Marathon Training: Day 12

Exercise: 45-60 min easy

I'd like to be someone who has a life while training for a marathon. Running 5 days a week is really pushing it for me, but I do what I can. I've talked to a few people about the "easy" days and decided that cross training is perfectly fine. Cross training for me is basically anything that requires some physical exertion. I consider both "hardening" the legs and/or increasing my cardio strength during activities. Activities like hiking, cross country skiing, snowboarding, swimming, cycling, or just running are all ok by my list. It's also a good day for me to get in my lift. This allows me to still hang out with friends and also not blow off a training day.

That said, today I went snowboarding. A lot of people might think "weak, snowboarding is NOT a legit physical activity", but I beg to differ. Strapping on the HRM last year yielded several hundred calories per hour of burn. My friends and I lap a lot and charge hard. I often find myself winded on some harder runs. Regardless the requirement is "45 min easy" so I consider 6 hours of snowboarding at least the equivalent of the easy workout. To add to it, I ran 1.5 miles when I got home just to burn the legs out a little. It's supposed to snow tonight and into tomorrow, but I'll do my best to get the required 11 miles. I need to in order to stuff my face tomorrow.