YouTube video by Eric D at Ecopath Planning

⏱️ 02:17 total (1:40 actual) ⇄28.9km ⌀17.2km/h ↗109m ↘?m At last, the weather was cool enough to go for a bike ride at a reasonable hour. I stopped early on at the still new park along the river for coffee and a bun to fortify me. There was a gaggle of cyclists already there, mostly MAMILs, and I was dead chuffed when one came over and asked if he could lift my bike. “Complimenti,” he said, then beckoned his friend over to guess how much it weighs. His friend was more interested in the suicide levers, not to mention the rim brakes, and then both repaired to their tricked out gravel bikes and rode off into town. Off I went, along my usual southerly route. It was all very familiar; the miscanthus and other grasses creeping slowly onto the cycle path, the sweet medicine of the eucalyptus trees, the feral cat encampments, the old horse stables. Some changes too, mostly the sharp smell lingering over the bits of scrub that had burned over the summer. The climb back home wasn’t as difficult as I expected after the long pause, but that raises another point. A few weeks back, after an extremely idle June and July, for a lark I thought I might restart the NHS Couch to 5k plan and see whether at my advanced age I could get myself jogging again. I could, but that’s not the point. Cardio Fitness is the point. Apple Health estimates it from heart rate and motion data, courtesy of the Watch. And to my great surprise, my cardio fitness has actually gone down from a peak of 29.8 in mid-June to 26.9 after yesterday’s jog. Somehow, in getting from barely being able to jog for 60 seconds to sustaining a 25 minute session, my cardio fitness has dropped. That makes no sense at all, so for now I am choosing to believe that the estimate is wrong. In that, I am not alone. Lots of people seem to have the same complaint, and one reason seems to be that Apple reduces the measure simply because you are older. I did have a birthday in June, but at least one chart gives a top age-range band from 66 to 100 years old. Maybe Apple has its own age bands, but it still seems rather odd that getting fitter has reduced its estimate of my cardio fitness. Most likely, Apple’s estimate is crap.

⏱️ 02:17 total (1:40 actual) ⇄28.9km ⌀17.2km/h ↗109m ↘?m At last, the weather was cool enough to go for a bike ride at a reasonable hour. I stopped early on at the still new park along the river for coffee and a bun to fortify me. There was a gaggle of cyclists already there, mostly MAMILs, and I was dead chuffed when one came over and asked if he could lift my bike. “Complimenti,” he said, then beckoned his friend over to guess how much it weighs. His friend was more interested in the suicide levers, not to mention the rim brakes, and then both repaired to their tricked out gravel bikes and rode off into town. Off I went, along my usual southerly route. It was all very familiar; the miscanthus and other grasses creeping slowly onto the cycle path, the sweet medicine of the eucalyptus trees, the feral cat encampments, the old horse stables. Some changes too, mostly the sharp smell lingering over the bits of scrub that had burned over the summer. The climb back home wasn’t as difficult as I expected after the long pause, but that raises another point. A few weeks back, after an extremely idle June and July, for a lark I thought I might restart the NHS Couch to 5k plan and see whether at my advanced age I could get myself jogging again. I could, but that’s not the point. Cardio Fitness is the point. Apple Health estimates it from heart rate and motion data, courtesy of the Watch. And to my great surprise, my cardio fitness has actually gone down from a peak of 29.8 in mid-June to 26.9 after yesterday’s jog. Somehow, in getting from barely being able to jog for 60 seconds to sustaining a 25 minute session, my cardio fitness has dropped. That makes no sense at all, so for now I am choosing to believe that the estimate is wrong. In that, I am not alone. Lots of people seem to have the same complaint, and one reason seems to be that Apple reduces the measure simply because you are older. I did have a birthday in June, but at least one chart gives a top age-range band from 66 to 100 years old. Maybe Apple has its own age bands, but it still seems rather odd that getting fitter has reduced its estimate of my cardio fitness. Most likely, Apple’s estimate is crap.