I should have expected it after the Tri on Saturday and the longer run with Donnie on Sunday that my HRV (Heart Rate Variability) was going to be high. I registered a high HRV on Monday morning so I decided to take the day off. I’m learning that rest is just as important as the workout and a good nights’ sleep is all I needed to clear up my HRV for Tuesday.

Tuesdays (and Wednesdays) in the winter time are a great day for workouts because the shop is closed. Typically, all I have to worry about are the days I have to work in Oxford at night. On those days, like this past Tuesday, I go out on a nice run prior to going in to work. I wanted to see how my numbers compared running outside, like I had with Donnie on Sunday. I decided to go for an hour run outside around the new neighborhood. The goal was to stay at 143 bpm and broke down like:

1 mile    10:08
2 mile    9:17
3 mile    9:47
4 mile    10:16
5 mile    10:11
6 mile    10:19

These numbers are pretty consistent with what I would expect from Cardiac Drift. My mile 4 to mile 5 was a bit odd but the numbers will just keep on rolling……

Until I got sick. Very sick. The benefits of having two small children I guess. Both kids and Laura have been sick for a few weeks and it finally caught up to me on Wednesday. Fortunately it hasn’t been too hard and my focus has always been to continue exercise as long as I was able. UNfortunately, when I took my HRV on Wednesday morning, it was the highest I have ever seen, with being in a “red” area. I decided to take ANOTHER day off.

Thursday I was still feeling a bit under the weather so I decided to check my HRV (back to green) and do my run inside on the treadmill again. Personally I rather enjoy the treadmill, being a numbers-oriented person. Today I would try a new piece of equipment, by connecting a Garmin footpod to my 910XT. The footpod picks up cadence and actually gives distance too! This may definitely open things up for training with more data on the treadmill. The run, a 45 minute run at 1% incline broke down as:

      4 min @ 4mph  HR 105
      5 min @ 5.6mph  HR 130
      7 min @ 6mph   HR 138
1 mile   11:17
      16 min @ 5.9mph  HR  144
      20:30 min @ 5.7mph 
2 mile    9:25  (cumulative 20:42)
      30 min @ 5.6mph
      37 min @ 5.5mph
3 mile    9:44 (cumulative 30:26)
4 mile    9:43 (cumulative 40:09)

4.49 mile  45 minutes

That is all for now. I’m plotting all of this data on an Excel spreadsheet to see how it plots out over the next couple of weeks. Hope to get another good run or two in this weekend! Hope you get yours too!!!