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No, when I use the word "cross," I am not talking about cyclocross, though that is definitely cross training in two meanings of the term. I am talking here about walking.

Ordinarily, when I am inactive, I walk 10-12 miles per week, mostly on necessary errands to the post office, bank, and various businesses and buildings around town.

Last month or so, I've been emphasizing walking as a supplement to riding bicycles. Occasional 8 mile walks to the university looping the arena, 6 mile RT walks to one of two grocery stores, and 4 mile RT walks to Wal-Mart. I am fitter for it.

Why walk?

Walking is load-bearing, unlike cycling. Cycling you sweat out electrolytes without body weight on legs and spine, which some say leads to lower bone density among cyclists.

Walking corrects some of the biomechanical ruts that cyclists fall into. Ruts? Sure. Cycling is like exercising in a posture similar to your posture when you are hunched over a keyboard, as different articles in Bicycling magazine have pointed out. Walking by contrast involves standing up straight with a sigmoid curve to the spine, which flexes and the pelvis rotates as legs are pushed out behind, stretching the hip flexors. Hip flexors that otherwise shorten as you sit in a chair or pedal.

"Pushing legs out behind"? Yes. An efficient stride is one lengthened not by sticking the front leg way out, which is the tendency of office workers and cyclists with their shortened hip flexors, but by emphasizing the leg thrust as the back leg is stretched out behind.

Walking for some is a process of standing and toppling over until a new balance point is reached and then toppling forward again. Of sticking the front foot out and braking the momentum with each step.

That's not walking. It's a type of standing.

"Walking" is a power move, in which the front foot grabs the ground and pulls the body along, while the rear foot thrusts backward powerfully. Walking uses the back, the abs, the shoulders and arms. Walking uses more muscles than running, and requires more flexibility than jogging. (When I jog I tend to "pronk" like an antelope, bouncing along on muscle elasticity alone.)

The biomechanics of walking are very important, because the walker needs to minimize any braking effect.

When I am walking well, I have the feeling that I am using my thighs, not my ankles or feet, and that the lower part of my front leg is bent and moving backward as the front foot touches the ground. I feel loose and flexible but toned in the back and abs. My arms don't swing a whole lot, but that is a personal characteristic, that I make up for with pelvic rotation and flexing the back.

Before I began cycling, my thigh muscles were weak and my soleus and gastrocnemius very strong, which led to a problem.

Starting in my 20s, I tended to overuse the muscles of my lower leg--the soleus and gastrocnemius and tibialis--rather than the thighs. I lengthened my stride by sticking my leg farther out in front, instead of concentrating on the long push by my back leg. And in consequence I hit the pavement hard with my heel in a braking movement--which shocked the tiabilis anterior and caused crippling pain in the tibialis. (This is one of several lower-leg pains that go by the name of "shin splints." Fortunately it is the most easily cured, by simply shortening the stride in front and lengthening it in the rear, and by concentrating on walking with the thigh muscles instead of those of the lower leg. It helpsme to visualize myself as walking on my knees, without any lower legs at all.)

Cycling has developed my hamstrings and quads, resurrecting vastus medialis muscles that disappeared 30 years ago, and giving me a nice fullness to the back of the leg, but the most remarkable effect has been to strengthen my hip flexors. This is perhaps because I pull the thighs upward in the pedaling movement more than most--certainly more than most who use platform pedals.

Cycling combined with vigorous walking is a complete lower body workout.

I wish there were such events as "low impact triathlons," with race walking substituted for running. I think we'd see far fewer injuries and many more older and heavier competitors.

Added: Obviously in a triahtlon you can walk instead of run if you want to. But you will still be competing against runners. When it comes to triathlons with a sanctioned race-walking category, I see obstacles. Race walking, unlike running, has two rules, and warnings and even DQs are not uncommon in competition. By requiring a bevy of race-walking judges to be added to the typical triathlon, this adds to the logistics and expense of staging a triathlon. So I don't see this as becoming too popular. Now, a Google search did uncover one use of a trademarked name, "Softathlon," that was applied to a tri with race-walking substituted for running. Softathlon has a warm and fuzzy appeal to the sedentary, but sounds too namby-pamby to appeal to triathetes.