DAY 40: Elite Training Team / THE SPARTATHLON, a 246km ULTRA Marathon

The Spartathlon. To be greeted by the Leonidas statue at the finish line. 246km, Athens to Sparta. Plausible challenge?

Before I start writing about day 40,  I just got back from a very nice jog with Ol' Karlz (sweatshirt and NO Nike+ tracking my every move) and noticed this message about yesterday's post on Motivation which really made my day and showed me how branched out and general these posts can be! I'm keeping it anonymous but it's from a designer friend of mine – that clearly has nothing to do with the whole 300 hype, the last person I'd expect to send me a message about the blog:

"ok every once in a while a post comes up on my facebook page about your halloween sparta bonanza thing and usually I just laugh a little and keep scrolling (no offense, I think it's really cool what you're doing but I just don't usually have time to read this kind of stuff)

ANYWAY, for some reason I checked out your post about motivation today and it was really, well, motivating. I often go through the same back-and-forth, over-thinking, over-stressing process with my design work and every time I figure out how to solve it (basically just calm down and do it), I forget what the solution was 10 minutes later and the cycle starts over.

So, I just wanted to say thanks. I'm going to remember the seven dwarves next time.

Hope all is well- good luck with your challenge. I'm sure your persistence will get you there :)

Take care!"

hihi! :)

OK! DAY 40!  
Day 40 is characterized by one Major thing: we are now 4 in training! :D Milos (who still wants to keep anonymous and doesn't want his picture included in the blog), Jean Tawilé (can hold his breath for 4minutes), Peter Ouinjian (Systema martial artist and Rugby player) and me. Not really an "army" more like an "Elite Team", maybe getting there, but exactly what I need to turn a very intense training session into pure training mayhem. It was P90x Back/Biceps yesterday. I had finally cracked open the new plates I bought. 5kgs times 8, that's 40 extra kgs for heavier weights and lower reps and massive muscle gains! With an intense workout like P90x, that kind of weight would be perfect to kick in metabolism into high gear, gain muscle with burning fat. However, in my opinion, the pump you get out of this training would never amount to 20minutes of intense weight training. P90x has nothing to do with bodybuilding. It would definitely get you fit, work on your stamina, your overall shape; it would tone your muscles, even pump them up and maybe give them a nice shape, but bodybuilding as the name implies works on developing your muscle mass and actually mostly works on aesthetics. Bodybuilding might give strength and endurance but believe it or not, that's a secondary advantage you get out of it. If you want to increase strength, you "weight lift" NOT "body build". A good combination is to blend – or alternate – different types of training as you go. Personally I would try alternating Bodybuilding AND P90x; but also include interval running or sprinting, marathon running, swimming, Yoga, Pilates even Gymnastics from time to time to add extra variation to my workout and overall development, but also have FUN! I'm thinking about how all of this would help my endurance and performance in snowboarding this winter for instance... Not that I'm going to take tremendous amounts of risk like before – to be honest I'm sick and tired of breaking bones – but I'm really looking forward to the winter sessions. Plyometrics is the best training I've seen so far for better endurance. It's so clear out of all the exercises that so many focus on pushing your resistance for skiing and snowboarding (Horton's a skier). I'll make sure to repeat that training more than the usual come December.

Also, one thing is for sure: even if I don't drop down to 84kgs by Halloween because of the extra effort I'm putting now in buffing up apart from losing fat, my goal still remains to get there. I still can't imagine how liberating it would be to carry the bare minimum and stay strong. For people who keep on asking me what's the next step after the Spartan project, here it is: I'm dropping down to 84kgs probably by focusing mostly on P90x and cardio, and then I'll start integrating some weight lifting to shake things up a bit, but this time I would definitely PACE MYSELF! So I intend to go back to page one and use the Nike+ to trace my running progress as not to fuck up my leg muscles and ligaments, train a bit less and take my time. Tony Robbins talks about the principle of CANI – what the Japs call Kaizen – which is "constant and never-ending improvement" at an incremental page, to keep pushing oneself bit by bit to get to a Huge goal.

SPARTATHLON: Athens to Sparta

Samer Mansour and I were talking about running the SPARTALATHON (Spartan Marathon from Athens to Sparta) next year. I don't know if it's possible to achieve in a year but I would be interesting to try. Especially that it fits the whole theme of 300. But I might finally be sick and tired of Sparta by then, we never know ;) Yeah... BY THE WAY, the Spartalathon is 246 kilometers... ummm ...  I didn't know that... Maybe I should start with the Beirut Marathon first?! It's gonna take more than a year's preparation to pull the sparta one off. It says here that it take a maximum of 36 hours to complete (that is if you're a complete fatso), but we could rest in between in different cities. That seems really exciting if I'm in shape to do it. I still have other things to do in life so don't count on me just starting another blog about it! :P
In all cases, if anyone would be interested in doing this, would you drop me a line? I'd like to know your thoughts on it. I know "it's crazy" but I just wanna hear other opinions about it.
It is said that the "city turns out in force to welcome the athletes as heroes in front of the statue of King Leonidas. All finishers are presented with an olive wreath and offered a goblet of water from the Evrotas River, much as Olympian winners would have been honoured in ancient times". Extra incentive for me to re-consider! Whatever happened to just walking up to Faraya?! ;)

No carbs, great recovery; all I need to shed the Fat.

On a nutritional note: going to check out Ricardo at 11 (skipped him on friday cause I kept on sleeping out of exhaustion). I had noticed that my abs were starting to get hidden by a fat layer so I already dropped my carbs by a 100-125g by substituting the Cell-tech, more for big gains but with fat gain (70g of carbs including a hefty amount of sugar Dextrose) with the BSN Creatine shake called Cell Mass; and lowering my True Mass shake intake substituting it by more Procomplex (no carbs). I stoppped consuming a whole "BOX" of digestive and lowered it to 5 biscuits – turns out if you wait a bit, you just get full! I hope I dropped some weight/fat. I'll let you know tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Training twice today: Chest/triceps on the AM and Shoulders at night.


HAOUUUU!!