Sean H wrote:
Dale, since we were talking about VO2 awhile back, I just put in my info from Sunday's race into the Alan Couzen's VO2 calculator linked above and it spit out 65. That seems ridiculous. Do you think my HR during Sunday's race was suppressed from all the fatigue I carried into the race, thus giving an elevated VO2 calc?
Inputs:
74kg
192bpm max hr
resting hr ~40 (I don't track this but it doesn't seem to play that big of factor)
Pace: 6:20/mile
HR: 165bpm
It is possible that an 'inappropriately low' HR would alter the calculator's guess at your vo2max. One thing's for certain, you are fit and fast. And your vo2max is likely truly above 50. Give yourself some credit, Sean! But it's a useless number for training, just like max HR is useless.
(Edited to add: you still had a very nice HM, especially with the bike fatigue you likely carried into the race. 3+ minutes is a lot to drop though, but I am rooting for you.)
I'm not a fan of many of the calculators, for various reasons. Using resting HR and max HR has some inherent flaws, as does many other ways of guesstimating. You should ask Alan his thoughts on this as he has more real life experience with it.
(*If you use the dexafit calculator formula; 15.3x (maxHR/restHR) you get a vo2max of 73!!!)
I'm a sucker for measured numbers, so I had cardiopulmonary testing done several years back, and I know my measured threshold and max fat burning heart rates as well as my max measured HR (*at that time). My numbers corresponded to what I know to be my running 'threshold' HR from races and training and I got really close to my max measured HR during the test so I was happy with the result and with the effort.
My vo2max was estimated to be a paltry 45, I think. I'm at work still, so not in front of the actual printout, which is sitting in a drawer somewhere in my office at home...