The view from where I sat while warming up after today’s morning workout.
Today’s workout was done all in one session, almost first thing in the morning after getting out of bed. The idea was to get it over with. The session was 11,490 meters on the rowing machine. The distance of 11,490 meters was my daily average distance for the previous rowing season and it was chosen as this season’s minimum daily distance.
Afterwards I felt chilly so I poured a cup of coffee and went outside to warm up. The outdoor temperature was 102 F in the shade (38.9 C) but I wanted even more heat than that, so I unlocked the back door of the truck and climbed inside to sit with the cup of coffee and then closed the door. It was quite a bit warmer in the truck, since the truck was sitting in the sunshine.
It felt very nice and toasty warm like a sauna. By the time the coffee was gone I was warmed up and went back into the house.
Any of the other workouts can be seen via this: link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for that session.
Today was a deliberately low-energy rowing day, as most days have been since I began the “detraining” in January of this year.
The day’s workout time was divided into 9 sessions totaling 11,490 meters, which is the current minimum daily quota. The main session was not the longest but it was at a degree of higher energy than most of the rest. It was 4 minutes rowing with a target pace of 1:58.7. I overshot the pace a bit and ended with an average pace of 1:58.6.
I didn’t anticipate that the pace of 1:58.7/500m for a mere 4 minutes would bother my heart, but it seemed to be the trigger for a few hours of atrial fibrillation. The Afib cleared up a few hours later when I did about 20 minutes of easy rowing to finish the day’s workout quota.
If you look at the red line for heart rate in the screen shot of the graph (below) for the 4 minute piece, you can see that heart rate wasn’t charting where it should have been. Atrial fibrillation seems to confuse the electronics of the heart strap and make messy, non-sensical heart rate graphs.
Screen shot of the Concept2.com online logbook chart and some data for today’s 4 minute rowing piece.
If you are curious about any of the other workouts I’ve done since the previous post on June 4th, all data and “live” graphs can be seen via this: link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for that session.
One definition of the word “detrain” means to disembark from a train, but I’m using a different meaning of that word in the context of this blog…
It’s been 23 days since the previous blog post, but who’s counting? Between today and 23 days ago, there have been 34 attempts to post spam messages into comments and zero actual comments from real people and that’s the only publicity those spammers will get because their spam goes directly into the trash.
Speaking of trash, there have been a lot of trashy looking heart rate graphs for many of the workout sessions during the past 23 days. But there have also been a few nice looking graphs during that period. One of today’s workouts, a moderate paced 6K rowing session, had one of those nice looking graphs. By “nice looking,” I simply mean that the heart was behaving normally instead of going into atrial fibrillation.
This month is the sixth month of my effort to “detrain” my heart by working out at effort levels that are much lower than I had been doing before the atrial fibrillation started to become a big problem. So far, it seems to be helping and that is a bit surprising because I have no guidelines to follow and don’t really know what I’m doing except that I’m “taking it easy” with regard to using the rowing machine and SkiErg.
One of the workouts done today was a 6K rowing piece with a target pace of something a little faster than 2:20/500m. It went well and a screen shot of the results is below.
Screenshot view of today’s 6,000 meter rowing session. There were 7 sessions today but this was the main one.
If you are curious about any of the other workouts I’ve done in the past 23 days, all data and “live” graphs can be seen via this: link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for that session.
The only other news that comes to mind with regard to this blog is that today I decided to add another page to this blog. Its title is “Something Else” and it will be about something else other than rowing. I started it today by giving it a title and writing a couple of sentences but it doesn’t appear on the blog yet because I don’t remember how to make it visible in a tab at the top of the page like the other pages. So the next thing I need to do is consult with my better half for her expertise to help in figuring out how to get that new page to display in a tab at the top of this blog like all the other pages do.
Training with the goal in mind of constantly adjusting effort level up or down so as to keep heart rate within a range or near a particular target heart rate is sometimes called Heart Rate Zone Training. You could simply call it “zoning,” if everyone understood the context and that’s what today’s title means.
Wow, it’s been ten days since the previous blog post.
But though I haven’t been posting daily, there have been workouts every day since then and they have all been done while keeping the overall goal in mind of balancing a daily dose of healthy activity while simultaneously “detraining” by keeping the amount and level of exertion moderate enough to allow the heart to straighten out its tangled web of whatever has been causing the atrial fibrillation episodes.
There are no guidelines for how to “detrain” without simply ceasing to exercise, so I’m doing it by trial and error, with mostly random experimenting from one week to the next. The only thing I’ve been doing consistently while “detraining” is resisting the temptation to do any all-out, as-fast-as-possible pieces of any length more than a dozen or so strokes in a row.
There was no “all-out” effort of even so much as one stroke today.
All data and “live” graphs can be seen via this: link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for that session.
Today’s workouts totaled eight: Two unfocused warmup sessions on the SkiErg, five unfocused pieces on the rowing machine and one focused session, the 8th of all eight. The focused session was a preset distance of 5,469 meters with the goal of steering heart rate as near as possible to 120 BPM during the session. A screenshot of its graph is below and the rest of the data is viewable via the link in the previous paragraph.
Today’s workout totaled 11,490 meters. Yesterday’s was the same distance as today’s though today’s pace was a bit faster than yesterday’s. The distance of 11,490 meters was chosen because April 30th was the end of a season and May 1, 2020 is the beginning of a new indoor rowing season. My daily average workout distance last season was 11,490 meters/day, so I thought I would aim for at least that distance each day and see how the season turns out one year from now, with occasional days of longer distances thrown in the mix.
Graph of today’s 11,490 meter rowing session. It was done at an easy pace which burned about one calorie for every 2 1/2 strokes pulled on the rowing machine.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this easy pathway which is a link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
Since the previous blog post, I’ve missed a lot of days making entries in this blog but haven’t missed a day of rowing.
Today’s workout was 12,000 meters in one session at a slow pace while watching various YouTube amateur videos posted by amateur radio operators about antenna tuners.
Someone else’s homemade antenna tuner.
Good news for today relating to today’s rowing workout is that there was no atrial fibrillation.
Screenshot of today’s 12K results from within the Concept 2 online logbook.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
Though this looks commercially made, it is also a homemade tuner.
Drag race cars waiting to compete in their short 1/4 mile sprints.
Today’s main workout was an online session which was maxed out with 16 rowers signed up. Three of the rowers had problems and weren’t able to participate but it was still a very full river with live boat avatars in 13 lanes.
The workout was called “No Drop Intervals” and it was given that name by the guy who posted it because the idea was that there would be more than enough time for each of the ten 500 meter intervals for even the slowest rower to finish each 500 meters in under three minutes. That way, nobody would feel like dropping out because they were so far behind everyone else.
The plan was that each person would sprint or row as fast as he or she felt like during the first part of each 3 minute time slice (interval) and then stop & wait after completing each 500 meter interval distance. At the beginning of each subsequent time slice everyone would start rowing fast or sprinting again and they would stop at the end of each 500 meters and wait for the end of each 3 minute interval until beginning the next one.
If you participated and sprinted at the start of each three minutes, it was sort of like a series of ten “drag races”.
That’s how I treated most of the intervals and when I did so I only sprinted for about 100 meters and then rowed slower for the remainder of each 500 meters. Fortunately there was no atrial fibrillation today because if there had been I would have had to row very slowly like a Model T Ford instead of making fast starts like drag racing cars.
There was a total of five separate sessions today. Screen shots for only today’s main workout are below.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
Screenshot taken 23 minutes before the finish of today’s main workout.
Happy Easter – the day we celebrate Jesus’ return to life. On Easter morning, the tomb in which his body had been buried was found to be empty.
It has been eight days since I’ve posted about any indoor rowing sessions, but those days have not been empty of rowing. I’ve rowed every day since eight days ago.
Today’s main rowing session was 10,000 meters with conservative intervals every 1,000 meters.
There was no atrial fibrillation before I started the 10K and I watched heart rate carefully to keep it low even during the intervals.
A graphical view of today’s 10K rowing.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
Though I’ve been doing workouts daily, there have been no blog posts for about 5 days, since March 30th.
Today’s main workout was a half marathon done with a 100% full online RowPro session. The maximum capacity for an online session is 16 people and 16 signed up. Four of them had problems and couldn’t start which resulted in a DNF (Did Not Finish) for each of those.
I felt low energy and was having a bit of atrial fibrillation that came and went during the session, so I took it very slow and finished last. By the time I finished, 21 minutes had passed since the last person ahead had finished, so I didn’t expect to find anyone still there after I crossed the finish line. But four of the other rowers were still there in the session chat room and one of them said, “Hey John, welcome to the finish line party.” Another one said, “Ohoo John well done” which was probably referring to the very short sprint I made for the last couple hundred meters to the finish line. Other than that tiny sprint, it was a long, slow slog of a workout at an average pace of 2:37.1/500 meters.
Results for today’s half marathon.
Finish screen for today’s half marathon.
Report for today’s half marathon.
Graphs for today’s half marathon.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook.
To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the
corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
Today’s main workout was 30 minutes rowing online with virtual company. There were sixteen people who signed up for the online rowing session but some had problems and only twelve other people managed to get connected and stay connected for the rowing session. Those twelve others consisted of eleven guys and one gal. They were located in several different countries in Europe and North America.
Screenshot showing a view of the screen after completion of today’s 30 minute online rowing session.
Though I’ve been doing workouts daily, there have been no blog posts for about nine days, since March 21st.
All data and live, granular clickable graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data and its interactive graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the relevant session.
