10-Mile Time Trial: More with Less

After watching the guys in the Tour of California suffer through their Time Trials yesterday I decided it was time to do another Lactate Threshold test, which for me is a 10-mile Time Trial. Didn't take long to remember why I never got around to doing one last year: they're bloody hard!

10-mile Time Trial	7/2009	8/2009	6/2010	5/2012 (today)
Time	29m 21s	29m 18s	28m 40s	28m 20s
Average Moving Speed	20.44 mph	20.48 mph	20.93 mph	21.18 mph
Average Heart Rate (entire 10 miles)	156 bpm	158 bpm	160.9 bpm	159.7 bpm
Est. Lactate Threshold (average heart rate last 20 minutes)	n/a	n/a	165.9 bpm	162.1 bpm

This time I did it a little different. Two and three years ago I did the LT test by warming up for 6.5 miles, doing the 10 mile out-and-back test, then cooling down for 6.5 miles. I remembered that my back was extremely tight at the end of the latest test back in 2010, so today I decided a longer warm up was called for: 11-mile warm up, 10-mile out-and-back test, 11-mile cool down.

Worked great. My back wasn't a problem at all, even though it was a bit cool today. And it was helpful to have the extra 5 miles to spin out my legs on the way home.

It is nice to see that my speed is up slightly from prior tests, finally getting over 21 mph, but I am a bit disappointed that my LT heart rate is down 4 bpm from the previous test. It could be because I am 2 years older. It could be because this test is one month earlier in the season than the 2010 test. It could be because it is extremely difficult to artificially push it as hard as you can for the whole 10 miles, and maybe today I was more of a pansy than in 2010. Who knows.

On the other hand, I do like that my body is apparently able to do more with less. The "more" being a faster 10-miles, and the "less" being my cardio not pumping quite as rapidly.

I will try to do another of these tests sometime this summer. If I can muster up the gumption.