The 2016 "Heads We Win / Tails You Lose, Post Your Test Results" Thread
Hey kids...it's time for the fun and games to begin. I hope everyone enjoyed their Holidays and is ready to put the hammer down and get this Jan OS started. In the interest of accountability and to keep your mojo flags a flying, Coach Patrick and Rich are firing up this thread to remind you about a kewl tool and how to use it.
After you test, be sure to enter your data into the Heads / Tails Form (you will need both bike and run test info!):
Once you do this, your intrepid coaches (aided by their canine companions) will add their prognostications. Once this is done, you can view the results in column "J" and "L" of this spreadsheet here These are your new targets...should you hit them, you reward RnP by boosting our starbucks cards...if you fail, but gain more than you thought possible, why, then you can boost our starbucks cards. You get the idea! 
I, Patrick, base the estimations of vDOT targets from a few factors: gender, age, body comp. The older you get the less of an adaptation you'll have. Women tend (tend!) to gain fewer vDOTs vs the men. And if your body comp is higher than 2.5 (see column F), then simply by losing available weight you should see some new speed: every pound is worth 3 seconds per mile! All the more reason to join the body comp group in MyFitnessPal.
Rich does similar juju with your FTP.
If you want to learn more about the Heads / Tails thread and how you can enter your info to play along, you can do that in the Master OutSeason Wiki here (under the Heads Tails Section):
Happy Testing and see you in the data sheet!
Patrick
Comments
RnP,
Can you talk a little bit about the science behind how you set our goals? How do you decide how much FTP or vDOT we should be able to gain? I've never seen that height/ratio thing before. I've seen percent body fat (calculated about 7 different ways), BMI, and waist circumference as measures of health/fat, but I'm not familiar with this ratio. I'm below that 2.5 ratio, waist of 29.5, BMI of 24 and BF% of 27-33% depending on the method, but I know I have about 6-8 extra pounds hanging around.
Thanks!