Max Watts Test

Tonight I had a max watts test at cycling coach J.R. Smith's home. I had one a couple of years ago and I wanted to get another one to see if I've made any improvement since then. It was pretty cool. For those of you who don't know what a max watts test is, it basically is a test devised to find out your maximum heart rate and power wattage. You start the test at a very easy wattage and increase the wattage by 20 watts every minute. At the end of each minute, J.R. records your heart rate, power, perceived exertion (one a scale from 1-10) and listens to your breathing pattern. This process is repeated every minute until you can no longer continue. When your just about to pop, J.R. records your VT (ventilary threshold) with the corresponding heart rate and power. My VT was around 190 and my corresponding wattage was 315. I know you are saying, "So what?" "Why in the heck would you spend $100 bones to find out that?" That's a fair question. But, as a cycling geek, I just had to know. I had to know how I stacked up against the other riders out there. What I learned is that my power to weight ratio is about 1.7. J.R. said that ratio is consistent with most middle of the pack cat 4 riders. One the flats, he said I could keep up with the top cat 4 riders. He told me I needed to lose around 7 pounds and get a little stronger and I should be fine. Feeling pretty good about myself, I had to ask "So...How do I stack up against the pros?" I was totally deflated when he said that Miguel Indurain, during his world record hour, weighed 172 pounds and averaged 510 watts. That's a power/weight ratio of 2.96. I have a lot of work to do!

Cross this Saturday! I'm excited!!