This is my last week of the year working (I guess I come back on the 30th for a minute), so I decided to do some analysis of my year. I like data and numbers, so I’m looking at a few aspects of life this year with data I’ve compiled from previous years.

Today we look at my health (somewhat) and exercise. That’s a big part of my life and I dedicate a lot of time to taking care of myself.

Health

I don’t want to disclose too much, but I feel fairly healthy. I have some age-related things that are annoying, but in general, I can live my life. This year (2024) was the first time since ankle surgery (2022), that I felt my balance was really good on the surgical ankle. That was nice to have it feel over the summer that it was back to full strength.

I don’t have history (that I know of) of heart issues, but I like tracking my heart. I use a Garmin Forerunner 645, which seems to be accurate the few times I’m also hooked up to a doctor’s machine.

My yearlong resting heart rate is: 52bpm. Sightly high, as I’d like it at 50 or below, but I’ve had some stressful travel stretches, and I think that’s made things slightly worse.

My avg. high is 128, which is mostly from exercise, though I don’t know what to think about that number as an average.

My one year sleep average is 8h35m a night. Pretty good, though I think the watch sometime catches me at night or in the morning as lightly sleeping when I’m reading. Still, it’s good I’m in bed for a nice stretch most nights.

I struggle with weight as I travel. I was trying to stay 220-225, which I did well with in 2023. This year, with some really long trips, I’ve struggled. I get up around 230 on trips, and then struggle to get below 226-227. This was my year, and the upward trend started with the UK and then AUS trips.

Slowly doing better as I’ve been home since Nov 22. I hope to close out the year at 225 or lower.

I should track BP, but I don’t. The closest I get it stress, which for me is from my watch. The scale is 1-100, and I show an average for the year of 23. My lowest reading was 17, and the highest was 30. I remember it being above 25 and I know why.

In general, I am fairly low stress most of the time, and when I feel stressed, I can see it in the readings.

Exercise

I try to log all workouts on my watch. If I miss one, or it’s not charged, I try to add a manual one. I don’t always log walks, especially days when I’m just walking a lot without dedicated exercise time. Like in a convention center.

In any case, here are the workout stats.

• Indoor Cycling    102
• Yoga    56
• Strength Training    54
• Elliptical    15
• Pool Swim    8
• Walking    6
• Resort Snowboarding    3
• Indoor Rowing    1
• Other    1

That’s a pretty good count overall. I had 246 workouts. Since I often cycle and lift, those can be the same day, but I do a lot of cycling on the road as a quick workout.

The disappointing bits. Being gone a lot this summer only had me with 8 swims, which was sad. Only 1 of those was over a mile

I also only had 3 days snowboarding, which was also sad, but that was a busy life.

Still, I think I worked out about 160 days this year by my best guess. We’re still a few weeks short, but that’s about 40-some% of the days that I specifically dedicate to workouts. Less a variety of things, as last year I had 10 types of workouts. Also less yoga, which is something I need to get better at on the road.