Day 18.308: Cross-training

I’m not training for anything but when I was marathon training, I would occasionally get into conversations about strenuous activities such as raking leaves and shoveling snow and whether they should count as part of the training regimen - specifically as “cross-training” a.k.a. anything except running. 

Thanks to a wearable fitness tracker I no longer need to guess. Fitbit has a vaguely-defined measure called cardio load which is basically a measure of activity. When I do my morning workouts they add anything from 35 to 65 points. The 3 mile runs I did during the spring and summer added 80 to 90. The app also gives a recommended target each day (which I generally ignore) based on how “ready” it determines I am for working out. 

Here’s my cardio load graph for today. 

That yellow band in the late morning was clearing leaves by a mixture of raking, mowing and hauling. I think that counts as a pretty good workout and I did indeed slow down for the rest of the day.