Not enough hockey

I'm in the middle of a three-week break in my league schedule, AND shinny was cancelled last Wednesday due to a snowstorm. This season has been a struggle for me anyway - I can barely motivate myself to be enthusiastic about games, and it has been nearly impossible for me to get myself to work out at home as an adjunct to my rather sparse hockey schedule.

However, I've recently discovered a new (to me) blog, The Paleo Mom, and in it, a post about sprinting's effects on lowering your body's weight set-point. I find this interesting because I am still nowhere near as lean as I was when I got pregnant with baby #2 (who is now 15 months old). My fitness isn't bad - it didn't take too long for my on-ice all-out sprints to come back to what they used to be - so, what's the main difference between now and then? Well, two years ago I was playing hockey 3-4 times a week, and now I'm lucky if I get on the ice twice a week. Hockey is basically a sprint workout, shinny in particular - that's what I love about it, it's exercise that doesn't feel like exercise because all you really want to do is get to the puck! And I'm just not sprinting as much as I used to because I'm only playing hockey and not doing anything else.

So, having reminded myself of the benefits of sprinting, I am going to give it some serious effort. Just for this week, I'll set up the bike on the trainer and sprint on Monday and Friday (and Wednesday if for some reason hockey is cancelled). And rather than think of it as a months-long commitment, which is sure to turn me off, I'm just going to do it for the week. I'll re-evaluate how I feel about it over the weekend and decide whether to keep it up. In my experience, forcing myself to do the first workout will be the hardest, and subsequent workouts should be easier. Besides, I have some new playlists to listen to and the workouts will be short; that's the whole point behind a sprint workout, after all.

The workout will be along the lines of a routine I've used before: warm up for 3 songs (10-ish minutes), then 5-10 minutes worth of sprints and rest periods (still pondering the details), and a 5-minute cool-down. That should manage to be slotted in between baby's bedtime (6:00 pm) and reading to my daughter (6:45 pm). My husband has promised to help out by setting up my bike on the trainer BEFORE I need it, so I can just clip in and start riding. I had some moments in the last few weeks when I almost managed to get on my bike, and then gave up because it wasn't set up and the space to ride in was a complete mess anyway. He knows how frustrating this was for me, and wants to help me in any way he can.

Man. The lengths we have to go to when there's just not enough hockey!