PRONOTPRO REPORT #1

Vancouver days like this, are actually the best you could ask for winter training.

Winter is really weird. I'm definitely back training. Nothing crazy, a mix of intervals and group rides designed to make me hold fitness over the winter, not make gains, but hold so I'm not digging out of a crazy hole in February. THEN I make teh gainz.

I can say that this week I have spent more time riding in the dark, on TT bikes, the trainer and all kinds of things that don't count as the 'fun' part of cycling than I have actually riding a bike in good conditions, daylight or with actual people.

Ride ten minutes up in pitch black, turn light on, ride down.

I don't mean to be complaining. I realize that it's practically part of Vancouverite character to complain about non-issues: rain, how cold it isn't, aging winter bikes, how you're over/under dressed, not enough good light to make a cool Instagram post. But we really do have it pretty good. This morning I was actually thankful it rained overnight, it made the two hours on a TT bike I had to do, well, safe (less frost and ice when it rains here in the winter, clear weather means lower temperatures and ice we can't see). I also count myself lucky that a few times this week I was able to hammer out efforts on a mountain rather than the trainer. It was, however, climbing in the pitch black, saving my small front light for descending and my ride home.

Riding funny bikes into a rainforest.

As I'm writing this, I'm really procrastinating a bit before my second workout of the day, on the TT bike again, on the trainer. But on the plus side, I just got in from picking up my race bike for 2016, getting it a bit early so it can appear in a video project or two I've got in mind (and maybe on some dry days). I think that really, these kinds of things are what's getting me through the winter and being stoked about racing as far away as March and April, trying to get more creative projects going whether it's shooting more photographs, collaborative videos, t-shirts, stickers or hats. And then there's always looking at my race bike and dreaming of climbing in shorts and a jersey.