[rosmat]

Following Shark's "Legendary Feats Of Strength" thread:

What sticks in your mind as legendary feats of fitness that you've heard about or witnessed?

A recent one that sticks in my mind is:

Killian Jornet completed a pre season fitness test in October '12 to assess his levels prior to the start of the winter '12 season:

Here are the results of his test day, fuck-ing-hell:

Bruce Test Results
-----------------------------
Max: 12km/h - 24% inclination
Saturation o2: 94%
VO2 max: 90 ml/min/kg 
RR: 1.10
FC: 199 b/min
Lactate: 13 (5') mM/L
Recovery 1 min: 110p/min
Recovery 3 min: 85 p/m
Anaerobic Threshold: 95%


Spirometry Test Results
-----------------------
Inspiratory (lung) capacity: 5.3 L
FEV1: 4750
Tiffenneau: 88.28
Peak Expired Flow (PEF): 10,63


Morphology
-------------
Weight: 58kg
Height: 171cm
% Fat: 8,72
% Muscle: 46,1
% Bone: 21.01

[slackline]

Without knowing the reference ranges for those metrics I've no idea if they're impressive.  Are you able to provide any context here?

Ueli Steck running up and down mountains, including his Himalayan exploits last year, are pretty impressive feats of fitness. 

People who link big walls in the Valley back to back (Timmy O'Neil/Dean Potter, Honnold/Caldwell, others).

[SA Chris]

Without knowing the reference ranges for those metrics I've no idea if they're impressive. 

Likewise. For all i know that might as well be in Swahili.

[mark s]

same here,not a clue

just looking at strava segments that are local and some of the times the pro's have is mind blowing when you have done themselves.lungs hanging out,nearly passing .yet they do it in half the time

[slackline]

Without knowing the reference ranges for those metrics I've no idea if they're impressive. 

Likewise. For all i know that might as well be in Swahili.

Any better

EDIT : FEV1 == Forced Expiratory Volume in one second (I once helped someone with a grant application for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease )

[rosmat]

Without knowing the reference ranges for those metrics I've no idea if they're impressive.  Are you able to provide any context here?

Ueli Steck running up and down mountains, including his Himalayan exploits last year, are pretty impressive feats of fitness. 

Context sure:

Killian's VO2 max of 90ml / kg / min:
VO2 max (widely accepted as the single best measure of cardiovascular fitness and max aerobic power). Average untrained healthy male will have a VO2 max of approximately 35-40 ml/kg/min.

Elite male runners can consume up to 85 ml/kg/min, and female elite runners can consume about 77 ml/kg/min. 5 time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain had a VO2 max of 88.0 at his peak.


His results speak for themselves though really:

Mountain Running:
2009:
1st, Skyrunner World Series
1st, Mt. Kinabalu Climbathon
1st, Ultra Trail Andorra
1st, Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc

2010:
1st, Sierre-Zinal "La course des cinq 4000" 31 km
1st, Grand Raid de la Réunion
World Record, Mount Kilimanjaro, Ascent and combined Ascent/Descent (5:23:50, 7:14:00)

2011:
1st, The North Face 100, Blue Mountains, Australia. Course Record
1st, Western States Endurance Run
1st, Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc

Ski Mountaineering:
2010:
1st, World Championship vertical race
1st, Trophée des Gastlosen (ISMF World Cup),
2nd, World Championship single race
3rd, World Championship combination ranking


2011:
1st, World Championship single race
1st, World Championship vertical race
1st, World Championship vertical, combined ranking
4th, World Championship.
1st, Mountain Attack

2012:
1st, European Championship vertical race
1st, World Championship vertical, combined ranking
2nd, European Championship single
1st and course record, Mountain Attack
1st, Patrouille de la Maya.

But perhaps most impressive of all is his recent move into alpinsm:
On 18 September 2012, Kilian ascended from Courmayeur to the summit of Mont Blanc via the famous Innominata Ridge (1000m, D+, V+, 60º) in 6 hours and 17 minutes. He then raced down to Chamonix in a total time of 8 hours 42 minutes. (Average time for a fit team is circa. 3 days).

Ueli Steck's comment on Killian's move into alpinism: "Can you imagine what I could do if I had the fitness and physique of Kilian?"

[andyd]

I think you've just killed your own thread by wapping out the big gun first. I'm sure there are some sherpas who could compete.  It shows a bunch of them in Palin's Himalaya series running up a steep switchback path at 4000m with 40 kg supported by a strap across their foreheads. And they wore flip flops.

[rosmat]

I think you've just killed your own thread by wapping out the big gun first.

Your probably right about the thread. 

Not 100% sure about the Sherpa's, maybe - there are a number of Sherpa's that enter the UTMB each year and Killian has beaten them comprehensively (admittedly without 40kg of added weight).

[rosmat]

Wap out the big gun, supported by a strap across their foreheads.

Old habits die hard.

[Probes]

This fella from eccleston in lancs used to climb at the barn then disappeared when he was 18 to Thailand to learn muai tai then I heard about 5 year ago he started running... now he's no.1 in the uk I think, winning ultras like a 50miler in the peak winning it in 8hrs n something, 2nd place was an hour behind him. If you read some of his blogs its sickening what he runs in a week for training. Doesn't think twice about running a marathon as an evening run. One to watch... 

http://charlie-sharpe.blogspot.co.uk/2012_12_01_archive.html

[Muenchener]

"Vertical Kilometer Record" is worth a google: world record times for running/skiing a thousand metres height gain. Around 30 minutes at the moment 

Scrabbling frantically for some relevance to climbing: Messner - who, before Nanga Parbat when he still had toes, led 7a in the Dolomites in 1968 so there's yr climbing relevance right there - reputedly had a vert km time somewhere around 35 minutes. Pretty respectably for forty years ago for somebody who wasn't a specialiast runner or ski racer.

[jwi]

Context sure:

Killian's VO2 max of 90ml / kg / min:
VO2 max (widely accepted as the single best measure of cardiovascular fitness and max aerobic power). Average untrained healthy male will have a VO2 max of approximately 35-40 ml/kg/min.

Elite male runners can consume up to 85 ml/kg/min, and female elite runners can consume about 77 ml/kg/min. 5 time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain had a VO2 max of 88.0 at his peak.o alpinism: "Can you imagine what I could do if I had the fitness and physique of Kilian?"

For someone who do lots of cross-country skiing (as I understand Kilian is doing this as well?) 90 ml/kg/min really remarkable, but not unheard of.  When it comes to VO2-max cross-country skiers usually scores higher than runners and cyclist since skiing make larger systematic demands on the body.

95-96 ml/kg/min has been recorded for some world class cross country skiiers.

[Plattsy]

But were they clean? Lest we forget cross country skiing, like cycling, has a history riddled with doping.
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/records/vo2max.htm

[jwi]

I am as sure as I can be that Bjørn Dæhlie was reasonably clean (despite what bitter Finns would tell you). No unexplained ups and downs, lots of unscheduled doping tests over many years, and he never disappeared months before world-champions/olympics just to come back much fitter (as most confirmed dopers did).

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2012/11/22/skiers-shocked-over-doping-claims/

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Es Tresidder doing the Cuillin Ridge in 3:17 was pretty insane. But in my mind no-one beats Tommy Godwin records...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Godwin_(cyclist_born_1912)

[boulderingbacon]

back in the day greg lemond the cyclist who prob would of been the greatest before his incident had a vo2 max of 94 still the highest ive seen.

[masonwoods101]

http://www.badassoftheweek.com/nansen.html    nutter....

[rosmat]

Yup...

"He landed a ship on the East coast of Greenland, unpacked his skis, and got ready to freeze his junk off. Figuring that retreat or surrender would be an indelible sign of weakness, Nansen took the head-searingly insane step of burning his boats after he landed, thereby removing the one possible avenue of escape from this uncharted wasteland nobody had ever successfully ventured across without dying. Victory or death, as they say." 

Sheer quality, ace nutter.....now that's proper "a muerte".

[masonwoods101]

what did he ever do on grit hahahahaha

[rosmat]

what did he ever do on grit hahahahaha

Obviously being that bad ass, he preffered the lime to luck based scrittle.

[Dexter]

what did he ever do on grit hahahahaha

used it to wipe his arse I believe