Fun, Fit and 60!

Fit test and VO2 Max

Yesterday (Sunday), I performed a “Fitness test”. I used the “Rockport 1 Mile Walk Test” which is defined in the following manner:

1. Warm up for 5 minutes.
2. Begin walking as fast as possible for 1 mile.
3. Record heart rate and elapsed time at end of mile

Then, using a formula, you calculate your VO2 Max level and thereby assess your level of fitness.

My heart-rate monitor (HRM) has a predefined function for this purpose. I used the local high school outdoor track for the test as it is a measured 1/4 mile.

My result, according to the HRM, was overall fitness level: AVE (average.)

The possible outcomes according to the HRM are poor, fair, average, good and elite.

I’m ok with this result. It seems about right for where I’m at.

At the end of the fit test, the HRM displayed “317 level”. Nowhere is it explained what this means. VO2 Max is given in a range like 20 to 50 so that number doesn’t fit that format. The manufacturer’s web site doesn’t explain it either. So I don’t know what my VO2 Max is except in very general terms.

According to one website, “average”, for men my age, equates to a VO2 Max of 25-37.9. So I will assume thats my range for now.

This was the first time I did this test. Next time, I will record my ET and ending HR for the test as there are VO2 Max calculators on the web that will work with these values along with weight, age and gender.

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Home brew recovery drink recipe

Mix five tablespoons of sugar (!) with 16 ounces of skim milk.
Here’s a link to the full article by Joe Friel with more detail about recovery nutrition. Good stuff! This guy is the man!

http://www.ultrafit.com/newsletter/april02.html#joe

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Recovery Drink -WARNING!

I was searching for the recipe for that recovery drink i mentioned in that last post and found this as a warning about using any recovery drink (emphasis mine):

You don’t need to use such a recovery drink after every workout; only after those that include a significant amount of high intensity or those that are 60 to 90 minutes or longer. The more fit you are the longer the workout, which triggers the need for such a recovery drink. After short and low intensity workouts you can make the homebrew drink without the glucose. Be careful using this recovery drink when you don’t need it as the high glycemic load is likely to add unwanted pounds of body fat.

Excerpted from The Paleo Diet for Athletes by Joe Friel and Dr. Loren Cordain

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I can eat anything

One thing I like about athletics is that I can eat just about anything as long as I eat it at the right time. Maybe I should qualify that a little bit. I mean there are really some “foods” you should avoid although I can’t think of what they might be right now. For example, during and within 1/2 hour after an intense workout is good time for all those high GI foods that I should normally avoid. With the exception of the “fasting cardio” workout first thing in the morning which I wrote about in a previous post, I can and should drink some kind of sugary liquid like Gatorade during and immediately after a workout. In this type of workout, your muscles are using available carbs which need to be replenished along the way. Of course, water is sufficient if your workout is not longer than an hour. So I just usually do this on my Sunday rides which are about 2-1/2 hours long. At the end of a workout your muscles are really receptive to recovery of glucose in the first half hour. I am trying to do a medium to low GI diet in general and really had a hard time figuring out what to do for breakfast since I didn’t want eggs and bacon every day. But if I work out in the AM I can and should have things like a bowl of cereal with a banana and even (horrors!) a teaspoon of sugar right afterwards. Don’t head for the shower first, head for the fridge. Joe Friel in his book Cycling Past 50 suggest a homebrew recovery drink made with a ton of sugar and skim milk. I haven’t tried this yet. Maybe add some flavoring too like vanilla. Apparently a 4:1 carb to protein ratio is good. Accelerade sports drink uses this ratio. The protein is from whey which is one of the best and most digestible sources.
So you see, sometimes “bad” foods in one time and place can be good in another! It works for me!

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Cheap skiing alert!!!

$10 lift tickets at Plattekill, Jan 28-Feb1.
Click here!

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Fasting Cardio

I just heard about this from Jon Benson who wrote a book “Fit Over 40″ which I promote (see recommended eBooks in the left hand column). I signed up for his free 10 day email “Fat Burning Tips” course which includes a lot of other intriguing exercise and nutrition ideas.
Anyhow this is the gist of the concept: After you go to bed at night, you are fasting (hopefully you don’t eat while sleep walking) and your body is therefore in fat burning mode. After you get up in the morning, do a cardio workout before eating anything and you will be burning primarily fat. More so than at any other time of day.
Additionally, Benson suggests having a cup of coffee before your cardio workout as this will burn fat even more by increasing thermogenic effect (internal body heat).
The workout should not be too intense (I like that part), only 65-75% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) so that you don’t consume muscle (muscle wasting). He also recommends taking 5 grams of L-Glutamine powder (an essential amino acid) to further protect against muscle loss.
Why I found this especially intriguing is that I’m already doing this by default. Here’s my morning routine (and I love it!):
Stage 1: get up, pee, weigh myself, start coffee (we use a one cup at a time maker) and flop down on the couch and try to go back to sleep.
Stage 2: coffee maker sputtering wakes me up, wait 2 or 3 minutes for coffee to finish dripping, fix coffee, sit back down on the couch, propped up on some pillows, eyes closed and sip the coffee.
Stage 3: Finish coffee one, fix coffee 2 if time permits.
Go to the gym or bike ride, weather and light permitting.
So, except for the L-Glutamine, I’ve been doing this for years.
Now, even Benson admits, fasting cardio has been a subject of controversy and continues to be to this day. However, he believes in it.
I did a little Google research myself to see what other people are saying about it and what the cons are. The major objections that I read were about the potential muscle loss. No one was saying that increased fat burning didn’t happen but just were concerned about catabolic muscle wasting. Also many who had this objection stated that consuming protein or an amino acid like L-Glutamine before the workout would probably mitigate the catabolic effect.
The best advice I read about this technique was to carefully measure your progress to see if it was working for you. This would involve tracking your percent body fat. A little tricky and perhaps a subject for another post!
I will continue to do “fasting cardio” because I like doing it that way. Now I have a name for it!

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More “over fifties” skiing than ever …

Here’s an article I found that is right on the money regarding us “oldies” getting into fitter and funner lifestyles:

More Over Fifties Skiing Than Ever
posted by Sarah Brown on January 16, 2008

Proving that age is nothing but a number, research conducted by internet insurance agents insurewithease.com has indicated a massive rise in holidaymakers trying a skiing break for the first time who are over the age of 50. This huge and growing group of groovy grannies and grandpas are putting their couch potato, younger family members to shame by maintaining fitness levels, leading an active lifestyle and remaining keen to try new things.

However, a significant proportion of these mature adrenaline junkies are taking dangerous risks: despite the growth in popularity of skiing holidays for older skiers, there are also figures from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) showing 65% of over-50s skiers did not take out winter sports travel insurance this year. Jack Harris, from insurewithease.com stated: “While some may not realise they need extra cover for winter sports, it seems many are prepared to take a huge financial and physical risk. It’s far better to play it safe than risk a huge bill and the consequent worry if something goes wrong.”

The growing ranks of senior skiers are creating yet another booming marketplace as these silver surfers turned skiers are hitting the slopes on a regular basis. The numbers of 65, 70 and even 80 year old skiers are increasing such that certain USA snow resorts that previously offered discounted or even free skiing passes to ‘retired’ skiers are removing these incentives in light of the significant revenue streams they are currently passing up from this growing spectrum of the market. According to the National Ski Areas Association, 31 percent of downhill skiers in the United States were older than 45 in the 2004-05 season; the figure was 21 percent seven years earlier. In 2006, 12 percent of skiers were 55 and older. These figures can be credited to higher numbers of seniors who stay healthy and active well into retirement and beyond.

Savvy ski marketeers are picking up on the Senior ski trend. Skiers aged 50 plus, they say, have more spending money than 20- and 30-somethings, and resort developers recognize they are critical to supporting slope-side amenities such as vacation homes. Many resorts also moving towards building active year-round retirement communities, offering skiing in winter and golf, hiking and boating in summer. Given that seniors often like to holiday with children and grandchildren, their spend per head goes up if you calculate the overall income that they bring to second home ski resorts not to mention restaurants, shopping centres and other onsite amenities.

To help keep these skiers on the slopes there has even been a move towards improved ski equipment — especially a new generation of shorter, shaped skis that make turning easier on ageing muscles and creaky joints!

Full article at http://www.nubricks.com/archives/488/over-fifties-ski-property/

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Smugg’s is Better than Drugs

Today Mrs. MTBMan1 and I visited Smuggler’s Notch Ski resort in Vermont. As I just started skiing last year at age 59 and my wife is resuming after a 30 year hiatus we usually stick to the easy (green) to low intermediate (blue) trails. Upon examining the trail guide for Smuggler’s Notch we noticed that one of the three mountains into which the resort is divided, Morse Mountain, was almost entirely green trails!

This, we thought, was a no-brainer for us. Of course we would head straight for Morse and probably remain there for the day, which is what we wound up doing. We took the Village Lift to the top of Morse. This is a slow, two-seater lift which takes about 15 minutes to get to the top although there is the option of unloading halfway up.

From the description on the resort website we decided that for the first run of the day we would take Midway to Meadowlark. This was billed as the easiest way down the mountain, and it was, in a way, but in another way, not so easy! This route was in fact the gentlest on the mountain but with several flat spots where we had to resort to poling or skate skiing to keep going, actually very tiring and not much fun for us. However, I do see how it would be an excellent learning slope for beginners because of the shallow grade. Perhaps if conditions were a little faster it would be easier on the upper body. One run on Midway and Meadowlark was enough for us.

After a brief rest, we decided to try Garden Path then straight down the lower lift line. This proved to be just the ticket for us. The sign at the top said that Garden Path was the easiest way down but I’m not sure relative to what. From the top of the mountain the trail makes a few curves down a moderate slope.

After a brief flat where you can keep gliding if you’ve entered with enough speed the trail makes a deceptively rapid descent down some intermediate terrain. Initially, it doesn’t look too steep at all but somehow you pick up speed very rapidly and then the trail does become fairly steep but it is quite wide at that point. After a few more turns and one short steep section Garden Path meets the lower lift line and this is what I found very enjoyable and profitable for learning. The trail at this point until the end is extremely wide and gives me plenty of opportunity to practice garlands while traversing the slope or, if you like, you can pick up as much speed as you want although you need to slow down before the end because this is a slow speed learning area.

There are several other green trails on Morse which I didn’t check out because I was having too much fun on the Lower Lift Line and wasn’t yet thinking of writing this review.

It ’s obvious that Morse is a learner’s mountain if you observe the skiers as you ride the lift. It seems that most of the skiers are beginners and for that reason makes me feel less conspicuous about my own clumsiness. You will also notice people constantly gathering for or participating in classes of one kind or another all day long. Smuggler’s promotes their resort as a family friendly one and that it certainly is.

It is definitely the best I’ve seen in my brief career for a first time skier to get comfortable on the slopes with their equipment. I would highly recommend Morse Mountain at Smuggler’s Notch to anyone for that purpose.

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More Meads Lane

Meads Lane
The Helderberg Escarpment from MeadsThe Helderbergs
Farm Country with old graveyard

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Meads Lane

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