Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Last week I was out of town, attending a conference. While there I ran each day, plugging away, determined to get faster. I also learned something key to improving: all movement comes from the core, and in order to get faster, the core has to be strong. Weak core, weak performance. I've thought about this a lot and decided I'm going to go to work on my core. I've been doing some exercises specifically for core, but after talking with an individual who works with athletes about this issue, I learned I was going about it wrong. I was concentrating on crunches. I was told to scratch these in favor of doing other exercises that work from the inside out. These include breathing exercises while lying on my back, that isolate muscles. They include using a weighted ball and twisting while balancing with my legs raised. I've seen these done by others, but I've never been able to keep my legs raised while twisting. Tonight, though, I found I actually can. I was stunned. Someh...