Making Winter Training Fun

By Chris George – Run Course Champion

Winter training isn’t always the most fun, but a lot of times it is a necessity.  You’re going to need to prepare for that early spring race somehow, right?

Here are a few things that you may want to try in order to break up the monotony.

Weight/Resistance Train

Winter is a great time of year to work on strength.  Strength training helps you become more durable and reduces the risk of injury.  It also provides power to those muscles that you are going to utilize on the swim/bike/run.  It’s hard to incorporate strength into your normal plan when swim/bike/run take up so much time, but by adding this to your repertoire when you’re not adhering to a training plan, you’ll be able to reap the benefits of a rejuvenated mind, body, and spirit.

Run with Cleats

I love to be outdoors as I’m sure all of you do.  I find it difficult and somewhat painful to workout almost entirely indoors, so every opportunity I have to run outside I take full advantage of.  When there is ice on the streets, you still have a couple of options.  Yaktrax and Stabilicers are two great products that I use.  They both slip on over your current running shoes and provide a good deal of added traction on those nasty roads.  Screws are another option.  This is for the DIY triathlete.  Here’s an article on how to go about it. http://www.skyrunner.com/screwshoe.htm

Make your spare bedroom, basement, etc. into a spin studio

I just converted the basement bedroom into a spin studio.  I bought a cheap TV, hooked up a DVD player, set up a small shelf unit stereo, and bought a cheap fan so that I can be as comfortable as possible while doing long rides on my trainer.  Spin classes are great, but sometimes they can push you harder than you need to go on a certain day of training.  There a ton of things you can do while on your trainer: audio books, movies, learn a foreign language, be part of a race through a DVD such as Sufferfest, etc.  You have many options.

Winter isn’t awesome, but these are just a few ways I try to keep things interesting and entertaining.

Happy training!