Taking My Own Advice - Cody

I am not a big fan of stretching. This may seem a little hypocritical since I'm a PT and spend a fair amount of my day telling people what and why to stretch. But I also tell them that it is boring, but one of those things where there aren't any shortcuts. I've noticed that I've fallen into the pattern, as many of the people I see..... of skipping stretching if I can find any little reason not to. Recently however, my wife made me go to a yoga workshop with her and I actually found it quite helpful. I find it at least more interesting than going through a conventional stretching routine and I've actually done my little group of yoga stretches consistently after my workouts. It may help that I felt very tight after my last long run and I've had a few residual aches and pains from it, which is a good motivator to take better care of my body. I've also noticed that when I do the yoga after normal workouts I feel better than if I don't do it. So hopefully this will be the piece that I've been missing to keep my training going forward while avoiding more aches and pains on the upcoming longer runs. This past week has been a more mellow week after a week of hard workouts culminating in the 16 mile run, but the upcoming week will be a little more strenuous. Overall, I still feel like I'm on track....no real injuries yet, good tolerance of my long runs and I'm getting most of my workouts in. My next big test will be coming up soon with a 20-22 mile run. That will be a good test of my marathon readiness and where I should spend more time in my last few weeks of training.