I am back, at least for now. Before I dive into another round of complex time management and trademark task juggling efficient here is an explanation for my spaced out cranium as of late.
I have finally made it passed the first hump that is the looming of end of term. Although there is still about one month of classes left the pace is quickening past the trot of Semptember and light gallop of early October to a furious stampede.
In addition to piling assignments, labs, midterms and projects I was confronted with the task of organizing a cross race which I am sure most of you are well aware. This project was originally entrusted to me on the terms that I would simply be responsible for course design and some volunteer coordination. Hours of phone calls, emailing, paperwork, rides to numerous courses, map sketching and sleeplessness later the race happened relatively smoothly. The only complaint is the turn of the weather, but personally I feel that brought out the cream of Alberta's talented cycling crop and highlighted the personal strengths of my enlisted volunteers.
On Tuesday evening Purdy, Bayly and I held a little driveway powwow emptying the ABA van of two races worth of course marking supplies and organizing them for the grand finale of Alberta cross to take place this weekend. It was the end of one of the biggest projects I have ever undertaken and a welcome end at that.
The other side of my recent stresses has come from academic circles. In the course of 15 hours between yesterday evening and ten this morning I worked a shift at the Oval, finished a lab assignment, slept for 5.5 hours, wrote a Exercise Physiology lab quiz, did a VO2 max test in running shoes on a Monark and did a complex in lab assignment. The VO2 max test was garbage. Despite high tuition and the supposed strength of the Uof C's knes department testing took place on a Monark cycle ergometer with a broken seat. I brought my shoes and pedals to try to make the test somewhat valuable but had to resort to some shallow toe clips and hockey tap to improve my pedalling efficiently. To say the least my VO2 isn't as high as I had expected it to be, but I now have a greater appreciation for the importance of proper equipment fit and related procedure in a testing environment. The people in exercise physiology give us a hard time about dotting our V's, but won't admit that testing under the described conditions is next to worthless, what quality education. On that note my lab assignment is going to be fun to mark with all of the sweat droplets and shaky handwriting as I had to start it within 5 minutes of coming of the bike from the test. They didn't even have any water for the subjects....
I can tell I am still a bit out of it so I will leave it at that. Look for better content in the near future.
2 comments:
I did a VO2 running test a while back at the Univ and it wasn't too bad I guess. I would have really like to have done it on a bike but hearing what you are saying now might make me rethink that. I can't believe they didn't have water for you, that is nuts.
Good luck this weekend Per. Looks like I will be ski racing instead of cross racing.
They have some really nice equipement at the uni for actual studies and research such as an SRM bike etc. The point is that for the undergraduate program they seem to love to cut corners, which is what I wanted to show in my post. I would encourage you to use their high end equipement if you get the chance. If you are contributing to research they value you, if you are only paying $500 for a semester of learning they could care less.
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