Strategies for Staying Active in the Winter

Mount Pleasant toboggan hill, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

I'm eighteen months or so into my new life as a healthy human being. It started with short walks and eventually took me places I thought I'd never go. In fact, there's so many things I've surprised myself by doing, I now refuse to rule anything out when I imagine my future. 

My second summer of fitness was a very active one. I took up mountain biking and cycled on hills and valleys for long periods of time (for an obese person). My fitness level was surprisingly improved when I returned to the gym in the fall. But I hated not being outdoors. I hated not having a sport to pursue when the leaves started to fall off the trees and it got cold outside.

I welcomed the snow when it finally came last week (in mid-November.) It gave me an opportunity to go tobogganing and even to try something new: cross-country--or "Nordic", as the kids call it nowadays--skiing. I hit the annual ski swap and outfitted myself and my son.

I discovered two pair of skis in my shed that I had recently wanted to get rid of. The idea of me ever using them seemed patently absurd. But like the encouraging man at the ski swap said, "There  ain't no mosquitoes in the winter time."

I created a ski trail outside my back yard in an adjacent field so I can practice (I took lessons in grade five and loved it) but it's coming really slowly to me. I'm fit enough to do it, it's just that I'm having problems with technique. I can't really get going. Mostly, I'm walking on my skis and just trying to keep upright.

My ski trail got messed up by contractors installing residential fiber optics.

I also bought a pair of ice skates. There's a speed skating oval near me that I would love to skate on. But it's been a long time and my body doesn't bend or repair like it used to.

Of all the things I've done to improve my fitness, nothing kicks my ass like slogging my heavy body up the large toboggan hill over and over again for an hour or two with my kids. I show up at the gym afterwards and my heart has grown to be as big as a basketball. Everything else I do is easier.  My heart and lungs work even more effortlessly than before. In other words, tobogganing really improves my fitness--like nothing else I've tried so far.

I now look forward to winter. It's the "in-between" non-cycling, non-winter sports seasons I dread.