Monday 13 April 2020

Flatlining

Yesterday's Fitbit sync showed me this for my resting-heartbeat record over the last 30 days:


Oh dear! A flat line! My heart has stopped!

Of course, it hasn't. It's just that my resting-heartbeat rate is holding steady at 53 beats per minute, and has done so now for over a week. And before that, it had been reducing from a purple-faced high of 57 beats per minute. Although historically it does vary: the first reading in the current display is 52 beats per minute, and I must have been in a coma. Can't recall it though.

I think this is some evidence that a 'regular life' with regular exercise (I usually achieve 10,000 steps by the end of my brisk daily 'exercise walk', and of course add a bit to that during the rest of the evening) definitely has a good effect on one's general health.

We all agree that it's not a competition, but two of my friends tell me that they are doing a lot more than 10,000 steps each day. One of them has just done 125,000 in the course of a week, which I compute to be the equivalent of 17,857 per day. The other lady does something similar, and says that her husband actually did 30,000 steps on Thursday last week. Now that is impressive. They do have a lively dog to take out, but even so.

Me, my best-ever was 21,000 steps early in October 2018, when in Dorset:


There's obviously a correlation between the number of steps and the number of miles. For me it's roughly 2,250 steps per mile, so if I were aiming for 30,000 steps I'd be looking to cover 30,000/2,250 = 13 miles. Hmm, not so much as I thought. If I were into serious long-distance-path walking, I'd expect to walk at a steady 3 miles per hour, and 13 miles ought to take only four and a half hours.

I need hardly add that I'm not a serious walker, and it's been many a long day since I've walked quite so far. That 21,000 step effort equalled only 9 miles, and frankly I'd be satisfied with only half that - as a day after day thing, anyway.

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