Premanon 3

As I sit here typing this, my legs and body scream at me. I feel like I just did one of my hardest races of the year.

The name submax does not do this morning's test justice. The test is actually quite involved and lengthy, starting first with electrostimulation and leg-force measurements. For this, electrode patches are used to zapp our quads as we do a leg lift against a measuring device. Not painful, but uncomfortable. Next up is a 30 second Wingate test on a stationary bike. This is an all-out effort against sudden heavy resistance. I think I measured about 770 watts max and 660 watts mean. I don't have anything to compare these numbers to yet, so I don't know how good or bad they might be(not that is matters).

After the Wingate comes the real challenge; an all-out time trial over the last 30km of the Milan-San Remo race. How, you ask? Well, on a very advanced Tacx indoor-trainer/simulator. During the effort, I was able to ride through the lovely streets of San Remo, Italy while viewing my wattage(something new to me), heart rate, etc. Pretty cool!

Indoor time trial. Thanks for another photo, Ian!

All within 30 seconds after the tt, barely able to stand, I was rushed/guided back over to the electrostimulation and zapped a final couple more times to measure muscle fatigue. After the tests, I rode slowly back to our home near Premanon. Looking back at this morning, I'm a bit overwhelmed that we will be doing 5 more submax tests but I am sure they will only help to make us stronger!