This week of training has been different than the previous weeks. I finally reached fifty miles this week and a very courageous man asked if he could train like me for a day. He told me that he was a pretty regular runner but wanted to push himself a bit and thought that I could help him out.

We went out on a medium paced seven miler; and medium pace is a comfortable, slightly hard pace giving us around a seven minute mile time. Afterwards, he thought that it wasn’t that bad, but I gently told him that we were not done yet. If you want to “train” like me then well you have to do everything I do, and after I run I either head to the gym for P90X or do an abs circuit and then sometimes I do both.

It was his lucky day because I was going to navigate him through my abs circuit. The circuit consists of fourteen different exercises and you do between ten and twenty reps for each one. The look on his face didn’t look very promising, so I said we’ll just do twelve reps each. Instead of doing the circuit in a room, it’s done runner style. We got on a soccer field did twelve “burpees”, then about a twenty five meter stride, twelve push-ups, stride, twelve bicycles, stride, twelve oblique v-ups (each side), stride, twelve leg lifts, stride, twelve hurdler crunches, stride and etc. The circuit lasts for about 20 minutes and will test anyone’s level of abdominal strength. What I love about it is that you can add different moves and either increase or decrease the reps. I think it’s more effective after a tempo or long run because it helps fight through fatigue and that annoying urge to give up and stop.

I really wish I had video of this to show because he was done halfway through, but when you want to train like me for a day, quitting is not an option. I don’t bail on workouts and I don’t expect anyone who is working out with me to bail either. He was a great trooper and I applaud him for sticking through it. And he did admit to me that he couldn’t move his midsection for the next three days without hurting; mission accomplished. Anyone else want to train with me for a day? I promise that you will not be dissatisfied.

Happy running!

Kendyl

Mileage Count: 245