Throwback Thursday: Training Status Style

What was I doing in 2012 that made me hate cycling so much? 

...Okay I've never officially hated cycling...for more than a week at least. But looking back, it's not hard to tell that the motivational aspect in training spiraled down for a good period of time in 2012.

Now that it's June, it is a good time to reflect on my current annual volume. I should probably mention that it's a pseudo annual volume since I don't follow calendar years when it comes to the periodical training numbers, but it's still a good way for me to see the relativity to past years. 

What I found when comparing my numbers was that I had just surpasses my 2012 volume. I can't believe how short my months were. November's volume is practically a weeks worth, and October is looking awkward with the 3 hours over there. July and December is reasonable because of my trips to the Philippines. 

But what I got from seeing this was that I didn't really take cycling serious, and that's because I didn't have well-defined goals. So if there's one thing I'm really glad about, it's that I didn't continue my non-directional cycling habit--nor did I quit. I realized my mistake(s) and now I'm surpassing myself!

No goals = nowhere.

Apart from cycling, my main goal right now is to graduate college on time, which is supposed to be next Spring. I've been filling up my class schedules with many units, and have been taking summer classes. This summer I'm taking a Human Physiology Lab, as well as a Human Anatomy Course & Lab, which are really demanding. But I'm doing whatever it takes to graduate on time because that's my goal. And graduating on time is something that needs to be done in order for me to achieve an even higher goal. (Goals need to be flexible, so of course I always have potential events in mind that would require me to adapt to such changes.)

With that said I'll briefly say that I can still maintain an adequate training volume. Monitoring performance from power data really helps--I can see the effects of my off-days on the two days I have school for 7.5 hours and adjust accordingly. 

Right now I have high fitness relative to my past and low fatigue. With no races available, I'll be able to use this form to do challenging, high quality workouts!

- DB

How College is making me a better cyclist (Part 1 - Leisure)

My family, relatives, and close friends usually ask me how college is going and I always reply with the same thing: "it's going good!," followed by the year I'm in and reminding them that my major is kinesiology, then getting the inevitable "what is that?" and explaining that it's "like" physical therapy when in reality it is only slightly related to the actual field. 

For the record, kinesiology is the study of human movement, mostly in terms of exercise, and what influences human movement--like psychology, physiology, society, technology, and uhh more. As you can see, kinesiology does not focus on one aspect of exercise or human movement. Instead, it allows those who are majoring in it to broadly explore the different areas of human movement in terms of some of the influences I described earlier.

With that said, the area I'm focusing on is exercise physiology but recently I've been very interested in the topic of sports psychology. On the other hand, those with a burning passion for physical therapy are likely to be focusing on motor development and neuromuscular stuff as well as things having to do with rehabilitation.

SF State has thousands of students so registering for classes is a little untraditional. The main thing is, I haven't been able to get my classes on time. But I've been taking a lot of "filler classes" to increase my total number of units to bump up to an earlier registration time to get ahead of thousands of thousands of students. As a result, I've taken many classes that were very well unrelated to Kinesiology, but what I didn't know was that some of these classes, especially the ones I took last semester, would shape me into a better cyclist!

When I'm riding or when I'm at a race, I see people I haven't talked to in a while. A few weeks ago I saw my old coach and also the ex-president of the same cycling club, as well as the ex-owner of one of my local bike shops. Of course, all of them asked how college was and the following is what I would've told them if I could put it into a really short story, but I can't. 

Random Classes and their connection to cycling

There are three classes I took that I think truly changed how I think about myself and what I'm doing in this world especially when it comes to getting on the saddle--and everything else before that. These classes were all "filler classes" which were classes that don't have any contribution to my major or undergraduate degree but is still credited toward my total college units.

These three classes were:

1. Recreation, Parks, and Tourism (RPT) Leisure Lifestyle Development class

2. Filipino American Identities class

3. Peak Performance class

These three classes all had psychological roots, meaning the material of the class was based on the topic of psychology. So, the main take-away I got from the classes was an improved psychological state as well as an improved awareness of my own wellness/well being. These are aspects that are definitely crucial to building a successful athlete, regardless of the sport.

Now I'll go over how each class made me mentally stronger and what it has to do with making me a better cyclist. This part is going to be long, so I'm going to divide it into separate blogs and write about it when I have time. 

I'll start with the RPT class.

Recreations, Parks, Tourism + Cycling

My RPT class focused on leisure. The class's purpose was to explore what people do for leisure and how the heck it affects our daily lives in society. Unless you're a pro (and even if you are), most cyclists would say that cycling is a huge part of their leisure lifestyle--the life outside of work, school, and other stuff we are forced to do to stay alive and functioning in this world. 

After taking this class it made me revalue how important cycling was to me. I mean...I know it makes me happy and keeps me a good mood, but taking this class made me understand the importance of those consequences. And while it made me understand its importance, the class really made me realize that leisure and cycling is primarily beneficial to the self, and any external benefits coming from leisure are a result of the benefits to the self. Wow was that confusing? Let me break it down...

So leisure is beneficial primarily to the self...which really means that leisure helps develop personal well being or how someone values their existence and actions and pretty much their own self. So if cycling is a huge part of my leisure lifestyle, some of the benefits I get for my well being includes making me happy (because of the endorphins) and giving me a good mood (because I just burned 2000 calories in 3.5 hours, oh yeah!). So as a result of those benefits, I'd probably be in a good mood and have a positive conversation with someone, possibly make a friend or two. Or while being very happy, I'd have other positive feelings like generosity or something that makes me a nice human being. 

The point is that by increasing your well being, you appreciate the rest of the world. You'll start appreciating your job, you'll start appreciating school, and even your chores at home. By improving individual wellness, you will start thinking "hey this isn't so bad after all" because at the end of the day you have this enjoyable passion, an indescribable aspect in your life called leisure to back up whatever purpose you have to stay alive and do the things we are forced to do. 

This class helped me realize the positive effects cycling has on my life. In terms of training, it gives me a reason to stay positive and on track! There's also the reinforced motivation from doing well, like getting personal records and BURNING LOTS OF CALORIES HAHAHAHA. 

But really, this class made me realize how important cycling, training, and racing are to me and made me discover why it is such a big part of me and most of all it made me realize how good it is that I'm doing this for myself and for my own well being! 

So...it made me a better a cyclist by further connecting the value of my passion to myself which fuels my motivation to train continually and consistently. Did it help in breaking a new personal record at San Bruno? Definitely! 

Next time, I'll rant about how my Filipino American identities class made me a better cyclist!

--DB

“Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.” 
― Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis Of Culture

Some training stuff! (Consistency, base miles, close setback!, weight)

Hey!

I just completed my 8th base week. To be honest, it is the most that I have ever completed straight without skipping a planned day. 

Actually there was one day I had to skip but it was due to family obligations. Luckily, it was the day of a 1-hour recovery workout...so it was a little easier on the mentality (err...ego) to let it slide. However, that wasn't without consequence!

What I did was purely a rookie and a self-coached athlete's typical decision-mistake. I added that single hour onto a 1.5hour aerobic ride--zone 2. Obviously, it doesn't seem like it would hurt but what I didn't realize was that the following workouts would suffer from that extra hour of zone 2. In other words, it would've been fine if it weren't for the way I scheduled the following workouts.

After that 2.5 hour ride...which was really supposed to be a 1.5 hour ride to keep the aerobic muscles active I did sprints, another 2hr aerobic ride, some threshold intervals in a 2.5hr time frame, a 1.5 recovery spin, and a 3.5hr aerobic ride. As you can see, I had almost no recovery and if you added everything up including the 2.5hr preceding all of the above, that would add up to 6 straight days of workouts worth 13 hours of about 85% moderate intensity.

I was actually already feeling the soreness and fatigue during the 2hr ride and the ride with ME intervals. Needless to say, I don't think my intervals were effective so I can't increase the workload when it comes to that workout next time. 

Anyways, I thought I'd be exhausted and lose fitness, but after taking Saturday off (which was scheduled and not spontaneous), my ride today (Sunday) felt much better especially toward the end, so I'm going to ride easy again tomorrow and hope that I can tackle old la honda, stage road, and Tunitas creek fresh on Tuesday on the team ride with SFSU triathlon and cycling.

Consistency

I'm really happy because I'm going into my final base mile week! I just love how my training plan coincided so well with my daily life...kind of. For instance, I didn't plan around the fact that I'd be doing the SBM hill climb, but a recovery week just happened to land on that week of Jan 1! Thus, I was quite fresh! I'm also on the last week of base miles AND the last week of my winter break which means next week will be the first week of school...which is quite hectic and does mess up my training schedule a bit, however it just so happens another recovery week lands on the week I need it a lot! Very cool.

With all that said, I'm entering the 9th week of my training season and I've been very consistent in terms of keeping myself on track with workouts and logging my miles and doing daily reflections! I'm hoping I can stay consistent when school comes around, but I shouldn't have to much trouble considering my school schedule allows plenty of time for training. 

Weight

I'm also getting the weight loss benefit of base miles...kind of. I weigh myself everyday 2-3 times. If I ride that day, I weigh myself after the ride and the other two times is after I wake up and after I eat dinner. Obviously, the post-dinner weight contains a lot of dead weight but I think it keeps me honest because at the end of the week my total weight is usually divided by 18-20 values to get the average so I think the data is well rounded and very well represents my body mass progress.

Anyways, along with training consistently I have also seen a consistent trend in my weight. It seems to be dropping on average at least 0.3-0.4 pounds a week. 8 weeks ago I was at 132.something and to-date my average has continued to fall now to 129.5 which is almost a 3-pound loss!

I don't really have much to lose but I think I can lose some fat and make it to 126 but I think I will focus on training this year and skip the detailed diet part until next year or if it really starts to make an impact on my performance.

The reason I'm being passive with my weight revolves around my PR at San Bruno. I raced that at 129-130 pounds but when I did it the other three years I was probably 118, 123, and 125 respectively and all got 18:30ish. So I definitely gained power but 16:43 yields a 10% increase in power to weight and I'm happy at that, so I don't want to lose focus on training because dieting requires a different mentality and lifestyle that also needs to be carefully planned and uhh executed.

Well I guess that's all I have for now!

Until the next rant,

- DB

“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently."

--- Anthony Robbins

Being HAPPY!!!

Some say it is not always good to think about your past. After all, the past already happened, and there is nothing that could change that.

However, I think that it is beneficial to reflect on our past--which is pretty much what this blog centers on whether it is race reports or year reports. How else do we learn to fix our mistakes and flaws? Well, part of that process involves knowing what worked in the past and what didn't, so that you know what will be most effective in the future.

So when I was reflecting on how 2013 was my best training season yet--despite still having a number of flaws like inconsistency--I was thinking even deeper about why & how it became my best season yet. So I dug back looking at my training hours...

Training Hours

2010: 383 hours

2011: 254 hours

2012: 229 hours

2013: 385 hours

As you can tell, 2010 and 2013 seem almost identical, except 2010 had no structure within those hours. However, 2011 and 2012 are embarrassingly lower, which is why I reflected a little more further. 

Since I am me and no one else isn't, I know that the major debt in training hours for 2011 was due to an injury as a result of a crash, and the debt for 2012 was a result of traveling out of town and from consistently getting sick. 

But when I think about it even more, something common appears to me. For both 2011 and 2012, most of my training hours were done in the first half of the year. For 2011, my injury happened in July and for 2012 my one-month trip to the Philippines began in July as well. After returning back in August (for both years) my off-season training time was terribly low.

Overtraining? I doubt it because I knew what was "too much" for me, and at my age with my energy, I doubt it's even possible to overtrain with 250 hours.

Burnout? Uhh...not really. Burnout would be a psychological result of too overtraining and if I didn't overtrain, I don't think burnout would come on its own after a crash or a trip to the Philippines.

With that said, I think the culprit was pure lack of motivation. But wouldn't lack of motivation be a result of something...like burnout? Again, I don't think so, and I'll explain why.

I think that the lack of motivation was a result of the lack of something simple that everyone needs but doesn't get enough of...oxygen? Nope.

Happiness. Yes, the lack of happiness was what destroyed my training hours in 2011 and 2012, but the surplus of happiness is what rebuilt my 2013 season and is what is continuing to build my 2014 season.

I'm not one to get depressed, but I can sure get unhappy! My crash in 2011 was one of my first semi-major crashes that left me off the bike for 2 months. Cycling was pretty much the only way I created joy and happiness, and as a result of not being able to do that, I had no other way to make myself as happy as I'd be if I were able to ride. In 2012, I was really happy to be with my family back home but after arriving back, I was somewhat in a confused state and I guess almost a depressed, but more unhappy, state because I realized that I missed out on a lot of family interaction and I never really had any growing up as the only family in the United States. My grandfather was also getting sick, and he passed away at the end of the year which further made me unhappy.

Getting It Back

In general, my motivation to work harder on the bike ironically came to my mind when I was in my grandfather's house a few days after his funeral. While I was still mourning his death, I knew that he was in a better place and that my family was starting a new chapter in our lives, almost like we have been renewed. This was right around New Year's Day 2013, and so I thought that it would be appropriate to renew myself as well, to transition into this new chapter in our lives.

Well what other way is there to renew myself than making myself stronger on the bike? Of course, this was fueled when I met up with my friend who said her boyfriend, aka Eric, was riding every day. I was definitely happy for him, but I thought about how behind I was and that bugged me a little when I realized we would be racing collegiate races this year.

When I came back home, I adjusted my training plan and grinded...sort of. But I knew that 2011 and 2012 were weak sauce seasons and I knew I had to do better than both of those years. I trained with hard workouts that were aimed at fixing my weaknesses, and I was getting tons of PR's a week. I knew that I was getting faster...faster than I was compared to 2011 and 2012, especially when I was finally able to break into the top 20, top 10, and top 5 spots in races...mainly criteriums.

Thus, I think that was the ultimately happiness-maker--which was to finally actually start training and to take it more serious. Improving my own work is what made me happy, and that was confirmed (of course) at the San Bruno Hill Climb with my new PR!

So if you ever find yourself unmotivated to train or get out there and ride, think about your happiness.  Don't forget that happiness begins with the self!

- DB

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” 
― Dalai Lama XIV