the rowing I’m doing is definitely not an exact science so I will just choose a target heart rate zone which seems moderate and maintain rowing effort to keep HR in that zone once it climbs high enough to reach that zone.
I will aim for a slow climb toward a target heart rate of 133 BPM, plus or minus 5 beats. So that will be from 128 to 138. If tomorrow’s Morning Readiness gets back into the green, I’ll know that the approach and that particular HR zone was good for recovery.
After today’s rowing: So today’s rowing is done. It was 10K with a target heart rate of 133 BPM. A screen recording was made and it is in the process of uploading to YouTube now. In a few hours, it will be available for rowing-along-with, at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K Recovery 12102018
Happy rowing to you.
Today’s indoor rowing was 11K arranged as a 1K warmup followed by the main session, which was a continuous 10K.
The pace of the 10K varied periodically, starting with a faster pace for the first 8 minutes, then 4 minutes at around 2:45/500m and that 8 minute faster/4 minute slower arrangement repeated another 3 times. The indoor rowing shorthand for the arrangement and sequence is: 4×8 minute R4 minute.
The intervals were announced and timed with a GymBoss Interval Timer. I got mine directly from gymboss.com but you can also find them on walmart.com and elsewhere.
A screen recording was made of the session. The screen recording is available for those of you who’d like to row along with it, at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K with 4X8 min 12082018
Happy rowing to you.