Beginning today and unless it’s a day when I feel otherwise inclined there will only be a summary of the day’s workout activity.
Happy rowing to you!
September 28, 2019
Scattered Clouds, High of 178
Decidedly similar is today’s to yesterday’s metaphor. But today’s metaphorical temperature of 178 is probably accurate because it is within normal range and was appropriate to the effort at the moment. (See screenshot at bottom of today’s entry)
Similar to yesterday’s photo, the lovely photograph above was found by searching for the terms “scattered clouds desert”. It was classified as “free to share and use” but I might as well give credit to its source anyway. It was found on the blog of a girl who lives somewhere in a desert. (You can see her blog site by clicking the link in the previous sentence)
Today’s workout burned 780 Calories all totaled. It was done in two parts and consisted of a 10,000 meter rowing session at moderate pace followed by a 200 Calorie SkiErg session also at a moderate pace. The moderate pace of the SkiErg session was spiced up near the end with a couple intervals of 10 Calories each. The second of those intervals is what stimulated today’s high of 178. (As mentioned in the first paragraph, see screenshot at bottom of today’s entry)
Recovery was normal and there was no episode of Afib blemishing today’s workout time.
However, Afib did join me for breakfast and it is still keeping me company at the moment (See above screenshot). Unwelcome company, but I don’t know how to politely or otherwise persuade it to depart. 🙂
Happy rowing to you!
Scattered Clouds With A High Of 200
If blank spots on the RowPro heart graph were clouds and heart rate was temperature, today’s title might be appropriate. The high of 200 BPM shows as an isolated green dot and the words “200 BPM High” on the Apple Watch graph for today’s 10K rowing session. But RowPro and its heart rate record from a Polar H7 heart strap only show a high of 134 BPM recorded during today’s workouts.
I didn’t feel anything strange in the heart area today so I’m going to take that 200 BPM high reading with a grain of salt. But I won’t go so far as to eat that grain of salt -or swallow the 200 BPM high bit of data- because I’m still abstaining from adding any extra salt to what is eaten.
The 10K rowing session was today’s first of two workout sessions. It was followed by a 200 Calorie SkiErg session. Atrial fibrillation didn’t make an appearance during either workout session and hasn’t happened since it went away after 8 minutes 17 seconds of yesterday’s SkiErg session.
Happy rowing to you!
From Wacky To Normal
If you read yesterday’s entry you might remember that yesterday was a not fine day 9 which was plagued with atrial fibrillation. That Afib persisted the rest of yesterday evening, all night and was still present this morning when the workout session started.
For today’s first session I decided to start with rowing instead of the SkiErg. First, I did a 3 minute rowing warmup and didn’t even bother putting on the heart strap because I could feel the heart flip-flopping around. After that warmup I donned the heart strap for the main rowing session which was an online 6,000 meters with two other people. One of them was a guy in Spain and the other was a woman in England. My heart rate display was too erratic to display most of the time and when it did make its appearance its rate was quite a bit too high for the low effort level.
After the online 6K I did an offline 4K and the heart continued to be wacky with atrial fibrillation. But at least I did a tiny bit of sweating.
I had a brief inner debate as to whether to do anything on the SkiErg because atrial fibrillation really takes all the fun out of it. I decided to do a leisurely 200 Calories on the SkiErg because the lazy part of me was too lazy to work very hard at winning the debate against a SkiErg workout.
Though the SkiErg pace was very easy, heart rate started out too high and climbed even higher for a little over 8 minutes. At about 8 minutes and 17 seconds heart rate normalized. An exclamation mark is appropriate because I was surprised!
Here’s the part relating to the “Apple Watch” tag for this blog entry: I recently got a new Apple Watch which has the capability to take an ECG measurement. Before the Before today’s workouts I used its ECG feature to see if it would agree with what I felt in the heart area (that fluttery, flippy-flop feeling which is rather annoying) and it did. It announced that I was having Atrial Fibrillation. After the SkiErg session, I used it to take another ECG reading. This time it announced the result of “Sinus Rhythm,” which is the medical jargon for normal heart rhythm.
Perhaps the additional SkiErg workout was what was needed to straighten out the heartstrings.
Happy rowing to you!
Day Nine Not Fine
Today is the ninth day of not adding any supplemental salt to anything I eat. But the streak of days without an episode of atrial fibrillation has ended.
Today’s plan was to do a 200 Calorie SkiErg session and 10K rowing. Heart felt a bit fluttery this morning and it might have been at least partly related to a bad night’s sleep. You can see last night’s sleep summary at the top of this page. It might not be exactly right. Total sleep may have been quite a bit less than 4 hrs 15 minutes.
I don’t know how much of a factor the late-to-bed time was in last night’s poor sleep. But I didn’t eat my last bite of food until about 9:00 pm or a bit later and whenever I go to bed less than 2 or 3 hours after eating, sleep quality suffers also.
During the first workout session heart rate felt sporadically unsteady and then became steadily more unsteady and shifted to a rate that was too high. It remained too high and kept climbing even higher though the SkiErg effort was low.
Because the heart’s misbehavior continued after the SkiErg session finished, I shortened the rowing session to 3,000 meters. Heart rate was very irregular during the 3K rowing and most of the time the heart rate display was blank with the corresponding RowPro graph at zero BPM.
Happy rowing to you!
Day Eight Was Better Than It Looks
Today is the eighth day of not applying any additional salt to food via salt shaker or any other means. I continue to be amazed that not a single episode of atrial fibrillation has happened since day one.
As you can see in the above chart for today’s SkiErg session, heart rate responded normally before and following each interval. Heart rate was also not triggered into any elevated rate and remained in normal range for the entire session.
Before I stopped indulging in supplemental salt, heart rate during the fluttery feeling of Afib would get too high and it got above 200 BPM several times. The highest it reached was 210 BPM during Afib while working out.
After this morning’s SkiErg session I rowed 10,000 meters at an average pace of about 2:14/500 meters. Heart rate felt normal and was in very normal range from start to finish. The heart rate graph for the rowing session doesn’t look good but it is good. The display went blank quite a few times as you can readily see on the heart rate graph, but when it reappeared on the display it was always the same or very near where it had been.
And- during the last couple hundred meters or so of the 10K I slowed way down to about 3:00/500 meters. If I’d been having Afib, heart rate would have remained up wherever it had been. But heart was on good behavior and it slowed down right along with the reduction in effort and slower rowing pace during those final couple hundred meters.
So I continue to be amazed and happy at the results of abstaining from supplemental salt.
Happy rowing to you!
Continuing On The Road Not Salted
Today’s rising time was a bit late so the total workout time was a bit short. First was a 200 Calorie SkiErg session and that was followed by 3,000 meters rowing.
Today is the seventh day in a row of abstention from the personal option of adding any additional salt to any food to be consumed. Heart behavior continues wonderfully normal. Normal is wonderful, relative to very annoying episodes of atrial fibrillation.
Happy rowing to you!
Shake Off The Salt Habit?
Today is the sixth day in a row of no additional salt applied to any food consumed. What had I been adding salt to, prior to September 15th? Almost anything is a fairly accurate answer. A bowl of soup or stew invariably would get more salt. Some parts of the daily salad such as the tomatoes would either have salt shaken on to them or they would be dipped in a container of salt. Like apples? I prefer the tart green apples and would slice each apple into 14 or more slices then either shake salt onto each slice or dip each slice into a container of salt. The list could go on and on.
But the current experiment is to see whether heart behavior improves if I abstain from all that delicious extra salt. The results so far are incredible.
Definition: incredible | inˈkredəb(ə)l | adjective 1 impossible to believe 2 difficult to believe; extraordinary
But as the trite saying goes, “Seeing is believing.” Since beginning the experiment I have seen none of the previous symptoms of irregular heart elevated rate. And I have felt none of the fluttery feelings that always accompanied such heart behavior.
Today’s workout started with a 200 Calorie session on the SkiErg which also served as a warm up for the rowing machine. The rowing workout was a single session of 10,000 meters with no warm down. While doing the 10,000 meters rowing session I listened to a performance one of Chopin’s compositions by using the Apple TV to play a YouTube video titled Frédéric Chopin: Piano concerto No. 1 e-minor (Olga Scheps live) . The pianist, who must have been Olga Scheps, got very involved in the music. At times she waved her arms around in the air like the branches of a tree moving in a breeze.
During all of today’s workout the heart rate display only went blank twice and both of those were during the rowing machine session. The first time heart rate display went blank was early in the rowing machine session and it happened immediately during the same moment when I burped. The second time it went blank during that rowing session was near the end, when the tempo of the Chopin piano concerto changed to become quicker as it made its finale. I hadn’t done any more burping but I picked up the rowing pace when the concerto tempo quickened and when I made that shift in pace the heart rate display briefly went blank again, for the second and last time during the rowing session. The concerto recording was about 44 minutes in duration so it finished almost a minute before the 10K rowing session but I maintained that quicker pace all the way to the 10K finish line.
Happy rowing to you!
Is Blander Grander?
Today is day 5 of keeping my hands off the salt shaker or any other means of adding more salt to anything I eat. No matter how bland the flavor, I abstain from adding any more salt.
It has been another day without any fluttery, heart-throbby feelings or abnormally high heart rate. Could it be, that bland is grand where the heart is concerned? I continue to be amazed but am still keeping my skepticism at hand.
Today’s workouts started with a SkiErg session of 200 Calories and finished with a 10,000 meter rowing session. After the 10K another 1,000 meters was done as a warm down.
The heart graphs for rowing have some downward spikes and gaps to zero during the rowing but there was no accompanying fluttery feeling. Heart rate remained normal.
The heart strap signal transmitter and receiver are older technology on the rowing machine than on the SkiErg and I think the older technology is a bit more sensitive to tiny though very short deviations from perfect rhythm. One of the downward spikes happened as soon as I burped. (Burping usually causes heart rate to immediately slow by a few beats per minute, if I’m rowing at an easy pace.)
Happy rowing to you!
Four Days and Counting
The focus remains on heart behavior in absence of any customary added salt. Today is the fourth day of that experiment which began on September 15th and it is the fourth day in a row without Afib, otherwise known as atrial fibrillation or what I frequently call “heart strangeness.”
Today’s workout was 200 Calories on the SkiErg at a bit faster pace than yesterday, followed by 1,000 meters rowing.
Happy rowing to you!