You Can't Fool The Heart Rate Monitor

A corollary to the expression, "You can fool some of the people all of he time, etc." is that "you can never fool the heart rate monitor".

This past Friday and Sunday, I did difficult 40 mile rides with my chavrusah. Trying to keep up with him was quite challenging but the results were excellent. I finished the ride in a personal best time and my average heart rate for the ride was around 80% of my maximum heart rate.

(As an aside, my resting and normal heart rates, as well as the range of my heart rates during excercise, are freaky. My resting heart rate is in the low 40s. My normal heart rate (say, sitting at my desk in the middle of the day), ranges from 48 to 52. My aerobic zone is between about 135 and 170, extremely high for someone my age).

Yesterday, I did 27 flat miles, out to Point Lookout, by myself. I was tired and ran into a fierce headwind on the way back. Each time I tried to convince myself that I was working as hard as I could, I would glance down at my monitor and notice that I was dogging it; my heart rate just wasn't reflecting enough intensity.

Sometimes we are hoist on our own petards.