Winter is upon us, at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere. I am wondering what the rest of you think about the idea that maybe we should train less hard in the winter. From an evolutionary standpoint most humans are diurnal and the days are shorter, and activity would tend to be lower during the winter. We would also have less availability of carbohydrates during the winter. All that seems to indicate to me that here in the year 2013 we should sleep more and train less. But if you still have designs on being a high-level athlete (within the restrictions of still wanting to be generally healthy), should you just ignore the seasons and just train like you would in the summer?

An interesting thesis. During winter it is cold, staying warm requires the body burn a large amount of calories preferably fat. Moving around through snow is strenuous. So from an evolutionary standpoint while the days may be shorter the level of endurance and caloric needs are greater. As a mountaineer, I can confirm this. Being out doing strenuous movement in zero degrees for 12 hours is really hard! The body just will not perform at the same level as if it was 50. We spend all year training for winter and high altitude. So the cold weather is ideal for training, now I can work on my cold conditioning while running.