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Windsor Running Blog

Guest Post: What One Mom Learned About Running During and After Pregnancy

5/28/2016

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I threw up at the end of the one mile run for the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge when I was in the fifth grade---and I didn’t even pass the test.  From there, I failed to make either of the two teams I tried out for in high school----the basketball team and the softball team.  To high school me, fitness consisted of 15 minutes on a stationary bike or the Cindy Crawford exercise workout and that was about it.  

When I headed off to college, I bumped it up a little and used the Stairmaster in the fitness center on a regular basis, but I wasn’t working up a big sweat.  Something happened during my sophomore year and I started to run.  One day I heard that my dad had run a three mile loop around our house.  After a few weeks, I heard that he was doing this pretty consistently and I decided that there was no way that my father was going to be able to run more than I could; so I started to run.  

By my senior year of college I was running 3 miles fairly regularly when a professor told me to come for a run one Sunday morning.  The next thing I knew I was doing a 3 mile speed workout with a one mile warm-up and a one mile cool down.  I had never run this far, nor timed a run, but when he said that in four weeks we would be going to a half marathon, I couldn’t say no.  

Since then, I have run 21 marathons, countless road races, endless training runs, and even coached cross country and track teams.  

Since then, I have had a baby and I ran and swam each day until he was born.  In fact, his middle name is Miles because we ran the Boston Marathon together when I was 13 weeks pregnant.

When I discovered that I was pregnant, I was less than two months away from running the Boston Marathon, and was slated to run a ten miler the next morning.  I immediately began to look up advice about running during pregnancy and couldn’t find much.  I decided I would see a doctor in a few weeks and would just keep on running!  I ran the 10 mile race in the snow and ran another 10 miles the next day with one of the Windsor Running coaches. 

What did I learn that might help others?

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The Benefits of Running for Time Versus Distance

5/13/2016

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"...use time instead of distance ... because the human body has no idea whether it is using the metric or imperial system and a mile to one person is very different than a mile to another." 

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vs.
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​One of the cornerstones of any marathon program in the United States is the 20-mile run. It’s commonly prescribed on Sundays in order to give those training for a marathon time to get those miles in, enjoy their Sunday brunch, and recover with family and friends. But if the 20-mile run is so essential, why do coaches from countries on the metric system prescribe a run that is slightly shorter than 20 miles? Is that run any less beneficial when trying to set a personal best? Are Europeans going to be slightly slower because they didn't get the sacred 20 miles in?

Another question coaches and runners should be asking is why do generic training plans leave out the fact that a 20 mile run for someone training at 8:00 min per mile is a significantly different workout than the same workout run at 10:00 min per mile? The answer is generic training plans are built for the “average” runner. And while they do work for some, you will get more benefit from an individualized plan.
 
This is why Windsor Running plans will routinely use time instead of distance because the human body has no idea whether it is using the metric or imperial system and a mile to one person is very different than a mile to another. What our bodies do recognize is time spent at an elevated heart rate. Workouts based on time will ultimately allow you to see bigger improvements in your training and you will have fewer injuries because your body won’t be forced to fit into a cookie-cutter plan that wasn’t written for you.
 
We have included some of the other great benefits to running for time versus distance below. 

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Balancing Running and Strength Training for Maximum Gains 

5/8/2016

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It is no secret that RUNNING is the key to success when it comes to improving your ability to RUN.  While strength training is a vital component to get faster, if you aren’t actually practicing the skill of running, you will not improve. Tom Brady didn’t develop the ability to throw tight spirals by solely doing wrist curls – he practiced the actual skill repeatedly over time.  Without that regular, practical, application of the skill in practice, he’d just have strong, well-defined forearms! Great for bodybuilding, not for quarterbacking. 
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Point being, if you want to improve your running, RUN!  As athletes, unless you are a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or weightlifter (Olympic lifts), strength training is a tool that supplements your actual activity and makes you better at whatever it is you’re trying to improve upon.  Whether that is running, riding a bike, or tossing your kid as high in the air as possible while freaking your spouse out (my personal favorite), the time spent strength training is utilized to improve our abilities at all of those things. 

So how do we balance the two?



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