The bike test was a lactate threshold test which is a fancy term for as much suffering as you can endure over an extended period of time without puking or falling over dead. Basically the max amount of effort you can hold over a period of time before you're body starts to fail - its a fine line but a good way to determine how hard is too hard especially when it comes to max effort workouts or racing over certain distances.
For our bike test we collected the following data:
1 - Pre test Weight
2 - Average HR
3 - Max HR
4 - Recovery HR
5 - Distance
6 - Average cadence (rpms)
7 - Average power
8 - Max power
And of course we did the test on computrainers so its a lab like experience but without the lab coats and it certainly wasn't sterile. But no outside variables like wind, squirrel in the road, drivers on mobile phones, etc.
We were slated to warm up with 20 minutes with some build intervals thrown in to warm up legs and to get the HR up. I ended up with about 45 minutes of warm up riding by the time we started the test itself.
So on to the test itself. Objective was to ride 20 minutes as hard as you can with a cadence between 85 - 100 rpms. Then at 20 minutes full stop making note of HR and final ave Watts and then record HR after one minute rest (to get recovery HR). Lactate threshold tests be it computrainer or run test on a treadmill, to me at least, are way harder mentally than physically. I find myself doing anything I can to make the time go by faster. Mental games. One minute of this one minute of that. Good thing we had the screens up front to monitor progress so I could at least "race" everyone else in class.
And just cause we're bad asses we followed that with 15 minutes on the treadmill.
I don't know what any of my data meant so its useless to post here - for now. I know that's what you were waiting for ("well how'd you do?!"). We're supposed to get a report back from Coach Liz so I'll post then. Swim test tomorrow. Let the drowning begin.
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