Finding Your Winter Endurance Exercise

Do you live in snow country?  Have you found your winter endurance training activities?  I found mine just a few weeks ago; cross country skiing. My summer activities are mainly mounting biking or road biking.  I will occasionally run or hike, but I love the bicycle. I’ve always struggled in the winter months as I don’t have a Fat Bike and I really don’t like running on a treadmill.  I’ve looked at Fat Bikes, but entry level is near $2,000.  I was always interested in cross country skiing, but never really lived in an area that had many trails.  After moving to Minnesota, I am certainly surrounded by ski trails.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wasn’t going to spend the money on a Fat Bike and instead, I would go ahead and get myself set up with an entry level set of classic style cross country skis.  It was the best decision I made.  I’ve had the skis now for just a couple of weeks and I have been out on them 5 times now.  I’ve actually used them on trails in 3 different states; Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.  I’m really looking forward to next winter on the skis.

I have to admit, I really struggled this winter with my exercise and keeping up my fitness.  I put on a few pounds and just could not get in the right groove.  I don’t like to do the same thing twice, so the cross country skiing seemed to fit.  There are plenty of trails in the area that are groomed, so I will always have a new place to go.  My family and I love to travel, so I can bring my skis on our winter trips to try new trails.  I will get the kids some skis for next year, now that I have had the chance to check out the sport.

The point of this short article is that if you are in a rut, you need to take a chance and try something new.  As much as I wanted a Fat Bike, and I would still love to have one, it was really nice to mix things up and get some exercise in a different sport.  I will write another article in the future about mixing up your training to keep it exciting.  I can say that in the last 3 days; I have cross country skied, did strength and core training and ran.  It’s exciting to me to mix things up.

What do you do in the winter months for exercise?

Cross country skiing GoPro video playlist