Oura Ring - First Impressions - and Booster Update

I woke up this morning to 3 degrees/feels like -7 (Fahrenheit) and all animals were alive and seemingly o.k. We ended up having only a dusting of snow but thankfully a ton of rain but not so thankfully it had frozen before turning to snow so conditions yesterday were a bit treacherous. Lily, one of my mama cows, decided to play head butt games with the other mama just as the sun was going down and the temperature really dropping last night and she ended up walking around lifting one foot because of the cold snow on her feet, just like the dogs do. Except unlike the dogs I had no idea what to do for her. Eventually she went in her dry loafing shed but was soon back out in the snow again. Worrying but she's big and has a mind of her own. She seemed fine before I went to bed and she seems fine today. Angus cows are so very hardy. As are the chickens who weathered everything o.k. 

I was bracing for a poor reaction to my booster shot. I had bad, long term dizziness/fatigue/brain fog from the first two shots. Even though it's Moderna so just a half dose for the booster, Jonny had a worse reaction to his booster than he did to his original doses. Just one extra day, but still, I certainly wasn't expecting it to go well for me. So far, it's been something of a nothing burger. No fatigue, dizziness, or brain fog. I didn't even have a day of feverish symptoms. My temperature went up to 99 degrees at its worst and this wasn't enough to give me any sort of noticeable symptoms other than being a bit warmer than usual which was fine with this cold snap.

My Oura Ring, Gen. 3, arrived November 18th so I have a couple few weeks of data now. Overall initial impression is that I'm really pleased with it. It picked up on my vaccine symptoms right away and suggested I turn on 'Rest Mode' if I'm feeling under the weather. The triggers were an elevated overnight resting heart rate, decrease in heart rate variability (HRV) and a 2 degree increase in average body temperature. It also showed an elevated respiration rate though I'm not terribly familiar with that metric and it's significance. HRV in particular was super low (high is better) and is what you'd expect if you were ill so I was pleased the ring had picked that up. Physically I felt fine and if I'd been left to my own devices probably would have tried to start training again which is why I suspect I had such a poor reaction the first go around because getting back to training was exactly what I did. This time around I decided to treat the booster like a race that would require both tapering and recovery. So I've had four days so far of mostly rest with just walking. I had the shot on a Tuesday and Wednesday morning's walk felt a bit difficult and slow, felt like my heart rate was too easily elevated. But Thursday felt fine. Yesterday I couldn't walk much more than a mile because conditions were treacherous, ie icy sidewalks with a mix of pavement and ice which is often the worse combination. Today things should melt off and hopefully I can go a bit farther.

The only noticeable symptoms were the standard dull pain/ache at the injection site, and this was very minimal, and swollen lymph nodes under my armpit. It was a bit sore for a day or so but the swelling was huge, like the size of an avocado. Yesterday the swelling went down to about half an avocado and remains at 1/4-1/2 an avocado today but no soreness to speak of. I was hoping to ease back to training with light weight lifting but I'm not sure about this with the swelling. On the other hand, Professor Google says this swelling could last for weeks or months and I can't take that long off. So today I'm introducing some mobility stuff and in the next few days I'll introduce super light weights and longer sessions. Hopefully the movement will help the nodes drain. I also remember when I got my Kangoo Jump Boots and was taking classes that used them, the instructor said the jumping was good for lymph node drainage. I thought this sounded hokey but I'm going to bust them out and give it a try. We'll put this bit of wives tale/hokery to the test.

Today my biomarkers are improved, I turned off Rest Mode and Oura has assigned me some reasonable amount of activity for today. But HRV is still low at 22 and I'd like to see it more in the 30s. Just for laughs I checked HRV with my Garmin and it was 100 which is the highest and worst possible score on Garmin's scale (Garmin uses a scale where a higher score is worse). So today still needs to be easy. I'm going to continue to use the Oura ring to monitor and guide recovery so hopefully I won't end up in that bad fatigue/dizzy place.

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A couple more days have gone by, today is Tuesday or one week post injection, and still no ill effects from the booster. The swelling in my lymph node has gone down considerably and can best be described as some puffiness. I can see my armpit again and neither the lymph node nor injection site are sore or tender to the touch. No dizziness, fatigue, brain fog. So happy with this.

On Sunday the 'Readiness' on my Oura app said this:

Which seems a bit passive aggressive. Why not just tell me, 'You've had enough rest lady, get off the couch and move your lazy ass!'. The sun was shining so I went up to Boggy Draw for some snowshoeing. Word on the street was that there was a foot of fresh powder and when I got up there, conditions did not disappoint.

I was out for around 2 miles and 1 1/4 hours. I kept my heart rate nice and low, around 110 bpm, kept the pace nice and slow and stopped for photos and moments of whimsy. It felt so good to be back outside and moving through the world again. I'd been walking every day for the past 5 days but hadn't done much else. This was just the right amount of activity because I had an excellent night's sleep and woke up to this 'Readiness' score on Monday morning:

I was planning on no running for another week but the sun was shining and it was perfect running weather yesterday, Monday, so I hit the trails. I kept my heart rate to an average of 118 bpm so I was super slow and my Garmin watch wasn't pleased with this pace. I went for around 50 minutes, 2.75 miles, SO slow. But I felt great afterwards, exactly what I was hoping for. I'm hoping that if I keep my heart rate nice and low for the next week or so that I won't trigger a vaccine reaction. 

This morning the Oura ring suggested that my recovery was going well but since I'd done 'a lot' yesterday maybe I could take it easy today if I wanted. So wishy washy. These daily messages make me laugh whether they're supposed to or not. Anyway, today will be getting back to weight lifting. I did about 10 minutes of light weights yesterday and some of it was fine, some a little twinge-y. My injection side arm apparently wasn't back to 100%. We'll see how it goes today. 

Keeping It Local

The mountains have been getting hammered with snow so Jonny and I decided to go snow shoeing up at Golden Gate Canyon State Park, just under an hour's drive on a good day.  But Saturday was not a good day.  At 11:30 a.m. Boulder Canyon was already mobbed with people coming down from the Eldora Ski Resort so we made a quick detour up to Betasso Open Space, a mere 20 minutes drive.  Because it was going to take a lot longer than an hour to make it through all the ski traffic.  Ski Traffic!  In Boulder Canyon!  If that's not a sign of Too Many People I don't know what is.  We got caught in Leaf Traffic this fall too.  Crazy times.

Anyway, we had a bunch of snow in town too so the snow shoeing was good and shockingly the trails were quiet.  I guess everyone was on I-70 or Boulder Canyon heading to and from the ski resorts.

How now Brown Cloud?

It was a beautiful, peaceful day on the trails, saw only a handful of people in 3 hours and saved ourselves an asston of driving aggravation.

Woke up on Monday and the snow was pretty much gone.  The strong warm Chinook winds blew in and kept overnight temps. well above freezing and warm into the next day.  Ruby needed her coat and booties on Saturday.  She wasn't happy about them but she was happy to get out of the house.

Is there anything cuter than a wee dog in booties?

Her agility training is coming along.  My goal is to have her sending to a tunnel, sending to a cone and doing a wrap and doing some short jump/tunnel/cone sequences before the seminar next month.  And to that end I rushed her training a bit going directly from a straight tunnel to a curved tunnel.  Poor thing was a bit confused.  Today I set up an almost straight tunnel with a bit of a curve to it and she had no problem.  Dog Training 101.  How did I forget how to teach the tunnel?

Or maybe the other dogs all loved the tunnel and it was no big deal to go directly to a curve.

The weave poles are getting closer together but still not enough to cause a weave.  Poor Lola, a sudden burst of unpredicted snow came.  Poor me because there goes my nice dry yard.  Supposed to get a bit more tomorrow, less than an inch but enough to shut down training for a day or two.

Probably a few more sessions before the poles will be close enough to cause a weave.  I'm getting some 2x2's this weekend to work on entries.  She still ignores the channel altogether and heads straight for the treat gizmo if I don't set her up right in front of the channel so practicing entries this way is not working.  I'll work on entries with the 2x2's then try again with the channel.  Hopefully the snow will melt by the weekend and I can get started on teeter training.  Fun with baby dogs.  Think I'll take her to the USDAA trial this weekend to hang out for a bit and pick up my 2x2's.  I always have agility dreams the few nights before a trial and even though I'm not competing I still had one last night.  I was going to run Ruby in the International class even though I hadn't walked the course and she still hadn't done a sequence yet.  Thankfully I woke up before my run.  Stupid neurotic agility dreams.

Spring Snow

It's rare that there's enough snow for snowshoeing on the trail near my house so I took advantage of it last week and got 2 snowehoe run/hikes in.

Poor Strummy, he's not a fan of cold feet so he kept to the packed down part of the trail while I stayed in the deeper stuff.

Can't remember the last time I was snowshoeing, forgot how much fun it can be.  Especially when you don't have to drive to the trail.  I only drove the car 3 out of 7 days last week and even then only a couple miles to get to and from the pool.  My pool gear is so heavy, hard to haul it from the car let alone on a bike or walking never mind the scary distracted texting drivers so I drive the 5 minutes to the pool.  Plus a big giant hill on the way.  Stupid, wasteful I know but I've yet to find a solution.

I'm thinking of trying some mountain bike races this spring but one of them is the same weekend as USDAA Regionals.  Coincidentally they're about 5 minutes apart and I can sign up for the bike race close to the start time so I've got a sorta crazy idea about seeing if I can sneak over there for the race in the middle of the day if the schedule works out right.  I know, sounds like a not very great idea but we'll see.  Regionals will take priority, the bike course/trails aren't super interesting and this could well be Strum's last trial unless there are some UKI trials this summer that fit in my triathlon schedule.  Strum turns 11 this month and I'm not a super big fan of double digit dogs doing agility but he seems fine so we'll keep going for the next couple few months.  Hate to take it away from him, he truly loves it.  But don't want him to spend his old age injured.

We needed the moisture and I'm glad for it but ready for spring and itching to hit the trails.  It's melting quickly with the warm temps. but this only means mud season is upon us.  Ah well, it's better than drought.

Snowshoeing at Rocky Mountain National Park

An absolutely picture perfect day up at Rocky Mountain National Park.  Sunny blue skies, no wind, fresh snow glinting so brightly it didn't seem real.

Dream Lake

Doesn't look real

On the way to Emerald Lake

Emerald Lake

We watched some crazy guy ski down that slope.

It's a short but steep hike from Bear Lake to Emerald Lake, maybe 3-4 miles or so round trip but challenging with the snow and the 10,000 foot elevation.  I went with a friend who's also unemployed and left the dogs at home since they're not allowed in the National Park.  Sometimes it's nice to have a walk without the crazies.  In general I prefer cross country skiing but sometimes I'll strap on the snowshoes for a fun winter hike to somewhere scenic that's difficult to reach on skis.  I have to concentrate when I ski but snowshoeing doesn't require any skill so I can let my mind wander a bit.  I forgot my gaiters in the car though and ended up with soaking wet feet from the snow getting in through the top of my boots.  It was warm enough and the hike short enough that it wasn't a serious problem but in different conditions on a longer hike my day could have gone a different way.  Won't make that mistake again.  I remembered before we started the hike too but I was too lazy to go back to the car to get them and didn't think I'd need them that badly.

Such a treat to be on that trail during a weekday.  On the weekends it's Grand Central Station, especially in summer, but today the crowd was small and we had fun chatting with some of the few people we came across.

The hike felt short and easy so I'm hoping that means I'm maybe sort of kind of getting into shape a little bit.  Last time I did this hike it felt longer and harder.  I made it to master's swim practice 3 times this week and took some long walks (1 1/2-2 hours) with the dogs.  I'll get a run in this weekend to round out the week.  If only my knee will hold out I might be able to get into some decent shape for races this summer never mind keep up with Strummer on that darn dogwalk.