This image was found when I searched using the words “a day away”
Today was a day away from any indoor rowing or other workout activity.
The above image was found on a website page titled “Stronger than death”-Happy Easter . It isn’t related to anything in particular regarding today’s blog entry and I only glanced at the website without reading the article. So I don’t know if the article or its website is “good,” “bad” or indifferent but the picture got my attention as being a thought-inspiring one and so the link to the webpage where it was found is provided above.
This morning’s analysis of heart rate variability gave a green light for working out, but other activities crowded out the opportunity today.
Gazing at daydreams and passing thoughts while sitting and thinking. No matter how old or how young you are, this is something everybody spends some time doing.
While I was changing from rowing clothes back into jeans and t-shirt, my better half walked into the room and remarked, “You worked out for a long time! Are you making up for some missed workouts?” I gazed at her and gathered my thoughts for a moment before responding, “No. It wasn’t a long workout, but I spent a lot of time sitting and thinking.”
Today’s EliteHRV heart rate variability analysis wasn’t quite low enough to give me a reason for a day off.
Today’s rowing workout was 5,000 meters rowing at specific target stroke rates for each of the five 1K splits. The rating targets were 26-24-22- 24-26 Strokes Per Minute. It took a lot of mental focus. I had a dreamy attitude but the wandering thoughts and daydreaming were done before and after the 5K with its targeted strokes-per-minute for each 1K split.
After the rowing, I did a 129 Calorie session on the SkiErg, arranged in alternating splits of 10 calories work/10 calories rest.
Finish screen for today’s 5K piece.
Report for today’s 5K piece. Notice the circled column headed “Avg SPM”. The targets were met for each split except for the 4th split, which was too high at 25 instead of the target of 24 SPM.
RowPro graphsfor today’s 5K piece.
Concept 2 logbook chart for today’s 5K piece.
Chart and data for today’s 129 calories on the SkiErg.
Cactus blossoms were glowing with sunlight this morning.
There were two workouts today. They were both interval sessions. One on the rowing machine and the other on the SkiErg. Afterwards, and now while this is being typed, I feel like I’m tingling all over with the afterglow of the intervals.
Today’s EliteHRV heart rate variability analysis gave permission for any level of effort.
Today’s rowing workout was selected from Concept 2’s suggestions for “workout of the day”. It was called “2 x 10 min short intervals” and the instructive description was: “Pre-set the monitor for a work time of 10:00 and a rest time of 4:00. Each interval alternate between 40 seconds fast rowing and 20 seconds easy rowing. During the rest time continue rowing at light pressure.”
The above photo is a display of one result of Einstein’s formulation of the Theory of Relativity… or his contributions to quantum physics… or both. At any rate, it is showing some of the effects of converting the mass of a few ounces of uranium into energy.
After 8 days without working out, today I finally managed to do a workout on both the rowing machine and SkiErg. There was no earth-shaking result, but it seemed like there was a huge amount of some kind of inertia to overcome when I first started pulling the handle on the rowing machine. The result of today’s workout was to convert about 2 1/2 ounces of my body’s mass into a modest 552 calories of kinetic energy. There was additional energy conversion resulting in heat and myriads of other changes in the body, but those were not measured by the ergometers.
The two ergometers, rowing machine and SkiErg, only measured the kinetic energy required to operate them and that totaled to about 552 Calories. *
Today’s heart rate variability analysis by the EliteHRV app gave a green light for doing a workout.
Today’s workout was once again strictly aerobic. I need to start incorporating resistance/anabolic activity into a few days of each week’s workouts. How do I cultivate that as a habit?
The above question will have to remain unanswered for the moment. Screenshots of today’s workout reports are below. They were a series of 4 minute hard/3 minute easy rowing intervals followed by a series of 10 Calories hard/10 Calories easy cross-country SkiErg intervals:
Finish screen for the rowing intervals.
Report for the rowing intervals.
Graphs for the rowing intervals.
Graphs and data for the SkiErg intervals.
Happy rowing to you!
*If you are a physicist and want to get technical, it totaled to 552 kilo calories.
This morning’s analysis of heart rate variability by the EliteHRV app is good and looks the same as yesterday’s. Which is surprising, because I had a lousy night’s sleep last night.
If I decide to do any rowing, I’ll update this post later today or this evening.
Today’s workout didn’t happen, even though the morning analysis of heart rate variability was auspicious (see screenshot below). But I signed up for an hour session online tomorrow morning, so that will probably happen.
Today’s EliteHRV Readiness score would have permitted any level of workout.
The night before last I had a poor night’s sleep. Yesterday the EliteHRV analysis was a red “STOP LIGHT”. So I didn’t row yesterday.
But as you can see above, today’s HRV analysis was a “green light” which I take as permission to workout as hard as I want. I decided to do a long workout instead of a hard workout and rowed a half marathon. Half marathons usually result in a good night’s sleep.
Finish screen for today’s half marathon. Though the session was online, there was no company to inspire me. I do better with company. You can see that I got a bit sloppy toward the end.
Today’s HRV analysis score is better than yesterday’s, despite having rowed a half marathon yesterday.
If any of you have been reading every word of these blog posts you will know that I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping. I’ve had many middle-of-the-night periods of being wide-awake insomnia.
But more important: if any of you have been reading every word of my blog posts: How do you manage to do that? I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that this blog is exceedingly boring and I totally agree. There’s no plot, etc. Just a daily splattering of bits mostly about what indoor rowing was done. To read every word of these blog posts would be an exceptional, amazing task.
Anyway… with regard to the SLEEP issues, I was somewhat amazed to have had a “perfect” night’s sleep. Deep, restful and only interrupted very briefly once, for a call of nature. Below you can see a chart of last night’s sleep. It’s actually a chart of heart rate and activity levels (movement detected by Apple Watch) during last night’s sleep. But you can see from the chart that there was only one brief interruption between 1 and 2 AM. The recent doses of Valerian to help with sleep did nothing, compared to positive after-effect of rowing the half-marathon.
This was the best night’s sleep in a long time. Do I have to row a half-marathon, to get a good night’s sleep?
Today’s workout consisted of a 30 minute online session, 2K warm down and 126 Calories burned on the SkiErg.
Today’s EliteHRV readiness score was adequate for a half marathon.
Today’s main and only workout was a half marathon rowed online with two other guys. My approach was to row easy at an average pace of about 2:20 except for 8 intervals of 30 strokes each, which were done at a pace of about 2:00.
Report for today’s half marathon.
RowPro graphs for today’s half marathon.
Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s half marathon.
