My Running Oura

Ok, so it’s not my aura but my ring has helped me in my running and fitness. And now I’m hearing that the NBA is buying up a bunch of these Oura Rings to try to keep their players notified of COVID. Yup, a simple fitness tracker can help keep you aware of a pandemic.

Oh yeah, and I ran this week.

Weekly Running Results

This week I actually took something of a break in my running regime. I took a day to slow down and cut back on my exercise. While Mrs. Redshirt suggested I take the whole day off, I decided instead to just cut back on my effort. I kept up my daily running streak but I reduced my mileage to a around a mile.

I think the cutback was successful and I’ve felt pretty good since then. I just think it was time I took a little break.

I’ve gone back to my 3+ mile daily average since and actually have been running a bit faster, though that was not my goal.

The bottom line is that every once in a while it’s good to take a little break.

Running Gear

The past few weeks I’ve been focusing on my feet and what I wear to keep them safe and comfortable while I run. This week I take a quick look at one of my trackers.

I say quick because I I was not really prepared to write about my Oura Ring and then I saw a story about the NBA.

Apparently the NBA, according to Forbes, will be purchasing over 2000 Oura Rings to help keep their players updated on COVID.

These rings are great and I’ve been using mine for years. Actually I purchased the first generation way back when, and recently got a newer model. Both versions, though, provide for sleep tracking, step tracking, fitness tracking, heart rate tracking, and the most important for COVID – temperature tracking.

Yup, this little ring that I wear all the time tracks my temperature and notifies me if things are off. If I’ve been running hotter than normal or if my temperature has been low. And when combined with information about sleep, heart rate, hear rate variability, and other measurements, the Oura Ring can help notify you if you’re sick.

I’ve actually seen this when I got sick back in January. I ended up with a simple cold – I think – but my Oura Ring basically gave me a warning a couple days in advance. It started telling me to take it easy and not to stress out my system because I had reduced readiness. I was showing a temperature, my resting heart rate was higher that normal, and my heart rest variability was different from my normal levels. All this indicated that I could very well be headed towards getting sick.

And I was.

I was out of work for a couple days and it took about 2 weeks to fully get over my cold, but I was surprised and happy to see that my Oura Ring knew something was up.

Now I hear that the NBA is gonna use Oura Rings to check on players and make suggestions that they get tested for COVID if they show certain signs. I think this is great and from what I’ve heard/read, Oura can give a warning of like 3 days before any symptoms show up. That’s pretty good if you want to prevent players from passing on an illness to others.

It’s a Wrap

While I only talked about my running gear in a tangential manner, I think the Oura Ring is a great tool to put in your arsenal for fitness. It showed me when I was coming sown with an illness and now the NBA is using them to warn players of possible COVID symptoms.

While the ring costs $300 or so, it’s been worth it to me and I’d recommend it even if you’re just using it for step tracking – mine works great for that too.

Ramble 2020.02.49 | My Running Oura