Give me Strength.......and conditioning!

For someone doing his ninth marathon, its now incredible to me that the thoughts of weight training was never important to me in previous training programmes (no matter how often it was advised).
Miles and miles were all that interested me and spending time in a gym "pumping iron" would only be taking away from time I could be on the road! How wrong I was! This time around, I have decided to embrace the "weights scene" by spending two days a week toning up muscles that had never seem the inside of a gym before! Core strengthening is quite rightly, deemed an important part of this routine but it is the leg strengthening that is posting the best results in training.
Miles on the road wore the legs down to mere stumps but this weight programme is building them up again and the results in time and endurance are making it all worthwhile. My pacing has increased and fatigue seems to be thing of the past and that along with a new found mental toughness for this excruciating distance have made this training programme the most rewarding yet!
So my advice to anyone vying with the idea of integrating strength and conditioning into their programme is , as Nike would say, just do it! The few miles less on the road and extra hours in the gym will only benefit you and result in a much more fulfilling training experience! (just grin and bear that sharp gut wrenching pain across the core after the first day,and you'll be fine!)

Todays Scheduled Training: 45mins Strength and Conditioning and 3.5 miles at marathon pace