Runners Need to Lift Weights for Long Term Consistency
There are no races on my horizon, even though the Oklahoma City Memorial is only a month away. I’m not going to sign up this year. Maybe
it’s lazy of me, but I’m looking forward to dropping back to shorter Saturday
runs with the weather starting to heat up. Last Saturday morning, the
temperature climbed into the 70’s before I finished my 17 miles. Needless to
say, I fell apart at around 14 miles and managed to jog lightly to about 15.
The last 2 miles were spent walking slowly and stopping to let my heart rate
come down.
As embarrassing as it was to flame out like that, it was
unseasonably warm and I didn’t have enough salt in my body. Next time I won’t
make that mistake.
The good news is that I’m content to make jogging a regular
part of my life instead of just going hard for a month. That’s the equivalent
of cramming for a midterm literature test by staying up all night. You might
have a great race, but you won’t realize long term gains. The consistency of
weekly jogging is what I’ve always been after. I’d like to do a marathon again
at some point. For now, the idea of a big race sounds like more effort than I’m
ready to give. As far as regular jogging goes it’s been quite consistent. I
looked at my Garmin records from last year to get a yearly average. Last year I
did roughly 50 miles more than this year. That works out to an extra 2 weeks,
but it’s very close. I think the culprit, this year, was my long vacation and
Christmas and subsequent illness afterward.
The year to year consistency is what I’m going for. I want
to be fit more than I want to crush a time standard and set personal records.
That’s the legacy I’ve started at least. Even if it’s frustrating to fall short
of my marathon goals, they’re less important. This season I’m learning how to
deal with nagging injuries and still be a productive runner. My knees give me
trouble on occasion, so I’m spending more time warming up and stretching. A lot
of this is what everyone does when they get older. We start paying attention to
the little things, isometric work, foam rolling and even weights.
Till recently, that’s meant doing some version of squats and
lunges or quad raises. Mostly I just put a program together on the fly and
spend about 45 minutes at the gym. Last Sunday I actually did a little research
and found a plan to implement. I’ll try this for a month and see if any of my
nagging injuries go away. It’s difficult to know what’s best for strength
training. There are as many trainers and philosophies on lifting weights as
there are gyms in the US. But you have to start somewhere. Any training is
better than no training. I’ve spent enough time lifting to have a good
foundation. Because I’ve had trouble with my knees I’m careful with certain
movements that require a lot of extension.
The program I found on Youtube requires a lot of single leg
movements. That’s something I haven’t done much of. The logic makes sense,
running demands power from each leg separately and not together. I just never
thought to do each movement separately. This program also demands 2 heavy lifts.
I guess it surprised me a little. I think of heavy weights as something for football
players and gym rats looking to max once a week. But in small doses it’s ideal
for running. Who knew? I’ll have to go easy on the squats though. They’re very
hard on knees if your form is even a little off.
There are other ways to get in shape, but none are quite as
simple and enjoyable as jogging. It requires you to adjust to the weather and
buy a pair of shoes. The maintenance is up to you.
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