Winter Training

When I hear the words “Winter Training”, I picture myself riding along windswept, salt-covered roads, with snowbanks covering the bike lane, and the cold, crisp air drying my chapped lips and frozen tongue. It’s December 19th, I planned to start this ride at 9:30, but I didn’t get out the door until 10:14 – putting on four layers of cycling clothes and still being able to swing one leg over the bike is no easy task.

Now, an hour in to the ride, I reach down to grab a bottle of water. Despite my gloves being about 6 inches thick, I haven’t been able to feel my fingertips since I left the house. I’m pretty sure the bottle is in my hand now, but I prepare myself for the worst – I imagine the bottle shattering into a million pieces if I drop it onto the frozen ground, like a banana frozen in dry ice being dropped on the floor in a high school Chemistry class.

Before I left, I filled each water bottle with boiling hot water, in the hopes that it would stay warm for at least half of the ride. These are my hopes, but this is not reality. In temperatures below 30 degrees, it takes about a half-an-hour for the boiling water to become cold, and an hour before it’s so cold that it becomes painful to drink. In two hours, I will likely be sucking on ice.

But at just over an hour in, the water is not yet frozen, and I gulp down what I can before returning the plastic rock to its cage. As I swallow the second gulp, I nearly gag as the freezing liquid forces it way down my throat and into my stomach.

I realize I haven’t taken a breath in 30 seconds – drinking ice-cold water in the middle of winter does not do much to relax the mind or body. Think hot chocolate on Christmas morning, wrapping up in a warm blanket, cozy-ing up by the fireplace. Now think hot chocolate, Tennessee, in the middle of July. You’ve been climbing for a half-an-hour now, your jersey is unzipped (it has been for the entire climb), your hands are clammy from being soaked in sweat for far too long, and your shorts are so wet it feels like you just stepped out of the hot tub. After 10 miles of switchbacks, sweat, and tiny gears, you get to the top and realize that the only drink you brought is hot chocolate, still steaming from early this morning – drinking ice water in December is the winter training equivalent.

If this sounds all sounds like fun to you, then congratulations, you’re Canadian!

All jokes aside, winter riding can not only be miserable, but it can be dangerous. I have been stupid enough to go out in winter before, only to have my ride cut short when I slid out on a patch of ice. It’s not worth it. You can be the ‘tough guy’ all you want, but when the wind chill is 20 below, or the roads are covered in a fresh layer of snow and ice, riding outside is not an option.

Most cyclists that I know HATE riding on a trainer. For as much pain, suffering, and sacrifice that we cyclists go through, you would think that 60 minutes on an indoor trainer wouldn’t be that bad, right? Wrong. Just an hour of stationary pedaling is enough to make some riders think they are going insane. Sooner or later, they crack – they stop riding, and they retreat to the kitchen and the couch, where Netflix and Christmas cookies await.

But indoor riding doesn’t have to be torture! Using structure, entertainment, and simple mind tricks – dare I say it – indoor riding can actually be fun! Stay tuned for my next post: Top 5 Indoor Training Tips

(Preview: intervals, day-dreaming, and introspection)

Thanks for reading,

Zach