Metrics

Today, for the first time, I wore my heart rate monitor on my ride to work. I’ve had a heart rate monitor for a while but I’m not a very serious user of it. I keep an eye on my heart rate when running (almost never when cycling) but I don’t carefully spend so many minutes in this zone and so many minutes in that zone. I don’t really “train” in any meaningful sense of the word. I suppose I should. Anyway, I was curious about what my resting heart rate is so I wore the monitor all night. As a result I was wearing it this morning and just left it on during my ride in. What did it tell me? The ride took 55 minutes, which means that even on what should be an “easy” day (not especially cold, no wind to speak of, no snow on the ground) it still takes me ten minutes longer than my usual non-winter time. It also told me that my average heart rate was 56 bpm and my maximum heart rate was 67 bpm, which calls into question the accuracy of the monitor. I suspect it slipped out of position and so wasn’t reading correctly. I tried again on the way home and had a more believable average of 115 bpm. I was also five minutes faster, in spite of a bit of a headwind.

Today's picture: cycle-rickshaws in front of the Red Fort in Delhi