One can learn a lot about herself during marathon training. All of the hours spent running are an excellent time for self-reflection, a limitless opportunity for life assessment. I’ve shared many of my own epiphanies in these posts, but had another lightbulb over the head moment several weeks ago- which I’ve kept to myself until now.

In my bi-weekly personal training sessions at UEF, I’ve been doing a lot of upper body and core work in conjunction with balance exercises. Biceps curls, overhead presses, tricep kick-backs while standing on a Bosu ball, for example. And I’m a bumbling idiot when it comes to holding steady. But now I realize that its totally not my fault. I blame my children… well not directly. I blame the fact that I’ve had children. It seems my lower abdominal muscles are terribly weak, which is common once a woman has kids. That shit gets all stretched during pregnancy out and is never the same again. There are exercises we can do to strengthen and tone the abdominal muscles, but it seems I’ve been doing them wrong for the past 10 years (the last time I had a baby). One can do reverse crunches, bicycles, etc. ’till the cows come home, but if you’re not actively engaging those muscles you’re going to be carrying around a lower ab paunch (trust me its there) and have the posture of a jellyfish forever. While working with me one on one, Heather was able to identify what’s been missing from my core routine. Amazingly, she can tell by watching me whether or not those muscles are engaged (sometimes I forget). Today she shouted, “Awesome! They’re activated!” and I disengaged for a second to remember the Wonder Twins.

Allright, now I’ve completely dated myself but I’ve already told you how old I am so whatevs. Anyway, I’ve learned that I haven’t been doing core work exactly right in order to achieve the maximum benefits. In order to remember to do this (once my personal training sessions are over/I don’t actually need to use my brain at all right now) I’ll have to call on a higher (Wonder Twins) power to keep me in line. I’ll let you know how it goes.