Shed the Fatigue & HOW YOU CAN WAKE UP THE GLUTES for your RUN!

No running = more time for doing things like Brooke’s nails in the morning before school.

I honestly don’t know how to describe my calf… it didn’t hurt at all yesterday but I just have this weird feeling in my gut it needs another day or two off because I don’t want to run on it and then have it hurt again after like on Monday.  At this point in my training cycle, rest is especially necessary so I’m just going to try to do my best to rest even though I couldn’t sleep in …

As Victoria told me, “Shed the fatigue and get ready to sharpen for race day.”

My body woke up naturally at around 5:30 a.m. (probably because I went to bed at 9:) so I decided to go lift some weights at the gym for a little while (well, 1st I tried to go to the temple (for my church) and then realized my recommend just expired last month so the gym happened instead).  I’ve gone to Burn Bootcamp over the last few months but I haven’t been to a gym in a very long time.  It felt a little weird to be there ha.  I also broke the below band that they had there while doing donkey kicks and it snapped me pretty hard ha.  Running takes a lot less coordination and I missed that yesterday ha

This episode from Ali made the gym and drive a lot more fun:)

Yesterday morning my running partner brought the most amazing treats on the planet.  Chocolate domes with brownie and chocolate mouse in the middle and peaches from her tree.  I’m telling ya, I run with some of the world’s absolute best people.

Andrew had the day off so we went up to Salt Lake City to get a few errands done.

Including the Apple store… Turns out my phone wasn’t broken, makeup had gotten into where the sound comes out and that’s why I couldn’t hear anything hahahah.  That was a nice relief.

Later on Knox had a soccer game and Brooke taught Skye how to roll down a hill so that made her year.

And then this scene happened and it made my night.

Oh and a new box of these made my night too.  Cereal is just a nightly thing over here right now.

Screenshot from yesterday…  it’s so so close.  Oh and this scene below is from one of my absolute favorite parts—> the hills are over and the coasting begins!

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Let’s chat for a few minutes about something I’ve had a lot of questions about lately—>. How in the world do we get our glutes to work while on the run and why is it so important?

We can get so much power from our glutes during the run and if we don’t use them… we miss out on that power/strength AND we force other smaller muscles do the work which might cause injuries and imbalances.  Many of us sit down a good chunk of the day (I know I do!) which teaches our glutes to be lazy and shut down.  Besides making sure to do strength training each week (I love this workout for my glutes) to build strong glutes, we can take a few minutes before each run to wake them up so that they WORK while you run.

I try to make sure that I really squeeze my glutes throughout each of these exercises to get them awake and ready to do their job during the run!  Here are my favorites and I would love to hear any of yours!

There are so many more things you can do too:  Bridges, single leg glute bridge, fire hydrants, lunges, single-leg squats, side skaters, hip hikes, single leg dead lift etc etc.

One of the ways that I help myself to keep my glutes working during the run is to pretend like I have a $100 bill held in-between my bum cheeks (sorry, this sounds weird hahaha but I learned this at my RCAA coaching classes and it works for me).  You do what you have to do to make sure it isn’t dropping while you are running by squeezing them so it helps me to keep my glutes firing!

This video helps to give some other (less weird ways) ideas to use your glutes during the run.

I’m definitely not an expert on this topic (or anything that has anything to do with strength training:) BUT I do notice a big difference on my runs when my glutes are working during the run vs when they are not.  It’s worth the two minutes or so it takes each morning and thinking about it during the run!

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How much of the day do you feel like you are sitting down?

Do you just start out running or do you do any sort of prehab before you start your run?

How often do you go to a gym?  Is it a big gym, small gym, somewhere in the middle?

I NEED ANY AND ALL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PODCASTS THAT WILL HELP MY MENTAL GAME FOR THIS MARATHON!! PLEASE SEND THEM TO ME!

-My two favorites are in this post!