Like A Tumbleweed

This is a tumbleweed. On July 19th, I had a fall and tumbled a little bit while running. Tumbleweeds are just fine with the tumbling, so I will leave it to them and try to avoid any such experience again.

The video in the most recent previous post shows some video of the trail on which I was running when I took a tumble. I will try to take another video of that trail, during the next run, in wide screen mode and will start that video just before the area where the July 19th tumble happened.

Immediately after the fall, I got back up, asked God something to the effect, “I asked you to help me so that I would not fall again while running! Why did you let me fall?!” Instantly, immediately, I got the answer and looked at my left hand, which was very bloody, like it had a little fountain running from something on the side opposite the palm, in the wrist area. I was reminded, that I had been wondering if the Eliquis (an anti-coagulant) I’d recently resumed taking was working. Yep… it was working. The blood was flowing with no inclination to coagulate like normal.

The above shows the back of my left hand. The tiny bandage is covering the very tiny “speck” of a place where the skin had been scratched during the fall, which I saw was bleeding profusely, after I asked God, “Why?”

Next I looked at my right hand… This is the scratch on the back of my right hand. It was bleeding profusely also and the blood on both of them was mixed with desert soil so they looked muddy and each had a flow of red blood.

I resumed running, another half mile or so until reaching the point at which I always stop running and walk the rest of the way home. My left and right knees were bloody and sort of lumpy looking, with a covering of what looked like bloody mud sticking to each of them.

After getting home, I took a shower and then tried a transparent bandage on the left knee. Transparent bandages work well and let the wound “breathe” without letting water into the wound. But there was still too much bleeding, so it had to be removed and a different sort of bandage was applied, with a compression wrap.

The above is what the left knee and leg looked like after taking a shower, rinsing off all the mud and blood and then applying a transparent bandage. It wouldn’t stop bleeding, because of Eliquis, the elegant anti-coagulant. It really does a job of interfering with letting blood coagulate normally.

I went to see my doctor, the second day after the fall. She re-dressed everything and then looked at the swollen, scratched place on my head. She told me I need to have my head examined.

Though I told her I felt okay, she said that with an anti-coagulant like Eliquis, there is a possibility of internal bleeding, so she insisted I have my head examined, but not necessarily by a psychiatrist. For now, all she ordered is a CT Scan, which will be done tomorrow.

It is now a few minutes after 3 PM, the weather is dry, perfect for running, with a temperature of 97℉ so it’s time to get ready and maybe take another video on the way back, for the next blog post.

Jesus is Lord.

Yorkshire, Queen’s Highway on Zwift

Though I searched for an image of “bicycle queen’s highway Yorkshire,” the only photogenic one among the results was this one, called “Bicycle, Queen’s Square,” which is sufficiently lovely.

Today’s bicycle riding was less than 30 minutes because I felt a bit tired.

The Zwift app says I should take days off from riding, but I think that’s only necessary if a person does higher energy riding. My rides are low or lower energy and they seem fine, as far as the results.

The total workout also included about 3,000 meters each, on RowErg and SkiErg, while listening, for the first time ever, to a reading of The Book of Enoch.

Here’s a link for any who are interested to view a ride on the Zwift Yorkshire Queen’s Highway.

Healthy and happy working out!

Stairway to Heaven

The rowing session today was a 30 minute piece.

The title is from some thoughts while watching the HR graph climb.

“…‘Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”

When HR reached 193 and time remaining decremented to 53 seconds, a songbird seemed to sing that I’d climbed high enough so I started back down the stairway.

If you’d like to view or row along, a screen recording of today’s session is available at this link: Monday, May 17th, 2021 online rowing session.

Data for any workout sessions for any day can be seen in detail via this: link to the online logbook. To see a session’s data and interactive graph click the “+” sign in “Action” column for that session.

Happy rowing to you!

One Percent Speed

Chart and data for today’s first workout, the 170 Calorie SkiErg session. The area of the heart rate graph circled in green is where heart rate suddenly went too high and remained there, even though I was maintaining a constant easy pace the entire time.

The one percent speed in today’s workouts was a 30 second sprint done for the quarterly “SkiErg Performance Challenge”. The rest of today’s workouts consisted of about an hour of constant pace sessions.

Today’s workouts began with a SkiErg session preset to continue until I’d worked 170 Calories, at an easy constant pace of 2:32/500 meters, which was a power level of about 100 Watts. Heart rate acted strange during the SkiErg workout by suddenly shifting and remaining too high, after about 4 minutes of the 15 minute session. I finished that session, maintaining the constant easy pace until the end, then took an aspirin with a lot of water and waited a few hours before doing the second part of today’s workouts.

The second part was a 10K rowing session, the first of seven that I plan to do at a constant pace of 2:15/500 meters. That’s a power level of about 142 Watts. Heart rate was normal by the time the rowing session began and it remained normal throughout the 10,000 meters.

The rowing session was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and can be found at this link: Indoor Rowing ASMR 10K at 215 pace 07022019

The last bit of today’s workouts was the most fun, the “1% speed” part. It was 30 seconds of keeping the SkiErg at as high a pace as I could manage. It was done at an average power level of 343 Watts, but if you look at the screenshot of that 30 second sprint, you can see that my pace started out higher and faded a bit as each second ticked off.

Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing session.
Chart and data for today’s one percent of speed – the 30 second SkiErg sprint.

Happy rowing to you!

Supposedly, The Heart Has A Brain

which-one-leads
The above image was found on a blog website called The Sieve of Truth. The title of the particular article where the image was found is Does Your Head Rule Your Heart or Your Heart Rule Your Head? It’s a good question. It might depend upon the individual, but I think it is a daily contest for most if not all of us.

Supposedly, the heart has its own brain or perhaps “brain”. If the heart has a brain, I don’t know how to talk with it.  It’s probably just as well, because we might get into an argument and make things worse.

Today’s indoor rowing plan was originally to do 10,000 meters.  That part was done.  But the plan was also to raise the overall effort level a bit, without exceeding zone 2 of the 5 heart rate zones mentioned yesterday. Specifically, I was going to row the first 2K at about 105 Watts, the second 2K at about 145 Watts, the third 2K at about 185 Watts and the fourth 2K at 225 Watts or until heart rate reached the magic number of 158 BPM which is the top end of my personal heart rate zone 2 of 5.  After reaching 158, I was going to do a gradually tapering warm down for the remaining distance of the 10K.

But I just barely got into the third 2K, at somewhere between 145 Watts and 185 Watts, when the allegedly brainy heart started beating to a different drummer, getting irregular and going too fast too soon.  I tried adjusting the effort level to bring it back to where it should be based on recent sessions, but it just went faster and reached 158 when I was rowing easy.

So, when there were about 3,000 meters remaining, I got off the rowing machine, got a drink of water, walked around a bit and basically didn’t do any rowing for about 15 minutes.  It seemed to return to normal, so I finished the last 3,000 meters at a very easy pace, so as to not stir it up any more.

Will try another 10K tomorrow.

AI-Nov-17th-2017-10K-finish
Finish screen view for today’s 10K.

AI-Nov-17th-2017-10K-rpt
Reportfor today’s 10K.

AI-Nov-17th-2017-10K-gph
Graphsfor today’s 10K.

Happy rowing and heart co-habitation to you.