Don’t do what when running? Don’t keep your eyes closed, or you might crash into a tree or a cactus, etc.
But its okay to keep your eyes closed when using a rowing machine.
Which is what I did again today. At the beginning, I set a timer for 40 minutes and opened my eyes when it beeped. Then, I set the timer for another 7 minutes which took me almost to the finish with eyes closed.
Today’s indoor rowing was done at a low rating which worked out to be an average of about 17 strokes per minute for the entire distance. Rowing at a low rating is highly rated in the sense that it is supposed to be a good activity for improving strength.
Last night’s sleep graph. In the Sleep Activity area, white is restless/awake/active and blue is restful=sleep. There was a period of wakefulness=insomnia in the middle of the night, during which I got out of bed. That’s the big white area.
I was probably actually awake during this morning’s 10K session, but it was a trance-like state.
When the alarm went off this morning at 7:40, I had been sleeping very deeply. I went to the rowing machine as soon as possible, to row another 10K for the Concept 2 March challenge.
It felt like I was asleep with my eyes open, when I started rowing. I let the rowing effort be what felt best and the result was a breezy, trance-like rowing experience. It was “breezy”, each time a stroke was finished and the seat reversed its direction of movement on the rail. Each reversal of direction to switch from drive to recovery provided a gentle, caressing breeze. That and the relatively slow movements all added up to a dreamy, caressed-with-sleep experience with each stroke.
In one sense of the word, it could be described as a “romantic” experience. In the same sense, that is, in which some distance and ultra-distance runners have described their individual running experience as “romantic”.
To say it another way, the rowing chart of a well-behaved heart is not messy, like the charts for yesterday’s session, with all the gaps and vertical lines for every time the heart rate was too irregular to be measured by the heart strap.
And yes, today’s rowing session was unblemished by irregularity or tachycardia of any sort.
Today started a bit late and so when I was able to get to the rowing machine, I was in a “just do it” frame of mind. The 10K was done at an easy pace, slightly increasing for most of the session and then it tapered during the last part, especially the last 2K which served as a warm down.
Today’s indoor rowing session was early morning to get it out of the way before a busy day. There was a problem: The heart, that necessary nuisance, wasn’t cooperating again. It was so irregular that many times the heart strap couldn’t track it and the HR display would go blank. When it was regular, it was beating way too fast for the effort level.
I didn’t find anything to stimulate the evacuation of that problem so the session was simply finished at a very slow pace. Extremely slow. But the 10K was done and another day can be checked off towards fulfillment of one of the current Concept 2 challenges, which requires at least 25 days of minimum (either 5K or 10K per day) rowing. I opted for doing 10K per day for 25 days this month.
Aside from the period between about 3 and 5:30 in the morning, it was a good sleep that totaled almost 8 hours of actual sleep.
Yesterday’s general plan for today’s indoor rowing was to do it first thing in the morning, before even having breakfast. But a bout of insomnia which lasted from 3 to 5:30 a.m. made everything later.
Today’s rowing was done in the mid afternoon. It was 10,000 meters at an easy pace with 4 intervals of 500 meters each at a moderately hard pace.
Today’s session was 10K with variable pacing. The pace variations were mainly during four stretches of 500 meter pace increases. Those were done with enough effort to feel like work, because I had to breathe a little harder. But no sweat dripped onto the rowing machine, so all-in-all it was an easy workout.
Finish screen for today’s 10K with variations in pace.
Today’s indoor rowing session was a deliberately conservative 10K. It was 10K, because that’s the minimum distance I can row in a day for one of the two current Concept 2 challenges in which I’m participating. It was a laid-back pace, because I’m looking for confirmation that all negatively influential traces of the intravenous chemicals (received during the cardio PET scan on March 12) are completely flushed-out.
The session went well, so perhaps they are.
If you are wondering what the title reference to “sleeping heart trail” is about, that is mentioned, along with relevant images, below the screenshots of today’s rowing results. (It mainly has to do with a sleeping-heart rhythm graph the likes of which I’d never seen before and which I’m guessing was due to the after-effect influence of one or more of the injected compounds received during the cardio PET scan. )
Today’s 10K was done with some non-periodic variations in pace. It was uploaded to YouTube as a screen recording and is available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 10K with variations 03172018“.
Report for today’s 10K.RowPro graphs for today’s 10K.Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K.
Now, for the Sleeping-Heart Trail part:
Below are graphs of heart rate samples taken during the nine most recent nights of sleep, before and after the cardio PET scan which was done the afternoon of March 12th. During the scan, there was first an injection of radioactive isotope solution, to highlight the heart, whose normal behavior was the focus of the first scan. That first scan lasted 14 minutes according to the technician.
After the first scan, there was an injection which was mainly if not exclusively a solution containing regadenoson. The effect of that second injection was to greatly dilate blood vessels and thereby cause the heart to beat faster in order to compensate for the corresponding reduction in blood pressure. The regadenosone effect was definitely noticeable but lasted only for about 3 minutes.
As another side effect, it cause my rate of respiration to increase, though breathing remained very shallow, as though I was almost not breathing except for the slight increase in frequency of the chest slightly expanding and contracting more than it had been before the injection.
An additional side effect was that near the end of the 3 minutes I could feel a light degree of perspiration as though all my skin which was directly exposed to the air had been dampened with a moist cloth.
The single most noticeable side effect during the three minutes was that I felt agitated and restless and had a strong urge to get off the horizontal platform and pace around the room, instead of laying still. I remained motionless by an act of will to resist that urge.
But… three nights later the sleeping heart graph was something I’ve never ever seen before: It was totally flat for the entire night, except once when it was abnormally high. Normally, my heart rate varies slightly during the night and either gradually tapers down to an overall slower BPM or gradually tapers up, from the beginning to the end of the total recorded sleep period. In other words, the heart rate graph during a night’s sleep usually has an average slope either up or down from beginning to end.
I suspect the abnormally straight-line regularity had something to do with the regadenoson, since it is the only chemical of which I’m aware which is directly related to heart behavior and which was included in the injections during the scan.
While rowing the next day after the ultra-regular all-night heart rhythm, I experienced one of the most irregular and excessively-high heart rhythm and BPM episodes of any ever experienced during an erg session. (See the post titled Revisiting Rowing Through A Heart Attack.)
Four nights before the day of the cardio Pet scan.Three nights before the day of the cardio Pet scan.Two nights before the day of the cardio Pet scan.The night before the day of the cardio Pet scan. (There was a period of insomnia, indicated by the extensive white area from before 11 pm until after 2 am.)The night immediately following the day of the cardio PET scan.The second night following the day of the cardio PET scan. I was kept awake from before 2 am until about 4 am, by irregular heart beat.The third night following the day of the cardio PET scan. I woke to use the bathroom between 5:30 and 6 am but heart rate shows to be either absent or constant at 49 for that time. The one variation in HR during the entire night was around 1:30 a.m. while I was asleep. It generated a notification from the Apple Watch.
Also on the night of the 14th-15th which is graphed above, there was an “elevated heart rate” notification from the Apple Watch for that night:
I was asleep when this elevated heart rate was generated. Dreaming, perhaps?Details of the elevated heart rate notification.The fourth night following the day of the cardio PET scan.The fifth night following the day of the cardio PET scan. This was for last night. A very normal graph, compared to the graphs I’ve seen over the past year of using this particular sleep app.
Another thought is, that whether or not the unusual heart behavior recently was due to the lingering presence of one or more of the injected chemicals, it may have been also related to the heart’s recovery from whatever it was that it experienced during the chemical stress test.
