I got an e-mail today from the Race Director of the Death Valley Marathon stating they are switching to an alternate route because of weather. Boy, just another thing to add to my already pathetic week. I bet it’s going to rain and be terrible weather too. On the bright side (bright side?), there won’t be much climbing involved on the course. It’s pretty much and out and back pancake flat course on dirt and gravel.

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I’m confident there is a correlation between how many carbs I’m eating vs. how often I post. The more carbs, the more I post and vice versa. As you can imagine, I haven’t been eating that many carbs. Either way, a very exciting time for me recently: I got some hard core data! I went to my training center and took a running VO2 max test and a 20 minute power test on the bike.

POWER TEST

If you read anything on cycling training, almost everyone is moving towards training with a power meter. Training with power is an objective measurement to how much work you are doing and how much stronger you are becoming. You can focus on training in different intensities that which are very black and white. This is much better than training predominately with heart rate as so much can affect how that measurement: caffeine, lack of sleep, diet, etc. The power test basically consists of you sitting on your bike, and going as hard as you can with the maximum amount of watts you can sustain over that time.  As I sat on my bike along the other 19 riders at my training center, I was a little intimidated as I didn’t know what number to shoot for. I went with the plan to go out at “about a 7″ intensity and negative split the last 4 minutes or so.  Overall, I put out a 232 watts per average average. Now here’s the interesting part: having this number  now allows me to figure out my power to weight ratio. Check out the following graph:

When I took the test, I weighed in WITH SHOES, which put me around 183 pounds. 183 pounds in kgs is 83 kgs.  232/83 = 2.79. Without shoes, I was 170 which would put me around a 2.83. So looking at the chart, I am a atop of the Cat. 5 racers…which isn’t that great. But this is good news! I can now objectively assess my progress and hope to climb the ladder in this chart. After the first few weeks of training, I have already loss 3 lbs, and my watts have been increasingly gotten higher and higher. In fact, when doing workouts, I’m consistently up in the 250 range. I think the p90x is helping as well.

VO2 Max Test (running)

To keep it short and simple, a “VO2 Max is a measure of how fit an athlete is: It expresses the volume of oxygen a body consumes per minute.” The test is an experience all in it’s own. I get the shop and I start warming up on the treadmill. I’m instructed that they will be putting a mask on my face to measure the carbon dioxide vs. something. I wasn’t really sure how much this was going to hurt, but all I could think about was the episode of the Cosby show were Cliff Huxtable is taking a health test and he’s fine in the beginning being all funny but by the time the treadmill really starts running fast he’s almost about collapse. One of the funniest episodes ever!! Check out the clip below.

I digress. The VO2 max is great because it sets your training zones so now I know what range my heart rate should be for endurance runs, tempo runs, sprints, etc.  The test hurt pretty bad. I started out going slow then he ramped up the speed over a few minutes to a 8:00/min mile pace. I was feeling pretty comfortable there. Then he started ramping up the incline. 3 percent, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 percent. At around 8 percent incline I think my heart rate was about 175 (still going at an 8 min mile pace don’t forget). The sound of me breathing into the mask started to sound like Dark Vader almost. 8.5,9 percent…I can could see the computer screen in my peripheral vision showing my heart rate creep up: 178,179, 180. Finally he put it at 10% incline and told me that 10% was going to be the highest he would go but the longer I went, the better data they could obtain. I ended up tapping out at 184 beats per minute. My coach who was looking on told me I was starting to move all over the band and to try to concentrate on staying in the center. However, I think what made me stop was that I started to feel something rise out of stomach and I didn’t want to push it to where I vomited.

I didn’t know how much my effort was”good” or not, but I scored a 60.4 which ranks me in the “excellent” in fitness for my age group. Check out the following graph below. I guess it’s all relative. But it’s good to know what my potential is. I know already that it must be higher now as I’ve lost weight being on p90x. All in all, I’m enjoying the data collection and and science behind becoming a better and faster triathlete. I can’t wait for the next round of tests!

I am the owner of a 60.4 VO2 max

So I started over on P90x on January 4th as my first day, just because New Years just threw a big kink into everything. Being that it may, this way my first time doing Legs and Back, which to be honest, I didn’t find that Xtreme.

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Yesterday I had my initial consultation with my coach. I like him. I’ve known him a little bit as we’ve been doing our Wednesday night sprints at Franklin Field together. He has really pushed me to get faster this fall.  His background is in track and field where he ran at Michigan but after so many stress fractures he predominately races bikes now.

We basically went over race goals,

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I started P90x today. I had heard so many things about it and its popularity that I decided to do my own research. In case you don’t know what p90x is about, it’s a 90 day fitness program that is very “X”treme in every aspect.

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I finally made the switch. My Polar 625x was just giving me too many problems. It was inevitable however.

When it came to higher intensity workouts, the polar  foot-pod just wasn’t accurate. The main problem with Polar’s inertia based technology is  it calibrates based on  pace which you originally calibrate it.

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I might have mentioned in the past (or maybe I didn’t) about getting “hotspots” in my cycling shoes. This thought this was due to the fact that I put a lot of pressure on my outside of my shoes.

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My workplace is a haven for junk food. We have a Starbucks on the first floor, and people are always bringing in chocolates, cakes, you name it on often a daily basis.  If your office is like mine, they put them out in the kitchen area so everyone can grab a piece. I have to pass this display on the way to my office.

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As I’m working on my run fitness this fall and winter, I typically do my long runs on Sunday. I’ve been building my miles, running 3-4 times a week, all finishing up with my 12 mile run on Sunday mornings.  I think I’ll be building up to 17 all winter and spring and keep it there as a good 1/2 marathon and marathon base training.

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