Elevate HR monitoring on Forerunner 235 (2.6 sensor hub firmware)

I have had good results with the current 2.6 sensor hub update of the 235.  A few thoughts on my experience:

- There is not a lot of monitoring going on overnight. It takes a reading every couple of hours at most. But these readings seem pretty steady although not the lowest resting heart rate in a 24 hour period. 

- My low resting heart rate takes place in the first hour or two after I wake. In previous versions, it took place an hour before waking until waking. (You can see the stretch to the left of the little alarm clock - my reading around 54 throughout sleep through waking. The resting heart rate low of 42 took place around 10 am.)

- Resting heart rate averages are amazingly steady from week to week.

- The HR reading jumps to 90-100 when I start walking, even if when I take a manual HR read my pulse is still in the 60-70 range. I assume this is a false reading based on my walking cadence which is around 100. (The peaks below are during a half hour treadmill walk at a low speed; you can see it drop down immediately to a low resting rate once the walking stops.)

- The HR readings during exercise are extremely accurate. I'm not seeing a lot of false reading or dropouts like I saw in the previous firmware.

Postscript:
I have had the same problem on occasion that some other users have had - no HR reading at the start of an activity. I do check to see if the HR reading has started before the activity is begun - if not, I exit out to the main screen and restart the process. I haven't had this issue of late - but according to the forum that Garmin maintains, it is a known issue and they are working on it.

Also: I am having some unusually low resting readings - 39 is common, when a manual read is more like 46. I think Garmin has tweaked the algorithm productively, but still needs to do a little more with resting heart rates, particularly after exercise. 

Additional postscript 5/8:
The update has killed vo2max readings on Garmin Connect. This is a known issue on the Garmin 235 forum.

Making too much of early returns - getting sick and recovery pt ii

As I wrote in my last post, I did a pretty good job of seeing a cold/flu coming on. I eased off in my training, cutting running and my step count down.

Unfortunately, I moved back into activity too fast.

A quick recap, with charts...

Week of March 12 (47 RHR): at my usual 47-48 resting heart rate. A normal daily up and down. The highest day of the week was on the 12th after racing a half marathon, but my resting rate settled down the remainder of the week.

March 19 (49 RHR): Average is on the move up steadily. I raced another half marathon on the 20th - you can see the rest of the week was definitely higher than normal. I idiotically failed to take a day off on the 21st or 22nd.

March 26 (51 RHR): Then ran 10 miles on the 26th. Felt punky during and after that run. Saw my avg resting rate creep up too high the next day, then took off from the 27th-30th (a period where I developed some allergy or cold-like congestion but nothing severe). Ran on the 1st when it seemed like my resting rate was back to normal, but I was only acting on one good day of data.

April 2 (53 RHR): Repeated my mistake on the 2nd, and by the 3rd, had a full blown bronchitis with fever. On antibiotics on the 5th, finally returning to a normal resting rate today on the 8th after four days with no running and no steps (beyond walking around the house and to the car, etc.)

The lesson: there's a heck of a lot of good data from resting heart rate. It's definitely a great early warning system. And it can give you an all clear after being sick or extremely run down. But be sure to give yourself a few days of evidence that things are back to normal before jumping back on the horse and getting back to activity. Right now, I'm going to make sure I see at least 5 days back to below 48 resting rate before I start significant activity again.

Getting sick (and recovery) and resting heart rates with the Garmin 235

I now have about six months of data on my resting heart rate via my Garmin 235. 

I'm in my early 50s and exercise to a max HR over 140 6-7 days per week. Most of that exercise is running: around 30-45 miles most weeks, but often supplemented by, or substituted for, a gym session on the elliptical anywhere from an average max HR of 110-140. I also hit an average daily step count of about 17K over the last 12 months. My weekly sleep average is around 7:45-8 hours per night as counted by Garmin.

My resting heart rate is around a 47 if I'm feeling generally good and in good health. That means no sickness coming on or heading out of the body. And no nights of excess alcohol consumption or running myself down, figuratively or literally. 

This screenshot from Garmin Connect mobile shows a 46 resting rate from the week of March 13.

Sure, on a day to day basis the average resting heart rate can vary +/- 5 beats. I'm not freaking out from a 43 reading or even a 53 reading on one day. They happen regularly, and are usually one-off readings that don't occur on consecutive days. A night of 3 beers can do it, as can a restless night due to travel or racing.

If I start seeing my resting readings repeatedly drifting into the 50s over the course of several days, I will cut down my running and other exercise. I'll try and avoid hard and or super long (much more than an hour) workouts, keeping my exercising heart rate well below 75% (or around 140). And I'll keep my daily step count around 10K - no super long moving days allowed.

Two weeks ago, I noticed my resting rate creeping up to a 49. I had run near pr half marathons in the two proceeding weeks, which could have explained it. 

And I did feel a bit off - fatigued and like I might be coming down with something. Sure enough, the night of the 27th, I started to have symptoms of a cold which I vainly hoped were just severe allergies. 

The week of March 27, my resting rate went up from a 46 to a 51 average, a pretty significant increase for me.

Presented with some data, it was easier for me to take a few (5) days off from exercise, get more sleep, and try and recover properly vs running right through the sickness. I would have ignored my body at age 30, but it seems pretty pointless in my 50s where going down with a massive sickness has too much cost to work, family, and longer term running life. 

It's also good to see five days off doesn't seem to have much of an impact on my pace or V02 max readings. I'm still sniffly, but the rest didn't hurt.