Grab the Bull by the Horns

Fear not, my faithful followers. I haven't forgotten about my promise to keep updates more frequent. This past week just hasn't been all that eventful, and I haven't really done anything that I've though was Blog-worthy. That is, until today: I rode the trainer.

It may not seem like much, but for those of you who know me well, you might understand how difficult that can be for me. To date, I have ridden the trainer only two other times all winter, and one of them was only because I spent the entire day driving home from New Hampshire and night had already fallen by the time I was home. I've braved some pretty severe temperatures over the past weeks and months, all in the interest of actually getting to ride my bike. I've always felt that every time I'm forced onto the trainer, a little piece of my soul dies. There's just nothing fun and nothing satisfying about it, other than working up a good sweat and I guess feeling like I've accomplished something.

So as you can imagine, it had to take something drastic to keep me locked up indoors. Today, drastic came in the form of -7 degrees and wind gusts of up to 32 mph at 10am, when I wanted to start my workout. Though I'd like to think that I deal with the cold better than most, despite what some might call my "slight build," I'm no freaking polar bear; and last I checked, there's not an ounce of Inuit blood in me. Plus I don't have the muscular strength require for pedaling through anything more than 3 layers over my legs, so that ruled out wearing every pair of leg-warming device in my wardrobe.

Having already lifted yesterday, when it was definitely warmer but happened to be snowing quite heavily, my options were limited. So I reached under my bed, pulled out my chemical green Kurt Kinetic trainer, and thus began the war of the wills. The victor: me. Two hours later I was showering and off to lunch. Amazingly, my soul is still intact, and for that, I have Mr. Martin Scorsese to thank. "Raging Bull" proved just the trick to get my mind off the drudgery at hand, and what do you know, it's exactly 2 hours long! Thanks again Martin. It's hard to be too bored while De Niro is pounding faces in. I highly recommend it for your own attempts at self-chastigation.