Valerian Skewed HRV? – Ethereal Rowing

I was skeptical of this morning’s Readiness score by EliteHRV app.

I don’t know for certain why the Readiness score and resulting “advice” from EliteHRV app’s heart rate variability analysis was so poor this morning but I suspected Valerian. The reason I suspected it is because last night I took a dose of Valerian before bed and again in the middle of the night, to aid sleep.

The Valerian made me feel very relaxed or tired. I don’t know if it influenced my heart rate to slow down, but I did notice that heart rate dropped as low as 44 BPM during the morning. (See screen shot below)

I was surprised to see the Apple Watch display heart rate as low as 44 during the day when I was awake and moving around. Was this an aftereffect of the Valerian?

Other than feeling exorbitantly relaxed (I know… “exorbitant’ isn’t an appropriate adjective here, but I’m using sloppy poetic license and will use it anyway)… I felt okay.

So I ignored the recommendation of EliteHRV and rowed the way I normally would. And “skied” the way I normally would, on the SkiErg after rowing.

Speaking of rowing and skiing, those were today’s workouts in that order: 10K of rowing with intervals every 1K, followed by 10 minute rowing warm down, followed by 124 Calories of alternating 10 calorie intervals on the SkiErg.

Finish screen for today’s 10K rowing session. Did I mention that it was done online, in the good company of another rower who was a few thousand miles away on the East Coast of USA?

Some data and a chart for today’s 124 Calorie SkiErg session.

Happy rowing to you!