Lab Rat

Early this summer my friend Kara alerted me to a study at the U of M Endrocrinology department called the TrainMeUpMN study. There are two branches to the study, one that looks at the effects of a 16 week exercise program on the fitness and metabolism of obese people, and one that looks at sugar and fat metabolism and insulin sensitivity in lean, trained, athletes. You can guess which group I fit in. The study is 4 visits to the U of M and I get all kinds of cool data back, and get paid too! The first visit was a screening where they did an EKG and VO2 max test.

For the VO2 max test they told me to set the speed to my normal training pace, and that the test should take about 10 minutes, with the grade of the treadmill changing every 2 minutes. Not having much of an idea how much the grade change would effect me I set the pace at my tempo pace (about 11.5 mph), which I figured I could run for 10 minutes without too much difficulty. Boy was I wrong! The grade was raised by 2.5% every 2 minutes, and I made it a little over 7 minutes before I was absolutely shot. I guess that's the point of the VO2 max test, and it was successful. By the end I was gasping, although whether it was my legs or lungs that ultimately led to me giving up I'm not sure, the last minute or so of the test is a bit hazy. My VO2 max was 68.2 ml/kg/min. Pretty decent from what I gather, but not elite by any measure (Elite male runners typically have VO2 max values in the mid 70's or higher, and elite skiers are higher still). Since efficiency also plays a large part in endurance sports however, VO2 max isn't a super accurate measure of potential, just a neat piece of information to know. Also, according to the test my heart rate maxed out at 218, which I find hard to believe. I've never seen it get over 195 when I've had my heart rate monitor on.

The second visit I had a blood draw and a DXA scan done. This is a low power X-ray that can measure all kinds of cool stuff from body fat and lean composition and location to visceral fat to bone marrow density. Then I ran for 90 minutes and had another blood draw and scan done to compare values and see what I was using as a fuel source while running and where that fuel was coming from. I had to show up for this study fasted and the run was at a fairly easy pace, so hopefully my primary fuel source was fat vs glycogen. I only took a couple sips of water during the run, so no surprise I lost a fair amount of weight, mostly water. I did go from 10% body fat to 9.8% though (about 330g of fat loss).

DXA Scan Results - I'm 10% energy storage

Another cool result of the test was the lean mass balance, which tells where body mass is distributed. Because I moved between the before and after tests the numbers have some variation, but in general my right arm has more mass (unsurprising since I'm right handed) and my left leg does as well. Nate and I hypothisize this has to do with V1 skiing. Since I typically V1 on my right side, my left leg has a push phase without poling assistance, so that might explain why it is larger.

I guess I'm a bit lopsided

I also got blood test data. It was the first time I have gotten hemoglobin/hematocrit values, but everything was in range, if a bit on the low end of normal. I guess this is typical for endurance athletes though, because one training adaptation is an increase in blood volume.

My next couple tests won't be as exciting. I'm having an insulin sensitivity and fat metabolism sensitivity test done, which basically just involves sitting around for several hours getting pumped full of insulin or sugar to see how my body responds. I also have to have a muscle biopsy to see how fat is distributed within my muscle. I'm a bit less than excited about giving up a couple chunks of muscle, but the timing should hopefully work out so I'm recovered by my races at the end of September and October. All in all I'm pretty excited to be part of the study and interested to see what kinds of data/publications come out of it.

I tried to go on a running adventure on Saturday, but was foiled by Nature. I was planning to explore the Cannon river wilderness area, but the trails took some damage in the summer flooding and haven't seen any use since, so there was burning nettle as tall as me grown all over the trail. I explored a newly formed ravine for a while, but couldn't get through the deadfall very easily, so I soon gave up and headed home.

The washout was more passable than the trail, but not by much

Here is my CSA flower picking for this week. I guess it was a blue kind of day. When I was picking up my veggies I heard there was a birds nest in the tomatoes, but it well disguised, I was standing right in front of it picking tomatoes and would have never noticed it if the little chicks hadn't started making noise.

Blue/Purple flowers in a classy blue waterbottle vase