Mindful Musings

I have always liked data in every form and manipulation of that data tickles my fancy a little too much. In pursuit of that endeavor, here is a little gem I recently uncovered.

I (recently started to) work out regularly on my exercise bike. I own a Nordic Trac AutoRider R400 which I absolutely adore. The bike is comfortable, there are lots of options and it is still fun to use it. Fun is a crucial component of any exercise routine. My plans are to train on this bike all winter and then ride in the summer. One feature of this bike that I find unsatisfying is the EKG monitor on the handlebars. The pads are not very accurate, nor very sensitive and the readout leaves a lot to be desired. I have been targeting heart rates (I have high cholesterol) and it is hard to do with the bike.

Recently I also found the Polar FS1 Hear Rate Monitor Watch for about $50 and I thought that it might be cheap enough and work well. Then I found the ADI05 Software Logger on Amazon (it works with the FS1 and all its cousins) for about $27 and it all fell into place. I had a heart rate monitor, a receiver to plug into my computer to receive my heart rate data, a data logger for my computer and all the data I could ever dream of. From one of the reviewers, ... keep track of how much time you have spent in each zone per week and tells you how many more times, for how long, and how hard you need to exercise the rest of the week to reach your goal of maintaining, improving, or maximizing. I love it.

Now I need to fork over another hundred bucks to get all the stuff and write some code to put it into cool flash graphs. I can’t wait! PS: I will be looking for a relatively inexpensive road bike come summer. Any suggestions would be well appreciated.