With the pressure off since I am only doing a half marathon in October, I am starting to put time into strength training. Its something I have been meaning to do for a while, but am just now getting into and I have to say, I love it.

I know a lot of triathletes think strength training is something you can skip in favor of long runs and bikes, but I gotta say, if Mark Allen and David Scott are both believers in the benefits of strength training than so am I.

Plus, at this early stage of my lifting, I am seeing real results.

My weight workout:

I started out using the program Mark Allen wrote up in an issue of triathlete magazine from a couple months back and have been adding and subtracting to it as I progress. Here it is:

Two days a week I am doing 2x15 of the following:

Lat Pull Downs
Bench Press
Squats
Calf rises
Dumbbell pullovers
Backward lunges
Tricep curls
Pull Ups
Crunches
Ball balanced push-ups
Another weird core exercise.

One day a week I am doing the same set but with a heavier weight and less reps (usually 2x10)

Anyone else out there lifting? Any ideas on exercises I should (or shouldn’t) be doing?

weekly wrap up

As at least half of the five people who read this blog know, I have recently started law school. That means I spend a whole heck of a lot of time in the library.

As everyone who read the intro to this blog knows, I am all about respecting the race and doing the work necessary to show up and do well.

Putting those two things together, this last week I decided that there was just no way I was going to be able to do the Hartford marathon well. I’ve been stressed about getting in my runs, I haven’t had made the time to do the speed work I need to be doing and I was beating myself up about it. Right now, the only thing I need to be beating myself up over is my studying in law school, everything else takes a backseat. So, last weekend, I decided to scale down to the half marathon distance at Hartford. I can’t tell you how relived that makes me.

This week was the first week in a long time when I wasn’t worried I wasn’t doing enough for the marathon, and it was such a relief. I gave myself time to do the strength training I have been thinking about, to swim again, and to get in enough runs so I won’t embarrass myself in Hartford. I’ll write more about the strength training routine I am using and my swim workouts in a future post, but for now, here’s the workout totals for the week:

Average Weight: 186

Total Run Time: 3 hours

Total Bike Time: 40 min

Total Swim Time: 1 hour

Total Weight Time: 2 hours

Total Core Time: 1 hour

Total Times: 7 hours 40 minutes

Total Run Miles: 18

Total Bike Miles: 7

Total Swim Miles: 1.25

Total Miles: 26.25

Next Week's goals:
triple the bike miles
Lose a pound