Tales from the Insanely Active

The lecture this morning was "How to Train for a Marathon". There are four people we have been given permission to call "Coach". They stand in front of our group and share knowledge, wisdom, insight. The auditorium contains some 80 or so people in varying stages of marathon readiness. Yes, I am amazed to say, I am in this audience. And yes, they are addressing me. How cool. You can probably guess my variety of marathon readiness. Never mind that part. The best part is the Question & Answer section.

The hand the head coach picked came down and a cute young voice piped up, "What about cross-training?"

"I'm glad you asked that." started this coach. "First, the schedule will be adhered to, especially the rest days. Bodies need time to recover. More recovery is better. Over training is a real danger. Bodies literally break down during running and need the time to reconnect - that's where muscle is strengthened. Cross-training is good, but hey, let's keep it light."

They have seen serious injuries in extramural soccer and in the group of ladies that were doing Kick-boxing. We may want to take these selections off our list during training.

More hands come up as people here in this running group are looking to add this as a layer of activity into their lives. Until the one woman asked plaintively, "Well, can I still go to soccer on Thursdays?" At this point the man NOT in the running gear came out from the wall and said, "Let's get clear what we are doing here." The whole auditorium let off a loud chuckle. "Less than 1% of the population run marathons. It takes that much. This may be all the intensity you need."

At which point, I wonder what I have gotten myself into.