Stormy weather

Working out can be fun, entertaining, healthy, invigorating and exciting.

And annoyingly regulated by weather.

Other than swimming, which is done most of the time in the pool (although should also be done sometimes outside in a lake or ocean or bay if permitted, so there's that), running and biking is usually done outside. Now, if you live up there in those states where your coffee freezes before you spill it on the ground, I realize some biking, and maybe SOME running, is done indoors during those months when you have 3 hours of sunshine (you get July and August to make up for that. Trust me). But generally, we are hitting the pavement and trails to do our training, if we are really serious about doing any kind of events, be it bike rallies or 5ks or triathlons. Those events are not held indoors.

(Actually, to be fair, there are some indoor duathlons--very short in nature. Usually indoor bike followed by a treadmill run. I can't think of anything more terrible).

And let's face it, the indoor routine does not come close to the real thing outside. No, it doesn't.

For those who worship the treadmill and the indoor recumbent bike (really, now--you think that is like the real thing?), I am not one of your religion. I HATE the treadmill--simply detest it--and there are not words strong enough to describe my feeling about indoor biking. No, not even those seven words hallowed by George Carlin.

I know there are a zillion people out there that say they run faster on a tread than they do outdoors. I can see the logic behind this. You got no wind, no hills (unless you make them happen by punching a button), no puddles, no heat, no cars, no cracks in the sidewalk. You got one view to watch as you trundle along. For me, for some reason, I always go SLOWER on a tread than outside. I don't know if it's the sheer boredom of the thing (making me concentrate on my wheezing innards rather than the interesting world going by), or the metal in front of me feeling like a barricade, or what...but if I crank up the tread to my average outdoor run pace, I am out of breath and energy in a heartbeat.

As for the indoor bike--okay, I will admit I have never taken a spin class. I have considered it, sort of. I think spin classes held by good, qualified spin instructors are probably worthwhile. However, I am not sure every cookie cutter gym has a good, worthwhile spin instructor that knows what they are doing. And I don't know enough to know if they know what they are doing. I've heard horror stories of spin classes that make you do things that have nothing to do with increasing your ability on the bike, and some things that may even decrease it. Plus I'm just not a class person. My lifestyle doesn't lead to me being at a particular place at a particular time any particular day of the week. Just ask the Patient Spouse.

Spin class aside, riding a bike in the gym is. Simply. Boredom. Taken. To. Its. Highest. Limit. Plus, it just doesn't work the muscles that you really use out there on the real bike. I use the upright bikes at the gym because they are more similar to the real bikes than the recumbant ones, and even when I plug in a hard routine and pedal until the sweat pours off me like Niagra, my legs don't feel like they are really pedaling a bike. They are moving in a circle, and I'm doing SOMETHING, which is better than nothing, I suppose, but it doesn't match climbing Los Rios hill on my road bike.

One of the toys I bought myself last year is a Computrainer. It's an expensive piece of equipment that has software for your computer and a resistance bar to fasten your "real" bike onto for indoor fun. I knew I had to ride during the weekdays during the darker winter months and this was the only way to accomplish that and still keep my job. You plug your bike into all the stuff (pardon me while I get technical on you here), open the program on the computer which you hopefully have set up on a table in front of the bike, and go to town on any one of several preloaded rides the software has for you--you can do the Vineman, you can do Wildflower in California, you can do over 100 preloaded rides from around the world. Amazingly, the computer shows an actual road in front of you (with or without a pacer rider, I usually go without because the dadgummed pacer rider leaves me in the dirt no matter how hard I try) that matches the selected ride in elevation, hills, and distance--and your resistance bar gives you the drag equal to the selected ride--you will get max resistance on a big hill climb and little on a wheee downhill. There are limitations. This is computer generated stuff so you have about six road views to pick from--these are not views from the actual races--and the views sorta repeat themselves every five minutes (you'll say--oh, there is that tree again....). However, they are now making separate software with the ACTUAL VIEWS of ACTUAL RACES--I just bought the St. Croix 70.3 with "the Beast" hill in there--and am looking forward to trying it out this winter. They get these by riding the route with a little camera on the bike or the helmet. Technology rocks.

Still, even the Computrainer, with all its bells and whistles, has little appeal for me (it does mimic actual riding better than a gym bike, and you are on your own bike as opposed to that annoying chafing seat on a gym bike, but it's still not the same). I'd rather be outside riding the real deal.

You know where this is going. Last night I had a 2 hour easy bike, but the weather said otherwise. I'm so happy to see the rain; we've been so dry; but dernit, wish it had held off for a day. So instead of an easy pedal through the 'hood and down to the park, I slogged off to the gym (the Computrainer is packed away for the summer--but I may have to get it back out) and forced myself to ride the gym bike for 30 minutes on a pretty hilly course, then jumped off and ran on the tread for 15 minutes as a break from that stupid bike, then back to the stupid bike for 30 minutes of a fairly easy ride. I counted down the minutes on that entire ride. I was so tired of staring at the same thing and even my iPod couldn't rescue me from my boredom.

Still. Sometimes you gotta do just what you gotta do to keep movin'. If you use the weather as an excuse, you'll never get going. But on nice days, get yourself outside.