We made a brief holiday trip to visit some of our children. I did virtually no rowing while we were away from home. But we did get to take a little trip in a charter boat and see some whales up close. One of the whales came up out of the water briefly.
It’s been about two weeks since I’ve sat and rowed on a Concept 2 rowing machine. A few hours of the time during which there was no rowing was occupied with a trip on a chartered boat, to watch whales. The whales occasionally came up out of the water, to watch us watching them. Here is the best video I got of the whales coming up out of the water: A gray whale surfacing briefly
I didn’t take any HRV readings for about two weeks. Today’s was the second day in a row of EliteHRV readings, after we returned home so the HRV baseline is just getting started again.
Today’s EliteHRV morning readiness reading indicated caution (see above screenshot) but I was more than cautious and didn’t do any rowing today.
The only indoor rowing I did during the past two weeks was done in my street clothes. I didn’t want to get sweaty, so I took it easy while trying out a strange rowing machine called “Matrix”. It was quieter than a C2, but I’ll take a C2 over a Matrix any day. It felt weird/strange.
The only other machine I tried while on the trip was a Stairmaster step machine. The above screen shows the results of what I did, which burned 150 calories.
Now, for those of you who are wanna-be sleep-researchers, here’s the exciting recent record of heart rate during sleep periods for Dec 27th through the most recent night’s sleep:
7 hours 55 minutes total sleep.7 hours 45 minutes total sleep.4 hours 50 minutes total sleep.8 hours 40 minutes total sleep.8 hours 5 minutes total sleep.9 hours 25 minutes total sleep.
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.
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.
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?
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
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
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
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.
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
Today’s 10K report.RowPro graphs for today’s 10K.Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K.
Today’s rowing was young at heart, compared to yesterday’s spoilsport heart.
Today’s main rowing was 60 minutes at “overdistance” pace. It was done online. There was no screen recording made of it, but a screen recording was made of the 2K supplemental that followed it.
The 2K was done with a target pace of 2:15. For those of you who’d like to row-along with the 2K, its screen recording link is here: Indoor Rowing 2K in 9 minutes 12062018
Report for today’s 60 minutes.RowPro graphs for today’s 60 minutes.
