I had a VO2 Max test done this morning at UVM, as part of a GMBC group that was celebrating the grand opening of a new rehab / fitness center in town. The test takes about 1/2 hour with warmup, and the real work is only about 15 minutes long. I rode my bike in a Computrainer and I was breathing into a mouthpiece attached to a gas analyzer. My heart rate was recorded along with watts, speed, and cadence from the trainer. We calibrated a cadence and intial wattage reading while I warmed up, then as the test began the goal was to ride as close as possible to my selected “ideal” cadence as possible, as resistance was increased every 2 minutes. It started to hurt when I hit the middle of the 300 watts section – about 5-7 minutes into the test. I’m not sure how far into the resistance we reached nearing the 11 minute mark – I had tapped out all my gears, was pedaling squares, and was struggling to breathe. The techs gave me a preliminary data sheet – the last 2:40 of the test I was riding a consistent heart rate of 193 bpm! At this point there are only a few numbers that I can make sense of – I’m looking forward to a detailed evaluation of my test results that I should have later this week. Jen snapped a few pictures – neither of which are very flattering – but I do like the fish look as I reached for my waterbottle.
