Happy New Year and back to the grind

It's the final day of festive season indulgence before I drag myself back into the real world and back to work for another year. With it will come a return to good hard training in the gym so I'm somewhat prepared for the new cycling season in several months time. Yes, I want to be able to enjoy it somewhat, so tomorrow ends the festive fun and starts my new year. Most peoples new year resolutions began last Tuesday ... mine begins tomorrow.

I wasn't totally inactive over the festive break, and thank goodness for that. I got out on the bike three times over Christmas when I was back in Northern Ireland, twice on the road, once on the mountain bike. I had gone over with grand plans of getting out most days and doing some decent miles, but I completely neglected to consider that great barometer of cycling possibility in Northern Ireland: The weather.

For the first several days and for the majority of my time there, it rained. I hadn't been back in a year and five months but how naive of me to forget that rain would play a huge factor on me getting much cycling done over there. Sure, you say, I could have gone out anyway, but I like to enjoy my cycling and when I was out on the car on my first Saturday back and seen two unfortunate soles ploughing their way down a country road into the face of driving rain and through puddles so deep that the road would be considered flooded, I remembered why I don't like to go out if it's raining before I leave.

So the hope of ten days of riding became three and I soon realised where my fitness was at after the better part of two months off the saddle. But, you need some time away and winter is a cyclists downtime, especially in Canada were we get little choice, so I spent two months watching more TV, eating more, and indulging in the odd pint or two. Now it's new year, and with that brings a fresh start. I did try to make a fist of going to the gym during November, but who was I kidding, I was far to uninspired.

The professional cyclist of course is back training from early November these days now that their season begins in January. It used to be that the pro-seasons wouldn't start until March and so they, like me, would sit around until the new year, but no more. Of course, they deserved their time of indulgence a little more than I ... they live their on-season like monks whereas I may ride a little more than normal, but I'll still reward my efforts with a pizza and a bottle of beer afterwards.

Many amateur hobbyist cyclists like myself will follow the schedule of the modern pro by taking a mere month off (some won't even take that) and get back to hard winter training in November. It's okay if your climate allows for it but many of them won't have a race until March and it's never quite made sense to me why someone would want to be in race shape when they sit down to eat their Christmas turkey ... there's less room for more turkey!

Sadly for me, January doesn't mean time to throw on the gear and start pumping out the miles a few nights a week and on the weekends ... not in Canada. If anything it's only going to get colder over the next two months with even more snow on the ground, but I'd be driven to distraction if I continued to spend the next two months sitting around doing little and eating a lot, not to mention moving a few holes out on my belt. So it's back to the dreaded gym and healthy eating.

I've drawn up a schedule for myself for the gym ... four to five times a week depending on other things going on that take priority, with the effort increasing over the next two months so that when I do take to the bike again to get some proper stamina in my legs, I'll at least feel a little lean for it. The healthy eating will consist of the same old cutting back on alcohol -- none until at least February, ideally March -- and on foods containing refined sugars. The later of these is probably the hardest to cut back on even compared to the booze and, get this, even harder than encouraging myself down eighteen floors and into my apartments gym.

We'll see how it goes, though I won't lie, I often ask myself why I bother with this -- especially now that one of my other favorite sports is returning: The National Hockey League season ... it only encourages a cold beer and hot wings at the local pub! -- but I'll be glad of it when I go to do my first mountain bike race of the year and begin to struggle halfway up the first climb as my heart-rate pushes 190. I'll just have to tell myself how rotten and miserable it would have been had I sat on my arse in January and February and how I would be otherwise throwing my bike into the ditch and walking back to the car.