Cross- training? Are you crazy?

I don't do cross-training.

When I first heard about the need for crosstraining as a runner, I was not amused! Here I was, finally being 'sporty' and everything, and now people were telling me that wasn't enough!

For a while I did some Pilates, but I soon realized exchanging my Pilates lesson for a run, was not only easier, but also much cheaper. So that was the end of my crosstraining.

Motherhood provides its own crosstraining!

But I had not reckoned with my work as a mom and housewife, which offers its own special blend of crosstraining, like

1. lifting weights (kids, and heavy laundry baskets)
2. strenghtening the arm muscles (vacuuming, changing the beds, mopping the floor)
3. and gardening (all of the above)

I'm bow-legged and not fancy free

After a very strenuous gardening session last Wednesday I'm walking around bowlegged, like I've been shot or had too much sex. Obviously all that kneeling down, and pulling up weeds, made me use muscles that had long been forgotten. I'm certain a personal trainer could not have made my muscles feel worse.

So thanks to motherhood, I'm doing crosstraining after all! On the one hand, motherhood makes me want to do a runner, on the other hand it kindly offers me some much needed cross-training exercises. It's one of the many paradoxes of motherhood in a nutshell!