Intro to Cross-Training, or, The Honeymoon Is Over
For weeks now, I’ve been telling people how amazing it is that my body is quickly getting used to running. My heart rate and breath return to normal much faster, my muscles aren’t always sore, and I don’t spend the whole run thinking only of how much I want to stop. My dignity and stamina knew no bounds!
Then, we did cross-training. Nothing is more humbling than crab-walking across a lawn at the age of 40.*
The training session started innocently enough. We ran across the park, 5 minutes or so, to our new staging area, and learned about step counting. Apparently, for a low-impact and energy-efficient run, you should be stepping about 180 times per minute, no matter how fast you’re running. This keeps your stride from being too long. We ran around practicing that for a while, and it definitely felt weird. It was a little like that weird jog they do in basic training scenes. I wanted to start singing.
I DON’T KNOW BUT I’VE BEEN TOLD
(I DON’T KNOW BUT I’VE BEEN TOLD)
YOU SHOULD USE FUTURA BOLD
(YOU SHOULD USE FUTURA BOLD)
(I’m a graphic designer.)
After that cakewalk, I was feeling pretty great. This sort of training I could deal with. Then we started the cross-training.
I knew we were in for trouble when I saw the sadistic glint in Coach Kara’s eyes. They broke our group into two, and while the other half went for a five-minute run, we did a series of jumping jacks, squats, lunge walks, high-knee runs and skips and that thing from football movies where you get low to the ground and run in place super-fast (I call it “the worst”).
Then the other guys got back, and we went off on our 5-minute run.
Then back for more stuff like crabwalking (forwards and backwards) and “mummy walks” (holding your arms out front and walking with your legs straight out and as high as possible, or as Rachel called it, the “double sieg heil.”)
Then another 5-minute run.
Then back for crunches, leg lifts, plank position, and some other stuff that I think happened after I blacked out.
Then another 5-minute run, followed by some talking, another 5-minute run, and stretching.
I know this is good for me, but it made me tired and cranky. The next day, still tired and cranky. My lower back isn’t stiff or anything, but it feels like it just might give up at some point in the next hour, and I will have to walk home like one of those old Yoda ladies with right-angle backs I used to see in Japan, suffering from their traditional cuisine’s lack of calcium.
And then there’s tomorrow, when I’m sure the pain will really start. Oh well. I guess the good thing about cross-training is that it makes running seem pretty damn easy by comparison.
</whining>
*Actually, crab-walking is one of the only exercises I was good at, but that’s a funnier sentence than saying I was crap at crunches, if less alliterative.
