Did you know that skiing costs about the same amount (and more in some cases) as running a marathon?! I missed last year's ski season and somehow the price of tickets went up by about 20%. Since it costs the same amount, and I am a nerd when it comes to stats etc, I decided to wear my Garmin the whole time and see what happened.
Do you remember science class when you had to make a hypothesis and then test it to see if you were right or not?
What I was testing was this:
(1) How far each downhill run was.
(2) How many runs we would be able to take.
(3) If my heart rate would raise if I was going downhill, or if I fell or went over a jump.
(4) How many total miles we would ski that day.
(5) What my top speed would be.
I really had no idea what the results would be. I know I can run about 9 MPH at the most and I can't do that for very long, so I would definitely ski faster than that, but I had no idea how fast. I know that it always seems like the time in line is really long and the run down is really short, so I would probably guess that it was about 20 minutes up and 1 minute down. I figured my heart rate would raise but I wasn't sure how much since I wouldn't be putting out too much effort.
Here is what I found:
(1) Average wait/ride up = 6 - 10 minutes. Average trip down = 3 minutes / 1.25 miles.
(2) We got in 23 runs, maybe 24.
(3) Resting HR = 44, Max HR = 116, Ave HR = 60 (88 when I fell)
(4) We skiied between 25 and 28 miles in total.
(5) Top speed = 57 MPH, Average = 35 MPH
It was kind of fun to see the stats. I mean, it's amazing how fast 1.25 miles goes when you are speeding down hill at 57 MPH. We skied a marathon! Just for fun, I did some googling to find out what a really fast skier is: Fastest (speed skiing) = 156 MPH, Olympians (ave) = 75 - 95 MPH, Downhill racers (ave) = 40 - 60 MPH, Normal skiers (ave) = 10 - 20 MPH (source). Now I wonder if my Garmin was a little off.
Do you ever use your Garmin (or other tools) to track other things besides running? What did you find out?
