Mid winter and the rest of the US is freezing and digging out from under feet of snow. Here in South Florida we just have to deal with the winter wind.  Its so RUDE! I KNOW! But wind is what we have here because we don’t have hills (or snow 🙂 ). I know we all say we hate the wind, but we have to get over it.

Handling the wind is mostly a mental game; the sooner we stop saying we hate the wind (which is a veiled admission of defeat), the sooner we can learn to use it as a a great training tool. Let go of the need for speed, and embrace the need for maintaining a high but comfy cadence, desired training heart rate (different for different training rides), and related RPE, and we can ride strong in the wind. It is a great mental training tool, in that we can focus on form and feel, and be disciplined about not trying to hold a certain pace, and still have a great workout. Don’t let your focus on keeping a unattainable pace into the wind ruin the workout. Take control of the ride- make sure your goals fit the conditions, and then adjust what you focus on so that every workout is a good one.