Nothing like a run in the morning

So I had my meeting with Keith today. And it was well worth the drive up, but I've never had a bad meeting with him so that's pretty much a given.

We started with a run around the local park 'track'. He wanted to observe my gait and see how I was running to make sure I wasn't overexerting myself. Shockingly (not) I needed a lot of help.

We worked a lot on my arm and hand location initially. I was was running with them down by my waist, which I thought was right, but it actually helped to do it the way he suggested with my hands wider and my elbows back more. "Elbows back, hands loose, shoulders down." This was my mantra for quite a bit.

Then we worked on my stride. Keith is more of a shuffle runner, which is a good thing for those in the higher weight range (i.e. me!). It helps to lessen the stress on your knees and has your quads doing more of the work, which makes sense since your quads are generally stronger muscles anyway.

With that stride we worked on hills - going up and going down. There's a totally different mindset for each and I was doing it completely wrong. But now I know the better way.

After we worked out I got my massage! YAY! I really think everyone should have a massage therapist full time working for them. Someday when I'm rich I'm going to hire Keith full-time to be my personal trainer and massage therapist so I don't have to just see him once a month or so.

Then lunch at D'Amico and Sons. This was such a great time, and delicious food. I can't wait to go back sometime.

While we were there we talked about a better plan for my work outs. Basically after a lot of discussion, we decided I'm going to try a new way and time of running, eat more veggies and fruit, and then add in more strengthening exercises. I'll talk more about the running thing later, if it works out. It'll be a big change, but more on that later.

So really I'm happy I made the trip. It was a good plan for the day, though as I was driving home I realized I had a bunch of things I should have/could have been doing instead.

oh well! :)