Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

I should definitely get me one of these adapters to mix some drinks after a hard workout :-) Well, it's been awhile since the last time I posted. My weight was at 160.5 Lbs for my last post and now I'm even further down at 152 Lbs. The only uncool part about losing all that weight is that now I'm swimming in most of my work wardrobe. I look like I borrowed most of my work clothes from my bigger brother, which is fine by me. I much prefer to have that problem than not being able to fit into my clothes.

I'm almost riding at the same intensity that I used to ride back when I raced. The only difference is that now I'm listening to my body a whole lot more, instead of trying to squeeze one more workout when your legs are screaming for a break. Looking back, I think I tended to over train quite a bit back then. By making that simple attitude adjustment, my fitness level has climbed progressively during the last three months. After all, the greatest improvements in fitness are made during your recovery time.

Weekly Update: Weight Loss Right On Track

It hasn't been easy, everyone's metabolism slows down with age and mine is no exception, but the increased physical activity (as in loads of pedaling) along with keeping the same healthy eating habits has paid off. The weight has been coming off on an almost weekly basis and when it stalled right at 165 Lbs. I decided to mix it up with some weight training in the afternoons after work. Well, that seemed to do the trick as my body weight as of this morning is now 160.5 Lbs.

Here's the progression my body weight has followed since early February. I used Garmin Connect to get a nice graph out of the data I had to input manually. The weight on the left is in kilograms, so if you want to convert it to pounds just multiply by 2.2.



Again, it hasn't been as easy as it looks. I've been going to bed hungry almost every other night and not because I haven't eaten dinner, but just because my metabolism has kicked into high gear and the calories that I put in don't match up with what I'm spending. It is that simple, if you want to lose weight you simply need to use more calories than what you are putting into your body. I wish I could tell you there are shortcuts, but the simple truth is that you have to put in the work, dieting alone only works for so long. You have to make a commitment to a healthy lifestyle, which incorporates exercise into your daily routine. You don't have enough time in the day? Make time for it! Anyway, enough ranting for now.

Weight Loss Progress Stalled, Extraterrestrials and other weird stuff

Well, this weekend was chock full of social and family events and they all involved a certain degree of eating. The training during the week was not particularly hard, but at least I managed to stay at 165 lbs, as of Friday morning, so I won't check my weight again until next weekend :-) In addition, there was no Saturday ride, as one of the events was a weeding on Saturday morning. While the weight loss has been stalling a little bit, my fitness keeps improving. However, when you track and analyze your training rides and rejoice in your progress, all you have to do to bring you down is check out YouTube and watch videos like this one:



You'd only know who Fabian Cancellara is if you followed cycling. The guy probably won't ever make it to a Tour de France overall podium, but when it comes to one day races, he's more or less like The Terminator, feels no pain and he won't stop until he crosses the finish line first. The numbers displayed on his bike computer are on the Superhuman level. Now, if those numbers don't mean much to you, here's the guy in action dropping other pros (watch closely the attack at 0:52), as if they were weekend warriors hanging on for dear life:

Power to Weight Ratio: Or How a Slimmer Juan Goes Faster Uphill

Before I get all technical on my not so hard-core readers, power to weight ratio is a very simple concept. If you manage to lose weight but still maintain the same strength on the bike, you are bound to go faster uphill and even on the flats. I witnessed this very same concept in action this past Saturday, as my overall average speed increased over an even longer route than the previous two outings. Now, due to the crappy weather we had the past two weekends, I opted for workouts on the trainer and during that time, I lost four pounds. That's right, losing 4 Lbs. can make that much of a difference.

No weight lost this week to report though, all the celebration from Miriam's birthday kept me at 165 Lbs. No regrets,the food was great and I didn't gain any weight back :-)

I leave you with a video of a funny guy pretending to climb one of the most legendary climbs of the Tour de France like a boss. He claims to be a tennis pro, but I can't say it's true because I don't follow tennis at all.

Easter Weekend: The Training Doesn't Stop

A very welcomed long weekend took us to the Millcroft Inn & Spa for an early celebration of Miriam's birthday. Still can't believe such a nice place is only about 45 minutes away (in good traffic) from the city. The Friday before we left for the spa, we were still doing our exercise routines. Miriam had gone down to the condo gym and I went down to our parking spot for another session on the trainer. As of Thursday morning, I had managed to lose another two pounds (now down to 165 Lbs.) but that loss might have been put in jeopardy, as the spa package included a three-course dinner and breakfast :-) I must say though, the dinner was well worth whatever setback I may have incurred in my weight loss plan. We got back home early Saturday afternoon, so both of us opted for a little more exercise. Miriam hit the gym again and I spent the next two and a half hours on the trainer for a total caloric expenditure of 1,300 calories. That should've helped offset the dinner from the previous night a little :-)

Anyway, for those of you who are into cycling, did you know that you can actually complete a full stage of the Tour de France and the event is put on by the same organizers of the actual Tour? Yes, you actually get to ride on roads lined with spectators and closed to regular traffic. It's as close as it gets to ride in the Tour for wannabes like myself :-) As many as 8,000 people take part every year and you have to be in excellent shape for it, as there are time cutoffs that you have to make in order to finish the stage. The stage last year finished at the mythical Mount Ventoux, where even the pros suffer on race day, so you can imagine what a course like that does to mere mortals. Here's a video of a recon ride done by a guy that actually puts on training camps to get in shape for that ride. The music and the scenery are fit for the epic proportions of the ride.

Be Like Lance, Be Like Lance, I wanna be like Lance!

Remember that old Gatorade commercial where they featured Michael Jordan, and the jingle throughout the ad went something like:"Be Like Mike, Be Like Mike, I wanna be like Mike"? Now Lebron is all the rage; well kids, just keep in mind MC won 6 NBA championship titles and all of them with the same team :-) Anyway, I digress, Miriam found spare batteries for the weight scale and I'm happy to report that I've lost another 2 lbs. so now I'm down to 167.5 Lbs., so I'm still on track.

Well, I'm going to make this a short post since I just wanted to put on record my weekly weight loss. However, in case some of you were wondering what my road bike (Lance) looks like, here's a YouTube video I just found by coincidence and it shows the exact same bike (colors and everything). It was posted by someone else:

The Blender

Back in the day when I dared to enter road races, I used to do this weird training routine that I called The Blender. The name comes from the fast spinning (110-120 rpm) that I would force myself to keep up for up to an hour in some occasions.

HUGE DISCLAIMER NOTE HERE: I'm not a personal trainer or a cycling coach, nor do I claim to be one. What I talk about on here is just stuff that I do and has worked for me in the past. Every person is different and therefore, everyone reacts differently to training routines. If you want personal training, don't come here looking for answers because you are probably better off talking to someone who has the know-how and the experience. In other words, someone who knows what he/she is talking about, unlike me :-)

Ok, now that I got the legal formalities out of the way, back to The Blender. It all starts with a loooong warm up for me on the trainer, about an hour of a progressively faster cadence. I start at 80 rpms and work myself up to 100 rpms by the time the 60 minute mark hits. Once the hour is up, it's all between 110 and 120. Trust me, your legs will feel those extra 10 rpms! The trick is trying not to bounce on the saddle too much and keep the cadence constant. If you have a weak core like me (need to work on it) you will feel it in the middle portion of your back as well once the workout is over. Oh, I completely forgot to mention that I do the first month or so (only once, maximum twice a week) of this routine with a very light gear ratio, about 39-16 and once I'm comfortable doing the whole hour at a high cadence, then I move onto the 53-19 combination.

Well, that was about a decade ago. Today, I felt pretty good after being able to hold that pace for 41 minutes straight.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Polar HR after I finished the session, showing the AVG and MAX hear rates from today's session. I feel so old school, as power output training is the hot trend these days. In fact, my heart rate monitor is almost as old as my bike frame and I'm not 28 anymore :-)

Instruments of Torture

Wow! I didn't think anyone was going to read this blog but some people actually did! Thank you Brenda! Gracias Fernando!

At Fernando's request, I'll keep a weekly (daily is a bit too much) record of my weight loss to keep me motivated and on track. As of last week, I was 171.5 Lbs. but I had my doubts as the batteries were running really low on the weight scale :-) Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm at this week because the weight scale finally died today, boooo!

Some of you might have seen my instrument of torture before. Meet Greta, my hybrid bike, which has become somewhat of a permanent fixture on my trainer.




Greta will soon be replaced on the Trainer by Lance, my trusty 11 year-old road bike. I called it Lance because it's a Trek 5200, the same bike frame Lance Armstrong used to win his first three Tour de France. Little did I know back then that "It's Not About The Bike". Actually, it's all about your lungs, heart and legs and if those aren't in shape, there's no bike on this planet that will help you ride faster, unless you have one of those electric-powered bikes (what's the point of those anyways?).

Ok, enough rambling! I finished this week with five (5) workouts completed as of today (Friday, April 15, 2011). Planing on doing a tempo ride tomorrow for three hours, but according to the weather forecast it looks like it will be another trainer workout.

Take the first step, get off the couch and be active!

The Long Road Back: Getting Back Into Shape

It all started as a plan to lose weight, as the number at
the  weight scale had been slowly and steadily
increasing for the last year or so. My fitness level had dropped dramatically
and I had become somewhat of a couch potato. However, the real wake-up call
came when during our Christmas trip to Colombia to visit my family, many relatives
commented on my weight gain. “Luces gordo” they said, which means “you look fat”.
I knew I had put on weight, but I just hadn’t realized how far I had let myself
go. At that point, I had not stepped on a weight scale for the last 6 months or
so and I decided to wait to do so until a few weeks after we came back from our
trip. When we came back in January, I was in a state of disbelief when I
stepped on the scale; I was looking at the number (179 Lbs), but I couldn’t quite
believe I had let it go this far without doing anything about it. Now, 179 lbs.
might not sound like a whole lot, but it definitely is for a guy my height (5’8”).

It was time to put a plan in place and get back to an active
lifestyle. It was time to get back into cycling! However, my fitness base was
gone and I realized it the moment I tried to do some cross training by using an
elliptical machine. It only took fifteen minutes on that machine, at what I
thought was a moderate effort and the cold sweat started trickling down my
forehead and I felt dizzy. Needless to say, I had to get off the elliptical and
lay down on the floor because I felt like I was going to puke.

Travel back in time 10 or 11 years and I was actually racing
road bikes, mostly in the middle of the pack and on occasion even placing in
the top 10. That’s why my current state of fitness had hit me even harder,
because the colossal drop had not been anyone’s fault but my own. Anyway, the
past is the past and now I had to look ahead and take the steps I had to take
to change things around. At the same time, my love for cycling was coming back
and I was yearning to get back into the kind of shape that  allowed me to make a long ride enjoyable rather than some sort of sadistic endeavor.

My road bike, a Trek 5200 from the year 2000, had been
collecting dust for the better part of the last two years. The original Ultegra
components (shifters and derailleurs) on it had thrown in the towel and I just
didn’t want to put the money into upgrading them, as buying photography equipment
was more of a priority at that time. The frame is the same frame that Lance
Armstrong used to win his first three tours and yet it was sitting in our
parking spot collecting dust with the tires deflated and looking overall as if it
had seen way better days.

Well, that was back in January, I graduated from 15 mins. on
the elliptical to 30, then 40 and eventually I started riding the stationary
bike at our condo building gym right after the elliptical. To make a long story
short, the exercise routine had moved from 1 hour to two hours and along with
cardio,  I had introduced some weight lifting. I had been doing the routine for nearly two months and felt that the very basic aerobic base I had built was enough to move to the bike.

To be continued…