Sciencing

Another tough but good swim knocked over this morning. The session had the usual internal mental battles, but in the end I dragged myself through and got that nice feeling of accomplishment that you get when you successfully complete a 5km swim set. For the sort of racing I do, I think those miles in the pool are invaluable. Unfortunately there is only one way to get them and it isn't easy.

The swim is my only session for the day though and with that now done, I have had the rest of the day to myself (and work of course). It is always nice to get home knowing that you are done in terms of exercise.

That is about it for me today. Bit dull I must admit and I usually try to avoid doing to many, I did this and then this type training posts. Log it and Blog it as I once heard somebody describe it. So in an effort to avoid boringness (word?) I will tell you about an interesting play I had with the Scosche Rhythm+ the other night.

As I said in my review of the Rhythm+ on Monday, I find it to be a great device for monitoring resting heart rate. On Monday night I thought I might use that to do something that I have wanted to do for ages, monitor my heart rate over night. I know raging right. Can't stop the fun in my house.

No but seriously, I reckon it is something that most athletes have wondered at least once, and I am sure many have measured using the existing devices. I have thought about it numerous times using my Garmins, but never quite got around to it. But with the features of the Rhythm+, such as it being more comfortable and it being able to talk to my phone over a long range, I thought I might give it a go. The comfort meant that I would definitely be able to sleep in it and the long range meant that I could have it transmit to my phone without having the phone in the same room, potentially disturbing us all.

Anyway so Monday night I did it and it worked quite well, although I have to say the results were surprising. As with many fit people my resting heart rate is already reasonably low (low 40s for those competitive triathletes playing at home). But that is resting on the couch, or in the office, sitting still but still doing stuff. I had visions that when I was actually asleep my heart rate would drop to some crocodilian style super low level. I was quite surprised to see that it didn't. I had the heart rate monitor recording for around 4 hours (I turned it off when I got up during the night to go to the loo - darn me and my habit of having a drink right before bed). In that 4 hours my average heart rate was recorded as 45bpm. I have it consistently lower than that when I sit around during the day. Looking at the record of the night it was really quite interesting, particularly the number of spikes I had that jumped up to around 70 or 80bpm. Spikes that occured when I was completely asleep as far as I can recall. In fact if I compare it to the sleep tracker on my Garmin then during that period it looks like I had a pretty normal mix of deep and light sleep (looks like a fairly standard REM cycle to me). So I am interested to see that I had so many spikes. It wasn't at all what I was expecting, nor was the reasonably high average heart rate. It has certainly got me intrigued enough to plan to do it a few more times to see if I get the same sort of result consistently.

If people are brave enough they could even try it out at home themselves. Woo hoo, out of control!!!!