George R.R. Martin
Even a
snowman would admit that this winter has been abominable; it is all the more frustrating
for the fact that we apparently set so few all-time records. There have been
days in the past that were colder, snow that was higher, wind chill that was chillier.
So we don’t even have the distinction of having survived the coldest, snowiest
winter since they began keeping records; just one of them.
Statistics
aside, though, no one will dispute that for pure orneriness, the past three
months have taken the prize. My friend Pam from the U.S., normally an upbeat,
no-nonsense type, has lost all patience, and is raving about nightmares with
fictitious drunken uncles. If it’s too much for her, what hope is there for the
rest of us?
Closer to
home, people in Toronto are as sick and tired of this winter as they are of our
mayor, and that’s saying something.
In the
spirit of making snow cones when life hands you a blizzard, I have made friends
of my indoor equipment this year. I have fallen half in love with my trainer
and treadmill, if you want to know.I spend most days of the week going nowhere on my bicycle trainer. Coach Troy Jacobson leads me though my sessions with his Spinervals videos, of which I own more than a dozen. Each one features an opening legal disclaimer with a grammatical error so appalling that it always gets my blood flowing enough to start turning the pedals, no matter how lazy I feel. It’s not Death Valley or Ironman, but I am on a bicycle and I am pedaling. And smugly grammatical.
On my
treadmill I have found that I can run 10K in the time it takes to play a
recorded episode of Mayday, a TV series that re-enacts plane crashes. Mayday is
not a show in which the dialogue is subtle (“we’re going down!!!”) so I can easily
hear and understand what they’re saying (and screaming) above the sound of my
feet hitting the rubber. To help me forget about the wind chill outside and
pretend I am running along the beach in Laguna Phuket, there is a heating vent just
above the treadmill that somehow cannot be turned off.
Indoor training
is a necessity in a northern climate, so the best thing to do is to get the
most value from the time you spend on the equipment. It’s possible to perform a
bike workout with an efficiency that isn’t possible when you are outside observing
stoplights, swerving around potholes, and dodging the gloating victors in my city’s
War on the Car (we cyclists are their spoils). And of course the treadmill surface is much
kinder to my aging feet than the streets are. I have formed a comfortable
friendship with the equipment in my little basement gym.  |
| Is that the sun? |
Too comfortable. It is time to get out and breathe some air that is not filtered through the dust bunnies in our heating ducts. Time that my efforts moved me forward across the earth. And I will do all that, as soon as I can get down the front walk without slipping and falling into a snowbank.
Environment
Canada forecasts above freezing temperatures for most of the coming week. The best thing
about the dying of this cruel winter is that anything spring can
throw at us will be welcomed like a wealthy relative to a family funeral. Look
for cyclists slithering through the sleet of April and runners skating happily along
the trails as soon as the current patina of rock hard ice has softened.
Bring it
on. We’ll be there.
2 comments:
There's a point at which our spring and your spring meet. I've left the west coast in late April or early May to visit my son in Toronto and, amazingly, the lilacs are at exactly the point of bloom. Our spring is more gradual maybe -- tiny things blooming in February -- but eventually we'll all be sitting at sidewalk cafes and drinking cold beer on the same day!
I think she's coming back, Chris -I can smell her in the air sometimes. She smells of mud and decay and the grave, but her scent is unmistakable.
She will make you forget your puppy love affair with those indoor gadgets. See how quickly you'll forget how long she's been gone from you.
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