Welcome to the first journal entry of Endurance in Theory. I’d like it to be a seamlessly intelligent and informative look at the latest in the theories of ultra-distance exercise – Endurance, in Theory. It’s just that it has remained just that, an unproven idea, for too long. So, what with all the false starts, hiccups - amid moments of generosity from busy people - it’s really more of a journal of comic mishaps while trying to pin down the science and scientists of endurance. Eventually though…
I secured an invitation to the Extreme Environments Laboratory at Portsmouth University, where Professor Joe Costello let me observe an experiment conducted by a PHD student, Harry, who was looking into the physiological responses of a subject exercising in an environment that was hot, while experiencing visual signals that weren’t.
The Extreme Environments lab has just celebrated 25 years of investigating the effects on humans of different environments – among them hot and humid and desert-dry, as well as wet cold and dry cold and for example, of reduced oxygen, in simulation of high elevation. Over the years they have worked on projects to help people who work in difficult environments, for instance by testing clothing and equipment, and helping people to acclimatize (and to acclimate, there is a difference, apparently): it might be for oil workers travelling afar or in preparation for deployment to a hot or cold theatre by personnel in the Army and Royal Navy. Other studies have focussed on the preservation of life, particularly in cold water, including research into what happens during drowning and therefore its prevention, for instance with the RNLI. And there have been studies of sportsmen and women, including Olympic teams.
Earlier I wrote about my intention, as the Itinerant Interviewer, to appear by bicycle, to ask a volley of incisive questions and then to disappear mysteriously into the mist. Not this time. This time I arrived by local bus. I was in fact driving (long explanation) into Portsmouth on the M275, fearful of finding a parking space in the urban vortex that is Portsmouth City Centre, when I spotted signs to Portsmouth Park and Ride. Eureka! With an instantaneous, decisive wrench of the steering wheel (OK, after a quick check in the rear view mirror), I cut ruthlessly across the motorway - well, ten feet across the dots delineating the slow lane and the exit lane - and followed the signs to, well… what is an exciting innovation in my life.
I found my confidence faltering as I entered into a weird spiral, descending a snail-shell of slower and slower progress - like a vortex itself - through sections and sub-sections of car park, spinning down into a tarmac singularity… And ended up in a central parking space, alone and confused… The place was completely deserted: barely a parked car, not a person in sight, certainly no ride. Was this Portsmouth Park and Ride… or Portsmouth Pull in and Wait to Die? Oh, me of little faith - within eight minutes I was on a bus, and within eight minutes of that I was standing, lost, in Portsmouth City Centre, all for the princely sum of £4 (return).
Eventually I arrived at the white cube in which the department sits. Prof Costello appeared and led me into one of their labs, where Harry was surrounded by the paraphernalia of his experiment, vis a bank of computer screens and a couple of laptops around a window giving into a very purposeful-looking room, the (Matthew) Pinsent Chamber. Behind the glass, the walls were lined with big pipes, small pipes, ganglions, pipes padded with aluminium foil, hoods and a few cages (I couldn’t see any subjects locked in there, or guinea pigs). A lone static bicycle stood at its centre, facing away from the window.
We ventured a moment in the chamber itself, which was approaching its stipulated temperature of 35 degrees, with 50% relative humidity. Conversation continued about the lab, about the scientific, applied and the er… mechanistic work of the department. Perhaps it was the heat... but mechanistic physiology? What’s that, I asked. We retreated outside into more normal air. “It’s the how and the why that enables the applied investigation…”
At that moment, Harry’s subject, Lauren, another PHD student in the department, appeared, dressed for cycling and for the experiment, ie with wires dangling off her. “Ah, the guinea pig”, I said, before I could stop myself. Lauren chuckled; Prof Joe crumpled an eyebrow at me. And effortlessly moved on to a discussion of the stringent protocols and ethics (and a certain politeness, clearly) under which the lab works.
Lauren was ushered into the chamber and her various wires were clipped in. Prof Joe continued.
“They’ll be measuring a whole range of things - skin temperature, deep body temperature, blood pressure, body mass before and after, sweat and how much water loss there has been, skin blood flow...” I looked up. There was even more…? “Yes, well, baseline lactate, glucose…” I stopped him at the scary-sounding concept of haematocrit.
In fact Harry has a psychology background, so his experiment ran the boundary between that and physiology, probing where perception might, or might not, elicit a physiological response. So the scene was this: the subject, Lauren, warms up and then cycles… (according to the RPE scale – Borg’s scale of perception exertion) …between ‘hard’ and ‘very hard’. And sustains it for 30 minutes. However, the key component of the experiment is a VR headset. And therein lies the trickery.
Because although Lauren is cycling in a hot and pretty humid room, Harry has designed a rolling feed for the headset that defies this. She will be pedalling into a landscape of snow-clad mountains and chilly forests, with hoarfrost in the branches and spindrift scurrying across the road. Weird, yes, but the question is whether the perception of this cold world will affect her physiological responses. Or at last I think that’s what was going on…
Results are not in yet. Will report back when I get news.
And hey, there is one more thing, in that I was witnessing not just an experiment, but possibly experimental history. There’s a chance that this is the first time that a VR headset has been used in a physiology experiment.
Thanks to Prof Joe Costello and to PHDs Harry and Lauren at the Extreme Environments Laboratory at Portsmouth University