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July 25, 2005
Septet
Lance Armstrong won his 7th consecutive Tour de France four minutes and 40 seconds ahead of his main competitor Ivan Basso of Italy. For those of you who haven't been impassioned by this year's tour and Lance's attempt at his 7th and last win, Lance rode 3608 Kilometers over a period of 19 days in 86 hours, 15 minutes and 02 seconds.
Today I rode approximately 3 miles in 35 minutes as part of my training for the Danskin in September. Hey, it was hilly and full of traffic signals. Even so, I have a real appreciation for Lance's accomplishments.
Like Team Danskin, Lance's training relies on Heart Rate Zone training. It's pretty interesting stuff. Basically you burn more percentage of body fat in the lower, less intense zones, while the higher, more intense zones phase out the fat burning and increase carb burning. Don't for a minute think you can work less and still lose weight though. When this process was being explained to me, I tried to find that shortcut where I could workout consistently at easy Zone 1 and burn 100% of fat calories. Woo hoo! Size 4 here I come! The kicker is you burn more calories in total in the higher zones so 80% of total calories burned in Zones 2 and 3 are more than 100% of calories burned in Zone 1. Ah me. So it's off to train I go....
Some good news about this whole zoning thing. There is that point in Zones 3 and 4; a sort of threshold where the majority percentage of calories burned are carbohydrate calories and the lessor percentage is fat calories. As you continue a workout regimen and continue to hit this threshold, you begin to push this threshold higher and higher. So that I may actually hit my threshold in Zone 2 in this early stage of training but may extend my threshold to Zone 3 in the next few months. It's fascinating stuff I tell you. Lance Armstrong, at least according to my trainer at Team Danskin, has pushed his threshold so far into Zone 4 that virtually all of his exertion is dedicated towards fat-burning. Hmm. How lucky for Lance.
As for me, I will do my best to finish my first Triathlon...a bonus would be coming in at under 2 hours though I feel this will be tricky for a first timer who is woefully out of shape. It would be really great to meet this goal as it means I'll have achieved what my sister who also had this under 2hour goal could not in this year's Austin Danskin.
This is Lance's final Tour. He announced well before the race that he would retire after this year's Tour de France regardless of the outcome. It's great that he can retire a winner. He's won more Tours than any other rider in the history of the race. (There are a few men who've won 5 but that's it.)Although I and other fans worldwide are left to wonder from time to time if he doesn't have an 8th win in him. Either way, I applaud his efforts and his strength of will to know when it's time to move on. Congratulations, Lance!
And if you ever find yourself in Weehawken, how about a stroll around the Boulevard?
Posted by mermu at July 25, 2005 01:55 PM
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