Working out with the boys

There are a couple of guys (and some of those being older men) that work out with me in the  morning. Lately, they’ve been doing some kind of weird strength training workouts involving lunges, interesting leg moves, a Step from step aerobics, and burpees. One day I asked them exactly what they were doing, and they told me it was a strength routine that the owner of the gym put together for them. They set up a circuit and do three sets of however many reps. They look really silly (especially when they’re doing the burpees!) but for some reason I was really intrigued.

It’s basically using your body to build strength, the gym owner (and trainer—he actually does these workouts too) told me. He said, “This kind of stuff would actually be really good for you with your running.”

Damn. He’s noticed that I’ve kind of eased up on my strength training since I’ve been running more. The guys told me it’s not as hard as I might think, and asked me to give it a try. “You’ll be fine,” they told me. “If you can run 10 miles, you can do this.”

HA! I smell a challenge going on, and I’m not one to turn down a challenge (feasible challenges anyway)

So today I prepared myself for a strength training workout with the boys. I started out with 20 minutes on the elliptical, stretched, and then we got down to business.

Now let me tell you—doing burpees is NOT attractive. But they are HARD AS HELL! I must have done about 50 pushups, as many burpees, and 100 lunges. Who says girls can’t hang?

I’ve really been wanting to get back into strength training again, and if there are other fools who are willing to look as stupid as I do doing burpees, then so be it. The more the merrier.

The workout took about 20 minutes and by the end I was sweaty and sore. Nice. The problem is that they only do these workouts on Wednesdays and Fridays, and since Saturdays are my long runs, I don’t think I should be doing this stuff on Fridays. I’m wondering if once a week would be enough to get any results?

Tomorrow is supposed to be my hill day. Let’s see how I feel.

Oh yeah, Happy St. Patty’s Day! No green beer for me, but I had green tea! Does that count?