Did a bike lactate test with Andy last week and it did not go well. Rather than pretend it was clean, figured it's more useful to just show what actually went wrong — because the mistakes are probably more instructive than a perfect test would've been.
What the test is actually measuring
The protocol itself is simple: warm up, then 4-minute blocks increasing 20 watts each time, blood lactate sampled from the ear between every block. That's how you find LT1 and LT2 — the two points your actual training zones get built around. Get the data wrong, and you're building zones on a flawed foundation.
Where it went wrong
Mistake one — it was a late morning test and I'd eaten and had caffeine beforehand, which pushed my starting lactate up before we'd even begun. Mistake two — I lost concentration on one block and didn't hit target power until minute two, which skewed things enough that two different power levels showed almost the same reading. Mistake three — I was still a bit fatigued from the weekend. Tired legs, tired numbers.
If you're doing one of these properly: fasted, no caffeine, fully rested, and locked onto target power from second one. Get those right and the data's actually worth something. We'll retest properly soon.