Turks and Caicos

Lana and I were planning our season early last year and we decided that a vacation was in order for us in 2012, after the dust settled from a year of racing.  Last year was a whirlwind of ironman, house buying, moving, training, racing, Lana’s first half ironman, and even a big marathon PR for the both of us.   We were more than ready to get away and slow down a little bit.  

Our adventure began last Sunday.   We made our way to St. Louis at around noon, and arrived at about 3 pm.   I ‘surprised’ Lana by taking her to the St Louis City Museum, where we first met.   After that, I surprised her again with dinner at Sweet Tomatoes, a delicious salad bar type chain that we both like.   And then, the next morning, passports in hand we left for the Windsong hotel in Providenciales (Provo to the locals) Turks and Caicos.

Monday

After a long day of travel, we touched down in Provo and were promptly greeted by a line to clear immigration and then another for customs.  Once through, we met Liege (pronounced Lee Gee) who shuffled us off to our hotel, and would become our taxi driver for most of the week.   After a few heart attacks caused by being driven down the British side of the road, we made it to our hotel. 

And then we waited at the front desk to check in…and we had our first run in with Island time.   At first I thought it was just bad service, but in reality it’s culture.   Things just happen in their own time on Provo, and no one is in a big hurry to do anything.  

We found the ocean and went for a quick swim, had dinner in our hotel, and went for a walk on the beach.   The beaches in Provo, particularly grace bay, were the draw for our trip and they didn’t disappoint.   The night sky was clear and amazing.  There was a persistent cool eastern wind.  The sand was so white that you could see it at night, and the sounds of the ocean crashing against the shore were just always present.   We went to bed pretty early that night, exhausted from a day of travel.

Tuesday

Tuesday morning Lana and I started the day off with a run.  After that we had breakfast at the hotel and walked down to the beach to snorkel. 

 We discovered that our hotel was right on a reef, maybe 100 ft from shore, called  Princess Alexandra National Park.   It was seriously the coolest place.  In just a few minutes we were snorkeling and swimming in what seemed to me to be the biggest saltwater aquarium I’d ever seen. 

I held Lana’s hand as we flippered our way through the ocean and saw the entire cast of finding nemo, a sea turtle, huge parrotfish you could hear chomping on the reef under the water, and a barracuda that Lana was sure was staring her down and considering eating her.   At one point  Lana noticed that she was being followed by an entire school of yellow finned fish, and then realized, because of her yellow flippers, she had become the lead fish.  

After snorkeling we got a shower and walked down the beach to find somewhere to eat.  

Somewhere was pretty good, it was an interesting blend of Tex/Mex and Carribean with lots of fresh fish!

That afternoon we went Kayaking and swimming (have you noticed I can’t sit still?) and then ,after a trip to the grocery store, went to Sailing Paradise for dinner.  

Sailing Paradise was some of the best food we had on the Island.   Lana and I split a platter of curried goat, jerk chicken, jerk pork, fish, fried plantains, and rice and peas.  

 We washed it down with rum punch.

I’d describe it as a small local place, in a non touristy neighborhood, set up to cater to tourists as well as locals.  They had a free shuttle, which was very nice, since it was about a 20 minute trip by car.  

We finished the day, again, with a walk along the beach, taking in the beauty of our surroundings, and enjoying each other’s company.  

Wednesday 

Wednesday we got up a little earlier and ran a bit further.   The island gets hot as the sun gets high, so ideally the running should be done by about an hour after sunrise.   We were careful to bring water because we weren’t heat acclimated.  

After breakfast we did some more swimming, and then traveled down the beach to have a picnic lunch on a secluded beach.   It was only turkey and cheese, but on an empty beach, thousands of miles away from life, with only my wife and the ocean, it was the best turkey and cheese ever.  

After lunch we checked out bikes from the hotel.   We took the bikes downtown and did some shopping.   We got a rum cake, some local rum (which is delicious and not exported ).   After that I took Lana to a local jewelry store and bought her a Larimar necklace for our second anniversary. 

Once we made it back we relaxed a bit in the hot tub, and had this evil tropical drink that was a mixture of pineapple juice, rum, rum, rum, and had a floater of Bacardi 151 on top, just in case we didn’t hit our rum quotient.   Suddenly, we were on island time too. 

That night we went to Grace’s Cottage, which was a beautiful outdoor restaurant that was a little bit fancy for us, but was really the perfect place to celebrate being married to Lana for two years now.

Thursday

Thursday morning we went on a tour with a local tour company. 

They picked us up around 8am, right at the beach in front of our hotel and we took off with two guides and 6 other visitors on a 30ft’ catamaran. 

At 8:30 in the morning, the guides starting giving us rum punch.   Apparently I looked like a guy with an overly healthy liver, and I did my best to put an end to that. 

First we took off for the barrier reef, a reef that protects the islands from the ocean.  The snorkeling there was great, even better than near our hotel.   The reef was so wide it extended as far as I could see in about every direction.

After about 30 minutes snorkeling, the tour company took us to the south side of Provo, near another small island.  Next up, we were diving for Conch!   I jumped in and immediately felt the current pushing me back.  I had to swim quite hard to make any progress forward, and after some significant effort I got about 10 feet in front of the boat.   After just a little help from a tour guide, I found my first Conch!   It was a big shell, covered in grass, that looked sorta like a chia pet, which is exactly what the tour guide said it would look like.  I dove, grabbed it, swam back to the boat, and then did another hard swim interval to get back in front to find another one.  

The tour took us to an island where we they showed us how to crack and clean the conch.  A ‘trained’ stingray was waiting just off the shore for the spare bits of conch left over as the concj was prepared.   While the tour guides worked on our lunch, we were free to explore the island a bit more.  

I found an old net of some type, strung up hammock style, that I certainly enjoyed.  

We also found quite a few large iguana’s living there.  

Lunch was served, which consisted of Conch Salad (Conch, bell pepper, tomato, habanero, and lemon/lime juice kind of like ceviche), Doritos, and more rum punch!  The guide did warn us about the punch ‘jus remember the more you be drinkin the more you be sinkin.’  I thought I was done swimming for the day though, but, I was wrong

After lunch we went snorkeling one last time, and saw a lion fish.   Then we dove for sand dollars.

By the time we got back to shore, getting off the boat was just a little difficult.   The coolest part of the trip was our new souvenir Conch shell, the previous home of our lunch.

Later that night we went to “Shark Bite” for dinner, which was a local burger kind of place where we had Conch Fritters, Jerk Chicken, and Rice and Peas.

Friday

By Friday we had really done about everything we wanted to do, and spent most of the day relaxing on the beach.   I did some swimming, fish watching, and kayaking because I sort of suck at sitting still and doing nothing.   For lunch that day we had Liege take us to “Da Conch Shack” which was pretty amazing.

We split some conch fritters!  I had curried conch, plantain fries, rice, and more rum punch.   Lana had blackened grouper tacos.  This was probably the best food on the island. 

That night we walked down to the beach and watched the last sunset of our trip, both a little sad it was almost over.  

For our last night, Lana and I went to Mango Reef. It was right on the water, in the open air, and really beautiful.  It was a great last night on the island.   We had great sushi, it was really amazing.   After that I had Dominican Paella with grilled lobster.   Lana had grilled pecan crusted fish that was really good as well.

Saturday

We woke up Saturday, got one last run in, one last swim in the ocean, and then headed back home.  

It was nice to be home, but what an amazing adventure we had.  I’m so glad I got to experience all those things, and I’m even more glad I got to share them with my wife.  To be sure, we’d rather be at home than anywhere else, but sometimes a little adventure is called for and Lana and I are pretty good at finding it. 

What I got for Christmas...

I had a really great holiday season this year, and I’m really thankful for all the great stuff I got.  In fact, I can’t really think of a holiday season that topped this one.  (Although, the one where I got Voltron was right up there…)

Probably the biggest gift was the house that Lana and I bought.  There was a day, not so long ago, when I had to give up just about everything material I had ever worked for, and start over.  I’d like to say that experience has provided me with some transcendence over material possessions.  That wouldn’t be the truth though.  I’m certainly less dependent on, and in some ways distrustful of material goods, but the fact is, having a place in the world that is all mine feels pretty good. 

On Christmas Eve-Eve I made Christmas dinner for Lana and William.  There was a fire in the fireplace, Christmas music playing, we opened some presents, and it was really good and all sorts of Norman Rockwell.  An opportunity for us to all be together was another great gift. 

On Christmas Eve I took William to my mom’s house for Christmas dinner.  Lana was at work, taking care of the sick.  I was having some awful stomach cramps that had actually started the night before, which wasn’t so great, and I guess made me one of the sick... When I got to Mom’s we ended up going to see a Doctor.   When the doctor was reviewing my vitals he questioned my resting heart rate, which was in the mid 40s.  Before I could answer, mom jumped in and told the doctor “he’s an athlete.”  Mom was pretty proud of me, it was cool.  But my mind was drawn back to thoughts of this other guy I knew.  He was in the same coaching group as me.  He was an athlete, like but much better than me.  He was healthy, successful at work, and had a family.  He died 26 miles into a PR marathon this summer.  Later that night after the doctor decided I probably wasn’t dying I sat around the table with William and my family and just enjoyed their stories and soaked it in.  I was thankful for the moments I have, knowing that none of us are invincible and that a Kona or Boston slot doesn’t promise health and longevity.  There are no guarantees, and none of us are invincible. 

On New Year’s Eve we had some friends over to our new place.  I cooked some stuff that turned out kinda “meh.”  We ate too much, drank a little wine, and had a great time.  The next morning, New Year’s Day, we met up early for a 12 mile run.  Balance is a wonderful gift I’m just really learning to understand. 

I’m now 12 weeks into the off-season, and it’s been good.  Really good.  I really love the centuries and long long runs that in season training brings, and those things will be there again, but it’s nice to have the opportunity to focus on some other stuff for a change. I’ve been able to refocus on what I want out of the next few years of Triathlon, and the next few years of life. 

An Ode to 2x20

Winter Bike Training...  It's a love/hate thing for me. 

Riding the trainer sucks.  It's boring beyond words and more painful than that.  At least the way I do it.  

That said, the winter is when I get fast.  While most folks are base building, or recovering, or doing some candy ass group bike workout or whatever...I'm getting faster. 

But getting faster hurts.  Sometimes it hurts alot.  My winter bike training sessions rarely go over 75 minutes.  That's my trainer insanity threshold.  But every time I ride it's all about racking up as many minutes as possible at threshold power.  It starts slow, 8ish minute repeats in zone 4, but by the end of the winter I'll be doing the equivilent to 3 20K TTs a week of zone 4 work, mixed in with LOTS of zone 3. Riding at zone 2 doesn't exist in my winter bike training.  I have all summer to put endurance on top of my threshold training, and in reality it takes about 6 weeks to get it back.

This is my second year of training this way.  I'm a big fan of the results.  The trick is in the doing.  The worst part of the entire process is power testing.  My preferred power test is 2x20@100% on 2'.  I go all out, and then use the normalized power of the 42 minute range as my new 100%.  I test every 6 weeks. 

For me, that 2x20 workout starts about a week before my butt hits the saddle.  I start dreading it.  I know it's coming.  I'll start loading with my normal suppliments, and stop eating with any calorie deficit.  The worrying starts.  "What if I lost a bunch of fitness in those few months of rest I took?"  "Will my FTP bounce back?"  "How much work am I going to have to do, to improve again this year?"  I try to start rationalizing with myself.  It doesn't hurt that bad really...and it's only 40 minutes. 

Then there is acceptance.  The day comes. I resign myself to the pain.  One last shot of caffeine, a few puffs from the inhaler, a long warm up, and then the test. 

The first 10 minutes aren't so bad.  I target what I think my FTP is.  By then I've totally burnt out my anerobic ability to create power.  The second 10 creep by. 

Making it past the first 20 is the easy part.  Two minutes easy, I try to catch my breath, and brace myself for the second 20 minute interval. 

The second 20 minutes isn't targeted.  I don't have a magic number to shoot for.  I pedal as hard as I can.  That's it.  It's just all out, 100%.  The litmus test is "can I pedal any harder?"  If the answer is yes, I do.  My breathing is completely ragged.  I'm probably struggling not to vomit, and my pain compensation strategies are all in play.  I'm probably thinking "This is the most painful thing I can imagine, but hey, at least I'm not running..." 

By the last 5 minutes, if I paced well I'm ready to really drive myself to the edge and leave everything out there.  If I didn't pace well, it's even harder to push because my power output is dropping and the suffering is worse. 

And then it's over.  I can stop.  I try to walk, and usually can't, so I sit down on the bottom step to my basement and take a few minutes to recover. I immediately feel it in my legs, I'll be trashed for a few days. 

It's an impossibly hard workout.  The gains are also as impossible to describe.  Last year I gained almost 40W of FTP, which worked out to about 1.5 mph.  But there's more than that.  Acquiring the mental toughness needed to really suffer, put your head down, and then reach down inside yourself and suffer just a little more is invaluable.  Learning how to "disengage the safety mechanisms" the mind puts on the body has been a real key to my improvement as an athlete, and firmly confirms (for me) Dr. Noakes central governor theory, that says fitness is as much in the head as the legs. 

So, I'm a fan of the results...but 2x20 all out is still a workout that scares me.  I have a healthy respect for the demands it places on me, and I certainly don't look forward to it.

Illinois Half Marathon 1:46:34

The Illinois Half was my first real race of the 2011 season.  It was also the first time I have run a half for time, rather than survival/to finish. 

My training this winter was a little unconventional.  My focus was on “getting fast.”  I spent a good amount of my time, something like 50+%, running at either 5k pace or T pace.  My MPW dropped from something like 40 to something closer to 20 most of the winter.  About 6 weeks out from the race I added some distance and race pace specificity to my run.  My goal was pretty clear, I wanted to close the gap between my Daniels predictor for HMP and my actual HMP.  Up until this race, I was running long stuff about 1:30/mi slower than my Daniels predictor and I wanted to dramatically decrease that spread. 

My theme for this race was execution.   Too often when I’m running I think about things like “oh, maybe if I just ran more like this, or did more of that.”  This time, because of my unconventional training, I went out of my way to focus on running my best race and keeping everything else out of my head.  The training choices were made, and my goal was just to use whatever fitness I had built as well as I could and put together a good race. 

My taper was pretty non-existant.  This was a B race for me, and I didn’t want to slow down my on-going bike/swim build.  I did rearrange things a bit.  My week looked like this:

Monday:  Easy Run / Swim 2700Y

Tuesday:  Run 30M HMP / Bike 40k w 2x20@100%

Wednesday:  Swim 1600Y / Run 4M, w 2M @HMP

Thursday: Swim 2700Y

Friday: Run 3M Easy w 1M@HMP

My run volume was tapered to about 50% for the week, and I dropped most of the intensity from Wednesday. 

My goal was to run an average of 8:00/mi for a finish time of 1:45:05.  My Daniels predictor was 7:48/mi for a goal of 1:42:17.  My PR for the distance was set during the Indianapolis Full at 2:04:03 as my half split.   I don’t run outside of triathlon very often, so I didn’t have a great predictor of what I could do, but the marathon split would have to do. 

Race Morning

Lana and I got up at 4AM and left for the race at 4:45, we had to drive about an hour and the gun was at 7:30. 

My pre-race breakfast was 2 peanut butter and honey sandwiches on that 35-calorie bread.  I wasn’t too concerned about banking calories, I mostly just wanted to keep my stomach full.  I ate normally (at no deficit) for 2 days leading up to the race, so I knew I was pretty much on a full tank.  I ate them in the car on the way with a 24 oz bottle of tea and my morning beta-alanine. 

Parking was good, but bathroom accessibility was not.  There are never enough bathrooms for these things. 

At 7:00 am, right before we checked our gear, I drank a 16 oz. cocktail of Gu brew, BCAAs, and First Endurance Pre-Race.

The Race

The wind was about 20 Mph, from the SSE, which was less than ideal.  I knew there were going to be some challenges with wind.  My strategy for dealing with it was to a.) draft a lot and b.) pace based on heart rate instead of GPS speed when I was running into the wind. 

My plan was to run my first two miles at 8:15 and 8:06.  Then I would fall into 8:00 until the 10-mile mark.  After that I’d run a 5k and see what I had.  Based on experience and some calculations on my calorie needs, my plan was to take a Honey Stinger Gold gel at mile 4 and 8 and drink water every time I could without slowing down considerably. 

My actual splits were:

1      8:12

2      8:03  -Just a bit too hot, kept it easy but there was a tail wind.

3      8:00

4      8:06 – Not sure what I did wrong here

5      8:02

6      8:07 – This was South into the wind

7      8:09 – For these miles I ran by HR at < LTHR and drafted

8      8:03

9      8:02

10  8:00 – From here on I ran pretty much on RPE/HR.

11  8:00

12  7:59

13  7:40

13.1  7:06

Post Race

After the race I waited just a few minutes for Lana to finish.  She PR’ed by 5 minutes as well.  After that we got a slice of pizza at the post race food place, and took a shower at the U of I ARC before making our way back to our friends hanging out in the bleachers at the U of I stadium. 

The day after I was 10 pounds heavier.  I went for an easy easy recovery ride on the bike, but I kept it short because I could tell I was hurt.  Based on that response from my body, I’d say I ran pretty much at my current fitness, and couldn’t have asked for much more.

Results

Overall I ran 1:46:34 against my predicted time of 1:42:17.  It also appeared that the course was about .1 miles long, based on about every GPS watch out there. 

I closed the gap on my Daniels goal pace considerably, from 1:30/mi to about 0:12/mi.  I’ll take it.  I trained hard this winter, and I’ve come a long way.  I also executed a very good race with that hard-earned fitness.  I couldn’t really have done much more / better this time and I’m very happy with the results.

Thank you's all around, especially to Lana for her love and support, to my friends for their solid advice on all things multisport, Endurance Nation for their awesome and brutal Out Season coaching, K-Swiss and Saucony for making the best running gear available, and Honey Stinger for the best gel out there!

The Off Season

So what have I been up to this off season?  I’ve been busy!   I’m getting revved up for the final push to Ironman Wisconsin.  I’ve been building towards this goal for around 3 years now, and it seems like the pieces are all finally falling into place.

General Training

I’m approaching training in a somewhat untraditional way this year.  I’ve built a lot of intensity in and lowered my volume considerably.  I’ve been using Endurance Nation coaching to help me with this plan.  It appears that I’ll be coming into this season a good deal faster because of it.  It’s been rough though, all that intensity is…well…intense…

Medical Stuff

The intensity plus the cold resulted in the discovery that I have exercise induced asthma.  After steelhead last year I had a bit of an asthma attack, although I didn’t really know what that was at the time.  This winter I had another, more serious asthma attack.  A trip to the doctor later I’m now “fixed” with an inhaler.  It was a bit scary at the time, but it’s very controllable.  Life moves on. 

I’m also dealing with some biomechanical stuff related to the knee repair that I had done when I was huge and fell in the snow.  More on that later as it shakes out…

Bike Fitting

I recently went to visit Get a Grip Cycles in Chicago for a professional bike fit.  They spent a bunch of time looking at my flexibility, anatomy, and goals and put me on a fit bike.  Then they put me on a fit bike and did some motion capture video analysis to really get my fit dialed in.  They did good work, and I’m more comfortable than ever on Karma (my Cervelo P3).

Swimming

I’ve been working hard, and not so hard, on my swimming.  All the intensity in my bike/run training has really left me wiped out.  A lot of the folks training with EN stop swimming during the off season because of stress involved with their bike/run training, and the “return on investment” of off season swimming.  I stopped for a while myself.  I missed it though, so I made a compromise and took my swimming back to the drawing board.  I stopped pounding out yards, and started doing entire swim sets of drills.  Drills, drills, and more drills.  Now I can bilaterally breath, swim with much less effort, and swim a bit faster as well.  It was time well spent, and it helped keep the weight off this winter!

The Other Stuff

Life has been very busy, and there isn’t really much time for all that much “other” stuff, but this off season has found me a little extra time and I’ve been having some good times.  I’m cooking my way through all the recipes in the book “Food Matters” by Mark Bittman (what an awesome book!!!).  I’ve also managed to finish all three God Of War games, Heavy Rain, and a few other titles on my PS3.  I’m really working to find some balance in all of this, and so far I’m winning…but it’s a fight!  Healthy is more than just triathlon though. 

Running in a Blizzard

Disclaimer:  You should not run in a blizzard.  I did because 1.  I'm an idiot. and 2. I had the stuff and experience to do it safely.  Don't try this at home.

There's a blizzard going through Central Illinois at the moment.  Big snow, big wind, big cold.  My day started pretty normally.  I woke up, ate some breakfast, donned the spandex, and got on the bike.  After that, shower and off to work.  About an hour in it became very clear that we were about to get a big big snow.  A few hours later we were sent home.  So, I did what any runner would do...I went to the gym to try to get my run in before it closed.  Alas, I was too late.  The gym was closed as well. 

At first I was bummed.  I really hate missing workouts.  Then my mind wandered to some people I was helping a few days ago, and some of the word on this blog.  And then the endurance athlete started bargaining with the sensible part of me.  "Well, the snow isn't that deep, and you're just supposed to run 5k easy anyway..."  "Besides, you just told all those people to do whatever it takes, and to suck it up buttercup."  Yeah, I did say that.  And then my mood changed.  How many people go running in a blizzard?  This is going to be fun!  Apparently, my inner athlete had thought I was suddenly getting off too easy.  "And oh, BTW, these easy tuesday runs are always form work...so you're running in your vibrams (aka almost barefoot), but hey, that's not totally barefoot, so no whining."

 

So off I went.  It was 16 degrees out, with 25 mph winds gusting up to 55 mph, and a wind chill of -1.  There was, at the time, about 4 inches of snow on the road.  At first it wasn't so bad.  I was working hard to run my easy pace, since I'd probably added about 20 pounds of clothing.  The snow wasn't so bad at all.  The cold was bad.  It cut right through both pairs of gloves and my hands stopped hurting less than a mile in.  In the cold, the absence of pain is concerning.

The hardest part was the wind and blowing freezing snow/ice.  It really hurt.  My eyes stung to the point that I kept them closed as much as I possibly could.  It was in the worst of this that I started to wonder "why on earth am I doing this?"  It was for me, in my quest to be better than my previous self, sure.  But more than that, it was for the people I've met since my escape from obesity.  I know the fight.  It's every day, it's exhausting, it hurts.  It's not even a fight that can be won, but rather it's a fight you take on for the rest of your life.  I ran in the middle of a blizzard so that I could say "suck it up buttercup" and not be just another fake with a weight loss book talking about the latest gimmick. It was because, for at least today, I'm fighting and I'm winning.

It continued to snow, and after I had been out there around 20 minutes traffic was having a real difficult time making it down the smaller streets.  They certainly had strange looks to share with me however! 

After returning home I stood with my face over a sink of steaming hot water, melting the ice covering my eyes, and grinning like a dumb ass. That was a huge challenge, and also possibly the most fun I've ever had running.

So suck it up buttercup, what's your excuse, a blizzard?

Just Me, Karma, and a pumpkin donut...

Triathletes own lots of stuff.  This is a stuff intensive sport.  For running you need load of clothes, several pairs of shoes, glasses, water bottles, gels, drinks, body glide, etc.  For biking you need a billion difference pieces of gear.  Even for swimming you need goggles, a suit, and a wetsuit, maybe a waterproof swimp3 player, a pull buoy, maybe some fins...    The list goes on and on.  Getting all your stuff organized and to a race is a logistical nightmare to be honest.  So, in racing I have lots of stuff.  I only own one piece of equipment with a name though.  Let me introduce Karma...

This is Karma, my new Cervelo P3. 




Karma isn't like my running shoes, or my gps watch, or my swim goggles.  She isn't just gear.  The relationship between cyclist and bike is, in my opinion, a spiritual thing.  This is especially true for me, as I feel I owe my second chance at life to cycling to some degree.

Karma was built from the frame up, over the last several months, from hard won Ebay auctions and saved pennies.  Every piece of her was a hard won victory with a story, a reminder of the balance in life between optimal and affordable that those business types call Return On Investment, and a tribute to the road I've traveled and will continue to travel. 

So, by now you're asking, why Karma?  Isn't that a name better suited for poll dancers than speedy bikes?  I suppose that's true.  I thought long and hard about the name for my new bike.  It's an important decision after all, if what I say about the spirituality  of cycling equipment is in any way true.  So, then, why Karma?  To remind me that in triathlon as in life, you get out of it what you put in...more or less.

This last Sunday I had the opportunity to spend about two hours with Karma, riding to nowhere in particular, and in general enjoying fall.  Most of my training these days has a great deal of structure to it.  But not on Sunday.  We went to a gas station in a small town about 20 miles away.  I had some coffee and a delicious pumpkin donut.  There was no wind.  It was a fast, perfectly temperate, fall day.  I remember thinking to myself that if I couldn't run anymore, or swim, that would be ok.  If I never got the opportunity to bike again, that would be heart breaking.  While I do believe that you do more or less get out of life what you put in, on Sunday I got back quite a bit more.  A perfect fall day, a ride with a new friend, and a pumpkin donut...what else could you want?

VO2max Testing

One way of assessing fitness is with a number called VO2max.  The higher your VO2max, the more intensely you can exercise, and in general the VO2max of someone that is well conditioned is higher than someone who isn't in such great shape.

Ok, but what is VO2max? 

VO2max is the maximum amount (in milliliters) of oxygen that a person can use in one minute, per kilogram of body weight.  Brian Mac explains it in depth on his website, so if you want to know more that's where I'd suggest you go. 

Why do I care what my VO2max is?

The primary purpose for the fitness assessments I've been doing in this year's preseason is the establishment of a baseline of fitness.  I want to be able to repeat this tests at later dates and refer back to them so that I can evaluate how well my training is going.  Quantifiable metrics are the name of the game here.

Additionally, a more accurate VO2max will allow me to more accurately estimate my calories burnt in gym sessions with my Polar HRM, and that should hopefully help with my nutrition.

Polar HRMs use a secret sauce for calorie burn estimation, but it is thought to have once resembled this polynomial (although now Polar uses resting HR as a variable and that isn't expressed below):

Let C = KCals and weight = the person's weight in Kgs.

Men: C/min = (-59.3954 + (-36.3781 + 0.271 x age + 0.394 x weight + 0.404 x VO2max + 0.634 x HR))/4.184
Women: C/min = (-59.3954 + (0.274 x age + 0.103 x weight + 0.380 x VO2max + 0.450 x HR)) / 4.184

So clearly, the amount of calories your HRM reports burnt is rather dependant on VO2max.  

Estimating VO2max

So, outside of lab testing, how can you accurately estimate your VO2max?

There are quite a few ways, however the one I chose based on the environment I had available was the Balke VO2max test.

You can read about the testing protocol in detail at the above link, but essentially it's very simple.  Run around a track as fast as you can for 15 minutes and record your distance.  You're supposed to use a 400m track, and my track was 9 laps/mile (roughly 179m/lap).  In 15 minutes, running as fast as I could, I covered 3168 meters. 

Using this formula:  (((Total distance covered ÷ 15) - 133) × 0.172) + 33.3 gives me a result of 46.75 mls/kg/min VO2max

How accurate is this number?  Well it's probably good enough to set my heart rate to, and additionally as long as I repeat this exact test in the future it will serve as a measure of improvement to some degree.  According to Mac's website the correlation between this number and  actual VO2max is high as well.  

Estimating Caloric Burn

What does this mean for my energy expenditure estimations?  Well, the default setting on my HRM is a VO2max of 36, which would be about the norm for a non athletic 30-39 female, which is perhaps a safe bet for the typical Polar F6 consumer, but I believe it was causing my HRM to grossly under report calories burnt for me.  

For example, I recently did a bike ride averaging 150 W for 60 minutes.  Assuming 22% efficiency, which is conservative at best, that would indicate a calorie burn of:

150W = 150 J/s

3600 seconds * 150 J = 540 KJ / 4.184 (conversion rate between KJ and KCals) = 129 KCals

129 KCals / .22 (22% efficient, yeah I wish I was that good...) = 586 Calories burnt.  However in this same time frame my Polar F6 was reporting about 286 Calories burnt.  

I'm expecting that my new and more accurate VO2max will greatly improve the estimated calories burnt, but we will find out when I bike tonight...

The Off Season

It's officially the off season. As such, it seems like now might be a good time to make an off season plan. Right now, this is just a list of general goals that I am hoping will become more clear as time goes on.

Things to accomplish this off season:

• Take two weeks completely off to heal
• Finish reading "Going Long" and reread "The Triathlete's Bible"
• Develop a training plan and race plan for 2010
• Get a bike fitting done
• Get a fitness assessment done
• Get some swimming instruction/join a masters swim league