So I’ve only been active in triathlon for a couple years and am not what I would call hard-core, especially in terms of “performance”, but I don’t have a problem running or riding outside in the cold. (Here I’m talking Annapolis, mid-atlantic cold…not Minnesota cold.)
New basement decorations - Treadmill and trainer
But this winter has been terrible for getting outside to do either. Freakin’ El Niño (which is Spanish for “the niño”) has dumped record snows and the temps have kept those twelve dozen feet of snow on the ground longer than usual. Two weeks after the this last storm and the sidewalks are still covered, travel lanes narrow, and almost every intersection is a blind turn thanks to the piles of dirty white stuff. Translation: train indoors or just plain nap. While I’m an inappropriately huge fan of the practice, no amount of Nap Mastery is going to get me through a half ironman un-embarrassed. With a new house (read: more space and less money) we’ve dropped our various gym memberships and have gone anti-social. A craigslist treadmill and a cheap, sale-priced-plus-membership-club-discounted cycle trainer have become my torture dujour.
Basement view of the South Forty
This indoor stuff is all new to us but I’ve already found the motivation to start work on the “distraction center”. 30 minutes on the treadmill is doable but, even with a nice view of the snowy south forty, 90 minutes on the trainer without more stimulation (read: brain candy) is just cruel and unusual.