So far (and predictably) I haven't done very well with either of my New Year's resolutions: 1. to write more (detailed in a previous entry) and 2. to eat more meat than usual. However, I did buy myself a new toy recently - a heart rate monitor - and will endeavour to blog about the conundrums (conundra?) it has been reporting.
I was very excited when I bought it a few weeks ago, and wore it around the house during a variety of activities for the first week. This is what I found:
It seems that my resting heart rate is around 50 beats per minute, which is what I would have expected. This includes watching TV and knitting, with the exception of the very exciting world of Harry Potter, during which it shot up to around 100; also to be expected when there are Hippogriffs involved. Cooking (pastry and millionnaire's shortbread, to be specific) uses around 75. Eating said dishes makes it plummet, inexplicably, to an alarmingly low 34. Working at a computer is around 75. Circuit training brought it to 181 at its highest. When I was sick last weekend my resting heart rate was 101, and performing strenuous activities such as climbing the stairs (which I kept to a minimum) made it shoot to 140.
However, the data I was really looking forward to seeing was during a run, which happened this morning. I ran six miles, and during the first mile the monitor was between 130 and 170. But then, without my pace having dramatically changed, as far as I was aware, it slowly but surely settled down at between 40 and 60.
I cannot, for the life of me, work out how I am expending more energy watching the Prisoner of Azkaban than I am running six miles at a faster-than-long-run-pace pace. Maybe the monitor is wrong. Maybe my heart is wrong. Maybe - and I am sure this is true - I am not running fast enough. I was running aerobically, but I would expect to be running somewhat aerobically for a Sunday morning sort of run. Maybe the run was an anomaly; I'll see what happens next time. The monitor was certainly a distraction - I found myself looking at it more often as the run went on, feeling disproportionately tired compared with the percentage of energy I was apparently using.
It's puzzling. I have a book on heart rate monitors, and the internet, which I haven't read yet, and which may shed some light upon the mystery. It was at 86 whilst writing this blog. Maybe it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy - the higher the number on the monitor, the faster the heart goes due to stress and anxiety caused by the little numbers. Google, help me!
I was very excited when I bought it a few weeks ago, and wore it around the house during a variety of activities for the first week. This is what I found:
It seems that my resting heart rate is around 50 beats per minute, which is what I would have expected. This includes watching TV and knitting, with the exception of the very exciting world of Harry Potter, during which it shot up to around 100; also to be expected when there are Hippogriffs involved. Cooking (pastry and millionnaire's shortbread, to be specific) uses around 75. Eating said dishes makes it plummet, inexplicably, to an alarmingly low 34. Working at a computer is around 75. Circuit training brought it to 181 at its highest. When I was sick last weekend my resting heart rate was 101, and performing strenuous activities such as climbing the stairs (which I kept to a minimum) made it shoot to 140.
However, the data I was really looking forward to seeing was during a run, which happened this morning. I ran six miles, and during the first mile the monitor was between 130 and 170. But then, without my pace having dramatically changed, as far as I was aware, it slowly but surely settled down at between 40 and 60.
I cannot, for the life of me, work out how I am expending more energy watching the Prisoner of Azkaban than I am running six miles at a faster-than-long-run-pace pace. Maybe the monitor is wrong. Maybe my heart is wrong. Maybe - and I am sure this is true - I am not running fast enough. I was running aerobically, but I would expect to be running somewhat aerobically for a Sunday morning sort of run. Maybe the run was an anomaly; I'll see what happens next time. The monitor was certainly a distraction - I found myself looking at it more often as the run went on, feeling disproportionately tired compared with the percentage of energy I was apparently using.
It's puzzling. I have a book on heart rate monitors, and the internet, which I haven't read yet, and which may shed some light upon the mystery. It was at 86 whilst writing this blog. Maybe it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy - the higher the number on the monitor, the faster the heart goes due to stress and anxiety caused by the little numbers. Google, help me!
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