Cross Training (Not ’Cross Training)

Watercolor by A. Kingston Rudd, 1899

I had a busy morning today … the good kind of busy, not the “too much to do / no time to do it” kind. Things kicked off at 6:30 with the NBC Sports Gold webcast of the Telenet UCI Cyclocross World Cup from Namur, Belgium. Such a cool setting! Maybe that’s what we need to bring a top-level cyclocross race to Washington County: a citadel. Holy Hill is the closest thing we have. As far as I know, it doesn’t have any artillery platforms, but that’s fixable.

Namur is a gateway city for visitors to the Ardennes, a hilly and heavily forested area not unlike our Kettle Moraine region. I was reminded constantly of the similarities later this morning as I hiked the Ice Age Trail from Ridge Run Park to the Paradise Drive trailhead and back. That was more than 7 miles in 2 hours, a good pace on such terrain. If not for the wind chill, I might have been tempted to do a bike ride today. As it was, today provided an opportunity for my first hike since November 29, 2017.

I’m shocked to realize how much time passed between hikes, given how much I enjoy hiking. But in recent years I have been more willing to ride on these in-between days. There are a few in-between days in the forecast for the final week of 2018, and I wouldn’t mind tacking on some more cycling miles to this year’s total. My next hike may have to wait, but probably not for 13 months! By next weekend we should be consistently below freezing but not yet snow-covered. That’s the right combination to make me lace up the boots again.