Saving the Best for Last

I went to the gym and did my strength workout with my trainer. I HAVE A GREAT TRAINER. He's not a runner, but he BELIEVES IN ME as a runner. He has never shared my doubts about my ability to run faster and run more miles. He encourages me to do both of these things. I never hear: "it's bad for your knees" or "I can run it faster than that." Aaron believes, therefore, I believe too.

I question him constantly about whether I should still be coming into the gym this close to the marathon. His answer is that we have significantly decreased the amount of weight I was lifting and he theorizes that my body is used to storing energy for my workouts and if I stop lifting too soon, my body will no longer store the energy. In theory, I should be able to use the stored energy for the marathon that I am not using for the strength workout. I'm not sure when is the right day to stop -- in practice, it was probably today, because my schedule is pretty busy next week, and I'm quite sure I shouldn't be lifting on Thursday.

Anyway, if anything, this training cycle has certainly taught me how to run well on tired legs. Between the Saturday/Sunday runs and the Thursday runs after strength training, my legs know the feeling of running when they don't want to.

This morning my workout went kind of like this (sorry, no details yet):

Seated Row 3 sets
Explosive single leg presses on the sled 3 sets
Unilateral rope bicep curls
Shoulder presses
Pushups on the handles one leg up
Dumbell pushups

After my workout, I headed out of the gym for my 4 mile run in the valley. This is the run that is basically 2 miles down and 2 miles up. My goal was to do each mile under 10:00. Aaron suggested I should be more specific, so I said I'd try for 9:15s and 9:30s. Anyway, I wanted to finish in under 40 minutes and I don't mean 39:00.

I'm happy to report that, this being the last time I'll do that particular run this cycle IT WAS MY BEST ONE YET! Splits: 9:18, 8:44, 10:01, 10:20 (Remember down 2, up 2) Total: 38:28.

By way of comparison, the last time I did this 4 was March 15 when my splits were: 9:51, 9:41, 10:27, 10:52. Total: 40:54. And I was happy with that one!


I absolutely remember being so thrilled to see a split that started with a 9:xx. I'm in awe of myself that lately I've been able to throw in an 8:xx every once in a while. I guess you really can improve -- even at my age!