Facts and Figures

yesterday - 8 miles AT NIGHT (later blog) nat greene/palmetto
today - 60 minutes elliptical

Yesterday I went and had a complete body work up. VO2 Max, Resting VO2 (for resting metabolic rate), and body composition.

We're fortunate at UNCG to have a lab that's open to the public to do all of these tests. Walking in, I have to admit, I was pretty excited. I knew I wasn't going to be a superwoman, but I like performing well on tests. All tests. Even tests that have a lot of drooling involved.

The pre-test portion involved a fast of 3-4 hours, which was difficult to accomplish given The Writing Center's current plethora of Samoas, Thin Mints, and Tagalongs.

Once I arrived a la lab, they gave me a heart rate monitor, and then echoed Genisis's advice that I too should purchase a heart rate moniter for my training. Then came the skin calipers. They pinched my hip, my lower shoulder blade, right under my armpit by my boob, my stomach, and my thigh. Then came height and weight. Then came the fun stuff.

They led me over to a treadmill with so many tubes and screens and machines around it that I thought I could be in Gattica. Except none of this looked futuristically cool and it there were florescent lights. A chair was placed on the treadmill belt, and I was given a big breathing tube I had to full stick into my mouth, and then I sat and breathed for 10 minutes or so.

Thing was, the actual open mouthed breathing was very hard through a tube with a big plastic thing and a nose clip. I definitely wasn't breathing "normally" so to speak. Who can? I also produced a lot of snot and drool, both of which I could do nothing about.

Next, they yoinked the chair, and began the VO2 Max. wow. Being maxed out is intense. I haven't been maxed out since middle school. And when I say maxed out, I say that if they hadn't stopped that treadmill I would have fallen over or barfed.

And the results??????

VO2Max: 49.2/ml/kg/min. - I BARELY squeeked into the "high" category with a score above 49. Yay lungs!
RMR: 1296 calories per day if I'm sitting on my bootie
Body Fat %: 16.98% - normal/good for endurance runners and only 1% below the 18% "Ideal" for my age group

Ta da! That's me boiled down to some numbers.

So with this information, they charted out AND explained WHY it's important to do some pacer workouts that will get my heart rate up to around 150/160. Want to know why? It's pretty cool.

So when I run at my normal pace, the one I can feel I can go forever on, I'm only using one set of muscles. Now, those muscles may FEEL like they can go forever, but in my marathon, if they run out of glycogen, they're OUT. Eating on a run keeps your blood sugar up, but it doesn't restore glycogen.

It's at this point in a marathon that a trained runner starts to recruit other muscle groups that maybe he/she didn't need before in order to keep going. Those muscle groups are the ones I would be working by pacing and sprinting; they are my fast muscle twitchers. While they don't normally fire when running long distances, in a pinch, they are willing to pitch in.

They are the relief players. They are on the sidelines, waiting to be put in "the game". Not the best players for the task at hand, but rarin' to go nonetheless.

Except that as of now, I haven't knocked on their door. So starting this week, I'm going to put in a pace run. If I'm going to do this marathon, I need all the help I can get.