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!

Duchy Estate, Yorkshire

I wonder what stories this lady would have to tell? This image was among the results when I searched for public domain images, Yorkshire.

Today’s workout time was spent with about 3K each on Row and Ski ergs, followed by about 30 minutes of Zwift, riding this route: Yorkshire, Duchy Estate. There seemed to be some kind of a race happening but the non-racers like myself didn’t disturb it.

Happy erging to you.

First Erging of New Year 2024

Today’s workout was the last installment of 5 Zwift sessions that were designed by Zwift programmers as an introduction to the program.

Because I didn’t feel particularly energetic I mostly ignored its prompts to go faster and spent most of the time at around a leisurely 100 Watts with a low SPM in the 50s.

When the program said to pedal harder I usually didn’t.

Here’s a link to the: screen recording for today’s Zwifting session.

Like a New Heart But No Warranty

On December 5th a cardiac ablation procedure for treatment of atrial fibrillation was performed on my heart. Today I went for the first run since that procedure.

It was like running with a new heart. Smooth and steady low heart rate appropriate for a slow run or jogging pace. (What’s the difference between a slow run and jogging? I don’t know.)

The workout session today was to be 2.1 miles on the same route that has been used for many months now. The first half mile was walking only. Everything seemed okay after walking 1/2 mile so I switched to a slow running pace of about 16 minutes/mile.

The plan was to observe heart behavior and switch back to walking if it acted up. It didn’t misbehave so I continued the slow run pace for about 1.7 miles. I felt very good and breathing was effortless as though I was walking.

The first few days after the cardiac ablation were the wackiest. On the day after the ablation and after breakfast and coffee in the morning, I had chest pains in early afternoon. It was sort of like a vise squeezing my heart. It was very uncomfortable/painful.

I had a prescription of nitroglycerin pills which I hadn’t yet resorted to, so I took one of those. It didn’t seem to help at all, so I followed the instructions, which were to take one every 5 minutes until the pain reduced (no more than 3 pills max, spaced 5 minutes apart.)

The second nitro pill seemed to make the pain a lot worse and I broke out in a light sweat and my eyes became sensitive to light, as if the nitro had caused the pupils to dilate.

According to the post-ablation instructions, if I had chest pain for 10 minutes or longer I was supposed to call 911. So I did and they arrived within less than 5 minutes and transported me to the nearest hospital Emergency Department.

They drew blood, performed several tests and did an echocardiogram. The chest pain subsided almost completely. I was there for a total of about 2 hours 40 minutes.

That was the worst thing that happened after the ablation.

That day and the next few days I felt very tired, like sleeping. I assumed it was partly due to the anesthesia wearing off and I did sleep between 10 and 12 hours a day for a couple days and didn’t have any coffee on the 3rd or 4th days.

By the 5th day I was still feeling like sleeping but had slept too much and couldn’t fall asleep. So I had some coffee and that made a huge difference and I felt almost normal again.

Though heart was in sinus rhythm it was still strange, behaving differently every day as though it was a horse getting used to a saddle. It’s rate slowed a bit each of those first few days.

On the 6th day, sometime in the morning between 7:00 – 7:45 AM when I sat to measure blood pressure & heart rate, it switched from sinus rhythm to what seemed like atrial flutter and its rate stayed at about 140 BPM all the rest of that day.

At sometime between midnight that night and 1:00 AM the next day, heart rate went back to a more normal rate of about 59 BPM with sinus rhythm and it has been in sinus rhythm ever since then, feeling better and better every day.

Two days ago I went for a 2 mile walk with no running and it behaved okay.

So today I ran.

Following are screenshots of training summaries and heart rate graphs for todays session and for 10 days of running sessions that were done before the ablation, so you can see the difference in the way it acted before and after ablation.

November 20th 2022
November 21st 2022
November 22nd 2022
November 23 2022
November 25th 2022
November 26th 2022
November 27th 2022
November 28th 2022
November 29th 2022
November 30th 2022
TODAY, December 17th 2022

Happy rowing, jogging, running etc to you!

Still Running Plus a Little SkiErg But No Rowing Yet

Because I’m still experiencing atrial fibrillation, I’m continuing to avoid rowing and only doing daily jogging. Lately, I’ve been adding a little low-effort SkiErg time.

Here’s the summary of today’s jogging. I didn’t notice that heart rate climbed too high until it reached 199 BPM. At that point I switched back to walking but it reached 222 before it started coming back down.

Red is heart rate and blue is pace.

During today’s jogging session I used the cellphone to record video of a few minutes of running on the trail. Near the end of the video you can briefly see my left hand come into view when I glance at the watch and notice that HR is 199. That’s when I switched from jogging to walking.

Here’s the video of: a few minutes of jogging.

Happy rowing, jogging, running etc to you!

Wifey Rows While I Jog

It’s been about two months since the previous post but who’s counting?

I’ve continued to do running (jogging is more like it) instead of rowing, in the continued effort to reshape my heart and thereby hopefully have a positive effect toward being free of atrial fibrillation.

Wifey has continued doing daily rowing, because she is not bothered with atrial fibrillation like I’ve been having.

In the meantime we are making some improvements at home by remodeling the kitchen. After that is complete, we will move back into the kitchen and then work toward getting the rest of the house ready for similar improvements. The similar improvements will mainly be new flooring.

But one obstacle to that is the piano which is in the way. We decided to sell it. Local buyers only, who are capable of hauling it away themselves. 🙂 SOLD

You can contact me by making a comment with information as to how to contact you or… if you got this link from David, ask him for my phone number. SOLD

You can price used pianos at piano stores and make an offer for less than what you would pay for it at a piano store. Whatever price we get for it, we will give that money to our youngest daughter, to whom we promised the piano… but who ended up living about 1,000 miles away, making it sort of impossible to give it to her without selling it first and then giving the proceeds to her. SOLD

PIANO IS SOLD 🙂🎹🙂
PIANO IS SOLD 🙂🎹🙂
PIANO IS SOLD 🙂🎹🙂

Though not all workout sessions are always or even usually mentioned in the blog, the “live” (interactively viewable) data for each and every erg workout session for any day whatsoever can be seen in detail by clicking this: link to the online logbook. To view a session’s data and interactive graph click the “+” sign in “Action” column for that session.

Happy rowing, jogging, running etc to you!