Category Archives: Fitness

Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Posted on April 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Between my 5K from Saturday, dancing my butt off at the wedding on Sunday, and doing a lot of walking with the dog all weekend; my legs were feeling a bit tired this week for my workouts. I was feeling it every morning when I woke up (and I was basically limping in for the first hour or so each day) so I was grateful that all my workouts this past week were in the afternoon so I wasn’t feeling too horrible. But even though I was not as sore during my workouts, I still was trying to be careful because I knew if I worked too hard that I would be sore from longer than I wanted to be.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday afternoon (I wasn’t sure what time I’d be getting home on Monday so I didn’t want to have to stress about getting back in time for a workout). I was still hurting quite a bit on Tuesday so I was so happy to see that it was going to be a run/row day. Not only was it a run/row day, it was called the easiest run/row day ever! My sore legs were so grateful to hear that!

The run/row format was pretty easy. The first round was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. The next round was a 1 minute push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. Each round just increased the push pace by 30 seconds and the rest stayed the same. The longest one was a 3 minute push pace and if we got past that we were supposed to work our way back up. I did the first few rounds at 3.7 miles an hour because they were short and I was still feeling a bit slow from my race so I wanted to prove to myself that I can be faster. The next few rounds were at 3.6 miles an hour and the 2 1/2 and 3 minute rounds were at 3.5 miles an hour. I made it through all the rounds, but I didn’t make it back up. But I’m ok with that. I was going really fast for me and even though I was progressively getting slower I was still staying on the faster side for me. And since the treadmill time was so limited, my legs didn’t hurt too much by the time we switched to the floor.

We had a lot of squats on the floor which were fine for me. But then when we did lunges I struggled a lot because my calves were feeling so tight. I knew they were tight a bit because that was the soreness I felt, but I guess I didn’t realize how much the treadmill would affect me. So the lunges were done with less movement than I would normally do, but I felt pretty great about everything that I did.

Wednesday was a day that had all 3 types of workouts (endurance, strength, and power). It was a 30 minutes on the treadmill straight type of day and my legs weren’t having it. I tried really hard to not have to take breaks in the middle of the blocks, but I was really hurting. I realized after class that maybe I should have taken one of my stronger painkillers instead of the ones that I normally take, but since it’s been a while since I’ve needed one of the strong ones I didn’t even think about taking one. During the strength block, I was supposed to go really high on the inclines on the treadmill, but I just kept it at 8% for the entire time even though the runners had to do an incline higher than that. I just focused on finishing the cardio and not working out super hard.

For the floor time, I tried to do all my lower body work with 20 pound weights and all of my arm work with 15 pound weights. We also had a lot of ab work on the floor with medicine balls. Typically I use 8 pounds for a medicine ball, but there were none of those left so I used 10 pounds. I felt the difference (and I felt it in my abs when I woke up the next morning) and while it wasn’t easy I was able to do it.

Friday was another run/row day! Someone commented about how there have been so many run/row days lately and I don’t think they were happy about it. But those really are my favorite days (or a second favorite to partner day workouts). This time the run/row was a bit tougher than the one on Tuesday. For power walkers, the longest walk was .13 miles and the shortest was .05 miles. And for all of us the rows were between 250 and 100 meters. The plan was designed to do at least one entire round of all the segments, and I was able to get through the entire plan and was starting on the first one again when time was called. By Friday, my legs were feeling a bit more normal (having Thursday off helped a lot) so all my treadmill segments regardless of length were 3.5 miles an hour. It helped that all treadmill segments were less than 2 1/2 minutes, but all these little sprints are helping me get ready to bringing my base pace up from 3.4 to 3.5 miles an hour again (where I was before my torn calf).

On the floor, there were a lot of squats and lunges again. For both things, I was using 20 pound weights (one weight in each hand). With my squats those aren’t too bad, but it’s always tough for me to do lunges with weights in my hands because I don’t balance that well with lunges. But I took my time, put the weights down if I needed to steady myself, and was able to make it through. We finished up the floor block with 4 minutes of abs using a BOSU ball and when we were done I was so glad I made it through.

I debated about doing a 4th workout, but I didn’t want to push it too much. Friday was the first day my legs were feeling almost normal again and I didn’t want to overdo it and prevent myself from feeling normal again this week. I’m not exactly sure when my next 4 workout week will be, but it will need to be soon. I’m signed up for the Triple Buddy Challenge at Orangetheory. From April 18th until May 18th I’m partnered up with 2 friends to try to get in 45 workouts between us. So each of us will need to do 15 workouts. I’ve done this before (and we were successful) so I’m not too worried about it. I just need to plan out the next month of workouts to make sure that I do my part or more to make sure my team wins!

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A 5K Morning (or My Friends Make Things Better)

Posted on April 12, 2016 | 3 comments

This past Saturday was the Hollywood Half 5K. It’s my 4th year doing this race, and it’s one of my favorites! Even though there are some little hills during the race, it’s relatively flat so that’s a nice thing to have. Plus, they have the best race medals!

I shared with my friends that I would be doing this race and gave people some discount codes, but I really didn’t know who else would be doing the race. So I figured that I’d be doing this one solo and I was ok with that.

On Friday before race day, it was raining. I checked the weather and it was supposed to rain for the 1 hour I knew I’d be doing the race the next day so I was in a bit of a bad mood as I drove to Hollywood to pick up my race number. Rain isn’t fun for me and I know that I hate doing 5Ks in the rain. My mood was improved a bit when I got a meter that had time still left on it right outside the pickup location, but I was still feeling a bit angry so there is no smiling photo of me with my race number.

Race Number

I was able to get to bed by 9pm since I had to wake up at 4am and was just hoping that there wouldn’t be rain in the morning. As soon as I woke up, I checked the weather. It was still saying rain between 6 and 7am (the race started at 6am) so I planned my outfit accordingly. I wore a thinner shirt so if it got wet it wouldn’t feel so heavy and made sure I had a plastic bag with me to put my phone in for protection. The drive over to the start line had moments of pouring rain, but as I got to the parking lot at the start the rain was just a mist. By the time I parked and got onto Hollywood Blvd, the rain was done!

I walked a couple of times from the start line to back where my corral was to keep my muscles warm because I knew I’d be waiting a while to start. And of course, I had to do a pre-race selfie.

Pre-Race

I was in the second to last corral, but because the race started late and they were releasing corrals 3 minutes apart, they ended up putting the last 4 or 5 corrals together in a lump (we still didn’t start until after 6:30am when we were told everyone needed to start before 6:15am). I didn’t get a countdown to the start, but since I rarely get that I didn’t miss it too much.

As it’s been the past few years, the start was a slight downhill down a side street and back up the hill to where the start was before heading down Hollywood Blvd. The rain from the night before left the streets pretty slick and I had some moments when my foot slipped, but I was going strong. I was feeling pretty good until about 10 minutes in. Then my shin splints started acting up a bit and since I forgot to do my race tracker on my phone I had no clue how fast I was going. So I started to feel a bit upset again because I had no clue if I was doing well or really horribly. I got really into my head with the negative thoughts until walking past where the finish line was on the other side (the race is an out and back race but the start and finish are about a mile apart).

Right at the finish line area, I saw someone running out toward me. I looked over and it was my friend Jonathan from Orangetheory! I had given him a hard time the other day how I supported him at the marathon and how he’s never supported me at a race. I knew it was an early race (unlike the marathon where I was able to go in the late morning) and that it was a short race so it wasn’t a big deal. But I guess he felt bad because he was out there super early in the morning to cheer me on!

This was actually the first time that anyone has come to cheer me on for a race who wasn’t doing the race themselves. This was such an awesome surprise and I couldn’t believe that he had done it!

With Jonathan

Even though Jonathan only had a short time left on his meter, he hung out and walked with me for a while. He even walked with me up the big hill that I hate on this race. It really meant a lot to me that he walked with me (he’s a pretty amazing runner and has won races in the past) and it was nice to have company on the big hill. At the top of the hill, he turned around to run back to his car. But the time that he walked with me really did reinvigorate me and I was feeling pretty awesome when I passed the mile 2 marker.

The turnaround point for the 5K is probably at 2.5 miles of the race, so I was close to it after doing the big hill. Just before I got to the turnaround, I saw someone running at me who had already turned around shouting my name. It was my friend Jordan! I had told her about the race before and she mentioned that she might do the 10K, but I had no idea that she ended up signing up! We gave each other a big hug and she ran toward the finish line as I walked to the turnaround and was on my way to the finish line myself.

The last portion of the race went ok. Again, I had no clue if I was killing it with my time or going really slow, so I just focused on having a good race day. And my day was going so much better between seeing my friends and the fact that it wasn’t raining! As soon as I turned onto Vine to cross the finish line, I decided to run the last little bit just because. I’m sure my official race photos will look cooler with me running compared to walking, but I really did it just to prove to myself that running isn’t impossible.

Post Race

As soon as I got my medal, I looked for Jordan to thank her for cheering me up and helping to make my race day better.

With Jordan

We walked together over to the timing board to see how we did, but there must have been an issue with it because nobody was bringing over updated sheets. Jordan had to leave and while I stuck it out a little longer, I had to get home to get ready. But on the way out I saw the timing company’s trailer and I nicely asked one of the guys in there if they could look up my time for me. It ended up being one of my slower times, but I discovered later that the race was really 3.19 miles and not 3.1. So I’m thinking if it was really 3.1 miles I would have been pretty close to my last 5K time.

While this was a slower race for me, it really was one of the better race days. I was able to do the race without dealing with the rain (it was pouring after I left on the way home) and I had people cheering me on that I wasn’t expecting. As much as I shouldn’t focus on race times, I know that I will. But it’s nice that my memories of this race won’t be my time but will be the smiling faces I got to see that day.

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Another Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard)

Posted on April 11, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory. I actually have come to love Peak Performance Week. It’s a great way for me to check my how I’m doing compared to how I’ve done in the past. It’s the same way with Hell Week. It’s nice to have workout benchmarks to compare to because I know I make improvements in my workouts even if the scale isn’t going down.

I would have loved to have done 4 workouts during Peak Performance Week this time, but with my 5K race on Saturday I knew I wasn’t going to work out on Friday. I added a Thursday workout in, but since I didn’t want to do 4 days in a row I had to keep it at 3 days.

Since I was pretty stuck with what days I could go, I’m glad that the workouts on the days I went were pretty much the ones I would have wanted to go to anyway.

Peak Performance Week

Monday was the 1 mile challenge. This one is the one I have the most feelings about. I feel like my mile time means so much to me and I know what times I want to get to. So since this is the most important one in my mind, I’m glad it was first so I could get it over with.

Our last Peak Performance Week was about 4 months ago and I was able to do a 16:58 mile then. My PR is 16:30 and as much as I want to get back down to that, I knew my body wasn’t there yet. I really had hope that I could at least do better than what I did 4 months ago. When we started the treadmill, I was at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline. I pretty much stayed there until I was 3/4 of the way done. By then, everyone around me was already done with the mile challenge and on to the next cardio block (thankfully my coach let me finish it even though power walkers only have to do a half mile).

I was really hurting toward the end of my mile and I kept bumping up the speed because I could see that I was going to be really close to my last mile time. And when I was done, I was a little bit slower than last time.

1 Mile Challenge

It makes me so mad how close I was because all it would have taken was a little more speed for a such a short amount of time to get to where I was last time. There’s nothing I can do about it now, but it was making me feel a bit off about how my 5K would go on Saturday.

After the mile challenge, we had a run/row to finish out the cardio block. Since I had taken so long, I really only had time for a little bit before we moved onto the floor (where we were doing a ton of lunges and my legs felt like jello).

Wednesday’s challenge was a 1000 meter row. I had looked at my past records and couldn’t find what my PR was when I went to class (I now know that it is 4:58.9). So I just sent my goal time at 4:50 thinking it sounded good to me. I had warmed up on the treadmill first before getting on the rower and then when it was my group’s turn to row I got strapped in. I really didn’t focus on the computer on my rower at all. Since I had set it for distance I knew that the timer would stop when I reached 1000 meters and chances were that I would know when I was close. So I just tried to look straight ahead at the treadmills and not think about the rowing at all.

By the time I was halfway, I was exhausted. I really thought about taking a few second break to stretch and catch my breath, but I decided against it and kept going. Somehow, I did my 1000 meters without taking a break once. Honestly, no matter what my time was, I would have been happy just knowing that. But my time was pretty awesome too.

1000 Meter Row

I made it 1/10 of a second under my goal time! I just barely made it under my goal time, but it still counts! After I got of the rower, I was a bit wobbly. I know I really pushed myself hard on that and my body was feeling it. It ended up being  run/row day on the treadmill so I still had more rowing to do, but they were all pretty short compared to the challenge. On the floor we did a bunch of upper body work, especially on the TRX straps. I know my arms were done because by the end of class my form had gotten really sloppy and I was needing a bunch of corrections.

Thursday was my last day of Peak Performance Week. I knew it was going to be another treadmill challenge involving hills, but before I got to class I didn’t know much more than that. What it ended up being was a 13 minute run for distance. Runners and joggers had to be at 2% incline (normally they are at 1%) and power walkers had to be at 6% incline. So basically for me, this was going to be a 13 minute push pace (normally the longest push pace is 3 minutes).

There was a white board on the side of the room that showed how far you should be able to go in 13 minutes. For power walkers, it was at least .8 miles so I assumed that was based on being at 3.5 miles an hour (the slowest power walkers are supposed to be) for the entire time. So my goal was to beat .8 miles. I did 3.5 miles an hour for the first 10 minutes (that was a challenge in itself!). Then the next minute was at 3.6 and the following minute at 3.7. For the last minute I bumped up the speed every 20 seconds (so 3.8, 3.9, and 4.0 miles an hour). Clearly the chart showing how far we should be able to go wasn’t correct for power walkers because for all the extra speed I did at the end I wasn’t able to get to my goal distance.

13 Minute Hill Challenge

I actually don’t know how fast I would have had to go to get to .8 miles, but I only set that as my goal because I assumed that it was based on 3.5 miles an hour. I still did 13 minutes at 6% incline and did the entire thing at 3.5 miles an hour or faster! I think I might need to start playing around with my base pace again because I think I might be ready to be back at 3.5 miles an hour very soon.

For Thursday’s floor work there was some rowing (500 meters) and a lot of heavy weights for me. I was using a lot of 20 pound weights for squats, lunges, and deadlifts. After working so hard on the treadmill the 20 pound weights felt like 50 pound weights, but I stuck with it (and just took breaks to help me catch my breath).

Even though I didn’t always beat my past Peak Performance Week records, I think that this week went really well. I struggled from time to time, but I kept going and I know that whenever the next Peak Performance Week comes up, I’ll be ready to see if I can beat these records or my other ones.

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Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

Posted on April 4, 2016 | Comments Off on Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

This past week my workouts seemed to focus on things that were issues for me. This was not the fault of any of my coaches, it’s just what it was and for some reason it got to me (and inspired my post on limitations last week). I tried to do my best each day, but there always seemed to be a reason why my body wasn’t going to be able to do that.

Monday started off pretty great. We had a workout that was endurance, strength, and power so it was a nice combination of things. It was a switch day so I was able to push myself a bit more on both the treadmill and the floor. I loved being able to push myself because we had a long push pace on the treadmill (3 minutes) and a longer than a sprint row (600 meters) that I really wanted to work on. I’m better with sprints than anything else, so when things aren’t exactly a sprint it’s a great time to push myself without doing too much. Besides the rowing, we had some lunges with the TRX straps which is also great because I can do better lunges on the straps than I can without support.

But then we reached the end of the workout where everyone went to the floor. I thought it would be a core blast like we do sometimes where we do a bunch of crunches and planks. Those are tough, but doable. But instead of a core blast, we had a glute blast. At first I thought I should be able to do it, but then I realized that every single move in the plan were things that my body can’t do. Either my body doesn’t move that way right now because of how my hip sits or I know it would cause me some serious pain because that’s how I feel the most pain right now. My coach was able to give me my own plan (I ended up doing all ab work then instead), so I wasn’t just sitting and waiting on everyone. But it just made me so mad that I wasn’t able to do something. Even with all my limitations there is something I can do to modify it to make it ok for me. This was the first time where there was no way I could try or modify it to work for me to be the same thing as everyone else. It just hit me that I really hate my restrictions and that I want to figure out what steps to do next to get myself fixed.

That frustration actually worked to my benefit on Wednesday. I was chatting with my Wednesday coach (who has a similar hip issue but hers is super minor so it was able to be treated with stem cells) and she realized that the Kaiser orthopedic surgeon she wanted to introduce me to was actually in class that day! So she introduced me to the doctor and he and I got chatting. He actually doesn’t take patients on like me, but he said that if I got him my Kaiser information he would refer me to one of the other doctors at his hospital that could help me. This isn’t really a workout situation, but I have to say that the doctor was awesome because the next morning I got a call from Kaiser Panorama City (which is about an hour away from me) and I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon in 2 weeks! Hopefully I can get another opinion on my situation and get a treatment plan in place!

Ok, back to my workout.

Wednesday was a strength day, which means hills on the treadmill. But it was also a run/row day! I think most people think I’m crazy for loving run/row days as much as I do, but they make me so happy! The run part was all at 7 or 9% inclines and each segment was pretty short. I think the longest I was on the treadmill was about 3 minutes. And the rows were all sprints that day. They were either 300, 200, or 100 meter rows. 300 still is a long sprint, but it’s so much easier for me to push myself for 300 meters than it is on the longer rows. So I was able to get my wattage up even though my hips were struggling on the rower. When we got to the floor, I had realized I overdid it a bit on the run/row so I had to take things a little bit easier than usually. All my arm work was with 15 pound weights (I knew I could probably do 20 pounds but I was tired) and I took moments to breathe when I was down on the floor doing crunches. By the end of the class, I was pretty glad I got through it but I was so exhausted!

Friday was another endurance, strength, and power day. Unfortunately, the treadmill blocks were all back to back so I spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. And for some reason on Friday, my body was just giving up on the treadmill. I was doing ok at first, but then I just needed to keep taking breaks. By the end of the treadmill time, I was almost needing to do a quick break every minute to stretch out my hips. I know that part of the pain was weather related, but this was more than I am used to. It makes me nervous that I had that much pain because I’m doing my 5K this week, but hopefully by the time it’s race day I’ll be doing better (and all this training I know is helping).

After I was finally done with the treadmill, I was pretty happy to get over to the floor. It wasn’t easy on the floor, but all of our rows were timed sprints so I was only on there for 1 minute or 30 seconds each time. I definitely pushed myself on the rower and got some of the highest wattages I’ve ever gotten on the rower before. We also had something new on the floor with our burpees. Usually we do burpees either just with body weight or holding a Bosu. But this time we did our burpees with a medicine ball. While the weight wasn’t as great as when we use a Bosu, the increased instability with the planks made it new and more difficult than usual. It took me a moment to get steady before I could move my legs back and forth, but it wasn’t that tough and I felt pretty happy that I could do it without any extra modifications.

This week at Orangetheory is Peak Performance Week. I’m going to be there for 3 days and I don’t know yet what challenges will be on the 3 days that I’m there. So I guess I’ll have to be surprised on what I’ll be doing and hopefully whatever I do gets me in the best place I can be for my race on Saturday morning!

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March Recap (or I Almost Hit All My Goals)

Posted on April 1, 2016 | 3 comments

Now that March is done, I wanted to recap my goals I set for the month and how I did on my monthly challenge. I’ve been loving the goal setting work that I can do in my Spark Planner and it really has helped me to break down my goals into nice chunks so they don’t seem overwhelming!

First of all, my monthly challenge for March was to not get any delivery food at all. I don’t need to spend the money on it (and it’s not the cheap way to eat) and I know that I overeat and consume too many calories when I get delivery food. While there were a couple of times where I was feeling really lazy and just wanted to get something ordered in so I didn’t have to cook, I’m happy to share that I did not get any delivery food for the month.

I did go out to eat and sometimes got food to bring home, but that is a much more controllable amount of food and there are no minimums I have to meet in order to order. I’ve gone a month or so without delivery food in the past, but it’s never really been a conscious effort before. This time I had a reason to do it and a reason I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I know that it’s not reasonable to say I will never get delivery food again (I do always get Chinese food delivered for Christmas), but I really do want to keep this new habit up and extremely limit how often I order in. I’m not sure what I want to limit it to, but I think once a month max seems like a good goal. I’ll have to see how it goes as time goes on, but I’m glad I set this goal for myself so I could prove that it’s not difficult and a lifestyle that I can maintain.

As for the rest of the goals I set for March, I did ok. I got all the workouts in for the month that I wanted to. I did try a new yoga app I have on my iPad (and I’m going to keep doing that). I worked on my budget and reevaluated things and figured out where I can save and where I can avoid spending. And I went on a ton of fun adventures with my friends.

The ones that I didn’t quite get done are having a home cooked meal every week. I did that for 4 of the 5 weeks this month. That’s not bad, but I know I could have done it that one week I didn’t and it frustrates me that I wasn’t able to motivate myself enough to do it. It does help that I’m keeping my house stocked with easy to put together things so I can eat those and not get delivery food. But microwaving something isn’t home cooking. And I had a goal to read one eating disorder book this month. I read about half of one book and the first few chapters of another. But there was always another book that distracted me and I didn’t finish the ones I set a goal to. This isn’t horrible, but I want to finish at least one of those books soon.

I’ve also spent the past few days thinking about the goals I want to set for April. I know that I have a certain number of workouts I want to get done, I want to do the home cooked meal once a week again, and I want to not order delivery food for the month. Those I think will be easy enough to do and I almost feel silly for writing them down because I see them as things that I will automatically do.

As far as the goals that are a bit more of a stretch for me, I’m still working on them and hope to have them figured out in the next day or so. I want to set a goal for a certain number of iPad yoga classes this month, but I don’t know how many I want to do. I also want to set a goal of something related to going out and having fun, but I’m not sure how I want to phrase it.

And the hardest thing for me to figure out is what my month-long challenge for April will be. I think it’s so difficult for me because each month I’ve had 100% success with my challenges. It doesn’t need to be that way (and the 30 days of completion don’t have to all be in a single month), but I’m really stuck in that mindset.

One of the ideas I thinking about has to do with weighing myself every day. I’ve rarely weighed myself every day. It can drive me crazy with the little fluctuations that everyone has. But I haven’t been doing so great with weighing myself once a week, so it could be a long time between weighing myself and I don’t want to avoid it. I realized that this month, I went over 3 weeks between weighing myself and I was starting to feel a bit panicky. I had no idea if my weight was up a bunch or down a bunch and I was terrified that I was going to be way up because I was avoiding reality. I was up by about 6 pounds, so it wasn’t that horrible but I know that I don’t want to repeat that gap between my weigh-ins.

I am a bit afraid that if I weigh myself every day I will get very obsessive with it, but maybe that fear is the exact reason why I need to set this as my challenge. I don’t have any other challenge ideas in mind right now, and if I don’t have anything else by this weekend I’ll probably set the weighing one as my challenge. But I’m not 100% ready to write it down just yet.

I hope that you guys are enjoying these monthly recaps as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing them. I think it’s so important to set goals and before this year I really only focused on annual ones. Now that I have weekly and monthly ones, I’m realizing how much I was skipping out on before and I almost feel like I am making up for lost time now.

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Recap Update (or My New Habits) Default ThumbnailMay Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default Thumbnail2015 Recap (or How I Did On My Goals) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

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Knowing My Limitations (or Going Easy On Myself)

Posted on March 29, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve struggled a lot with my limitations and how much I can do. This isn’t just workout related (although that is a big part of things), it’s also about scheduling myself and not getting overwhelmed. It’s so easy for me to think that I can do 100 things in a day and then get upset when I only get 10 of them done. There’s so much I feel like I should get done every day and there are days where it’s suddenly 8pm and I feel like I’ve done nothing at all.

I’m like that with my day jobs. I work really hard at getting both of my main day jobs done each day. Many days I can to both at the same time (working one in between the customer calls/chats at the other), but sometimes there’s just no way to make that happen. That’s fine and I know most people can’t work more than one job at a time, but it’s still frustrating when that’s how I imagine my schedule to go that day. I’m working harder and harder at creating backup plans for myself, but I sometimes get upset when I realize that there’s no way to complete both jobs at the time I expected. It’s really childish that is upsetting me, but I guess I’m just so used to having a set schedule and things ending exactly at the time I expected them to. That’s the benefit of having a job with a set schedule instead of one that is on my own time. But the jobs on my own time are the ones with the flexibility I need so those are better for me.

It’s the same thing with clothes and shoes. I really want to be able to wear cute things, but sometimes that can’t happen. Some of it is due to the clothes I want to wear not coming in my size (which is so annoying!) and some of it is how it fits on me. I know that everyone probably has this problem, but I hate when I see something in a catalog or online on someone my size but it doesn’t look right on me. It’s the main reason that I really don’t do online shopping (except for my workout clothes). Or there are tons of cute shoes that I’d love to wear but I can’t because of my hip issues. I’m trying to find cute shoes that are more “comfort” style shoes, and fortunately many companies make super cute comfort shoes. I’ve been struggling with what I will wear to Rayshell’s wedding. I didn’t want to wear the same dress I’ve worn to several weddings and I actually found something online at Target and it fit me perfectly. But now I’m stressed out about what shoes to wear. Sometimes I feel like I just want to collapse and cry when I can’t figure out how to do what I want.

This has been an issue for me for a long time, but lately it’s been getting worse. I’m not exactly sure what brought it on. But I am taking on more projects (day job and acting related) that take up time. And I have more events where I need cute outfits. And I feel like I should be making progress with my fitness because I work so hard and then I have a setback or don’t make progress at all. I’m sure I’m just in a slump right now, but it’s not fun at all.

I’m really trying to figure out better ways to set myself up for success. I’m doing  a lot more planning in my life right now. Planning out my day more specifically than I have in the past allows me to find where I have extra time to get things done that I haven’t been able to complete when I thought I would. And I’m working on closet planning to be able to put together more outfits and see what I have and not focus on what I want to get for a specific event. I think that having more organization in that sense will help me find some peace in what is stressing me out lately. And if it doesn’t bring me peace, hopefully it will allow me to pinpoint exactly what is bringing on the stress and frustration so I can work on that specific issue and not the issue in whole.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Rut In My Life (or Time For Some Shopping) Default ThumbnailFinding New Limitations (or Trying My Best) Default ThumbnailMore Cute Workout Clothes (or Why Can’t More Companies Be Like Old Navy?) Default ThumbnailMixed Up Workouts (or Not Knowing What To Expect) Default ThumbnailThe Tale Of Two Fitness Studios (or Knowing Where Your Home Is) Default ThumbnailTrying A New Spin (or Knowing When A Place Does Feel Like Home)

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Switching Things Up (or Challenging Workouts)

Posted on March 28, 2016 | 1 comment

I had another 4 workout week this past week. It wasn’t easy doing 2 weeks in a row of 4 workouts (especially since I feel like I’m doing fewer 4 workout weeks lately), but I’m glad I did it. I’m hoping that eventually 4 workout weeks will be the norm and the 3 workout weeks will be less frequent. But I’ve got a lot of progress to go before I get to that point. For now I’m just happy with my occasional 4 workout weeks.

Monday was a tough start to the week for me. Usually, if you warm up on the treadmill you will start with cardio and if you warm up on the rower you will start on the floor. But on Monday, our coach Brendon switched things up so those of us warming up on the treadmill started on the floor. I wasn’t too happy about that, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it’s been in the past. Before, my hips would lock up on the treadmill if I started there second. But on Monday I was in a bit of pain (which is expected) but no hip lock.

On the floor, I was able to do my arm work, but I had to use the 15 pound weights instead of the 20 pound ones. And we had a bunch of TRX strap work which is one of my favorite things to do. I feel really powerful on the straps and it’s much easier to make micro adjustments versus using weights. On the treadmill, we had a bunch of longer pushes (2 1/2 minutes) followed by all-outs. We really didn’t have any base pace work, but the pushes did get shorter so that was nice. I definitely felt exhausted after the Monday workout.

Wednesday was a day that was filled with lots of tough treadmill blocks. We started with a 3 minute push followed by a 30 second all-out. There were 5 blocks and each block was 30 seconds less on the push pace. Even thought the blocks were getting shorter, it felt just as tough as the long one. But I was still able to maintain my 3.5 miles an hour at 6% incline for my pushes. I tried seeing if I could do 3.6 miles an hour (like I do for my all-outs) for the pushes but I tried that toward the end of the treadmill time so I was a bit too tired. Even though I was tired after all that treadmill work, I was still able to do my arm work on the floor with 20 pound weights (which made me really happy). And we had some rowing to do as well on the floor but I was struggling a bit with those because of my hips.

Friday was probably the most challenging day of the week for me. First of all, I wasn’t able to get the treadmill that I use pretty much every day. That probably doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when you use the same treadmill all the time you get used to the quirks of that machine. And the treadmill I ended up using had just been worked on and was still a bit slick, so I felt like I wasn’t walking as steady as I’m used to. And that ended being something that really got to me because the treadmill block on Friday was a solid 22.5 minutes straight.

It was a distance challenge, and we could either follow along with the push and base pace plan that we were going to be told or do our own thing. In the past, I pretty much did my own thing for those distance challenges. But on Friday I followed along with when we were supposed to be in a push pace versus a base pace. I kept my pushes at my usual 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline for almost all of it. I had to bring it down to 4% incline toward the end, and I bumped up my speed for the last minute. I had a goal in my head that I wanted to get to 1.3 miles in 22.5 minutes (I’m not sure why, but that number was the first thing I thought of when I heard it was a distance challenge). I knew I was going to be close, but I’m so glad that I bumped up the speed for that last minute because I know that is what got me to be just a bit better than my goal distance.

22.5 Minute Challenge

After that was done, I felt like I had just completed an entire class! But I still had my floor work to do. We had some rowing (mainly sprints so I was able to do some quick rows) and also some hip bridges (which I can do really well now) but I had to take things a bit easy because I was so tired after the treadmill. I know when I’m tired my form can get sloppy and that can make my hips hurt more (or cause an injury) so I have to be extra careful. I know I could have done better, but I’m glad I went easy because it was worth it to not hurt.

Saturday ended up being a nice bookend to my week when compared to the rest of the workouts. I was planning on using the bike for my cardio (as I’ve planned), but I forgot to put a cone on a treadmill so there would be enough spaces for me to be with the treadmill group. Since every treadmill was taken when I was on my bike, I had to start on the floor again (just like Monday). The workout was broken up so we had 2 blocks on the floor and 2 blocks on the treadmill (although technically each of those blocks was 2 blocks each). So we did get to switch back and forth.

The floor seemed to be a lot of ab work using the Bosu. I had to modify a couple of them since the instability can be tough on my hips, but I was happy that most of them I could do just fine. We also used the Bosu for some triceps pullovers and I was able to do those with a 25 pound weight. For the rest of my arm work, I switched between 12 and 15 pound weights depending if they were lateral work (12 pound weights) or anything else (15 pound weights). We also had sprint rows but I think I sprinted a bit too hard because I had to take time catching my breath between the rower and the rest of the floor.

The bike was fine, but I always feel like I don’t get in as good of a workout as I do on the treadmill. I was getting my heart rate up into the proper zones and I was sweating like crazy, but it still feels easier than the treadmill. I’m starting to think that maybe I think less pain means easier and that’s why. I don’t see any other proof that the bike isn’t as good as the treadmill but it’s just something that I keep thinking.

I know that this week I’ll be doing 3 workouts and the week after will be Peak Performance week (which may need to be 3 workouts due to my 5K race). I think that I’ve been pushing myself nicely lately and I’m hoping that those results will show at my next race. But I also know that race days can be weird and I’m not expecting a PR. All I want is a good race.

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Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal Workouts (or Balancing Hard Work And Taking It Easy) Default ThumbnailSome Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week) Default ThumbnailA 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts) Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailLots Of Different Workouts (or Struggles and Successes) Default ThumbnailBalancing My Workouts (or Doing Some Planning)

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Lots Of Different Workouts (or Struggles and Successes)

Posted on March 21, 2016 | 1 comment

I did a 4 workout week for the first time in a while, and it was a pretty awesome week. I did have some not-so-fun moments, but overall the workouts were pretty great. I think what helped the most is that each day was significantly different from the others. The workouts at Orangetheory are never the same, but I think this week had more variety than ever.

Monday was a bit of a tough day for me. It was a strength day, so that meant extra hills on the treadmill. I’m not sure why my body was struggling so much, but it became extremely difficult for me to do the hills. I really wanted to push myself more, but my body was just not having it. So I kept my inclines low (lower than I normally would) and just focused on getting through the treadmill time without too much pain. It’s so frustrating to have a morning like that, but I don’t really know what caused it so I really couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Since the treadmill time was a bit of a disappointment, I worked extra hard on the floor. I was using 20 pound weights for my arms (it’s starting to feel more normal to do that) and even though my arms felt like jello after each set, it was exactly what I should have done. We also had to do some hip bridges during the floor work. I usually avoid hip bridges because they cause me so much pain. These were supposed to be done on the TRX straps, but I know that there was no way I could do those. So I tried doing them on the floor and to my surprise not only could I do them, they weren’t painful for me at all! I think some of the stretching work I’ve been trying to do at home is finally helping my hips loosen up and maybe breaking up some of the scar tissue I’ve got.

Wednesday was actually pretty awesome. We had a partner workout that day and it feels like we haven’t had one of those in a long time! Fortunately, my friend Dani was in Wednesday’s class so she was able to be my partner for the workout.

Wednesday Workout

Normally during the partner workouts, the person on the floor controls the pace. The person on the treadmill will do the treadmill portion and then normally row until the floor person is done with their round. Then the floor person taps out the cardio person and they switch. But this time, the treadmill person controlled the pace. It was a run/row (most partner workouts are that way) and some of the cardio segments were really long! I felt guilty that Dani was stuck on the floor while I was finishing them (Dani felt the same way so it ended up being ok). The row parts were all 100 meters, so I was able to sprint through those. The treadmill parts got a bit long, but I did every part at 3.5 miles an hour and at 6% incline. With the partner workouts, we had the entire class without any breaks so it was non-stop work and I was exhausted by the time it was done.

With Wednesday being so much fun, I had high hopes for Friday. But Thursday night/Friday morning, I got really sick. I’m guessing it was food poisoning and by Friday mid-day I was feeling almost normal again. So I figured I could go to my workout (if nothing else, maybe sweating would help me get better). It was a switch day so that helped to make the treadmill time a bit easier for me. And even though there were only 2 groups in the class, we had a mini-tornado format (where you rotate between treadmill, floor, and rower). I tried my best with the treadmill, but I was feeling pretty nauseous during class (my friend David who works at Orangetheory commented that I looked like I had no color left in my face after class). Even with feeling sick, the floor work wasn’t too tough on me. The only thing that was making me feel sick was going from laying down on the weight bench to sitting up or standing. So I took my time but while I was working tried to use really heavy weights.

Since I made the deal with myself that 4th workouts of the week wouldn’t be on the treadmill, I did my Saturday workout on the bike. It was not a switch day, so I’m glad I stuck with the bike. It was an interesting format to the workout. There were 6 blocks, but really only 2 types of blocks. We would do a long push pace to an all out pace and then we would do an all out pace, walking recovery, and an all out pace to follow. The first round of the push to all out was a little more than 4 minutes and got shorter for the other 2. And the all out, walking, all out were 1 minute each, then 45 seconds each, and finishing with 30 seconds each. On the floor, we followed a similar pattern. We had something specific to do for the longer blocks and then the shorter ones we did rounds of squats. My legs were shaking by the time we were done, but it felt great to get through the workout and feel so much better than I did the day before.

I’ve got another 4 workout week planned for this week. Rumor has it that the first week of April we will have another Peak Performance week, and right after that will be my next 5K. That means that I might not be able to do as much during Peak Performance week as I would like do (depending if the week is the same week as my race), but hopefully that will put me in a good spot with how I’ll do with my 5K. As much as I would like to PR at my race, I don’t know how realistic that will be for me. But for these next few weeks of workouts, my goal is to push myself as much as I can to give myself the best chance to have an awesome race!

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Remembering My Time At Slimmons (or I’m Glad Richard Simmons Is Ok)

Posted on March 15, 2016 | 2 comments

I haven’t really talked too much about what workouts I did before I started this blog. So I pretty much only have talked about my races, SoulCycle, and Orangetheory. But I had done workouts before those. I used to belong to a couple of different gyms around LA. At one of them, I had a personal trainer so that was what got me to the gym (it’s also why I think I connected with Orangetheory so much). At the other gym, I just had a membership and I would go and do some cardio, but nothing special. But there was one other workout place that was special to me in my past.

Back in 2008 when I met my friend Alex, she was telling me about her favorite workout in LA. And that place happened to be Slimmons Studio, the fitness Studio that Richard Simmons started. It sounded cool to me on its own, but then I found out that you get to work out with Richard himself! So soon after Alex and I met, I joined her for a workout at Slimmons with Richard.

It wasn’t an easy class, but I didn’t feel awkward or weird at all. Richard was so great about offering modifications for all fitness levels and abilities. I had so much fun in the class listening to Richard be ridiculous and yelling at us. The music was great and everyone in class had fun.

The class was $12, but I got a membership for $50 that let me go to classes for only $10. I wasn’t going super regularly, but I tried to go once a week to class. Richard was teaching on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (with Saturday being the most crowded), so I usually could find a night that fit into my schedule. And when Richard wasn’t there teaching, one of his other teachers would teach and they were just as amazing as he was.

Besides having my friend Alex in class with me, I started making friends because I would see the same people each week. One of my current bosses (who was also my boss at another job) is someone I met at Slimmons. In fact, I started working for her because after class I had mentioned I was looking for work. The company she was with then had an opening, I got an interview, and then I got a job! I even met a blogger who had lost 150 pounds when he recorded a video in class for the Ellen DeGeneres show (yes, you can see me in the background in the video).

And once I started sharing online that I was working out with Richard Simmons each week, my friends wanted to come with me.

Richard Simmons Justin's Birthday Richard Simmons

I even convinced my parents to come to a class. My dad came with me alone first. I don’t think he believed me when I said it could be a tough class, but he’s not really a dance person. So he had to focus a ton on the choreography and I think he believed me afterward that it’s not a joke class. After my dad came with me, the next time my parents were in town we convinced my mom to come too. My parents were talking with Richard after class when my mom mentioned that our dog, Dante, was waiting in the car for us. As soon as Richard heard we had a dog, he made my mom go out to get him so he could meet Dante.

Richard Simmons With Mom and Dante

I did stop working out with Richard Simmons shortly after that photo with Dante was taken. It had nothing to do with the workout, but someone happened that upset me. The basic details was I was told that I won a scholarship to work out at Slimmons and when I tried to claim my prize, I was told I didn’t win it. That was before my parents were in class with me. Then when my parents were in class, Richard said something about how I wasn’t taking advantage of the scholarship he had given me. I told him that there must have been a misunderstanding because I was told I didn’t get it. Then I called the next day to find out about the scholarship and was told that I didn’t win it and would have to keep paying for class. It’s not a big deal, but I was upset and didn’t really feel like going back.

While I wasn’t in class regularly, I always saw updates from my friends about Richard and the antics from his class. And then I started seeing posts about how he hadn’t been teaching lately. Then I saw posts about how nobody had really heard from him in a while. People assumed that he was dealing with health issues and would eventually appear again, but eventually over 2 years had passed and nobody had really seen him.

Even though I had been hurt by what happened, I was hoping that Richard would make an epic return to Slimmons and he would be ok. Then this past weekend an article came out claiming that Richard was being held hostage by his housekeeper. People who knew Richard well were saying how this was very unlikely and the person claiming this story was also trying to promote an e-book, so it seemed like maybe he just wanted publicity.

Fortunately, Richard did do a phone interview yesterday saying that he’s fine and not being held hostage. He didn’t really sound like the same Richard to me. He seemed very subdued and not as vibrant as he was in class. But he didn’t sound in distress or in harm. So I’m thinking that maybe he took a break from teaching 3 days a week (and usually traveling and teaching the other 4 days a week) and needed some time to himself. He might be enjoying the calm or using it to recover from something, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

I know that so many people had their lives changed by Richards Simmons. Lots of friends lost weight, regained confidence, and improved their lives by meeting with him and going to his class. Even though I had my negative experience the last time I was there, I benefitted a lot from him too. From making friends to finding a day job, from feeling like I can work out at any size to trying to do a regular fitness routine; all of these things were made possible because of my time at Richard’s class.

I do hope that he will return to teaching in the future. I have a bunch of friends who want to check out the class and I want to go back too because I want to see how I do with all the training I’ve been doing at Orangetheory. I bet I’ll be stronger than I was last time (but I might not do as well with the choreography). Hopefully I’ll have the chance to take his class again one day, but for now I’m just glad that he did that interview to prove that he’s ok.

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Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Posted on March 14, 2016 | 1 comment

I had a pretty intense week of workouts. I had thought I might try to do 4 workouts this week (it’s been a while since I’ve done that), but now I’m so glad that I kept it at 3. But I know that I need to do another 4 workout week soon in order to reach my goals. But these 3 workouts totally felt like I did at least 4.

Monday was a tough day for me starting out. I was exhausted and in a lot of pain from when I woke up that morning. I tried to stretch as much as I could before class, but when you are going to an 8:30am class, there isn’t a ton of time to get ready before the workout. So I went into class hoping it wouldn’t be too tough and planned to do my best.

This class was insane! We had 9 all out segments between the 2 treadmill blocks. In a typical treadmill block, I’d say we would usually have maybe 2-3 all outs. But to have 4 all outs in one block and 5 in the other was a lot! And for all of these all outs, I did do my typically all out speed/incline (3.6 mph at 8% incline). The good thing was all the all outs were short enough that it wasn’t too horrible, but I could really feel the work I did later that day. Despite being tired and in pain, I didn’t let that stop me from working really hard on the floor work too. I was using my heavy weights and not doing too badly at it.

Wednesday was a crazy class, but I only have myself to blame. I found out before class started that it was going to be a 7 minute challenge day. Basically you have 7 minutes to go as far as you can on the treadmill. You do your own speed and incline settings and it’s just a personal distance challenge. I keep photos of my records on my phone (it’s the easiest way to remember them), and I thought that my previous 7 minute challenge distance was .424 miles. So I was determined to beat that. And when I looked at the treadmill after my first attempt, I was pretty frustrated.

Attempt 1

We had a short block between the 2 7 minute challenges so I tried to not let my first attempt get me down. I went even faster on my next attempt, spending 5 of those 7 minutes at 3.6 miles an hour and was so happy when the 7 minutes were done.

Attempt 2

I was so happy that I got a new PR! And when I looked at my phone to delete my old PR photo, I realized that I had remembered my old PR wrong. My old PR was .421 miles, not .424. So I beat my PR both times. Not only that, my old PR was a .007 increase over my old one and this time I had a .008 increase. I know it’s not a lot, but that’s improvement to me!

After the 2 7 minute challenges, I was so tired. Thankfully, most of the floor work was abs so I was able to relax a bit while doing it. I wasn’t trying for any other records after my new PR, so I didn’t push myself too much on the floor work.

On Friday, I was still on a high from my new 7 minute challenge PR. That helped because we had to do 30 minutes straight on the treadmill and we had a lot of all outs. All the blocks seemed to be 3.5 or 4 minutes and thankfully we had walking recovery time between each block. With all the short blocks, the treadmill block actually felt shorter than the 30 minutes usually feels. But even with it feeling shorter, I was still so tired by the time the treadmill was done.

On the floor on Friday, we had a lot of rowing, TRX strap work, and planks. I’m definitely getting some balance improvement with my TRX strap work (I can occasional do work where we have to balance on 1 leg). My planks are a struggle because it’s still a bit painful in my calf to do the work on my toes. So I’m usually doing plank work on my knees, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Just typing out all of the things I did in my workouts this week is making me tired! I was telling a friend that I swear the classes feel harder now than they did when I was starting (with the exception of my first class that made my quads hurt so badly). I’m sure that this isn’t true. But I’m also not used to trying harder and to improve in my workouts the way I am now. In other classes, it’s so easy to just keep doing things at the same effort that you always have. Nobody really notices and you don’t worry about it.

But now, I have my heart rate monitor keeping me on track, my coaches knowing what I’ve done in the past and pushing me to do more, and finally being motivated myself to want to see how much better/faster/stronger I can get. It’s no longer a big deal that I’m maintaining a regular workout routine, it’s that I’m really improving and not just using it to try to lose weight.

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