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.

Another experiment

In a couple of days, I'll do another physiology experiment at the University of Ottawa. This one involves one of my passion running. There will be three parts to the experiment. The first part involves being wired up with sensors on my chest which will monitor my heart activity 24 hours before the experiment. The next morning, I will jump on a treadmill and do a VO2 test which involves incrementally run faster and faster until you just about fall or fly off the treadmill. The final stage is to monitor my heart activity for 24 hours after the VO2 test. I think the idea behind the test is to see how my body responds to the stress of running as fast and hard as it can in a controlled environment. This will be the third time that I have done a VO2 test and they are always fun but at the same time quite challenging. I blog after the experiment with my the findings.

Geocaching milestone #1,000

Over the weekend, I achieved a geocaching milestone that has been looming for a while, finding my 1000th geocache. The find was special as it was located in a deer yard with many deer milling around in the background. I discovered geocaching by mistake a couple of years ago when doing some research about GPS satellites. I had bought a watch with GPS capabilities to help me train better for my road races. I discovered that there was a geocache close to where I lived and looked into buying a GPS handset. At this time, I thought they were very expensive and not within my reach and most likely very complex. I went to my local Mountain Equipment Co-op and found that I could get a starter GPS for a couple of hundred dollars. My first geocache was located underneath the rail bed of an abandoned railway bridge. The cache had been disguised to look like a piece of steel with the rivets sticking out. To a novice it would look like a steel plate attached to the underside of the bridge but hidden behind it was the geocache. After finding my first geocache I logged into geocaching.com and found that there were more caches near my place and I started to explore more the city with my GPS handset. One of my most memorable cache is still "Crusty the Clown." You have to climb to the top of a pine tree where you find a bird house. When you opened the door "Crusty the Clown" shoot out at you which scares the crap out of you. After signing the log book I climbed down the tree and cycled to another nearby cache. As I start my second 1000, one of my goals is to try and geocache in more Canadian provinces as well as US states.

Diabetic Research Study

Earlier this week, I participated in a research study comparing the blood glucose levels of non-diabetic athletes with diabetic athletes during an exercise trial. I'm not diabetic so I was part of the control group. There were two part to the study. The first part involved cycling in a 35C/95F calorimeter to determine what wattage/resistance they should apply to the pedals during the main trial. The second part involved be wired up with a multitude of sensors.

• Four sweat capsules attached to my arms and legs to measure my sweat rate
• A heart rate monitor to measure my heart rate
• A laser sensor on my wrist to measure the maximal blood flow and oxygen level through my skin
• An oxygen mask connected to a long hose connected to a metabolic cart measuring my oxygen, carbon dioxide, breathing rate
• Three internal thermometer measure my body core temperature -- ear (tympanic), throat (esophageal) and anonymous place
• A blood glucose monitor. I have to take three blood samples during the trial
  

Once I was all wired up I headed into the calorimeter (35C/95F) and remained stationary for 30 minutes. The purpose of this segment was to let my body adapt to the warm conditions and to get some baseline measurements. The main part of the experiment involved cycling for 60 minutes at a fixed cadence and with fixed resistance. The final segment was sitting for an hour chilling. Apparently, all the data collected was of value as the researcher was eagerly analyzing it as I left. The idea was to compare all of the data from my session with a diabetic athlete having similar characteristics who also did the same trial to see how s/he responded to the stress of the exercise.

Lindy 1 summary

Last week, I finished my first Lindy Hop swing dance with Alana Hock and decided to post a summary of the moves/steps we learned during the course.


Basic footwork followers: right, left, right-left-right (triple step), left, right, left-right-left (triple step)
Basic footwork leaders: left, right, left-right-left (triple step), right, left, right-left-right (triple step)

1. Lindy Hop basic
- rock-step, triple forward, step step, triple back (8-count)
- stay in closed position

2. Send Out
- rock “send” (leaders send followers out on 2)
- begin in closed, move to open position

3. Into closed
- leaders: back-together (on 1-2)
- followers: walk forward on 1-2
- begin in open, leaders catch and stop followers on 3-and-4, end in closed

4. Side pass
- leaders: back-together, bring left hand across body to lead follower to turn
- begin and end in open

5. Flip flop
- begin in closed with “circular” rock-step, move hand to shoulder blade
- leads open “door” on 1-2, then close on 3-and-4
- switch hands on follower’s back, then rock step on opposite foot
- to end, bring hand and arm back around follower’s hip (closing the space)

6. Rotating basic
- same as basic, but leads rotation towards right shoulder (clockwise)
- triple step back on 7-and-8

7. Lindy circle
- begin in open position, and same beginning as into-closed
- leaders: wait for follower, then start rotating clockwise
- triple step back on 7-and-8 (end in closed position)

8. Under-arm Tuck-turn
- “circular” rock-step, and move hand to shoulder blade
- close “door” on 3-and-4 (leader’s left and follower’s right hand squishing a
marshmallow)
- leaders: turn followers out (clockwise) and draw “C” with hand

9. Swing out!
- begin in open position
- leaders: back-together, triple-step (moving 180 degrees)
- followers, walk forward, matching leader’s shoulders
- on 4, face-off position
- on 5, leaders look then step to side 90 degrees
- end in open position

Stability of the Apple iPod touch

One of the apps on my iPod touch that I consult often is iStat which provides a variety of statistics on the operation of your iPod/iPhone. It is an iPod touch/iPhone version of the iStat application that is available for the iMac and Macbook. There is one statistic that currently impresses me and that is, uptime. My iPod touch has been up for 81 days. I am really impressed with the stability, robustness and reliability of the iPod touch operating system.

In running news last week's Wednesday workout was 4x1,000 meters on 30 second rest (ouch). [4.05/4.12/4.17/4.13] The good news is that my times are going down and starting to close in on the kilometer times I ran last year.