An Enabling Relationship

As the cold weather hit, I bravely bundled up, determined not to let the frigidity of my surroundings stand in the way of riding my bike outside. As the temperature slowly dropped, though, so did my resolve. Later sunrises, 20 degree temps, and a few near misses with morning rush hour cars decked out with foggy windows drove me inside for not only my intervals, but also my endurance rides.

Eventually, this indoor last-resort became the norm. Now when I wake up in the morning, it's with a sense of dread. Not so much that I have to ride the trainer, but more that I don't have the guts to go outside. Intervals? Forget it. Who wants to suck in that much cold air? My lungs hurt enough doing them inside.

And so today when I looked out at the sun, I still rode the trainer. The temperature wasn't prohibitive. It was a chilly 43, but not a crazy 23. I could have simply warmed up on the trainer, banged out the intervals (only 3x5 minutes) and then suited up for an hour or two on the road.

But I didn't.

The trainer has become a safety net in a way. An enabler. A way for me to avoid being uncomfortable at the expense of not truly riding my bike. Part of it is that I just hate the cold. Hate. Despise. Loath. Death Ray Eye Cold Weather. Want it gone, out of my life, over.

A larger part of it is that the trainer has become predictable. I know exactly how to get the heart rate up to exactly where it needs to be, I even know the exact songs to listen to as a guide for the exact amount of time. It is a training scalpel, allowing for an obsessive amount of precision (who, me? Obsessive?).

Unfortunately, riding a bike isn't precise. Or exact. You get a tailwind one way and a headwind the next. You get a hill one second and a decent the next. You are pulled along one moment and take a pull yourself the next. Things constantly change. Riding a bike is about adapting to what you encounter, having the strength and the fitness to crank it up when you need to without blowing up. Right now? I feel like someone who's constantly rehearsing, safely, from the sidelines.

But then, maybe that's what the winter months are for. I'm not going to be hammering it on any group rides anytime soon anyways, so why not stay warm and toasty and stationary? Hopefully all of this rehearsing will be well worth it once the main event rolls around, but until then, I'm stuck in this love/hate relationship with my enabler: the trainer.