My cycling plans for the weekend were spoiled by a bad case of sinusitis. I’ve been bothered by this problem for a few months now and when I woke up on Saturday morning I couldn’t breathe at all. I decided to go to the doctor instead and got two rather painful shots which cleared it all up quite nicely. Problem is something went wrong with the medication and my resting heart rate was quite elevated for almost the remainder of the weekend. I did ask the doctor on Saturday morning whether it would be a problem if I went cycling while on medication and she said that it would be fine. But with a resting heart rate at 110 I wasn’t going to take any chances. So I did no cycling at all. I’ll have to do two 100’s next week :)

Olympics

I think this will be remembered as the Olympics of the non favorite athlete. At least that is how I will remember it.

Big names like Allen Johnson, The USA 4X100m relay team and Paul Tergat and Jan Ullrich all failed to win the events in which they we the favorites.

The final weekend was very exciting though, with an Italian winning the marathon and a very deserving Hicham El Guerrouj winning the 5000m to achieve a 1500m, 5000m double. My opinion still is that all this tactical running is a big gamble. If Bekele went out from the start and ran a 12’50 race like we know he can, he’d probably take a gold medal home. I think the same applies to Paul Tergat. The man could have run set a 2 hours 07 minutes pace and I’m sure no one would have gone with him. Instead both there great runners decided to gamble it on a tactical race and both lost.

I’ll be doing about 100km on the bicycle tomorrow. Hope it goes well. I’m all “carboloaded” and ready.

Exhilarating Athletics.

I can’t believe that Allen Johnson didn’t make it past the second round. That is crazy!!

I look forward to the 800m men’s final. South Africans can get more than one medal because we have two super 800m runners.

The 10000m men’s final was probably the most impressive race that I have ever seen. Bekele is indisputably one of the greatest 10k runners ever.

He showed a lot of class in that race as has become his custom.


Hicham El Guerrouj was such a worthy champ.
This man has been dominating the 1500m for so long and still appreciates the magnificence of winning an Olympic gold medal. I wish a few sprinters and swimmers can take a few notes from this great champion. I really look forward to seeing El Guerrouj and Bekele in the same 5000m final. I believe that this will be one of the most exhilarating 5000m finals ever. Glad I’m not a book maker for that race.

The Steeple chase was also quite impressive. Especially for us South Africans that have to put up with only seeing good athletics once in 4 years when the SABC feels like broadcasting something worthwhile, the Olympics.
Previous Olympics was covered but not quite as well at this Olympics and other than Olympics we normally don't get good athletics. They don't broadcast things like the Golden League.

Most Basic Principles of Training - Part 2

In part 1 I set out a complete training program for middle distance running. (Do Not Try at Home Without Consulting a Health Professional) and I end it all off with asking how cycling works. The answer is, "just like running". The middle distance training program is based in a few principles that are rather complex but basically the same for all endurance type sports, so I decided to apply these to cycling. Obviously I didn’t do all that since part 1, I started this process about 3 months ago. The results are as expected very pleasing. I have reached a much higher level of cycling within the first 3 months. Due to the fact that I’m really new to cycling I decided to cut out phase 4 and 5 and immediately start a second round of base training. By not going through phase 4 and 5 I will avoid a peak, but also avoid the fatigue associated with speed work and build a solid base from which I will be able to benefit much more once I actually get around to phase 4 and 5 in another 3 months from now.


I'm not publishing my cycling training program here for 2 reason.
1. It's really in my head and I'm managing it by really listening to my body
2. The distances I'm doing is rather small compared to what a seriuos cyclist would do because this is just my hobby and like I said I'm very new to cycling

Which event? So hard to choose

I did a simple little test and checked how many points I can score on the Hungarian points table for a few events, all without training. Now the amount of points that I got is not relevant to this discussion but the relationship between events.

I focused my entire running career (except for one year in which I couldn't train) on middle distance running. During the one year that I couldn't train I focused on 200m and 400m simply because I could still compete though at a much lower level than with middle distance running. I didn't want to take the year off and I didn't want to have a really bad year as middle distance runner so instead I just changed events all together and didn’t train at all but ran the races as plain fun runs.

Now the interesting thing is that when running on pure talent and no training I score about 8% more points on sprints than on middle distance events. One can draw a few conclusions. The 2 that makes most sense to me are these. Either I should have focused on sprints my entire life rather than middle distance or it takes a lot more effort to take whatever talent you have and turn it into some competitive ability. I know that middle distance runner train really hard but I also have quite a few friends that were sprinters and I know what one of their training sessions feel like. I think it’s the same amount of work. Hence I come to the conclusion that I should have rather focused on 200m and 400m events rather than 800m and 1500m events. Only problem with that is that I was always better at the 1500m than at the 800m. Could it have been my training program or was that a true indication of what my true abilities are?

Enough Fuel

I don’t like eating while I ride and find it hard to stock up on fuel during the ride. I have often suffered because of low blood sugar levels. I know what the problem is but finding a solution was hard. This weekend I tried a new product called Carbo Trainer made by FIT. It made such a big difference. For the first time I could cycle hard and attack big climbs after big climb. Please note though that big climbs in Gauteng isn’t the same as big climbs in Europe. But nonetheless I was able to enjoy the entire ride with energy to spare. Previously I always had to cycle conservatively for the first hour and a half to two hours to make sure that I will have something left for that last hour. Cycling has just become even more enjoyable.

Amazing performances from Tyler, Eki and van Moorsel!

They were simply great. Eki at 38!!
I hope van Moorsel will continue to get even more medals.

Most Basic Principles of Training

Most Basic Principles of Training. (In the world of middle distance running at least).

Most basic goal is to get use to the effort and secondly to exceed the comfortable effort in order to necessitate adaptation.

Ok. So that is the simple explanation of what an athlete does when he trains. But doing that isn’t so simple. There are as many approaches to doing this as there are athletes competing. Just about anyway.

The Approach I’m most fond off (but failed to take myself as a middle distance runner due to a severe lack of discipline) is in my very simple. It might lack some of the control that more modern methods can give you. But as a recreational sportsman that isn’t a problem. I don’t need to time my peak to an exact day.

Here it is
Your efforts are defined in 5 different categories
1. Base
2. Strength
3. Strength endurance
4. Speed endurance
5. Speed

Base
For a normal human middle distance runner you do 6 - 8 weeks of 80 - 100km a week at about 60 - 70 % of your max heart rate.

Strength
Then next 4 - 6 weeks is strength focused but also a continuation of your base training
Monday is Strength day with LONG hills
Tuesday is just a long run like in the base period
Wednesday is a medium long run on a hilly course. Each hill is attacked!!
Thursday - Sunday is more base training

Strength Endurance
Keep the basic format of the previous section but move Wednesday to Thursday for the next 4 weeks. On Wednesday go to the track and do Long track session.
Things like
6*600m with 1’30 rest between each 600m
4*1000m with 3minutes rest between each 1000m
The basic idea is to adapt to running longinsh distances at a high pace. With the base you have at this point you’d be able to do at least half of the session with really feeling pushed. The last 2 or 3 600m’s might be rather uncomfortable.

Speed Endurance
Basic format of the previous weeks move Monday to Tuesday for the next 4 weeks.
On Monday to Long track sessions as in the previous sections Wednesday. Go shorter towards on the last 2 weeks. Something like 10*400m with 1 minute between each 400m.
On Wednesdays start of with something like the 10*400m on the first 2 weeks and 12*300m on the 3rd week and 16*200m on the last week.

Speed
Week 1
Monday - 8*300m 3 minutes between each HARD
Tuesday - 8*150m Hills walk down HARD
Wednesday - EASY SHORT RUN (3km - 4km)
Thursday - 10*200m 3 minutes rest HARD
Friday - EASY SHORT RUN (3km - 4km)
Saturday - RACE
Sunday - Long EASY RUN 50min - 90min

Week 2
Monday - 4*300m 5 minutes between each HARD
Tuesday - 8*100m Hills walk down HARD
Wednesday - EASY SHORT RUN (3km - 4km)
Thursday - 6*150m 5 minutes rest HARD
Friday - EASY SHORT RUN (3km - 4km)
Saturday - RACE - You should now be in shape

Now the only question is how cycling works?

Olympics - Cycling didn't go my way but the swimming sure did

Ok. So where on earth was Jan Ullrich, Tyler Hamilton, George Hincapie and Micheal Boogerd? Don't know. At least Micheal had an excuse! (Damn shame about the ducth cyclist crashing all over the show) But I think Paolo Bettini showed once again this year that the one day events belongs to him. Specially when they are harder than average!

So South Africa's mens 4x100m freestyle swimming relay team sure showed the world that they were the best. And the Dutch did so well to beat the USA. Where was Australia? I sure didn't see them. ;)

I sure hope that Jan Ullrich will kick ass in the TT. He has had a hard season with way to many people talking about him and his winter form. I don't think he is in such bad shape. I mean he still beat all but 3 guys in the TdF. Show them Jan!!! I know that he will be the one to beat.

Olympics

I really hope that Jan Ullrich will kick but again. I believe he can. George Hincapie also. My outside hopeful is Micheal Boogerd. Again!!
We'll see.

Cycle race

I wanted to race on monday but I have this really bad cold. Will see about racing. Maybe I should race and get my longs nice and open.

Cycling media - what a hoax

The cycling media is such a hoax. Call themselves journalists. They should be calling themselves liars. Anything that pops into their little brains gets published as facts. No regard for truth or a persons reputation. It's a shame. I think just like cycling has had to go through a period of cleaning itself up, cycling journalism also needs to go through a period of cleaning itself up. The sport deserves better than a bunch of half wit witch hunters that publish anythig that any old fame deprived wannabe thinks up. They should also ask themselves how much better they would have been able to cycle if they spend 4 - 5 hours a day cycling. Maybe the performances of cyclist on the pro tour would be more believeble to them if they worked that hard at something for once and saw the results. Imagine they spend that much time researching the "leads" that they got. Their work would also have been much better.