Winter fun.
What can we do to stay involved and sane in the winter months?
If you’re on my side of the world it’s winter. Winter in New England means short days, cold weather and piles of ice and snow. Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining it can make you crazy!
What’s an endurance athlete to do? The Fall race season is over. The Spring races are months away. You are caught in this cold, dark miserable Sargasso Sea of training. How do you find your rudder and put this winter interval to good use?
Here are 10 ideas of how to positively get through the winter.
- Make up your own event. Just because there are no official races scheduled within a week of Christmas doesn’t mean you can’t create your own event. You don’t need permission. Just schedule a marathon, ½ marathon, 10K or 5K run and invite all your friends. If you want to have some fun print up numbers or wear costumes or have medals.
More of these self-supported holiday events are cropping up on the calendar and you can create your own to add spice to your winter doldrums.
- Get out and enjoy the weather. Just because it’s cold and snowy and dark doesn’t mean the great out of doors is off limits. Grab the kids and the dog and go for a hike. Go sledding. Go show shoeing. Go skiing. Go skating. Get out and enjoy the season! Getting out and getting some fresh air into your lungs will do wonders to cure the mid-winter blues.
- Go to the gym and master something new. Most endurance athletes hate the gym. It’s just not as much fun as going out for a run. That’s because you haven’t taken the time to master something.
Master a specific weight lifting routine. Get one of the coaches or the gym rats to teach you the proper form. Do the routine twice a week for 3 weeks. You can’t learn anything if you only do it once. Instead of just playing at an exercise, pick one and really learn it and try to master it.
- Work your core. Winter is the perfect time to wok your core. You’re not training for anything. You can go after a push up or a plank challenge for a few weeks. See how strong you can get. Your body will thank you.
- Stretch! Yeah we all hate stretching. Flexibility is a pain in the butt especially as you get older. You’ve got time now you can get some coaching, do some research and really focus on flexibility. Can’t touch your toes? I bet you could if you worked on it for 2 or 3 straight weeks.
- Try some yoga. Get a lesson from a friend or a yogi and really try to get your mind and body connected into the poses. Spend a few weeks and try to master one or two new short routines that you can carry with you into the New Year.
- Learn to meditate. Again, you’ve got a couple weeks of down time so why not explore the dusty spaces inside your own cranium? Get some coaching. Try the different forms. See what works for you. Spend a couple weeks on it and see what you can learn.
- Learn some new cardio games. Don’t like the treadmill? Try the elliptical or the bike trainer or the rowing machine. Find some challenging and entertaining multi-week challenge that you can embark on. After a few weeks you’ll have a new cardio expertise in your quiver to draw on.
- Hit the pool. What? You can’t swim? Now’s the time. Take those winter months and find a Total Immersion class you can crash. Work on your swim form for a few weeks and you’ll cruise into the spring race season feeling like a champ.
- Master your form. Everyone thinks they have good running form. Guess what? You don’t. Have a coach watch you and work on fixing your mechanics. Spend a few weeks focusing on cleaning up your form and it will pay off 100 fold in the future.
Maybe you have a spring marathon coming up and you’re already supposed to be training for it. All the activities above support the early weeks of a training plan. Use this time to build your strength and your flexibility as you build your base fitness. It’s very complimentary.
The key with all of this activity is to treat it as a real campaign. Take one or two activities and commit at least 2 times a week for 3 weeks. Get the coaching up front. This will give you enough practice time to start to master the activity. Give your body and mind time to learn something.
It’s really about asking the right questions. Are you asking yourself a bad question, like “How do I distract myself so I can survive the winter?” How about a better question like “What investments can I make in my fitness and my skills that will pay off later?” It’s part of the adventure. Commit to it and enjoy it.
There we go my friends. 10 ways to invest in yourself this winter season. Instead of moping around in the cold and dark feeling sorry for yourselves get out there and seize the opportunity to grow.