Restarting the winter training program

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about starting my winter training program after a couple of prior efforts never really gained any traction. Well, I guess old habits die hard and last week my latest plan came to a stuttering halt after such a good start. It's true it was only one week and I could easily get back on track, and while that's exactly what I intend to do today, I've decided to restart the actual program, and make it a ten week effort to my first race of the year.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the whole point of this is to lose about 20lbs of weight while increasing my general fitness so that when I do come to race again I can get a little enjoyment out of it and not suffer exclusively as I might otherwise if I sat around doing nothing.

That first week I was in the gym five times and was on a roll, but last week thanks to a dental appointment, a meeting with a life insurance broker, and a trip out of town for the weekend I got to the gym but once. Granted while out of town I had a full day worth of pond hockey, but I also broke several of my rules about no refined sugars and better sleeping hours. As a result I put on a a couple of pounds rather than shedding a few more and while I knew I'd still have some of the fitness I gained in the week before, I knew I'd be better off starting from scratch.

Why do other sports fans and the media have a general indifference to performance enhancing drug stories?

Earlier this week a story broke about several big name baseball stars whose names appeared on the client list of an anti-ageing clinic as recipients of performance enhancing drugs. It included Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, and the Blue Jays own Melky Cabrera.

That is the same Melky Cabrera, I might add, who tested positive for testosterone just last season as a member of the San Francisco Giants and who served a fifty game suspension, before this winter signing on with the Jays as a result of his inflated stats by the way of drug use. I said at the time what a bad idea it was to touch this guy, but the Jays went for it anyway and to their delight the media have given it little attention from a drug related angle.

This weeks story has the potential to be huge news, though there's also a chance it could fall off the sports pages pretty quickly. What I mean by that is that it's hard to tell how it will go over because this isn't cycling, it isn't the cycling media reporting it, and it's not cycling fans demanding the truth.

It may sound strange, but for me the credibility of cycling is intact because it ISN'T being protected like other sports

I read this today regarding the trail of Spanish doping doctor Dr Eufemiano Fuentes and it says it all really about where we are at with cycling continuing to be held to a higher standard:

The trial is due to last several months and it will pore over one of the most widespread doping programmes in the history of sport. Or, at least, it will pore over one element of that doping programme. The cycling element. There were supposedly 200 names on the Fuentes client list and there were footballers and tennis players among them. Some players from some of Spain’s biggest clubs, it has been said. And yet they have been given a pardon by the Spanish government. Despite Fuentes having freely admitted that he treated footballers and tennis players as well as cyclists, it is only the bike riders – just over 50 of them – who will come under scrutiny.

By Tom English, Scotsman.com, Sunday, January 27, 2012

It's an absolute joke that the Spanish government can let these other sports away with it, but make no mistake, that in regards to football it is because of the names involved and the scale of the fallout if they were to be made public. The money that could be lost and the scandal that would come out. The Spanish Government don't need that when their football teams, both club and country -- are riding high. Heck, Uefa and Fifa could do without another scandal when they've already got racism issues a plenty and internal corruption to keep them in the news for the wrong reasons.

Wiggins certainly isn't the next Armstrong

In all this talk of 'is Wiggins really clean' with some out there pinning him up as their replacement for Lance Armstrong, what with the idea of having to simply enjoy bike racing again now that Armstrong has fallen seemingly far too much to handle, I decided to have a look into the whole thing and see if it had any basis.

People are rattling on about Wiggins's sudden emergence as a contender in the past few years and comparing it to how Armstrong came from nowhere as a Tour de France rider pre-cancer to being a seven time winner afterwards. There is a distinct difference however.

Wiggins was a 4km pursuit specialist on the track. Yes, he had an enormous engine and an even bigger talent for any aspect of the bike but until he applied himself to the road he was only ever going to be so good at it. Say what you will about cyclists being good across multiple platforms, it rarely exists. Wiggins struggled at the Tour in his early days but the track was still his number one target then. It was only once he left that behind and focued on the longer distance endurance races, that he began to emerge into what we see today. Armstrong on the other hand was always a road racer.

Proof that cycling is held to a higher standard

"Fuentes said it himself, 30 per cent of his clients were cyclists. Where’s the other 70 per cent?"

-- Pat McQuaid, UCI President, 2009

I've been defending cycling a lot lately.

That might seem surprising given what has been in the news, that I have a leg left to stand on, but I feel I have little choice as a cycling fan when the wider media use cycling public problems with drugs as a stick to beat it with. And that's also only the case if you believe that cycling is unique to the drug problem just because it is the one in the public spotlight. It's not.

In The Telegraph this past Monday there was a story about how the Operation Puerto investigation from way back in 2006 into the workings of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes was finally going to trial with the good doctor charged with public health offences and that "despite Fuentes himself admitting to working with professional footballers and tennis players as well as cyclists, the Spanish authorities have ruled that the case will only cover his involvement in cycling."

Fuentes has admitted working with football teams in Spain’s first and second divisions as well as tennis and handball players. Spanish police are believed to have unearthed evidence in his vast database revealing names of Fuentes’s clients but these have never been made public.

-- Nick Holt, The Telegraph, January 21, 2013

I find it a disgrace that these other sports are getting off the hook. Operation Puerto is only investigating Fuentes for his doping procedures relating to cyclists, but no other sport because the Spanish authorities do not want the house of cards falling in on their nations football and tennis achievements. The authorities would rather not rock those financially rewarding apple carts.

Looking at the forecast, perhaps I should have gone out on Saturday

I woke up on Saturday morning with good intentions of going for a ride, but when I went to my window and see the flag across the street that I use for my marker as to the direction and strength of the wind pointing straight out eastwards and straining against the pole, threatening to tare away and fly free, I decided against it. It was only two degrees outside and I felt too uninspired.

A wimp you might say, thought I think in mid-January you're allowed to be a wimp sometimes. I went out for a walk to pick up a paper and go have a hot cup of tea in Starbucks only to feel that wind against my face as I was walking and be glad that I wasn't cycling into it. It may have been two degrees and climbing but the wind chill made it feel quite a bit colder.

Perhaps I should have bundled up though because I looked at the week long forecast yesterday and was disappointed at what I seen. Alright, so I shouldn't be surprised, if anything it was surprising that the temperatures came above freezing at this time of year, but I was hoping that perhaps the long-range forecast for next weekend might allow me to make amends.

My winter training and weight loss program 2013

When my cycling season ended last year I had all these good ambitions about taking just one month off then resuming a healthy diet and exercising enough to keep myself ticking over ahead of the new year when I would only need to top up my fitness to where it ought to be before pushing on. But what is it they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?

It never happened. I visited the gym a few times in mid-November, got out on the bike once or twice and I got a few spins in when I was back in Northern Ireland over Christmas, but more often than not I didn't do much and ate plenty. I guess you have to indulge sometimes, but better to indulge when you're still training than when you're sitting in front of the television.

Anyway, I came out of last years cycling season weighing about 198 pounds. I had gone as low as 192 in mid-July, but never maintained that. This year, I aim to go further in an attempt to enjoy the mountain bike season even more so I don't suffer quite as much as I might otherwise if I spent the winter doing what I'd prefer to be spending the winter doing: Nothing.