Cycling in a dryer
Most days I cycle to work and occasionally I’ll run to the office. Today was a running day. A little after 7:30AM I headed out onto the bike path in my sneakers and reached the office a little after 8:00AM. I headed down to the showers, cleaned up and started my work day. I hang my running/cycling gear in my office. As I was reached over at the end of the day, I noticed my jersey was still damp. The coolness of the office was not enough to dry it out completely. As I put it on it felt wet and clammy. Upon exiting the office, I felt a blast of hot air billowing in from the west. As I pedalled in a westerly direction along the Ottawa River I felt as if I was cycling in a dryer as a wave of hot air would hit me followed by a break then another burst of hot air. I could feel my jersey getting more dry with each burst of air. This would not last long as once I crested a hill I started to sweat again and I back to cycling in a wet jersey.
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 had 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.
Sore for a good cause
As I type this entry my legs and bum are a little sore and tired. Yesterday, I cycled 90km/56 miles as part of the MS-Bike tour which took me and 600 other cyclists from Ottawa to a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemptville,_Ontario”Kemptville/a. We stayed overnight ata href=”http://www.kemptvillec.uoguelph.ca/” Kemptville College/a and cycled back today. Over the two days of cycling we covered close to 160km/100 miles. I was able to locate a couple of new a href=”http://www.geocaching.com”geocaches /athat were placed recently. Rather than stays in the dorms, I decided to camp and was able to use my solo tent which worked out great as they don’t have sufficient dorm space for all cyclists. In a couple of days, I’ll post a story about one of my first experiences with diesel fuel. While touring the campus I saw something that brought back memories of a misadventures in the occurred when I was in Grade 5.
Research finished. Hooray!
A couple of entries ago I talked about the research study that I was taking part in at UOttawa. The project was to analyze the thermal stress that a miner would experience during the course of a normal day. As the mines get deeper and deeper in the ground the conditions get hotter and hotter. The research involved three exercise sessions at 25C/77F, 30C/86F and 40C/104F. In all cases the humidity was at 20% so sweat would evaporate. Each session had three parts, the setup, the exercise and the unpacking. All of the exercise sessions were done on a a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle”recumbent bicycle/a in a a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter”calorimeter /awhich is a highly climate controlled environment. Getting ready for each session took about 20 minutes. I had four skin temperature sensors on my back and legs. Internally, I had a a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tympanic_cavity”tympanic /a(ear), esophageal (nose/throat) and a third one somewhere else. On my back I had a sweat capsule that would measure my sweat rate. Around my chest I had a heart monitor strap and a blood pressure cuff on my arm. On my other arm I had a blood flow sensor that would measure blood flow by shining a laser beam into one of my blood vessels. Finally, I wore a mask that would monitor my breathing rate, oxygen-carbon dioxide ratio and bunch of other breathing measures. One I was all connected up I would spend an hour in the chamber doing nothing. It was a good time to catch up on babble. I would take blood pressure and heart rate measures every 15 minutes. At the end of the hour I would cycle for 90 minutes at a low resistance. The resistance would simulate the energy expenditure that a miner would experience during an average work day. At the end of the cycle, I would take heart rate and blood pressures measurement every five minutes for 30 minutes. Once the cycling was over I would sit for an hour and play babble again. The final part was doing a maximal blood flow measure. The theory is that as you sweat your body reduces blood flow to the core and sends more blood to the skin for heat radiation and sweating/evaporation. The blood flow meter would track the blood flow rate over the course of the 3.5 hours. The final part was unhooking and removing all the sensors at the end of the session. In the sessions at 25C and 30C I was exothermic as I was heating up the chamber by cycling. When cycling at 40C I was endothermic as the chamber was heating me up as it was a couple of degrees warmer than my body temperature. In all the sessions my heart rate and blood pressure were slightly elevated and the only time I sweated was when cycling at 40C. I had initially that that working out at 40C would be a challenge but under a low humidity was quite pleasant. The researcher will be sending me a summary of the results in a couple of days so I will post the findings.
VO2 test – cycling
Later this week we will start the formal part of the research. Today, we did a VO2 max test on bicycle to gauge my physical fitness. They were pleased last week by my low resting heart rate (42). The setup for test is, you wear a heart rate monitor on your chest, have a nose clips on your nose and breath through a tube hocked up to a machine providing air that analysis your oxygen to carbon dioxide concentration. It also measure things like the number of breaths per minute and a boat load of other measures. Once you are hooked up to the gear you start cycling for two minutes at a certain resistance (measured in watts) and then they increase the resistance by 40 watts. Each stage is two minutes long and the resistance is raised by 40 watts. The starting resistance was 40 watts. I was able to hold on for six stages before I shut down. My calfs and quads were burning by this point. The researchers decided to stop it as I was ready to go to the next stage. In the end, I have a VO2 rating of 50 which is a little lower than my running VO2 which means that I am in good shape.
Cycling, geocaching and rabies…
On Saturday, I went for my first cycle of the year and it was to Dairy Queen, on the other side of the Ottawa River, in Quebec. I was excited. It could have been that I was at Dairy Queen or my inaugural cycle. As I think about it, it was likely the cycle.br /br /Today, I searched out a handful of new geocaches that were slightly out of the city. The plan is to go for progressively longer and longer cycling workout to build up my legs for a cycling tour in early August. I tried out my new ca href=”http://www.rei.com/product/733683″amelback/a with my REI a href=”http://www.rei.com/product/747522″backpack/a which has a pouch for the camelback. The combination works great and now, I realize what I was missing out on during my Shenandoah hike. The camelback keeps your back cool while cycling and gives you hydration on demand.br /br /At my second geocache, I met my first a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon”raccoon /aof the year, who I think was rabid. Raccoons are nocturnal and think one was walking along the trail in broad daylight, he looked emaciated and looked as if he had lost all of his inhibitions. He looked a little freaked out. I let him walk by using the bike as a barrier. On my way back from finding two other caches, I got my first flat tire of the year as I was cycling along a corduroy road. I brought along a spare tire, the tire levers and a pump so, I was back in business in about 15 minutes.
