Ethereal Rowing – Page 47

26,954 Assorted Meters

The above photo shows a view of the back of my wind-swept head when I was standing on the bow of a whale watching catamaran recently. That photo is a screenshot taken from a video of the whale-watching. That video is on YouTube at this link: Gray Whales Rub Against Boat (Seen From UNDERWATER VIEWING PODS)

The whale watching was enjoyable, but it would have been a lot more fun if we had been rowing instead of just idly standing and sitting on the boat.

Today’s EliteHRV readiness score indicated that it was okay to row a lot of meters at virtually any pace.

Last night’s 7 hours 15 minutes of sleep contributed to this morning’s good HRV readiness reading.

Today’s rowing consisted of 8 sessions. If you count the warm ups and warm downs as sessions unto themselves, it consisted of a total of twelve pieces. Here is a listing of today’s rowing (see image below):

A screen recording was made of only one of the sessions, a 500 meter piece plus its warmup/down. That screen recording can be found on YouTube at this location: Indoor Rowing 500 meters with warmup/down 01022019

The various sessions were mostly easy, with an RPE rating of 2 or 3, with the exception of the above screen-recorded 500 meter piece, which was done at an RPE level of what felt like 9.

Happy rowing to you.

A Whale of a Time, But Alas! Almost No Rowing!

We made a brief holiday trip to visit some of our children. I did virtually no rowing while we were away from home. But we did get to take a little trip in a charter boat and see some whales up close. One of the whales came up out of the water briefly.

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve sat and rowed on a Concept 2 rowing machine. A few hours of the time during which there was no rowing was occupied with a trip on a chartered boat, to watch whales. The whales occasionally came up out of the water, to watch us watching them. Here is the best video I got of the whales coming up out of the water: A gray whale surfacing briefly

I didn’t take any HRV readings for about two weeks. Today’s was the second day in a row of EliteHRV readings, after we returned home so the HRV baseline is just getting started again.

Today’s EliteHRV morning readiness reading indicated caution (see above screenshot) but I was more than cautious and didn’t do any rowing today.

The only indoor rowing I did during the past two weeks was done in my street clothes. I didn’t want to get sweaty, so I took it easy while trying out a strange rowing machine called “Matrix”. It was quieter than a C2, but I’ll take a C2 over a Matrix any day. It felt weird/strange.

The only other machine I tried while on the trip was a Stairmaster step machine. The above screen shows the results of what I did, which burned 150 calories.

Now, for those of you who are wanna-be sleep-researchers, here’s the exciting recent record of heart rate during sleep periods for Dec 27th through the most recent night’s sleep:

Happy rowing to you.

Erg Displaces Horses

This jigsaw puzzle was completed (finally!) with the motivation that after it was completed and removed from the room, its space would be occupied with a Concept 2 ski erg. If you are wondering how big the puzzle is – its huge, compared to the average size jigsaw puzzle.

The above snapshot is of a finished jigsaw puzzle which occupied a table and took of a relatively large amount of space in the room where the Concept 2 rowing erg is located. It was an extremely challenging puzzle and so it sat, unfinished for quite a while… perhaps extending a long time into the future.

But I had been reading about doing other activities to cross train instead of only rowing and so I told my better half that I’d like to put a Concept 2 ski erg in the place where the jigsaw puzzle was located, whenever she eventually finished the puzzle.

That inspired her to attack the puzzle with analysis and a method involving sorting and even tracing a few outlines. She finished the puzzle, so hopefully we will soon occupy that table space with a ski erg.

No rowing today… and probably none for a few more days… But there was some sleeping done, as you can see in the chart below. I feel very rested… like perhaps I could easily row a season best time in a half marathon.

Almost 8 hours sleep last night. Heart rate was lowest in first half of the night, before an electric blanket was used. After the temperature was boosted with the electric blanket during the second half of the night, heart rate was a bit more elevated so I assume there is a cause and effect relationship.

Happy rowing to you.

A Rainbow But No Rowing Yet

This morning I drove to the nearest Starbucks to get coffee. A rainbow was showing its splendor while a barely perceptible drizzle misted the air during the walk from parking lot to Starbucks.

There was no rowing again today nor yesterday. Below are charts of heart rate during sleep last night and the night before last.

Last night’s sleep was good quality but the night before wasn’t as good, with Afib and high heart rate most of the night, which I unscientifically attribute to something(s) I ate when we visited a local Ethiopian restaurant.

Last night’s sleep was good – a little less than 7 hours and normal heart rate.

Sleep for the night before last wasn’t so good – very high average sleeping heart rate at around 82 BPM, which (as mentioned above) I’m unscientifically crediting to restaurant food.

Merry Christmas and happy rowing to you.

December 20th Through Dec 23rd 2018

On the above dates listed in the title, the rowing machine has been sadly idle. Because it is an emotionless, lifeless machine, the sadness is all my own. But it has to be, because other activities are displacing the time and opportunity for rowing and will be doing so for another few days it looks like.

I should be rested and ready for any kind of rowing sessions when rowing can be resumed again, because the most recent HRV readings “say so”:

Readiness score for Dec 20th but no rowing could be done.

Best score yet, on morning of December 21, 2018!! but alas! no rowing could be done today 🙁

Another good night of sleep, on December 21, 2018… all that rest and nowhere to row!

The sleep period for morning of December 22nd was mostly insomnia.

Sleep today (the morning of Dec 23rd) was actually very good. More rest, toward getting a full charge for rowing…

Happy rowing to you.

A Skipping Day

She is skipping ropes. I skipped rowing sessions.

Though today’s HRV reading was very good (see screenshot below) today was a day when rowing was skipped.

Though today’s reading said more stress would be okay, it was a low stress day with regard to rowing. Zero meters rowed.

Sleep was okay last night also – a little over seven hours (see screenshot below)

Last night’s sleeping heart rate graph shows two fairly brief out-of-bed periods.

I don’t know why I didn’t do any rowing today… my subconscious isn’t talking. Maybe tomorrow, a rowing session in the morning, Mr. Subconscious?

He’s still not talking.

Here’s hoping…

Happy rowing to you.

A Three Alarm HRV Reading

A picture of last night’s insomnia. Heart rate is plotted with red dots which are heart rate samples once about every 10 minutes. Heart rate is not plotted for the period when I was awake with insomnia.

Last night, I had a few hours of insomnia. One result was that I didn’t get back to sleep until about 05:00 a.m. This morning was a day when it was necessary to rise early, to take care of a weekly, early morning chore.

I always set at least 3 wake-up alarms, in case there is a malfunction with one or two of them. The first one sounded and I reached up from deep under the surface of an ocean of sleep and shut it off. Same with the second one and I was slightly more awake, but lay back down and closed my eyes to drift back to sleep. It took the third alarm, to get me up out of bed, but I felt awful.

So after completing the chore, I considered whether to go back to bed or stay up. I went back to bed, but despite being very tired, could not go back to sleep. So I got up, and took the daily EliteHRV Morning Readiness reading. It was the worst reading I’ve seen yet. A fruit of a bad night’s sleep? I rowed briskly yesterday, but neither terribly hard nor long..

Today’s EliteHRV Readiness reading after a three-alarm wake-up.

Whatever the reason, I limited myself to only easy, leisurely rowing today. The main rowing session was 10,000 meters at a low heart rate pace.

A screen recording was made for those who want to row-along. It is located on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing Leisurely 10K 12182018

Finish screen for main 10K portion of today’s rowing.

Happy rowing to you.

The Fruits Of A Half Marathon

Two days after doing a half marathon, EliteHRV calculated that I had the best Morning Readiness score since starting to use the app!

One fruit of the Dec 15th half marathon is displayed in the screenshot above, which shows the best Morning Readiness reading I’ve had so far since using EliteHRV. It came two days later and I think it is one result of the half marathon effort.

A second fruit was improved sleep. The above chart shows last night’s sleeping heart rate. Though it seemed to me like it was good sleep, you can’t tell much of anything about the quality of sleep from that chart. But – this morning I received a notification and “inquiry” from my sleep logging app about my sleep the prior night, immediately following the half marathon. (see screenshot below)

Its analysis reports that sleep quality for the previous day’s sleep period (the night immediately following the half marathon) was “higher than is typical” and it presented a couple dozen possible reasons, asking me to check off “all that apply” to that improved sleep quality, so as to contribute to its cause-and-effect analysis. The only one I checked was exercise, because the half marathon was the only thing out of the ordinary, since it’s 21,097 meters had been about 5 times my average daily volume so far this season and about double my recent several weeks’ daily volume.

“The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much…” Ecclesiastes 5:12

Since today’s EliteHRV “Morning Readiness” reading said it was okay to train harder today, I decided to do another 10,000+ meters, arranged as a 10 minute warmup, a 6,000 meter piece at a target pace of 2:06/500 meters and a 10 minute warm down.

For those of you who’d like to row along with it, a screen recording is available on YouTube at this link: Indoor Rowing 6K at 2min 6secs 12172018

Happy rowing to you.

10K Recovery With An Easter Egg

Today’s heart rate variability reading was the surprise you see in the above screenshot. Last night’s sleep was interrupted with insomnia but the total time sleeping was adequate. (see screenshot below)

A bout of insomnia interrupted last night’s sleep between 2 and 4 a.m.

Assuming the analysis and advice of EliteHRV was correct, I chose to do a recovery 10K. “Recovery” is relative and subjective, but a pace of 2:20 seemed like a good compromise, pending what the HRV result will be tomorrow.

So the 10K was done at a target average pace of 2:20 and an “Easter egg,” as a computer programmer might call it, was inserted when the distance counted down to 1,150 meters remaining.

A screen recording was made for those of you who’d like to row along with today’s 10K. It’s link is on YouTube here: Indoor Rowing 10K with Easter egg 12162018

Happy rowing to you.

Clearing Out The Cobwebs With A Half Marathon

Finish screen view of the half marathon portion of today’s rowing.

Sleep was good and more than adequate last night (see image below) almost 8 hours…

But the EliteHRV morning readiness score still refused to climb out of the “sympathetic” zone or higher than 7. (see image below)

So, I concluded that it may be as good as its going to get(?) and decided to be happy with 7. Its a good number.

Today’s indoor rowing session was a half marathon with a simple plan. The plan was to aim for and maintain an average pace of 2:14.4/500m until the distance counted down to 500 meters remaining. When there were 500 meters remaining, the hope was to row faster to the finish line, depending on how I felt by then.

I felt okay, so somewhere during the final 500 meters, I decided to pick up the pace enough to aim for an overall average pace of 2:14.0.

There was a 750 meter warmup before the HM and a 1K warm down afterwards.

Happily, the heart behaved itself and wasn’t a spoilsport today.

For those of you who pay attention to the blog post categories: I’m going to stop using the categories of Easy Workout, Medium Workout, Medium Hard Workout and Hard Workout. Instead of those four categories, I’ll use one of 10 categories of RPE, which stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion. Today’s session is categorized as Rate of Perceived Exertion 3 (refer to chart below). Because I was breathing easy (not “breathing heavily”) during 98.5% of today’s half marathon, it is categorized as RPE 3.

For those of you who’d like to row along with this session, a screen recording was uploaded to this link: Indoor Rowing Half Marathon 12152018

Happy rowing to you.