Tymewear data - Part II

Way overdue on this but I’ve been busy with a cranky sciatic nerve and just other life things. Here’s some data from my use of Tymewear.

The TLDR: seems like a great device but IME severely hobbled by horrible on-bike UI. PLEASE make it so the breath rate (or ventilation, or whatever I’m supposed to use) can just be a field in my usual Garmin data screens. To reiterate from my first newsletter on this topic, this UI is an abomination:

OK on to the longer version.

Here’s the threshold test result on the bike. The first one did not stick so I had to do it again, seems the earliest versions of the app had some glitch that was losing the files.

According to their results I’m reasonably solid at the top end and weak in the base/Zone 2 range. Sorta jives with my suspicion based on the last few years in which I’ve just not put in enough long hours of easy work. I’m working to change that.

It was interesting to me that breathing right didn’t explicitly come out in the report anywhere.

The 112 HR for VT1 is the bottom of where I’ve long had my Zone 2 set (113-140). Combined with Tyme’s 144 BPM for VT2 this would say that my zones have been way too hard. This would tend to corroborate a lactate test result in August that I thought anomalous but perhaps it was right after all. The totally wacked shape of the lactate profile (Aug-25) also made me suspicious of the the low end validity at the time. I recently got a lactate of 1.3 mmol after an hour at 115 W and HR of 115 and 1.8 mmol after 45 min at 125 W (same HR), but those were spot checks not a profile.

Despite some confusing results, overall I think this supports what I mostly suspected, I need more hours at lower intensity.

When I bought the tymewear I anticipated more emphasis on breath rate itself, so I was a bit surprised it didn’t come out more prominent in the test results. Nevertheless, I exported the data from some workouts, I made my own FIT to CSV converted in Python for kicks and then made the graphs in Excel of breath rate vs. power. Next on my learning list is a built in python module for making plots like this.

This is my favorite from a fast Friday morning group ride. Pretty clear trend at 200 Watts, which would be VT2. The few data points above 300 tell you that I’m getting cooked, and it shows in the breath rate data as well. Last winter I had my long hard endurance days set right around 180 Watts trying to keep my lactate around 3 mmol (see Aug, Nov, Dec ‘24 results in the plot above), so this mostly aligns.

I’ve been trying to use the tymewear during running / track workouts but honestly have not seen any results that tell as clear a story. The data picture is confusing and I was worried about data quality. Maybe I’ll get time to sort it out.

Here’s a view of 2 rides in quite different conditions, can you guess the difference? Sep 12 was early morning, ~60-65 degrees, Sep 17 was an afternoon ride at around 90-95 degrees. I thought it interesting how the HR seemed to show a much more consistent shift up than the breathing rate. That’s what happens when your blood gets used as radiator fluid and not just as a oxygen delivery system.

So where am I at? Outside of the test results I’m not really so sure how to use the Tymewear data in my pace modulation during rides. As a validation / companion data to my lactate profiling it seems more useful and I look forward to doing a full lactate profile with the tymewear sometime soon.

In the meantime hit me with any questions. I’m pretty busy with work and TeenTrainer these days so the next newsletter probably won’t come until late January post-JPM, and given the anemic subscriptions I’m debating what to do with this platform. I’m clearly not hitting a nerve given that I’ve been at <50 subscribers for a couple of years.

But never fear, I will at least leave you with a nice outdoor photo as always.