Caltech track meet - what should I run?

(Monday, 9 February)
Just an update from yesterday, I woke up this morning all early because I was super hungry. I thought that was kinda funny. So, I stuffed myself with eggs and bacon and toast (not my usual breakfast, but I figured I must still have a caloric deficit to take care of.) The legs are a little tired, and my back is a little sore, but all things considered I feel pretty good today.

I ran 2 miles on the grass, easy, in the afternoon, and then did a bunch of stretching and got in the cold whirlpool. It was freezing. But I thought I should give my legs a day off.

(Tuesday, 10 February)
"Off" day, except I did a 3 hour hike in the morning. Went up to Rubio Canyon (where I ran by a few weeks ago). It has a decent trail for maybe 800m, then we ended up in some ravine, just chillin up by the water's edge. Then we met some random guy who was exactly like if Steve was obsessed with hiking instead of bicycles. He took us on some hella steep trails and really dangerous sections to check out the waterfalls. It was pretty cool but not necessarily what I was planning on. Very beautiful day. My quads were tired a bit though.

(Wednesday, 11 February)
Doyle lab experiment.


So hopefully the diagram helps make this clear what was going on. I did a warmup (maybe 25 minutes total). Then, I did 5 minute intervals where I increased the wattage by 25W starting at 150 until failure point. The failure felt different from running, because my HR wasn't maxed out (it was slightly below) but my legs were burning. I think this is because cycling is higher resistance than running? Anyways it certainly felt like muscle failure not cardio failure.

So, with the 5 minute "stepsize" I lasted until maybe a minute into 250 watts. Then, I stopped for a few minutes, then rode easy for a bit, and then did it 3 more times but with a shorter step size (1 minute). I tried to take as much rest as it took for me to get my HR all the way down to a going-easy rate (about 140). The max HR stayed the same, even though I achieved higher wattages on the shorter intervals (up to 275). The shorter intervals felt much, much easier. I started feeling it around 225 (4.3 W/kg). I think the longest I made it at 275 (almost 5.2 W/kg) was maaaaybe 20 seconds. My whole body was pretty noodley at that power output though, and it was very hard to get a comfortable position on the stationary bike (I was mostly out of the saddle above 250W).

It was a pretty tough workout. I think I startled many people in the gym. Doyle said that 5W/kg is good for this type of workout though.

I also asked him about wattages for men and women, and he sent me a very interesting email about it, which I thought y'all might be interested in:

5W/kg for this protocol is awesome. Best we tested so far. Jorge and I are much lower (much less than 4). Pete, Jeff, and Scott have a shot, but I very much doubt any will make 5.

McKeen would be the most likely I know of, he might be close to 5. Lance at his best would be something like 7, though I'd have to do some more calculations to be sure.

This illustrates the main answer to your question:

As for the male vs female, the differences between people based on things other than sex (like how much they train, genetic potential, illness, nutrition, etc) is much larger than the differences between males and females on W/kg.

If you don't normalize by weight, then males are significantly bigger and thus significantly more powerful. But back to weight normalized...

There are small differences due to testosterone, mostly lean muscle and oxygen capacity of the blood. (Unfortunately, testosterone also cause the medical condition known as "masculinity" which is a tragic mood and personality disorder afflicting almost half of all people. It has some bad consequences for the diseased such as prostate cancer and male pattern baldness, but is worst for its effects on others, such as war, murder, rap music, global warming, etc)

But again back to w/kg...

I'm guessing 5W/kg puts you easily in the top 1% at Caltech (not the watts capital of the world, but much better than the US or world average) both among everyone, and among women. I doubt that the 1% would be very different whether we used men or women as the comparison, you'd still be way out front.

The calculations: My all time best would have been about 5ish, close to yours, and I don't think anyone at Caltech in 20 years could beat my best timetrial times at the Bowl or the Dam, so roughly speaking, you are probably in the top .01% or so at Caltech, but 1% for sure. (Caveat: there was a grad student here who was on the US national team in rowing and he was about 1-2% higher than me at his best, and we weighed the same. And there was an undergrad recently who supposedly could match my TT time at the Bowl, he's a pro rider now (?)... don't know his weight...)

I'm pretty sure he's talking about Will in the last part :) And I love the part about masculinity being a disease. Hilarious. What do y'all think, should I give up this running business and start doing cycling workouts? :) Just kidding.

(Thursday, 12 February) (Susan's birthday!)
Somehow today just got out of hand. My legs were almost sore today, which is a first for me post-cycling. Although the soreness was not as much as after a hard run... Anyways I just barely got out for a short short run around the neighborhood before heading out to Hollywood to meet Joey (awesomeness). We had a delicious meal of sushi with Dave and Joey's boss, and then we went to Mashti Malone's and I had about a pound of ice cream. Yes.

(Friday, 13 February)
I did another easy run today because I figured that was a good idea. I did a prerace with the gals, and then some extra stuff on the track, including 3 laps barefoot. It was pretty fun. It was a bit rainy and cold, and the gym was crawling with peeps there to shoot Numb3rs. I'm pretty stoked about the episode, they got some good shots it looked like. I also lifted to get myself pumped and huge for the weekend.

(Saturday, 14 February)
Alumni/All-comers meet. My IT band was really bothering me when I got up today, and even though I stretched it out quite a bit nothing really seemed to help. I jumped into the 4x1600 anyways because I figured a 1600 couldn't hurt that much, but I opted out of the 3k just because I decided there was no reason to push it after having a big volume couple of weeks these last few weeks. Anyways, the 4x1600 was fun. I anchored a team with 3 guys so that it was me vs Perrin in a showdown. I think I passed her about 600m in, then slowed to run with her for a little ways, and then took off again on the last lap or so. She seemed to appreciate that and I got to rest after taking off the first lap in 78! (I felt sooo good.) This reinforced my belief that I am capable of running in the 5.32-34 range right now (the time was something like 5.38). I'd need to practice in my spikes a bit more, though.

Anyways, I got to enjoy some great performances after bowing out of further races. There were a lot of good 800s to be enjoyed in the 4x8 and Gus and Chief really rocked the 3k. I was glad to be chillin at a track meet again.

(Sunday, 15 February)
Great times - I am appreciating Susan's baby for extremely selfish reasons these days, because having him has made her more amenable to later-morning runs... meaning I get to sleep in, AND have an awesome run. We went from her house across the Colorado street bridge, then up San Rafael and down Glen Oaks. It was the first time I'd done that hill from the front side, and it was tough because I was yacking the whole way... Then, we went around the RB trail where we got to say hi to Herr Doctor Schroder. Then we moseyed home. The whole thing only took a little over 80 minutes, so we were definitely rolling it. Sweet. I felt supergreat afterwards.