SWEATING FOR SCIENCE – Test Run #1: For my first official test run, the weighting on the suit would be either 40% or 60% of my body weight. Well, ever the over-achiever, I got the lucky draw of 60% so my total weight after loading the suit with plates on my upper/lower arms, upper/lower legs, hips, chest, and back was 205.3 lb. I provided “before” and “after” pics for comparison – the “after” pic may not look like much compared to the unweighted suit pictures I shared a few weeks ago, but take closer look and you can see the metal of the plates sticking out of the various segments. I had two things to accomplish this time: climb the Jacobs Ladder (vertical treadmill) for 30 revolutions and complete a 10K, both as quickly as possible. The Jacobs ladder was no biggie – I completed the 30 revolutions in 14 minutes, pretty good considering that’s over 400 rungs! And my unweighted test was 7 minutes, so double the time with 60% more weight sounds about right. I will say that my glutes were on FIRE, but with the first song on my shuffle playlist being “Push It” I felt inspired to do just that. :) Then the 10k....that was a real test in mental and physical endurance. I stepped on the treadmill and said to myself, yeah Im not running with all of this weight, so I walked at ~3.2 mph. After 2000 meters we stopped because both of my heels were rubbing raw. (The suit actually goes down into my shoe and connects to a booty that I wear over my sock. With the extra weight shifting around, the booty moved up and down with every step, resulting in unhappy heels). We added padding and I went to 4000 meters and had to stop again because my heels were getting worse. After dismantling my lower leg segments we revealed some amazing blisters on both heels - OUCH. We bandaged me up and back I went to the treadmill. At 6000 meters I stopped because the heel pain was so severe. This was the real moment where I had to decide whether to continue, or stop. I considered quitting, but I really wanted to try to finish so I started again but asked to slow down to 2.2 mph - that helped alleviate some of the heel pain but exacerbated the downward pull of the suit at the shoulders and hips. Throughout the test, my upper back, hips, and glutes were talking to me, but when I slowed down they all started yelling. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and told myself to “get through one more song.” I was going to take another break at 8000 meters but as I got close, my boot camp Team Domination’s warmup song came on (“Stronger” by Britney Spears) and I thought, “well, I can’t stop now! These ladies never give up and neither will I!” ( Dawn, Phoebie, Tori, Shibani, Cary, Jessica) I could see the test conductors looking at me quizzically as I pepped up a bit and lip synched (through the mask) with the song. 8000 meters passed and I kept going, all the way to the end. WOOHOO!!! It took me just over 2 hours while I was actually walking (not counting the bandage stops). My heels were amazing colors with blisters like youve never seen, but, I DID IT!!! Feeling accomplished, I teetered out in my bare feet, drove home, changed, then returned to the gym to teach my strength and conditioning class and then my boot camp. What a day! The next run is in a few weeks, and it will either be 40% or 80% of my body weight (that’s either 50 or 100 lb). With my luck it will be the latter….Stay tuned! :)
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 20:47:39 +0000
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