Today's Bike Ride

[Graham Breeze]

In view of Graham's comments re: pulse rate, I decided to use my very accurate Scandinavian heart rate monitor, with chest strap, that I normally only use for HIIT today.

I started with a resting pulse which was 48bpm. It looks very good, compared to Graham's highly impressive 50, until you consider that it is 50 percent more than the 32 I was regularly recording in 1994.

With another beautiful day for getting out in, I headed out after lunch for ride to Tutbury which sits, complete with ruined castle, on a cliff surveying the Dove Valley and many miles to the North in Derbyshire. Although it was 21 degrees C, and only light winds, there was certain amount of haze so a positive identification of Beacon Hill was not possible.

Went wrong in Tutbury, but eventually found the road to Fauld where what is said to be the biggest non-nuclear, man-made explosion occurred. (They were storing thousands of tons of high explosives in the old gypsum mine in 1944 when something caused the whole lot to blow up.) It has subsequently been planted with trees, so you can only just make out the egg-shaped crater on aerial views, but you can walk around part of the crater, and I can tell you it is very deep.

Continued West through Coton in the Clay, before reaching the entrance to the Marchington Industrial estate, where the main climb starts. I'd been watching my heart-rate monitor watch, strapped to my 'bars, but it was somewhat disconcerting to see 140bpm upon reaching the foot of the climb. I started steadily, but it's a difficult climb to judge and the numbers and the gradient kept increasing, topping out at 178bpm.

Having gone further than I'd anticipated, I headed downhill to Newborough and the easier, shorter, valley road through Hoar Cross to Yoxhall, King's Bromley and home.

65.2km, 293m of ascent* (to be ratified), 2hrs and 21 minutes, average heart-rate 142bpm. No food taken or eaten, just drank one extra large bidon of filtered tap water.

Well if 48bpm is resting (100%) then 178bpm is 370% of resting and I know you are going to research how typical that is.

Dunno what my son's resting pulse is but his typically goes into the 170s. Of course he is only 46 years.

For fat old me if I assume 50 or slightly below as resting then below 150 (say 300%) I feel OK but once above it (red zone?) I start to think and feel I am on borrowed time before I blow up.