I signed up for a healthy dose of pain today. The goal: measure my biking VO2Max.
"But Jackass, you just measured your VO2Max less than a week ago," you exclaim.
True, but that was while running on a treadmill. This is biking. Each sport puts specific loads, stresses and requirements on the body. It's important to understand how my body responds to each. As with the running VO2Max test my primary takeaway from the session is a) that I'm a wuss and b) a set of training heart rate zones.
So now I can pedal away knowing that I'm working in an efficient zone.
Zone 1: 136-149 - Active recovery.
Zone 2: 149-166 - Aerobic endurance.
Zone 3: 166-169 - High intensity strength.
Zone 4: 169-180 - Interval speed work.
One immediate observation that avid joereger.com readers (a.k.a. my Mother... Hi Mom!) will note when they recall the pulse chart from this weekend's workout is that I'm not riding in my Zone 2 or Zone 3 enough. I'm making it into Zone 2 but not consistently enough.
Despite my best efforts today I couldn't break my 188 pulse max from running. I maxed at 180bpm.
This test hurt like a mofo. My legs were burning masses of exposed nerves soaking in lactic acid.
Surprisingly, my anaerobic threshold (which you'll remember from the running VO2Max web log entry is the point at which my muscles start creating energy anaerobically) was lower than on the run... only 70% of VO2Max. In my mind I pushed myself further on this ride than I did on the run. Jackie explained last time that I'm likely not as efficient at biking as I am at running.
My measured biking VO2Max is 57.3 mL/kg/min. As Jackie predicted it's lower than my running value of 60.3 mL/kg/min.
I was reading last night about Mark Allen. Mark Allen dominated the sport of triathlon for over six years. He described the thoughts of self-doubt that occur in his head. Tim Noakes describes the scientific evidence that people begin to experience thoughts of self-doubt about 75% into their event. The explanation is generally that the central governor (the brain) decides that we're going to hurt ourselves if we continue.
This is the amazing part to me: the brain implants thoughts in our heads encouraging us to stop. It's not crazy pop-science... it happens. Go ahead... try it.
Mark Allen described his thoughts in his last Hawaii Ironman while about 4 min behind the leader in the run segment: "I'm 37... I've won this thing 5 times... I can just quit now... everybody expects me to quit." His mind wanted him to stop for safety reasons.
Today I wanted to test the theory. I wanted to see if I would have discouraging thoughts. For the first few minutes of the ride I mocked those scholarly writers. They don't know me. I am going to ride forever. I have no negative thoughts. I am immune.
Then, as they predicted, I started to say to myself "maybe I biked too long this weekend... maybe I didn't eat enough for lunch... I guess I'm not going to get optimal numbers so I should just back off."
It happened so unexpectedly. It snuck up on me. I was demoralized. I didn't know what hit me.
But I realized that I was in the last 25%. I smiled to myself when I realized that I was. I smiled when I realized that I was simply experiencing my brain's safety feature. My brain wanted to stop but I wanted to continue. I had to focus.
I focused on one point on my bike as I pedaled. I let tunnel vision take over and I forced the negative thoughts out of my head.
I know that this thinking allowed me to push myself further. In the coming months, years and decades I'll continually strive to enhance my ability to absorb pain and focus my mind through it.
The test was again administered and subsequently analyzed by Jackie Speranza. Thanks for the help Jackie!
I probably won't get tested again until the spring. That'll give me some time to work in my target zones and (hopefully) improve.
Sunday, February 7, 2010