The benefits of running are many, including cardiovascular health, endurance, stress management, time outdoors, the list goes on and on. Similarly, the plethora of benefits that come with practicing Pilates is endless, though some of my favorite benefits are core activation, improved mobility and posture, low impact strength building, and the mediative state of finding the mind-body connection.

Whether you’re training for your first race or your tenth, a 5k or a marathon, following a training plan is essential to your success. Take the time to identify what plan is best for you based on your skill level and the distance of the race. Understanding what your baseline is for pace, distance, and runs per week is also helpful so that you can give yourself a clear starting point and goals to achieve moving forward.

Pilates’ most powerful tool is giving you the ability to connect your mind to your body. Mind-to-body, m2b, in Pilates refers to your ability to deeply focus on the primary and secondary muscles you are working within any given exercise. When you find this connection, you immediately feel the difference.

How do you fit it all in? Family, pets, exercise, work, chores, eating healthy, side hustles, friends? How do you fit everything in you want to, plus the surprises life throws your way, when the daily tasks simply take up too much time? As a wife, someone who works full time, a Viszla owner, a business owner, a part-time Pilates mega reformer instructor, and a woman in her early-thirties family and life planning, I ask myself this question ALL the time.