Testing

Nordic skiers tend to be geeks, at least the ones I've met fall into that category. I sort of thought maybe I wasn't smart enough to be a "real" nordic dork, but then I realized that since my old computer died, I don't have all my training data from the past six (give or take) years that I've been "collecting" it, and this really upset me. For example, yesterday I time trialed a 3k. I've been doing this since I got to college, so at one to two 3000m tests each year, I'm missing ten data points. I would love to see how I compare, but all I have to go on are vague memories of faster times. From what I can remember, it looked sort of like this:

2003:
13:30ish (Sept.)
12:45ish (Nov.)

2004:
12:46 (Sept.)
12:36 (Nov.)

2005:
12:37 (Oct., in NZ alone)

2006:
12:30ish? (Sept.)
12:18 (post highschool PR. Its post highschool because I think I was a lot faster in highschool. I'll say thats thanks to running track, because I didn't get any fatter or in worse shape after highschool) (Nov.)

2007:
12:36, I think (Nov.)

2008:
12:38 (June)

I'm obviously not much of a speedster. They say female elite skiers should run something like 11:30, but that seems like it would be bit of a stretch for me... even if I were doing running intervals and speed and drills. Which I'm not. I don't know how much I was held back by leg speed, my average HR for the test was 187, which I've always presumed to be my upper threshold limit, with a max of 191, which just doesn't seem that high. Maybe I just need hills to get a higher HR? Maybe I don't have as high a max as I though. Maybe I'm way overthinking these sorts of things. Regardless, I'm very glad that I will be running a treadmill test to figure these sorts of things out with NENSA soon.

The thing that bothers me more about losing my training stuff (which hopefully Ed can recover, using his magic computer whiz skills), is that I don't remember my numbers for the strength test in past years. I think my previous best for situps in a minute was 84, and then 80 after a minute rest. This beat all the guys on the team, and I was very proud of me. The format of this test is that you do as many exercises in a minute that you can, you rest a minute, then you do another minute on.

situps: 87/79
pushups: 60/41
dips: 10/7
pullups: 3/6 (I should have done pullups before dips, because I KNOW I can do more than 6 pullups. But my hands were really sweaty and kept slipping on the bar, and my triceps were shaking from the dips, which I should probably practice a little more...)

Anyway. The joys of being a Nordic dork. I think I've just lost the last three readers from this blog...