My MAP

Possible alternate title: "No wonder why I've been so damn tired"

On Monday, I finally broke down and had a O2 Metabolic Assessment Profile done at my Lifetime Fitness Center.

Hmmm, it has now also just occurred to me that I haven't shared that I have been also participating in the Cardio2 endurance program at my Lifetime. There is one part of participating in Cardio2 that is strange. And that is that I technically shouldn't need it. I know how to run based on heart rate. I know that you need your slow long days, your aerobic intervals, your anaerobic intervals and hill running. I know you need to also do some strength training and stretching.

Yet, this program is putting all these facts that "i know" and helping me to fit the pieces of the puzzle together that I didn't seem to get or do or simply organize. I think that is what it is. I am a poor organizer. At least initially. There is so much information and so much to learn if your somebody that hasn't ever participated in endurance sports.

So, back to the O2 MAP test. During the first 5 weeks in the Cardio2 program, I was running on the assumption of a 167 AT. This was based on the last 20 minutes of the 5K I ran back in October. Well, it turns out that I was quite wrong according to these results.
Is this why I've been painfully tired? Or is it because I have been increasing the training and other factors such as family, working night shifts, etc.? (Almost done with night shifts, yea)
It may also be why I was incredibly sick this past weekend?

I'm not sure but I do know that I am going to pace myself based on a 157 AT and we will see if there is a difference.

The test itself involves wearing a mask. I felt like some star wars character or something. The mask is hooked up via some tubing to some O2, CO2 analyzer and then a laptop computer. The science is pretty cool and looking at the results of my AT, fat burning ability and of course carb burning too.

Here is my fat utilization profile:

As you can see in Zone 1, I am burning 40% of my calories from fat. Zone 2 is about the same. I want to get those above 50% and even much higher on Zone 1. Perhaps 70%. Zone 3 is a pretty good start at 20%, but I hope to have it above 30 and approaching 40% in the future. Now, maybe my assessor was just being nice to me but she was pretty impressed with the Zone 3 "for now" and also that I had just a little bit of fat utilization in Zone 4 as well (grab your glasses to that little bit of orange).

In my opinion, the page below is the most interesting:


I kinda forget how to interpret this back to you but what I can tell you is that my zone 3 (between AB and AT) is a decently developed Stage 2 (not quite there but darn close). But again looking at Stage 2, you can see that I have not been doing enough of zone 1 and zone 2 training. There are 2 reasons for this. One is that I need to do more zone 1 and zone 2 training. The second is that my zones were off because I was basing them on a AT of 167 instead of 157.

The next two photos are info of my heart rate zones and how to use them. They may interest you or not?

I hope this was interesting for some of you! I realize that it might not be but felt like throwing the info out there.

Next week I'll tell you about some of my increased zone 1 and 2 training which involved running the Lifetime Fitness Turkey Trot in downtown Minneapolis (with 10,000 other people).
I'll also let you know how I do on this Saturday's Reindeer run. I want to PR this by 90 - 120 seconds but will a foot of snow get in my way????

Stay tuned (all 15 of ya out there ;-)

And enjoy the season!