Alternative forms of Cross Training:

Although last Friday was my last day of work, my summer vacation did not truly start until today. I had two days of conferences this week as well as two days of substitute teaching. While agitated that my road to freedom had been delayed, I made the conscious choice to make the best of it.



Surprisingly, the conference provided some nutritional food for thought from a cycling perspective. I received a book by John C. Maxwell entitled The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player. The intent was for us to read it from the perspective of an educator and how we can enhance our communication skills with other staff, students, and parents. However, because my mind was quite distant from anything work-related, I found myself reading it from an athletes perspective. The book proved to be chalked full of rich content that can be directly applied to my training regimen, my 24hr race focus, and my overall contributions to a team dynamic. While many of these “self-help” books are full of cliché mantras and million dollar buzzwords, this one seemed to be very worth the read!

The remaining 2 days of my 4 day count down to freedom were spent substitute teaching for one of our districts year round programs. The classroom was with our autism program, and the students ranged from 3-5 years of age. Although I did not ride my bike either of these days due to some recent illness I wanted to rest off, I do feel I got in some serious endurance training both mentally and physically! Allow me to testify that seven hours of 3-5 year old children with autism is easily more difficult from a mental and physical standpoint than any training ride I’ve ever done. I left each day with a headache, severe lower back pain from bending over because they were so short, and nutritionally drained. I’m guessing that if I could handle two days of early childhood induced mayhem, I can handle riding my bike for 24 hours!