It has been said that a horse might be enticed to trot by holding a carrot on a stick in front of him
Just as a carrot on a stick might encourage a horse to trot, the thought of coffee after this morning’s workout seemed to give the workout a bit of a boost.
Although I wasn’t consciously thinking of coffee during the workout, the thought of a pot of black coffee came to the forefront of my mind while I was commenting on today’s results in the online logbook.
Virtually the same as yesterday’s workout, today’s consisted of a 200 Calorie SkiErg session followed by 10,000 meters rowing.
And today’s rowing was a bit faster pace than yesterday’s 10K pace, so perhaps the subconscious yearn to hurry up and get the coffee pot going was influential.
Today’s SkiErg session was one calorie less than yesterday’s but it has a very different graph pattern.
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing.
Report for today’s 10K rowing.
Graphs for today’s 10K rowing.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing. Coffee was mentioned in the comment.
The heart and mind frequently have differences to settle.
Happily, today’s workout turned out to be longer than what was “agreed on” in yesterday’s imaginary conversation with my heart/subconscious.
Up on the mountain it was. Out of reach and trying to dictate that today’s workout should be a brief 200 Calories on the SkiErg and a couple 1,000 meter rowing pieces.
Rather than follow yesterday’s suggestion, I spontaneously opted for not 200 but 201 Calories on the SkiErg. Not much difference on the SkiErg. But then that was followed with not merely a couple 1K rowing pieces, but a full 10,000 meters on the rowing erg.
Right after the 201 Calories was done on the SkiErg, I decided to row 10K before something changed my mind and got right to it.
Along with deciding to do 10K, I decided that the pace goal would be 2:15 or a little faster.
Yackey-yacking with the heart and/or subconscious was avoided today and neither of them seemed to make a fuss. Perhaps they were sleeping in?
The resulting pace for the 10K rowing was 2:14.7 and it felt good.
Chart and data for today’s SkiErg session.
for the 10,000 meter rowing session.
Report for the 10,000 meter rowing session.
RowPro graphs for the 10,000 meter rowing session.
Lately I’ve been doing a little bit of chauffeuring. Not that much, really, but today is a “day off.” The actual average daily time I’ve spent chauffeuring during the past few days of not working out has been only a very scant few hours, therefore any chauffeuring I’ve been doing is a flimsy excuse and not really valid at all for not having worked out. A better excuse would be laziness. But does being lazy justify not doing something?
As of today I’m back at it and wondering what the workout plan will be for the immediate future. I managed to get myself to do a 200 Cal workout using the rationale that it wouldn’t take very long and would be over with quickly and that would be all that I’d do this morning. But then after doing that I felt guilty for not doing any rowing whatsoever, so I sat on the rowing machine and rowed a 1000 meter piece.
Zaniness is welcome with regard to working out but I tend to be conventional on the ergs. So as I said earlier, I’m wondering what to do for the next few days. The picture I get in my mind is of John (that’s me) standing at the base of a mountain whose top is hidden in the clouds. John is looking up in the direction of a voice that is coming from somewhere out of sight. The mountain is rocky, like a desert mountain with no trees, just rocks, stones and boulders. John can hear a noise coming from somewhere up in the clouds. A few rocks are tumbling and bouncing down the slope because there’s movement up there. The distant voice John hears from somewhere up in the clouds says that he could do another 200 Calories tomorrow on the SkiErg and afterwards he could follow that with two sessions of 1000 meters each on the rowing machine.
Yelping to persuade me, my imagination indicates that the distant voice and movement somewhere higher on the mountain above the clouds is my subconscious and/or perhaps my not-to-be-trusted heart. But of course I suspect that my imagination is making it all up so as to persuade me to let it have its way.
The mental image of placing my subconscious higher up and out of sight on an imaginary mountain may have been partly influenced by a passage I read recently in a book by Gabor Maté, MD, in which he states that the higher (physically) the part of the human brain, the more complex and less automatic are the functions of that part of the brain.
Chart and data for today’s SkiErg session.
Finish screen for today’s token rowing session of 1,000 meters.
Report for today’s token rowing session of 1,000 meters.
RowPro graphs for today’s token rowing session of 1,000 meters.
The subconscious will stall and give you the runaround while snickering at you until you take the reins and point the way.
Like yesterday, today had an early start. Also like yesterday, the subconscious ignored last night’s intentions of doing the workout first thing in the morning as it found one thing after another to do.
Eventually, after about two hours of puttering, I realized time was flying by and scattering its feathers through my brain in the process.
Allow the heart to lead and there’s a rain of confusion. Take the reins of the skittish heart and confusion will not reign. I took the lead, held the reins and changed into workout clothes.
Did the SkiErg session first. Everything went okay except there was a computer problem and the session wouldn’t upload with the ErgData app. Manually entered the SkiErg data into the Concept 2 logbook. I’d done the SkiErg session barefoot (so it would be more fun), so next I donned some shoes to protect my feet while they’d be in the footrests of the rowing machine.
While donning shoes, heart and subconscious started snickering and dickering about doing less than 10,000 meters rowing, but I just set up RowPro for 10K and started. The chosen goal was an average pace of 2:15 or better.
The heart seemed to grumble now and then as its rate readout would disappear from the display. But it remained steady overall. It also remained in the appropriate beats/minute range for the the effort – whenever its readout was being displayed.
So everything was okay in today’s workout fray.
No chart and less data than usual for today’s SkiErg session, because a firmware problem was reported when I tried to upload it.
Heart behavior seemed normal except that the heart rate display vanished 4 times during the rowing session
Virtuously early this morning, I rose from bed.
Argument might be made by some that rising early has nothing to do with virtue.
Nonetheless, it somehow feels virtuous.
I will accept virtuous feelings where they can be found.
Surprisingly, that virtue was sort of swallowed by about three hours of doing nothing in particular before finally taking the reins and spurring myself to change into workout clothes and start that sort of work.
Happily, once the workout strokes were started, they flowed unabated until the sessions were adorned with sweat and completed.
In keeping with recent practice the first workout session was 200 Calories on the SkiErg.
Next after the SkiErg a bit of rebellious protest made itself heard from the subconscious realm. It expressed desire to do only 3K rowing today, like yesterday’s had been, instead of the more usual 10K.
Getting right down to business bargaining with my subconscious, we arrived at a prompt agreement to compromise with 5K rowing instead of the full 10K or a more paltry 3K.
So the workout sessions were quickly done and without irregularity on the part of the heart except for what is alluded to in today’s title: four brief vanishings of heart rate from the display.
Not that I’ve ever done any yoga. I haven’t. But my better half has sort of suggested it a few times.
One and only one workout session was the original intention this morning. That workout was to be 200 Calories on the SkiErg. It was done.
Yenning for just a little bit more workout, I set up the rowing machine for 3,000 meters after finishing with the SkiErg.
One session of 3K on the rowing erg seemed enough to have earned some coffee and breakfast.
Generally I like to do a minimum of 10K rowing in addition to whatever is done on the SkiErg, but today seemed like a day to take a vacation from the usual workout.
A grand total of 379 Calories was burned and a few ounces of sweat were generated. The coffee tasted good afterwards.
The first workout session today was 200 Calories on the SkiErg.
Finish screen for the 3,000 meter rowing session.
Report for the 3,000 meter rowing session.
Graphs for the 3,000 meter rowing session. The graph isn’t very smooth because I slowed a few times, to operate a remote control for choosing music.
Perhaps, but not definitively. Yesterday the question arose as to whether the cause for heart strangeness (atrial fibrillation rearing its head) during the last two of yesterday’s five 2K pieces was having eaten a large breakfast and then resumed rowing while the stomach was feeling full.
Early this morning, before having so much as a crumb of food or a sip of coffee, I began the day’s workouts.
Remembering yesterday’s words, “Perhaps I will try duplicating today’s workout again tomorrow…” but on an empty stomach from start to finish, that thought was put into action and fulfilled this morning.
Happily, there was no heart strangeness from start to finish.
Actually, I did feel a tiny bit of cardio flitter-flutter in the chest. It happened one time and was during the third 2K. But it was so ephemeral that it bordered on being imaginary, though vividly so. Heart rate did not vanish from the display like it does when Afib is more persistent, so I will attribute it to being an imagination of the heart.
Perhaps rowing on a full stomach isn’t a good idea. But on the other hand, perhaps it is merely a coincidence.
Scientific experiment, this was not. Scientific experiments are more thorough. Experiment, it was. And I will keep it in mind for future reference.
Following are screenshots and data for today’s workouts.
Chart and data for the first workout session today.
Finish screen for the fifth of five 2K sessions this morning. The ending heart rate of 119 was a normal heart rate for the effort and was within a very few beats per second of the finish heart rate for each of the previous four 2K sessions.
Report and graph for first of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for second of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for third of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for 4th of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for last of five 2K rowing sessions.
Today’s heart behavior was virtually perfect, until after my stomach went from Empty to Full, with breakfast.
Perhaps I will try duplicating today’s workout again tomorrow. But if I do, there will be one difference. That difference will be to postpone eating until after all parts of the workout are finished.
Usually, eating before a workout seems to make no difference.
Zero heart strangeness happened during the first session, which was 200 Calories at RPE Level 2 on the SkiErg.
Zero heart strangeness, likewise, during the first of five lively though moderate 2K rowing pieces which followed the SkiErg session. Well, I should say almost zero during that session.
Lively though moderate rowing continued in the second and third of five 2K rowing pieces and heart behavior was perfect during each of those. My stomach had been completely EMPTY during each of those sessions.
In between the third and fourth of five 2Ks, I ate breakfast. Stomach went from Empty to Full. It was a big breakfast, volume-wise, because it included a couple quarts of water in the form of protein drink, Chia drink and 12 ounces of coffee. Plus, there were 3 pita sandwich things.
Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway in case it is not obvious, I felt very “full” in the stomach area after breakfast. But I didn’t want to wait for the sandwiches and liquids to percolate through the digestive tract, so I didn’t wait to go the rowing machine.
Going at a moderate pace of about 2:17/500 meters, heart rhythm disruption made itself felt after about 1,500 meters of the 4th 2K. It wasn’t drastically irregular, but I could feel it now and then and the heart rate display went blank a few times during both the 4th and 5th of the five 2K rowing sessions. If you look at the screenshots (below) of the finish screen views for the 4th and 5th 2K sessions, you can see that in each of them the heart rate display (bottom right corner of the RowPro screen) is blank. That’s because heart rhythm was too erratic at the finish, for the heart strap to transmit a heart rate signal.
It is PUZZLING and I’m wondering if rowing on a rather full stomach was a significant factor to have caused the fibrillation.
Everything became normal again, after all the rowing was done.
Chart and data for today’s SkiErg session.
Finish screen for first of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for first of five 2K rowing sessions.
Finish screen for second of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for second of five 2K rowing sessions.
Finish screen for third of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for third of five 2K rowing sessions.
Finish screen for fourth of five 2K rowing sessions. Notice that heart rate display went blank before the finish.
Report and graph for fourth of five 2K rowing sessions.
Finish screen for second of five 2K rowing sessions.
Report and graph for last of five 2K rowing sessions.
Most definitions of defibrillation only refer to applying an electric shock to the heart. But it seems there are other ways, less shocking, to coax heart rhythm back to normal. Today’s workout sessions on the ergs seemed to work as an effective defibrillator.
Defibrillation has a few definitions but what they all have in common is that they relate to restoring normal heart behavior by stopping the fibrillation of the heart. If you’ve ever seen a fish flopping around out of water, that’s a good analogy for heart fibrillation.
Every time my heart goes into its floppy-fish mode it is annoying. It’s worse than annoying if it happens after bedtime at night. That’s what happened yesterday evening. It continued all night and caused sleep loss. It was still happening this morning after I gave up trying to get any more sleep and got up for the day.
For the sake of possibly benefiting the heart and its mitochondria, I decided to start today’s workouts early in the morning, before having any breakfast or coffee.
I decided to divide the day’s workouts into smaller than usual increments, to arrive at the same desired goal of time on SkiErg and rowing machine.
Because the SkiErg session of 200 Calories is the shortest of my usual workouts, I did that one first. One nice thing about the SkiErg is that I don’t have to bother with shoes or socks. It can be done barefoot as easily as with shoes on. Somehow, using the SkiErg barefoot seems to make the experience seem more like play than work.
Doing the SkiErg session felt like swimming in molasses. I was very low-energy, though heart rate was high.
The first workout was 200 Calories on the SkiErg. Heart rate was too high and felt irregular throughout that session. I felt low-energy and went very slow, averaging about 2:48 for the session.
First of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions. Heart rate was irregular and too high.
The next workout was on the rowing machine. The goal was 10,000 meters total, by doing ten sessions of 1,000 meters each. For the first 1,000 meter rowing session (see image above) I didn’t pay any attention to pace and just focused on continuing to row. Heart rhythm was very irregular and disappeared from the RowPro quite a bit of the time. Heart rate was abnormally high – much too high for duration and effort level. It was done at an average pace of 2:12.5/500 meters.
Second of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions. Heart rhythm was still irregular and a bit too high.
After the first 1,000 meter session I took a break and got the Mr. Coffee busy making a pot of coffee. While coffee was brewing, I rowed the 2nd 1,000 meter session (see image above). Heart rhythm continued to be very irregular, but heart rate was in the normal range for the duration and effort level. I only focused on continuing to row and it was done more slowly than the first at an average pace of 2:17.7/500 meters.
Third of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions. Heart rate was irregular at beginning but smoothed out during the first 100 meters or so.
When I sat to row the third 1,000 meters (see image above) I decided to not only focus on simply rowing the distance, but also to do the session at a pace equal to or faster than the first 1K. It was done at an average pace of 2:12.5, like the first 1K of the day. Heart rhythm was irregular at the beginning, but smoothed out during the first 100 meters and had normal rhythm for the rest of the piece. Heart rate was a little bit too high but almost normal for the duration and effort level.
For the 4th through 10th 1,000 meter sessions, each was fractionally faster than the previous, except for the 10th. Heart rhythm and rate was normal during all of those rowing sessions from the 4th through the 10th of 10.
The 10th 1,000 meter session was done at a bit faster pace of 2:07.9, to see if it would trigger irregular heart activity but it didn’t seem to trigger anything out of the ordinary. It also had normal rhythm and rate.
Therefore I conclude that the workout sessions on the ergs were somehow helpful in defibrillation of the irregularities of heart rhythm.
Screenshots of reports & data for the 4th through 10th of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions are below this paragraph.
Fourth of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Fifth of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Sixth of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Seventh of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Eighth of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Ninth of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Tenth and last of ten 1,000 meter rowing sessions.
Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session. The circled area of the heart rate plot shows where heart rate shifted too high though effort remained the same or slower.
At the start of today’s sessions everything seemed normal. I decided to row 10K first and then burn some calories on the SkiErg.
For the first half of the 10K rowing session everything continued to seem normal, though heart rate disappeared from the RowPro display a few times.
I decided to take an aspirin break after about 4,000 meters of rowing. The break lasted between two and three minutes. Sometimes a little aspirin seems to help heart rate become regular again.
But this time it didn’t help and after I returned from the rowing break it became more irregular. Also, heart rate shifted to become too high.
I didn’t let a little Afib (atrial fibrillation) put too much of a damper on things though, because I wanted to earn another exercise-induced “sleeping pill” for tonight’s sleep.
The 10K was finished. It was followed by two SkiErg sessions of about 100 Calories each. After the SkiErg sessions, a very slow 500 meter rowing session was done.
Heart rate remained irregular and too high through all of the remaining workout. But it’s okay now. The exercise-induced “sleeping pill” was earned and it’s effect can already be felt, early in the evening. No need for Sleepytime tea.
RowPro 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.
First of 2 SkiErg sessions.
Second of 2 SkiErg sessions.
Report for the very slow 500 meter rowing session. Heart rate (circled) was about 40 BPM too high for the low effort level.
