Since I made my (slow) return to running this week after a self-imposed break, I thought I’d share how things are going so far.  Plus, I haven’t exactly been sitting on my ass during this “break” — I’ve been working hard on my core and leg strength, and am still at it.

While I have my own routine of strength moves that I like to do, I decided to switch things up recently and work out to Jillian Michaels‘ 30-Day Shred dvd.  I have to admit that when I was searching for new workout inspiration, I had no idea who Jillian Michaels was — living in Germany, I am (happily) out of touch with American pop culture — but I read reviews of others who raved about the 30-Day Shred, so I decided to give it a shot.  Consisting of three gradually increasing levels of intensity (10 days for each level), my goal with this workout is to get stronger in order to become a better runner, and I’m pretty happy with the progress so far.  I found the first level (which you can watch on YouTube), a bit too easy, but have moved on to level two and am really enjoying the challenge so far.

• Monday: 30-Day Shred (Day 12, Level 2).  Working the abs really hard and drenched in sweat.
• Tuesday: 2-mile run.  This was my first run in several weeks, and I was pretty nervous about how my body was going to react.  But I did fine!  Lots of stretching, foam rolling and icing afterwards — hopefully combining this with a slow increase in mileage with help avoid injuries.
• Wednesday: 30-Day Shred (Day 13, Level 2) + yoga + leg workout.  Seeing lots of progress in my core and arm strength from the shred, but it’s not so great for building up leg strength.  So I did 3-sets of my favorite strength moves for glutes and quads.  Oh yeah, and a little yoga to top it off.
• Thursday: 30-Day Shred (Day 14, Level 2).
• Friday: 30-day Shred (Day 15, Level 2).  Still not getting bored of level 2, so I guess that’s a good thing!
• Saturday: Rest.
• Sunday: 1-mile run + 30-Day Shred (Day 16, Level 2).  I had planned a 3-mile run for today, but was still suffering from Saturday’s spell of dizziness, so I had to cut my run short.  Was able to do some shredding, although I admittedly wasn’t feeling as great as I normally do.

So there you have it!  I hope in the next weeks it’ll get more exciting as I build up my mileage and find out whether my strength training has paid off in terms of my running.