Hiking Old Rag

Here is a link to my recent hike of Old Rag.

http://www.christophermoule.com/2009/07/hiking-old-rag/

Sea to Summit bowl and mug

When I go out camping and hiking I like to keep the amount of gear I have to carry to a minimum. I recently discovered an new innovation, the Sea to Summit mug and bowl. When you are not using them the mug fits inside the bowl and the result is a disc four inches in diameter by 1/4" thick. To use either of them you push out the centre of the disc and you are ready to go. Before putting the mug to a test in the wilderness I decided to test it out in my kitchen. I added my favourite hot brew to the mug and discovered that it is best to the grip the cup by the black rim and to use two hands when drinking say a cup of hot coffee or tea. I was impressed by how well they worked. The next test will be to see how they operate in the arctic cold of Adirondack winter camping or a local trek in the Ottawa environs.

http://www.rei.com/product/767560 Sea to Summit bowl

http://www.rei.com/product/787278 Sea to Summit X-Mug

Lindy500 -- Baltimore

In a week's time I'll be heading to Baltimore. Charm City Swing has organized a weekend which showcases some of the premiere Lindy Hop swing dance instructors in the US. Lindy500 will have three nights of live bands and two days of intensive swing dance lessons focusing on the Lindy Hop and Charleston swing dance moves. I'm excited to be able to head to Baltimore as I will be able to learn more Lindy Hop, spend some time with Jason and Emily, hike Old Rag, possibly help Jason on a home renovation project and hopefully much more.

Day #2 Heart rate study a VO2 max test - max

A couple of days ago, I did the second part of the heart rate study which involved running as hard as I could on a treadmill as the incline increased every minute. When we tried the treadmill test last week we were plagued by a nose clips that kept sliding off. Rachel was able to locate a nose clip that kayakers use when doing the eskimo rolls. With the new nose clip the test started and we were starting to get some good data until I started to profusely sweat. Bingo, off goes the nose clip! By this point in the test my legs were still fresh and I was feeling energetic and could have run for another 15 minutes and was keen to see how high I could boost my VO2 max value. Rachel has a couple of minutes of quality data which is what she needed for the research so she pulled the experiment. Oh, crap! So, I know what my VO2 value was somewhere in the high 50s but much lower than my past tests. After the treadmill session I had to wear the heart monitor for another 24 hours. The goal of the research was to compare my pre- and post-test heart rate responses.

One of the fun parts of the test is that I ran on the latest and greatest of treadmills. Rather than running on a continous belt I ran on a Woodway ELG treadmill which has 87 rubber slats which rotate sort of like a caterpillar track. The slats have a nice spring and mimics running on a rubber floor.

Heart rate study -- Day #1 Again

This morning I headed over to uOttawa to redo my heart rate research study. A bit of background the research study is looking at "the evaluation of continuous HRV during 24 hour periods and during staged exercise testing." While at the university they attached five heart rate sensor patches to my chest which are smaller and more comfortable than the ones they used last week. Rachel was happy with the first-24-hours worth of data collected before the VO2 test fiasco. As I was heading back to the office they promised me that they had found a new nose clip which won't slide off during the VO2 running test tomorrow. We'll have to see what happens. In anticipation of the test, I gave my legs a couple of days rest from running.

On another note, I had one of my best swing dance nights on Friday. I danced with a record number of followers and for some reason followers wanted to dance with me. There was only one bummer and that is, I didn't drink my diet coke before the dance. This made dancing a little hard as I really had to concentrate and focus on the music, and my footwork. Corona and I discovered a new form of dancing which we are called "fan dancing." Ottawa Swing Dance Society recently changed it dance location to a church hall which doesn't have air conditioning. I usually dance in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. While Corona and I were dancing I steered her so that we were dancing in front of the fan. This made dancing in the hot church more bareable. For the rest of the night, I would steer my follower over to the fan so we could have a "fan dance." I think they appreciated the breeze from the fan.

Heart study #2

This morning I headed over to uOttawa for the second part of the heart rate study, the VO2 test on a treadmill. After doing a warmup on the treadmill and then some stretching, it was time for the fun to begin. There are a couple of ways to conduct the test, one ways is to incrementally speed up the treadmill until you can no longer run as fast as the treadmill is spinning and the second, is to keep the treadmill spinning at a constant rate and gradually increase the grade angle. For this test they opted for later and it simulates hill climbing. The test started off well as the angle of the treadmill was adjusted every minute but then something bad happened. I started to sweat and nose clip started to slide off. When the clip was on we were starting to get a VO2 value in the low 50s with the expectation that my final VO2 would be in the mid 60s which is similar what I had done a couple of years ago. The researcher decide because the results were coming out so inconsistent to pull the test. I was having a good time and as I was getting into the "groove"/"zone" and my legs still felt fresh.

The plan is to re-do the research early next week and with the hope that they can locate a non-defective nose clip.

Day #1 of heart research study

Today is the first day of the uOttawa heart rate research project. I went in early and they attached five EKG pads to my chest that connect to a recording box (Holter Monitor) which will record an electrocardiogram of my heart for 48 hours. An ECG for a normal heart look like this with the typical PQRST pattern of the heart wave.

I did a bit of quick math and they will have 172,800 data point at the end of research. They gave me replacement pads to user after taking a shower. Once the research is over I am hoping to post a graph of my daily hourly average heart rate. It is currently a mystery to me what it might look like. I know it will be very low when sleeping but during the day it is anybodies guess as to what my daily average heart is. Before I left the lab they did a check and were surprised that my resting heart rate is 50 beats per minute. This suggests that I'm in relatively good fitness. Rachel, a MSc student, is hoping to use the data to help doctors better prescribe exercise programs to weight-challenged individuals semi-fit and fit patients.

Tomorrow we have more fun as I get to jump on a treadmill and run as fast as I can before sliding off the back of the treadmill. In the tests I've done in the past they have a student at the end the treadmill to catch you from flying off and hitting the wall.