Chris Kenyon: For the past few years my training has been mainly on the Indoor Rower using a heart rate monitor. The recent comments on avoiding boredom on the ergo prompted me to write about my experience of what I can only describe as being self induced heart rate drift. This occurs when my mind wanders to thoughts of on and off water competition. Turning my mind back to the mundane, such as mowing the lawn, painting blades etc, brings my heart rate back down to the target training level. I assume that such thoughts of aggression/competition trigger the release of adrenalin thus increasing my heart rate. Is this normal in training or could it be indicative of a health problem? My resting pulse rate is 52, maximum is 183 and PB 2,000 metre time set earlier this year 7:11.1. A recent health check showed blood pressure higher than standard but not at an unusual or worrying level for my age.Terry O'Neill: When I was coaching the Olympic squad we taught a training technique called autogenesis. This was introduced because quite often crews would warm up but then sit around at the start for ten minutes or more, especially if there was a false start.Autogenesis would work by imagining you were actually taking part in the race and some of the boys would actually break out in a sweat just sitting there and going through the race in their minds. So your drift when you let your mind wander is perfectly normal. As for your blood pressure this can go up and down on a day-to-day basis so a one off reading is not necessarily anything to worry about but something to keep your eye on. Generally regular exercise is recommended as a counter measure for high blood pressure.