Training - Want And Will

So, in August, I ended yet another season of riding and racing. A bit prematurely, perhaps, but it was what it was. And, just like every year, I started thinking about how the season went, how I rode, and what I'd want to change for next season.

Actually, to be more precise, I thought about what I would be willing to do to change things for next season.

See, there's usually a huge disconnect (sorry, that's from my semi-corporate days... maybe I should say "chasm") between what I wanted to do and what I'd actually do.

For example, I always lament about my (over) weight. I kept trying to lose weight by burning more calories (training), but I never succeeded.

Why?

Because I never knew how many calories I consumed, even for a single meal.

So, now that I've kind of separated the two concepts for next year ("want and will"), I can redefine what I want (and can do) to do for next year.

Yesterday I talked about the HED wheels, a slew of wheels I think will really make an impact on "regular" Cat 3-5 racing. I also mentioned that I want a set of their wheels. Three sets, really, and more like five or so if I could have it my way. I figure that these wheels will help me, however slightly, in attaining my wants for next year.

However, I can't buy them, not now.

I know what I want to do next year. It's basically what I did this year, but better. Crits for sure, with focus on the sprints, the ability to bridge sub-20 second gaps quickly, and getting some better finishes. I have two goals there, one is Bethel (of course) and the other is the Nutmeg State Games (of course).

Track racing too, "peaking" for 2 events (one series and one weekend, both at the end of the year) but with an aim to race consistently in all track events. The efforts on the track are different from crits, with very little held back. My pedal stroke becomes much more important, and it seemed totally flawed this year.

Fitness-wise I'm probably 25 pounds overweight, can't climb anything longer than a couple hundred yards, and I have a cliff shaped power profile (in other words it drops off really fast).

That stuff is kinda same old, same old. Nothing new there, nothing unexpected.

I do have something new for 2010. I want to brush up on my emergency handling skills, like touching wheels and such. I feel comfortable in the pack, but I haven't explored sketchy condition limits for a long, long time (rain, oil-covered roads, panic braking on descents, etc).

Those above are my goals.

What can I do (and what will I be willing to do) to get there?

In the past I've worked on my fitness, with some success. I know what I need to do. I'm okay with that. For me, gaining minimal fitness is minimal work. It's when I ask more of myself that I falter.

For example, I've always wanted to lose weight, but I've never made it work. A long time ago a friend, a younger-than-me ex-pro, offered me some training advice. As I was overweight then (surprise), he recommended that I lose the weight first, then work on fitness.

I pshawed his advice. I mean, come on, he's just a kid, and he can train all day, every day. Who's he to tell me to lose weight first? Seriously...

Well, I never lost that weight. And no matter how hard I trained, I only dropped a bit.

And I remained overweight for years and years and years and years.

As I mentioned at the beginning, my season ended in August, a bit prematurely. Usually I raced through then, and would keep riding into the fall. But since I couldn't ride, I had to take time off.

That gave me time to think, to mentally let go of the 2009 season, and to look forward to whatever 2010 could bring me.

I decided that I'd try and do everything, at least "more", for my goals above.

Key to everything, I realized, was weight. If I lose a bunch of weight, it would make things much easier for me to hit the other goals. Keep the weight on and it would be the same story as this year - sorta kinda there but not quite.

And that means... yep, I went on a diet.

Me, on a scientific anything, is cause for worry.

Given that I usually have two breakfasts (early and "second breakfast", as the hobbits would say), with the second one being a caloric ton.

Usually that second would be a bacon, egg, cheese sandwich on a bagel, or BECS as we called it at the shop, with the sausage, egg, and cheese called SECS of course.

I had to have my coffee with it, with the prerequisite half inch of sugar and a good quarter cup of half and half.

Other meals were no better. Foot long grinders, dripping with cheese, half of a chicken or a rack of ribs or some other crazy amount of food. I'd regularly polish off a pound of pasta by myself for dinner, so, well, this whole calorie counting thing seemed a bit unrealistic.

Of course I never really seriously tried doing it before, but now, with 2 months of forced rest and relaxation, I figured I would give it a shot.

The biggest obstacle for me was keeping track of all the numbers. Too many numbers, too many ways of recording it.

Notebooks just wouldn't cut it.

However, in this day and age of the internet, I learned I could count calories anywhere I had an internet connection, or, if I didn't, I could look up a food and put it into an online food journal.

I started counting calories on my-calorie-counter.com, meticulously (just ask the missus) entering everything I ate in my "chart". The site has a bunch of "pre-loaded" foods (probably sponsors), but it allows you to add your own foods. So, for example, when I got some hummus that didn't show up in the my-calorie-counter database, I could add the data quickly and easily.

(Tip: it helps to have the product label in front of you when you do this.)

Anyway, for my 5'7" height, and my starting weight of 181 pounds (82 kg), I got some recommendation to limit my caloric intake to about 1800 per day.

1800?!

My second breakfast typically hits 600 on its own. My favorite stand-by midday snack was a 960 calorie bag of peanuts.

1800 for a whole day? That was a rude awakening.

However, using some of the missus's advice, along with some careful reading of food labels got me off to a good start. This quest for lower calories has dug into my blogging and my bike forums time, since I now count calories instead of typing words.

Counting calories has also changed my view of Stop & Shop, the local supermarket. I always liked the store, seeing as it's owned by a Dutch company, the one that is Albert Heijn in Holland. When we lived there (I was a kid), we went to Albert Heijn. AH was kind of like a security blanket for me, a reassuring sign in a mainly foreign country whenever I saw one.

Anyway, when I walked around with my calorie eyes open, so to speak, the friendly supermarket turned into an Evil Empire. Everywhere I looked, calories upon calories. Food seemed unnecessarily laden with calories and fat.

I managed to find some gems along the shelves. For example, I found Kim's Bagels, a lower calorie, lower fat bagel. Combined with Egg Beaters, Jennie-O turkey bacon, and no cheese (I can live without cheese I think), my second breakfast dropped from 539 calories to 180. I'd have to get some less sweet coffee, a little less fat free half and half, and I'd be nudging 200 for a nice, satisfying snack.

With findings like that here and there, I managed to trim down my probable pre-diet 3000-4000+ calorie days by about 1000-2000 calories. This means I've been averaging about 1700 calories a day.

Of course not every day went well. Two poorly planned days resulted in a 2242 day as well as a 2046 day. Both of these days resulted from me not having a second breakfast planned and prepared, followed by me succumbing to the temptation of a full on BECS, 100% of the real stuff.

Overall, though, things are going well. I'm normally at 1000 calories when I leave work, leaving a reasonably large 800 calories for the evening (dinner and perhaps a late stomach capper). On the trainer I've avoided sugared drinks, sticking with zero calorie Powerade and the like.

If I end up unreasonably low, like yesterday's 1280 or so after dinner, I try and pig out (relatively speaking), focusing on foods with little fat. If I'm riding on one of those days I'll drink some sugary Gatorade (I have a couple jars of the mix that I bought in my pre-calorie-aware days).

Today I've wrapped up my daily eating, and I'm sitting satisfied at 1710 calories, 30 grams of fat, and my body is just starting to shut down, i.e. get tired and cold.

Not bad, right?

So far, in two weeks, I'm down 7 pounds to about 174. Not that much, true, but it's a start. I figure I'll go for another 9 weeks, hopefully ditching a couple pounds a week, until the end of the year. If I can do that I'll be at 156, give or take a pound.

That, my friends, is a weight I last saw in 1999.

I hope it's possible. I just have to run a 7000 calorie deficit each week, and compared to the approximately 49,000 deficit from just the last couple weeks, 7000 ought to be manageable. I know my metabolism will adjust itself - my body is geared to survive, not to burn itself into oblivion. But by riding and exercising consistently, I hope to keep my metabolism closer to active than hibernation, with the ultimate goal, always in mind, of losing a lot of dead weight.

At the end of 2009 I'll see see where I end up.

Then it'll be time to start training.

Because all this effort has a short term goal:

Racing domination at Bethel in 2010.

Be forewarned.