The Heart — Where Technology Meets the Body
MCADD, heart rate data, running, and the deeply personal thread that connects Willem's most intimate writing.
Beneath the technology posts and the cycling guides, there's a quieter thread in Willem's writing. It starts with a rare metabolic condition called MCADD, runs through years of heart rate monitoring, and surfaces in the most philosophical posts about what data can and cannot tell us about our own bodies.
This is the most personal part of Willem's blog. Not the gadgets, not the repairs — the body itself.
MCADD
The post about living with MCADD — a rare metabolic disorder — is unlike anything else on the site. It's raw, personal, and written from the experience of a parent navigating a condition that most doctors have never heard of. It explains what MCADD is, what it means for daily life, and how it shaped Willem's relationship with health data.
Listening
The MCADD experience led to a deeper attention to the body. Listen to your body is the pivot point — the post where fitness tracking becomes something more than numbers. It connects the sensor data to the lived experience of paying attention to what your body is telling you.
Measuring
From listening came measuring — systematically. The Whoop Strap, the heart rate comparisons, the sleep tracking limitations — these posts are driven by the same underlying question: can technology help us understand our bodies, or does it just add noise?
Making Sense
The later posts turn the data back into meaning. Different ways to visualise health asks whether graphs and dashboards actually help. And the most recent — Data versus Feeling — is the culmination: after years of wearing sensors, what have we actually learned? The answer is more nuanced than the fitness industry wants you to believe.
Into Running
The heart thread eventually led to running. The half marathon post brings everything together — MCADD awareness, heart rate data, sensor technology, and the experience of pushing a body you've spent years learning to listen to.
Also explore
wearable sensors · Whoop Strap review · sport and the body · fatherhood
All Heart Posts
Every post about the body, health data, heart rate monitoring, and the personal thread that connects them.
