Core Work and Drills

I told myself that when I stop being sore from running, I would start doing abs. I was only really sore for my first week, so now I'm ready to throw more in. I started going through my running magazines, and I picked out a bunch of things I want to start doing. There was one about abs, but apparently doing crunches doesn't really help runners. You've got to really exercise your core. Not only will that make you stronger and faster, but it will also help you avoid injury. I like the sound of that.

Here is the article and the exercises I'm going to start doing.

The other thing is doing drills, which is kind of along the same lines as improving strength and speed and minimizing injuries. I read one article about doing strides, and one about drills (I can't find this one online, but here are some videos of some of the things I read about). I think strides are really a kind of drills so I should just say drills. Doing this speed work will help increase your stride rate (how fast your feet move). "By increasing stride rate, you not only increase your potential to run fast but also reduce the likelihood of injury." Now doesn't that sound wonderful?!

I want to incorporate these drills into my running workouts. The one about drills, that I only have in magazine form, said that you should start doing them about 20 weeks before your race, and that's exactly where I'm at so let's get started!

I went to the gym this morning, equipped to go running and swimming, but I decided to just do running because I was not feeling well and I didn't want to push it. Of course, I left my magazines with my new drills and core exercises sitting on my night stand so I had to go off my memory. We all know I have a terrible memory, but I think I remembered enough. First I ran a mile. Then I did "Superman", "Metronome", and some "planks" though I didn't really know how many to do. I did some lunges, then started running again, to finish out my 3 miles. I also did 6 sets of strides at the end of my run.

It took me about an hour to do all this, and I was totally ready to go home and shower when I was done. Maybe next week, I'll be up to swimming and running in the same trip again.

I'm going to get my bike fitted tonight, and I'm not exactly sure what that will entail so I had that in mind when I skipped swimming too. I'm excited to see how much more comfortable I am on the bike once it's fitted to me. Pete said it made a huge difference for him. I'll let you know!