HR & Mornings

[Plax]

I have a heart rate monitor. I have noticed that in the mornings, despite my commute being predominantly downhill, my heart rate is always higher than on the journey home. My journey home is mostly up hill and usually "the long way round" to include more hills to take advantage of the weather.

My resting heart rate is between 50 - 53 bpm (so I've set my garmin up with the resting HR being 53). I've set up 5 zones, and I can't remember off the top of my head what zone 5 is, but I've got it set up to beep at me if it goes into this zone. It rarely ever does beep at me, and I've only ever got a max HR of 186 bpm on it (on my commute I usually average about 140 ish bpm). This morning it was beeping like mad at me, and registered a max HR of 201 bpm.

Any ideas why this is? I'm sure I read somewhere that your resting HR increases if you are overdoing it. Maybe I'm just not a morning person!

 

[jimboalee]

May is out. Time to take your winter woolies and thick coat off.

You may be overheating, or if not, you have Swine flu

 

[Plax]

May is out. Time to take your winter woolies and thick coat off.

You may be overheating, or if not, you have Swine flu

Looks like the latter then as I was only wearing shorts and t-shirt this morning!

 

[jimboalee]

Looks like the latter then as I was only wearing shorts and t-shirt this morning!

Wrap up warm lad, or you'll catch your death.

 

[Dan B]

201 is quite impressive: the only time I ever reached that kind of number (on a turbo trainer) it was plainly obvious to me that I was hurting without the aid of a HRM. Are you sure it's not playing up? They are prone to interference from other sources of wireless noise

 

[Plax]

201 is quite impressive: the only time I ever reached that kind of number (on a turbo trainer) it was plainly obvious to me that I was hurting without the aid of a HRM. Are you sure it's not playing up? They are prone to interference from other sources of wireless noise

I did think that, but I can't think of anything that would cause interference on my commute (no traffic lights, radio towers, power stations, no Freeview telly etc). Could be the battery perhaps.

I wasn't feeling particularly uncomfortable when it was beeping at me, but then I usually don't unless I decide to get out of the saddle and peg it up a hill, but I can't recall an instance when it has beeped at me then.

I shall start a spreadsheet I think and see how my HR correlates with time of day and temperature. Might be an interesting distraction........

 

[jimboalee]

Which wrist do you wear your watch on?

 

[Plax]

Which wrist do you wear your watch on?

Right wrist, but I have a chest strap for the HR monitor.

 

[jimboalee]

Right wrist, but I have a chest strap for the HR monitor.

So when your HRM shows 200 again, stop quick and press your left fingers against your righthand Carotid artery while watching the second hand.

If there are 19-20 beats in the first six seconds, your HRM is good, your HR is elevated for some reason.

 

[Bill Gates]

It might be because you are tired after your day's work, mentally and/or physically.

I've taken to wearing a HRM recently and although I train on perceived effort have noticed that when I'm tired (following a hard days training) it is very hard to get the HR up and this also coincides with my PE.

As you rightly say if your resting HR is up then you might be ill or overdoing it, but IMO not being able to get your HR rate up during a ride reflects the same classic symptoms.

 

[Plax]

My HRM appears to be working as normal. It beeped at me again this morning for going into my highest zone, didn't check to see how high it went this time, but as it only beeped once at me, unlike yesterday morning, I don't think it is as high. I did the pulse thing and it seemed to match.

I think I'm going to set up my own spreadsheet for recording stuff like this. I've tried Sport tracks and the Garmin Training Centre and they don't do what I want. It's nice to see a map of your route, but I can get that on Garmin Connect. I want to be able to filter/sort my rides based on things like HR, speed & cadance and see if any of it correlates with time of day / month etc so I'm going to have to make one myself.