I have the honour of training three dedicated marathon runners, and these ladies continually blow me away. They are constantly pushing themselves, devoted to their sport, and have amazing attitudes. I know each week they will be ready to work and take on whatever challenge I throw their way.

Strength training has helped them to be better runners. They have all worked to develop their glutes, and through heavy squats and deadlifts, have more power and strength for their runs. Strength training can help to balance out the body (running uses mainly quad strength, so we work a lot on glutes and hamstrings and core of course) and prevent injury.

I wanted to share the accomplishments of these wonderful ladies, who will hopefully inspire others as much as they inspire me. Many times after a late night workout session with me, they will wake up early and run to get their kilometers in. As I'm laying in bed scrolling through Instagram at 8am on a thursday morning, they've already done more running than I get in during a whole week! Check out some of their accomplishments. If you are a runner looking to improve your times, feel free to contact me.

Heather:
Heather is a trail runner that kills super long distances and has amazing legs!
Here are some of her accomplishments in the last year. She's an over 30 athlete.

 A new personal best for the half marathon distance at the Road2Hope Hamilton Half Marathon, November 2016
A new personal best for the 5km as well as 4th in my age group at Around The Bay 5km, March 2017
4th place female in the Uxbridge Half Marathon, April 2017
2nd place female at the Seaton Soaker 25km, May 2017
A new personal best for the 50km distance (that was 53-minutes faster than my previous attempt) and 10th place female at the Sulphur Springs Trail Race, May 2017

Maddie: 
Maddie has been diligent is dealing with her injuries through stretching, foam rolling, and taking it easy when necessary. As an athlete, resting and self-care can be the hardest part of the process. She has been working hard at her nutrition and successfully lost over 15lbs and reached her goal. Slow and steady weight loss means that it will stay off.

Maddie has shaved 12 minutes off her previous best half marathon time, and 13 mins off her 30k time!  She also has personal bested all of her races since we started training. As a young athlete, Maddie has years of running ahead of her and I'm excited to see how far she'll go.

Meredith:
I first met Meredith at a Running Room Nutrition seminar that I was giving. She was recovering from devastating stress fractures and was just starting to run again. Since then she has has personal bested every race from 5k to a marathon and everything in between! Talk about a great recovery and all around athlete. Even more impressive is that Meredith is a petite woman with shorter legs, and she is still so fast.
Her biggest accomplishment was beating her best 5k time from when she was only 25 years old, which was a blistering 22:30. She has qualified for the Boston Marathon twice.
Meredith has been training hard and has beautifully developed muscles, she also fits into her clothes from high school. Oh yeah, and she's over 40.