Late Spring Update

I'm back in Boulder, and a lot is happening! Instead of typing thousands of words, I'll let these pictures tell some of the story: 

It's spring! This time of year, I can't think of a better place to be than Boulder. Thanks to all the rain we've had, everything is green and there are blooms everywhere you look. 

I bought some beautiful, healthy tomato plants from the sale at the community garden, just down the street. Today they went into pots, and I can't wait to start enjoying fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes. 

Work on our house design is going very well, and we're having lots of fun going over the plans and working with our team.

It's popsicle season, and I'm excited about my new rocket-shaped molds. I can't wait until these bad boys are frozen enough to eat. 

Ed took second place in a very competitive field at his first triathlon of the year!

He was cheered on by two special guests: his mother, and Mischa. Here, both ladies enjoy the lake while waiting for him to return from the bike segment of the race. Mischa had a wonderful time chasing the waves. 

"Ed Seems to Be OK, but..."

I've been starting off a lot of conversations with that preamble lately, because when you tell someone that your husband was hit by a car on a recent bike ride, they tend to think the worst. If I'd gotten the news from a third party rather than from Ed himself, I certainly would have. As it is, we've both spent the last few days wondering how we managed to get so lucky.

On Saturday, I'd set my phone to vibrate and was monitoring it, something I don't usually do when
hanging around with friends. I was waiting for Ed to let me know he was on his way and expected to hear an update at any time. Finally, as expected, a buzz indicated a text from him. I did not, however, expect the text to inform me that he'd been hit by a car. He didn't answer when I called him, but called me himself a minute or two later. He said that he thought he was fine but that his bike had been damaged. The driver had stuck around, thank goodness, and there were plenty of people with him. To my surprise, he'd even accepted a ride home from one of them and insisted that I didn't need to come get him, despite my insistence that I was on the way. He had to hang up to give a statement to the police and be checked out by paramedics, but he called me back a few times when he had spare moments and I eventually got the full story.

It was clear and sunny at 1:00 P.M. on Saturday and Ed was riding south on 73rd St. in Niwot, a small town north of Boulder, and the end of a three-hour bike ride. Ahead, he saw a sedan stop at a stop sign at an upcoming intersection. Ed did not have a stop sign and so kept riding, figuring the driver saw him and would wait at the stop sign. He hadn't, and he didn't. After pausing at the sign, the car pulled onto 73rd, right in front of Ed, who slammed into the passenger side of the car, handlebars first. The lens of Ed's camera phone was broken in the crash, so he wasn't able to take any pictures (the police did), but he said he left a big dent in the side of the car from the first point of impact, then a smaller one next to it as his bike rotated around and hit that, too. He's not sure exactly how he fell--it happened too fast--but he ended up lying on the pavement on his back. (Technically Ed hit the car and not the other way around, but saying that makes it sound as though Ed was at fault, which he was not.)

For Christmas, I gave Ed a small camera that mounts under his bike seat. The idea is that if he's hit from behind or harassed by a motorist, which cyclists sometimes are, he'll have footage of the incident. Saturday was the first time since he received the camera that Ed didn't have it with him; it had been charging upstairs, and he considered going to get it but decided to just get going instead. The camera wouldn't have captured all the action in this accident, but Ed was sorry he didn't have it anyway. It would have recorded the 25-foot streak of rubber being laid out behind him as he braked, and a very long, drawn-out expletive that he apparently hollered as he hurtled toward the car.

It may have captured the following expletives, too, with which Ed colored the air as he lay on his back, waiting to determine what damage had been done. He'd passed a group of cyclists a few minutes before the accident, and they were on the scene almost immediately, as were several drivers who witnessed the crash. (One of these drove him home.) Ed said he was pretty sure someone had called 911 before he'd even hit the ground. He said he lay, swearing a blue streak, in the middle of a circle of concerned citizens all asking over and over if he was OK. He felt sure that if they'd stop asking him for a second and let him do a quick self-assessment that he would have the answer.

Eventually, he got to his feet. The driver, who'd been taking his son home from a Little League game, said he simply didn't see Ed (which is easy to do when you're not paying attention). He was, Ed says, apologetic and assumed all the fault for the accident. The police agreed. Everyone gave statements and Ed got some paperwork that he will use to obtain his own copy of the report. The driver was cited for failure to yield. Ed declined to be taken to the ER at the time. He's been talking with lawyers and insurance agents to understand how compensation will work. He needs to get a scan done to be sure that his back is OK--even though it feels fine just now, sometimes a back injury takes a while to manifest itself--and our local bike shop has declared his poor bike unsafe to ride, so he'll need a replacement. Fortunately for us, the driver's insurance will cover all of these expenses.

In addition to sympathy from Ed's fellow athletes around Boulder and beyond, stories about their own accidents have been flooding in. It's really amazing that so many people we know are still alive. More amazing still is that Ed's heroic bike seems to have absorbed the brunt of the impact. It's frame is cracked and the handlebars ended up at a wonky angle, having been wrenched sideways from the impact. I'll reserve full gratitude until his scan comes back clean, of course, but so far it seems as though he may walk away from this unscathed. It certainly helps that he was able to brake a bit before hitting the car, but he was still going about 21 MPH when he did.

The data from his GPS watch, which was not damaged in the accident, is quite interesting. The pin on the map shows where the crash happened. (He appears to finish the ride at the same place he started, but that's because he forgot to turn the watch off and it captured his car ride home.)

On the graph below the map, the yellow, pink, and green lines and dark gray section show speed, elevation, etc., which all come to a screeching halt at the moment of impact. The red line shows Ed's heart rate, which surges right after he hits the car when he must have been flooded with adrenaline. I think it's fascinating to see the crash mapped out like this.

There is no map of how this felt for both of us, however. Because I heard about the accident from Ed himself, I learned the news and was reassured about its implications simultaneously. Ed eventually did come to meet my friends and me that Saturday, and he was walking around and acting so normally that I was further comforted. Later, though, we split up when I went straight home and Ed went to collect Mischa from the kennel where we'd dropped her off to play for the day. I pulled up to an empty house and sat in the driveway for a moment, the gravity of the possible, and more likely, outcomes of the crash suddenly slamming into me. I always feel a little anxious when Ed is out on his bike, and this ride ended with the kind of news I've always worried I'd hear. It seemed to have turned out OK, but how easily it might not have. I could be pulling up to an empty house under very different circumstances. Ed and Mischa arrived a few minutes later, of course, but the feeling of unease remained, accompanied by a fierce surge of love. I try, as often as I can, to be aware of how lucky I am to have Ed in my life. His accident has been a loud reminder of how important that awareness is.

Making Mischa Mind

Mischa was generally well behaved as far as dogs go when we first got her. But though she didn't chew our things or have accidents in the house (as long as we took her out regularly) she pulled on the leash when we walked her, chased the cats, barked at people, and didn't know any fun tricks. She also tended to lose all control when she saw another dog, lunging desperately toward it with frantic friendliness. This did not bode well for Ed's dreams of letting her run alongside us off leash someday.

We discovered Jamie, owner of a company called Training Wheels, through a kennel that had no room to board Mischa. The man on the phone said that she boards dogs at her home, and, desperate to find a place for Mischa to stay during a weekend when we'd be away, I called her. All three of us loved her, and we were delighted when she mentioned that she offers in-home training sessions. When we got her, Mischa was too old for puppy training classes (her lack of composure around other dogs made us suspect she wouldn't be all that attentive anyway), and an in-home session seemed like just the thing to help Mischa become accustomed to the cats.

Showing off "down" (though she did this when I said "sit"...)

Ed and I both did a lot of reading and research on dog training before getting Mischa, but despite all of that we wouldn't have made a fraction of the progress we have now without Jamie's help. She came about once a week for four or five weeks in a row, and now we call her on an as-needed basis. In between sessions, she gives us homework and we practice with Mischa, who, as it turns out, is quite sharp. With Jamie's help, Mischa knows how to come, sit, lie down, and go into her crate at bedtime. She makes eye contact with us when we say her name (very important, because if we can't get her attention we can't get her to do anything - more on that later), and can even resist taking treats off the floor when she's not supposed to, provided we are watching and she knows she will get one in exchange for good behavior, that is. She still pulls occasionally on the leash, but this has gotten much, much better. Currently, we are working on two additional skills: ringing a bell hung from the doorknob when she needs to go out, and going to her "spot," her bed downstairs, when we tell her to. 

Pressing the metal tab in the middle makes the click.

Jamie and I both have the same educational philosophy, as it turns out. We both believe that learners internalize lessons best when they figure things out for themselves, with as little guidance from the instructor as possible. For dogs, this is called shaping. It takes a little longer initially, but Jamie feels that dogs retain what they learn much better when they work out what they're supposed to do instead of being shown how or forced into it. Key to this is using a clicker, something I initially thought was silly and have now come to view as indispensable. The clicker, as you may have guessed, makes a clicking sound when it is pressed. First, we taught Mischa to associate the clicking sound with food by giving her a treat each time we clicked. Now, each time she does something we like during a training session, she gets a click for immediate feedback, which is great because sometimes it takes a second to dig a treat out. 

To teach Mischa to lie on her bed when she hears "go to your spot," Jamie positioned herself on the other side of the bed from Mischa with treats and the clicker. Mischa, of course, came toward her in hopes of getting a treat, and each time Mischa's paws hit the bed, Jamie clicked and rewarded her with a treat. First, Mischa had to get only her front paws on the bed for a click. Once she had that down, Jamie upped the ante by withholding clicks/treats until Mischa had all four paws on the bed. Then Jamie moved, standing on the same side of the bed as Mischa but very near the it with the clicker in hand. Mischa knows that when she sees a person watching her expectantly with the clicker and treats, she will be rewarded if she does the right thing. She just has to figure out what that is. She tried everything she could think of to get the treat: sitting, lying down, making eye contact, whining. Finally, she sat on the bed accidentally and Jamie clicked and gave her a bunch of treats. This happened again and agin - the hesitation and random attempts until Mischa accidentally came into contact with the bed - until suddenly she started to make the connection between the first drill and the second one. She started to go to the bed more and more regularly. When she'd gotten that down, Jamie withheld treats until Mischa sat on the bed. Then she had to lie on it.

In her spotted spot

This morning, Ed and I started adding the command to the behavior, and Ed moved farther and farther from the bed. Mischa was doing great until he was giving the command from out of the room, and then it got a little too hard. So, as we have learned to do, we made it much easier (Ed came back into the room and stood nearer to the bed) so that Mischa would succeed and we could end the session on a high note. Jamie says this is important, and I can understand why.

It will be wonderful when Mischa has learned to go to her "spot" on command. She is often anxious when she sees people on the sidewalk outside and drives us nuts with her barking. This will be a way for us to communicate to her that everything is OK and to remove her from the scary sight simultaneously. It will also be useful when she goes after one of the cats, though it's going to take a lot of repetition to get her to follow the command when she is excited or nervous. Fortunately, Mischa loves training and we find it fun as well. 

The tricky thing about huskies, of course, is that they have pretty selective attention spans. Currently, Mischa sometimes prefers, particularly when we are outside, to pay attention to everything but us, meaning that she doesn't do anything we ask her to because she genuinely can't hear us. I've tried giving the leash little yanks, calling her name, poking her shoulder, and squatting down so that I am in her field of vision, and she ignores me and looks right over my shoulder. Ed and I aren't sure whether she'll gradually learn that she's supposed to listen to us or whether this is so ingrained in her because of her breed that we're fighting a losing battle. I suppose we'll find out. In the meantime, though, we'll keep plugging away.

Training Update

It's difficult to believe that I've already completed four weeks of my training plan! It feels as though I've just started, which is probably a good sign.

As with most changes, there are things I like a lot and things that aren't so great about this new lifestyle, but I'm very, very happy overall and have no plans to stop.

I'm very much enjoying the variety of the plan. Simply doing long and/or slow jogs nearly every day gets old fast, so it's great to have a variety of speedwork in the mix. I do regular interval runs and tempo runs, but there are also other workouts thrown in that I've never done before. For example, last week I ran four miles with four 30-second sprints thrown in, then a three-minute tempo segment toward the end. It's tough to get bored with all of this stuff on the to-do list. I'm sure I must be getting faster, so I suppose that should go on the list of positives, but I don't have a way to measure, really. My most recent long run certainly felt easier than the one before it, and I went considerably faster, but there are so many possible explanations (better sleep, better hydration, more complete recovery from the nasty cold I had two weeks ago, etc.) that I'm hesitant to say that better fitness is definitely the cause.

While I was able to anticipate some downsides to following the plan, like time expenditure, several frustrations have surprised me. One is that the cumulative effect of all of these workouts is more draining than I'd expected. I've never run so many days in a row, so hard before (I ran every day in high school, but it felt easier then, possibly because the workouts were easier, or--ahem--I was half the age I am now...). Even though I have an "easy" run every other day to break up the hard, fast, or long ones, a slow five- or six-mile run is not as rejuvenating as a day off would be. It's great that I'm building so much endurance from all of this, but I'm still getting used to having tired legs nearly all the time.

I've had my Garmin GPS watch for about five years and thought I understood pretty well how to operate it, but figuring out how to use my watch to measure all of this has been more difficult than I imagined it would be. In the past, when I did simpler workouts, hitting "start" and "stop" was about as complicated as my watch use got. Now I want to collect all kinds of data about speed sets in the middle of runs, and I want to see that data while I'm running so that I can reconfigure my efforts as necessary. Analyzing everything after I get home to my computer won't cut it. The Garmin and Training Peaks websites are both quite complicated--at least, I think so; Ed doesn't--and I'm still learning how to use my watch to collect the information that I need in the most seamless way possible.

And I am already tired of all of the clean-up that this requires. I generate far more laundry than before, and I take about twice as many showers as I used to. There was a time when I enjoyed taking showers, but I'm starting to feel like Sisyphus.

One challenge I did foresee was working in runs with friends. Most of the women I run with aren't particularly competitive, and I have to do even my slower, long runs a little faster than most of them want to go. The best solution I've come up with so far is to show up for runs that involve hangout time after. I start with my friends, take off and do my own workout, then join back up with them at a coffee shop or restaurant to chat afterward. It's actually very motivating when I have a very tough slog because it gives me something to look forward to.

Jeff and I plan to go over my progress at the end of this week and make adjustments if necessary. I'm interested to hear what he will say about my work thus far.

How the Other 98% Live*

“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” - John Updike

"Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and at worst, a fraud." - James Baldwin

I was not born in New York. Far from it. I lived there for five years that passed in the blink of an eye and have since moved on to a place that I love. But quotes like the ones above give me a deep sense of comfort because my short time in that brutal and magical city has ruined me, perhaps forever, for at least some aspects of life elsewhere. Two recent experiences, both involving stages, made this starkly clear, and it has been a dismal realization.

On Tuesday night, Ed and I met some friends to go to a performance put on by an organization called Truth Be Told. Anyone who is familiar with The Moth will recognize the format: Truth Be Told is a storytelling event. On ordinary nights, spectators can put their names into a hat and, if selected, take the stage to tell a five-minute true story to the audience that connects in some way with the night's theme. They usually take place at Shine, a local brewery. I've never been to one of those; instead, we started with the creme de la creme (so to speak): a grand slam event featuring only winners from the regular events. (I was a little confused about this because one of the emcees alluded to more than one winner from one particular show.) The theme was "Thwarted."

I was quite looking forward to the show, but I left the theater nearly three hours later feeling deflated. The stories themselves were fine; in fact, some of them were quite good. Ed and I attended a few Moth events in New York, and some of these storytellers would have been, if not on par, very close on the coattails of some of the performers we saw. But I was taken aback by my reaction to the hosts of the event, two local women who introduced each storyteller and performed in grating musical interludes sprinkled throughout the evening. I had no idea I'd become such a snob.

It's not that they were bad at what they did, per se. But there was an amateurish quality about every aspect of the show that I couldn't seem to ignore, and I felt deeply resentful about it. Some of the best performers in the world make their way to New York, so that even community theater productions are of excellent quality. I've seen dancers in subway cars that have taken my breath away. New York is overflowing with talented people, and I'd come to take it for granted. Still, if you'd have asked me two years ago, on the cusp of our move, whether I expected that the rest of the world would be the same way, I'd have scoffed and said that I knew it wouldn't be. What I didn't realize was how little I'd internalized that reality. It was a lonely feeling to scan the sea of mesmerized faces all around me and feel as though I was the only one who noticed that the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. I left the theater, called (I'm not kidding) the Dairy Center for the Arts, with the dismal realization that any show I saw in Boulder was likely to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I missed New York suddenly and fiercely. 

Denver, I was sure, would be different. While driving 45 minutes to see a show was not a prospect I relished, I figured it would be worth it to see good theater. You can't expect too much of a town of 100,000 people, after all, but a big city like Denver would surely be different. Last night I joined some friends to see a show I'd seen and absolutely adored in New York, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. It was one of the funniest shows I'd ever seen, and I looked forward to reliving the experience with my friends.

The experience was...fine. The show was amusing. But where I'd nearly fallen out of my seat for laughing in New York (without help from any of my fellow theatergoers, who were too busy nearly falling out of their own seats to offer a steady hand), I found myself simply chuckling here and there in Denver. The show was the same, but the actors, alas, just fell short. It was a lukewarm performance, I felt, and even superb writing could only go so far.

I was astonished, therefore, to hear glowing praise in the stairwell as we made our way to the exits after the curtain call. The audience, it seemed, had loved the show. Of course they hadn't seen the original cast perform it, as I had. But would I have been as laudatory as those around me even if this were my first time? I doubt it.

I suppose I must resign myself to setting lower expectations for "local" performances (though Gentleman's Guide was the national tour, not some backwater adaptation), or to holding off on theater when I'm not visiting New York. Who'd have thought that so many wonderful experiences in New York audiences would have translated to disappointed experiences elsewhere?  

*2% of Americans live in New York City.

Ready to Run One Fast

I'm nervous and excited to launch into a new running adventure, and ready or not, here it comes. I felt pretty encouraged after running a PR (personal record) at my last half-marathon after a rather embarrassingly lax training regimen. I was curious to see how fast I could go if I really put work into it, given that I was able to perform pretty well with only lukewarm preparation. As luck would have it, I attended the Boulder Tri Club's holiday party with Ed a few weeks after the race and got talking to his friend Jeff.

Jeff is a formidable runner who has actually given up triathlon to focus on running. I always enjoy chatting with fellow distance enthusiasts, and we talked about routes around town we like (and don't), Jeff's current goals (which involve breaking the sound barrier, I think), and my recent half-marathon. Jeff kept interrupting to ask who my coach was until finally it occurred to me that he was hinting at something. It turns out that Jeff, who is an admirably geeky runner, loves nothing more than making up training plans for people. In fact, in his free time he operates a small coaching company called Run1Fast for this very purpose. If I were ever interested, he told me, he'd be happy to make a training plan for me. (And he'd happily do one for anyone else, by the way, so please visit his site or ask me for his contact information if you're interested in working with him. He works with runners of all levels, from total beginners to seasoned cheetahs. If you're stuck on a treadmill, Jeff is also starting a series of videos to guide you through your workout and make it more tolerable.)

I thought the matter over for a long time. On the one hand, I'm in the prime of my running career in terms of age. Unlike participants in most sports, endurance athletes tend to run their best races in their 30s and even later, so signs were certainly pointing to "yes" on that front. Additionally, my work schedule is about as flexible as it's ever likely to get, so this is an excellent time to devote plenty of daylight hours to running.

On the other hand, I was squeamish about the commitment. I've been enjoying cross country skiing, snowshoeing, trips to the climbing gym, etc., and much of that would probably go out the window if I took on this challenge because I'd be too tired from training (or reluctant to wear myself out for an upcoming training day) to spend much time doing anything else.

At the end of the day, however, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I have the rest of my life to enjoy a variety of activities, after all, and I figured that I'd always wonder how fast I could have been if I'd invested effort and time into it.

I received my 12-week training plan today. The overall timeline involves a May 1st half-marathon as a tune-up race, then two more serious races afterward, one in early fall and one in either late fall or early winter. Here is a snippet of my plan, which is quite complex and involves running different distances at different paces and some cross training days as well.

Jeff is a pretty hands-off "coach" (which explains his absurdly reasonable rates), so although we will probably chat about how things are going when we see each other socially, he won't be following my progress. Instead, I'm supposed to use color-coded highlighting after I complete each workout to record how it went: green means it felt easy, yellow means it was pretty tiring, and red means I was unable to finish. Since I have two more races after my first one of the season, keeping records of this kind will help both of us use spring as a guide for deciding how to plan for the fall and winter.

I've only just started to digest all of this, but I can already tell that there are some gimme workouts and some that may be out of reach. It's all a little intimidating, but I'm excited to get going and see how fast I can be!

Putting Ed to the Test

Ed's coach Eric, owner and mastermind of EK Endurance, has helped Ed become a force to be reckoned with in triathlon. Ed has known Eric from when they rowed together in Boston more years ago than either of them would probably care to calculate, and it's a stroke of luck that we happened to move into Eric's neck of the woods. (He coaches athletes remotely, too, and if you're interested in finding someone to help with any fitness goals I recommend him highly.) Now that Ed is working toward a full Ironman race in August, his nutrition needs will be more complicated than ever since he will be going through so many calories during the nine-ish hours that he'll be on the course. So to help Ed come up with a plan for this, Eric suggested that Ed go to the CU Athletic Center for VO2 max and lactate threshold* tests. Obviously, I tagged along.

*What the heck does that mean? Read on.

Nice, right? Well it was freezing and snowy the day we went. 

The enormous building sits next to the stadium and smells like footballs. We took an elevator to the second floor, a well-lit, immaculately clean space filled with two types of people: formidable-looking athletes and overweight men in mesh shorts. The center provides resources for student athletes, of course, but many people from the community also come in for physical therapy and tests, like Ed's.

Eventually we were led down the hallway by our tech, Kevin, to a large room that looked out over the stadium and the mountains beyond. Not bad. The room contained two stationary bikes and a treadmill hooked up to a complicated system of monitors. On the walls were framed, signed jerseys that said things like, "Thanks for finding me some extra power!" and oversized printouts of studies with titles such as Skeletal Muscle Glycogen Content in University Football Players Before and After a Game.

Kevin, a wiry man in his mid-40s, asked Ed a lot about his history, training, goals, and nutrition, then explained a bit about the test. Ed would run on a treadmill breathing into and out of a mask that would measure his oxygen intake. Every five minutes, Kevin would accelerate the treadmill belt. Two-and-a-half minutes after that, Kevin would stick Ed's finger with a small needle and test his blood to determine how many calories he was burning at that effort level and what he was using for fuel (lactate, fat, or carbohydrates). Ed would then indicate how difficult he found the current pace on a scale of 1-10 by pointing at a page with the numbers and descriptions listed. The whole time, Ed's heart rate would be monitored via a chest strap.

The first step was to strap on the mask.

Ed warmed up for a while, and after about ten minutes, he said he felt ready to go and the test began. Kevin said that the testing times vary and that fitter people tend to take longer. Ed's test lasted about 20 minutes, which is about as long as they ever last, according to Kevin. He was very busy the whole time, either making notes on a spiral-bound notepad, monitoring the screen in front of him, or attending to either Ed or the treadmill. He was also very encouraging and kept saying things like, "Very nice, man," and "Good numbers."

To calculate VO2 max, one has to run at a maximum effort (hence the "max"), and Ed didn't get that far. After 20 minutes and five jabs at Ed's finger, Kevin said he thought he had what he needed. I've spent a lot of time watching Ed running, and I was pretty sure he was nowhere near fatigue. Sure enough, on the final segment he indicated that he found the effort level to be a 6. He was panting and sweaty when he came off the treadmill and was grateful to drink some water (something he wasn't able to do while masked), but his heart rate had stayed pretty low the whole time, and he recovered quickly. Although Kevin had assured him before the test that the mask would not restrict his air intake, Ed said he was pretty sure it had. Other than that, the finger pricks apparently didn't hurt and the whole thing wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as he'd feared it would be.

After a few minutes, Kevin tucked a laptop under his arm and led us into a small room where we sat on a couch. A PowerPoint presentation appeared on a large screen on the wall, and he took us through key slides first, explaining some important terminology. Then he brought up Ed's results, arranged into tables and on a graph.

Kevin's work station in the testing room

In short, the news is good. As Kevin put it, Ed's "engine puts out a lot of power," and he's in excellent cardiovascular shape, as evidenced by his low heart rate, even while exerting himself. His VO2 is high, meaning his lungs are able to process a lot of oxygen for his size. This is very good news because VO2 is mostly genetic and couldn't really be improved if the numbers were low.

However, although he is a reasonably efficient runner, Ed still burns a tremendous number of calories when running (and, we assume, biking and swimming, though we can't say for sure because he wasn't tested for those two activities). This isn't great, because it means he has to be careful to consume enough during races. The good news, though, is that he tends to burn fat more readily than carbohydrates. Even though Ed's body fat percentage is low, he still stores plenty of fat--as do all people, no matter how fit or thin--to get through a physical ordeal like a long race, provided he has some nutritional supplements here and there. Our bodies are able to store much more fat than carbs, so his physiology helps him a lot: his tendency to use fat for fuel efficiently means he has a lot more available fuel than if he were reliant on carbs, which have to be replenished often. Apparently one's body can get better at burning fat as opposed to carbs with the right kind of training, but there's a lot of debate about what "the right kind of training" actually is.

The testing was quite interesting, and I think Ed is glad he went. All of the information will be helpful to him as he works with Eric to tailor his training and nutrition plans to make the most out of his physiology. My friend Mary Ann, formerly an elite marathoner, participated in an aging study run by CU last year and had the same test done. In the course of her marathon career, she was tested about 25 years ago and so was able to compare those results to her more recent ones. Now in her 60s, she said her VO2 results over the span of years were almost identical and that decline over time is typically pretty minimal for just about everyone. This means Ed's results, some of them anyway, will be a reliable guide for him for years to come, for more triathlon madness or whatever other athletic endeavors he pursues.