Yesterday I went into the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine to have my first Lactate Threshold and V02 test done since February of 2009! Coach Neal is a man of numbers so not having these tests done in almost 2.5 years just shows how long it's been since I've actually needed informative data to properly train! Since I'm only racing the bicycle these days, both tests were done on the spin bike to find out at what wattage my muscles begin producing lactic acid and ultimately max out.
The graph above is a generic view of how an LT test looks on paper. The harder it gets, the higher your heart rate goes (blue line) and the higher the amounts of lactate appear in your blood levels (red line). Considering my ridiculous couple of years, I was actually fairly pleased to see where I was. It's definitely in a solid range for a professional cyclist and for the beginning of the cyclocross season and I can only imagine it will be much higher from the intense racing in the fall. The V02 test was okay except when my claustrophobia kicked in during the final stages and I had to stop earlier because I was about to freak out! It is so hard to breath with a giant tube in your mouth and an awkward contraption on your head while trying to go as hard as you can! Haha. Either way, the data was good and it's a great starting point for more detailed training in the future!
The graph above is a generic view of how an LT test looks on paper. The harder it gets, the higher your heart rate goes (blue line) and the higher the amounts of lactate appear in your blood levels (red line). Considering my ridiculous couple of years, I was actually fairly pleased to see where I was. It's definitely in a solid range for a professional cyclist and for the beginning of the cyclocross season and I can only imagine it will be much higher from the intense racing in the fall. The V02 test was okay except when my claustrophobia kicked in during the final stages and I had to stop earlier because I was about to freak out! It is so hard to breath with a giant tube in your mouth and an awkward contraption on your head while trying to go as hard as you can! Haha. Either way, the data was good and it's a great starting point for more detailed training in the future!
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