Cross-training

I'll admit it, the snow has been too deep for me to venture out even on my singlespeed bike.  I think if I lived right next to my favorite trails, this wouldn't be the case.  But seeing as my car has been parked in the garage at work all week and our truck is still somewhere in a snowbank, the concept of driving to a trailhead is not good.

So instead, I've been "cross-training."  The daily activity is known as hiking to work - complete with snow boots and ski pants.  I could've used the snowshoes yesterday.  While normally it's a mere 20 minute stroll from home to lab, the lack of sidewalks open, drifts, slippery roads and unplowed park where I normally take a short cut means it's bordering on 35 minutes.  Yesterday, we did it in the blizzard.  Only it didn't take as long because I stopped with some friends at the local pub for upper body cross-training.

This afternoon I needed some "interval" core cross-training.  So I shoveled.  Our parking spot out back.  In case there wasn't enough core strength involved in plain old shoveling, a bunch of branches were strewn in the old snow and under the new snow.  Refreshing.  Nothing like aiming shovels of snow at a tree and pine boughs sufficient to look like a large Christmas tree onto a pile in the back yard.  As I was stomping my shoes at the end of the session, I noticed about a 6 foot drift across our basement door.  Yeah, good thing I wasn't planning to drag that singlespeed out today.

Weekend cross-training - yeah, you know it!  Hiking uphill on skis meant for going down, picking up kids, and doing top-to-bottom runs in the worse conditions I can find with ski instructor exam prep candidates.  Oh, and snowshoeing, too.  Yup, we're probably going to need to get out the snowshoes to get the dogs to their happy weekend house.