My Apple Watch is seeing some improvement...

I'm on day 18 of this Florida 70.3 training program, and this past Monday was the start of week three of training. Even in such a short period of time, it's been a bit of a journey. I'm hurting all over. I even wiped out on my bike and suffered a shoulder injury. The worst is my left calf from running.

When I woke up today, my Apple Watch alerted me that my resting heart rate had improved over the last 15 days. Prior, my average was 66 bpm, and over the past 15 days, it's down to 58 bpm. I felt it was better, and now there is quantitative proof. I'm actually amazed at how quickly it has improved. 

I was scheduled to bike, swim, and do a strength training session today, but I decided to move the swim to tomorrow, my rest day. I want to give my shoulder another day to strengthen. 

It was a crazy busy day at work today, and it was one of those days I've had where mindless eating starts to happen. It was the first day since starting that I wanted to snack throughout the day, and I recognized it was because of the mania of the day. 

But I resisted. It was also one of those days when, by the end of the day, I was mentally drained, and the last thing on my mind was to do any training. In fact, I was going to move today's bike ride to tomorrow and make today my rest day. 

But I didn't. I looked at tomorrow's weather, and it was calling for rain. I was to do the ride now, or my chances of doing it tomorrow were nil. After I ate, I started to decompress, and it was 79 F outside—perfect weather for riding. With Alice's encouragement, I ended up doing my ride. 

Tonight's bike training session was scheduled to be a low heart rate session, with the goal of spinning at 90 revolutions per minute (rpm) and keeping the heart rate under 122 bpm. It was an easy ride, but it took a lot of effort to keep my heart rate that low. I had to do a lot of coasting, and even then, I could only keep it under 122 bpm for half the ride, and doing 90 rpm wasn't possible for most of the ride as it would take my heart rate over 122 bpm. 

I've noticed that I'm much more paranoid about getting into an accident on the bike. It's a combination of wiping out and knowing the odds are not in my favor. I've done at least 70,000 km of riding without any accidents, and just that alone puts the odds against me. I've never been paranoid like this before. 

I'm glad I got my ride done tonight. It helped settle my mind, gave me a sense of accomplishment, and allowed me to continue my training momentum.  

Before my training sessions, I've been taking Beta-Alanie, and my body tingles all over. It's normal until I get used to it. It's like a "pins and needles" feeling. But I've used it in the past, and it really helps you get stronger faster. 


Bike  - 1:01:04 - 22.21 km - 21.8 kph avg

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