Crosstraining, or, It’s Easier When You Try Harder
Yesterday, I posted the following to my various social media feeds: “Over the last two weeks, I graded over 55,000 words of essays and 12 hours worth of speeches. And now I’ll spend the next two weeks breaking up fights about which episode of Paw Patrol we should have on TV. So, the 20 minutes I’m spending in my classroom waiting for the parking lot to empty might be the highlight of my break!” Now that I have been on vacation for around 24 hours, I would like to temper that cynical post and say that Christmas Break with my family is actually more fun than sitting in my classroom waiting for the parking lot to clear, even though we already have had several fights today about which iteration of Paw Patrol should be on TV. My key takeaway from the day is that parenting, like almost anything else, is easier when you try harder. Also, you can’t overestimate the value of cross training.
In an effort to help my kids (6 and 3 years old) burn off some energy and get them out of the house, this winter we’ve been taking them to the local trampoline park at least once a week. The last two times I took them, I was still in my walking boot recovering from my stress fracture, so I would throw them into the trampoline room and then try to listen to my podcast on headphones while keeping one eye on them to make sure no one twisted their knee 180 degrees the wrong direction. It was pretty boring. But today, I am bootless, so I strapped on my jumping socks and hopped my 44 year old self in there with them. It was great—- we played dodgeball, ran races, played tag, the whole thing. I got my heart rate up and spent quality time with the kids making memories. And my wife was happy that I got the boys out of her way for a few hours and now I get to sit and watch football, cashing in that karma. Big win.
Like a lot of things, parenting is a lot more fun when you put energy into it. I’m no parenting saint—- I’ve spent a lot of time over the past six years hoping my kids will let me ignore them while I try to watch something on TV, listen to a podcast, or scroll social media. But the result of that is usually me getting frustrated with the boys, the kids not having a great time, and me not enjoying whatever I was prioritizing over them. When I’m able to overcome my initial inertia and parent with both feet, everyone involved has a better time. The same thing is true when I’m teaching—- if there’s 10 minutes left at the end of class and I tell my students to relax and talk to their friends while I stare into the middle distance and think about Spring Break, I end up feeling bored and gross. If I make myself actually get involved and lead some kind of activity or just start a conversation with one of the kids, I feel better. If my wife wants me to go the pumpkin patch instead of watching football, I have a much better time if I embrace the sweater weather and pose for cute pictures with the family on a hay wagon instead of sullenly trying to follow the game on my phone while everybody else samples apple cider. Trying harder makes things easier.
The other nice part of my hour and half of trampolining is that I managed to get a pretty good workout in for the day, and didn’t put too much stress on my healing foot in the process. My wife was worried I was going to reinjure myself jumping (and, too be fair, I came closer to blowing out my ACL than I intended to with a few risky trampoline maneuvers). But I hurt myself running 18 miles on a totally level, smoothly paved running trail. Repeating the same motion over and over again for over three hours and then getting exhausted so your form breaks down in a good way to get a repetitive stress injury. I hadn’t had any problems in months and months of training because I was always mixing in trail runs, hills, bike rides, etc. It was only when I started stepping up my mileage to get ready for the marathon and had to cut out most of the variety that I got hurt. So, I’ll acknowledge that jumping on a trampoline increased my risk of catastrophic injury, but I think I would have been in more danger of another stress fracture jogging around the neighborhood.
I’ve got two more weeks of vacation to look forward to. If I spend them treating my family and my training like a nametag job where I’m trying to do as little as possible, I think it’s going to be miserable. If I embrace the trampoline park of it all, I think I will have a pretty good time.
Speaking of training! I’m training to run 5 half marathons in 4 weeks across 5 states next July. I’m doing it as a fundraiser for the National DIaper Bank Network. If you’ve made it this far, please consider clicking the big Donate button at the top of the page and making even a small contribution. Thanks!
