So, with the 6K test I did yesterday, I completed my first thorough fitness assessment.  The tests that I did were:

• 2 speed lactate test
• 1 minute peak power test
• 2K test
• 6K test

Results

The 2-speed test doesn’t tell anything now.  It is something that can be repeated easily to measure progress over time.

For the other tests:

The first take away from these tests is that I have a bigger gap between aerobic threshold and VO2Max.  Basically, this means that my 2K is faster than “should” be based on my aerobic threshold power.  I’m guessing that this means that my lactate tolerance is higher than some and allows me to overachieve on the 2K.  The diagnosis is that I should build a better aerobic base.

The second take away is that the ratio between my V02Max (2K power) and my anaerobic threshold (6K power), is very small.  In terms of pace, my 2K pace was 1:42.6.  My 6K pace was 1:47.5.  That’s a difference of 4.9 seconds.  In general, for heavyweights, the rule of thumb is 5 seconds slower pace when you double the distance (Paul’s law).  If you plug in my 6K pace, the predicted 2K pace is 1:39.5, about 3 splits faster!  So, the take away from this for me is that my 2K is pretty damn slow.

Now consider the VO2Max to 30 sec avg power.  My ratio is much higher than the “Ideal”, essentially meaning that my peak power is low relative to my VO2Max.  So, even though my 2K is slow, if I was to use peak power as a predictor it should be slower still!  This again points to me leaning more heavily on lactate tolerance than anaerobic power to get through the 2K distance

In essence, none of this should be surprising.  I designed a training plan to focus on head racing.  I wanted to optimize my performance at the 5K to 6K distance, and it looks like that is what happened.  In retrospect, I would have done better if I had been able to maintain and build my aerobic base, but the deficits in peak power are entirely expected and entirely fine with me.

So, how do these results impact my training plan?  Honestly, not much.  I already suspected that my aerobic base was weak from the lame ass 2.0mmol steady powers that I could hold, and I baked a higher amount of endurance into the plan for that reason.  I also had baked in a training block with a lot of peak power work in the last month before 2K competition since I know that those gains are temporary and tough to maintain without killing my aerobic base.

The interesting part of this (at least to me) is to see what happens when I do the test block after the Crash-Bs to see if what I’m planning to do actually works.  The other thing that the testing gives me is a clue about what to do next summer to get ready for head racing season.  My thought now is to replace one high intensity session per week with more endurance training.  I’ll have to think some more in terms of a block periodization strategy.