Cross-Training

Having met my deadlines for the moment, today was an outdoors day.  My body still feels like summer, pampered by months of tee shirts and shorts without shivering.  Three months from now, I will delight in Indian summer and shed my long sleeves and sweat pants.  For the moment, I'm one of those well-wrapped souls I found remarkable when we showed up at our first road race after moving from St. Louis to North Carolina, back when an empty golf course on a sunny, fifty-degree morning had me wondering if we were in the midst of a depression or an air raid.

First thing, I pulled on a couple shirts, a sweatshirt, warm jeans and a pair of gloves and attacked a weed-patch.  With our son heading home for the weekend anxious to earn a few bucks, I wanted to get a head-start on the agenda -- weeding, manuring, mulching, maybe planting some wheat and garlic, and gathering supplies for our nearly empty woodshed.  Weeding was so much fun lunchtime surprised me.

Lunch was part of my plan for today's run.  My training for Hellgate must include "eat and run" because it's not a good idea to run 66 miles on an empty stomach.  In turn, my run was part of a landlord's chore, having received word that the roof of our cottage had leaked during the last rain and one of the floor registers was delivering no heat from the furnace.  After running 4 miles, I changed into a dry shirt, climbed onto the roof, swept off a large collection of leaves and pine needles, then squeezed into the crawl space underneath the house to check the furnace ducts.  I welcomed the 4-mile downhill return to Elk Cliff (home).

"Nice cross-training regimen," says Virginia.  "Why didn't you mention the bear that attacked you on the way home?"

I guess it slipped my mind.