Cycling's off-season isn't clearly defined and it all depends what level of cycling you ride at as to when it comes and goes, if indeed it comes and goes at all.To the hardened pro it ends when your team tells you it ends, probably sometime around late September and it runs until your team meets in a warm climate in December to ride loads of miles ahead of a new season in January. That's not how it works for me, though I wouldn't mind the trip to a warm climate for a few weeks in early December, but come January, I'll be surrounded by a world up to it's knees in snow.
That's why I can't be the year-rounder either. You know, the kind of weekend warrior who gets fit for the summer season but then when that ends can spend the rest of the year enjoying his rides until spring when it becomes time to up the fitness anti once more. Well I can. There are people around here in Southern Ontario who will find a way to ride all year round, and all the power to them, but that ain't for me.
Nope when my 'season' ended with my final race of the year at the Tour de King two weeks ago, I really should have found myself still out on a bike enjoying what I could of the road before it gets too miserable out, but instead fell into the trap of being lazy because I had no race to challenge myself for. That's alright though. I quite enjoyed the two weeks of nothingness even if I wish I had done a little more in September that I did so as to feel I had actually ended the season deserving a break.
Today I plan on snapping out of the out-of-season stage known as 'bone idle' however before I get too fat and I plan to do this by heading back into that place that all good cyclists who prefer their exercise outdoors and going places dread: The gym.
Thankfully I haven't resigned myself to the gym entirely. When the weather is half decent in the evenings or weekends I will still get out for a leisurely ride, heck maybe even a run if I can force myself to go more than about two kilometers without collapsing at the side of the road (it's strange how I can cycle 100km without much bother but struggle to run past two but that's an analysis best left to another day). Sadly the weather at this time of year is far to unpredictable to plan far ahead and so it's the gym unless otherwise stated. Tonight is one of those nights were the weather isn't too nice and as the weeks tick by they're only going to become more common. Such is life in the off-season.
As the days and weeks go by I'll put more and more into what I'm doing in the gym so as to maintain some level of fitness ahead of climbing back on the bike next spring. I'd love to say I left myself in a state of fitness that allowed me to do nothing for the next three months, but who ever does? I'll gradually ramp it up and see where it leaves me. For now though, I'll go to the gym with an audio book in my ears and turn the pedals for half an hour to at least feel like I've earned the right to lie down on the sofa for the rest of the night.
Like last year I'll probably keep some kind of a 'winter-training' diary on here and I'll once again follow a similar spreadsheet for training, but I probably won't start into that kind of hurt for a few weeks yet. October is the furthest away point from another race, or at least from having to be as fit as I can be, so while I'm going to break my comfortable habit of laziness for one of going to my purgatory known as 'the gym' tonight, I'll not do it with too much stress just yet.
