I drove Jack into school and returned home to my neighbor raking leaves. First of all, I commended him on taking the physical way. I absolutely hate leaf blowers. The noise makes me insane, ruins the serenity of the neighborhood or what there is of it, and is also a large, missed opportunity. Raking leaves is semi-strenuous, but not overly so. I rake mine into reasonably-sized piles, throw them onto a large tarp which I try to load to the breaking point though this is optional, then I attempt to drag it to the tree lawn for pick-up by the city. I strain as I pull the load weighing about as much as a small motor vehicle, but I figure it’s a great leg workout and gets me sweating profusely. I could move smaller loads, but where would the fun be in that?
Anyway, depending on how you do it, it’s an opportunity to turn a necessary activity into a decent workout. Leaf blowers rob you of that opportunity AND disturb me...two excellent reasons to NEVER use them. Inspired by his actions and knowing rains were on the way, I spent the next two hours dragging most of mine to the tree lawn.
Holly and I followed my raking with a trip to Columbus to visit Savannah. We’d hoped to make a visit with her and an opportunity to do some hiking at Hocking Hills to see more fall colors. The rains had a different idea. We picked Savannah up and went to lunch at Steak-n-Shake where you have to be pretty versatile to eat something not loaded with fat. They make tremendous milkshakes, but I opted for a salad and a diet Coke. We drove to our hotel where Holly and Savannah plopped into the king-sized bed to take a nap. I googled the area and located Highbanks Metropark, a park that appeared to be even bigger than the North Chagrin Reservation and with hiking trails. I changed into my running gear and began the five-mile drive.
If you haven’t driven the roads of the greater Columbus region, you aren’t missing a thing. Two-thirds of the cars sold in the United States are on the roads in this area. You can’t leave your driveway without getting into a bumper to bumper situation and I don’t care what time of day it is. Anyway, I spent about thirty frustrating minutes getting to the park.
Then the comparisons
began. When you’ve run in the best
Metropark system in the country for forty years, you tend to look down on
everything else. And with good
reason. Without the mature forests,
severe ravines and marshes, winding and secluded trails of the North Chagrin it
was, well, just a run in a park. I don’t
think there was any part of it that was far enough away from a major
thoroughfare to avoid hearing the constant drone of rubber on road. I did see a beautiful, large Barred Owl and had
three white tails stand their ground as I ran within ten feet of them, though. And if you’d never been to the Cleveland
Metroparks Emerald Necklace, you’d think Highbanks was a pretty special
place...which it was.It drizzled during the entire 47 minutes of my run as I explored almost the entire trail system (I’d only hit about 10% of the trails of North Chagrin in that amount of time) and I returned to my car completely soaked and slightly chilled since the temperatures were now in the high forties. I returned to the hotel to find my companions still napping. I showered and dragged them from their stupors to go out to dinner at the Rusty Bucket where I ordered their homemade meatloaf. It wasn’t a very Paleo dinner, but we’re on the road and I take liberties. In all, I felt that I’d had a negative caloric day burning considerably more than I’d consumed.
Run Duration: 47 minutes. Rake duration: Two hours.
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm running and 80 bpm raking.
Calories burned during workout: 800 running and 600 raking.
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