Exercise

I'm very excited about my new heart rate monitor!  I suppose that says something about my age, or stage in life, that I asked for this for my birthday!  It's for exercise, not because I have a problem with my heart.  It is made by Polar and consists of a strap that I fasten around my chest, and a wristwatch that I wear.  I wore it while swimming last week and it worked very well.  I pushed a button on the wristwatch to tell it I was ready to begin exercising.  It recorded my heart rate, then calculated my target exercise zone.  So I started swimming along, doing my usual laps.  If I stopped at the end of the pool to talk to friends, though, my heart rate would drop out of my "zone," and the thing would start beeping at me!  Not annoying, just telling me to get back to work.  When I was all done I pushed another button on the wristwatch.  It proceeded to tell me how long I had exercised, how much of that time was in my target heart rate, my average heart rate, my highest heart rate, and how many calories I had burned.  It was pretty cool.  I've always felt like I'm a fairly lazy exerciser, so it was good to know that 26 of the 31 minutes that I was swimming were in my target zone.  I can't wait to try it out when I'm walking.