Tag Archives: 5K

A Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much)

Posted on November 11, 2015 | 1 comment

Since my friend Kate was going to do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me, she came down for the weekend to hang out (she lives in Northern CA now) and spent some time with me. I hadn’t seen Kate in a while, so I was excited for some weekend catching up and hopefully some fun too. But even though she was coming into town for the weekend, since she was coming in later on Friday and leaving early on Sunday we only had about a day and a half to hang out. And we had a race to do so it was going to be an interesting mix of craziness and relaxing.

Kate got to LA on Friday afternoon after I was done with work. So I got her at LAX and we went to an early dinner at Lyfe Kitchen since we knew we were getting up early the next morning. It was a fun dinner and we got to catch up on all the crazy and random stuff that has been happening lately (we’ve both had some tough times lately). After that dinner, we went to my house and went to bed pretty quickly.

On race day, we were up at 4:30am and then had the race at 7am. After the race, we had breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe and then went back to my house. We spent some time relaxing and then went out on a fun and random shopping adventure. Neither of us bought anything, but it was fun hanging out how we used to in high school.

After our shopping adventure, we headed to another early dinner. This time, we went to Bottle Rock for some wine and yummy food. I love going to Bottle Rock because there is always great wine and the food has never disappointed me. Plus, it’s not loud or too crazy on weekends so you can relax there and not worry about people being obnoxious next to you.

We both got wine flights and of course I got 3 different sparkling wines.

I drank most of my tastes (they were all so yummy!) and we got a bunch of different things to split between us to eat. We tried a bunch of food and got some dessert (we burned off some calories by doing the race that morning and we had both skipped lunch). But since we had been up for so long that day, we didn’t stay out too late that night.

The next morning, Kate had a flight back home. But before her flight we went to iHop near LAX to have breakfast. It was another good meal and again it was fun getting to just talk.

I’ve missed having Kate in LA and it was nice to have her back here for the weekend. Even though we didn’t go do a ton of stuff (and there were so many things that I thought we could go and do), it was a great visit. We both have said how it’s nice to be such good friends that it’s ok if we don’t do much or if we have a quiet hang out.

Kate will be back in LA next month and I’m hoping I’ll get to see her again then (she’s coming into town to see a different friend and I am working a lot the weekend she’ll be here). But even if I don’t get to see her on that trip, I’m glad that we had this fun and chill weekend this past weekend to hang out and do our best on our 5K.

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, busy, friends, lazy, trip, vacation, weekend, wine

Hard Time At The Hard Rock Cafe 5K (or At Least I Looked Awesome!)

Posted on November 10, 2015 | 6 comments

This past Saturday was the Hard Rock Cafe 5K (this year they also had a 10K, but I wasn’t going to do a 10K). It was my 3rd year doing this race and I was really excited to be doing the race again this year. And even more exciting, my friend Kate flew down to LA for the weekend to do the race with me (more about our weekend adventures tomorrow).

I wish I could tell you that I killed it at the race and everything went amazing. But sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I’m not 100% sure what happened, but things seemed weird starting the night before. As I was going to bed, I said to Kate how it didn’t feel like the night before a race. Maybe it’s because someone was sleeping in my living room. Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone to the bib pickup that day to get all my race stuff (Kate and I were going to pick our race things up on Saturday morning).

On race day, I was up at 4:30am and we were out the door by 5:15. Traffic was light so we got to the Hard Rock Cafe nice and early. We got our race stuff, went back down to my car in the parking structure, and got ready. Once it was closer to 6am, we went back up to the street to warm up and make sure we had good spots in the starting area so Kate could avoid the walkers and I could be out-of-the-way for the runners.

And of course, we had to take a pre-race photo together.

Kate went up to the front of the pack after that and I hung back and tried to relax and not stress out about the race. While I was waiting for the race to start, I managed to make a few new friends because of the awesome tank top I was wearing that day (hi Susie!!). The race was supposed to start at 7am, but we ended up starting closer to 7:15am.

Right from the beginning, things didn’t feel right to me. My legs were stiff from waiting so long for the start of the race and I was feeling pain in my shins and calf starting at the half mile mark. As much as I wanted to push myself, I was struggling. I checked out my tracking app on my phone at the 1 mile marker and saw that the first mile was about 30 seconds slower than what my mile time was at my PR.

At that point, I realized it would be pretty impossible to make up that time plus be 30 seconds faster on the next two miles, so I stopped trying to push as hard and decided to just focus on finishing without having to take a break.

Right after that realization, Kate was passing me going back toward the finish line. She was having a tough race as well (but she ended up placing 4th in our division, 7th in women, and 41st in the entire race).

The rest of the race seemed to take a while. I tried to focus on the streets going by and knowing that I will be done with the race soon enough. My race photos are all pretty serious looking since I was so focused.

As I was almost at the finish line, I saw Kate hanging out there waiting for me to finish. She walked next to me for the last minute and we both were sharing how we had pretty bad race days. I crossed the finish line about 90 seconds slower than my PR (I split the different between my time at the Hard Rock Cafe 5K last year and the Hollywood Half 5K in April).

Even though I didn’t PR, I still got my amazing medal!

After the race, Kate and I got breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe and I got one last photo on the stairs to the Dolby theater to celebrate completing my race.

As soon as I got home, I added my newest medal to my wall (which is starting to look very full now).

Even though the race wasn’t great for me, I did it and I didn’t finish last (which is something that I am terrified of doing one day). I’m so proud of Kate for how well she finished in the race and I’m glad that neither of us really gave up.

While I love my race medal (it’s so sparkly!), my favorite thing from the race was the shirt that I wore! I ordered a tank top from Mighty Petunia after doing a random google search for motivational tank tops. So many motivational tank tops are silly and cheesy, but I love the messages that are on the Mighty Petunia tanks. They are fun and I am already picking out which ones I want next! And I got a ton of compliments on it at the race.

Since I loved my Mighty Petunia tank top so much, Cathy (who is the owner of Mighty Petunia) has given me a promo code to share with all of you! If you buy something from their site, use the promo code “Bombshell” and you’ll get 10% off of your order. And the shirts are so reasonably priced already so the 10% off is just icing on the cake! I hope that you guys will take advantage of the discount and support this great business!

While my race day wasn’t great, I managed to find ways to keep a somewhat positive mindset and was able to focus on the things that made me happy (like my tank top and the medal I got at the finish line). My next 5K is in April and while I’m hoping I’ll PR at that race, I just want to have a more positive race experience and I’ll be happy.

6 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, friends, medals, motivation, online shopping, positivity, race, shopping, struggle, walking

A Week Until Race Day (or Helping Out My Friend’s Place)

Posted on October 30, 2015 | 1 comment

The 3rd Hard Rock Cafe 5K is just over a week away. I’m excited for the race to see if I’ve made any improvement since my last 5K. And my best friend is coming to town to do the race with me! I’m also nervous because I know that my calf injury isn’t totally healed (it’s super close!) and I don’t want to hurt myself during the race.

There’s not much I can really do about how my calf (or my hip) will feel during the race. I know that I’m not going to push myself as much as I might have just to be careful. And I am going to time out my workouts leading up to the race to make sure I have rest days right before.

Since I can’t do much about dealing with injuries at the race, I’m trying to focus on something else. Last year, I got to tour My Friend’s Place, which is the official charity of the Hard Rock Cafe race. I’m so glad that I had that opportunity because I never really thought about homeless youth in Los Angeles. I’ve helped at shelters for homeless adults, but youth have very different needs. After touring My Friend’s Place, I knew that I wanted to help out with donations in the future.

I hadn’t really been able to donate in the past year, but My Friend’s Place was always on my mind. Whenever someone mentioned having things to donate, if they were things on the wish list, I’d recommend they donate there.

Then, at the SAG-AFTRA Convention, one of my fellow delegates mentioned how AFTRA used to do donations at their conventions (this was before the two unions merged). Many delegates come from out-of-town and stay at the host hotel, and we know that most people don’t use the toiletries that the hotel provides in the bathroom. So at the AFTRA conventions, they would collect these toiletries and donate them to a place that could use them.

I connected with the delegate who brought up the donation idea (and got it all started) and said that if she didn’t have a charity in mind that I’d love to donate them to My Friend’s Place. So all of our donations (about 5 bags full) went to My Friend’s Place recently and we know that they will be going to good use.

I’ve also told my parents to bring all of the dog supplies that were Dante’s or Tucker’s that Tucker is too big for because My Friend’s Place allows the youth to bring their pets there and they need collars, leashes, and other pet supplies. So I will be doing that donation after Thanksgiving when I get them.

And the other day, a box showed up at my house. Somehow, I am on a baby/pregnancy mailing list (I’m not pregnant) and lots of baby related coupons have been arriving at my door. But this day, there were two cans of powdered baby formula inside!

So I will be adding those to my post-Thanksgiving donation and several of my friends with kids will be giving me baby clothes that their kids have outgrown, the leftover diapers in a box that their baby has sized out of, and other baby supplies that are on the wish list. I’m really excited to have another nice size donation that I will be bringing to My Friend’s Place soon.

If any of you are in Los Angeles, I highly recommend donating to My Friend’s Place if you can. They are so happy for any donations they can get and I know that they are working on helping the homeless youth find jobs and homes so that they don’t have to sleep on the streets as adults. I know that I haven’t made a lot of donations in the past there, but I’m hoping to fix that now and to make donating there a somewhat regular thing.

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, charity, donations, Hollywood, race, SAG-AFTRA

Still Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard)

Posted on October 26, 2015 | 1 comment

I had every intention of doing 4 workouts this past week. My calf feels normal most of the time and I’m almost back to my old treadmill speed. Instead, I only did 3 workouts and it looks like I’ll be doing that for the next few weeks as well.

It’s not really all about how my calf feels. I did feel some pain this week (many during a strength day when all the treadmill work was on hills), but it’s not unbearable. I also felt some hip pain that was a bit scary at first, but fortunately was not my cartilage tearing because the pain ended the next day.

One of the big reasons for not adding the 4th workout into my week yet is scheduling issues. I know that that shouldn’t be my excuse, but it is. And with my 5K coming up soon, I don’t want to push myself too hard so that I can do the best that I can at the race.

Besides only doing 3 workouts this week and having some pain issues, I did have some pretty great moments in my workouts. I’m still working on the rowing improvements (which I’ll need this week because it’s Hell Week!) and I had some great sprint rows. I know that distance rows are my weakest point, but those are rare in class and they get pretty painful for me to do.

On my weights, I did most of my things with 15 pound weights, but I was doing squats and pullovers with 20 pounds so I’m very happy with that. I’m hoping that I can do some of my stronger arm things (like bicep curls) with 20 pound weights soon. I’ve never been scared of bulking up by using heavier weights so the only thing holding me back is my own strength.

I’m still stuck at 3.4 miles an hour on the treadmill. And I have a feeling that I’ll probably be there for the next two weeks leading up to the race. If my race ends up being at 3.4 miles an hour, I won’t PR. But since my adrenaline on race day always makes me walk faster (plus I won’t be at an incline), there’s still hope for me. But I’m scared to increase the speed and hurt my calf because that will definitely hurt my race time. So I’m just going to focus on staying where I am for now and after my race is done I will reevaluate and see what I’m hoping to do for my race in April.

I’ve had so many huge improvements over the past year that it can be tough to feel stagnant and not moving forward anymore. But no matter what fitness level someone is at, there is always a point where you hit your max. I know I’m not there yet, but I have to get through this time now where my focus is recovery before getting back to working on improvements again.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, fitness, injury, Orangetheory, workout

TIU Beach Morning (or Sunscreen Failure)

Posted on April 28, 2015 | 2 comments

This past Sunday was the Tone It Up Regional Meeting for Southern California. There was going to be women from LA to San Diego coming to hang out at the event and I knew that I wanted to be there.

I carpooled with a couple of other LA ladies to the event which was held in Newport (about an hour away). The location where the event was going to be held was awesome and it was a gorgeous day!

The plan for the event was pretty simple. There was going to be a 5K run/walk followed by brunch. And everyone brought their own meals, so brunch was going to be pretty casual.

The car I was in was actually the first group there, but pretty quickly other ladies were arriving. I knew a couple of people from some of other events I’ve done with TIU, but most of them were new to me. It was really awesome getting to meet so many other women who are dedicated to eating better and working out. It was so inspiring.

When the 5K started, I stepped away. I had woken up with a bad hip day and didn’t want to risk more pain. So while everyone else did the run/walk, I walked up and down the beach. I got about a mile of walking done before the pain was getting too bad, but that’s better than nothing. Plus, I got to watch everyone cross the finish line!

After the 5K, people started to settle down in various areas to eat the food that they brought with them.

I had brought a banana, peanut butter, a rice cake, and a protein bar; but I wasn’t feeling hungry at all. So I just hung out and caught up with some of the women who did the 5K with me recently.

Of course, before anyone was allowed to leave, we had to take a group picture. In the event invite we were all asked to wear black bottoms and pink tops if we had them. Most of us did and we looked pretty coordinated as a group.

The drive home was pretty quick (Sunday mornings don’t usually have too bad of traffic) and when I got home I changed in to some junky clothes so I could do my laundry.

Only when I changed did I realize that my skin looked like this.

Before getting dressed, I had covered myself head to toe in SPF 70. But I guess either it rubbed off of my clothes or some other sort of sunscreen failure happened. Since taking that picture my sunburn seems to have gotten worse. My chest is even redder and my forehead and nose are pretty burnt too.

I hate getting sunburnt. I’m so good about wearing sunscreen and everything, but my skin just doesn’t like the sun. I know that maybe I should have worn a hat, but that wouldn’t have protected my chest. And maybe I should have reapplied the sunscreen a few times, but I don’t usually reapply within 4 hours unless I’ve been in the water (which I didn’t do).

So now I’m spending time helping my skin recover. I’m trying something new because I’m out of aloe. I’m using coconut oil on my skin to help keep it moisturized. I used it the night of the sunburn and while I’m skin red now, it is helping bring down some of the redness and the itchiness of my skin. So hopefully in a few days, my skin will look normal again.

Even with the bad sunburn, I’m so happy that I was able to make it to the meetup. Every time I meet up with women through Tone It Up I get more and more inspired. They are all such a supportive community and I’m lucky to have them in my life!

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, beach, brunch, fun, meeting, Tone It Up

Tough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts)

Posted on April 20, 2015 | 1 comment

Even though I was on a high from my PR from my 5K, that didn’t help me get through one of the toughest workout weeks I’ve had in a while.

I’m pretty sure I narrowed down my workout problems to 2 different things.

First of all, ever since I started on Vyvanse, I haven’t been allowed to take my stronger painkillers. Vyvanse is a stimulant and my painkillers are depressants. So taking both would cancel each other out (or so I was told by my doctor). I don’t usually take my strong painkillers that often, but I have taken them prior to or right after a 5K many times in the past. So while I did take a mild painkiller before the 5K, I didn’t take the stronger one that I’m used to. So that’s making me have a bit more pain after the race.

The other thing that was making my workouts tough this week is how competitive I’m getting with my Fitbit. This is a good thing. In the past, I probably didn’t hit 10,000 steps most days. But now, I’m making sure that I do that every day. Even if that means marching in place in my house a lot. But since I’m not used to getting in all those steps each day, my legs are more sore than I’m used to. But on the positive side, on days where I do a Orangetheory workout plus get extra walking in, my Fitbit chart looks like this.

With the Fitbit soreness, I know that I’ll get used to that eventually. I have to remind myself that my first Orangetheory workout made me so sore that it hurt to walk for a few days. Now I’m doing 3-4 workouts a week without many issues.

I’m finally starting to get used to having my Monday workout be in the mornings instead of the afternoons. I still have some issues getting my heart rate as high as it does in the afternoon, but it’s more where it should be now.

To be honest, I don’t remember a ton of specifics from my workouts this week since I found each workout to be difficult.

More specifically, I was having a lot of pain and other issues on the treadmill this week. It seemed like every workout this week was all hills on the treadmill. And while I’m doing a lot better than I used to, those hills were killing me! I had to take so many breaks to let the pain decrease a little before continuing. I’m not used to so much pain. And it frustrates me because this isn’t “I’m tired” pain but “my hips bones are grinding against my leg bones” pain. So if I wasn’t having that problem, I know that I could push more because the rest of my body and my mind is in it. My hips just aren’t agreeing with me.

But I was pretty darn proud of myself with my rowing. Rowing has always been tough for me because of my hips. I have a hard time getting the wattage up to where the coaches want it to be.

But in my rowing this week I was getting higher wattage than I’m used to (I’m used to being around 80 and I was staying around the 100 mark). There were even a few moments where I got my wattage to be at my body weight, which is something that we are constantly told to push for.

Just because I had a bad week of workouts doesn’t mean that it was for nothing. 4 workouts in a week is still pretty awesome! And I know that even if my cardio was suffering a bit that my strength work was getting better. I’m continuing to use the heavier weights that I recently moved to, even for my arms now! Before, my arms and shoulders weren’t strong enough all the time and I had to keep downgrading my weights partway through the sets. But I’m sticking with it now and I feel like in no time I’ll be increasing the weights again!

I have no idea if my workouts this week will be much better. The pain that I’m in is still much more than normal and it doesn’t seem to be going away. But I’m going to focus on doing what I can and not stressing out about what I’m struggling with.

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, hip issues, Orangetheory, strength, struggle, treadmill, workout

I Can’t Believe My Race Time (or A 5K With My TIU Friends)

Posted on April 14, 2015 | 3 comments

This past Saturday was the Hollywood Half 5K. This was my third year doing this race, and you might remember that last year the race didn’t go so well for me.

Even though I’ve been doing lots of treadmill training (and it showed in my last 5K), I was still so nervous going into this race. I knew that the hills that were added last year would still be there and those hills were the worst part of the race for me last year.

But I tried to stay positive. Lots of my new friends from my Tone It Up group were doing the race as well and we had plans to meet up before and after the race.

The day before the race, I went to go pick up my race number and other race things. I did meet up with one TIU friend, so that make the craziness of the expo a bit more fun. And as I always do, I took a selfie in my car with my race number.

With an early wake up time in the morning (4am), I made sure I put together my race bag the night before. I don’t think I’ve shared what’s in my race bag in the past, so here it is.

I attach my race number to the hip pack. In one pocket, I have my sunglasses, house/car keys, chapstick, and ID/money/credit card. In the other pocket, I have my headphones and phone (the phone isn’t in the picture since I used it to take a picture). I’m looking into upgrading to a race belt, but right now they are all too small for me.

As soon as my alarm went off at 4am, I was up and ready to go. I carpooled to the race with a TIU friend and we met a bunch of our other TIU friends near the start line.

A few minutes before the race was supposed to start, we split up to go into our corrals. There was 1 friend in a corral with me, so I got her to take a quick pre-race photo for me.

Since the race starts in waves and we were in corral 10, we had about 20 minutes between when the race started and when we actually started. By the time we got up to the start line, the sun was coming out.

My friend in my corral with me had planned to stick with me during the race. It was her first 5K and she wasn’t sure how fast she would go. But she was really fast! We were only together for the first half of a block and then I didn’t see her again until we met up at the finish line!

The race started pretty ok for me. The first part of the race has a slight decline and then you turn around and go up a slight hill. My hips were feeling it right away, but I kept on going. And I noticed that while I was getting passed a lot, I was also doing some of the passing.

I had set my phone to track my race time and it gave me a little notification when it claimed I had gone a mile (it’s a bit off so I was about 40 feet from the first mile marker). But even with the app being a bit off, my mile time was a lot faster than I expected it to be. I tried to not get too excited and kept focusing on the race.

Toward the halfway point of the race, there was the big hill of the race. This hill was one that I was swearing under my breath during last year. But this year there was a distinct different. I’m guessing it’s because of my treadmill training at Orangetheory. I’m used to doing crazy inclines on the treadmill without being allowed to slow down. So on the big hill, most walkers around me were slowing down but I was maintaining my pace (and passing them!).

Before I knew it, I was getting ready to take the final turn before the finish line. I grabbed my phone out of my bag so I could stop the clock on my phone to see my unofficial time. And I glanced at the phone and all I remembered was that it was saying 53 minutes and some number of seconds.

I crossed the finish line, stopped my clock on my phone, and something happened because the time was erased from my phone!

I couldn’t do anything to bring the time back on the app, so I knew I’d have to wait until the official times were posted. So I walked to where my group was meeting so we could take a post race photo.

And of course I needed a photo with my new race bling!

After taking our photos and chatting about how our races went, we went over to the timing board to see the official times. Everyone in my group had a PR! And when I looked at my time, I thought I was imagining things.

My time was 53:52.8! My time at the Hard Rock Cafe 5K (my previous PR) was 56:52.9! I can’t believe that I had a 3 minute improvement over the past few months! Honestly, I still can’t believe I did that.

My ultimate 5K goal is to get below a 16 minute mile. That’s the requirement for races at Disneyland. And while I don’t know if I will ever do a 10K or a half marathon, I’d love to do a 5K at Disneyland one day.

After we all celebrated our PRs, the TIU ladies and I went out to breakfast. I figured such an awesome race meant that I could splurge a little on breakfast.

Over breakfast, I just kept thinking how grateful I am that I have these awesome ladies in my life. They are such great motivators and I know that they will help push me to my next 5K goal. I’m hoping a bunch of them will do the Hard Rock Cafe 5K with me this fall.

And as soon as I got home, I had to add my latest addition to my medal wall.

My wall is starting to look full now, but I bet I can fit at least 4 or 5 more medals on there before I need to build an extension (or more likely, have my dad build an extension).

Overall, I’m so glad that I didn’t let my nerves get in the way of me having an amazing race. And now that I have my new PR in my head, I can focus on the steps I need to take to get another PR in the fall!

3 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, Hollywood, medals, progress, race, walking

Fitting In My Workouts No Matter What (or Last Workouts Before The 5K)

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 3 comments

It was not easy to get my 3 workouts in this week, but I did it.

I knew that it was going to be an odd week of workouts even before having to go down to San Diego. I had the Hollywood Half 5K on Saturday and knew that I would not be working out on Friday. And there was a chance that I was going to be at Disneyland on Monday with a family friend.

So the original plan was to work out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.

Then my grandpa passed away and my schedule got crazy.

I cancelled my Disneyland plans right away. Then I started to wonder how I could get 3 workouts in during the week.

It’s probably stupid that I was worried about my workouts when there was a death in the family, but I guess that is how I was coping.

I started to think about what time I would have and how late I would be getting back from San Diego on Tuesday to see if I could do a Tuesday evening workout. But after debating it all for a few minutes, I figured out a schedule.

I would do my Wednesday and Thursday workouts as planned and add an early Sunday workout before driving to be with my family.

Sunday morning was not a great workout for me. Again, I had issues with getting my heart rate high enough (I guess the side effect of a speedy heart rate with my new medication went away). I was also pretty stressed out about going to San Diego. It didn’t feel real that my grandpa died, so I was worried that as soon as I got to San Diego it would all hit me (it did, but not in the way I was expecting it to). I tried my best to get through the workout, but I know that I wasn’t doing my best.

Wednesday was a pretty good one for me. I was worried that I would feel a bit out of shape from the lack of exercise and the good food from the past few days, but it didn’t affect me nearly as much as I thought. The biggest challenge I had in my workout on Wednesday was the 800 meter row.

We had to do this 2 different times in the workout. We had to write down our first time and then try to beat it the second time. And for every second longer our second time took, we had to do a burpee. I pushed myself like crazy on that rower. My goal was to be under 4 minutes, and I did it!

My name is toward the bottom of the board. And you can see that my second time was exactly 1 second slower than the first. So I owed 1 burpee. But considering that my goal was to be under 4 minutes, both my rows were pretty amazing!

After that exhausting workout, I was feeling a bit sore for my Thursday workout. But since it was my final workout before the 5K, I wanted to push myself as much as I could on the treadmill. I wanted to see if I could get a new PR on the 5K, and treadmill training is what will get me there.

The treadmill workout was all hills. I usually hate the hills, but I was grateful for them on Thursday. A majority of the 5K is on a flat road (there are a few hills), so since I’m used to training at an incline the 5K should almost feel like a downhill race.

Besides going hard on the treadmill, I’m still working on upping my weights when I’m doing the floor work. I’m finally starting to see (and feel) the results of the heavier weights. Even though the scale isn’t going down that much, I feel much lighter. And I have some pretty decent sized muscles now (they are just covered up by fat). Hopefully when the scale starts dropping again, the visually results will be seen more because I have more muscle to show off.

I’m so glad I got my 3 workouts in even though I was dealing with so much. I know I say this again and again, but it just proves to me how much of a priority working out is for me now. I never felt like that prior to Orangetheory and it makes me so proud that I’m dedicated to my workouts now.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be recapping the Hollywood Half 5K!

3 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged 5K, fitness, Orangetheory, rowing, training, treadmill, workout

4 Workout Week (or Heavy Weights And Speedy Treadmills)

Posted on March 30, 2015 | 1 comment

It was another 4 workout week at Orangetheory. I’ve pretty much decided that on Mondays, I’m going to do morning workouts (unless I already have something scheduled in the morning). It’s just easier for me not to have to drive home in rush hour traffic and there’s no reason why I should have to save my afternoon on my day off. Plus, morning workouts allow me to do fun things like Disneyland on my day off!

I’m still struggling with getting my heart rate to get up in the mornings, but that makes me feel like these morning workouts are needed. I need to be good with working out anytime during the day.

My biggest focuses right now in my workouts are to keep increasing my weights and treadmill speed. I haven’t been in a plateau, but I know that I can’t restrict pushing myself due to the fear of hurting my hips.

I’m having an ok time with using at least 15 pound weights for everything. For chest and shoulder work, it’s still tough. Especially when we have longer sets (like 10-15 reps each round). I’m getting really fatigued but I’m trying to not go down to lower weights right away. I’ve been doing alright with that. I’m pretty much not reducing the weight I’m lifting until the 3rd or 4th round each time.

Where I’m having trouble is pushing myself beyond the 15 pound weights. I know that for some things like squats that I can probably start using the 20 pound weights. But I don’t always grab for those. They just seem so extreme somehow to me. But I’m aware that I’m not reaching for the heavier weights now so hopefully the next time I have the opportunity to use them, I will.

As far as speeding up on the treadmill, I was able to keep my pace at 3.4 miles an hour during all 4 workouts. On my Saturday workout, it was definitely a struggle because my legs were tired (plus it was a hill day which doesn’t make things easier). I have no plan to move to 3.5 miles an hour anytime soon. 3.4 miles an hour still seems really fast to me.

But the other change I’ve been working on making on the treadmill is my walking speed between blocks. For the joggers and runners, when they get to walk they are told to put the treadmill at 3.0 miles an hour. Since that has always been so close to my walking speed, I would lower my treadmill speed to 2.0 or 2.5 miles an hour when I walk between the blocks. But I’m trying to go to 3.0 miles an hour between blocks sometimes. When we’ve just done a crazy hill or all-out (where I’m at 15% incline) I still need the super slow speed to cool-down. But if I’m not beyond exhausted at the end of a block, I’m really trying to only go down to 3.0 miles an hour.

These are all good progress steps in my mind. I’m much happier with the progress I’ve made with the weights than the progress I’ve made on the treadmill. I’m not sure why that is, but I just feel like my treadmill work is still such a struggle (the hip pain doesn’t help). Maybe I’ll feel better about it in a few weeks when I have my next 5K. I have no idea if I’ll PR again, but I feel like it’s a possibility because I’m doing faster treadmill workouts at Orangetheory now than I was doing before my last 5K.

I’ll just have to wait and see what happens at the 5K.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged 5K, Orangetheory, strength training, treadmill, walking, workout

Getting Faster Bit By Bit (or Speeding Up My Heart And My Walking)

Posted on March 23, 2015 | Comments Off

I’m getting more and more used to my heart rate being fast during my workouts. And the more days that go by, the more normal my heart rate becomes. In fact, it might almost be back to before the medication this week or next.

It was nice for a little while to have my heart rate faster than usual. I felt like I was getting more out of my workouts since I was getting more time in the orange zone. I know that it doesn’t really work that way when your heart rate is fast due to medication, but it felt like that to me.

But this past week, getting into the orange zone wasn’t as easy this past week as it was the week before. I’m working on using heavier weights during all of my workouts, but I know that I have to step up my cardio as well.

I’ve been using the incline on the treadmill a lot more than I did in the past. For my base pace, power walkers are supposed to be at 3% incline. I now always have it at 4%. During my push pace, I used to be at somewhere between 6-9%. Now I have it at at least 10%. My all-out pace is still at 15%, but that’s because 15% is the highest that the treadmill goes.

But as I get in better and better shape, my heart rate doesn’t go as high with incline as it used to (it’s real proof that my heart is getting stronger!). I’ve tried to slowly increase my speed, but it hasn’t been easy.

When I started at Orangetheory, I was usually at 3.0 or 3.1 miles an hour. I liked 3.1 miles an hour because then I knew that at that speed it would take me exactly an hour to do a 5K. Eventually, I was at 3.2 miles an hour on the treadmill. And a little while ago I went up to 3.3 miles an hour.

But this week, I really wanted to push myself. Maybe it’s because in my head I’ve realized that there is no way that I will not have another surgery on my hip in my near future. It’s inevitable and I better use my hip before it gets cut up and I have a long recovery. So I went to 3.4 miles an hour for all 3 of my workouts. I know that this isn’t that fast yet and I’m still below 3.5 miles an hour which is the bottom of what power walkers are considered at Orangetheory, but it’s improvement.

And I need to keep taking steps like this in increasing my speed. I’ve decided that if I ever decided to do a half marathon, the only one that I will consider will be one at Disneyland. If I’m going to do something that crazy, I might as well be at my favorite place in the world. All Disneyland races have a required pace time of a 16-minute per mile or faster.

So I found this great chart online to help me get to my goal of 16 minute miles.

I would probably want to be at 3.9 miles an hour on the treadmill to feel comfortable doing a Disneyland race. I know that those races have lots of awesome photo ops, and I’d want to have time to take advantage of those. On the Disneyland race website they even recommend having a training pace of 15-minute miles to allow for the photo ops. So that would bring me to 4.0 miles an hour on the treadmill.

That seems like so far away from where I am right now. But in reality, it’s not that much more of a jump than what I have done from when I started at Orangetheory to now. So maybe in another year (unless I have my hip surgery), I’ll be at my goal speed.

I’m thinking of making a training plan to figure out how to steadily increase my speed. I’m also looking at making a plan for increasing my weights as well. I might work on that this week when I have some time between customers at my day job.

But if any of you have ideas on how to make a plan to increase my speed (I’m not even starting to think about increasing my distance yet), I’d really love to hear your recommendations. I’m really so new at all of this, so I can use any help that I can get!

Comments Off on Getting Faster Bit By Bit (or Speeding Up My Heart And My Walking)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged 5K, Disneyland, marathon, Orangetheory, race, training, workout

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