I’m fat, old and slow…

[huw williams]

…and you know what? I have evidence to prove it.

Today I was offered the chance to sample the sports-testing facilities at Glamorgan University. This is a state of the art facility near to my home in Wales which has recently been gaining in notoriety. It’s managed by a guy called Simon Harling who runs a gym/coaching business out of Cardiff called Elite Fitness, but in his spare time he dons the mantle of ‘Dr Lactate’ – the evil genius who provides testing and analysis to some of the Uk's top Olympic and world level athletes and sports stars. Anything you want to know about lactate, he’s your man.

Like many institutions in these cash strapped times, Harling needs to open his doors to the general public in between the visits of Chris Hoy and the like, in order to make ends meet. So he’s offering his elite level analysis to anyone prepared to the pay for the privilege… and me.

It doesn’t stop with cyclists “When you get to world level, lactate is a significant factor in just about any sport you care to mention” explains Harling, “here we test all sorts of parameters in how it affects performance in all those sports.” Consequently there are running treadmills, dry-land boats, various designs of static cycle, free and machine weights of all descriptions littering the vast laboratory. There’s a ton of medical equipment on hand too as well as a handful of lab assistants milling around carrying test tubes and slides and staring at the digital readouts on machines of frightening complexity. “Check this out” he offers, “a female triathlete who we’re working with was in yesterday, county standard and she’s got a problem. Her performance has gone haywire despite strict training advice, look at this…” he shows me a graph of her breathing frequency while running on a treadmill at her threshold heart rate, “this measures how many times she breathes every three seconds, she’s taking 7 breaths in that time – massive hyperventilation. Yet her lactate and heart rate suggest she’s in control. I’ve got a few ideas, we’ll find out why and sort it out.”

There’s a fully SRM’d powercrank test rig set up for me and I swap the MTB pedals on it for mine “Shane Williams was the last person to sit on that and he only uses a mountain bike” confesses one of the lab technicians. I’m glowing inside at the prospect of my arse sharing the exalted company of the International Rugby Boards player of the year’s rear end. “Who else do you get in,” I enquire. “Mostly rowers and runners” he explains “and a few pro cyclists, Nicole Cooke lives here when she’s at home.” We are after all only a stones throw from Wick, home of the Olympic and World Champion.

Time for me to get serious – actually the time for me to get serious was ten days ago when they asked me to start recording every single morsel of food I ate, what kind of riding I did in terms of distance/speed/heart-rate and power output, what my sleep patterns were like, stress levels at work, the lot – If I so much as lifted the cats onto my lap in the last 10 days they wanted to know about it. “We don’t know what we’re going to find when we do tee test and analyse the results” I’m told, “but there’ll be a reason for any abnormalities and these notes from the past few days will help us explain it.”

Next the rubber gloves come out and I’m prodded, poked, checked out (ooer) weighed-up and all sorts. My Blood pressure is excellent, heart rate safely on the low side and for my age I’m in excellent shape – but I’m fat. No really. “How can I be fat at 66killos?” I ask amazed. “This is a typical response” I’m told, “your diet sheet is excellent and would put most pros to shame but given your size, weight and body shape, too high a percentage of your body mass is made up of fat. It’s a common mistake that lots of lighter people make. Because they’re light doesn’t mean they can’t have too much fat as a percentage.”

That was me told then and having such a good diet means it ain’t going to be easy to reduce fat percentage (I start making plans to put Chole’s cake tins on ebay)

Now its down to the business end of the test and things are going to start hurting.
I’ve submitted what I consider to be my optimum cadence in advance of the test and after a warm up the bike is computer-controlled to progressively offer 30watts more resistance every 3 minutes beginning at 180. All I have to do is maintain the cadence until I absolutely fall apart. There is blood being taken from my ear constantly and processed in real time by a lactate analyser, the results showing as a continuous data-stream on one of three screens in front of me – It looks like The Matrix. “Ignore it” I’m told, just hold that cadence, I’ll count you in.”

I watch the clock tick another 55 seconds off my life and hear the Lab Tech say “5,4 3 2 1… off you go” and I begin to turn the gear over, At first it feels impossibly hard to get up to speed but once the gyroscopic effect of the flywheel kicks in I’m spinning it quite comfortably at 94rpm at an easy 180watts. “Just relax” I’m told, my heart rate has sky rocketed in anticipation of the effort being much harder. As the first 3 minute block ends I feel a slight kick as the computer demands an extra 30watts but there’s no real extra effort required to maintain the cadence at 210, 240 comes with the familiar increase in pressure and for the first time I notice that I’m getting very wet from the sweat after less than 10 minutes, at 270w my body actually responds quite well and I slip into some kind of zone where the gear, heart rate and cadence all feel absolutely right. After 15 minutes I hit 300w and I start to notice some decidedly unintentional movements in position on the bike as I get uncomfortable with the effort. The technicians are babbling and pointing at the stream of numbers pouring down the screen on my right, nodding their heads as the numbers reveal things about me that I really would rather not know right now.

After 18 minutes the computer insists on 330 and the step in ‘hardness’ is really noticeable. My cadence drops noticeably but I fight it and speed up to 96rpm, trying to give myself something in the bank for the next increase. 360 the machine asks for and suddenly I’m aware that it’s hurting, really hurting like hell, and the cadence has dropped to around 92. I’m desperately hanging on to keep it spinning at over 90 and want to scream but with a breathing tube and nose-clip on, no one can hear you scream. I bite down hard on the gum shield and just desperately hang on to the end of the three minute block when the computer savagely hammers another nail into my coffin demanding 390watts. I catch a glimpse of my heart rate which at 189 is higher than I’ve seen since Lassie was a pup and this point Simon says “we’ll stop you there” stupidly I hold one finger up to suggest I can take one more increase in intensity to which he replies “You won’t be able to do it.” I nod my head, suggesting that I know better and that I will, when suddenly the cadence just drops off the dial into the mid 80s and I completely fall apart. Everything falls apart and I collapse over the bars. Can’t even hold myself up, I’m on my elbows on the handlebars whimpering pathetically. Suddenly all sorts of pain catches up and my legs feel like raging infernos below the skin. “Keep spinning” I’m told, but I can barely turn the pedals my legs feel so heavy. Then some semblance of feeling slowly re-enters my legs and my heart rate slowly comes back to human levels as I recover. “OK we’re going to go back to the same levels but in one minute increments ‘til you cant do any more” says Simon. I’m not sure I’ve heard this correctly but he does indeed want me to repeat the 30w jumps at over 12 minutes my 1 min intervals after a brief recovery spin.

In a little over 10minutes my heart rate dips below 100bpm and the gun goes again. This time the pain is intense from the off due to the accumulated stress of what has gone before but each time I start to worry about it the computer demands a little bit extra. I sail past 300 watts for a minute, then 330 and 360. I’m determined this time to get past 400 and the three technicians are bellowing encouragement at every pedal revolution. I hit the 390 mark and all I’ve gotta do is hold it for another 50 seconds, then 45… just 40 more seconds and I’ll see 400w when BAM – the doors blow off and I’m a wreck all over again.

This time I’m such a wreck that there’s no coming back, possibly ever, as I’m convinced I’ll never feel well enough to get back on a bike and turn the pedals over again. Fortunately, this is the end of the test and after a few more prods, measurements and blood samples I’m sent to a quiet, dark room to think about what I’ve done here today. When I emerge I’m shown a couple of graphs of similar test protocols completed by some of our Olympic medal winners. It’s like I’ve just come last in a willy-measuring contest. “But for your age you’re in really good shape” they say. Brilliant – they’ve not only told me I’m fat and slow, I’m old too.

See? Told you…

[-Adam-]

Is this not why you've become a coach?

[Michelle]

Haaa haaaa haaa haaa.

Priceless

[Toks]

Damn that was clearly painfull! Will Majorca be one big week long recovery ride now then?

[huw williams]

[quote="Toks"]Damn that was clearly painfull! Will Majorca be one big week long recovery ride now then?

[quote="The Welshman"]ten days ago when they asked me to start recording every single morsel of food I ate

[quote="huw williams"]…my home in Wales which has recently been gaining in notoriety.

[Sylv]

Very good

Did they actually measure your body fat %? Care to tell us the figure?

I think for us mere mortals those 30w increments are a bit steep. I think they were only 20w when I did my test and even that felt like too much.

[huw williams]

[quote="Sylv"]Very good

Did they actually measure your body fat %? Care to tell us the figure?

I think for us mere mortals those 30w increments are a bit steep. I think they were only 20w when I did my test and even that felt like too much.

[Sylv]

I was 15.6%

[huw williams]

[quote="Sylv"]I was 15.6%

[Sylv]

I know ..

[Michelle]

OMG you boys are covered in rolls of it.

At last test I was 17%, and I'm a girl, I've got boobs and everything!

[mlocke]

No Sean your just big boned

That test sounds like it was good fun ..... to watch

[huw williams]

[quote="mlocke"]No Sean your just big boned

That test sounds like it was good fun ..... to watch