U.T. Cycling Study - Practice Ride

This morning was the "Practice Ride" for the cycling study I'm doing at U.T. Here are the details. (Thanks Kerry for letting me plagiarize some of the specifics!)

• The study is to test whether or not they can make a lower calorie sports drink by adding protein that will give the same performance benefits of a regular sports drink. For the practice session, they wanted to make sure I was familiar with the protocol, that the bike fits right, etc. The next 4 weeks I will do actual sessions where I test different sports drinks.
  
• The ride works like this: ride for an unknown amount of time at 50% of your max (which they determine by the VO2Max test I took last week). I would guess this was about 30 minutes.
  
• Switch to intervals. 8 minutes at 50%, then 8 minutes at 75%. I am not sure how long this lasted, but I know we did at least 4 hard ones so my guess is 1 hour to 1:20.
  
• Switch to shorter intervals - 3min at 50%, 3 minutes at 75%. I would say we did about 4 of these.
  
• Performance mode - crank it up to 80% and go until you can no longer pedal 60RPM.
  
• While riding, they feed you a drink every 20 minutes, and take your VO2Max a lot. So, I really looked like a lab rat, breathing in to a plastic tube with noseclips on. Next week, they start taking blood too. (That should be fun.)
  
• I also had to fast for 12 hours before the ride, as well as document my food and exercise for 2 days prior to the ride. I was feeling pretty hungry this morning before I started!
  
• They cover all the clocks so you have no idea you are riding for!
  
• Why am I doing this? Because I get paid $500 to participate - that will go towards my new bike!

This was tough!! I was humbled, to be honest. Kind of like when you're running a long race and you think "Why am I here! This sucks! This is no fun!" The worst part was that my left calf was cramping from the beginning of the ride and the bike seat HURT! Aerobically I felt okay, but battling those two issues was annoying, especially since there wasn't much else to think about.

By the time we got to the short interval sets, I was starting to get tired and by the time we got to performance mode, I was really tired. I pushed and pushed to keep my RPM above 60, but eventually I was just done. But - what was really cool, was that many times I was about to give up and drop my cadence, but I would find energy somewhere and keep going. It's amazing how mental endurance sports are! I think I was on the bike for between 3 hours and 3:20 - again, without the clocks I wasn't sure.

When I finished, I was rewarded with a yummy PB&J sandwich and some lemonade. I showered, got dressed for work, and headed to an AAFAME luncheon. Everyone I talked to said I looked really tired - wonder why! :)

I'll be at Pain Train workout tonight, but only as a spectator. My workout is done for the day!