mytrilife

Spring is finally here.....

So, I managed to survive winter in Edmonton. The temperature has been well over zero for the last few days, with plenty of sun. The snow is melting and the roads outside of the city are once again ridable. It was certainly tough... the short days with little to no sunlight about did me in. A few mins in the tanning bed each week was all I had to keep my sanity.

I've managed to ride outside the last two weekends. What an odd experience.... having to handle the bike, watch for traffic, deal with headwinds, hills, etc. It's amazing how sensory deprived we are on our trainers, minds going numb watching movie after movie.

I've started my newest training plan two weeks ago. Wow... some damn tough workouts in there. I just have to accept the fact that day after day... I WILL be tired. It's amazing though... my muscles remember speed... despite the fatigue I'm going faster and getting stronger, session after session. I getting eager to test my real fitness... but that will have to wait til the St. Albert 10k. Hmm.. unless I get a chance to test my 400m speed at a spring beer mile?

Over the last few weeks I've also been a lab rat for Masters study at the U of A. The hypothesis is something about short-term lung function damage from intense exercise and it's effect... can't remember the exact wording. I've had to do a lot of breathe function tests and spit mucus into a cup for testing a few times.

My first bike test was a VO2max test on the bike. However, a control of the study was we had to pedal at 75rpm. Paul Tichelaar did the study as well... and we both concurred that the test results were not accurate VO2max given the forced cadence limitation. However, my watts/kg was promising... given I haven't done that much bike work yet.

The second test was an all out 5km TT, using the computrainer (Racermate?) software. To get better results they put in a hill between 1-2km (or thereabouts). Uggh... I almost threw up in the breathing apparatus. THAT HURT.

Tomorrow morning, as part of a control test, I do another TT, this time at the average wattage of the untrained participants in the study. It should be interesting to see how easy it is!

The final part of the study is for me to go get a free full lung function workup at the at pulmonary lab at the U of Alberta hospital. I was told after my first breathing tests that I might have very mild asthma, but only the testing will be able to tell for sure.

2.5 weeks to Maui.... I'm getting excited....

posted by Greg @ 3/11/2008