We approached this visit with some trepidation, having read about Argentina’s hyperinflation and concerns about safety. However, with careful research and by sticking to the recommended neighbourhoods. We remained cautious, keeping our belongings close and avoiding overly crowded areas.

Our first challenge was getting an Uber. The first driver refused to take us because he wanted cash under the table, a common issue in Argentina due to the preference for cash transactions. Our second driver was much more accommodating and even pointed out landmarks as we drove past.

Exploring Recoleta

Our exploration took us through several distinct neighbourhoods, beginning with Recoleta. We passed by the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar, a church built in 1732 that stands as the second oldest in Buenos Aires.

Next to the church, La Recoleta Cemetery ranks among the most famous burial grounds in the world. This city of the dead contains over 4600 vaults, many decorated with elaborate statues and intricate marble carvings. Perhaps its most famous resident is Eva Perón, the former First Lady of Argentina who was a powerful political figure and advocate for women’s suffrage and labour rights. Known affectionately as “Evita,” she became a cultural icon whose life inspired books, films, and a famous musical. Despite her enormous popularity among working-class Argentinians, her tomb remains relatively modest compared to the grandiose mausoleums surrounding it.

In the nearby Recoleta Garden, we came across an interesting sight – a massive tree growing on a concrete platform.

Continuing our walk, we came upon the Floralis Genérica, a massive stainless steel flower sculpture. Created by Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano and installed in 2002, this mechanical flower actually opens its petals each morning and closes them at sunset, mimicking the behaviour of a real flower symbolizing hope and rebirth.

We passed through a series of public parks where we saw people weightlifting in open spaces. It was interesting to see that people felt safe enough to bring heavy equipment like barbells and weights to exercise outdoors. This outdoor fitness culture suggested we were indeed in a safer area of the city.

Nearer to our hotel, we visited El Ateneo Grand Splendid, a former theatre that has been converted into one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. Originally opened in 1919 as a theatre, the venue still retains its ornate ceiling frescoes, balconies, and stage. The theatre boxes now serve as intimate reading nooks, while the former stage houses a café.

Our walk in Recoleta offered a nice introduction to Buenos Aires, showcasing the neighbourhood’s blend of historical significance, architectural beauty, and modern urban life. Despite our initial safety concerns, we found Recoleta to be not only secure but genuinely welcoming, allowing us to relax and fully appreciate its considerable charms.

A Steakhouse Experience at La Cabrera

For our first dinner in Buenos Aires, we visited the renowned La Cabrera steakhouse. With our reservation at 20:30 – considered “early” by local standards – we were introduced to the Argentine custom of late dining. The steak arrived with a charred exterior and a tender, juicy centre. It arrived with a selection of dipping sauces, which are a staple in Argentinian cuisine. These included chimichurri (a tangy mix of parsley, garlic, vinegar, and oil), and mustard-based sauces.

One downside of the dining experience was the unexpected charges. Servers would present items as complimentary, but they’d end up on the bill after. We could have made a fuss, but we decided to let it go – it’s always harder in a foreign country with a language we don’t speak and without knowing the local customs. Despite this, the meal was still reasonably priced, especially considering the exchange rate.

Roux from the Michelin Guide

For lunch, we ate at Roux, a Michelin Guide-recommended restaurant (different from Michelin Star – the star would have reflected an even greater quality). The meal began with a “complimentary” foie gras, gazpacho, and deep-fried cod croquettes. Remembering our experience at La Cabrera, we were wary of additional charges, but this time we actually wanted these.

The adventurous highlight of our meal was llama carpaccio from the Jujuy Province with a cherry tomato vinaigrette, capers and caperberries from “La Chacrita”. Llama meat has a mild, slightly gamey flavour.

We also tried Jugoso Bife Black Angus Azul Natural Beef, served with potato, roasted red peppers, truffle air, and its own juices. The beef was rich and tender, with the truffle adding depth to the dish. While Roux delivered a refined dining experience with well-executed dishes and thoughtful presentation, we found that the flavors, while excellent, didn’t quite surpass the bold, hearty appeal of La Cabrera.

Dessert was flan-like cake with vanilla ice cream and dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a staple in Argentina, found in everything from pastries to ice cream. It is a caramel-like confection made by slowly heating sweetened milk, which we noticed featured prominently throughout Buenos Aires.

An interesting thing to mention here is that even for an upscale restaurant here, the staff still did not speak much English. I did my best with the handful of Spanish words that I knew to get by. I would have thought that these establishments would have decent English, but they didn’t.

Landmarks in El Centro

Later, we walked around El Centro, which felt noticeably less safe than Recoleta with larger crowds and “shady” individuals sleeping/walking about. Nevertheless, we visited Teatro Colón, Argentina’s premier opera house. Opened in 1908, it is regarded as one of the best concert venues in the world due to its exceptional acoustics and grand architecture.

We also saw the Obelisk of Buenos Aires, a 67-metre-tall monument commemorating the 400th anniversary of the city’s founding. Located in the middle of a major intersection, it serves as one of Buenos Aires’ most recognizable landmarks.

Our walk to Mall Pacifico was uncomfortable, as we were repeatedly approached by money changers shouting “cambio.” Our fatigue set in at a good time when we had to go to the airport, for our final journey home.

The Final End of a Long Journey

Our Buenos Aires visit concluded what had been a remarkable expedition to Antarctica. The journey there involved two days of flying to Buenos Aires, one day of flying to Ushuaia, and two days crossing the Drake Passage. We’ve already done the three days coming back to Buenos Aires, and now we’ll do another two days on the plane back home.

For best results, training should be considered a full time job. One’s entire lifestyle must be directed towards this objective. This lifestyle will also require following the correct training program religiously over time.

All athletes are limited more by their minds more than their bodies

One needs to develop a winning attitude. One needs to combine physical fitness with mental fitness.

This chapter touches on a few mental opportunities for success:

• Motivation – Competitive cycling demands an inner drive to excel. Everything in your life must be focused on the goal
• Dreams, goals, and missions – high performance starts with a dream. This turns into a goal, and ultimately the mission. Are you willing to make any sacrifice, ride any number of miles, or do any workouts deemed beneficial to achieving the goal?
• Believe to achieve – there are bound to be setbacks. One needs to remain confident, patient and mentally tough to power through. Relive each day’s wins, big or small to boost self-confidence
• Mental toughness – when we’re at our limits, fatigue sets in, and the mind tries to make compromises. A fully committed rider gets through it
• Patience – success won’t come quickly. We can introduce incremental change, like: sleeping 30 minutes earlier each day, cutting out 10% of junk food from our diets, etc.
• Commitment and tenacity – there are moments where fatigue says to stop, but the fully commited and tenacious rider finds a way to keep going
• Consistency and routines – the mind and body like regular and standard schedules. Things like jobs, families, and other responsibilities may interfere
• Your high-performance team – surrounding each champion is a network of family, friends, teammates, coaches, etc.

This topic can get rather deep, so there is value in reading other books on the subject and speaking with other successful professionals from all walks of life.

By improving one’s mental approach to cycling, their training and racing will benefit greatly too.

Next: Chapter 2 – Physical performance
Chapter list: Chapter summaries

The book attempts to answer questions such as:

• How should I schedule my workouts?
• How is it best to train during the weeks of my most important races?
• How many miles do I need before starting speed work?
• Is it okay to ride on the same day that I lift?
• How long should my recovery rides be?
• What can I do to climb better?

Different experts would each have their different answers to these questions, because there is more than one way to solve each training problem. This book aims to present ideas and concepts such that why the answers are the way they are. I’ll attempt to summarize my learnings chapter by chapter. Each link will be updated as each summary becomes available.

• Part I – Mind and body
  • Chapter 1 – Mental performance
  • Chapter 2 – Physical performance
• Part II – Training fundamentals
  • Chapter 3 – Basic training concepts
  • Chapter 4 – Training intensity
• Part III – Purposeful training
  • Chapter 5 – Getting started
  • Chapter 6 – Preparing to race
• Part IV – Planning your season
  • Chapter 7 – Planning overview
  • Chapter 8 – Planning a week
  • Chapter 9 – Planning alternatives
• Part V – Stress and recovery
  • Chapter 10 – Training stress
  • Chapter 11 – Fatigue, recovery, and adaptation
• Part VI – The competitive edge
  • Chapter 12 – Muscular force training
  • Chapter 13 – Tapering to race
  • Chapter 14 – The training diary

I won’t try to quantify exactly how much sleep one needs since it differs for each person, but rather explain some of the factors and what people can do in order to optimize their sleeping pattern.

The REM Cycle

During sleep, the body goes through stages of light and deep sleep.  Generally speaking, these types are known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep , and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.  The NREM type consists of three different stages, or cycles of sleep known as N1, N2, and N3.  The names of each type are not really important in the context of this article, but the body moves between these stages during sleep and each stage serves a different function.

On average, each sleep cycle last 90 to 110 minutes.  When one wakes up in between a sleep cycle, they will feel tired when they wake up.  A lot of times, the sleep cycle gets interrupted when the alarm clock rings in the morning.  But when one wakes up at the end of the cycle, they will feel very refreshed.

The time to optimize here is plan the sleeping time in accordance with the sleeping cycle to ensure that one will wake up at the end of a sleep cycle.  Of course, this will take some experimentation to gage exactly how long each sleeping cycle is.

My method involves leaving some extra time to wake up.  I overestimate the time it takes me to fall asleep and the time it takes for one sleep cycle, I will wake up feeling refreshed before my alarm clock rings.  However, having too much extra time will cause the body to start its next cycle before waking up, but that depends on the person and their sleeping pattern.  Again, this takes experimentation.

Another issue is how long to sleep for.  To me, this doesn’t really matter as long one is able to wake up naturally.  This way, the body is able to communicate that it has had enough sleep.  Although, there are times where people wake up prematurely from sleep and feel that they need more sleep.  Another way would be to see if someone can get through the day without feeling tired or falling asleep.

Circadian Rhythms

Circadian rhythms are why we should not sleep whenever we want.  This is just a fancy term for explaining that each person’s body maintains the same pattern everyday.  Below is a picture from Wikipedia of what happens throughout the day for the average person.

A lot of these events don’t really have to do with sleep except for a few.  For example at 4:30 AM, our body should be at its lowest body temperature if the above pattern is followed.  Wikipedia states the following:

The optimal amount of sleep is not a meaningful concept unless the timing of that sleep is seen in relation to an individual’s circadian rhythms. A person’s major sleep episode is relatively inefficient and inadequate when it occurs at the “wrong” time of day; one should be asleep at least six hours before the lowest body temperature.  The timing is correct when the following two circadian markers occur after the middle of the sleep episode and before awakening:

• maximum concentration of the hormone melatonin, and
• minimum core body temperature.

Six hours before the lowest body temperature would mean that the optimal time to go to sleep for the average human is at 10:30 PM.  I experienced this first hand.  I used to sleep at 4 AM until 2 PM and always felt that my sleep felt super restless, but now that I sleep from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM (I chose to sleep at this time because this way I get to talk to people in Vancouver while I’m abroad), I feel super refreshed waking and most of the time, I don’t need an alarm clock to wake me up.  I only need the clock tell me what time it is.

Conclusion

This is what I follow when I plan my sleeping pattern.  I used to have a really erratic sleep schedule, where I woke up early one day and late the next because I’d always wake up in time to go to my first class of the day.  If the start time differed everyday, my sleeping time would change too.  As a result, I felt tired everyday and tried to adjust my sleeping pattern.  After changing up my habits, I no longer feel the need to take naps everyday, and I don’t feel fatigue anymore.

Sources

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm