Biking in the Rain
Jan. 9th, 2016 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI took my bike out today for a long ride, the first of that sort I'd done since getting the new bike. I went out to Hilltop and back for a total damage of 23 miles.
It was a dreary overcast day, but the air was clean and the roads were wet. I actually really love riding in that sort of weather because there are fewer people out and the wetness makes the road go faster (though you have to be cautious, because it also makes the stopping slower). So, I was enjoying myself ... until the rain came back. First there was spitting, then misting, then drizzle. The rain was never hard enough to be uncomfortable for biking, but I was definitely wet when I got to Hilltop. (And few a few hours afterward.) I like riding in that a little less. Ah well.
A few hours later, when I was riding back, I was getting a little tired. I decided that it must be the new bike requiring slightly different muscles because 20 miles wouldn't usually fatigue me at all. But then I looked at my Fitbit records and discovered some of my bike riding back wasn't recorded as active minutes. In fact, I frequently dropped out of the cardio & fat burning zones on my home, with my heart dropping into the 70s bpm, and once even down to 69. While I was biking.
After a bit of thought, I figured out the explanation. I had to go off of my old blood measure med a couple of years ago when my insurance changed, because the new Blue Shield plan didn't cover it. (The old HealthNet plan carried it at a ridiculous price, but this new one pushed that even higher.) So, I went over to something new, which was what my cardiologist used for most of his patients anyway. But it never worked as well for me, so this last Wednesday we upped it to two pills a day.
And it's a med that can limit your blood pressure max. So it's almost certainly what was making things more tiring for me (not the new bike), and it's probably what kept me out of the higher heart rate zones part of the time I was biking. I'd actually been worried about it when I started taking it, that it might keep me from doing hills on my bike. But this (with the increase) is the first time I've seen real evidence of that effect. So, hopefully it'll fade. And I've only been taking the increased dose for a few days, so I'm willing to give it a chance.
It was a dreary overcast day, but the air was clean and the roads were wet. I actually really love riding in that sort of weather because there are fewer people out and the wetness makes the road go faster (though you have to be cautious, because it also makes the stopping slower). So, I was enjoying myself ... until the rain came back. First there was spitting, then misting, then drizzle. The rain was never hard enough to be uncomfortable for biking, but I was definitely wet when I got to Hilltop. (And few a few hours afterward.) I like riding in that a little less. Ah well.
A few hours later, when I was riding back, I was getting a little tired. I decided that it must be the new bike requiring slightly different muscles because 20 miles wouldn't usually fatigue me at all. But then I looked at my Fitbit records and discovered some of my bike riding back wasn't recorded as active minutes. In fact, I frequently dropped out of the cardio & fat burning zones on my home, with my heart dropping into the 70s bpm, and once even down to 69. While I was biking.
After a bit of thought, I figured out the explanation. I had to go off of my old blood measure med a couple of years ago when my insurance changed, because the new Blue Shield plan didn't cover it. (The old HealthNet plan carried it at a ridiculous price, but this new one pushed that even higher.) So, I went over to something new, which was what my cardiologist used for most of his patients anyway. But it never worked as well for me, so this last Wednesday we upped it to two pills a day.
And it's a med that can limit your blood pressure max. So it's almost certainly what was making things more tiring for me (not the new bike), and it's probably what kept me out of the higher heart rate zones part of the time I was biking. I'd actually been worried about it when I started taking it, that it might keep me from doing hills on my bike. But this (with the increase) is the first time I've seen real evidence of that effect. So, hopefully it'll fade. And I've only been taking the increased dose for a few days, so I'm willing to give it a chance.