Today’s aerobic exercise was done with the SkiErg. Mainly, it was a 5K. I started out at a pace of about 2:27 for the first 250 meters. Pace slowed to 2:28 for the next 250 meters. For the third 250 meters, it slowed to about 2:31. After that, I decided to aim for something around 2:45 to 2:40. By the last 500 meters, there was enough energy left to pick up the pace and finish the entire 5K at an average pace of about 2:38. It was placed into the rankings, which placed me second-to-last in 5K SkiErg rankings this season for men in my age group.
The 5K was done at RPE Level 4 and was followed by a 5 minute SkiErg warm down.
RowPro report for today’s 5K on the SkiErg.
RowPro graphs for today’s 5K on the SkiErg.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 5K on the SkiErg.
Today’s Morning Readiness score from EliteHRV
Last night’s sleep was good quality, 6 hours 30 minutes.
Today’s EliteHRV Morning Readiness analysis was very low. But I had problems going to sleep and staying that way last night which resulted in staying in bed until a little past NOON(!) today. Therefore, the EliteHRV reading was several hours late. The readings are supposed to be taken about the same time every day. I decided to disregard today’s reading, since it was taken much later than it should have been.Last night’s sleep was more than enough at 9hours 10minutes but it was poor quality due to an interruption of wide-awakeness and some Atrial fibrillation.
Today’s main rowing session was 30 minutes online. It wasn’t a race, because there was an agreement between the other guy and me that we’d aim for a pace of 2:10 and I would pace him. I enjoy pacing another rower. I also enjoy racing, which might be why thoughts, cognition and imaginations of racing came to mind during the session. In the midst of that cloud of race-themed neuron activity, entered the thought that both the other guy and me are each in a race against the fictional figure, “Father Time”. We row daily and do other workouts, to avoid being ravaged by some of the effects of passing time which can be mitigated or avoided through aerobic activity.
The 30 minute online session was done at RPE Level 5 and it’s available as a screen recording for those who’d like to row-along. It’s link is: Indoor Rowing Online 30 mins 01252018
Like last night’s sleep was bothered by atrial fibrillation, today’s 30 minute session was also visited by Afib. However it wasn’t the kind of Afib that changes into tachycardia – it just manifested itself with occasional feelings of fluttering and causing the heart strap to lose track of its count which caused the heart rate display to go blank. After about 15 minutes it settled down and went steady again.
The Afib did not reappear after that first 30 minute session. I did 8 more sessions after the 30 minute piece, some on the rowing machine and the rest of them on the SkiErg and there was no more Afib with any of those.
The RPE Levels for the sessions after the 30 minute session were: RPE Level 2 for the 2K warm down, RPE Level 3 for the 3,000 meter piece, RPE Level 10 for the 100 meter sprint and all the rest of them were done at RPE Level 4.
Finish screen for the main 30 minute session.
Report for the main 30 minute session.
The atrial fibrillation was during the first part of the 30 minutes, where heart rate kept disappearing.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for the main 30 minute session.
Chart of the session following the 30 minutes – a 2K warm down with no Atrial fibrillation.
Chart of the 3rd of nine sessions today. This was a 3K and there was no atrial fibrillation.
This is a listing of all nine of today’s sessions on rowing machine and SkiErg. The one that was the most fun was also the shortest – the 100 meter sprint on SkiErg.
Today’s EliteHRV Morning Readiness analysis said it was okay to do anything, so I didn’t have any excuse not to row.Last night’s sleep was okay until just before 5 AM again, when I became wide awake after the second of 3 trips to the bathroom. I tried to just lay still and fall back to sleep but it didn’t work. So I went to another room and sat and did “HRV breathing” in “coherence” for about 20 minutes. At least there was no Afib like the night before. Felt relaxed enough after that to get a total of 7 hours 55 minutes of actual sleep.
Today’s main workout was the same distance as yesterday’s main session and it was done to the accompaniment of a pace boat that duplicated yesterday’s rowing. My goal was to stay about 10 meters ahead of yesterday’s rowing, throughout the distance. Near the finish, I picked up the pace a bit more to make sure that today’s session was a few calories more than yesterday’s. The estimated level of exertion for today’s main session was RPE Level 5.
In addition to the rowing session, I also used the SkiErg, to burn almost another 300 calories. There will be no screen shots relating to the SkiErg in this post.
finish screen for today’s main sessionreport for today’s main sessionRowPro graphs for today’s main sessionConcept 2 online logbook chart for today’s main session
Today’s EliteHRV morning readiness analysis was good again.
Last night’s sleep was a little short at 6 hours 10 minutes, but it was good sleep with no insomnia interruption.
Today’s main session was rowing until arriving at a total of 800 calories, done at RPE level 7. The main session is available as a screen recording for those who’d like to row-along. It’s link on YouTube is: Indoor Rowing 800 Calories 01212019
The Concept 2 rowing machine is an ergometer and it accurately measures work. It registered 800 calories for the main rowing session today, but the Apple Watch, which independently logged the workout as a rowing session, shows quite a few less calories than the Concept 2 ergometer. So don’t rely on the Apple Watch calorie count if you do a rowing workout.
Today’s second of three sessions was another attempt on the SkiErg to do a one minute sprint. The sprint was done at RPE level 9 and it was a better result than yesterday’s because I didn’t start out too fast and was able to maintain the pace for the entire minute. The third and last session today was going to be another attempt at a 500 meter sprint on the SkiErg, but I started out too fast or didn’t have a suitable drag factor setting (or perhaps I was too tired??), so I let that “sprint” fade into a warm down and the resulting RPE for the 500 meters was Level 4.
Finish screen for 800 calorie rowing.
Report for 800 calorie rowing at RPE level 7.
RowPro graphs for 800 calorie rowing.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for 800 calorie rowing.
There is no report or graph for the 100 meter sprint on SkiErg because it wasn’t done with RowPro but above is a screenshot of the summary data.
The final session for the day was 500 meters on the SkiErg which started out as an attempt to improve the previous, ranked result. But I started out too fast to maintain it so let it fade into a warm down. Heart rate fade lagged behind the fade of effort level.
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.
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.
