Mentally absorbing workout – Page 12

A Three Alarm HRV Reading

A picture of last night’s insomnia. Heart rate is plotted with red dots which are heart rate samples once about every 10 minutes. Heart rate is not plotted for the period when I was awake with insomnia.

Last night, I had a few hours of insomnia. One result was that I didn’t get back to sleep until about 05:00 a.m. This morning was a day when it was necessary to rise early, to take care of a weekly, early morning chore.

I always set at least 3 wake-up alarms, in case there is a malfunction with one or two of them. The first one sounded and I reached up from deep under the surface of an ocean of sleep and shut it off. Same with the second one and I was slightly more awake, but lay back down and closed my eyes to drift back to sleep. It took the third alarm, to get me up out of bed, but I felt awful.

So after completing the chore, I considered whether to go back to bed or stay up. I went back to bed, but despite being very tired, could not go back to sleep. So I got up, and took the daily EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading. It was the worst reading I’ve seen yet. A fruit of a bad night’s sleep? I rowed briskly yesterday, but neither terribly hard nor long..

Today’s EliteHRV Readiness reading after a three-alarm wake-up.

Whatever the reason, I limited myself to only easy, leisurely rowing today. The main rowing session was 10,000 meters at a low heart rate pace.

A screen recording was made for those who want to row-along. It is located on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing Leisurely 10K 12182018

Finish screen for main 10K portion of today’s rowing.

Happy rowing to you.

The Fruits Of A Half Marathon

Two days after doing a half marathon, EliteHRV calculated that I had the best Morning Readiness score since starting to use the app!

One fruit of the Dec 15th half marathon is displayed in the screenshot above, which shows the best Morning Readiness reading I’ve had so far since using EliteHRV. It came two days later and I think it is one result of the half marathon effort.

A second fruit was improved sleep. The above chart shows last night’s sleeping heart rate. Though it seemed to me like it was good sleep, you can’t tell much of anything about the quality of sleep from that chart. But – this morning I received a notification and “inquiry” from my sleep logging app about my sleep the prior night, immediately following the half marathon. (see screenshot below)

Its analysis reports that sleep quality for the previous day’s sleep period (the night immediately following the half marathon) was “higher than is typical” and it presented a couple dozen possible reasons, asking me to check off “all that apply” to that improved sleep quality, so as to contribute to its cause-and-effect analysis. The only one I checked was exercise, because the half marathon was the only thing out of the ordinary, since it’s 21,097 meters had been about 5 times my average daily volume so far this season and about double my recent several weeks’ daily volume.

“The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much…” Ecclesiastes 5:12

Since today’s EliteHRV “Morning Readiness” reading said it was okay to train harder today, I decided to do another 10,000+ meters, arranged as a 10 minute warmup, a 6,000 meter piece at a target pace of 2:06/500 meters and a 10 minute warm down.

For those of you who’d like to row along with it, a screen recording is available on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 6K at 2min 6secs 12172018

Happy rowing to you.

10K Recovery With An Easter Egg

Today’s heart rate variability reading was the surprise you see in the above screenshot. Last night’s sleep was interrupted with insomnia but the total time sleeping was adequate. (see screenshot below)

A bout of insomnia interrupted last night’s sleep between 2 and 4 a.m.

Assuming the analysis and advice of EliteHRV was correct, I chose to do a recovery 10K. “Recovery” is relative and subjective, but a pace of 2:20 seemed like a good compromise, pending what the HRV result will be tomorrow.

So the 10K was done at a target average pace of 2:20 and an “Easter egg,” as a computer programmer might call it, was inserted when the distance counted down to 1,150 meters remaining.

A screen recording was made for those of you who’d like to row along with today’s 10K. It’s link is on YouTube here: Indoor Rowing 10K with Easter egg 12162018

Happy rowing to you.

Clearing Out The Cobwebs With A Half Marathon

Finish screen view of the half marathon portion of today’s rowing.

Sleep was good and more than adequate last night (see image below) almost 8 hours…

But the EliteHRV morning readiness score still refused to climb out of the “sympathetic” zone or higher than 7. (see image below)

So, I concluded that it may be as good as its going to get(?) and decided to be happy with 7. Its a good number.

Today’s indoor rowing session was a half marathon with a simple plan. The plan was to aim for and maintain an average pace of 2:14.4/500m until the distance counted down to 500 meters remaining. When there were 500 meters remaining, the hope was to row faster to the finish line, depending on how I felt by then.

I felt okay, so somewhere during the final 500 meters, I decided to pick up the pace enough to aim for an overall average pace of 2:14.0.

There was a 750 meter warmup before the HM and a 1K warm down afterwards.

Happily, the heart behaved itself and wasn’t a spoilsport today.

For those of you who pay attention to the blog post categories: I’m going to stop using the categories of Easy Workout, Medium Workout, Medium Hard Workout and Hard Workout. Instead of those four categories, I’ll use one of 10 categories of RPE, which stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. Today’s session is categorized as Rate of Perceived Exertion 3 (refer to chart below). Because I was breathing easy (not “breathing heavily”) during 98.5% of today’s half marathon, it is categorized as RPE 3.

For those of you who’d like to row along with this session, a screen recording was uploaded to this link: Indoor Rowing Half Marathon 12152018

Happy rowing to you.

Previous 10K Redux But Better

Today’s score is the same as yesterday’s, though I got more sleep and HR is one BPM lower, so perhaps sleep and HR aren’t influencers of the score.

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.

Last night’s sleep seemed slightly better quality and definitely was longer than the previous night’s.

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.

Weathering The Stormy Heart

Notice, that though the needle is in the green area of relative balance, it is also in the “sympathetic” area, which is the “fight or flight” mode for the nervous system.

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?

10 1/2 hours of actual sleep last night erased all of the recently acquired sleep debt.

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.

Sleep Issues Complicate Things

The HRV Morning Readiness score got a little worse today.

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.

The big empty space in the graph of last night’s sleeping heart rate is the period during which there was no sleep. Only about 3 hours 25 minutes of sleep logged.

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.

EliteHRV Says Its A Recovery Day

**For 3 days, I’ve been taking daily HRV readings with the EliteHRV app. Today it is advising recovery.**

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.

A Variety Of 7 Intervals

Today’s indoor rowing started with a vague inclination to row 10K at an average pace of 2:09 for 9500 meters and then row faster during the last 500 meters of that 10K. But I seemed to have plenty of energy at the start and so I rowed at a pace faster than 2:09. After about 8 minutes, I decided to change the plan and do some intervals of varying times and paces.

The 10K was preceded and followed by 1K warmup/down.

A screen recording for those of you who’d like to row along with it will be available a few hours from now at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K with 7 intervals 12092018

Concept 2 online logbook chart of today’s 10K.

Happy rowing to you.

A Quartet Of 8 Minute Intervals In A 10K

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

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K.

Happy rowing to you.