Cross Training

Topic: Cross Training
Key Words: Bike, Trail, Taking a Poo
Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Cross Training ... Your Portfolio

Though I should be a good blogger, and only talk about today, I need to set the stage for my normal Sunday training by covering my normal Saturday. And it just so happens that yesterday contains a noteworthy lesson .....

Yesterday morning, like most Saturdays, I joined the a running group called the Knuckleheads (@ 6:30AM!!!) for what I hoped would be a 10 mile run. However, as I was milling about waiting to start, my body told me 10 miles was a bit much, and I mentally settled on eight. So I struck out, enjoying a casual conversation with the Irish wonder, Jake Booth (Jake will tell that he's the oldest runner in our group, and then beat the crap out of your time!). About two miles into the run, I realized what every distance runners hates to realize; I had to poo.

Let's say you're making a cake, and the recipe calls for one cup of "tightly packed flour". You would take out your flour container, and lightly tap it on your kitchen counter top, thereby packing the loose flour into a more dense consistency. Simply put, running can do the same kind of packing ... to your bowels. I suppose I owed my body a BM, and two miles of running was only packing things in; I needed to return to my toilet with haste.

So my eight mile plan turned to six, and I hastily turned onto Waugh to take the six mile route. I finished the 5.7 or so miles in just under 57 minutes. A little slow for such an amazing morning (62 degrees in Houston in May ... unbelievable), but within tolerance ... especially since I had to poo.

So today, like most Sundays, the legs got a break from impact sports by my choosing my normal cross training endeavor ... trail biking! I like to take my Trek 4300 Mountain Bike (orange, War Eagle!) to the Memorial Park trails for a spin. There are two sets of trails; the ones most people use, and the ones where you could crash and die and no one would find your body for weeks! I'm not actually sure the city even knows about some of the more "killer" trails.

When I got to the park I did my usual run down the red course and followed that with a run on the blue. Things went well, so I made my way to my favorite course, the Yellow. Yellow is where I tore my leg up with my pedal back in March (you can still see the damage ... looks like I've got a tiger claw tattoo over my right Achilles), and I'm proud to say that I finally made it through that part of the course with no flash backs and no bailing off the bike!

I then made my way to the death trails, and did something really smart; I didn't ride them. I've only ridden them a couple of times, and really don't understand their layout very well. If I were to wreck bad and have call someone for help (I always carry my cell phone, my keys, and my medical card ... if there were a time I'd my medical card, it would be while biking), I probably couldn't tell them where I was exactly. In short, though I'm sure it would have been OK, it's not the best of trails to ride solo, so I put them off for another day. The funniest part of my two minute death trail stint was the guy walking in the forest who looked SHOCKED to actually see a biker back there!

I ended up on the bike for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Not as intense, from a calories burned perspective as road biking, but the trails give a decent total body workout. The legs got a break from impact, while the leg muscles got some work, and I got some aerobic work too. Most importantly, I got to enjoy what is surely the last reasonably cool, 2007 Spring weekend in Houston.

Softball tomorrow, so no running. Since I talked about cross training my body today, I'll shift to finance, and talk about cross training my portfolio tomorrow!

I think I'll Tivo Oprah tomorrow. Seems like I should. Know thine enemy.