Testing and Snow in Canmore!

Last week was the team's fall testing week where we do some of the same tests that we did in the spring in order to see how far we have come with our training over the summer. So last Wednesday I went in to Calgary to the sports lab and had my VO2 max tested again to see if I am any fitter than I was 3 months ago. A VO2 max test, for anyone who has no idea what that means, is a test to see how efficient you are at using the oxygen that you inhale while you are exercising. So in order to test that, I was put on a treadmill and had to breath through a tube which measured the amount of unused oxygen that I was exhaling. They had me run at a speed which increased by 0.5 miles/hour every 3 minutes until I reached my anaerobic threshold (the point where lactate begins accumulating in the blood), and then I ran at 9.5 miles/hour with an incline that increased by 3 % every minute until I could no longer run. I ended up running until 15 seconds into the 13% incline, which was better than my 10% from last time. I also learned that I have gained a little over 3 lbs in muscle over the summer, so that made me feel pretty good.

Normally our 2 other tests that we would do would be a double pole test and an uphill time trial (both on rollerskis), but thanks to the snow that we received last week and the week before, we could not do those tests as the roads are no longer all that safe (what with all the gravel that was put down). So instead, we did a 7.5km uphill running time trial. It wasn't the greatest time trial for me, but it could have been worse. Looking back I really should have ran the course the day before or something, because I did not know that the last 3 km's were the steepest part of the course. So as a result, I bonked pretty hard around the 4 or 5 km point. But the first 3 or 4 km were pretty good :).

And the big exciting news, as previously mentioned, we have snow in Canmore! While all of the natural snow is now gone, it did get cold enough a couple weeks ago for the Nordic Centre to make some snow, so there is still a short loop for us to ski on. Being from Ontario, never before have I been to say that my first on-snow ski of the season on October 14th, so I am thrilled about that.

So ya, that's about all the excitement from the past week. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!