VO2 Max Testing

With some time off between jobs, I decided to indulge my curiosity and head to Seattle Performance Medicine (SPM) to have my VO2 max and lactate threshold tested. I had recently read Heidi Dietrich's report of her experience with the testing and being a scientist and a runner I couldn't resist getting tested myself. The test started with collecting baseline data. I was fitted with a mask and the air I was breathing out was measured for 15 minutes to analyze resting metabolism. Then I switched to the treadmill, keeping the mask on, for the VO2 max test which consisted of running at a slow pace (6 mph) as they gradually increased the incline. They will continue to increase the incline until you beg for mercy. At least hopefully they let you off at that point. At a 10% incline they also increased the speed to 6.4 mph which surprised me a bit. I am used to running uphill at slow speeds but I guess it made more sense not to draw the test out too long. I called it quits at a 15% incline. After a short break, it was time to get back on the treadmill and perform the lactate threshold test. This time the treadmill was held at a 1% incline and the speed was gradually increased and the test ended when they detected that I had crossed the lactate threshold which I think happened at a speed 9f 9.5 mph.

Analysis of the data collected showed that:

VO2max = 69 ml/kg/min

HRmax = 188 bpm

lactate threshold: HR = 176 bpm, %VO2max = 83%

The explanation provided was that these numbers were all good. I was surprised in particular that the lactate threshold occurred at 83% of VO2max which is a balanced ratio according to SPM. I would have expected a recommendation to try to increase the lactate threshold due to the preponderance of endurance training compared to interval training that I do, but according to SPM it is at the right place relative to VO2max.

The number that didn't make sense was that I reached the lactate threshold at a relatively slow pace. So despite the high number for VO2max, I was very inefficient in converting oxygen/aerobic energy into running speed.

An additional problem was identified from several of the tests. The resting metabolic test showed that I was burning excessive protein and that essentially my body was in a catabolic state. When I was running at low intensities, I was burning excessive fat relative to carbohydrate. Finally, although my maximum HR was good, my heart rate recovery was excessive (I didn't realize that could be bad!). All three of these results suggested that my muscles were depleted of carbohydrates.

Specific recommendations:

1) Increase post-workout carbohydrate fueling: 1.5 g carbohydrate/kg of body weight within 30 minutes of finishing workout, plus an additional 1.5 g carb/kg weight before 2 hours are up.

2) Perform a sprint lactate test to measure anaerobic capacity.

3) Perform blood tests for hormonal/nutritional markers.

4) Begin high intensity sprint and strength workouts to improve anaerobic system.

Final impressions:

I really decided to have the testing done on a whim and had not thought through what it would mean to get the results. The results really are just numbers. If you want to know how good a runner you are, do a few races and you will know where you stack up. But now that I have the numbers and the recommendations, I am very optimistic that I can use the results to significantly improve my training. I would not have realized I was under-fueling without the testing results. And my general approach to training has been to train more. I think the results of these tests suggest that adding more mileage is much less likely to be beneficial than will be increased strength and speed training. I would highly recommend the staff at Seattle Performance Medicine if you are interested in being tested. I will post a follow up in a few months with the results of the blood tests and my initial assessment of the sprint/strength workouts. Does anyone else have experience with this kind of testing that they are willing to share in the comments?

Links to other VO2 max testing reports:

Scott Dunlap

Yassine Diboun

Teri Hedgpeth

Jason Fitzgerald

Michelle Halsne

Krissy Moehl

Orcas Island 50K

The 50K on Orcas Island is the first running event I have ever done in two successive years and I plan to continue to enter every year. It is like summer camp for runners even though it is not summer and I never liked summer camp. Most people take the ferry over on Friday and make a weekend of the event and I plan to do that next year, but this year I got up at 3am and drove to catch the 5:35am ferry arriving on the island just before 7. The shuttle got us to the starting area just before 7:30am so I decided to jump in with the early start rather than sit around for an hour waiting for the race to start.

My goal going into this race was to take it easy and use it as a long training run for next month's 100 mile event at Coyote Two Moon. I hoped that the combination of having already done high mileage the week of the race combined with the smaller crowd of the early start would reduce the chances that I would get caught up in race adrenaline and go out too fast. I think this strategy worked for the most part. Scotty and I were actually late for the early start and started after everyone else had gone through so we did do a bit of catch up passing people at the beginning, but surprisingly quickly the runners had spread out and we were working up the first major climb, Mt. Pickett. I walked a lot of this climb and definitely took it easier than last year.

After coming back down and running into the field of 25K runners who were headed out towards Mt. Constitution, I arrived at a trail junction with a sign, 50K, 2nd time pointing to the right. I was sure that I had not been to this intersection before, but there was no sign for which way to go the 1st time through. Baffled, I stopped and pulled out the 3 page detailed description of the course from the race website which I had brought along just for situations like this. Unfortunately, I could not find any reference to an intersection we were to go through 2 times at this point in the race. Carsten, whom I had met earlier on the way up Mt. Pickett, arrived having backtracked to the confusing intersection. He said he came to a paved road, and I found in the course description that we should come to a paved road next, so we decided to proceed straight. As we continued, the route seemed to match the course description, but we didn't see any course marking. We were pretty sure something was wrong, but we knew we were near the aid station so continued on. We reached the aid station, which was back at the starting line, but when we explained that we thought we were lost, James Varner, the race director said we should have turned right at the intersection and we would need to backtrack and run the correct course to be credited with a finish. I was a little surprised given that we had run an equivalent if not longer distance, but it was for the best since we encountered several groups of additional runners who had taken the same wrong turn we had and we got them turned around. Gary Robbins was fixing the sign at the confusing intersection when we got back and we proceeded to the aid station for the second time. Note to race directors/people marking course: if you are going to have a sign marked "2nd time" at an intersection, make sure there is also a sign saying "first time". Otherwise our poor oxygen starved brains can't make sense of it!

The next section of the race, the power line trail, freaked me out last year because it so steep as you can see in the picture below. I was mentally prepared for the hike this year and it didn't seem so bad.

Runners hiking up power line trail.

View looking back during the power line hike.

After running a fairly level trail around Mountain Lake, we headed back up Mt. Constitution but this second route is much more runnable than the power line trail. I was hoping for some good pictures from the summit, but the clouds/mist pretty had rolled in by this time pretty much obliterating the view.

Mountain Lake

I finished in 7 hr, 6 min over an hour slower than last year. Despite wanting to take it easier than last year, I was little surprised at how much slower I was since it still felt like I was working pretty hard. The Garmin totals for this year's race were 34 miles and 7800 feet of elevation gain compared to 30 miles and 6800 feet last year. There were some course changes this year which seemed minor to me, so I am not sure if the differences in mileage and elevation are real, just a result of getting lost, or reflect course changes. Did anyone else record greater elevation gain for the course this year?? You can see the whole course route on the island in Google Earth view below.

I spent the afternoon hanging around the finish line chatting, drinking beer and watching dogs misbehave. One dog managed to leap up and grab a giant cookie out of a small child's hand. The child thought he was holding the cookie up out of the way but it was really at perfect height for the dog. The cookies were definitely worth jumping for, but fortunately there were plenty to go around. Scott Krell took hospitality to a new level by setting up a burrito bar out of his van in the ferry parking lot and feeding lots of hungry runners including me! This is really a must do race, I can't recommend it enough.

2011 Running plans

I'm a bit late getting around to posting this. I finished up 2010 with higher mileage in December than any other month which boosted my confidence to sign up for an early season 100 miler, the Coyote Two Moon. I signed up on Christmas Day as a present (we'll see?) to myself and promptly earned bonus minutes for being the only person crazy enough to sign up on Christmas. Having a 100 miler in March will require some high mileage in January and February. At this point I am trying to keep my schedule free from races in August and September to maximize the opportunity to do some adventure runs (think complete Wonderland trail) during the snow free time in the high country.

I finished off December running in Arizona. My in-laws live adjacent to the Peralta Trailhead into the Superstition Wilderness east of Phoenix and I love running there in the winter. The trails are not well maintained once you get a few miles from the trail head, so you have to be willing to endure some torture from nasty desert plant life ripping your legs to shreds, but it is worth it for the scenery. This year the weather was sunny and in the 60s and the views are endless as you can see in the pictures below.

Rattlesnake Mountain

Another day of excellent fall weather led me to my first run on Rattlesnake Mountain. It's only about an hour from Seattle just off I-90 and I am surprised in retrospect that I haven't done this run before, but I have been lazy and rarely drive past Tiger Mt which is slightly closer. The Rattlesnake Mountain trail covers 11 miles from Snoqualmie Point Park to Rattlesnake Lake. I started at Snoqualmie Point and turned around at Upper Rattlesnake Ledge for a round trip distance of 16 miles. If you want a shorter route, the best views by far are from the Grand Prospect viewpoint which is about 5 miles from the trailhead at Snoqualmie Point.

My out and back route starting from Snoqualmie Point Park at Exit 27 off of I-90.

The view from Grand Prospect overlook (Mile 5).

Mt. Baker

Glacier Peak

About 0.7 mile past Grand Prospect, I wandered off the trail onto a gravel road for about 25-50 yards and crossed over the ridge to suddenly get a nice view of Rainier--which was never visible from the trail.

View of Rattlesnake and Chester Morse Lakes from upper Rattlesnake ledge, where I turned around.

Granite Mountain

Sometimes on a sunny day in Seattle, you just have to do what it takes to spend some time in the mountains even if you can't go very far.

Lookout at the top

Looking down at the trail

Mt. Baker

Mt Rainier

Crystal and Denny Lakes

Sahale Arm

Last year I got my first real taste of adventure running when Scott and I did the approximately 40 mile loop around Devil's Dome (Read Scott's writeup here) in the Pasayten Wilderness in the North Cascades.

Approximate map of our route.

My biggest motivation to go out trail running is to experience the scenery, and it occurred to me while running Devil's Dome that much of the best scenery is in wilderness areas or parks that won't grant permits for organized trail running events. At that time, I thought I would do more backcountry running in 2010 and spend less time at organized running events. Well, I could not have been more wrong as I have run an ultramarathon event every month this year so far except for June! And I really haven't done any adventure running at all! With fall rapidly approaching, I wanted to get in a few running adventures in the backcountry before the snow if possible. Last weekend Scott and I returned to the North Cascades to climb up to (but not onto) the glacier at the base of Sahale Peak. Despite starting off in light rain with fog and clouds, this is an amazing route that I highly recommend. It was really more of a hike given the challenging elevation gain (just over 4,000 feet in 6 miles) although many of the switchbacks leading up to Cascade Pass are runnable. As you can see in the photos below, the mountains, lakes and glaciers which abound on this route were mostly hiding in the fog on the way up. Shortly before we reached the campsites at the top of the ridge where the established trail ends, we were surprised by a couple of backpackers descending. They had camped on the ridge the night before and warned us that it had snowed! I have to say I was glad that I had not been camping up there that night. Sure enough, we were soon forging our way through a few inches of fresh snow. Combined with the fog and mist it was pretty much a complete white out when we arrived at the top. Scott made me nervous by approaching as close as possible to the glacier which I thought might be hard to judge given the fresh snow. Then we waited for close to an hour hoping for the skies to clear and we could not have been more richly rewarded! We both took pictures furiously as the mists swirled and cleared and we went from no visibility to stunning views of mountain peaks and glaciers in every direction. Some of the pictures are below and you can find more pictures and description in Scott's writeup.

The route map up to Sahale Arm.

Scott leading the way towards Cascade Pass in the morning mist.

View into the Pelton Creek basin.

Doubtful lake in the mist on the way up.

Scott approaching the snow line.

Sahale Peak (elevation 8680 ft)--it's further away than it looks (we're at about 7800 ft).

I couldn't get enough of the views of the glaciers on these mountains!

Me floating on the clouds!

Sahale Peak from Doubtful Lake.

Looking into the Pelton Basin on the way down from Sahale.

2010 Cascade Crest 100

My first experience at Cascade Crest was volunteering to work at the Mineral Creek Aid Station at mile 73 in 2008. That was also my first exposure to a 100 mile race. I must say that I didn't leave the event thinking I needed to enter the race. Quite the contrary! People arrived at our aid station pretty beat and they faced an 8 mile uphill climb on gravel roads at that point. Watching them climbing up the road out of the aid station as we told them 'only a marathon left' looked painful. Too painful. The best part of volunteering at the aid station was meeting Rich, Scotty, Linda and Terry all of whom returned to Cascade Crest in 2010--Rich and Scotty volunteering, Linda pacing and Terry racing. I'm still not sure why I decided to try first one and then ultimately two 100 mile races this year. I guess the struggle to finish the Where's Waldo 100km last August convinced me to step my training up a notch.

Cascade Crest is a loop course that starts and ends in Easton, WA just east of Snoqualmie Pass as you can see on the map from my Garmin recording below (we ran the loop in the clockwise direction):


My pre-race thinking about the course was dominated by two words. Sustainable pace. Trying to figure out how to target a sustainable pace in a 100 mile race has been driving me crazy! And then, even if you figure out a reasonable target, how do you try to achieve/maintain it in the event knowing that your pace will vary all over the place due to mountain climbs, downhills, technical terrain, aid stations, etc? Now that I have been recording and logging my runs for over a year using Garmin devices, I decided to review some of the data to try to look at "sustainable" paces.

Here are the average paces I ran in a variety of races over the last year:

Where's Waldo 100km (2009): 14 min/mile (~10K vertical)
Coyote 2 moon 100km (2010): 15:46 min/mile (~19K vertical)
Massanutten 100 miler (2010): 16:30 min/mile (~16K vertical)
White River 50 miler (2010): 11: 55 min/mile (~9K vertical)

It was clear at White River that the pace I ran was not sustainable for the entire 50 miles, much less longer. So looking these data over it seemed reasonable to pick a target pace of 15-16 min/mile for Cascade Crest. That still left me with the problem of how to decide during the race if I was on track or not. Unfortunately I still don't have an answer for that. The initial section of the race has two substantial climbs, so I decided to hike these climbs without attempting any uphill running and then see how I felt. You can see the elevation profile for the beginning of the course below:


The weather for the race turned out to be pretty much perfect. Highs around 60 and lows around 40. The cool temperatures made some of the exposed climbs much nicer than they sometimes are. Here is a picture of me at the starting line about an hour before the start. Unlike most 100s, this one starts at the highly civilized hour of 10am! And they even feed you pancakes before you start. Charlie (the race director) gave an excellent pre-race briefing recognizing all the people who helped put the race on and reassuring all the runners that we were there to run in a supported event. If it didn't turn out to be our day, we should stop rather than push too hard. My favorite line was "by the time you need course markings, you will know what they look like". That probably saved 20 minutes compared to the typical detailed explanation of the course that you immediately forget anyway!


We started off on a couple of miles of dirt roads leading to the first climb up Goat's Peak. You can see where we were headed below--Goat's Peak is the mountain with the rock formations at the top:

After hiking for an hour or so up the narrow switchbacks leading to Goat's Peak, we were rewarded with gorgeous views like the one below:

By the end of the race, we had to make it to the far side of the big lake and then loop back along the mountain ridges on the other side. I had hiked up most of Goat's Peak chatting with BJ and we stayed together through Cole's Butte before I lost him somewhere on the way to Blowout Mountain. Shortly after Blowout Mountain, we turned onto the Pacific Crest trail (PCT) which we would run on for the next 30 miles. What sweet single track! On a clear day, there would be some nice views of my favorite mountain (Rainier), but during the race it was playing hide and seek behind the clouds. Below is a typical trail view from this section:

I made it to Stampede Pass (mile 33) and my first drop bag around 5:15pm and took a quick break to change socks due to a slight hot spot on my left heel. I picked up my headlamp and a jacket for the coming nightfall and expected cool temperatures. So far everything had been going extremely well--I was eating regularly every 30 minutes or so and staying well hydrated with water and Nuun. I continued on the PCT and eventually climbed up a wall to arrive at Mirror Lake at sunset. Despite a lot of tents/campers, the sunset over the lake was a beautiful way to end the day. I turned on my headlamp around 8:15pm just after I had passed the lake.


My all time favorite food at an aid station came next. I had never heard of pirogi before and have to admit to some hesitation when the crew at the Olallie Meadows aid station offered some. They are a homemade pasta or dumpling with (in this case) a potato filling. Piping hot and served with a cool yogurt sauce on the side, they were a miracle. I had two helpings and then set off for one of the nastier sections of the course. There was a climb up gravel roads to the top of one of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas at which point the nearly full moon emerged above the mountains across I-90 and made for a beautiful moment to set off bushwhacking down one of the ski runs which was extremely steep with very poor footing. Fortunately we had been forewarned about this section and I just took my time and tried (successfully) not to add to my record number of face plants for the season. After a short road section to cross the highway, I arrived at Hyak aid station (mile 53) about 11 pm. Scotty and Rich were at Hyak and it was great to get their encouragement and be waited on (that was some good hot chocolate Rich!) while changing into a warmer shirt and picking up my gloves and re-stocking gels/food from my drop bag. I had done the first 53 miles in 13 hours for a pace of 14.7 min/mile which was just slightly faster than my goal of 15-16 min/mile.

The next section of the course was probably one of the faster ones for me as it was mostly dirt roads with a moderate uphill for 5-6 miles followed by 6 miles of fast dirt road downhill. I just felt like I was floating down the hill and apparently passed some people I knew without realizing/acknowledging it (sorry Matthew!) I quickly paid the price for a 'easy' section when I started on the next section which is also known as the 'Trail from Hell'. I have to admit I had assumed the difficulties of this section were exaggerated. Well I can now say for certain that they are not exaggerated and in fact for me, are probably understated. I did not just walk all of this section. I literally inched along the route. I can't call it a trail because it wasn't. It started as a bushwhack, but even after there was supposed to be a trail, it was so narrow, washed out, and covered with fallen logs that I can't call it a trail. I mentally fell apart on this section and was passed repeatedly by other runners--all of whom were walking. It definitely didn't help that the course guide said to go 4.6 miles and then turn right onto a real trail. In reality (at least Garmin reality), it was 7 miles until the junction with a real trail. I took advantage of this slow section to use a neat trick that Brandon clued me into--I had brought along a Duracell USB battery which allowed me to re-charge my Garmin 310XT while it was recording the route, thus enabling me to record the entire 100 miler, rather than just the first 18 hours or so that a full charge would cover.

About halfway through the Trail from Hell came one of the harder tests of the course for me. I have to admit that I have a significant case of acrophobia. I discovered this as an adult when I tried to go up the ladder to the roof over the 2nd floor of our house. I made it to the 1st floor roof at which point I became catatonic and could not go up or down for over half an hour. I learned that the acrophobia wasn't limited to ladders when visiting Moran State park on Orcas Island and foolishly trying to walk across a fallen log. I made it halfway across before lying down in the middle as my friends tried to coax me back. Laying in wait for me in my own personal Trail from Hell was a deep gorge with a sheer rock wall on the far side. The route was clearly marked to cross by walking over a conveniently placed fallen log. I'm sure to most people this was perfectly reasonable, but to me this seemed too much to ask. I scouted around on both sides of the log and thought I could cross the gorge/creek, but couldn't see a way to climb up the wall on the far side. I seemed to be stuck with walking across the log. I thought about sitting down and essentially crawling over but there was a large protrusion 2/3 of the way across where a branch had been that was going to be harder to crawl over than walk. I knew that the more hesitant I was in walking across it, the more likely that I was to slip, but rational thought didn't really help. In much less time than it took to prepare to do it, or than to write about it, I walked over and continued on the Trail from Hell.

I had thought that I would reach the Mineral Creek aid station (mile 73) with dread of the 8 mile uphill gravel road section that awaited, but after clambering over and through 7 miles of fallen logs and washed out 'trail', the prospect of smooth gravel road seemed positively delightful! After a quick refueling at the aid station, I headed up. The road was not as steep as I remembered, and after some bouts of sleepiness, I started to alternate running with the walking to stay awake. Sooner than it seemed possible, the moon began to glow much more brightly and before long the sun was coming up. This definitely gave me a new boost of energy and it was a delight to reach the No Name Ridge aid station and see Laura and her crew. I think this is the aid station where they had peach slices which were so ripe and juicy I just couldn't stop eating them. I felt bad for the volunteers here who had clearly frozen in the night as you could still see frost scattered all around the aid station. Next up was a section of repeated steep climbs as you can see in the elevation profile below:

The 5 small peaks at the top don't look that bad on the elevation profile, but believe me they don't call them the cardiac needles for nothing! This section of trail was beautiful and is supposed to have some of the best views along the course, but there was significant fog Sunday morning. Watching the views peep in and out of the fog was made for pretty scenery, but not so much for pictures. I took one shot near sunrise:

The food treat for me upon reaching the French Cabin aid station was bacon. Yum! They say everything goes better with bacon, but in this case the bacon alone was perfect. One more short climb and then it was downhill/flat for the remaining 10 or so miles. The downhill was more technical than I had hoped so I couldn't make particularly good time on this section but I was still running. I made a brief stop at Silver Spring aid station after telling them how happy I was to see them (they were the LAST aid station), and then it was 5 more miles of flat dirt/paved road to the finish. At some point on the dirt road I looked at my watch and realized it might be possible to finish in 25 hours. Why didn't I check this sooner? It was amazing how much motivation this gave me and I went from trotting along at 10-11 min/mile pace to running the last two miles in 8:14 and 7:37 respectively. I finally crossed the line in 25 hours and 37 seconds. Close enough to call it 25 hours, right? I did the final 47 miles in an average pace of 15.3 min/mile compared to 14.7 min/mile for the first 53 miles. So I still don't know how, but I managed to maintain a fairly even pace for the entire course. Rich and Scott were there to congratulate me at the finish and Francine arrived shortly thereafter to take care of me and get me home safely. I was all smiles at the finish as you can see in the photos below:



Finish line photos by Scott Railton. From left to right: with Rich, moments after finishing at the finish line, and soaking my feet in cold water.

Yes, I really ran all night for a belt buckle. I am so skinny now I really need one!