Over-rated, my foot.

Yeah, yeah --

"Suck it up, man -- it's only (insert ridiculously cold temp here) outside, common! "

Forget THAT. This winter, despite warmer than normal temperatures, I'm defintely turning into one of those people that has "only so-many gut wrenchingly epic days" in him.

Going off of my "kinder-gentler" 2006 training plan spreadsheet, (ok, I said I was gonna RIDE less. I'll work on the over-analysis problem later) it looked like I was going to need 48 miles this last weekend. No problem! It's been REALLY nice these last few weekends, right? What could go wrong?

Well, winter could show up fashionably late, that's what.

And so it goes that I woke up Sunday morning to a blistering 18ºF on the thermometer, and promptly put my pre-ride carbo-bomb drink back in the fridge. Hmmmm... Might be time to dig that dusty thing I call a trackstand out of the rubble in the garage, and see if it will still support me with all this winter weight.

Ok, who am I kidding? -- there's no rubble in the garage.

So, I retrieved the trainer from its hook on the wall, and removed the protective bubble wrap and silca gel packet, and set it up. It was a hard sell, but with winds howling outside, the prospect of riding a few hours INside wasn't seeming all that horrid. A couple hours later, I was right. Not only did I get a quality cardio workout, I could still feel my fingers and toes, and my nose wasn't equipped with a fashionable and aerodynamically-stable snot-sickle.

So, I may have bashed training indoors before, and yeah -- it IS hard to keep one's mind occupied -- but thank the maker: I still got a workout, and the slow building of base mileage continues without regard to weather.

Special thanks to Landshark, without whom this would not have been possible.

Until next time -- keep your bike in one place and keep pedaling for the opposite wall.
You'll get there. Honest.