Winter Wonderland!

Bleah. Winter's coming. The cold weather is here, and today's dusting is a precursor to snowy days to come. Bah Humbug. I guess it's time for my favorite winter past-time; complaining. I've taken whining to a higher level, so if you're new to bitching and complaining, I don't mean to overwhelm you. You see, despite living in the northern latitudes for most of my life, I've never developed an affinity for any winter sports. Everything I like to do is a "warm weather" pursuit, although, admittedly, biking and running can be done year 'round. I just hate the cold weather, and snow certainly adds another element, literally, to the deal.

I did a "mellow" road ride with Glen the other day--a new Cat 2 'cross racer's "mellow" road ride had me pushing more than 800 watts at one point. Mellow indeed. It did help to keep me warm, but I still got icicles in the beard.

We'll have to see what the weather holds for the next few months... sometimes the weather is mild enough to still get plenty of rides in. Sometimes the temperature is brutally low, and I stay inside and watch horrible movies while spinning on the rollers (for example, I just watched The Last Airbender, thanks to the RedBox, and it was TERRIBLE). Sometimes we get lots of snow and I attempt endeavors like snowshoeing or cross country skiing. Usually, however, we get a mix of warm and cold temps that allows snow to melt and re-freeze into unusable mixture of hardened slush. That's when I just look to the calendar and counts the days until spring.

But, those days aren't here yet. I got out for a good MTB ride at Willowdale on Sunday, and I rolled on a trail that's GOT to be new--that place continues to amaze me. I'm lucky to live so close to such an incredible trail network.

Anyway, it's the time of year to get wrapped up in the holiday madness, get caught up on "indoor" projects, and to start looking forward to the upcoming year. Speaking of holiday madness, I couldn't believe it when I went to the lot where we've gotten our trees every year for the past few years, and they were sold out. WTF?

One of the reasons we use this specific lot is that they drill the bottom of the tree with a hole straight up the trunk, which then allows us to quickly and easily set the tree up on the stand, which, conveniently enough, was specifically designed for trees with holes drilled in their trunks. They have a special drill set up that gets the hole straight. I don't have that set up, and subsequently, I've got the Leaning Tree of Pisa. Oh well.

Getting back to thinking about 2011, I've already signed up for my first race, and I've got a big trip coming up sometime early next year too, so plenty to look forward to, and plenty of motivation to keep the training up through the cold, dark, bleary, frigid, winter days.