2019 Season Plan

So it's another year and I'm still here training and blogging away. Hehe.

Weight: 172 lbs.

Ugggghhhhh!


All that eating and couch-potato-ing in the off season are to blame. But here I am again, off to set my goals for the year which I hope to grade better than last year.

And so, here we go with my 2019 plan:

A Races:

1. Milo 21k. Still at the top of my MUST list, a yearly "panata" if you will. Hoping to achieve a better time than last year (2:28+).
2. BikeKing Dua. Another "panata" race. This is where I will concentrate on all of my Trainerroad workouts for. 
3. National Dua Championships. I hope they get this to push thru this year (as 2018 got canceled).

B Races:

1. One Pilipinas Duathlon Leg. The organizers have released the 2019 sked and it seems that, all permitting, I will only be able to sign up and race for 1 leg (Leg3). 
2. A 10k race. This is just to set things up for my duas.
3. A 21k race other than Milo. Same objective as 2, but for Milo 21k preparedness.
4. Join a Virtual Race. Probably one or two should be good for the year to keep the mileage up.

Fitness Goals:

1. Lose 15 lbs. Yup, still aiming for that. Hope to eat and train smarter this time for this goal.
2. Bike FTP of 200 watts. 
3. Ride for 100km. Even just one ride with this distance should be good enough for me.

Well, almost all of the goals above are very similar to my 2018 set. Rightly so as I failed in most of them last year. Looking forward for a better review of these goals come Dec 2019.

And so...…..here we go.....yet again.....

2018 Review of Goals

As 2018 comes to an end, it's time to look back at the goals I set last January and see how I fared in terms of trying to achieve them.

A-Races:

1. Milo 21k. - DONE. Achieved sub-2:30 to meet the cutoff.
2. BikeKing Duathlon. - DONE. Achieved a PR in terms of average pace
3. National Duathlon Championships. - NOT DONE. This race got canceled.

B/C-Races:

1. One (or two) PhilDua Races. NOT DONE. It was either conflict with weekend life priorities or sometimes plain unpreparedness.
2. Pinoy Fitness Sub1 10. DONE. Achieved a Sub60 to meet the cutoff.
3. One local 21k race before Milo 21k. NOT DONE. Wasn't able to schedule this unfortunately.
4. One international 10k or 21k race. NOT DONE. Went to Korea last summer but wasn't able to find a race during our stay there. Will be in Japan after Christmas but also haven't found any race there....yet.

Fitness Goals:

1. Lose 15 lbs. FAILED. Ugh!!!
2. Achieve a peak CTL of 75. FAILED. Was only able to reach the lower 50s.
3. Achieve a bike FTP of 210. FAILED. Was only able to peak at 180+ but went back to 169 after a few weeks of no training. But I am still happy with the improvements I've made on bike, having increased my FTP from 155 to 169 since Nov 2017.
4. Set a sub-2:20 21k and a sub-1 10k. FAILED on the 21k but DONE on the 10k.
5. Ride for 100km. FAILED.

If I were to score this overall based on count (total of 12 items), I will get a disappointing achievement rate of 37.5% ---not really something to be proud of.

Well, there's 2019 to look forward to. I hope to race more (raced only thrice this year) and tick more items on my Fitness Goals list.

But then, with all that's happening with me with family and work priorities, I am still (somewhat) happy to being able to squeeze in my trainings whenever I can despite the hectic sked.

I just need to put in more in terms of delivering the goods (Fitness Goals) and more will power to train at a higher level (to register for more races).

Hopefully it will be a better score for me on 2019.

How was your 2018?

Improvements (I think)

Although it's been quite a long while since I last posted, run and bike training has been constant for the past 2 months. I have slowly crept back up in the upper 40s CTL thanks to diligently following my workouts for the week. Hopefully, I will be back im the 50s CTL soon.

I was able to ride up Antipolo last weekend (my last climb before that was probably May this year) and the new Ultegra R8000 groupset I had installed before Sept this year held up well. The 11-30 cassette had me grind up the 2+ km stretch from Jollibee to Cloud9 better than I had hoped ---effort wise. No Strava PR was made but looking at my TP ride for max 12min power between my May and last weekend's ride showed the following:

1. I was able to increase cadence by about 10.
2. Power recorded during that 12min stint was lower by 10 watts.
3. Speed was roughly the same, about 0.2kmh difference.

Unfortunately I wasn't wearing a HRM last weekend, but I bet ave HR in last weekend's ride could be lower.

Higher cadence, less power, same speed. Hmmm...

The 11-30 cogset which I used in the climb could be the main contributer of the "improvement." Coming from an 11-25 cogset, I can safely say that the cogs >25 offered quite a relief tackling that climb that I have known for quite a while now.

I will know for sure once I get to add more of these Antipolo rides in the coming weekends.

Plus keeping the weekly training constant, of course. ;-)

BikeKing Duathlon 2018: Race Report

THE GOOD:

1. Bike leg on the SCTEX.
2. Well positioned aid stations especially on the bike leg
3. Nice giveaway bag.

FOR IMPROVEMENT:

1. Bike leg measure only 56kms (bitin!)

MY RACE

I was probably about 80% ready for this race since I've done this dua several times. The run1 and run2 legs were going to be flat, which was a great relief for me as I never got to pick up the weekly mileage leading up to this race. This was the same for the bike, wherein my longest was a sole 2.5hr chillax ride in Nuvali peppered with Trainerroad workouts here and there.

Run1 went smoothly as planned with an average pace of 6:36/km. It was then off to the bike leg where I will see how my Trainerroad sessions since Nov 2017 will pay off. I set my Garmin such that I only see the Ave 3s power, cadence, and speed. The power value took half of the screen which is what I wanted since I want to look at it to ensure that I am well below my FTP. 

Went aero by grabbing the aerobars during the flat and downward sections whenever I can (which is probably the reason why my right lower back is aching since Monday night, hehe).

Average speed for the entire 55.4km bike leg was 26.5kmh ---a modest improvement from my 25.8kph recorded in the same race last year (though with a longer 62km distance). Take note: same bike, but different engine. ;-)

Run2 started off well in the 6:30s per km but drifted off from km2 to 4 in the near 7:00s. I'm not sure why this happens often (I experienced the same in the 2017 version of this race). I'm guessing that it's probably over fatigue from the whole race effort that the body starts complaining by that point. Run2 average speed ended at 6:56/km which is almost the same as my 2017 Run2 (6:58/km).

Finished the race in 3:20:40 ---a decent improvement from my 3:36 finish last year (but again, a longer bike distance then).

In summary, I need to improve on my runs despite having modest improvements on the bike. Well, I do need to improve a lot on the bike so thank goodness there's Trainerroad to keep me focused.

I'm thinking of ending my 2018 race season here but we'll see. There's a couple of good duas in the coming months but with current load in work and personal stuff, getting a good performance out of it will be tough.

As usual, we'll see....

And Here I Go Again

Three weeks left until another A-race, the BikeKing duathlon, and my training logs indicate that I am very UNDERTRAINED....again.

Much to blame are the usual suspects: the rain, family priorities, late night gatherings, bass guitar practice, and just plain ol' lack of motivation to get up in the morning to run or bike.

I've been in the same state in preparation to my last race, the Milo Manila 21k, in which I suffered badly midway but squeezed out a sub-2:30 time to get that medal.

I really NEED to change my morning outlook in order to just "get up and go" so to speak. Probably keep myself away from my phone to prevent opening up my social media apps to lazily pass off the time.

I still have time left, I think, but I need to REALLY get this going A-SAP.

Tsk tsk....