"What's the difference between a Catholic and a Christian, dad?"

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Last winter I burned a considerable amount of calories with my snow shovel in hand. We received about 6 inches in Highland Heights, but it was really easy to push and I feel guilty entering it in my calorie burning log. Still…at least I am pushing it when it does come and the winter is young…

I dropped Jack at church and instead of going in myself…I had taken my resting pulse the night before…decided instead to get my serenity by hiking in the snow in the Metropark with Dakota. Jack quizzed me on the ride home about the difference between Catholics and Christians (I went to 8 years of Catholic school, was an altar boy, and regular pain to the nuns of the school…so I’m qualified). We attend an Episcopalian church now…since that was Holly’s denomination when we married. Anyway, Jack said he didn’t mind listening to the sermon, but thought the rest of the service, which is the same week in and week out…was boring.

“Hate to say this…but I agree,” I said. I told him about the Catholic faith coming first in Christianity and how, after Martin Luther started the Lutherans in Germany as a breakaway, many others followed creating other branches of Christianity. “No one is better than any other…as far as I’m concerned,” I commented, “…and it’s all about how you live your life the other 167 hours of the week, anyway.” I finished by telling him that I felt much closer to my creator in the Adirondacks than any church I had ever visited. Maybe it’s blasphemy, but it is the way I feel.

I got home and put in an our on the bike before finally coming to Holly’s aid with house and kitchen clean-up. She was making turkey stew from the leftovers of our Christmas dinner…and the smell was making me wild. I was glad I’d already put in two workouts when I saw her thawing peaches which could only be headed for her wonderful peach cobbler. I may have burned over a 1,000 calories, but I could see a ten-minute time span at the dinner table in my immediate future where I would be reversing that. Now…if there is only some Breyer’s…

Bike duration: 60 minutes. Hike duration: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 130 biking. 75 hiking.
Calories burned during workout: 900 biking. 300 hiking.