1) My HR would vary significantly through the night… there were these random spots in the night when it would spike and come back down. I assume these were dream states or something similar.

2) By the middle of the night my HRM lost signal… I assume because I wasn’t sweating and therefor the standard electrical mechanism failed to work properly. Most HRMs need to be slightly wet to work. So basically I didn’t have HR in the morning right before and after waking up.

I think Sean’s idea is a good one. Set an alarm, but on the HRM, go back to sleep. Check it when you wake the second time…

But of course, if you really get serious about using daily HRM as a training tool, then you want it every morning so that you can make sure you’re not over training or sick… and this approach wouldn’t work well every morning. At least not in my house… my wife would kill me.

For resting HR: Wake up an hour early and put your HR monitor on. Go back to sleep. Check the number (assuming you can focus without caffiene) when you open your eyes.

For max rate: I did the “run til you puke” thing. It came out to the 220 - Age formula for me. ;( I will try it again in a few weeks to see if I can get it higher, but even if I have it too low now, I don’t see if it will make a huge difference in the zone ranges. Even if I get it like…10 beats higher, it would only change each zone by like 2 beats, so not enough to worry about.

Thanks for spelling it out!