MAPpity doo dah, MAPpity day

I did my final of three power tests today to determine my Maximal Aerobic Power (MAP). If you want to know a bit more about what that is, just click the link.

Before we get to the result of my test, a little background Chronology:

11 Apr 07: My accident, admission to hospital emergency and multiple operations ensued.

16 May 07: Left below knee amputation.

15 Aug 07: Discharged from hospital

24 Oct 07: Collect interim prosthetic leg, begin to learn to walk again

04 Jun 08: Collect new prosthetic leg. Start to stand and walk again with comfort.

13 Jun 08: first ride on indoor trainer since accident. 15-min at 100 watts and using special short 100mm left crank arm (as my knee wouldn't bend sufficiently for a normal crank) and a flat bed pedal to rest my shoe and "foot" on.

28 Jun 08: first ride on special indoor ergo bike.

29 Jun 08: MAP Test - 246 watts

31 Jun 08: first ride using special prosthetic cycling leg attachment

11 Jul 08: first ride outdoors at Centennial Park for 45-minutes - now using a 155mm left crank

19 Jul 08: first race

21 Jul 08: now using a 165mm long left crank

22 Jul 08: MAP Test - 289 watts

26 Jul 08: second race

01 Aug 08: first ride on track

08 Aug 08: 500 metre time trial at Dunc Gray Velodrome

12 Aug 08: Some problems with stump - experiencing some pain and skin integrity issues. 10 days break from riding while I sorted this out.

13 Sep 08: now using full length cranks on all bikes (165mm on track bike, 170mm on ergo bike, 175 mm on road bikes)

21 Sep 08: trial use of poly urethane bushing under cycling cleat to aid out-of-the-saddle sprinting control

23 Sep 08: Time Trial test - 20-minute power 252 watts

25 Sep 08: MAP Test - 355 watts


What can I say, other than I am personally a little amazed. My previous best able-bodied MAP test result was 399 watts. So today I hit 89% of that. It's only 6 watts less than my MAP test from August 2006!

OK, if we want to get technical, the MAP tests this time were measured with an SRM power meter, which given it's a crank based power meter, will give ~ 2% higher reading than my Powertap, which is what my previous MAP tests were measured with (since the Powertap is a hub-based meter and drivetrain power losses are typically ~ 2%).

And for the technically minded of you, yes the SRM is calibrated and zero offsets checked and stable.

Even still, I consider it a pretty amazing result so early in my comeback.

Power chart here:

So much more work to do.....