During workouts, having a positive thought over a negative will get you further. The past few weeks of indoor trainer rides I've concentrated on the pain in my legs. Those workouts are very long- and hard to look forward to. A motivational movie helps some, but there's nothing like the outdoors. I've said an hour feels like three, so where does that leave a three hour trainer ride?
This leaves the question: Does mental toughness come from putting in those monotonous indoor hours or would roughing the outdoor weather have a larger net?
It seems habit is the route we take. Whatever we get used to we tend to stay with. I've already trained more indoor this winter than all of last winter. Too much gear to tote around and any excuse not to go outside steers me inside.
This weekend I was determined to train outdoors. A trip to ski country wasn't going to stop me. I debated trying cross-country skiing but Christy laughed at me. And the fact that it would be a full day adventure wasn't all that appealing either. So I settled for an easy hour run before heading to the McCall Winter-fest and ice sculpture contest. This was part of the celebration of Christy's birthday. We stayed at a nice motel in McCall, but there was no vacancy Saturday night. We had to be checked out before noon on Saturday, so there was no waiting for the heat of the day in our plans. We had to 'get up and get moving', as our neighbor calls it.
So the sun seems to rise a bit later in McCall, turns out to only be a few minutes later.Although it seemed more like about an hour. I guess when the waking temperature was around -2 deg, I was hoping for some serious sunshine.
I did allow the sun time to get up to +2.
So off I went for a brisk morning run. As I walked through the parking lot full of ice I thought 'I sure hope this is worth the effort'. It seems like a lot of workouts start with that thought. Fighting for the time to workout is most of the battle for all workouts.. Once there, all the world goes away. Focusing on the task at hand gets me into a zone and allows a fresh perspective on things. This is true with lunch time workouts, 5am swims, and these weather "limiting" workouts as well. Really, once in action the time spent in the zone is all that matters.
Any thoughts outside of the present get replaced as quick as possible.
So I started running out onto the snowy road trying to just put in my time. It wasn't 10 minutes when I seen another running coming the opposite way. After waving and passing by, I had his green shoes in mind when I when I thought that it was pretty motivating to see someone else. It proved I wasn't crazy.
My hands were the only things that started getting cold. My feet usually get cold on runs longer than an hour.
As I was getting ready to run, I thought I should have brought a balaclava. But I didn't. So worst case I'd just have to return early. Then I recalled hearing about cyclist using Vaseline on their knees in the cold. We didn't have any on hand. So I ended up using Carmex on my cheeks and nose. Neither got cold while out in the weather.
When I got back to the parking lot, a guy from the motel asked me if I was very cold. I said no, not really thinking about it. I seen a second worker, and it was then that I realized my beard was frosted. So I had him take a snapshot. The run felt great, although there were moments when it was hard to relax.
One funny thing here, Christy said she knew why I wanted to go to McCall for the weekend. She said it was to get some exercise in. Man I could think of much warmer areas to go if that was the reason to go. One of these times we will go to warm weather to "get some exercise".
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