I’ve been on my new dosage of Vyvanse for a couple of months now. Even though I built in a transition period to the new dosage (as well as taking all my medication in the morning instead of splitting it up), I struggled for a long time with the dosage. I was feeling some similar symptoms to what I had when I started like a racing heart rate and some light-headedness. And when I had the phone call check up with my therapist, we discussed these issues since I was feeling a bit concerned.
My therapist encouraged me to keep taking the new dosage because I might just be having a longer adjustment period than I’m used to. While I’d like to say that I trusted her opinion, I felt pretty certain that she was wrong and I would need to go back to a lower dose. But I told her that I would give it until I needed to refill my prescription before I judged anything too much. I wasn’t that far into my prescription when I had that phone call, but I also knew that there could be an adjustment period and I had to see what would happen. Because I am monitored while taking Vyvanse, I knew that even with the side effects I might be feeling I wasn’t doing anything harmful to my body. I just had to see if things would eventually feel right again with me.
The other day I finished the first pill bottle and moved on to the second (my prescription is split into 2 bottles because of how many pills there are in a single refill) and I realized that I’m halfway through trying this dose before needing a refill. And I haven’t had any side effects for a little while either. It’s so weird because I really can’t remember the last time I felt my heart race issues unless I look at my workout blog posts and see when I wrote about it. Time just kind of went by and I didn’t even think about it.
I do think that maybe some of this could be because I’m not working out in the afternoons anymore, but at the same time that doesn’t necessarily make sense because I take my medication in the morning. But maybe since those morning workouts are even earlier, the medication might not be totally in my system yet? I don’t know and I also don’t know why I’m trying to justify anything. I should just be really happy that I’m feeling more normal again.
I think I was so focused on the side effects for so long because I was paranoid that I really didn’t think as much about how much this might be helping me. Of course, I am reminded of that whenever I have a day I don’t take it (like if I have the rare chance to sleep in). It does take the edge off of things and I still have days where food is the last thing on my mind. I struggle on those days to remember to eat even though I do have reminders to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it’s all baby steps and I’m working on it.
I’m really so happy that the adjustment period seems to be over now. I didn’t express on here how worried I was about it and how often I wondered if I was making a mistake changing things up the way I did. I had so much trust in my old therapist and it was tough to give that much trust to someone new. And having issues with my medications was making that trust even tougher for me to give. But even without fully trusting my doctor, I had to just suck it up and believe that eventually it would get better and she knows what is possibly best for me.
Thankfully now I know that she was right (even though she was willing to admit if she was wrong and readjust things for me if needed) and that I’m over the hump I was dealing with. I want to get back to trying to run but I also know that I’ve lost so much progress over the past few months. I probably will need to start over with my running with running for 30 seconds to a minute at a time. But I know that I have built up my running endurance in the past and I’ll be able to get back there again eventually. And hopefully with the stress of the side effects out of my mind now, I can focus on other things in my life. There are more important and more fun things I’d like to have occupying my mind and now I can do that again without feeling like I’m being fake and ignoring a possible issue.
I know I’ve said this so many times, but I’m seriously so grateful that I’m a part of the Union Working group. Every time I’m at a meeting, I always walk away with so much knowledge and a better understanding of what is happening in my industry. There is so much information out there and it can be tough to figure things out on your own. So to have a group that can explain things and help you figure out what you want to focus on is so important to me.
And the meeting this week was another one full of information and I left feeling so empowered and ready to get to work on things. While we did have some of the standard discussions that we have at all Union Working meetings, the focus of this meeting was a mock W&W session. W&W stands for Wages and Working Conditions and these are meetings that the union has leading up to contract negotiations. These meetings are formal events for union members to come and discuss what changes they want to see in the next contract. We have these meetings for all different contracts but the next one coming up will be our commercials contract.
I have not attended a W&W meeting before. I have wanted to but I’ve had a few things stop me. Sometimes, my work schedule just doesn’t work with when the meetings are. I really can’t take time off work right now to attend, so if there aren’t meetings that are when I’m not working I can’t go. But also I’ve been scared to attend. It seems a bit overwhelming and while I want to be more involved in the union attending these meetings seems like a huge step. And I’m aware of how silly that probably sounds because I can always attend a meeting and just observe. I don’t have to propose any changes but I could hear what others think need to change.
But I think the team at Union Working get that the meetings can be overwhelming so they created this mock W&W session. Because W&W sessions are closed to the public (and our mock session was closed to all but paid union members), I can’t share too much of what was discussed. But I can share that we went over how to present an idea at a W&W, the rules for discussion and debate, and the feedback we may get when presenting an idea or debating one so we don’t get thrown off if it happens. All of these things were really great to learn about because you never know when you might be inspired to present something at a W&W and you want to be prepared and able to maximize your time that you are allowed to speak.
We didn’t get to do too many different ideas in our mock W&W session because the one that was presented was something that so many people in the group wanted to discuss. We didn’t have the time limits that you would have in a real session and some people were given opportunities to rephrase what they were saying to make sure they followed the guidelines of how we need to present them. I didn’t speak during the mock session, but I was paying attention to everything that was happening. And the more I listened the more I realized that all my fears about attending a W&W session in the past were silly and that I should have attending them before.
I still can’t guarantee that any sessions will be during times that I’m not working, but I’m going to make a much better effort to look into it so I can hopefully go at least once. I still don’t have anything I want to say about changes that I think should be in our next contract, but I do what to hear what others think. It’s also a great time to get even more educated about the current contract because when people propose a contract change, one of the first things that is discussed is what the facts are about the current contract. There is always a chance someone is proposing something that is already in the contract so you would learn about that. To me, so much of being a good union member is being an educated union member.
While I wasn’t feeling physically the best at the meeting, I’m so grateful I was there. There were so many things discussed that I am glad I got to hear about. I left feeling physically low but mentally on a high note. I know that there were some great ideas that others brought up that have given me things to think about. And like I said, the biggest thing to me is being as educated as I can and I know that being in a room with so many incredible people really are helping me understand as much as I can.
Posted onMarch 28, 2018|Comments Off on Remembering To Do What I Like (or Weird Disappearing Time)
I’ve written about being over-scheduled in the past, and this is kind of the same idea. But at the same time it’s different and it’s weird. But somehow it feels like my time is disappearing from me. And with that disappearing time, I also feel like I’m not doing as many of the things that make me happy each day when I know there is time to do them.
I seem to be losing my Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Those used to be my workout times, but lately I’ve been working out in the mornings and those afternoons are free. But somehow that time it going by without me realizing it and I’m losing that time. I need to be a bit more intentional with how I schedule my time so that I don’t end up sitting at my computer going down a YouTube or Buzzfeed rabbit hole after work and wasting those hours. I’ve had weekend days like that as well when I get up at 7am and then all of a sudden it’s 7pm and I have no clue how I spent my day.
And part of the disappearing time is realizing now that my routine is a bit different that I don’t have the same time to kill that I did before. When I was driving to the Brentwood Orangetheory location after work twice a week, I had so much time in my car. I spent about 30 minutes in my car driving there and driving home would take between 1-2 hours (I know that sounds crazy, but since I work from home I figured this was my commute). During that time in the car, I would listen to podcasts. I usually would get through at least 1 podcast each time I drove to my workout.
But now that I’m not going to that location when the drive would take that long (going on Mondays is a pretty fast drive), I don’t have that time that I’m listening to my podcasts. And that wouldn’t be a problem for that many people, but since I listen to over 50 podcasts they were starting to pile up! I’m not using those afternoons to listen to podcasts while I’m home, so that time to listen has gone away. So I’ve had to make more of an effort to listen to podcasts since the time that I used to listen to them wasn’t really there anymore. So now I’m trying to spend my time during work between customers listening to the backlog and I’m finally starting to get close to being up to date on them again.
I know that everyone has this problem and seems to lose track of time, but because I’m really trying to be more mindful of so much in my life I want to work on making this not happen as often. There will always been random days every so often where the day will be wasted watching lots of random things on Netflix. But I want those to be rare and not happening as often as they have been recently. The example of losing my afternoons and then also losing podcast listening time shows exactly what is happening. I’m losing that time, but I’m also losing the time that I used to spend doing something that makes me happy.
I love listening to my podcasts and I need to dedicate time to listen to them. In the same sense, I need to make sure I dedicate time to doing other things I enjoy. I do read pretty much every evening before going to bed, but I should make an effort to read more often. Reading before bed is only for a little bit of time because then I fall asleep. But I get so much pleasure out of reading and I should be doing it more throughout the day.
Scheduling fun things doesn’t necessarily sound like the most exciting thing, but I really do need to work on it. I think scheduling it helps me find the balance between being over-scheduled and under-scheduled and helps me plan where I have empty time in my schedule that I might want to fill with something else. While there is always time I want to use to watch TV, I don’t want to spend an entire day just watching junk. I’m working on only watching shows that I have recorded so that I limit how much TV I’m watching and I also can stop mid-way through a show if necessary (I do make an exception to this for news).
I’ve also realized lately that I haven’t been doing as many things from my happiness checklist as I was doing before. I’ve thought about maybe changing some of the things on the list, but all 10 of the things still are things that make me so happy when I do them. And I haven’t thought of something else that makes me just as happy or happier to replace them with. So instead of changing them (which is what I’ve done in the past), I am just trying to be more intentional and trying to make the effort to add them back into my schedule. I probably need to set some reminders on my phone or add them to my calendar so I don’t forget, but having reminders isn’t a bad thing.
Hopefully the combination of realizing I’m losing time to doing nothing and I’m not doing as many things that make me happy as I should that I can start planning better and that will just make me feel happier and not that I’m wasting time in lots of aspects of my life.
Posted onMarch 27, 2018|Comments Off on Working On Some Second Chances (or Trying To Stay Open Minded)
It’s been about a year since I really got back into online dating and it’s been a crazy year! I still don’t understand what has changed that has gotten me more dates in the past year than I ever have had, but I’m grateful for it. I know it sounds bad that I’m learning about myself through dating, but it is helping me figure things out and I’m glad for that. And lately, I’ve had the chance to work on being more open-minded because of some experiences with dates. I used to joke that I was the queen of first dates because I didn’t waste my time with a second date if I didn’t think there could be anything there. And I’ve realized now that maybe I needed to be a bit more open to possibilities.
A little while ago, I went on a date with a guy who checked off all the boxes that I should want in a guy. He was kind, he was looking for something toward being serious (I’m looking for something serious, but I’m also not trying to jump into a relationship so I’m fine with things taking time), and he was really interesting. But there just wasn’t chemistry there and I was feeling horrible about it. I should have really liked this guy and I didn’t. And the voice in the back of my head was telling me that I shouldn’t expect anything better so I should just go with it.
I know now that I do deserve someone who I want to be with, but I also know that chemistry isn’t always something that you always feel. So after some discussion with a friend, I decided to give the guy a second date because I figured that I needed to see if it was just first date awkwardness. In the end, there just wasn’t chemistry there and I felt much better saying that I didn’t think there should be a 3rd date. I still had a bit of guilt because I feel like I should have liked him, but I also know enough now to not try to force something that doesn’t feel like it’s working.
There’s another guy that I went out with at the end of last year. We had a great first date, texted for a little while after, and things just ended. I had no idea why. But we were still matched on the dating app we connected on so last week I decided to reach out that way (instead of texting). He immediately responded and we went out again. He said he never got my texts and I joked that he must have blocked my number or used a burner number with me. But when we were together I tried texting him again and for some reason my texts weren’t always appearing on his phone! He would text me and it would be fine, but only half of my texts were showing up for him. It was so weird! But I know that he wasn’t deliberately ignoring me now. And again, this was because I gave him a second chance.
Of course, I don’t give everyone a second chance. There was a guy who called me delusional for thinking I could be an actress. There was another guy who was flirting with a different woman at the bar and introduced me as his friend (and couldn’t understand why I would be upset he would do that on a date). And there was another guy who didn’t show up for our date and then tried to convince me to come to his place to meet him there (I refused because I knew that it wouldn’t lead to anything good and I wasn’t going to put myself in a risky position).
There are some times where I’m torn about if I should give someone another chance and that’s when I’m so grateful for my friends who can be amazing sounding boards for me. There was someone I was seeing for a few weeks over the summer and things fell apart. He basically disappeared and when I tried to give him another chance he disappeared again. I told him I wasn’t interested in seeing him anymore but he didn’t seem to get that. He messaged me once a month for the next few months and I always responded with telling him that things were done. It had been a few months since he messaged me, and recently he reached out to me again. I wondered if I should give him another chance, but my friend helped me realize that I had already given him multiple chances and he screwed those up. And he couldn’t seem to respect my decision to not want to see him again, so if I went out with him again I couldn’t expect respect from him in other ways.
While I am having fun with all the randomness I’ve encountered with dating and I do feel like I’m making up for lost time in a way. But I’m really hoping that sooner rather than later I meet someone who will be more than just a few dates. I do want to be in a relationship and that’s not easy to find when you do know what you want. But I’m going to try to keep being open-minded and giving guys more than one chance and hopefully that leads to something good for me soon.
Posted onMarch 26, 2018|Comments Off on A Routine Workout Week (or The Multiple Studio Life)
This past week of workouts was a pretty standard week for me. I am getting into my new routine and am still loving having a studio so close to my house! I can’t believe how I’ve been able to get into morning workouts when I thought I’d only be ok with the afternoon ones, but I’ve found the transition much easier than I thought it could be. But I did have some struggles this past week mainly due to nausea. Fortunately, I’ve been dealing with that long enough that I know how to modify things for myself.
Monday’s workout was at the Brentwood studio and it was a 3 group workout. I was able to start on the treadmill this time and each section of the room had an element of choosing your own workout plan. On the treadmill we could pick from 3 different distances to start with. After we did that then we had a walking recovery and we could pick from one of the other distances we didn’t do. I started with the longest distance and worked my way down to the shortest since I figured that would be the easiest for me. I did struggle a bit on the treadmill, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s been in the past. I was keeping my inclines to my usual incline plan and that helped when I had the longer treadmill distances.
Next I was on the rower where again we had 3 distances to choose from. After we completed a row we had 3 rounds of squats and sprint rows before going back to pick another row distance to do. Again, I started with the longest distance thinking that would make it easiest for me. What I wasn’t expecting was about halfway through the row my legs were starting to be really sore! I think I didn’t allow my body to recover enough from the Dri-Tri and that’s what I was feeling. So on the long distance, I had to take several breaks to stretch out my legs before continuing. I didn’t make it through all the rowing distances before moving to the floor, but that was ok.
And on the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was bicycle presses, sit-ups, and lunges. We had 100 of each to try to do and we could break up the reps however we wanted to. But whenever we switched from one move to another we had frogger squats to do. I broke them up by doing 25 at a time and I made it through 2 rounds before that block was done. The second block was the same idea with 60 reps of front raises, mountain climbers, and Y raises on the straps. This time, I did them 20 at a time and again I made it through 2 rounds before time was done. Our coach knew we wouldn’t get all 100 reps or 60 reps done, but he wanted us to do our best and I think doing at least 50% each time was pretty good.
Wednesday was another morning workout at the Culver City studio. Unfortunately, I had a horrible night sleep and I was exhausted. I probably only slept about 2 hours and while it was tempting to sleep in and miss my workout, I knew I had to hold myself accountable. Along with being tired, I was having a bad hip day, but I figured I would go in and do my best. It ended up being an endurance workout and I was starting on the treadmill.
We had 2 blocks and the first block was decreasing push paces starting at 3 minutes and ending at 1 minute. I started at my normal speed but realized that my body was just not handling it well. I thought about going on the bike but decided to stick it out on the treadmill but reduced my speed to be between my normal power walking speed and my walking recovery speed. It helped having the speed reduced and I was still doing my normal inclines. The second block was similar to the first with the decreasing push paces. But in the middle of the second block, I was hit with a bad wave of nausea. I knew that there was a chance to feel nauseous that morning (I’ve been getting good at figuring out my body’s patterns) but I was hoping it wouldn’t happen. But it did so I stopped my treadmill to run back to the lockers to take an anti-nausea pill. My coach was worried about me and I wasn’t thinking about how she doesn’t know my issues with nausea yet and how I need to remember what to warn the coaches about. I’m going to try to be better with that for the first few months at the Culver City studio.
On the floor we also had 2 blocks. Each block started with a 500 meter row. Because I was feeling nauseous, I was a bit slow on the rower. I was a bit slower than the goal time but I did the row both times without stopping with is always good. The first block was lunges, seated rows with weights, and chest flys. And the second block was power jacks with a medicine ball, lateral lunges with the medicine ball, and bicep curls on the straps. I took my time with each move (the power jacks didn’t help my nausea) but I was able to get through 2 rounds each time and that was pretty good. I was also using slightly heavier weights and a heavier medicine ball than I usually would so I was very happy with that.
Friday’s workout was a power switch day, and it came right after I had been hoping there would be a switch day at the Culver City studio. I knew that with them doing the transitional workouts that they might not be bringing in switching for a while, so it was a nice surprise when I arrived and found out it was a switch day! I was still dealing with nausea so I went with the bike for the cardio portion. It was my first time using the bike at the Culver City studio and it was a bit weird being behind the treadmills (instead of next to them), but it wasn’t bad and I did feel a bit less cramped in that location. The format for the workout was 2 blocks, switch, do the 2 blocks on the other side, switch, and then it was one long block left on each side.
For the cardio, it was decreasing push paces starting at 2 minutes and then being 90 seconds or 1 minute. Sometimes we also had an all out pace right after the push but mainly it was going back to base pace. I tried my best to go hard on the bike and I was able to get to my highest resistance on one of the all out paces, but I pretty much stuck with the resistance levels that I’ve been doing for a while. I did have to take a few breaks on the bike when a wave of nausea hit, but overall it went pretty well considering how I was feeling.
On the floor, the first block was squat thrusters with weights and burpees. I wanted to do the burpees but my body wasn’t having them so I did squats followed by push ups after to replicate the moves the best that I could. The second block was chest presses on the straps, roll outs on the straps, and sit ups. And the last block which was the longest had medicine ball squat presses, torso rotations with the medicine ball, plank jacks, and 200 meter rows. Since I was feeling off I focused on doing longer pulls on the rower with breaks to keep my stroke rate down. It’s easy for me to try to row super fast, especially for sprint rows, but I also know that taking my time allows me to focus on the movement and can sometimes get my wattage up. I did ok with my row times but they weren’t my best. But I figured that was because I really wasn’t focused on how long each row was taking me but instead on my stroke rate.
Saturday I was back at the Brentwood studio. It may have been my last Saturday workout there because I will probably start going to the Culver City studio on Saturdays because my friends will be hopefully working out with me (and the class times are changing soon and they will be better for me after work). But it was a great workout if this did end up being my last Saturday at the studio. It was a 3 group workout and for the first half of class it was a pretty standard class (I was on the bike instead of the treadmill, but everything was pretty normal).
Then for the second half of class, we were in 3 people teams and we had a capture the flag challenge on the rower. One person was at each station and the person from the floor controlled the switches. The floor person did squat twists with the medicine ball, push-ups with the medicine ball, and crunches. Once they were done they tagged the treadmill person (who was running for distance) and the treadmill person tagged the rower (who was rowing for distance). You didn’t reset the rower between each person and the goal was to row as far as you could get in 23 minutes. I think the goal was at least 3,000 meters but I wanted my group to get at least 4,000 meters. I was the last person on the treadmill and when we were done I was pretty happy with how far we got as a team!
Overall, this was a great week of workouts. It was weird going to different studios during the week and I do miss my coaches I have had during the week in Brentwood. But to do an afternoon workout there (and deal with the rush hour commute home) isn’t worth it when I can go to a studio just minutes from my house. I’m sure I’ll get used to this new routine soon. It’s only been 2 weeks so far and I’ve had almost 4 years of workouts at Brentwood. So I just need to give myself time before this totally feels like my new normal.
Posted onMarch 23, 2018|Comments Off on Another Time A Friend Found Me A Job (or It Really Is About Who Knows You)
There’s a saying that it’s all about who you know. While that is true, I think the more accurate statement is that it’s all about who knows you. Knowing someone is good, but someone else knowing you and thinking of you for a job is even better. My 2 main day jobs are both from friends knowing I needed work. My box office job is from a friend who worked for that company as an actor and knew I did box office work in the past. And my research job is from an old boss who is now my current boss at the new company she is at. And now I’ve got another job that I’ll be doing because of a friend thinking of me.
One of the actors I know through my SAG-AFTRA slate is a part of a new web series. They’ve completed their filming and are getting ready to promote it and release it. They are also looking at doing more seasons of the show. And since they are in the promotion phase of the project, they needed someone who is good with social media to do their posts. And my friend thought of me since I’m pretty good at social media and have taught others how to do some things on it.
My first worry was that I didn’t know enough to do the job. I have friends who have degrees in social media management and it’s not as easy of a job as it can seem. There are lots of things to do that are beyond just posting and monitoring the conversation. But I agreed to talk to the producers of the project to see what they needed and hopefully it would fit what I could do. And after chatting with them, it did seem like they only needed work that I knew how to do and they didn’t need the complicated things like analytics like some companies would require of a social media manager. So we worked out the terms of what the contract would be and I started working for them this week!
The job fits in perfectly with my other jobs and I’m so grateful for that. I’m aware of how lucky I am that I’ve managed to find jobs that work around the schedules of the others and that none of my jobs affect the performance I can do at the others. I’m in a really privileged position right now and I’m always shocked when I’m able to add another job that works with the others. I’m always worried if I find another job that I want to do that I would need to quit at least one of the others. But that hasn’t been the case yet.
And I do need to keep looking for more work. This new job will help me financially, but as of right now it’s only for a month. I think it will be extended beyond the month, but it’s not a guarantee yet. But financially things haven’t been as great as they were in the past. The hours with my research job were cut back by 2/3rds due to the contract that I’m under. It’s got a maximum they can pay out for it and my boss doesn’t control that so she can only offer me what they offer her. She is looking for any other contracts I can work under so I can get some more hours, but right now there aren’t any others I can take on.
And I recently had dinner with my boss from the research job and we were able to talk about work a bit. I asked if she knew if I’d be getting a new contract after the current one is done and she really didn’t know. She is still going to be looking for any other contracts I can work under, but the one that has been renewed each year since I started there isn’t necessarily going to renew again. That can always change and as soon as my boss knows she will be telling me. But I’m glad that I know now that it’s not a guarantee yet like it was in the past.
Maybe I can make this social media job into something more than what it is right now. Maybe the producers of this show will be really happy with my work and will bring me on for another project or refers me to others. I know the power of referrals and I’m always working hard so that hopefully I will get a referral in the future. I’m not totally sure what the next steps will be since there is still so much up in the air with my research job, but for now I’m just so grateful that another friend referred me for an awesome job!
Posted onMarch 22, 2018|Comments Off on The Henry (or Checking Out A New Restaurant With A Friend)
Sometimes because of this blog I get invited to soft openings of new restaurants and I get to write about them. And sometimes a friend of mine is invited and then invites me and it inspires a blog post. This is about the second type of invite.
My Orangetheory friend Lindsay texted me the other night asking if I was free and could meet her in West Hollywood in 30 minutes. She had gotten an invite to the soft opening of The Henry and her boyfriend couldn’t make it and she wanted to know if I was free. She apologized for it being so last minute, but since I was free it was fine and I quickly got dressed and got in my car.
I wasn’t familiar with The Henry, but it turns out that the restaurant has locations in Arizona (when Lindsay is from) and they also own North Italia which is an amazing restaurant that has a location in Santa Monica where I recently had a date. Lindsay was so excited to get to go The Henry and once I took a look at the menu I was pretty excited too. I got there right on time for her reservation and we went inside. It was a bit crowded and people were taking a bit longer enjoying their dinners than I think the staff expected so it was a long wait for a table. But there were 2 seats at the bar left so we grabbed those.
Since this was the soft opening, the meal was complimentary. We were given the full menu as well as the rules for ordering that night.
We each got to pick an entree and we split an appetizer and dessert. That seemed like a good plan to me (I probably would have done that even without the rules) and we had a pretty similar plan on what we wanted. We got the truffle fondue with pretzel bread to start, we both got steak dishes as our entrees (I had the NY strip), and we got a chocolate peanut butter thing for dessert.
Everything was delicious and I was so full at the end of the meal! Also included with the soft opening menu were drinks! Normally alcoholic drinks aren’t included in those sort of things, so it was pretty special that it was. I’m not a big drinker (my last drink was back at my birthday party), but I figured I should at least try one of their drinks. Since it was free, it didn’t matter if I didn’t finish it. So I decided to try a drink with vodka and berries. It was really good and I drank more of it than I expected to!
But of course, with any meal out, the highlight was getting to hang out with a friend. Lindsay and I used to see each other pretty much every week at Orangetheory. But we haven’t been working out together for a long time. So we have made an effort to stay in touch and we try to get together from time to time. We had dinner together a few months ago so to see each other again was nice. Sometimes it can be way longer between seeing each other so I was grateful that I was able to join her for dinner (although I did feel bad that her boyfriend had to be sick so I could be her plus one).
Our conversation was just catching up on lot of randomness. She wanted to hear funny stories from online dating and she was telling me fun stories about her work. And we shared updates about people we both know from Orangetheory. Some people are still people I work out with and others are people that she knows from social media and was able to update me about. We kept getting distracted by how good the food was, but we had a pretty lively conversation too.
We were there for a few hours and then I had to get back to my car to head home. But I really could have spent more time there to hang out more with Lindsay and to maybe try another drink. I know I’ll have to go back to The Henry once they are open (which is this weekend) to try more of the entrees. Plus, they are supposed to have an incredible brunch and I love finding new brunch places!
Posted onMarch 21, 2018|Comments Off on Another Year Of Marathon Watching (or We Tried Our Best)
For the past few years, I’ve gone out to watch the runners for the LAMarathon. I have always enjoyed watching the runners and cheering them on, even if I didn’t know anyone running. This year, several of my friends were supposed to be running but had to back out for one reason or another. I knew I had 1 friend running and I wanted to be out there to support him. Plus, it always seems like I find out I had more friends running once I’m out there.
I’m usually at the same spot each year because it’s pretty close to my house and it’s easy to drive to. With all the street closures for the marathon, I like to minimize the issues I run into by driving to the marathon path. Plus, since it’s close I can get there early and not worry about how long it would take me to get back home.
This year, I was going to watch the marathon runners with a friend who wanted to go watch it from near the finish line. I had never done that before and figured it could be a fun adventure! Plus, we were both having a lazy morning and if I had gone to my usual place I would have missed my friend running by. So we made a plan to meet at the light rail station to head into Santa Monica. The end of the light rail was only a few blocks from the finish line, so we figured that would be the easiest way to get there.
And while it did end up being the easiest way to get there, it wasn’t that easy once we were in Santa Monica. The crowds were pretty crazy, especially compared to what I’m used to at the location I normally watch from. And there was a sea of people past the finish line lined up while the finishers walked through after collecting their medals.
I had been using the race tracker app to track my friend and he crossed the finish line pretty soon after we got to where we were watching. But then we realized that there was no requirement for him to walk all the way to where we were watching. I had no clue where he was meeting his family and we gave it about 20 minutes before we figured he must have left the race area before he got to where we were (I found out later that he left the race area 2 blocks before where we were).
We did enjoy watching the other finishers go by us and we both were amazed by how many of them seemed so casual for just finishing a marathon! There were some people who looked tired but so many others weren’t sweaty and I would have guessed they were waiting to start a marathon and not just done with one. I know I look so much more exhausted after doing a 5K than most of those marathon runners looked!
After watching for about 30 minutes, we realized that it was just getting a bit too crowded for us and we weren’t going to see anyone we knew. As much as we wanted to keep cheering people on we knew it was time to go. We walked back toward the train station but decided that we wanted to do a bit more walking around. It was a really nice day out and I’m not in Santa Monica that often. We walked back and forth on the promenade and then went to the mall at the end of the promenade to get some lunch.
We had a nice relaxing lunch outside (it was way less crowded than it normally is in Santa Monica on a weekend and we were enjoying not feeing super packed in) before heading back to the train to go back home. There were so many marathon runners on the train with their medals and that was so cool to see. Hopefully none of them were too tired to get up from their seats when they got to their stop!
Even though this wasn’t what I was expecting with watching the marathon, it was a fun adventure. But I think I’ve decided that next year I’ll be back to watching from where I normally watch. Plus, my friend who watched with me was talking about maybe running the marathon next year and I want to make sure I’m in a spot where she can find me and I can have some awesome signs to cheer her on!
Posted onMarch 20, 2018|Comments Off on My First Dri-Tri Relay (or Trying To Not Be Disappointed In Myself)
I’ve done a couple of Dri–Tris at Orangetheory in the past. And as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, my 4th workout last week was another Dri-Tri. But this time, the Dri-Tri was going to be a relay event and it would be my first time doing that.
With the Dri-Tri relay, you have a team of 3 and each person does one section (rower, floor, or treadmill). I immediately knew I wanted to do the rower. First, it would give me a great opportunity to try to PR on my 2,000 meter row. Also, I knew how tough the floor work was for me each time and I didn’t think I was ready to do a 5K (or 1/2 5K as a power walker). So the rower was what made sense to me. I tried to get a team together, but many of my Orangetheory friends weren’t able to do the Dri-Tri. Fortunately, the studio would help find a team for me so I signed up to do the row and figured I’d find out the day of the Dri-Tri who my team would be (I wouldn’t be at the studio doing the Dri-Tri until the day of since I went to the new Culver City location).
The day of, a bunch of people who signed up ended up dropping out so there was a bit of work done by the staff to put together new teams. Also some people decided to do the Dri-Tri solo instead of being on a team. I thought about if I should do the full event, but I hadn’t really prepared properly for it so I didn’t push myself. But they figured out a team for me and since the rowing was first I got ready to start.
I knew that I didn’t want to overdo it with the row in the beginning. I’ve made the mistake in the past of starting too big and then not being able to sustain that. So I tried to start slower than I thought I should because it was at a speed that I knew I could maintain for a while. I had the PR time in my head and as I was getting further into the row I kept doing the math to see if I would beat my PR time. It seemed like I was on pace to do that once I got to the halfway point and I just tried to stay focused on staying steady and not focused on the time or distance as much.
I have to say that my teammates were so amazing while I was rowing. They were cheering me on and super supportive. I wasn’t expecting that and I never had that experience when I did the Dri-Tri solo so it was a nice surprise for me. It helped me get any negative thoughts out of my head when I was starting to struggle and they were able to tighten the foot straps for me (they sometimes get loose when I row) so I didn’t have to stop and do it myself.
Once I got to the last 200 meters, I realized that it was going to be much closer to my previous PR than I thought. There was a chance I wasn’t going to beat it and I wasn’t mentally prepared for it. Even though I had already been rowing for 8 minutes and was exhausted, I kicked my butt into gear and was rowing so hard that I probably was doing too much (I was starting to struggle to catch my breath but refused to slow down). And when I was done, I was pretty mad.
My previous PR was 8:45.2. I missed it by 2.4 seconds. That is pretty much like missing it because of 1 or 2 pulls on the rower that could have been a bit stronger. Honestly, I would have rather missed it by 20 seconds than missing it by 2 seconds. It was about 40 seconds faster than my last Dri-Tri attempt, but that wasn’t cheering me up. I had my heart set on beating my PR and I failed at it. I’m so competitive with myself and it was tough to know that I failed at something that I felt was so certain to happen.
But I couldn’t stay upset for long because I needed to go support my teammate on the floor. We were cheering her on and when she was on the second round of the floor work I was cheering that she was done with push ups/burpees/whatever the move was each time she was done. And then we went to support our teammate on the treadmill and we kept cheering whenever he hit a milestone. I don’t remember exactly what time our team was done with the entire event, but it was pretty much in the middle of the pack which was awesome considering I was the last person to finish the row.
After we were done, we were cheering on the rest of the people on the treadmill. The great thing about the Dri-Tri is that everyone seems to stay in the room and as each person is close to finishing their treadmill work they gather around to cheer. And it was the same this time and I loved getting to cheer for people. Some people hit PRs, some hit goals they thought would take months, and some completed their first Dri-Tri. Every person in the room accomplished something awesome (and yes, even though I was mad I had to be a bit proud that I rowed 2,000 meters without stopping and almost matched my PR).
And this year, they were giving out medals for the Dri-Tri! So of course we all needed a photo with the medals.
Even though it was good to do the Dri-Tri relay, I don’t know if I would do the relay again. While it was nice to not have to worry about doing anything after the row, I also felt a bit like something was missing. I think if I had worked harder leading up to it, I probably could have done the full one. But who knows how I will feel the next time we have one. Also, I might be doing the next Dri-Tri at the Culver City studio. I’ll just have to wait and see.
But for now, I’m just enjoying knowing I did another Dri-Tri and loving how my medal looks on my medal hanger.
Posted onMarch 19, 2018|Comments Off on Checking Out A New Orangetheory (or So Many Morning Workouts!)
I had a pretty amazing past week of workouts this past week. I accomplished things that I didn’t think I would be able to do, and I got to go to a new Orangetheory location! But the best part was that with the new location I think things are going to be so much better for me now!
Monday’s workout was at the location I’ve been going to since I started going to Orangetheory and wasn’t what I was hoping for. We were dealing with rain in LA, and when it rains I sometimes have hip issues. I hadn’t had any during this rainstorm, but on Monday morning my hip was not doing so great. I was hopeful that once I got to the workout things would be better (sometimes I am just a bit more sore because I slept funny), but I knew it wasn’t going to be feeling the way I want my body to feel. I was optimistic and tried starting on the treadmill, but I ended up heading over to the bike during the warm-up because I knew that I didn’t want to feel worse.
It was an endurance day and the cardio was all shorter push paces with a 1 minute base pace after each one. I was working on getting my resistance up on the bike for each of the push paces and when we had the shorter pushes I was able to get the resistance up much higher. And with the base paces, I focused on have a steady cadence while pedaling. Having a steady pedal speed did help me get my breath down after each push pace so that worked to my advantage. Since my heart rate and breath were almost back to normal before each push pace, I could go harder during the pushes than I thought I could.
On the rower, we had one long block. We started with 3 rounds of 1 minute all out rows. After the first row we had squats with the medicine ball, after the second row we had overhead presses with the medicine ball, and after the third row we had squats to overhead presses with the medicine ball. After those 3 rows, we did another round but instead of rowing for 1 minute it was rowing for 45 seconds (with the same exercises in-between each row). I did pretty decent with the rowing considering how I felt. I know I could have gotten further with each time, but I did my best. And when I was on the floor, both blocks were focused on using the Bosu. The first block was kneeling scaptions on the Bosu, Bosu push-ups with one hand on the Bosu and one hand on the floor, and squats with one foot on the Bosu and one foot on the floor. And the second block had kneeling shoulder presses on the Bosu, scissor kick crunches, Bosu burpees, and Bosu running man. It was a hard floor block and I had to do some of the work not using the Bosu, but I was feeling a bit better by the floor block so I was doing more than I expected.
Wednesday’s workout was my first one at the new location near my house. Ever since I started at Orangetheory, I have gone to the same location (except for my pre-Thanksgiving workouts). With no traffic, I can get there in about 10 minutes. In traffic (like when I drive home after my afternoon workouts) it can take an hour or hour and a half to get home. I’m fine with that since I work from home and don’t have a commute, but I’ve been wanting there to be an Orangetheory location near me. And finally this past week, Orangetheory Culver City opened!
It’s a 5 minute drive for me to get to and from my workouts which is incredible! I will still do some workouts at Brentwood, but I will be doing at least half if not more in Culver City now. And many of my friends from the Brentwood location are coming to Culver City too so I’ll still have many of my workout buddies.
I was so happy to get to go to the studio near my house, and that also means that I can change up my workout schedule a bit. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I have always worked out after work. That’s because I don’t want to do 6am workouts and that’s what I would have to do in order to work out before work and make in home in time. But now that I have a studio so close to my house, I did my first before work workout on Wednesday!
When I got to the Culver City studio, I had to sign their liability form and have them register my heart rate monitor in their system. I got there early to do that and had lots of extra time before class. The new studio is so nice and clean! There are more stations at the Culver City studio than at the Brentwood one which I’m sure will be needed when more people are attending classes.
They still have the same lockers and shower rooms as the Brentwood location does, but I doubt I’ll ever shower there because it’s so quick for me to get home. But I’m grateful that they have the same lockers as the Brentwood one does because some other studios only have cubbies and not lockers. While I don’t think someone would steal anything from me, I’d rather lock up my purse than leave it out in a cubby.
The workout was a strength workout. I started on the treadmill and was determined to stick with the treadmill for the class. There is still a bike, but since I knew my focus would be a bit scattered since it was a new studio for me, I wanted to be on the treadmill where I have much more of a routine. I didn’t really do the inclines the way that power walkers were supposed to. I pretty much stuck with my standard of 4% as my base pace, 6% as my push pace, and 8% as my all out pace. It was tough being on the treadmill and the treadmills are a little different at this studio, but I’m so glad that I stuck it out because I felt amazing when it was time to switch to the floor.
On the floor, the first block was lateral lunges with weights, triceps on the straps, seated rotations with a weight, and scissor kick crunches. The second block was hammer curls with weights, reverse flys with weights, and single leg sit-ups. And the last block was rounds of tricep kickbacks with weights and 250 meter rows. I was able to do my first row in 56 seconds which is pretty awesome for me especially considering it was at the end of the workout. It was a bit weird trying to figure out where everything is on the floor and having a different layout of the room, but the workout was familiar enough to me that I was easily able to adjust and I didn’t waste too much time figuring things out.
Friday was another morning at the Culver City studio. It really felt good to be able to get up and do my workout first and I’m wondering if this is going to be something I can keep up for the long run. Once the studio is open for a bit of time they are probably going to be adjusting the class times, so I’m hoping that when that happens I will still find a good time in the morning to go before work. But for now, I’m going to keep trying to go in the mornings when I can.
The workout on Friday was endurance, strength, and power based and it was a run/row. It was actually the first run/row for the studio so things were a bit less complicated than I’m used to. But that was good because it gave me time to focus on form and not what the plan is for the workout. The run/row had a pretty basic format with each run portion getting a bit shorter but higher on the incline each round and each row was 200 meters. I was on the treadmill again and did the inclines for power walkers on the plan so I was at 4, 6, 8, and 10%. I’m glad that I’m getting back on the treadmill more often and it was a good workout to be on it since I was never on the treadmill for more than about 5 minutes at a time. The first time I was on the rower I did go all out with my 200 meter row and got it done pretty quickly. But I was starting to feel exhausted (the combination of working hard and having such an early workout) so I took it a bit easier for the other rows I did. I still was always under the goal time, but I focused more on being steady with my pace on the rower.
The floor had 3 blocks and each block had 3 things in it. Those included sumo goblet squats, Spiderman planks, reverse crunches, lunges on the straps and without the straps, supermans, burpees, pop jacks, and upper cuts. It wasn’t the most complicated floor work, but I took the opportunity to work on my form and to use heavier weights. I was using 25lbs while doing my squats and now thinking back I could have probably gone heavier. But I would usually pick up 20lbs so at least it was a little improvement. And when we did the supermans, I really focused on making sure I felt my muscles working instead of making the movements more fluid. I could easily do those without working hard so I took my time and made sure that I was maximizing the movement.
Overall, it was another really great class. The coach is someone new to me but she was really amazing and encouraging! And I’m sure it’s weird having me do all my random modifications on my own without her having to check in on me so I was grateful that she let me do my own thing and wasn’t questioning why I wasn’t doing the exercise the way it was demonstrated. I’m trying to not be a know-it-all or anything in class, but it’s tough when with my other coaches they’ve known me long enough that I can do my own thing at times and it’s not a big deal. It’s a balance for me to figure out, but at the same time having new coaches gives me a chance to see what modifications they would recommend and maybe I’ll find a new way to try to do an exercise that my hip struggles with.
My 4th workout of the week was doing my first Dri-Tri relay, but that will have to wait until tomorrow’s post!
Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)
