Peak Performance?

Training has gone up a gear this week, with an opportunity to undertake a fitness assessment at the Peak Centre for Human Performance, and a friendly but fast 5 km event.

www.peakcentre.ca

The fitness assessment included testing maximum VO2 rates and lactate acid production, as a basis for understanding current physical fitness and potential performance. It involves wearing a face mask and having finger-tip blood samples taken every couple of minutes as treadmill speed is steadily increased.

I managed to go quite far, but in the end my lungs gave out before my legs, as it became harder and harder to breathe in the mask.

The initial results suggest I could physiologically be capable of running some quicker marathon times! Maybe next year my target will be speed over distance...

I'm looking forward to the follow-up session to find out some more about how to apply the data to my training.

www.events.runningroom.com/raceId=13076 

My first fast run in a while was the Neuro Dash 4 Brain Cancer 5K hosted by the Orleans Running Room to raise money for the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada, in memory of a member of the local running community.

After so many long training runs it was a great opportunity to open up for a sprint distance along the river pathway. 

The event is informally timed , and I ran the 5 km in just over 20 mins which is close to a personal best.