Back to running and surviving the holiday madness....

After resting the knee for a week and working only on non-impact leg strengthening and cardio workouts, I will get back on the feet this week for some running. The goal is to complete my normal routine without any weakness or discomfort in the knee. It feels great now and I want to keep it that way till the marathon so I can truly give my best effort when the time comes.

Although I haven't been able to run to much over the last week, I have been making new friends with the elliptical, step machine, and the spin bike. I have also worked out with squats, leg lifts and many different stretching exercises to work out the hip muscles and other muscles that support proper knee tracking and knee cap tracking. What an education about the knee. I have to give credit to a great trainer at the Copley Healthplex in Aurora, Il. Melissa is a certified trainer who spent 9 years at her office in Boston, MA located right at the finish of the Boston Marathon. She understands the runners body, and knew almost immediately what my issue was and the proper steps to take to get me back into proper form.

I also found it interesting how your core and other larger muscle groups that do not get used in running are needed to support the joints and ligaments that you do use in running. That is why cross training is so important. Once your cardio wears out and your body uses up the muscles that you normally use while running, your other larger muscles kick in to get you through the rest of the race and keep you from being in a lot of pain after the marathon or long run. So, to refocus on what I was doing a few months ago would be a great idea. Using a routine such as P90X by Beachbody would be perfect since you can focus on specific muscle groups if you want too. P90X, Insanity, and other routines from Beachbody come with multiple DVD's to workout different muscle groups with each workout. Or you can select to workout only your Abs with Ab Ripper X or Core Synergistics. I love having options available and once I am done with the marathon, I will really want to refocus on P90X and get my body into even better shape this Winter. I am so excited about what Beachbody is doing as a company and am so glad to be part of it. I actually plan to share some of the workouts with my trainer at the Healthplex to get her thoughts on the program.

Today I woke up to our first snow of the season. The kids were filled with an extra spark and so were our dogs!! The dogs ran around in the back yard like they were all puppies again in a giant field. I love to see them doing play bows and running, chasing each other. They simply were running and having fun.

My kids were excited too of course. Snow means snowmen, sledding, snowball fights, and snow forts. What an exciting day to come home from school and be a kid. I imagine the first request will be to play in the snow this afternoon.

The holidays are another story. I personally wish Christmas and Thanksgiving were not as commercial as they have turned out to be. The whole Black Friday shopping, congested streets, traffic and stress just take the fun out of the holiday. If you remove the gifts from the holiday and just focus on your personal family it is much easier and I imagine filled with much less stress. I am still working on this and learning that it is very difficult when you are part of a large family that has many sisters, nephews, nieces, etc. that also have their own families. Time has been an issue every year. The parents feeling like they don't get enough time with your family and I know we need to spread it out to make sure our kids are spending time equally between the grandparents and great grandparents, let alone the rest of our family. Now bring in all the Nieces and Nephews, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, etc and it can get pretty stressful trying to see everyone. The point, I personally can't make everyone happy every holiday by spending the whole day with them. If you have a good technique that works I would love to hear from you. However, since our oldest child is now 13 we really have been going through the same routine for a number of years. I don't expect it to change for awhile. All I can add is that I hope that you have a wonderful holiday and try to make each moment the best it can be for the situation that you are in. Spend time with you kids, your immediate family first and then take care of others needs. Don't let your own family be sacrificed because of others needs and wants. Your family is first. Mine is my top priority and I will always feel that way. I hope you do too.

Have a great holiday season, and if you took part in the recent "Frank's Famous Peanut Butter Blossom Cookie Sale" you helped generate nearly $1000 for my charity Team Hole in the Wall. If you haven't donated and would like to support this wonderful charity that provides camp experiences to seriously ill children, you can support my efforts by visiting my web page at: www.teamholeinthewall.org/frankzwart and clicking on the "support Frank" button on the top right of the page. Visit it now, I think you will be really surprised by the great things this camps offers the kids.

God bless and good running.

Tread lightly,

Mouserunner