Not a Test

A wee bit of exercise today. I would use the term training, but I think that might be overstating it.

This morning I jumped on the Kickr for an hour of easy spinning. By easy I mean average heart rate of about 106bpm type easy. Really just turning the legs over.

It has been about 10 days and a minor surgical procedure since I have done any real exercise, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. However, I think all up it went okay. It is a bit hard to tell how the heart went with it all without being plumbed into an ECG the entire time, but the times I was checking it the heart seemed to be behaving. I think I only noticed one period of irregular rhythm towards the end of the session, although, as I have said, it is pretty hard to draw definitive conclusions from that sort of random monitoring. To me the heart 'felt' like it was behaving more, with very few periods of discomfort, however, as Dr Stobie has repeatedly warned me, that sort of 'feeling' is fairly unreliable. The intensity was low and the monitoring was patchy, so it is hardly conclusive testing, but I will take some hope from the session that things may have improved a little from how it was pre-surgery.

Probably worth mentioning too that this morning's spin was definitely not about testing either, more just about being active. This week is too soon to be testing the heart and at home on the trainer is the wrong environment to be doing it in. The first bit of real post surgery monitoring will come next week when I am back to see Dr Stobie. That appointment is on Thursday and from what I understand it will involve a bit of a catch up and I suspect another 24 hours in a Holter Monitor. The point of that follow up will be to give a better idea of what the heart is doing now, post surgery, since it has had a chance to heal and recover. Am I still getting ectopic beats, if so how many? Does my heart get any other of the more dangerous rhythms that occurred pre-surgery, or is it clear of them? Those are the sorts of questions the appointment next week will hopefully start to answer. Dr Stobie has made a couple of mentions of doing a stress test, but I would not expect that to be happening soon.

Given how today went, my plan will definitely be to do a bit more time on the bike. I am not sure if I will do that time tomorrow or save it for Friday. I don't want to overdo things and so I think will break the ride up with the odd walk now and then.

I am also dying to get out for a surf, which I haven't done for years, however, the swell is stubbornly refusing the play along with that one.