Giving 10%

Whilst we were lucky enough to be heading off on our last holiday - a fantastic time in Italy - the news continued to report on the increasing numbers of displaced people, refugees, trying to enter Europe by various means largely to escape war in their home land.

It shocks me every time I hear cynical people effectively stating "not on my door" and "they should stay or return home"..... Without considering how utterly desperate people must be to leave and attempt to travel thousands of miles to a place they believe will be a better place to raise their family.

Who would not want that basic need to have security and safety?.... Did countries close their borders during WW 1 and during/ after WW2 ?... Did thousands of people not seek "a better life" only centuries ago as they left on boats to new lands, be that America, Australia or New Zealand...(read from the header "Departure from Liverpool", the second paragraph is as pertinent today as it was then)......   Sadly, particular now it seems, there are always the unscrupulous who will look to profit from this.

My partner wrote a very balanced and much more articulate post on the matter.

Whilst watching this  news we appreciated the safety and opportunity which we live in. We are fortunate to be able to afford holidays - and appreciate not everyone who has this safety and security can do that. We decided that whilst considering spending on holiday or sports gear or clothing we should also consider those less fortunate then us... and with that have pledged to not spend until we've saved and donate 10% of the cost to charity.

We're not set on any specific charity but do want to give to a persons charitable fundraising,  local, national and international charities. If we can afford stuff we can afford this. We are grateful for what we have and the opportunity life presents us - whilst I don't think I can do one big thing for the homeless, for those fighting cancer, for those fighting poverty or crime, those so desperate to leave their home for safety elsewhere;  We can do many small things by donating when we can afford it. If we can afford a holiday we can afford a bit more - we may just need to delay the joy of that holiday, which is no bad thing when you think of the instant gratification Amazon can give... - so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be more thoughtful and do something little in the scheme of things.

More tracking of resting HR

Got struck with an under the weather feeling again in the household, you know temperature, raging headache and chest ache... so some annoying virus or other... I've taken a look at what my resting HR was doing ... now I began to feel crap on Sunday but thought I was just tired from a good night out. My run on Monday felt harder then it should for easy and again I thought I was just fatigued from training... when I got on the bike on Tuesday and felt really nasty I began to suspect something more was up ... itchy throat by Tuesday evening, raging heavy head on Weds and Weds night disturbed sleep, sickness and temperature... 

and the resting HR picture... jumped up to 54 then 57 on wednesday, stayed there thursday.... 

I've rested up totally from Wednesday to today and you can see my average resting HR (according to fitbit) has come back down to 52... compare this to the period just before I went on holiday when I felt a similar virus attack..... going from RHR around 50 up to 58

So this seems to validate that for me (in my sample of two times) that if I get an increase of 6-8 beats in my RHR (fitbit takes it as an average over the course of a day excluding periods of activity) then I probably had hit the vitamin c quickly.... indeed tri 220 magazine recently said as much...  although actually by the time that happens it's probably too late anyway as the lurgy is lurgying! .. ... but I could use it as a motivation for training - ie if my RHR is still within normal tolerance (which I would say is between 52-54 BPM) then if I feel tired I probably am just tired not necessarily unwell and so training can be done and not use a feeling of general malaise as a reason for not bothering.

Tracking resting HR

Over the last month I've been wearing a fitbit... Not to measure steps or activity but I've been interested to see how my resting HR is stacking up... As I've signed up for a full distance tri next year (yep let the madness commence), I thought I'd start tracking my resting HR more out of interest to see if it points or correlates to anything.

A month is not long enough for my little experiment but in essence as you can see from the screen shot below it steadily raised through the end of September and start of October and then has plummeted again. Now the last two weeks I've been on holiday so stress levels non existent and no exercise!

When it spiked I picked up a cold ... I read some research recently which suggested resting HR increase rather then being attributable to say over training, could be a precursor to having a bug. Well one month and one user and one bug is no statistical evidence ...and given it was quarter end this also coincideded with a busier time at work so could have been related to that.

So I will continue with my little experiment and see if I notice any patterns... Given we are now journeying home I'm expecting at least for my resting HR measure to come up over the weekend as I shock my body with some running and biking!