Date: 12/4/22
Training Day: Week 4, Day 7
Miles: 4.1 (treadmill, easy run)
Activity: Strength Training
Mobility/Stretching: Yes
Ate Well: Yeah, no

Commentary: If you’re not new to my blog, you know I love data. If you’re new to my blog, now you know. This is one of the many reasons I love my Garmin Fenix 6S Pro. It gives me so much data. This includes stress measurements and heart rate variability, although they are both basically one and the same.

It’s hard to measure stress. Sure, I can tell you how stressed out I feel, but trying to quantify the stress on one’s body is completely different. HRV is a common way of measuring stress. Low HRV typically means someone is stressed out, and HRV also lowers when you’re in fight-or-flight mode. When it’s higher you’re typically less stressed. Therefore, stress is inverse of HRV.

This past week I noticed a thing or two about my HRV and stress. On Monday and Tuesday, my stress during the day was sky-high, but as soon as I laid down in bed it dropped like a rock. I assumed this was because I was stressed about work or something else. Then I had my horrible Wednesday, and my stress during the day was lower than the previous two days. Huh. Also, Monday through Thursday nights my HRV was unusually high.

I expected my stress to be higher and HRV to me lower on Friday because of stuffing myself. Yesterday I expected them to be much better because I ate like a normal person, but they weren’t as great as Monday through Thursday. Huh. Is it because I ate well during the workweek? This is something I intend to explore more.

Today would have been a great day for healthy eating to see what my overnight HRV does. But I started working on my final project first thing in the morning and completely forgot about eating until almost 1pm. Instead of taking the time to make healthy food, I grilled up a bagel (and burned it because I forgot about it) and smothered it in cream cheese.

For almost four hours I told myself I would hop on the bike or the treadmill. Okay, after I finish this thing, I’ll work out. Dang it! I kept working. Okay, after this thing. Wait, how did it get to be so late in the day?! At least I drank a little more water than I usually do when I get hyperfocused on something.

By the time I stepped away from my computer to work out it was almost 3pm with a whooping 330 steps logged for the day. Pretty sure my ass became part of my office chair for a bit. Truth be told, today was supposed to be a rest day. Since I didn’t get all my miles in for the week and still had a strength workout to do, it became a not-a-rest day.

The run wasn’t the greatest. Not sure why my heart rate was so high, but it was. I didn’t feel like I was working that hard, but I still kept it slow to keep my heart rate in the zone. The strength training felt good. Between sets I did some stretching and foam rolling, which felt even better.

As I lay on the couch poking at my phone to write this, my Garmin says my stress is 80. You know, just in case you were wondering.

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