Sunday, December 10, 2006

my VMA is 17.1 km/h !

Hi everyone !

OK, so I finally did my “VMA test” on Thursday evening.

As I said a few days ago, VMA stands for " Vitesse Maximale Aérobie" in French. Unfortunately I don't know the word in English, it would be something like "maximal aerobic speed". It is the speed at which you are using your VO2max (this is the aerobic capacity, the maximum amount of oxygen that can be utilized by the body.

So here’s the answer : my VMA is 17.1 km/h.

To be strictly accurate, I “scored” 16.9, but the trainer told us that due to the rain and the wind, we could actually add 0.2 km/h to calculate the real value. So my 16.9 turned to 17.1 km/h !

With this figure in mind, I can calculate my theoretical time for different races : marathon, half-marathon, 10k, etc. Of course, the performance on D day depends on too many factors… so these are just some indicators, I know I will have to train seriously to reach these scores. But at least I know what I can hope, and what I can forget ! For instance, I now have the “proof” that I will never be able to run the marathon under 3 hours? That’s important, because I won’t spent useless efforts trying to do it, knowing that my body just can’t do it, for physiological reasons !

  • Possible marathon time : 3h07 – 3h17
  • Possible half-marathon time : 1h22 – 1h27

That’s interesting, because so far my best times have been : 3h30 for the marathon and 1h31 for the half-marathon. It seems I can do better, particularly for the marathon

By the way, I mentioned a race for this Sunday (a 10km race in Issy-Les-Moulineaux). The race will take place next week, on December 17th ! I mage a mistake in my calendar J

Have a nice day :-)

Yannick
from Paris, France

http://www.myPhotosInParis.com
http://www.myTeacherInParis.com

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