Day 4, Week 10: Some thoughts on workout variety and another dumb workout picture.

Well, I like running too.  Running is also my favorite.  And I think Cathe's PHA Training (this morning's workout) is one of my fave weight lifting workout DVDs of all time because of the heavy weights and the use of the step.  I think it's large dog's favorite too, only for an obviously different reason that he showed me after I was done.

That was one tasty workout.

Small dog just thought I was too stinky to take a selfie with. (Which I was.  I ain't afraid to lift and I ain't afraid to stink while doing it.)

How long must I endure this smelly woman?

Now, I've talked about why lifting weights is good for you before, but I keep getting a lot of crap about why on Earth I would want to lift weights when I am actually training for a running event.  You see, there's this thing floating around in the run-o-sphere that goes a little something like this:

To get better at running, you have to run.  (NO WEIGHT LIFTING implied.)

I completely disagree.  Kind of.  Yes, you have to run to get better at running...but there's nothing that says you have to just run all the time.   I want to re-work that statement into:

To get better at running, you can't just run.

Really, you can't.  You can't just work your running muscles.  You have to improve your overall fitness, which means working on strength AND running AND flexibility.  How do I know? Because that's what I did all summer and then holy cow I took first place in an Olympic distance duathlon out of freaking nowhere and finally ran a sub-2 half marathon on a course that I have never managed to do that on.  And when I didn't work on total fitness and just did a whole lot of running and skimped out on my weight workouts I kept coming up short on all of my run goals and was continually disappointed.

Don't be continually disappointed.  Run, but don't just run.

And then blog about every single workout to bore everyone in the run-o-sphere, posting dumb workout pictures at every single opportunity because hey-it's better than crabbing about work.

A feeble attempt to summarize this post because, speaking of work, I have work to do:

• You have to have variety in your workouts--variety that makes you greater than the sum of your workout parts.
• Everyone should have a cool step like I have.  Cats love it.
• There is no way to keep the dogs out of my pictures, so everyone will just have to deal with that.

Tomorrow's workout:  3 mile easy run at 4 freaking AM.  Good thing large dog is an early riser, too.