So I had a pretty exhaustive day today. I was talking to a Tri friend(Kurt) at our health club(Centegra Health Bridge in Crystal Lake, IL) the other day and he clued me in on a Lactate Threshold Bicycle Test going on this morning at our “sister club” Centegra Health Bridge in Huntley, IL.

The test started at 5:30am this morning. Ouch. It was being run by TrainingBible Coach Jim Dicker and a six time Ironman named Andy was there also. Didn’t catch his last name but I am guessing he is a member of Midwest Madness Tri Club that put on the event. Kurt is a member of this club and that is how he knew about it.

Anyway, here is a synopsis of the criteria that we followed in doing the test:

• 10 min spin at very easy pace to warmup
• 5 min spin intensity that you can endure for the entire time ( you use this to dial in your gear, speed/cadence for the 20 min. test)
• 5 min easy spin at very easy pace
• 20 min spin intensity at the highest speed and gear you can use at a constant and steady pace while keeping your cadence in a 5 revolution range at the pace you fell most comfortable
• 15 min cool-down

The cadence range that you target can be anywhere between 70 rpm -110 rpm. Don’t let your cadence fluctuate more than 5 rpm once you feel you have your intensity dialed in. You track your heart rate with a monitor and use your average hr for the ride as your Lactate Threshold Heart Rate(LTHR). Here is the link for the graph for the ride. In the end after all was said and done I ended up doing over 40 miles and spending an hour and a half on the bike. Farthest I’ve ever ridden nonstop. The legs were definitely feeling it afterwards but they weren’t too bad. My butt on the other hand was sore because I didn’t set up the bike correctly at the beginning of the test so I was too far forward.

All in all it was an interesting session during which that I learned a ton. I don’t know if I want to pony up the dough for a membership to Midwest Madness yet because I still don’t know enough about them and they really seem over the top intense for my liking. It could be just a select few that steered my perception that way but I think I would like to get our club growing in membership instead at this point.

Training Bible Coaching

Later in the morning I stopped by The Geneva Running Outfitters store for another seminar on starting your training plan for next year. It was being presented by yet another TrainingBible Coach Scott Iott. Another great seminar and I think Scott is great guy. He is a middle school teacher in my old neighborhood during the day and an excellent Triathlete in his off time. He just qualified for his second trip to Kona two weeks ago in Clearwater, FL. He went over a brief summary of setting up a plan and the things to focus on in doing it. He was nice enough to even go over a few questions that I had afterwards. I think I even geeked out for a few minutes just getting so excited about finding such a good source of knowledge so close to home. I have been tossing around the idea of getting a coach and now I have met three Training Bible coaches in as many days and I have been impressed with each and every one of them. Scott will be doing two more seminars there over the next two months so I would HIGHLY recommend checking them out. Here is the info for this one and the others to come.