Happy Friday! After another week of mild weather, cold weather came last night, though it may stay only for the weekend. It's 33 this morning, and we may get snow today!
I have the day off and planned on baking cookies. But my recent thoughts on how unhealthy sugar is and seeing how much sugar goes into these cookies deflates my motivation to make them. I only have two kind made, and one didn't turn out. I'd let the dough sit in the fridge all week before baking them. This is fine with normal cookie dough, but vegan cookie dough has oil in it, which I guess does not like to sit in the fridge for a few days before baking. They taste fine, but instead of Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows, they turned out to be Peanut Butter Chocolate Flying Saucers--the chocolate dough did not rise at all. The only other cookies I really wanted to make are sugar cookies, my favorite, and gingerbread, because it won't feel like Christmas without them. But roll-cut-decorate cookies are my least favorite to make, and since I'm not in the spirit I'm debating just making a dessert instead of cookies this year. I'll decide what to do on my run this morning.
The reason for this post is not to talk cookies though, but strength training. In my off-season after my mid-October goal race, I wanted to focus on strength training so started a routine that I could do four times a week--two times of lower body and two times of upper body. Now that I've started training, I don't have that much time for strength anymore. I wanted something that would still provide the strength I need for running and injury prevention but would easily fit into my schedule of running six days a week. So this month I started the Get Stronger to Run Faster strength routine from the September 2015 issue of Runner's World.
The routine is designed for runners and "...addresses common strength imbalances, specifically building core
strength and increasing glute activation, as well as improving posture
and overall mobility." It has two workouts--a 20-minute full-body workout with weights, and a 15-minute workout with body-weight exercises. I've only done the 20-minute workout with weights so far. It takes me 25 minutes because I also tack on my planks at the end. There are just 5 exercises (you do 3 sets), and I like them all. This short workout really packs a punch. It's not super-hard like the RW Iron Strength workout (which makes me sweat just thinking about it), but I'm hot and a little sweaty by the end. I always stretch after my strength work, so the whole workout takes about 30 minutes, which I feel I can continue to fit in twice a week. I want to add in the 15-minute workout at least once, too, and plan to do that this weekend.
Have a great weekend! I have two holiday parties this weekend, so it will be a fun but busy one for me.Labels: runner's world, strength training
