My broken heart

A few months ago I bought into the whole training with a heartrate monitor thing. Before that I was of the school that I could do everything just as well if not better based on perceived exertion. Why? Because I'm cheap. So until I plopped down 20 euros for the cheapest HR monitor they sold at Decathlon all I knew about my heartrate was that when they made me do the mandatory medical review at my gym the doctor looked concearned and asked if I felt okay when taking my resting heart rate. When she made me stop the graded exercise test, I thought that the effort was extremely easy, but she said that we didn't have to go any harder. In my results my resting heartrate was (are you ready): one HUNDRED beats per minute. My guess is that she only let me go up to about 170 bpm on the graded exercise test since that would be roughly my anaerobic threshhold based on statistics.

So now flash forward to my first experience with the heartrate monitor: I found it extremely easy to get into the high 180s and stay there. One day I decided to perform an informal max heartrate test by warming up and then employing the complex testing method called "running really fast". I saw the number climb to 214 before I thought I was risking puking on the floor again and backed off. This was in my phase this winter where I was drinking a lot, so I might have been slightly hung over anyway. So, by my calculations (which cannot be trusted) my max heartrate is greater than or equal to 214 bpm, making me six years old or younger in that "220 minus your age" addage. To find how I make people in their 50s think they're having a heart attack look back to my blog called "Who knows how I haven't killed myself yet".

Around the time I finally got sold on base training at a REALLY low heartrate, though, my numbers started wigging out. I would be at about 165 and suddenly drop down to 80, then 65, then 42. Either my heartrate monitor was busted, or I'd finally broken through to the next level of training where I could bike at 40 kmph at 25% of my max heartrate (Kona tape, here I come). This was happening with not only the cheapo monitor, but also my Polar that works with the bike computer I got for Christmas, now THOSE are not cheap. On the road I would be pedaling along at about 150 bpm and suddenly I would shoot up to 225 and the computer would start beeping. Then it would stop beeping and stop measuring speed or distance or time. I guess this was because the gadget assumed I had keeled over and died and it was only a matter of time before we crashed, so it was time to put its head between its legs and kiss its ass goodbye. All these things are really frustrating when you're trying to get to know your zones and keep it long and slow.

Then a thought occurred to me: "Maybe I have a heart condition. Maybe I really am going to die". When I had a bug before the marathon I thought, "This is it. This is what heart disease feels like and I'll probably die in the marathon." But, brave as I am I decided to do it anyway, even though I knew it would be quite embarrassing to keel over and die of exertion way back in the nether regions of the pack where they don't even have pace balloons. I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat, so to calm you down, yes, I DID survive the marathon. Since then I've been looking at heartrate monitors again. A regular old heartrate monitor and watch from Polar is over 100 euros (I can't even imagine what that would be in dollars), and even a regular old Polar watch that shows no more than time, date, and heartrate is fifty bucks (more in US). If I'm going to have to pay the Lanzarote entrance fee in a couple of months I can't be dropping 50 bucks on a heartrate monitor. So yesterday I tried something new. After my swim I put on the POLAR band and the CRAP-O watch, and to my amazement CRAPO was showing a number! A steady 147 that didn't rise or fall a bit. Usually my numbers are more inconsistant than the stock market, but here I was at a solid 147. One problem: I was just tying my shoes. At this rate, tying my shoes and chewing gum would probably put me in zone 2. I fiddled with the watch some more (by pressing all the buttons) and got the number to change. All the way down to gym #2 (yes, I need two gyms) I was at a constant two HUNDRED and thirty-three beats per minute. That's right folks: TWO hundred and thirty-three beats per minute walking down hill. So, one of three things is happening:
A) I have an equipment malfunction and have to stop sweating or whatever's messing up either the band or the receiver.
B) I have a heart malfunction and my heart beats irregularly tripping out the heartrate monitor and making it measure way too high or way too low.
C) I'm dying or dead and I've broken my heart.