My roommate, Rob, during the Elite PAC Tour was watching the Tour de France with his wife Nancy. She turned and asked him if we rode as many miles in the Elite PAC Tour as the pros in the Tour de France. He knew it was close, but had to check his data from his Garmin. Below are his stats of the Tour de France (T) vs Elite PAC Tour (E):
Miles - 2,280(T) vs 3,040(E) 33% more miles for ET
Days/Stages - 20(T) vs 19(E) A wash
Rest Days - 2(T) vs 0(E) (OK maybe we had 1/2 of a rest day if you count the La Veta Pass day)
Miles/Day - 114(T) vs 160(E) No contest
Longest Day - 142(T) vs 220(E) Not even close
Maximum speed - 50+(T) vs 50+(E) Maybe the TdF guys were faster here, but they get paid to go fast downhill
Elevation - 80,000'?(T) vs 100,000'(E) The TdF riders need to do Wolf Creek Pass and West Virginia. Hors category+
Fun facts to share (thanks Rob)! I did notice that he omitted the oveall average mph. For sure the pros in the TdF dominate us with an average of 25+mph verses our 16-20mph (on bike avg).
Hope you all are enjoying the TT stage of the TdF. It's been an exciting tour and inspiration to get out and ride.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
RAAM REGISTRATION OPENS AUG 1ST...
The date has been set for June 15, 2011 for the start of the solo men. If you need to get psyched about this event, please check out this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l8lHC8KK24
Thursday, July 8, 2010
VO2/BLOOD LACTATE TESTING
Making an attempt at a 3,000 mile, single stage bicycle race is no small task. You must do everything within your means to learn as much about the race and yourself as possible to properly prepare for the challenges ahead (and let's not forget about work, family and friends). My goal is to simply be an official finisher. The cutoff is 12 days (288 hours) from the start of the gun. My plan is to figure out how hard I can go each day to determine how much sleep would be available for me to take (along with any additional personal breaks). My initial feeling is that I will try to base my race on 300 miles per day. So if I'm able to cover the 300 miles in 20 hours, then I'd have 4 hours for sleep and breaks each day. The math is easy, but the rest is not.
So this requires another visit to SportFit Lab in the Worldgate Sport and Health. Doug and Beth Baumgarten would be my team of experts conducting the test, collecting the data and crunching the numbers to report training information for me to follow. I have had experience with VO2 max testing, but was excited about the additional feature of blood lactate testing to determine my lactate balance point (LBP).
My visit was on Saturday, July 3rd and this is how the testing process went:
The lab station is set up with all of the measuring devices, rubber gloves, blood test strips, etc. It really looks like I'm going into surgery.
My bike gets hooked up to the Computrainer, so Doug and Beth can adjust incremental resistance throughout the testing process. I strap on a transmitter to send my heart rate (HR) signal to the computer and mount the bike to go through a couple of calibration routines to make sure the wattage output is accurate and my HR is picked up. I then put on a ventilation mask and start my warm up. As I'm warming up, the Fitmate Pro is calibrating as well.
The initial effort is easy. But every 3 minutes the resistance is increased by 20 watts and I'm asked to state my perceived effort based on a Borg Perceived Exertion scale. Approximately 15 minutes pass and I can feel my breathing rate starting to increase. A couple of more increases and Beth starts to take blood samples at the tail end of each 3 minute effort. The blood samples are taken from your finger tips, alternating between the ring, middle and index fingers. As I approached my max heart rate reading of 195 bpm, Beth advised that my finger tips will be sore the next day (based on the number of blood samples she's taken so far).
My HR is allowed to drop to an aerobic level during my active recovery. Then the second effort begins. This is the phase at which the balance point is determined. As my effort increases, my blood lactate is monitored. My blood lactate levels continue to drop as my body consumes the lactate and reuses it for energy. A couple of more samples and Doug finds the balance point (5.4 mmol/l) at which my body is resynthesizing the production of lactate at the same rate it is producing what would be an excess. Raise the HR by 1bpm and my body starts to accumulate an excess of lactate in the blood stream.
Here are my results based on my current age (51) and weight (64.5kg): VO2max = 51.9ml/kg-min; LBP HR = 169bpm; LBP Wattage = 200; and LBPwatts/Bodywt Ratio = 3.10
I will be scanning and posting my data sheets at a later date, as some of the numbers are still being evaluated for optimal training purposes. And again, if you have any questions about what I am doing, please feel free to ask. I'm hoping my experience may help guide some of you in your decision-making process, while trying to set up a strategy to accomplish your personal goals (whatever they may be).
For more elaborate details on the tests I described above, please visit SportFit Lab.
So this requires another visit to SportFit Lab in the Worldgate Sport and Health. Doug and Beth Baumgarten would be my team of experts conducting the test, collecting the data and crunching the numbers to report training information for me to follow. I have had experience with VO2 max testing, but was excited about the additional feature of blood lactate testing to determine my lactate balance point (LBP).
My visit was on Saturday, July 3rd and this is how the testing process went:
The lab station is set up with all of the measuring devices, rubber gloves, blood test strips, etc. It really looks like I'm going into surgery.
My bike gets hooked up to the Computrainer, so Doug and Beth can adjust incremental resistance throughout the testing process. I strap on a transmitter to send my heart rate (HR) signal to the computer and mount the bike to go through a couple of calibration routines to make sure the wattage output is accurate and my HR is picked up. I then put on a ventilation mask and start my warm up. As I'm warming up, the Fitmate Pro is calibrating as well.
The initial effort is easy. But every 3 minutes the resistance is increased by 20 watts and I'm asked to state my perceived effort based on a Borg Perceived Exertion scale. Approximately 15 minutes pass and I can feel my breathing rate starting to increase. A couple of more increases and Beth starts to take blood samples at the tail end of each 3 minute effort. The blood samples are taken from your finger tips, alternating between the ring, middle and index fingers. As I approached my max heart rate reading of 195 bpm, Beth advised that my finger tips will be sore the next day (based on the number of blood samples she's taken so far).
My HR is allowed to drop to an aerobic level during my active recovery. Then the second effort begins. This is the phase at which the balance point is determined. As my effort increases, my blood lactate is monitored. My blood lactate levels continue to drop as my body consumes the lactate and reuses it for energy. A couple of more samples and Doug finds the balance point (5.4 mmol/l) at which my body is resynthesizing the production of lactate at the same rate it is producing what would be an excess. Raise the HR by 1bpm and my body starts to accumulate an excess of lactate in the blood stream.
Here are my results based on my current age (51) and weight (64.5kg): VO2max = 51.9ml/kg-min; LBP HR = 169bpm; LBP Wattage = 200; and LBPwatts/Bodywt Ratio = 3.10
I will be scanning and posting my data sheets at a later date, as some of the numbers are still being evaluated for optimal training purposes. And again, if you have any questions about what I am doing, please feel free to ask. I'm hoping my experience may help guide some of you in your decision-making process, while trying to set up a strategy to accomplish your personal goals (whatever they may be).
For more elaborate details on the tests I described above, please visit SportFit Lab.
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