Posted onJuly 30, 2021|Comments Off on Keeping My Calm (or So Much At Once)
Even though I just have posted about new job stuff and how I will be working more hours, this post has nothing to do with that even if it seems so. I actually haven’t made any changes just yet, so it’s probably better that I’m having this happen before it does.
I have a problem with being overscheduled, busy, and stressed and then swinging hard in the other direction and being bored. And right now, I’m in a time of being busy. And it’s just the way that everything happened to fall and not something I could have prepared for. I’m trying to stay calm and remember that I don’t have to do everything myself and it’s ok to ask for help. But it’s hard to do that when I want to feel capable and not held back.
Work stuff has been crazy lately, but that might actually be easier when I’m working more hours. I try to clear all the work before my shift ends, and soon I will have twice the time to accomplish that. I don’t want to rush because that’s where mistakes can be made, but I always feel bad if there are things I didn’t get a chance to take care of when my shift ends and someone else’s begins. And I’m aware that I take on a lot more of the work because I handle all the overnight stuff, but I still don’t want the person doing the second half of the day to have anything left when we switch even though they have said it’s ok if that happens.
At my other customer service job, things have been crazy just because that’s how this time of the year goes. We also are almost fully open with about half the staff. So that’s tough for us all and I only am working minimal hours there. So I know I’m lucky but at the same time I still want to get everything done since I am not the person in the morning and don’t want the others to have to do work I couldn’t get to.
And I’m in the middle of election season for my union. This is stressful to go through but so rewarding. And in the past I had a bit more free time to work on things. There’s also the added change with not doing anything in person and having much more done online, which makes my job a bit more than in the past. But I’m working on my time management as much as I can so I have the time to do all my responsibilities or realize early enough that I need help so someone else can jump in.
And I’m sure the fact that it’s been very hot here recently and I’m pretty isolated in my house isn’t helping. I’m not going out and being social outside of my workouts and the rare hangout with a friend. I know I need to take mental health breaks, even if they are just something inside my house. I need to make sure I don’t hit burnout because I know that it will affect me harder than normal when I don’t have ways to mentally escape.
I know that this is temporary and I will likely be feeling bored again. But until that happens, I just have to take care of myself and make sure that these extreme moments don’t become too hard for me to get through.
Posted onJuly 29, 2021|Comments Off on Back To Back Job Changes (or Unexpected Good News)
After my job news for one of my day jobs earlier this week, I didn’t think I’d have any other day job updates or changes happening anytime soon. Things have been pretty stable for a while. I know I had the option to add more hours to my old box office job, but I didn’t want to since I was balancing everything with my schedule. I was back to working a similar number of hours to what I was doing before the pandemic and I was making about the same that I was before. That seemed to be a big accomplishment to me and I was happy being back in my routine that felt so familiar.
But then on Tuesday, I got an alert at my social media customer service job about a call with the owner of the company. This was to set up a meeting and the subject was something similar to “Your Future With The Company” which basically sounds like the job version of “we need to talk” in a relationship. Fortunately, I was also messaged that this was going to be a positive talk so I wasn’t too stressed out. If I didn’t know that, I probably would have spent the entire day worried I was about to be fired. I still was a little worried about what the news would be, but I tried to focus on the idea that it was going to be good news and that I didn’t need to worry. It didn’t help that my phone meeting ended up being much later than the expected time, so I had extra time to stress a bit. But I stayed calm and tried not to think too much about it all.
And as I was told, it was all good news. I am very aware that the company is growing at a very fast rate (I see all the new clients come in and add most of them to our database). And because of that, the company is growing as far as staff and workload goes. When I was hired, it was part-time and I knew it would possibly stay part-time. Working full-time was briefly discussed when I was interviewing, but it wasn’t a focus of what we discussed. Also, when I was hired about 7 months ago, things weren’t growing as fast as they are now. So things are changing up and the owner of the company wants me to grow with the company too.
So I was offered the opportunity to work full-time starting next week. The owner of the company is aware of my other jobs (the job I was writing about yesterday isn’t really a concern since those are my own hours) and my schedule with my other customer service job. And I said I wasn’t comfortable necessarily leaving my other job for now. We do have new employees who are in training, so maybe in the future I’d consider it, but for now, I know that I’m needed and I do like my work and my co-workers. So I had a very honest and frank conversation with the owner of the company about not feeling ok leaving my other job, and after discussing it more he said he’d be willing to let me try working both jobs at once during my overlap. It would only be an overlap of 8 hours a week (2 hours a day for 4 days a week), so it’s not like it’s a huge chunk of time. I think it would be possible, especially since I have explained what portions of my job I felt ok overlapping with (for example, not doing both customer service chats but doing the customer service chat for one job and emails or data entry for the other). I know that this will be something I have to try and re-evaluate, but at least I’m being given a chance to try.
And even though I have essentially worked full-time hours before, this is a little different from the past. But I’m really happy with how things have been going and seeing where I could see myself in the future. My focus is still on acting, but I like having a more stable day job situation. And I should still be able to have some of the flexibility I need for auditions and other acting-related things. But this is going to put me in a better spot financially and even though it’s doubling my hours at one job, it’s only an extra 2-3 hours a day when you consider the hours I already work my other job. So not the biggest change ever.
Like I had been told ahead of my meeting, this was all good news. And I think it is just the start with good news for this job since I do see ways that I can grow and change within the company. And for a day job, that is an amazing feeling.
Posted onJuly 28, 2021|Comments Off on Getting Ready For Changing Up My Job Tasks (or Same Job New Responsibilities)
When I had my meeting about my contract ending at my data entry type job, we discussed what things moving forward would make sense for me to do for my job tasks. I’ve been doing the same type of work for a long time for that job, but it hasn’t made sense over the past year. My job was mainly related to posting information regarding events, and there weren’t really any events happening. We did shift to posting virtual events, but it wasn’t the same and I was struggling to find events in time to share.
I was starting to do a little bit of work with social media for that job (funny enough, similar work that I was doing for my social media job so I had lots of ideas about what to do). But there weren’t a lot of things I was doing with social media because it wasn’t something that was being done before so plans were being created and not just followed.
I’ve also occasionally had other tasks with that job, like doing research for annual updates. But for the most part, I was always doing event work and only recently started to do some social media work. And when my contract ended, the meeting I had about what my next contract would like went into what new tasks I might take on as well. And it was pretty clear that it was time for me to move on from the events work. It may be done in a different way now, and I’m actually excited by what the website might look like when that is completed. But since I won’t be doing what a majority of my job has been, I have been getting ready to train on my new tasks.
The majority of my work with my new contract will be doing QA-type work. This won’t be a huge difference from what I was doing before, but I’ll be checking information already on the site and not adding new information myself. I haven’t trained on that just yet, but I should be getting trained in August once a few things are set up for me to be able to access the sections of my work website that I need to be in to work. But this week, I did some discussion about the new plans going forward for the work I’ll be doing in social media.
I have been doing social media work for this job this month, but it’s been a bit limited. I’ve been sharing posts that other accounts have created and promoting events in the community. It’s similar to what I would have posted before on the website, but I’m now sharing it on social media instead. But there is more work that I can do and that’s what was discussed in my meeting this week.
I’m excited about the new opportunities I’ll have soon. I’m going to work on some content creation and also setting up templates so others can do the work. This is work I’m familiar with from my union service, so I’m glad I have the opportunity to use those skills for another job. And it will give me the chance to build on what I already know how to do and I’m sure I’ll learn things that I might not have tried in my union service work. And of course, I’m excited when any of my day job work lets me be a bit creative and that’s something that I haven’t always gotten to do so it makes me really happy.
I’m slowly going to be transitioning into my new tasks with my job, but I think this is all positive steps moving forward. I’ve been with this job for so many years and it makes sense that things would change over the years. And the pandemic might have sped things up a bit with how quickly they changed, but I’m ready to adapt quickly. And maybe things will change when I get my next contract or I get this contract extended. But for now, I’m ready to see what I can do and what other things will come my way.
Posted onJuly 27, 2021|Comments Off on Still Figuring Out Dating During The Pandemic (or Some Things Are The Same And Some Things Are Different)
For the majority of my life, dating was pretty normal. I know some people might not think of online dating as normal, but it’s common enough that it’s not weird. And until March 2020, I would say that for the most part, my dating life might have been crazy and filled with lots of stories, but it was what I was used to and nothing seemed that strange as far as finding dates and going on them.
As we all know, the pandemic changed so much of that. Meeting in person became risky. Doing virtual dates started to be more popular and the apps created new ways to date without having to leave your home, not just to find dates. And I started to do a lot of phone calls with dates, something I rarely did as an adult. And some of these things are things I’ll probably keep in my dating life because they made some things easier (virtual dates are nice when you don’t have to deal with driving or looking cute below what the camera sees). But it wasn’t perfect either.
Dating needs to involve in-person meetings too. I’ve had too many experiences where things seemed great over text, phone calls, and virtual dates. The conversation flowed and it felt like there was a lot of chemistry. But then when you meet in real life, the chemistry just isn’t there. This isn’t about attraction or something that I might think would grow. There’s just something about chemistry and I can tell if I have an interest in dating someone or not. And it’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes the chemistry is platonic and they are just meant to be someone I’m friends with and not someone to date. But it’s still tough when you are so hopeful before a date and then you realize that it’s not what you wanted.
And even in a pandemic, there have been plenty of the same things I’ve always dealt with. I’ve had text conversations with guys and they either unmatch with me without saying anything or just stop responding (and I’ll usually delete those matches after a bit of time). I’ve been ghosted by guys I’ve had in-person dates with. And getting ghosted still hurts. The last guy who ghosted me was someone I was only seeing for a few weeks, but we had fun dates and great conversations. We actually discussed how horrible ghosting is and said that we would tell the other if we didn’t want to see each other again. There were some things about him that I was hesitant about, nothing bad but I know I held back a bit. But after texting to plan our next date, he stopped responding to me and I’m officially ghosted again. I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt, but I’ve started to build a bit of a thick skin when it comes to getting ghosted and I have learned how to move past it a bit faster than before. And if someone who ghosted me shows up again (which happens), I know that things can’t just pick up and I can’t guarantee I’d give them another chance.
I had hopes that dating might return to more normalcy now with things reopening. But we know that didn’t really happen since cases are increasing again. And while I’m still more willing to meet in person than I was a year ago, it’s not always easy since a lot of my usual places are closed or have limited availability. And meeting somewhere inside means masks have to be worn, which does make getting to know someone harder. I still wear a mask for safety on dates (although most people now openly share their vaccination status). But it’s been nice when I meet someone outdoors and someplace not too crowded so we can take our masks off if we both feel safe.
And who knows. Maybe dating will never go back to the way it was before 2020. Maybe it will be good and maybe it won’t. All I know is that I will continue to find ways to date (and date safely) because I know more than ever now that I don’t want to always be alone.
Posted onJuly 26, 2021|Comments Off on Going Easy And Pushing Myself (or Feeling Better In Time To Try Harder)
I knew this past week of workouts would be tough for me. I wasn’t sure if I’d be having bad pain and nausea all week or if it would be really bad only for a few days and then taper off. But I was prepared for it to be all bad days and fortunately I was wrong. And it worked out perfectly because I have a new focus on getting better in my workouts and that happened after the worst day of the past week so I was able to accept the new challenge.
But Monday’s workout was what I was prepared for with it being one of the worst days. As much as I want to put a positive spin on it, I was miserable. I was in pain, I was feeling so nauseous, and I had no motivation to do anything. I showed up because I knew something was better than nothing, but I also knew I was going to be very limited in what I could do.
The workout was a signature workout: Catch Me If You Can. I actually like this signature workout and I was sad that I knew it wasn’t going to be a day I could really do the work. The idea is that there are distance checkpoints every 1-2 minutes and as long as you don’t fall behind the distance, you keep going. Because it was a 2 group class, if you didn’t make a checkpoint, you rowed and did squats the rest of the cardio block. I actually missed the checkpoint by the second one (which was 4 minutes in), but I knew I couldn’t row for the next 20 minutes. My coach knew I was having a bad day, so he understood that I just stayed on the bike and kept going, even if I wasn’t doing much.
On the floor, we had mostly exercises I could do without too many modifications. We had skier swings, shoulder presses, hip hinge reverse fly with weights, bicep curls, Y-raises on the straps, and plank dips. I was very slow on the floor and took a lot of time to rest and take deep breaths. But I did make it through class and that was the most important thing.
Wednesday was a power day and I was still feeling off but I was significantly better. I knew I wasn’t going to be 100%, but I’d be close to that so I could try harder. And I had some really great moments in class that made me much happier than what I was doing on Monday.
We had 3 blocks for cardio that were all the same format. We had a push pace, a base pace, a push pace, an all-out, a recovery, a push pace, and an all-out to finish. The difference between the 3 was the all-outs in each block. In the first block they were 1-minute, in the second they were 45-seconds, and in the last they were 30-seconds. I did have to take a few breaks during each break, but nothing too long.
And for the floor, we also had 3 blocks. In each block, we had some rowing to start. The first block had 3 rounds of a 150-meter row before the exercises, the second had 2 rounds, and the last only had 1 150-meter row. While I did try hard with all the rows, I really went all-out with the last one since I knew that was my last one. I was racing with the 2 people next to me on the rowers (I think we all needed that last little boost), and even though I lost the race I did get the highest wattage I’ve ever had on the rower! That was amazing! The rest of the floor blocks involved 3 different exercises in each. Each block had one upper body, one lower body, and one core exercise. I’ll admit that my row in the last block took me out a lot so I wasn’t really able to do much for the exercises in the last block, but that’s ok.
And after Wednesday’s class, I was chatting with my coach because he was giving me some specific guidance for my cardio that seemed a bit high for wattage considering what I usually can do. So he worked with me on the bike for a few minutes and challenged me to stop looking t the cadence I was pedaling and working more on using the resistance levels. I told him I couldn’t promise I would do that for every workout, but I would try.
Friday’s class was a strength day, so it was the perfect opportunity to work on focusing more on the resistance levels on the bike. And that’s exactly what I did.
The cardio had 3 blocks that all had the same breakdown. We had a 2-minute push pace, 1-minute base, 1-minute high incline (it was a powerwalk for everyone on the treadmills), 1-minute base at a lower incline, 1-minute base with no incline, and a 30-second all out. In each block, the inclines got higher. For my work on the bike, I did increase my base resistance level to be 1 higher and I used the resistance levels for the push paces and all-outs. And for the incline work, I did some of the highest levels I’ve ever used. I felt like I wasn’t moving at all, but I know I was working hard and my legs were so tired at the end.
On the floor, we had 1 long block and 1 short block. In the long block, we started with a 300-meter row, but we were supposed to do a really hard pull and then wait until the water in the tank was almost still again so we could do another really hard pull. It took longer to row that way, but it made the focus on our legs. Then we were supposed to do all the work for one side and then repeat the exercises for the other, but I can’t really do that with my hip issues so I just did them back to back. We had deadlifts (that were supposed to be single-leg but I did them with both feet down), lunges, hammer curls, and plank pendulums. Then we had another 300-meter row with the focus being on our legs before going back to those exercises. And in the shorter block, we had swing lunges (which I had to do as regular lunges), sumo deadlifts, and seated torso rotations. It was a lot of lower body work on a day where I did harder work on the bike, but I didn’t mind being sore when the workout was done.
By Saturday’s workout, I was almost completely over my nausea. I still had a tiny bit, but I knew that I would be able to push myself a lot more. And even though it was a power day, I decided to continue working with the resistance levels on the bike and challenge myself with making the cardio tougher for me so I could get better.
For cardio, we had 4 blocks. Blocks 1 and 3 were the same and blocks 2 and 4 were the same. Blocks 1 and 3 were the longer blocks and we had rounds of push pace to all-outs. The all-outs were always 30-seconds long and the push paces decreased each time in the block. And I increased my resistance level for the push and the all-outs every time. I used the same level for the push paces no matter how long they were, but I think that is fine since it was still a challenge. And blocks 2 and 4 were on the rower with 3 rounds of a 30-second all-out row with 30 seconds to recover between. It was a tough row at the end of the block because I was tired, but I was able to do really well with the wattage I got on the rower and I could feel that my form wasn’t suffering even when I was tired.
And on the floor, we also had 4 blocks. Just like with cardio, blocks 1 and 3 were longer and blocks 2 and 4 were shorter. Block 1 had single-arm clean to press, bicep curls on the straps, and plank rotations (which I had to modify a little bit since I was starting to get nauseous while doing them). Block 2 had tricep extensions with weights and high knees (which I did more like marching in place). Block 3 had single-arm snatches, triceps on the straps, and plank dumbbell taps. And the last block had hammer curls and lateral hops (which I did as pulsing half squats). This workout was a tough one and I pushed myself more than I had all week to make up for what I couldn’t do earlier in the week.
I’m looking forward to this week’s workouts since I should be feeling like myself for the week. I know in the beginning of the week I might still be dealing with a little nausea, but it shouldn’t be too much and each day should be easier and easier. And we have a benchmark class this week that I’m both nervous and excited about. Hopefully, when I do my recap in a week I will have a lot of positive news to share about how each workout went!
Posted onJuly 23, 2021|Comments Off on Making And Cancelling Plans (or I Know We Are All Trying To Stay Safe)
It’s been a very slow transition back for me, but I’ve slowly been trying to make plans. Some things are not very soon, so I’ve been feeling ok about having plans that aren’t for another month or two. I know that there has been discussion about the fall being worse, but maybe the increase of cases now will get more people vaccinated so the fall won’t have another surge. But nobody can predict what will happen. I honestly thought we wouldn’t have a surge like we are having now. But it only took a few weeks and things are now what they were like when things were much more restrictive all over California. So even when I’ve been making plans lately, they are being made with the assumption that they might have to be canceled.
And that’s exactly what’s happening right now. I had plans for tonight, but those have been postponed since we want to not have to worry as much about if anyone feels unsafe. It’s unfortunate, but I have been starting to think more and more about what risks I would be willing to take. I know that breakthrough cases are rare and when they happen they tend to be mild, but it’s not a guarantee. That can change and breakthrough cases could get worse. And I’ve worked hard for over a year to not get sick and stay healthy. As much as I’m ready for regular life again, it’s not regular times yet and we can’t forget that things aren’t great right now.
And with plans I have coming up being canceled, it’s making me wonder about my birthday this year. It’s coming up and I originally wanted to have some sort of gathering since I miss my friends. I wasn’t going to plan anything too crazy, but maybe a hangout somewhere so people could come and go. And I know I could do something in a park or another public place, but I’m starting to lose a little motivation to plan something this year. It feels weird to be celebrating when it doesn’t feel like a very celebratory time. The 4th of July was different because things were still looking good. Now, I don’t feel the same hope and joy that I felt only a few weeks ago. I’ll still do a few of my usual traditions, but they might be slightly different as they were last year. But right now, I’m really hesitant to plan for much more than that.
I’m not planning for total isolation again and I’m going to have some social time since (at least for now) I’m still able to go to my workout classes. But I’m also not really making the same plans I was trying to make earlier this month. I still have done very few things with friends, but I was at least trying to figure out what we could go do. Now, I feel more like I want to wait and see and make sure I’m not taking risks that seem like just too much right now.
And I know there is no way to predict if things are going to be getting better or worse now, but it’s hard not to fear it will be getting worse. I just have to be hopeful that something will change, people will get vaccinated, and we can really get back to normal and having normal plans again. I know it will happen eventually, but I hope that eventually doesn’t take that much longer. And while we are waiting, I will just have to keep evaluating things and hope that I find enough things that feel safe and allow me to see the people that I’ve missed for way too long.
Posted onJuly 22, 2021|Comments Off on It’s Nice When Things Turn Around (or Having A Better Day Helps So Much)
With having such a horrible day earlier this week, I was prepared for having some tough days the rest of this week. And things haven’t gotten completely better and I’m still struggling a bit, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was. And while I would love for things to be perfect and amazing, that’s not realistic. So I’m happy with the few changes that have happened in only a day or two.
I’m still dealing a lot with the heat and all the issues that I have from that. But I’ve been focusing on staying as hydrated as I can since I know that can help when I feel overheated. I do still have to be careful because I can drink too much water, but I know I can be ok drinking a little bit more than normal since I’m also sweating more than normal. And while my a/c unit isn’t perfect, I know it makes a huge difference and if I feel really sick from the heat I can take a little break and stand right in front of it. Again, it’s not perfect but it helps and makes me feel better for a while.
I’m also still dealing with pain and nausea, but the first few days of the week were the worst and now things are getting easier each day. My medications are helping a lot and that’s a huge relief. I also know I’m past the halfway point of what is usually the length of time I deal with this. And knowing I’m almost done makes the really tough moments easier because I know I’m almost done. And while I would have loved to have things to distract me so I wouldn’t always focus on how I feel, I’m glad I had nowhere to go because I spent a lot of time laying on my couch or bed just trying to feel better. And I had the ability to do that after work and not miss out on things I was looking forward to.
And even though this wasn’t something that was upsetting me earlier this week, I did get my new contract for my job sent to me. I knew it was coming, even if it was only for 6 months and not a year (hopefully the extension will come soon). But waiting still made me nervous and afraid that I would hear that something happened and they couldn’t offer me a contract. But I have it now, it’s all signed and done, and I know how many hours I’ll have for the rest of the year. It’s close to what I thought it would be and I’ll be doing some training on my new tasks next week so I can start doing that and not just the social media work I’ve been doing the past few weeks.
But honestly, I think one of the things that helped me get over my bad day was to allow myself to have a bad day. I didn’t pretend that things were fine and if I ignored it that I would believe it. I allowed myself to be upset and do what I needed to do to get through the day. Laying in bed isn’t the best way to spend my time, but it’s what I needed to do. I didn’t stress too much about anything I didn’t have to do. And just getting through the day was helpful and didn’t make me feel bad about what I was able to do or not do that day.
Even though I’m not totally better now, I think the little improvements I’ve had are helping me feel better. I still have things to deal with and push through, but they are more tolerable now. And having one or two horrible days and then being almost better is a nicer situation than to have a week of somewhat bad days before things turning around. And I’m grateful that this time they were horrible days but they were over quickly.
Posted onJuly 21, 2021|Comments Off on It’s Another Short Post Type Of Week (or Sorry About This)
I wish I had an amazing post to share today, but I’m really not doing so great right now. My mental health is fine, so that’s good. Although I guess exhaustion can count against mental health. But for physical health, I’m having a hard time.
It’s like right now everything is working against me. It’s very hot here in LA, so I’m dealing with those issues and I’m trying to stay as cool as I can. It’s oddly humid here, which we aren’t used to and makes the heat worse. But I think it’s also affecting my hip because I’ve been in a lot of hip pain lately. And I’m dealing with my monthly pain and nausea. And while it wasn’t so bad last week when I thought it might be, this week has been brutal. My medications don’t seem to want to work right now. The pain is maybe dulled a bit, but I still have horrible cramps that stop me in my tracks. And the nausea is always tough to push through. It’s a general feeling of seasickness all the time and I don’t get relief even if I do get sick. And because of the nausea, I’m not sleeping much. I wake up a lot in the middle of the night afraid I’m about to get sick. And it takes me forever to get back to sleep.
Even though I try to go to bed early, I’m averaging under 2 hours of sleep when I’m in bed for 6 1/2 hours. I’m not doing much else besides work and dealing with how I’m feeling because I don’t feel the need to take more on. I can’t avoid all responsibilities, so I limit them where I can.
So as much as I’d love to have a nice and well-thought-out post on here, right now I just want to share how I’m feeling and then go lay down since I’m done with work for the day (I’m writing this on Tuesday).
Hopefully, this is the peak of it all and I start getting better tomorrow.
Posted onJuly 20, 2021|Comments Off on Requiring Masks Again (or This Doesn’t Change Too Much For Me)
Over the weekend, LA County put their mask mandate back. It’s been about a month since the mandate ended and things were looking much better as far as daily cases go. So many people were getting vaccinated and I was celebrating each time I heard of a friend getting an appointment for a vaccine. When I set up my vaccine appointment earlier this year, I had heard so many stories of friends trying for so long to finally get through to a person. So I was so grateful when I was vaccinated and it seemed like we were getting closer and closer to all eligible people being vaccinated.
I knew that kids still weren’t able to get the vaccine, but at least with all people over the age of 12 being protected, things should have been getting better. And they were for so long. When things returned to normal, I was so hopeful about the world starting to return to normal. The end of the mandate last month didn’t change too much for me, but it did allow me to feel like things were better and I stopped stressing out as much as I had before.
But shortly after the mandate ended, daily cases started to increase. I knew this could happen, but I don’t think anybody expected it to happen the same way it did. We went from having under 200 cases a day to over 1,000 cases a day within about a week. And even though 99% of the new cases, hospitalizations, and deaths were from unvaccinated people; things were looking a bit out of control. And if it was only unvaccinated adults who made the choice to not be vaccinated, maybe it would seem different. But children have no choice and cannot be vaccinated and things were getting more dangerous for them. So even though I think everyone didn’t want to have to wear masks again in all situations, I understand why they put the mandate back. We need to stop this surge before it gets worse.
It’s frustrating and upsetting to see things get worse, but I’m grateful that they took action quickly and hopefully the surge won’t get much better. And maybe this will motivate more eligible people to be vaccinated. I know not every state is going to have the same push that CA might have, but things have been so patchwork for so long and I don’t know if there could be a way to hope for some policies to be nationwide.
I don’t hate wearing a mask, but I don’t love it either. I have had multiple panic attacks while wearing a mask. None of the attacks have been horrible, but they are never fun to deal with. It’s not about having something on my face necessarily, but more of a constant reminder of the state of the world. It’s why I have mainly been doing online and delivery shopping, even for groceries. But I understand why they are necessary and how they help. And I feel like I will wear a mask during cold and flu season in the future to protect myself. And compared to the sacrifices so many others have to make to be safe, wearing a simple mask is a small thing to do.
Even when the mask mandate ended, I still wore a mask in almost all public places. There were signs at the grocery store that fully vaccinated people didn’t have to, but I did since they didn’t ask for proof and I felt it was something respectful I could do for the employees. I’ve only been to restaurants a few times since the pandemic hit, and I would wear my mask unless I was eating or drinking. But I haven’t gone to a lot of shops or out to many public things like movies. So even though I didn’t change too much when the mandate ended, it still felt like a step forward. I’m trying to not look at the mandate coming back as a step back, but it’s hard not to be a bit pessimistic about it.
Hopefully, the cases will drop again soon and more people will be vaccinated so we can end this mandate and not take a step back again. We are so close to being over the pandemic and we can’t give up so close to the finish line. And until we are done, I will be doing what I can to keep myself safe as well as others. I just hope that more people feel the same way and get vaccinated soon.
Posted onJuly 19, 2021|Comments Off on Grateful Again For This Routine (or Sorry If These Posts Aren’t Too Interesting)
I know I’ve said this a few times, but I’m seriously so grateful that I’m back at Orangetheory and doing my regular 4 workouts each week. I know there were a lot of things that were making me feel out of sorts when I wasn’t able to take class at the studios, but not having my regular workouts was a big part of it. And each week as I’ve been back, I feel more like my old self. I know things are still not completely back, but even having a regular (and maybe boring) workout week means a lot to me these days.
Monday’s workout was a strength-based day. I was grateful to have a Monday that I was feeling good since I haven’t had a lot of good Mondays lately. This workout was a pretty classic strength one for cardio.
We had 3 blocks and they were all similar. We started with a push pace, a base pace, a base pace at incline, a flat base pace, and ended with an all-out. The push pace to start the block decreased each block and the incline/resistance level increased each block. The idea was to have the incline work feel similar to the push pace, and when the push pace is shorter you need to increase the incline to recreate that feeling. I tried to keep my pedaling consistent from block to block when doing the same thing (so every push pace was similar and every hill section was similar), but the last block was tough with the highest resistance level.
On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had goblet squats, lateral lunges, and crunches using the Bosu. I had to do some minor modifications due to hip pain, but nothing too bad. The second block had weighted front squats, single-leg deadlifts (that I modified to be regular deadlifts), single-leg hip bridges (which I modified to be regular hip bridges), side plank hip work, and then a 300-meter row. Even though I had a lot more modifications in the second block, I also tried to push myself more with the weights I was using. I know I’m still not back to where I was before the shutdown, but I was able to use heavier weights for a lot of the exercises.
Wednesday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. I was feeling a little off, but that had more to do with lack of sleep and not any nausea issues.
The cardio work had 2 blocks with short push pace to all-out intervals and 1 block with incline work. The blocks with push pace to all-outs had 30-second push paces and 45-second all-outs. Those are all fast sprints which were fun to do. And the incline work was all 30-second all-outs with decreasing inclines. I’m glad they were short because increasing the resistance level on the bike is still something that challenges me a lot.
On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block had skier swings, lunges, and plank jacks to push-ups. The second block had full burpees with squat jacks and a 150-meter row. The burpees took me a really long time, so I only got to do 1 row, but I was able to get the highest wattage I’ve gotten since the shutdown (and close to my all-time highest wattage) and my time was very close to my PR! And the last block had deadlifts (they were supposed to be single-leg but I modified them), lunges, and running man plank work. By the end of the workout, my hip was really sore, but I know when I’m tired that can be an issue that comes up.
And Friday’s workout was a strength day. My pain and nausea started to kick in so I had to work through that. Fortunately, unlike most of the time when they are both bad, this time only the pain was bad. So I still had to breathe through the cramps, but at least I didn’t have to do the same for the nausea.
For cardio, we had 5 blocks that had similar formats. We started with a 90-second push pace, then a 60-second base pace, then a 30-second push pace at an incline, and we ended with a 30-second all-out. Each block, the first push pace increased the incline and time and the second push pace decreased the incline and time. But every block was always the same length in total because of the change. I didn’t have to bring the resistance level up too high on the bike, but because of the cramps I had, it felt a lot harder.
And on the floor, we had one long block that was broken up into 3 mini-blocks with 2 exercises each. You did each mini-block 5 times and then did a 300-meter row before moving on to the next mini-block. The mini-blocks were deadlifts and front squats, chest presses with weights and seated low rows, and shoulder presses and squats to high rows on the straps. I did try to go heavy on the weights since that is the goal with strength days, and I was using heavier weights for some of the exercises. But my rowing wasn’t very good that day. I had some horrible cramps while sitting on the rower and I just had to be slow and go easy. But I did complete 2 different 300-meter rows, so that’s better than nothing.
Saturday’s workout was a power day, and again I was struggling with pain and nausea. It wasn’t as bad as it can usually get, but it was worse than Friday. But I was grateful that there were very few exercises that could make me feel worse, so that’s a bonus.
For cardio, we had 5 blocks. Every block had a push pace, base pace, and then a run for distance or an all-out. The push pace and the run for distance/all-out were always the same amount of time. They started at 90 seconds and decreased by 15 seconds each block. It wasn’t the hardest cardio workout I’ve done, but I was happy we had a decent amount of base pace time because I did use that to recover and rest when I needed to.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had sumo goblet squats, lateral hops (I did these as lateral lunges), sit-ups (I did these as crunches), and a row. The row started at 100-meters and increased by 50 meters each time. And the second block had sumo squats, squat jumps (I didn’t jump but did calf raises), plank punches (I used the bench so I wasn’t totally facing the ground), and a row. This time, the row started at 250-meters and decreased by 50 meters each time. I had to take my time on the floor, but I still did almost 3 full rounds of each block.
I know my workout posts don’t share a ton of crazy stories. I haven’t had a lot of exciting news other than me being back in the studio. And I’m sorry if they aren’t as interesting as they used to be. But I am getting back to where I think I will have some great accomplishments and hopefully I’ll have some fun workout news to share in the future!
Trying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe)
