Surprise! It gets really cold in Alberta.
Last week’s weather was easily one for the record books.
Twice on Saturday night, everyone in the province received an emergency alert related to power consumption and demand. Everyone was taking shelter inside and consuming a ton of electricity. I didn’t need to be told twice to turn off any extra appliances. The last thing I wanted to do for the next few weeks was sit around in the dark with candles.
This week’s training
I knew this day/week was coming so I happily replaced my runs with indoor cycles on my Echelon bike. I focused on full body strength workouts and rides (sometimes twice a day). It was much more bearable to break my rides into two 30-minute sessions or one 40-minute session and a 20-minute. Often I would do a ride then a strength session followed by another bike ride.
Allowing flexibility in your training should be part your journey when you’re training for a 100-mile race or any distance for that matter. I’ve been running and training long enough to know things don’t always go as planned.
Embrace Indoor Training
Winter is an excellent opportunity to focus on core strength and stability. Training my core when I am stuck inside always feels like a no-brainer to me. It’s the rest of the year that I usually fall flat because of the crunch for time. But there’s really no excuse in the winter months because I am indoors so much more than in the months with better weather.
Mental Resilience
Gloomy, gloomy winter can definitely affect my motivation. This past week I incorporated some mental resilience training into my routine, focusing on mindfulness, visualization, and goal-setting. Honestly I did just about everything to keep me from thinking about the cold weather.
Are you training for anything? Do you take your training indoors when it’s cold out? I would love to hear from you in the comments.