Sunday, April 18, 2010

Endurance Training -- Diggin' It!

No one ever said endurance training had to be swim/bike/run/kayak. Did you know you can burn 360 calories an hour digging with a spade? And about the same turning compost? If that's true, my tally for the calories expended in the garden this weekend is about 2,160. Today I spent 5 hours straight digging and tossing masses of weeds in my rose garden that have been growing and taking root since last October when I stopped gardening to ride a little bike. 7 months is WAY too long to let the weeds take over and I paid for it today. After digging and tossing weeds I decided I needed more digging and tossing and headed to the manure pile for a little frolic in the horse crap. I dug and tossed about 20 wheelbarrow loads to keep the weeds at bay in the rose garden. After working for 5 hours, I thought I would go for a bike ride. NOT! I bonked almost instantly and was off the bike in 1/2 hr. My tally for the week is WAY off base (except for the runs -- they were awesome):

Run - 3.5 hours
Core/weights - 1.5 hours (was lazy this week)
Bike - 1 hour
Kayak - 2 hours
Digging - 6 hours

I heard cutting firewood and tossing it around is a good endurance workout too. Anything else out of the ordinary that folks would like to comment on? Chasing kids for a couple hours? Washing cars for a fund raiser? No, beer drinking doesn't count.

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