What Do You Do for Your Running When You're Not Running? (Read 667 times)

Besides spending a lot of time on RA?

I try to get as much sleep as I can, keep my allergies and asthma as well controlled as possible, abdominal work to keep me from slouching and falling apart late in a long run or race...

Someone else will say this, I'm sure: Run more. ...And yes, I haven't been, and I'm fixing that. Outside of running more, I'm starting to do some strength training for my core and arms, since its usually my back and arms that hurt first in a race, long before the legs. I'm also adding quite a bit of cross-training this cycle, experimenting to see if swimming and cycling can help build some cardio endurance without breaking me (I injure easily, so doing a massive mileage jump isn't in the cards, I'll get back to 40mpw and hold there for a few months before peaking in the 50s this cycle). Not sure if strength training or cross training helps or not, but we'll see what 6 months of it does for my marathon performance at MCM.

I've been taking a spin class twice a week for about six months. So far, I have noticed a big improvement in strength on my hill running.

Spinning, yoga, strength training. None of these "make" me a better runner... in fact, I do all of them for reasons aside from running (I teach spinning, I lift because I'm older and wish to prevent muscle/bone loss, and I just like yoga). Specifically to be a better runner, I'd run more. BUT all of these things have pleasant and useful side effects which are nice/cool/good for my running... or in the case of yoga, how I experience my running. I also get good, high quality sleep, drink beer, and do other cardio-vascular improvements.

Try to be a good father to my daughters and a loving husband to my wife.

Try to be a good father to my daughters and a loving husband to my wife.

this is a good tip. I had been training for a 5k PR and my goal race evaporated last weekend as my wife's resentment of my time spent running started to boil over. So I took my son to his makeup game for a previous rainout. Watching 8 and 9 year olds walk each other turned out to be more fun than the pain of a 5k. But had I banked more karma miles than running miles my 5k PR would be a minute lower than it currently is.