The Armstrong Lie

For the past few days I've been scouring the 'net for sports documentaries to watch. For me, it helps motivate me in training, especially when I feel that I'm headed downward mentally.

I've watched 3 films so far this week, with the first one being The Armstrong Lie.

It's a good film on a director's narrative of his 2009 documentary of Lance's return to the Tour de France, and the different interviews relating the cyclist's doping allegations and eventual confession.

My fav part was the ascend on Mt. Ventoux ("that fucking mountain" as Lance would put it). I don't want to give details but I totally agreed with Bill Strickland and Alex Gibney when they commented on that stage of the 2009 tour and how Lance performed.

The film motivated me not to dope (of course!), but to train all the more since doping makes winning artificial. It's better to stand on the podium knowing that you did it cleanly.

Yes, I hope to stand on a race podium after all the training that I'm doing now.

Anyone can dream, right? :)

Feb17-23 Training Log: Lazy Weekend

Trained for only 6:21 out of the required 10 hrs last week. Reason being was the weekend family getaway at Talisay, Batangas which prevented me from riding 100k on Sat and run 15k on Sunday. Doing only 50k last Sat was reasonable for me as I needed to drive. It was the laziness on Sunday morning which prevented me from running the alloted 15k.

The run before that, a required 12k last Friday, bummed me out as I bonked on the 2nd half of that run. First time to be taking walk breaks as I didn't feel good that day, which contributed greatly to not starting my Sunday run. I felt that it would be best to take a break from running that day.

Hopefully I get back on the horse this week, where the workouts are exactly the same as last week's. Yup, aiming for a 100k ride on Saturday in Nuvali. If you're there, do let me know as I might need company during the ride.

 

Feb10-16 Training Log: Some Improvement

129km in 7:34 total.

On a taper week.

I happily accepted the reduction in training volume last week, which I think is part of a periodic cycle wherein there are 2 weeks hard training and 1 week off. The body (and mind) needs to recover, especially for the preparations of the coming hard week (this week).

Without proper feedback one can never know if he/she's improving. Good thing that Coach is able to lay this out for me by staging regular bike/run time trial workouts to assess if I've improved or not. Last week, after beginning my training under him, the 20-minute bike time trial result comparison showed what could be the start of something great:

Jan25 - 20min Bike TT. Distance covered: 9.57km (28.7kmh)

Feb15 - 20min Bike TT. Distance covered: 10.10km (30.1kmh)!!!!

In 3 weeks I was able to improve my bike TT time by 530 meters! That means a lot, especially during races. I hope to see similar improvement in my run TT which could be scheduled next month. Of course, better results would mean that I will continue to follow the workouts being sent by Coach. The challenging part, aside from waking up early (hehe), is the high probability that training volume/intensity will continue to increase (gulp!).

Hopefully I'm up to the task.

Back to training....

Feb 3-9 Training Log: More

169kms and almost 9hours of running and biking last week. Scored a breakthrough as I was able to log my longest ride ever (so far) at 68.4km. Further, I ran a good 10k although the time was not PR breaking (1:04). Still, it was my best 10k in months and I'm expecting it to get even better in the months to come.

Looking at this week's schedule, it'll be a rest week as total training time moved back to 7 hours. Next week, I'll be back on the grind as the weekend will require me to ride 4 hours, or 100kms(!!!!).

The only downside is my weight, as food has served as my "reward" after workouts. Last Tuesday after an evening 10k run, I decided to go to Charlie's for a wagyu burger. I should stop doing that and just control my hunger pangs and eat at or below my total daily calorie limit (1,500).

YUMMEH!!!!

Here's hoping for a lower weight by my Sunday morning weigh-in.

Jan27-Feb2 Training Log: Isn't It Amazing?!?!

124 kilometers in one week.

7 hours in one week.

Wow!

That could be the highest kms/hours per week of training that I've ever logged. What a difference having a coach makes.

And what makes this more amazing and err...scary? Coach says the hours per week could increase to as high as 10 to 12 hours as we go along. Hopefully I will be able to find a way to squeeze it between my work and family schedule. That could mean waking up a little earlier than usual, like what most of Coach's wards have done.

Of note would be last Wed's 10k wherein it comprised of 4 x 2.5km at easy pace with quite a unique interval wherein not rest, but exercises were done in between. Quite challenging I might say. The dreaded part is that it's going to be found regularly in my weekly program (yikes!).

This week's another gruelling set of training days, with Saturday planned to be my longest bike ride yet: 75 kms!!!