HRV and Club Christmas Dos

All the neighbourhood Parkruns are cancelled. 

Anne and I are hunkered down in our living room and I’m watching the rowan tree outside wave its arms around like Kate Bush in Wuthering Heights. There’s no moorland here but it is certainly wild, and I can hear the gusts groaning inside the chimney as Storm Darragh sweeps over our part of the country.

There wouldn’t have been any running occurring today anyway as my watch tells me I have a ‘training readiness’ of 1. Something to do with my HRV (Heart Rate Variable) not being balanced. Apparently (and I do not begin to understand the science behind this) if the time between the beats of your heart is steady and close to even, then that is a bad thing. Having a more erratic time difference between the heartbeats is healthier which is very counterintuitive. 

Having a low HRV can mean many things: that you’re fatigued; that there is an underlying illness; that death is imminent …

I’m hoping it’s not the second and third options but I’m fairly certain it is the first because last night I danced my legs off at our running club Christmas do. And I may have partaken of the wine juice somewhat. 

Having been part of the team of two who organised it in the first place I was a tad nervous. Nervous because it was a new venue to last year, and so the caterers were new, and the DJ was also new as we’d had a band on the last couple of times.

It had been a late business organising the event for one reason or another but eventually Neil drew up a spreadsheet of venues still available for a Friday night in December and we went for the very local (to many Pensby Runners) Heswall Hall. 

Because we’d got our date set a bit late, our numbers were down. And we had precarious moments with the original caterers pulling out – as their chef had walked out – and trying to find a last-minute DJ – a friend of a friend of the venue eventually came to the rescue. The fifty odd folk who did make it down seemed to enjoy the evening, which included a seventies gameshow style of picking our London Marathon place winner. 

The food went down well, supplied by Winston’s Finest, although what they thought was more than enough turned out to be just right as several people returned for seconds and thirds – we are runners after all. And the DJ, Mark, was the type that doesn’t go all Smashy and Nicey over the records and just plays the tunes – which was spot on. 

Last year, during the Christmas do, Anne managed to break her arm after a fall on the slippy floor. This year, even though she wore grippier shoes, the floor was not treacherous, save for the stained white underpants that had been draped on the floor. These were a prop left over from the marathon selection as opposed to anybody’s discarded apparel – I think).

So, for today, while I wait for the variability of my heart rate to become more erratic, and while we wait for the groaning in the chimney to cease, I am going to pat myself (and give Neil an air pat) on the back for managing to pull it off. For two people who are not experienced in social organising, it turned out quite well.