PUBLISHED 02/07/2006
When I was a professional runner, I traveled every few years to the lab of exercise physiologist David Martin, Ph.D., in Atlanta, where I would be run ragged on a treadmill in an attempt to assess my fitness. After slogging my way through one particularly nasty Utah winter, I made the trip east, and found--to my delight--that I had actually maintained my VO2 max. Not bad--although I was disappointed to discover that my lactate threshold was woefully low. This meant that my ability to utilize oxygen aerobically was good, but I was unable to buffer lactic acid properly as the pace of my runs increased. Simply put, I could run slow, but I had a hard time running fast.
