Last week was strange… With teacher conferences and Halloween, last week was anything but normal. No excuses though! On Monday, I got to meet with my favorite personal trainer (and my superhero) Diana. She gave me some strength exercises to do at home over the weekend and guess what: I did hurt myself immediately! Over the years, I managed to give myself some injuries that love to flare up any chance they get. Obviously, my form was off on one of the exercises. Fortunately for me, Diana seems to have healing hands – she helped me get my shoulder get better. Sometimes I suspect her of having some magical powers – two weeks ago my knees were hurting after a weekend of 15 miles Saturday and 18 miles Sunday. I told her about my knees and when she said it’s time for a leg day, I thought I would cry. But she knows what she is doing: my knees and legs all together were just fine afterwards. Apparently problem with knees after long runs comes mostly from ‘sloppy running’. Since I had a very old hip injury, which never healed quite right, I learned to run in a way that puts less pressure on it. Sadly, it’s awful for my knees. I swear a lot of my strength training sessions turn into physical therapy! I am happy about it though – the whole reason why I got a personal trainer is so that I don’t hurt myself. Running is not the only thing where I have to focus on form though. I haven’t been a very fast swimmer and it occurred to me that I need to revisit my form. I practiced swimming long enough to know when my form sucks. I gave it some thought and realized that my kick is sloppy. I paid attention to how I kick and move my arms. Result: going from 46:30 to 41:30 on 1900 meter swim. I was exhausted afterwards, but I am convinced: focusing on form works miracles!