Well I now know how it feels to be a lab rat. Saturday was spent on the wheel (read: bike) and getting poked for lactate testing. Then Sunday was critical speed testing in the pool.
I had never done lactate testing and needless to say it was an interesting experience. Never really liked needles so getting poked in the finger for a blood sample every 3 minutes was not my idea of fun. But after some nervous humming the first few times(thanks for pointing that one out Alan) it was a breeze. Besides, getting poked is the least of your concerns when you’re trying to hold a heart rate of 170 for 3 minutes.
It was definately useful though as I got a better idea of where I should be for easy rides and roughly where my anaerobic threshold is. There’s actually some interesting (Warning: math and science geek alert) math and science behind it which I’ll share in a future post.
Sunday’s swim test was a nice wake up call to get a move on to start incorporating flip turns into my sets. Was fairly happy with my times as I went faster than I wanted to go.
100 m – 1:17 (goal sub 1:20)
600 m – 9:47 (goal sub 10:00)
So now just a week to get ready for Maui…
