A couple years ago my very fit friend Timothy Huber discovered a humbling fact about himself. He climbed from Glendora, California to the parking lot at the bottom of Mt. Baldy Ski Area on his bike. He made that difficult climb of 5700 vertical feet over 24 miles so that he could witness the finish of a stage of the Tour de California bicycle race. The Tour de California is a race for elite athletes like Levi Leipheimer who is an Olympic medalist and who once finished third in the Tour de France. Tim said that he was so exhausted at the finish of his climb that it took about 30 minutes to recover enough that he could walk around and talk with friends. For the racers this Tour de California stage, because it starts further away and loops around quite a bit, was 75 miles long and included 12,000 vertical feet of climbing. Remember that Tim is very fit and that it took him 30 minutes to recover enough to start walking around and chatting with his friends instead of laying on the ground in exhaustion after riding 24 miles and climbing 5700 feet. Tim said that the elite racers sprinted the last half mile and were clearly entirely spent after they crossed the finish line. However, Tim also said that the racers recovered enough to walk around and talk to each other – as if they hadnt just pedaled 75 miles and 12,000 vertical feet as fast as they could – only a couple minutes after they finished the race. The article at the link may explain the phenomenal difference between the fitness of elite athletes and the fitness of us poor mortals. well.blogs.nytimes/2014/06/25/for-fitness-push-yourself/?rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=Blogs
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:11:42 +0000
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