Originally published at: The Art of Balancing Indoor and Outdoor Training - Slowtwitch News
As I sit down to write this particular article, it is a balmy 5 degrees Fahrenheit here at Slowtwitch: Tundra Division. (That’s 15 below for the rest of you in the civilized world.) I say balmy because we at least have the warmth of the sun shining through blue skies for a change, and there’s no howling wind to cut through it. There’s about a foot of snow on the ground, with a healthy amount of crust on top of it, which keeps our two dogs running across the top, whereas I’m breaking through with each step.
Welcome to winter in New England, folks.

If you’re going to live here, you have to embrace the season. It means gearing up to head outdoors and taking advantage of the limited amount of daylight at your disposal. Almost all schools around offer some type of “mountain days” program, where kids will go cross-country skiing, ice skating, alpine skiing, or snowshoeing one afternoon per week through the winter season. It’s about learning to enjoy activities that you can only do in the cold.
Notice which activities aren’t included in that bundle? Swimming, biking, or running. Our traditional triathlon-related activities aren’t reintroduced until the spring, when the ice melts and road surfaces are no longer covered in salt, sand, and grime. Those activities all head toward the great indoors, with extremely limited exceptions.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about today: trying to find the balance of indoor and outdoor training, particularly in the winter, although it’s applicable whenever conditions turn challenging.
Outside: Race Simulations, Activity for Enjoyment
Let’s lead off with the latter category. I have positively zero interest in layering up to ride a bike outdoors for a couple hours in the weather we had this morning. I have a whole lot more interest in putting on the same amount of layers and skinning up a mountain. Turns out I’m not the only triathlete taking this approach. If it’s good enough for Jan Frodeno, it’s good enough for me:
Getting through winter, unless you have a race in April, is almost all about building generalized fitness to then carry into the race season. Moving your body at all is far more important than any specific work. Use your training to keep yourself inspired. For me, that’s trying to build up to at least 10,000 feet of vertical in touring in a single day. (I’m going to need some more SuperSkin tape to make that a reality.) But that also means I’ll head out for runs when it feels like the right thing to do. There’s something peaceful about running when it’s lightly snowing, and everything’s quieter.

When the weather starts turning, I’ll begin to move more of my riding and running outside. This particularly gets true when it’s time to best mimic race conditions as I can. For instance, I have a run loop that does an awfully decent job of replicating the way the IRONMAN Lake Placid run course goes. I used that a lot when training for the race last year. Those types of sessions are invaluable, and they add in the kind of variability that you can only get in the great outdoors.
Inside: When Quality Will Be Compromised By Conditions
Surviving winter in New England is also an exercise in self-preservation. Our driveway, for instance, features a 15% grade up to the road. Yesterday morning, after some freezing rain and sleet, it had completely frozen over. While taking our dogs out, I made the mistake of walking on said driveway.
Yes, I fell. Yes, I’m OK. This is, as some will recall, how I broke my right wrist two years ago. I was smart enough to land on the OTHER hand and didn’t jam it the same way.
Young me would have been dumb enough to try to go for a run on that kind of surface, no matter what the run was supposed to be. Older me knows that yesterday was a day for the treadmill, without question, if I was going to get a run in. I wound up doing nothing at all, because as my daughter likes to remind me, “you’re an old man and need to not break yourself.” (Kids: they’re the best!)

When the inherent quality of a particular activity is going to be compromised, that’s when I’m headed straight for inside. That means for run sessions, if the footing is going to be questionable, it’s time for the treadmill. For the bike, it means if I can’t put together a safe route for longer intervals, I’m heading to the trainer. If light or visibility is going to be questionable, I’m not doing it outdoors; roads with high speed limits and orientation that mean drivers are staring directly into the sun is too high of an acceptable risk.
At the end of the day, we’re trying to get our activities in and staying in one piece at the end of it.
See you out there — whether outside, or virtually, will depend on the day.