Testing and Training Camp

Last week my group of coached athletes completed our testing on the treadmill to evaluate our running zones and VO2. Matt Carnal, pictured above with his six pack abs, kicked all our asses and blew a 70.2 VO2 max. The rest of us were in the mid 60’s.

I was surprised how my lactate levels stayed steady in the 3.4 range until I was 2 minutes into the 5:30 pace of the protocol. What’s cool about this testing, is that your perceived exertion matches what the lab results are spitting out. David stopped the test for me at the end of the protocol but I felt I could have kept going much longer and harder. My lactate level only went to 5.6, whereas the other athletes got much higher. What this told me was that I was in pretty good shape, and I can tolerate exercise above my lactate threshold for quite a long time. My body seems to be efficient in metabolizing the lactate better than those who were lesser trained.

Going forward, we will be retesting in 12 weeks to see how the fitness levels improve by training in our laboratory measured zones.

After the test, Matt and I had a big weekend of training. We had a hard bike interval hill repeat session and ran the 13.4 mile hilly Thunder foot course. Last year I did all my training alone, this year, with my coaching group; I am teaching and producing some fast young guys to train with, it turning out to be beneficial to all of us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was on vacation last week and my wife, Dana, went to Henderson, Nevada to do a training camp with some of her gal pals, Jennifer Johnson, and Lisa Wei-Haas. The only photos they took were postcards like shots. However, I did happen to find the photo above which bears a stunning resemblance to all three of them. Anyway, I was Mr. Mom for a week which was nice.

Much of the girls’ training was done in the mountains on the Silverman course. They got in some epic swim bike and run training to assist in bumping up the fitness levels. Dana is in preparation for Ironman Brazil. She closed the camp with a half marathon race which included running through six tunnels blown through mountains. She did pretty well in the race despite having a week of volume and fatigue in her legs.

At the end of the week, I got a babysitter to watch the kids while Matt and I did our big ride. This was a big mistake, I should have just taken it easy and enjoyed the time at home with the kidos, but hindsight is 20/20 and I continue to make huge mistakes.

Our garage door angles 90 degrees. It is a bit tricky to maneuver the van into the garage. My babysitter took the kids out for ice cream and didn’t quite make the tricky turn into the garage. Result: A smashed van with $2000 damage and a damaged entry way into the garage. Ouch!!
I picked Dana up from the airport that night and she wasn’t too happy with the new look to her Honda Odyssey. That ended up being a pretty expensive ride I took. Luckily, insurance will take care of some of the expense.

Just for laughs, here’s a link some one sent us picturing what celebrities would look like if they were from Oklahoma.