I\’ve got some heartening news, for a change. This past week, I finally got the heart rate monitor of my Garmin working!

Garmin Edge 520 Plus

To do that, I had to take the monitor and my Garmin read-out screen to the bike shop; and a young man there had it up and running in a couple of minutes. I have no idea what I was doing wrong; but it\’s what comes of being a technophobe!

Now that I can track my heart rate during my rides, I have a much better idea of my work load. The formula I use works like this: day before yesterday I went for a ride, and my heart rate readings were:

18 minutes in zone 2; 69 minutes in zone 3; and 64 minutes in zone 4. These figures are rounded off to the nearest minute. To determine what my work load was, I multiply minutes spent in each zone by the zone\’s number; for example, 18 minutes in zone 2 = 36. Thus my total work load for this ride is 484.

It was only a short ride; 31 miles. Every third Sunday I dial back the mileage; and besides that, I needed to save some energy for doing my laundry. I usually try to get it done on Saturday; but last Saturday I wore myself out cooking.

It got very hot during that ride; and in fact, after I got back home I learned that there was a heat advisory in effect. That\’s not the first time in the last week or so that the heat index rose to over 100 degrees! The heartening news was that there wasn\’t any tropical activity in the Gulf. I don\’t enjoy broiling temperatures; but a hurricane is even less enjoyable.