Lowest AVG HR ever!

I am glad to report I am feeling more relaxed while driving. Today on my morning commute I decided to track my heart rate while driving again, and the average was 94 bpm. it is the lowest ever, since November 2012 when I started driving. It means the route is familiar now, and I am more at ease handling my car. My husband and a couple of friends who have been on the passenger seat tell me they feel safe and that I should not worry too much about it. For comparison I put links to my first ever driving solo log and the one from today's.

• Today's driving log
• First time driving alone log. This was quite a workout, but then I read formula one drivers get their hearts pumping at even higher rates! :)

I have not been updating this journal lately, because this driving thing is becoming more trivial, but I can write some notes to myself on my next goals.

Drive to the city center and parallel park.

The parallel park thing I prefer to do it when the snow disappears to be honest, and I think the city center is designed for walking not for driving, especially in the winter, but, I may adventure there, with my husband on my side first. He claims I lack the adventure gene, but I think one should be on the cautious side, especially when driving.

Get lost more often, and find my way home.

Just make sure I have a full tank before attempting it. This happened to me, although I was not planning on getting lost, I took a friend and his son along with my son to a party. I have checked two routes before hand and put the navigator just in case. Well I took the wrong highway exit and the only thing my navigator suggested was “to turn around when possible”. I attempted a new route but I took a couple of wrong exits again or I was not in the right lane to turn when the navigator suggested it. I was nervous, and when I calmed down and paid more attention to the instructions (especially the anticipate part, telling that a turn is approaching) I did it. I arrived safely to my destination and find my way back home after the party, but when driving there I was very close to go back home and take a taxi instead, I am glad I did not do it. It was really quite a long ride, but my friend was happy because her son took a nap.

Drive more economically.

I am actually not so sure how many liters per 100 km is my car doing, my estimation is 6.2 l per 100 km. It could be less, because this is based on approximations. I have spend 150 € on gas since I got my car in November, that is less than my husband averaging 100€ per month. And the car is doing the job of taking me to work (40 km route on weekdays) and a short errand occasionally. If distances are short enough I walk, and if I need to go to the city center I take public transport, it is difficult to find a parking space there, and indoor parking cost dearly (6€ per hour). Just for the sake of a challenge, let’s see if I get the Nissan Micra to use less gas.

A taste of winter driving

Last week it came the snow, we actually had a quite heavy storm on Friday, but Thursday was the first white winter day.  I drove on Thursday to work, my usual commute, several of my colleagues asked me if I took the car, and were asking me how it went. On that day I could not really feel the slipperiness of the road in the morning, thanks to my studded tires, but I did feel it in the evening coming back home. On the way to work, it was snowing a bit, not yet enough to have the wipers on continuously, but now and then. The road was congested on a short stretch, and gave time to check and adjust the heat to make sure my back window and mirrors were not getting foggy. Motorist were driving slower than usual, and I kept my distance, I did not try to overtake anyone or change lanes unnecessary,  I guess I would not have saved that much time hurrying it up.

On my way back I felt it was slipperier than on the morning, motorist were driving slower than on my previous journeys, and I was surprised to see people driving about 80 km/h on a 100 km/h road. A bit nervous, because although not sliding, the traction was not as I would have like it, I noticed I pressed my lips as I was feeling a bit tense then, but nothing else happened, I just drove with the traffic flow, kept my distance to be able to react should something have occurred. I arrived safely at home, no incidents. My husband took me to work on Friday though, because we got a rather heavy storm.

Monday has come, and no storm, but ice, or heavy pressed snow on slow traffic roads. I should get used to sliding because it happens often, nothing big but definetely traction is different on roads covered by ice/snow. I usually take my foot out of the throttle, press the clutch, this time there were no cars to be seen behind me, the road speed limits was actually very low, 30 km/h.. the car slides, but the traction is gained almost immediately. Intersections I have been told are particularly icy, so I apply the same technique, and approach them slowly, also when moving on from traffic lights, I start the car slowly, not so much different than before actually but I guess now the rest of the drivers do the same J.  I checked the video from the link below, it gives quite good advice on how to take turns and highlights the pedal to press, clutch, brake or throttle at different steps of the curve.
 

• http://www.nokiantyres.com/2-different-driving-situations

Then, funny enough I am not that apprehensive, or that much worried of winter driving on the road so far, the part that takes most of my concentration is parking, and there is also quite a lot of ice there. On my Monday commute as I arrived at the parking lot I observed there was no space on my usual spots, so I approached it slowly looking for places, I saw one, between two cars, moved backwards a bit, then forward and tried to do a very sharp turn, but I was still entering a bit diagonally into the spot, then a car wanted to pass behind me, so I moved forward to let him pass, then just a little backwards and then forward trying to correct making a bit like an s, then I straightened the steering wheel and done. Still the car was not completely straight as I would have liked, but right on the middle at least. A colleague pass by and said to me, very good actually. You can check a picture of my today’s parking and correlate with heart rate graph. Guess where was the heart rate peak?, oh well, it is maybe when I started walking to the office building.
 

• http://www.movescount.com/moves/move9032304 (training log of my drive from kinder garden to my work place)

550 km driven since I got my car a month ago

I have hit the 550+ km mark since I got my Nissan Micra at the beginning of November, almost a month has passed. I started commuting solo on Monday 12.11, that was two weeks ago. I have not driven every day for one reason or another but I have used my car rather often. The period I have loaded to my public transport card expires within two days. So this is it, my transportation will be my car, and I hope we will get along well.

The route to work is getting familiar, and I feel comfortable driving my car, I have chosen well without a doubt. I do not feel as nervous as with the first time I drove solo, but not cool either. I am rather anxious at the beginning and calm while driving, I listen to the radio and to my navigator because I like someone talking to me and reminds me to keep myself in the correct lane. Still if you ask me to tell you what do I prefer, I will rather let my husband drive me to work and I will take the bus back home, if only public transport was reliable and one could have more choices.

I missed my days when we were living in the city center and I could take my latte in the mornings and read my beloved Economist magazine, sit comfortably in the metro, then the bus, and arrive relaxed to work. I did not even have to look at any timetables, there was always something to take and especially in the winters I loved I did not have to get my car out of the snow. The situation is rather different now, we live outside of the city center, we have a garage for two cars, and a big house, but I think I am a city girl by heart.

I guess the big winner with this arrangement is my husband so far. He does not have to bring and pick up our son from kinder garden most of the times as he was doing previously, nowadays I bring my son to kinder garden and he picks him up. I do have breakfast with my son calmly at home in the mornings, it takes a bit longer to get to work (about 50 minutes) but only 20-25 minutes to go back, (kinder garden is a big d-tour). I get to spend more time with my family as I am arriving earlier to home for sure, it used to take about 1 h and 15 minutes if I missed the right bus back.

Good stuff, I am not sure how long it will take until driving is not an issue anymore, I guess now parking is the issue, but I am working on it. 

Feeling better after a week of driving

I have done my daily commute by car three times last week. The route to work is longer than the one back home because I have to bring my son to kinder garden first, driving to the school adds about 5 km more to the total distance. It is 23 km on the way to work and 18 km to drive back home.

Most of the route has a 80 km/h speed limit, with some small parts of 100 km/h, and the journey from home to my son's school is all on low speeds, around 40 km/h in average, some parts 50, and 30, round abounds, pedestrian crossings, left turns and several traffic lights. But the sun is already up, so the light is much better. I also love that I get to start my day slowly and have breakfast with my son at home before going to work.

The journey back is quite dark already, mostly 80 km/h and 100 km/h speed limits, I get to switch lanes several times, it could be more challenging than the one from home to work because I have not really driven it many times, so I have to pay attention to the lanes I should be in while exiting and entering roads. Normal highway driving stuff like keeping the speed constant, looking far ahead, anticipating, and overall being careful when overtaking and switching lanes.

I think I started to feel more at ease while driving, still nervous before getting into the car but it feels better once I hit the road. I have used my training watch to monitor my heart rate and speed while driving, I only check the graphs and data afterwards though. I usually put on my heart rate belt, and start the training on my watch while I am still at home getting my son ready to go, the heart rate peaks tend to be during that time and when I stop at my son's school, so basically when I am physically moving. But some interesting peaks while driving too.

Day 1

• avg. heart rate, driving to work: 130 bpm (super high, I was nervous, more at the beginning but still my heart rate did not come down that much during my driving)
• avg. heart rate, driving back home: 122 bpm. (I had the parking incident, slight scratch on my bumper, peaks were recorded before I started driving back..!)

Day 2.

• avg heart rate driving to work: 121 bpm (10 bpm less!) great improvement
• I did not record it while driving back home

Day 3.

• Morning journey to work: 118 bpm
• avg. heart rate driving back home: 104 bpm. I think this reflect more my heart while driving, the extra 10 bpm on the journey to work could be explained by the peaks observed while not driving but walking and hurrying at home

For reference, my average heart rate while walking is around 123 bmp and while runnning around 165 bpm with peaks of 184. Maximum heart rate is about 197 bpm

Highlights of the week

Encountered a slow moving vehicle on a high speed road. I encountered a slow moving vehicle going on 50 km/h on a 80 km/h road. Those cars are not allowed on 80 km/h roads but somebody decided to drive it there nevertheless. I saw it after a car slowed down to take an exit, and there it was in front of me, I slowed down, brake slowly and switched gears back. I checked my possibilities for overtaking it as soon as I saw it, but it was too risky. I think I did the right moves, I was not nervous and felt in control of the situation, the slow car took the next exit after about 200 meters and I continue my journey to work safely

Road directions signs. Before I started driving solo I practiced the route to work several times with my husband, but not the route back home at all. Therefore I feel a bit apprehensive of it because besides going on high speeds I must look at the road directions signs at high speed in night driving and take decisions on changing lanes, exiting roads and merging back. On the last stretch of the route there is two ways the road directions sings redirect traffic,and I took a difficult one, one merging with heavy traffic and being redirected back to another lane and then back to the exit I should be taking. In summary not nice, it happened the second day while driving back home, I did it but I did not feel particularly at ease. Check the space, observed my blind spot and switched lanes, merged or exited, several times on a 3.5 km road stretch but I would not do it again, I feel I need more practice. I know which lane to take for a peaceful journey home now

Overtaking maneuvers. See above on a need more practice part. I decided to overtake because the car in front of me was going to slow. I do not mind the speed but I mind that many cars start to accumulate to close to me, I prefer when I have space to maneuver, so I saw the space and moved to the left, speed-ed up and started to look on my mirrors to see when it was safe to move back to the right that I did not see the road was bending so I had to do a quick movement to steer back, then I changed lanes to the right. I feel I need to get more practice, quick movements are not safe if the pavement is slippery, it was not, but I should be more careful next time.

Urgently in need of reverse handling and parking skills

The one thing I have not practiced that much is car reverse handling, a very important skill for parking. No wonder I panic at the thought of busy parking lots or taking my car to the city center. On my defense I can say that I have been busy learning to drive forward at slow traffic and in highways, and getting rid of my fear of driving overall. Hey I have to give myself some credit.

So what happened?. While trying to get out from my parking spot I hit the car parked next to me, yes I did see I was driving too close, I stopped, got out the car, looked from the outside, my car was very close to the other parked car and all I wanted to do is call somebody to help me get my car out of that position because I did not know how to. Well, I tried on my own unsuccessfully but now I think have a better idea how I should have done it, but not back then. I will practice with some cones in an empty parking lot this weekend, and I hope I will not get into incidents like this again.

The damage. I got few scratches on the bumper of my brand new Nissan Micra, and a minor one on the car next to me. Only minor visual damage, sad nevertheless. It happened after only 200 km driven :(

The cost. Insurance is paying mostly for all repairs on my car and the one I damaged, I have to pay 180€  and my insurance bonuses got reduced, which means I will have to pay more on car insurance this year. Well on a bright note, I did not think I had any bonuses to begin with. They cannot go in the negative, can’t they?

What happened after the parking incident. It was quite dark so I could not see the damage that well there, I took the license plates of the car I damaged, drove home, actually it was a more calmly feeling than in the morning trip to the office (judging by my heart rate log). Once at home I investigated the contact details of the owner of the car, and informed him about the incident.

Comments from my husband. Tell the insurance you will repair your bumper later, most likely you will get more scratches, sight!. And here you have two lego cars, one with front wheel driving, the other one with fixed wheels, observe what happens when you reverse and plan accordingly. Keep them on your car. As embarrassing as that sounds it can be very helpful, I think I am taking those cars to my parking lot practice this weekend.

I should know better

Today was my first commuting to work driving solo. It did not go as smoothly as I would have hoped, I arrived safely to my destination however. I will probably update this entry to tell how the way back went. It is going to be dark. Below a list of mistakes.

1. Gear shifting mishap. Switched to second from third to take a roundabout, took my foot out of the throttle but the speed was too low for it, so I struggled getting back to first once in the roundabout. Not sure what I did really, the engine did not stole, but I my wheels spin quite a bit because I press the gas too much. I keep telling to myself, relax you should know better. The guy on my back kept his distance, I guess he must have thought judging by my wheels that the pavement was slippery and I was a clumsy driver.
2. Overtook a truck when I did not really have to. This was an overconfident me, I was going behind a truck,  85 km/h on a 100 km/h limit. A very short stretch really (1 km) but I said I have the space let’s overtake, it went fine but it was too risky. First I was not sure if I could merge to the right immediately after overtaking, because I needed to take an exit immediately after, Grr. It went fine, overtook, took the exit, slowdown before the curve, switched to third once in the curve to break a bit more on the engine, but I will not do it again. I should have known better..
3. Advice. Do not keep your sunglasses in the car if the weather is cold.  There will be some condensation happening immediately after you put them on, that happened because the glasses were cold and my skin was warm. Man it got my heart raising because I could not see, put them off immediately, put my normal glasses and try to clean the dark ones while waiting at the traffic light. But they got condensed again. I keep my normal glasses on for the rest of the journey, the sun was not shinning that much on face anyway.

Average heart rate: 131 bmp. (a piece of the log included geting ready, taking the garbage out and helping my son to put his coat on)
Calories: 346 :)

Check the log, speed and route: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move8605619

A day as a taxi driver

The plan for the day was to drive alone for the first time to my work place, but, my husband needed a ride to a place near my office, so he came along. We however decided that he and my son were to be siting on the back seat, and no instructions were allowed.  So we went for a taxi driver setup.

I have driven many times the same route (about 20 km long), but always accompanied by my husband as a copilot. His company is quite reassuring because besides telling me where to go, he also lets me know when something can be improved on my driving.  Lately he has not been telling that many things so I am assuming I am ready to venture on my own.

Day. Saturday morning
Traffic conditions. No traffic jams. It was relatively calm, but not deserted
Speed limits. 40km/h, 80 km/h and a short trip of 100 km/h
Weather. Already on the plus side +3C or so, still, it has been colder before so it could  be icy on areas not exposed to the sun.
How did the trip go. Quite good!, my concentration and eyes were on the road, making sure I was keeping the car on a speed I could control and based on the weather conditions. I changed the lanes when I have to, observed speed limits, and arrived safely to my destination. The gear changing techniques could be better, e.g. switching early to higher gears.
Highlight of the route. There is a part of the route on which one of the three lanes is ending, so it is becoming a two lanes road for a short period. On a previous journey I missed the sign and I was taking my time to merge into the left lane, I noticed too late but the driver on the left lane anticipated that I will have to merge at the last minute, scary stuff..
This time, a big truck and I will expect a professional driver missed the sign too, and I was the driver on the left lane, I did not overtake him and gave him plenty of space to merge because I thought he will do the same as I did. He did, he even signaled shortly.

I decided to record my heart rate on the way there and back. You can still see driving is a big deal for me. Probably I can compare my Heart rate graphs later as my driving skills improve and I feel more confident.

After reaching my work place, my husband gave me instructions (from the back seat) where he needed to go, I was a bit nervous because it was a new place, but we went there. On the way back he then sit next to me. This time I remembered to start my gps device to record track, speed and distance and see the correlations to my heart rate. See the graphs below

Heart rate graph. On my way to my work place, then to drop my husband to his destination

Heart rate on the way back home. Lower, maybe because my husband was in the passenger seat

Speed clearly on legal limits :)

My Nissan Micra and my son getting into the car

The logs above can be seen from movescount.com

• Journey home to work place. http://www.movescount.com/moves/move8563410
• Journey back home: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move8563411