It's not about the Lance...

photo ©anton corbijn

It's not about the bike, it's about...
Just finished reading the Lance Armstrong book "It's not about the bike". Despite the fact that this guy seemed to have some minor me-me-me (and my mom) complex, he is indeed an interesting character worth reading about, a one track I can learn from. Let’s face it, it’s always the psycho cases that make history for a reason: they bite into life and don’t waste a second of their precious time while the rest of us sit there, mouth half open, wondering what’s OUR flippin’ “mission” or what should we do to rid ourselves of our overwhelming boredom for another hour.

I mean yes he has a serious case of the “only child” syndrome and the fact that his mom still changes his diaper might not help but the guy felt like he had a mission and that I can respect. Sometimes, the quantifiable success (by society’s standards) of people like that seem to distract me, make me down even about my own (however hazy) “mission”. But I comfort myself thinking that perhaps they too loose tract of their “mission” sometimes. We just don’t know it.

It's about the facts.
That being said, I was amazed by the stats and the facts of his training regimen. The major analness about everything, which helps carving in my thick skull that you can’t get in shape by not training! You have to sacrifice. You have to want to the point of mental derangement. You have to have a goal that is feasible but puts some stuff on the line, so that you can’t just give up!

Heart Rate Monitoring, peaking, learning.
Other things that opened new doors for me were, again, some other specific points about training. Mainly, the heart rate monitoring thing -which tells you how much of a newby I am. And I must say that the stars lined up for me too, as my Boyfriend gave me a HR monitor for xmas. I had a lill discussion about how to use it with my bro as well…now I am just starting to understand why I flippin buncked so bad at a (swimming) time trial in December. I mean it seems obvious that you can measure these things and know your treshhold, but I didn’t know how. Now I am a tiny bit smarter.



There was also another thing I need to learn about: Peaking. I know I want to peak in June, for the Squamish Oly tri, but how? And will I be in shape enough with my knees and constant sinus infections?

I can’t wait to talk to trainer Val Burke about all that!