You want to talk about improvement?

How about shaving an average of 90 seconds off your mile and 30 seconds off your 400-meter! In just six weeks! Well, that's exactly the kind of improvement our first RUN class saw over the last month and a half. Thirteen-minute-milers became ten-minute-milers. Ten's became eight's and eight's became seven's!! The girls who ran sub-three minute quarters? They're running sub-two minutes. You know how pink is the new black? Well, 1:25 for the 400-meter: it's the new 1:50 - faster and fitter.

Need I also mention the ten pounds and eleven inches a few of our girls watched fall right off of them? (I'm talking about individuals each losing that much!!) That's what we're talking about when we're talking about results and improvement. And it's all a direct result of COMMITMENT over time.

See ya' in our next class.

"What we're doing, it isn't about today."

I just read a great article by Patrick Cummings @ http://www.againfaster.com/articles/. The writer happens to be talking about a style of training called Crossfit, (more on that later!), but it applies to any sort of training or investment that we make in ourselves and our body today. Running off body fat and increasing cardio-vascular strength is great for our lives now, but it'll be an even greater pay-off 20, 30, 40 years down the road when we're still moving around without the use of a "Rascal" or a "Segway" or whatever new contraption they come up with to transport the folks who got old without spending a little bit of time taking care of themselves!! Let's leave the heart-attacks and high cholesterol and moaning and groaning as we get in and out of bed for them. Hopefully, we'll still be running. Or playing with grandkids. Or still running. ;)

Run today, for tomorrow.

"But I can hardly even run for 2 minutes!! How can I run for miles??"

I hear this all the time. Lemme' tell you something, if you can run for two minutes, you can turn yourself into a runner or even a marathoner! The trick is COMMITMENT!!

When you decide that you want to lose weight, or 'tone up,' or 'get in shape,' (what shape exactly? I like the rhombus....) or commit to running a half-marathon, whatever the case may be, don't be like so many people who will run twice and get discouraged because they don't see improvement in two days! This is a COMMITMENT! It will take a while before you see/feel the improvements that you're body undergoes as a result of the new stress that you're putting on it.

Let me give you an example of easing into a running program:

Week #1: For 30 minutes, run for 2 minutes, walk for 3. (That's 6 intervals.) Do this 3x/week resting a day inbetween.
Week #2: For 30 minutes, run for 3 minutes, walk for 2. Again 6 intervals. Again, 3x/week.
Week #3: For 40 minutes, run for 3 minutes, walk for 2. That's 8 intervals. Sticking with 3x/week.
Week #4: For 30 minutes, run for 4 minutes, walk for 1. 3x/week.
Week #5: Now you can either add one 30 minute session, or extend the sessions to 40 minutes, running for 4 minutes and walking for 1.

Look at that! At the end of 5 weeks, (just a skosch over a month), you'll be putting in almost 15 miles per week! And you'll be ready to take on running with fewer and fewer walk breaks! That's a real runner right there my friends! You'll be a half-marathoner in no time!! And anyone who finishes a half can run the full marathon!

Happy running.

21 Miles and I still wasn't tired!!

Let’s talk about why, after a 21-mile run, I really wasn’t tired. (Well, I’ve got to be totally honest, I was a little tired, but I was not falling apart at the seams like you might expect from someone who had just finished running what many would consider a good distance for a lengthy bike ride.) My secret? Core strength.

When I got into running, I did one type of workout for almost a year and a half: run. Run 3 miles, 5 miles, 7 miles… Run for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour… Sounds like it makes sense if all you want to do is improve your running speed and endurance, but I got news, there is a better way! Two or three times per week, include 20-30 minutes of body weight exercises like squats, pull-ups, push-ups, crunches and planks. This will increase your muscular endurance in your hip flexors, glutes, lower back, deep abs and the entire core.

After running for an hour, hour and a half, or even two hours, your body begins to “slump” as your hips rotate forward, your torso bends and your shoulders sag; your core is what will help you maintain good running form and keep you going tall and strong until you cross the finish line! When you’re coming into the final mile or two of a race and others around you start to crash, you’ll be thanking you’re lucky stars that you invested as little as 60 minutes a week into your core as you fly by ‘em!

Welcome!!

There are a lot of different reasons why people run: to lose weight, to get in shape for sports, to evade the cops, to exercise their dogs... I run because I love it. In fact, I'm obsessed with it. It's what I do, what I read about, what I talk about and what I think about when I'm not running. So, I thought that I'd share some of what I've learned about it over the past couple of years with those who might be just starting out or are a little curious about why people run. My real goal is to show people that ANYONE can be a runner - and a good runner to boot. So, in future posts, I'll be sharing tips that will take any middle-of-the-pack-er (like myself when I started), and turn them into a top runner!!