The First Brick of the Season

Since my first day out on two wheels on that misty morning last week, I haven't been able to stay off my bike. The roads are still too icy to risk a slip-and-slide outing on my road bike, so my mountain bike and I have been exploring the trails that weave in and out of the empty cow fields, breaking through frozen puddles and occasionally getting stuck in the larger ones, each venture no longer than an hour. Besides this being the point when I begin to lose the feeling in my hands and feet, I want to make sure my legs are happy with the reintroduction of this neglected activity to reduce my risk of a too-much-too-soon injury showing up later in the training cycle. So far so good, and in fact, I snuck in an unplanned brick today. The sun was peeking though the clouds as I returned from a 45-minute ride, and I just wasn't ready to go indoors yet. So I parked my bike, counted all my fingers and toes to make sure they were still there, and pulled on my running shoes for an easy 20 minute out and back in the snowy vineyards. There was the usual dead-legged, are-my-legs-even-there sensation for the first 15 minutes, but all cylinders seemed to be firing for the last 5. Now all I need to do is add some swimming, and I have something that resembles an Ironman training program.

I do think about swimming, if that counts. I think about it every day, and then I think about how far away the indoor pool is, how overcrowded the lanes can be, how cold it will feel to come out with wet hair, and I think 'maybe tomorrow'. I was spoiled last summer: our tiny village of Chexbres has a 50m outdoor pool that's a 5 minute walk from my back door. I swam almost every day, clocking an average of 8 km a week at my training peak, and got a really good two-piece tan while doing it. My hair air-dried in the sun as I lay on my towel, reading my French grammar book ('je nage, tu nage, nous nageons...', 'I swim, you swim, we swim...'), eating fresh peaches and listening to the village children heckle each other to jump in at the shallow end ('si tu saute pas, je te pousserai, idiote!', 'if you don't jump I will push you, you idiot!). I learned a lot of useful phrases from those kids. Ah, the days of summer. Swimming in the winter just isn't the same; it calls for a herculean motivational effort that I haven't been able to muster this January, but I have big plans to get wet in February, really I do...

Speaking of heckling, I have been receiving a lot of off-line inquiries for recipes from a surprising number of closet vegans amongst my readership (you know who you are). I've been hesitant, mostly out of fear that I'll be mistaken for a Vegan Housekeeping columnist, but I suppose the odd recipe won't hurt. So, I will be posting the best vegan recipe that I discovered at the end of each month. I currently have two strong contenders in mind for January's recipe - one's a curry and one's a cookie - but they could both be toppled by the Spanish Vegetable Hotpot on tonight's menu (intriguingly called 'Buried Treasure'), which has a chardonnay from the winemaker next door waiting to be paired with it.

Is it any wonder that I am not losing weight as a vegan?