Tag Archives: challenge

More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

Posted on September 19, 2016 | Comments Off on More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

This past week of workouts really made me happy. My biggest issue lately has been my endurance. I can do some running, but I question how much I can really do in a row. I still feel like I get tired easily and I know that if it is my plan to run/walk my next 5K race, I have to get stronger and gain more endurance.

I did do another non-Orangetheory run this week and for that run I went for 20 minutes, so I did prove to myself that I have a bit more endurance than before. But that was toward the end of my week so I think that my Orangetheory workout really helped to make that run/walk as great as it was for me.

Monday’s workout was a power day. I think power days are my favorites because they are designed as close to what a regular run/walk feels to me. They tend to be a lot of all out runs with walking in between. And this workout wasn’t that different. We had 10 all out runs in the class. I ran for each of them, and while I wasn’t doing my fastest speed I was still happy that I ran for those 10 minutes. We also had a 2 minute push pace, and even though I know I can run for 2 minutes I didn’t want to push myself too much so I ran for 1 minute and then walked for the other. That felt comfortable but challenging so I think I made the right decision with that.

On the floor on Monday, we had sprint rows for each block. The sprint rows were  100 meters, 150 meters, and 200 meters so they were always under 1 minute on the rower. In between the rows we had mainly upper body work (which was nice after all the running). I was pushing myself again with the 20 pound weights and even used a light weight for the weighted sit-ups instead of doing them without a weight. I didn’t want to feel so tired that I was in pain later that day (since I went to Universal), but I did find a great balance between going hard in the workout and not overdoing it.

Wednesday was an endurance day. Ironically, even though my endurance is what I need to work on, endurance days aren’t my best run/walk days. We have very long push pace segments that I can’t always run in full. I want to push myself, but I don’t want to go so hard that I can’t finish the treadmill workout. I tried to keep things the same as usual. For the long push paces, I ran for a minute and then walked the rest. For the all outs, I ran the entire thing (several times at 6 miles an hour). We had a progressive push which basically means that you bump your speed up every minute, but since it was longer than I knew I could run I did it as a power walker with increasing my incline each minute. And since we didn’t switch between blocks, I got a pretty great distance on the treadmill when we were ready to switch to the floor.

treadmill

It used to be a goal for me to get to 1.75 miles during the treadmill segment when we don’t switch between blocks. Now I’d love to see it if I could make it to 2 miles within those 30 minutes. I know that at my current average mile speed it’s possible, so I’m glad I have that goal to strive for now.

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I need to get some 4 workout weeks in, but I’m struggling to find the weekend time for that). It was another power day but this time we did switch between blocks. It was a smaller class than usual, but that meant that we all worked as one group which is a nice change of pace. Again, we had 10 all outs to do between all 3 treadmill blocks. I ran all of those and I tried to be at 6 miles an hour for each (sometimes I could only do 5.5 miles an hour). A friend of mine who usually isn’t in class with me was there on Friday and he started to yell at me that I should go faster. So for one of the all outs I managed to be at 6.3 miles an hour.

We also had some longer push paces during the treadmill and I stuck with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk for that. When I started to run again, I set a lot of goals for myself about how long I could run at a time. The quarter mile one is the longest I’ve done so far. By now, I really thought I could run for 5 minutes non-stop. And honestly, if I tried and had no other running to do I could very possibly do it. But I’m realizing that being able to run/walk for a long period of time is more important to me right now than running without walking breaks. It’s tough to let go of some goals that I’ve set for myself, but I think I’ll be doing a lot of reevaluation after my next race and seeing what happens then.

The Friday floor work reminded me a lot of Monday. Again we had sprint rows for 2 of the floor blocks. And almost all of the floor work was body weight stuff like lunges, burpees, and ab work. It’s nice to do body weight stuff since I can always do those at home (I don’t own weights at my house yet). And for our 3rd floor block we had a 4.5 minute core blast. This included plank jacks, palms to elbows (which I really hate) and static ab work. My abs were so tired by the end of the core blast and I was happy that I made it through the class without a ton of modifications.

This month is quickly coming to an end and I’m realizing that I’m probably not going to make it to as many workouts as I was hoping to. There are some chances to do 4 workouts weeks this week and next depending on how things go (and doing those may eliminate the runs I’ve been doing on my own). My weekends are getting really busy now and that doesn’t allow for the workouts to be added in like I want. But I know that even if I’m going 3 times a week, that’s so much better than I’ve done any time before Orangetheory so I can’t be too upset with myself.

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Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Posted on September 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Ever since I started running again, I’ve pretty much avoided running whenever we had to do hill work at Orangetheory. While my first few run attempts at Orangetheory were sometimes at a 4% incline (because I forgot it was set to that while I was walking) or a 2% incline (because the 1% felt almost downhill to me), that was while I was doing much slower running and I wasn’t going for as long. But since I’ve gotten into slightly longer running segments, I’ve pretty much decided that if we had to do hill work that I would be walking during it. But this past week of workout got to test that limit and I’m pretty excited about what I was able to do!

Monday’s workout was a 3G workout with 3 groups of people. That was because of the holiday, but since I rarely get to do 3G workouts I was pretty excited to get to have that on Monday. Usually with 3G workouts, we are split into 3 groups and we spend time on the treadmill, rower, and floor as a single group. But this time, it was a 3G 3 buddy workout. So basically we all were split into groups of 3 and we worked together as a team the entire time. There were 6 rounds and each round each group member was on the treadmill, the rower, and the floor.

In each round, we had different things to do on the floor. Sometimes we had planks, sometimes we had hop overs, sometimes there were lunges, and sometimes there were burpees. We repeated going whatever was the plan for that round until we were tagged by a teammate. And on the rower we were rowing until we were tagged out. The entire workout timing was set by the person on the treadmill.

On the treadmill, if you could run 6 mph or faster, you ran for 1/4 mile. If you couldn’t run that fast, you did half of the distance but you had to be at 4% incline. While I can run 6 mph for a bit of time, I couldn’t do an entire 1/4 mile at that speed. So I went for the half distance at an incline option. Because I didn’t want to overdo things, I did do it as a run/walk. I ran for a minute at the incline and then I put the incline up to 6% and walked it until I was done (I pretty much could get it done in under 2 minutes every time).

The run part was definitely a challenge for me at times. While I’ve done running at that incline in the past, it’s not really something I’ve done that much lately. And I had to do it 6 different times! Toward the end it felt like the incline was at least double what it really was at, but I’m glad I made it through it and I think it was a great training thing to do with my upcoming races (since it’s not always a totally flat road).

Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout, so a lot of the work on the treadmill was on hills. I did try to run at least a little bit of each of the hill runs, but when we were getting to the higher inclines I wasn’t able to make it more than a few seconds before I had to slow down to a walk. Walking up hills isn’t necessarily easier for me, but I think being slower does help me not feel like I’m doing too much at one time. Fortunately, we all some all-outs that were on a flat incline so I could run for all of those. And I even did one of the 1 minute all-outs at 6 mph (which was really intense but I felt amazing when I was done).

On the floor, we had some lower body work like squats and hip work. We also had some arm work to do and for all of the weighted work I was able to use 20 pound weights. I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to being able to use 25 pound weights soon, but when I tried them a bit this past week they were just a little too heavy and I wasn’t feeling like I was safe to do the work we were going to do. I’m always terrified that I’ll drop a weight on my foot or something, so I’d rather use slightly lighter weights that I can feel in control with than heavier weights that don’t feel as in control.

My last workout of the week was on Friday. My legs were feeling a bit tired after doing my outside run on Thursday, so I know that I need to figure out a good way to balance those workouts in with my Orangetheory schedule. I had some shin splints on Friday morning (I didn’t feel them at all on Thursday so they surprised me), so I was glad that when I got to my workout it was a bit less treadmill work than normal.

The workout had elements of endurance, strength, and power which was probably the best thing I could have had that day. We started with power on the treadmill and a 2 minute push to begin the block. I ran for 1 minute of it and then walked the second minute. Then we had 1 minute all-outs followed by walking recovery. I ran for all of the all-outs (I think we had 4 of them) and I was noticing my shin splints weren’t starting to hurt as much after that block. I’m not sure why that happened, but I was pretty happy about it.

For the strength block on the treadmill, it was hills again. I decided to walk for all of the hills just because I had done so much hill work earlier in the week and I had pushed it a lot in the power block with the running. But at the end of the strength block we did have an all-out on a flat incline so I was able to do some running for that one. And for endurance, we actually went over to the rower instead of staying on the treadmill. We had a 2 minute row, 1 minute to rest, and then another 2 minute row. I was able to get over 400 meters for each of those rows which isn’t bad and I was pretty tired by the time we headed over to the floor.

Thankfully, the floor work seemed to be focused on arms and upper body work more than anything. For all of the arm and shoulder work, I was using the 20 pound weights. And when we had some lower body work, even though we had the option to use weights I decided not too because my hips were starting to get a little sore and I didn’t want to have bad form and risk hurting myself.

I’m really glad that I tested out running on hills this past week. I don’t know if I’ll try doing that every week (I definitely felt it in my hips after each workout), but it’s always good to keep pushing myself. I really do want to focus on my running endurance more than anything right now and while hills aren’t the best way to do that, it’s not the worst either. I have ideas of what I need to do for my training for the next few weeks to be ready for my race in November. I’m still a bit worried that I won’t be able to do the entire thing as a run/walk (which is my biggest goal), but hopefully whatever I’m able to do between my Orangetheory workouts and running on my own will help me get close and closer to that goal!

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Continuing To Impress Myself (or A New PR)

Posted on September 5, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts were pretty amazing for me. I had 3 workouts which was fine (especially since I did a “workout” at Disneyland by walking almost 8 miles there). I wasn’t expecting to have anything awesome happen since I had such a wonderful PR with my mile the week before, but I’m glad that I surprised myself!

Monday’s workout was an early one for me. I usually go in the morning, but I went an hour earlier than normal so I could have more time at Disneyland after (and I’m aware that I’m crazy for going to Disneyland after a workout). Getting up earlier than I’m used to was a bit tough, but fortunately my workout didn’t feel that much harder than my usual morning one.

This time, we had an endurance day. On endurance days we have really long push paces and I usually can’t run for the entire thing. Usually I try to run as much as I can, but since I didn’t want to overdo it before Disneyland I decided to run for 1 minute of each push. I’m sure I could have done more, but considering how bad my hips were feeling that night, I’m glad I didn’t push myself more. We also had a row block as part of our cardio where we were doing 90 second sprints. Those were pretty short sprints so I was able to do them without too much trouble.

On the floor that day, we did some more rowing with 300 meter sprints (which takes me about 90 seconds so all the rows were about the same). We also had a lot of variety with the floor work with using the Bosu, straps for rollouts, weights with the squats, and body weight with plank jacks. I was definitely feeling exhausted after the workout, but I’m glad I didn’t skip a Monday because of Disneyland.

Wednesday was a bit of a sad day. My Wednesday coach, JZ, has been my Wednesday coach since my first full week at Orangetheory. I’ve loved having her as my coach each week and she’s been not only a great coach but has become an awesome friend too. There have been very few weeks where she wasn’t my coach on Wednesdays and I love having that consistency in my life. But JZ has her own company and that is starting to take up more time so she cannot teach classes on a regular basis at Orangetheory anymore. She’s still going to be on the sub list (so hopefully I’ll get her from time to time) and she’s going to work out there too so this workout wasn’t a goodbye, but it still was a bit of a downer.

JZ

Even though I was sad about this being JZ’s last regular class, I still wanted to kick some butt in the workout. It was a power day so I was excited to have shorter push paces so I could do more running. The push paces were between 2 minutes and 1 minute and I’m happy that even thought the 2 minute ones were tough, I still ran for the entire time! The second half of the cardio workout was a run/row (usually a run/row is the entire cardio workout) and it was a combination of push paces to all out paces. The longest time on the treadmill was 2 1/2 minutes, and I did manage to run for that entire one. I was really exhausted on the rower after that, but I’m just happy that I’m doing slightly longer running times more often now.

On the floor that day, we had 4 short blocks and each block started with holding a plank. The first time (which was 30 seconds) was easy and I felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t have a problem with any of them. But each time they got longer and it was harder and harder for me to hold the plank. When we had to do it for 2 minutes, I was taking a couple of breaks because my core just couldn’t stay up. I used to be amazing at planks (when I had a personal trainer 10 years ago, my PR was over 3 minutes in a steady plank) and I really do want to get back to being able to do that.

Friday’s workout was another endurance one, but this one had a challenge in it as well. In the beginning of the workout for cardio, we had a 6 minute challenge for distance. I’ve done 5 minute challenges and 7 minute challenges, but never a 6 minute one so I wasn’t sure what distance I was going to hope for. But I figured if I could be at a similar distance to my 7 minute challenge one, I’d be happy.

I did the 6 minutes as a run/walk with running for the first minute, walking for the second, repeating that for the third and fourth minutes, and then running the last two minutes without a break. It wasn’t easy and I was tired because I was pushing my speeds to be a lot faster than I’m used to. But I was so happy to see that I not only matched my best 7 minute challenge, but I beat it!

6 Minute

After the challenge, we had another 7 minutes on the treadmill doing regular endurance work. I tried to run a bit more, but I was pretty tired from the challenge so I stuck with walking until we had the all out at the end of that block.

Then we switched the floor so the other half of class could do their first 6 minute challenge. On the floor, it was a long block filled with squats, rowing, burpees, hamstring work, and abs. After we got through that, we had a 500 meter row. My time on the rower wasn’t great, but between the challenge and all the floor work I was ok with that. I only made it over to the rower once during the floor block and then it was time to switch again to be on the treadmill.

We repeated the 6 minute challenge and I figured I could bump my speeds up more since I knew this was the last 6 minutes on the treadmill for class. I was going a bit too fast in the beginning so I had to bring my speed down a few times, but I was able to keep the same pattern I used the first time. And when we had the last 30 seconds, I got my speed up to 6.0 miles an hour and sprinted to the end. And since I worked so much harder the second time, I managed to PR on the challenge compared to the first attempt.

6 Minute #2

That’s almost 1/2 mile in 6 minutes! I remember when I started at Orangetheory that it would take me about 5 minutes to go 1/4 mile! I did wonder if I should have tried a bit harder because I might have actually been able to make it to that 1/2 mile mark, but this just gives me something to strive for next time so I can have another PR.

After the second challenge, we headed back to the floor where we did a lot of work on the Bosu (which mean I could sit down for a lot of it). I’m glad I had that time to catch my breath and decompress from the workout because it still boggles my mind sometimes that I’m not just running but running at speeds I never imagined I could do!

This workout continued to prove to me that I am making major progress even if I doubt it at times. When I don’t have things like treadmill challenges or rowing challenges to compare myself to, I can feel like I’m stuck even if I’m not. I’m trying to get that stuck feeling out of my head because I don’t think it’s going to help me improve on my endurance, and that’s my big focus now. I know I can run/walk for a mile, but I need to be able to do that for 3.1 miles in about 2 months. I know that I can always just walk it if I get too tired, but my goal is really do to the entire thing as a run/walk and that’s only going to happen if I get my endurance up a lot in the next 2 months.

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Not Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge)

Posted on September 1, 2016 | 3 comments

My August monthly challenge in my Spark Planner was to practice mindful eating. This is something I’ve read about in the recovery books I’ve been reading and it sounded like the perfect challenge for me to try. I know that when I’m not eating correctly, I am eating mindlessly. So mindful eating seemed like the ideal thing to work on.

I’ll admit that this challenge was not 100% successful like all the past ones were. I knew this was going to happen eventually but it doesn’t make it easier on me. I like to be perfect and I know that it can’t always happen. Ironically, the recovery book I was reading for most of August did discuss perfectionism and the relationship between that and eating disorders so that did help me a bit. I know that being perfect is part of the reason why recovery is tough for me to achieve and that’s why I’m glad I struggled with this challenge.

I set an alarm to go off every day around 6pm to remind me to practice mindfulness before dinner. I don’t always eat at 6pm, but I usually don’t eat before then so it seemed like a good time to have the alarm go off. I could always ask it to go off again later to remind me to be mindful when it was closer to when I would be eating. The thing was, sometimes I’d remember and sometimes I’d forget even with the alarm. And sometimes I’d remember once I started eating and then the perfectionist in me said it was too late and I couldn’t practice mindfulness mid-meal.

I was getting better toward the end of the month, but it still wasn’t what I was hoping for. I really thought I could jump in headfirst like I have with all my other challenges and it would come easily to me as a new habit. I’m not sure why this one was difficult, but it was and it’s something I have to accept. I know that when things get hard for me I sometimes will just give up and think it’s not for me, but I’m not doing this now. I’m going to continue to try to practice mindfulness and hopefully one day it will be just as easy as remembering to track food, weigh in, read my recovery books, and all the other challenges I’ve done.

Since the August challenge ended up being tough for me, I’ve decided to pick another tough one for me for September. I’ve been trying to get into yoga more often lately. I know it’s good for me and my hips and it will also help me with my meditation and mindfulness eating. I’ve tried to set weekly goals to do yoga once a week, but it’s too easy to keep putting it off until the week is over and I missed the goal. So I’m setting a yoga challenge for September.

As much as I’d like to say that I want to do one online yoga class (I have an app on my iPad that I like), I know that it is not something that is likely to be done and the perfectionist in me will give up if I forget too often. So I’m setting the challenge to be a small one that I can hopefully build up over time.

This time, for my monthly challenge, I’d like to do at least 1 yoga pose a day. This is totally doable for me and even if it is bedtime and I’ve forgotten to do it I still will be able to do so. One pose a day isn’t a lot, but I think that it may help me to build my way up to having a more regular yoga practice and I’m guessing that on several of the days I will do a short class from the app instead of just one pose.

As the year is winding down, I have just a few more monthly challenges to go for 2016. I have ever intention of getting a Spark Planner for next year so I know the challenges are going to continue. And since I’ve had my first “failure” at a perfect monthly challenge, I think now I will be more open to doing challenges that may seem impossible because I won’t be as scared of failure as I was before.

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Feeling More Progress (or Olympic Workouts)

Posted on August 29, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week at Orangetheory was another themed week. This time, it was Olympic week. Each class would have a challenge that we would all do and they would post the top people each day (each challenge had 4 winners, men under and over 40 and women under and over 40). I had no expectations of being number one for any challenge, but I think you all know that I love a challenge and I was ready to see what I could do!

I was warned that Monday’s workout was the mile challenge, so I went in expecting that. Turns out, it wasn’t the mile but instead a mile by mile challenge. The plan was that we would do a total of a mile on the treadmill and a mile on the rower, but it was broken up into quarter mile segments. Even though I know I can run a quarter mile, I was still feeling the run class a bit so I didn’t want to push myself too much. So I did my 1 minute run/1 minute walk plan and did .18 each round (runners were supposed to do .25 and walkers .125 so I tried to do something in the middle). The treadmill went well and I can actually feel that my form is starting to get better.

The rower is where I was struggling a bit. My form has always been a bit off because of my hips, but I was just feeling like I couldn’t get my legs to do what I needed them to do that day. I know my rowing was really sloppy and probably didn’t look that pretty, but I got them done. I don’t know what my exact time was for the challenge, but I did get it done within the first half of class which is good. I hate when there is a challenge but I’m not able to complete it due to time issues.

On the floor on Monday, I ended up doing a lot of squats and lunges. Normally that would be ok for me, but my hips were starting to get really weak and I could feel the pain coming on. I was trying to do my best, but I know that I was doing less than I typically could. I know that I’m really tough on myself and I shouldn’t be when there is a real physical issue stopping me, but I’m still frustrated at times that I can’t do what everyone else is doing.

Wednesday’s workout had a 4 minute row challenge. I did this challenge after some of the treadmill work, so I was a little tired but also a bit warmed up. We were challenged to try to get at least 1,000 meters in 4 minutes, but I knew that wasn’t going to be possible for me. I know that the average that I could do would be 800 meters, so I really wanted to get to 900 meters this time. During those 4 minutes, I tried to zone out and not pay attention to the clock or the computer on the rower. I wanted to not think about how much more I had to do or get frustrated if I wasn’t going to reach my goal. When we were told that we had 1 minute left, I tried to get as much speed and wattage on the rower and when it was done I finally looked at the rower computer. I got to 890 meters, which is much better than I normally can do but just shy of what I wanted to do. But overall I’m pretty happy with that distance.

On the treadmill, we had some hill work so I was walking for those. But for the non-hill work I was able to run almost all of the push paces and then all of the all out paces. I’m starting to notice my endurance is getting a little bit better, but it’s not getting better as quickly as I thought it would. Hopefully by the time I have my next 5K it will be closer to what I need it to be for the race! But I did push it a bit on the speed and every time we had a 30 second all out, I was going at 6mph (instead of 5.5) so that felt pretty amazing!

Friday was a workout that I should have been waiting all week for, but I had no idea that it would be the challenge that I look forward to the most: the mile challenge. I really didn’t know that was on Friday (all the challenges were surprises) so I had no time to get excited or nervous about it. Fortunately this time, we had a run/row after the mile challenge so I wasn’t feeling too rushed to get it done.

I know I had an insane PR my last mile challenge, so I went into this mile not caring if I got a new PR. I just wanted to run/walk the entire thing and to be under 15 minutes for sure. I kept things the same as last time with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk, but I was going faster with the speeds than last time. The mile wasn’t easy and I did have to take 2 small breaks for water but I was definitely doing better than I ever had before on the mile challenge. At about the half mile point, I saw that I was pretty much on pace with my last mile, and I was very happy about that. Again, I had no intention of trying for a PR because that last PR was so tough for me and my body felt it afterwards and I didn’t want to go through that again. I ended up running the last .1 straight and went a lot faster than I usually do, but in the end I managed to easily be under 15 minutes and got a new PR too!

My Mile

This is 11 seconds faster than 2 months ago! And not only that, this mile was less painful and hard on my body than the one 2 months ago! Again, this is just proving to me that even if my progress is feeling slow to me, my body knows better and there really is some great progress happening with me!

I didn’t get a ton of the run/row done after the mile. I got my 600 meter row done and then was on the treadmill for the last 2 minutes of that part of class. I know that some people got the entire run/row plan done, but to me it was most important to try to do the best I could do on my mile. And I think I did exactly that!

The floor work after the mile challenge was a lot of arm work so I was using 20 pound weights for most things. We had a lot of squats and some plank and ab work (during which I felt like I could finally catch my breath). And when we were stretching at the end of class, I felt a lot more flexible than usual which is odd for me. I’ve always been a pretty flexible person and even after my hip surgery my flexibility wasn’t affected too much. There are a few stretches now that I really can’t do because of the issues with my hips, but in general I can stretch pretty far. But to feel extra flexible after a workout really made me feel amazing and I’m glad that my mile challenge day ended that way!

I also had a workout on Saturday, but the Olympic week was over by then. Even though I told myself before that 4th workouts in a week would be on the bike, I went for the treadmill this time. My hips don’t hurt as much when I’m running as they do when I’m walking, so I’m not hurting as much in my 4th workout as I was before. I’ll still probably use the bike from time to time, but I’m glad that I’m able to do more running work in a week.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and we didn’t switch between blocks. But I like the power workouts because they tend to have shorter pushes with all outs, so I can do more running. We did have one longer push that was 2 minutes, so I only ran 1 minute of that. But for pretty much all the other pushes I ran everything. And we had 8 all outs and I ran them all. I even bumped up my speed a bit on the 30 second all outs with going 6.3mph. That’s a bit too fast for me right now, but it was fun to try going that fast to see how it felt.

All of the floor work on Saturday was pretty short blocks, so I never got too tired in a single block. There was a ton of arm and chest work that I did with 20 pound weights, and some lunges that I did without weights (my balance isn’t super great and the weights make it a bit too tough for me). We also had sprint rows of 100 meters and then after each 100 meters we had to do power jacks using a medicine ball. By the time we were done with the workout, I was ready for a nap!

This really was a great week of workouts for me. I loved the Olympic week challenges and each day I was pushed quite a bit. I got a new (unexpected) PR on my mile, and I did running on the treadmill for 4 workouts in the week! I don’t think I could have expected anything more than this and I’m glad that not only did I have some great workouts but I feel like I did some great work! The plan for this week is to do 3 workouts, but I think that because of the work I did last week those 3 workouts are going to be amazing!

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Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default Thumbnail12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week) Default ThumbnailGuess I Motivated Myself (or No More Feeling Stuck) Default ThumbnailBack Into The Running Groove (or Feeling Really Great About My Workouts) Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailBirthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts)

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Taking A Run Class (or Proof I’m Faster and Stronger)

Posted on August 23, 2016 | Comments Off on Taking A Run Class (or Proof I’m Faster and Stronger)

Like I mentioned yesterday, I technically did 4 workouts last week. My Saturday workout wasn’t a regular class at Orangetheory, but instead one of the special classes they offer for members from time to time. This time, it was a 1 hour running class. So instead of the hour being split between cardio and weights, it was cardio only.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t feeling too sure about signing up. I actually didn’t sign up until Friday because I was going back and forth if I should do it. But there was one space left when I was there on Friday and I saw that as I sign that I was supposed to go. I had already talked to the coach, Dana, about it and she said that I could do it as a run/walk without too many issues.

While working on Saturday before the class, I was thinking that I made a huge mistake. I knew I couldn’t back out, but I was having some serious regrets. But I decided to try to have a positive mindset and hope for the best (similar to how I was feeling for the Dri-Tri). And by the time it was time for me to drive over to take the class, I was feeling a bit better about things.

I knew that there would be endurance, strength, and power work during the hour, but I wasn’t sure how it would go and was a little nervous that I wouldn’t know how to split things between running and walking. So when class started, I jumped on my favorite treadmill (number 11) and was walking to warm up.

The first thing we had during the class was endurance work which was really more like speed work. The plan was to try to bump up our base pace and push pace each time, but I knew speed work wasn’t what I needed. So for all the 90 second push paces, I ran at the speed I’m comfortable running at (pretty much between 4.5 and 5.0 mph). I walked during all of the base paces, but was able to run for all of the 90 second pushes.

Our next work was timed distances. The first thing we had to do was .25 miles, which I knew I could do. But since I knew I could do it, this time I did want to try to bump up my speed to see if I could get a bit faster. I was able to get my time down below 3 minutes (2:53 to be exact) and was feeling super exhausted and out of breath after that. We were supposed to then do .5 miles for time, but I knew I couldn’t run that and to run/walk it was going to be very tough because of how much I pushed it with the .25 mile. So I just walked it at an incline and tried to calm my heart rate down a bit.

Our next segment was strength, which is all hill work. I’m not ok with running on hills really, so I did this entire segment as a walk. I tried to keep my inclines up higher than normal, but I’m really having trouble doing anything beyond 12% incline. But this part went by pretty quickly for me so I’m glad that I didn’t have to just walk for too long.

One of the last segments was power work. This was short push to all out paces. Some of them were at inclines, but below 4% which isn’t too bad for me (4% is considered flat road for power walkers). For all the push to all outs, I ran everything. I did walk during the walking recovery, but I know that I ran a lot more than I have ever so that was pretty awesome.

To finish up the run class, we had a mile challenge. We had 8 or 9 minutes to get it done, and I knew I wasn’t feeling ok to do an entire mile (nor could I finish in that time). So I decided that I was going to push myself to do a half mile as a run/walk with 1 minute runs and 1 minute walks. This is the pace I feel like I might be able to do for my next 5K, so I really want to work on feeling more comfortable with this pattern and get my endurance up. It wasn’t easy considering how much work I had already done, but I was able to get it done and felt pretty great that I finished!

We had to keep starting and stopping our treadmills, but I knew I’d want to know my distance so every time we stopped I got a picture. And here’s what I ended up doing within the hour.

OTF Run Day

That’s 3.55 miles in 56:36! To put things in perspective, my last 5K was about 20 seconds slower than the class was and I did almost .5 miles more! That’s way more improvement than I would have expected! Since we had the treadmill segments broken up, I have no clue what time it was when I got to 3.1 miles but I still know that I am faster!

After class was done, I was so happy that I decided to go for it. It was not easy and there were times in the middle that I questioned doing it, but I know that I need to push myself like this. It’s only going to make me stronger and faster in all aspects of my life. While I’m still nervous about my next 5K, I’m feeling slightly better that it’s not going to be impossible and that I can at least run/walk part of it!

I’m hoping to start doing some non-Orangetheory run practice soon. I need to figure out a safe time for me to be running on the running path near my house (so during the daylight but not when it’s too hot). The more practice I can get in, the better! And this class was a great way to get that practice started!

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Guess I Motivated Myself (or No More Feeling Stuck)

Posted on August 22, 2016 | 2 comments

Last week I posted about feeling a bit stuck with my progress in running. It’s hard not to be frustrated with a plateau, and that’s exactly what I was feeling. I didn’t like feeling that way, so I guess putting it out there in my blog post motivated me to do something about it. This week I had some really great progress and I was able to continue to feel motivated and to do more than I really thought I could.

Monday’s workout was a run/row, but some of the run segments were a bit longer than I can do. When we were supposed to run .3 miles, I ran for 90 seconds (instead of the 60 seconds I usually do) and then walked until I got to .2 miles (I did in between what we were supposed to do as a runner and as a walker). Those 90 seconds weren’t easy, but I got through them and I felt so accomplished after that. The next run segment was .25 miles, which I know I can do. Again, this wasn’t easy, but it helped me remember that I’ve done this before and I could do it again. I did this .25 miles a bit slower than I have in the past, so that meant that this was the longest time I’ve run yet!

1:4 Mile

After doing that long run, I wasn’t able to fully run the last segments which were .2 and .15 miles. I was able to run a majority of those, but I know if I hadn’t pushed myself to do the .25 miles as a run I could have run those as well. Our rowing was between 150-300 meters, and since they were fast I did take some time between the treadmill and rower to catch my breath and prepare myself for the next thing I had to do. Overall, this was one of my best running days yet!

Once I got to the floor, I felt like I had already done a full workout, but I tried my best to continue to motivate myself to do more. We had a lot of upper body work with the straps and push-ups and we finished with abs (after which I was barely able to sit up). I surprised myself by how much I was able to do as well as how little pain I was in after class. Not hurting is a good sign and I know I was doing the right thing that day.

Wednesday was an endurance day, and we didn’t get to switch between blocks. I knew the treadmill work would be a tough day, but I was trying to focus on how far I could get the distance to be on the treadmill. My dream is to eventually get the treadmill to make it to 2 miles in class when we don’t switch, but I’m not quite there yet.

The endurance work has been the hardest for me to do with my running, but I was not going to make excuses for myself. When we had 3 minute push paces, instead of walking the entire thing since I know I can’t run the entire thing, I ran half of it and walked the second half. So for every 3 minute push, I ran for 90 seconds. I did the same thing for the 2 minute push paces. I can run for 2 minutes, but I was feeling really tired so I wanted to pace myself. I’m happy with how much running I did in those long pushes instead of just walking. And of course, as I’ve been doing for a while, I ran all of the all outs.

When the treadmill block was done, I shut down my treadmill and was pretty impressed with what my distance had been in class.

Endurance Day

I wish I had noticed when I reached 1.55 miles because that is half of a 5K, but I missed seeing that. But I know that my speed is up so my times are getting better and better.

For the second half of class, we had some sprint rows of 300 meters, arm work on the straps, squats using the Bosu, and ab work. Again, it was another workout that I was exhausted at the end of, but there was very little pain so I considered it a big success.

Friday was another run/row day, and this time I was able to run all of the distances we had to do! We had to do .2 and .15 miles each time (there was also a .1 segment but I didn’t make it down the list that far in the time we had). I ran every single time and didn’t do any walking except to cool down a bit after the run. When I added up everything that I ran, I did .85 miles of running. Of course, this wasn’t non-stop, but I still think that that’s pretty amazing!

The rows between the treadmill time were between 100-200 meters so they were pretty fast, but I was taking a lot of time in between to catch my breath and to let my heart rate get down a bit (it was super high all during class). I didn’t take it easy during the floor work where we had to do lots of arm work (I worked with 25 pound weights), burpees, plank jacks, and hop overs. It was another exhausting but worth it workout.

I think I got myself out of my slump. I just needed to put it out there how I was feeling to realize that I was in control of my progress and I could take it to the next level. I wrote about 3 workouts last week, but technically last week was a 4 workout week. But the 4th workout is going to be its own post, because I attended the 1 hour run class at Orangetheory for the first time! And trust me, that is worthy of being its own post!

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Working On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger)

Posted on August 15, 2016 | 2 comments

I’ve been feeling a bit stuck in my workouts lately. I think it’s because I was doing so amazing when I started running and was able to make huge jumps in my progress with very little effort. Now I’m feeling a bit in a slump because I’m not progressing like I feel like I should and I don’t know how to get better. I know that I’m being really hard on myself, but that’s just what I do. So this past week of workouts, I really tried to make some baby steps in my progress to feel like I’m at least moving forward and not being stuck.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power and we did get to switch between blocks. Those days are becoming one of my favorites (I think run/row days are still my favorites) because the blocks are short and I feel like I’m able to recover between each thing. For the endurance block on the treadmill, we had some long push paces. The push paces were 1 minute, 2 minutes, or 3 minutes. I ran for the first minute of each push (I know I could probably run the 2 minute one too, but I was scared to overdo it) and then walked the rest. I did run all of the all outs and tried to bump up my speed a bit each time. For the strength block, since those are hills I had to stick with walking. I can run a bit on hills, but I’m not really good at doing that. But for the power block we had 1 minute pushes and 30 second all outs and I ran for all of that.

For the floor blocks there was a lot of focus on arms, but we also got to do some sprint rows. I’m getting much better with my form for the rowing, especially with sprints, so I was happy to get to work on that a bit more. And I was able to finish up the workout with a block of ab work which was a nice way to end things.

On Wednesday, we had a strength day but we did get to switch between blocks. The blocks were pretty short, so they weren’t too bad. Most were under 5 minutes. I didn’t run most of the treadmill time because things were at an incline, but I did try to walk at a higher incline than normal. I did run the all outs (they were on a flat treadmill) and I also ran an all out that was on a 3% incline which was a nice challenge. Since I usually have my treadmill at 4% or higher while walking, 3% while running wasn’t too bad.

When I was on the floor, I took the fact that it was a strength day to heart. I wanted to do better than I normally do, so I decided to stick with 25 pound weights for my arm work. It was really tough for some of the moves, but I didn’t want to go down to the 20 pound weights (which is what I usually use). I had to take breaks during some of the sets, but I was able to get them done with the heavier weights and it really made me feel great! I still remember when I started how I was using maybe 10 pound weights and thought the 12 and 15 pound ones were so heavy. I’ve totally made progress from where I started.

Friday was another day that had endurance, strength, and power but there were no switches between the blocks. For the endurance block, I decided that I was going to walk the 3 minute push but then tried to run as long as I could with the other push paces. For the 1 minute one I was able to run the entire thing and for the 2 minutes one I ran for just about 90 seconds before I walked the last 30 seconds. 90 seconds isn’t the longest I’ve run, but since I’m doing mostly 1 minute runs knowing that I ran a bit longer than normal was good. I need to remember that 30 seconds of more running is still more running.

For the strength section, I walked everything except the all outs on the flat treadmill. I do think I could have run some of it, and I think I need to stop doubting myself and just go for it. The doubt is stopping my progress and once I get over that hurdle, maybe I won’t feel as stuck. But for the power block, since they were short pushes to all outs (with walking after), I ran all of that and felt very accomplished when I stepped off the treadmill.

Once I moved to the floor, we had a couple of arm moves and I used my usual 20 pound weights (my arms were feeling a bit off because I slept funny the night before and I didn’t want to push too much). We also had sprint rows of 150 meters and I was able to improve on my time each row. While those parts of the floor work was good, we also had a couple of things that aren’t that easy for me. We had some lunges which sometimes are fine but my hips weren’t loving them at the end of the workout. I had to hold on to the wall to get my balance several times and I was feeling a bit stuck and sometimes couldn’t seem to switch legs. We also had pop jacks which are always so hard for me and Friday was no exception. Fortunately, I didn’t get my hips stuck on those and I just pushed through and was glad when I was done with them.

Reflecting back on the last few months of workouts, I really have made incredible progress even if I sometimes find it hard to see. Maybe before my workouts I need to review what I was doing a few months ago and seeing that what I’m doing now would have been impossible for me back then. Even if I am stuck in my progress, there is still progress that has been made. And I really want to focus on that idea instead of the negative.

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Working With Friends (or Having Someone To Push Me)

Posted on August 8, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a nice change-up from the past few weeks. 2 of the workouts had partner elements which we haven’t had in a while. I really love the partner workouts because it pushes me so much harder when I know that someone is counting on me to finish so they can finish. So I think this past week was really great for me (especially since I had a pretty bad food week).

Monday was mainly a run/row day for us. It was an endurance day so I wasn’t able to run as much as I can, but I did run for all the 1 minute segments that I had. This part of the workout wasn’t partnered, so I was just doing the run/row on my own. Once I got to the floor, the focus was on arms and after rowing during the run/row my arms were feeling a bit dead. We ended those blocks with about 15 minutes left to go in the workout. So that’s when the partner stuff started.

We all partnered with one other person and one of us went to the rower and the other was on the floor. The person on the floor controlled the pace of things, so the person on the rower just rowed until they were tagged by their partner. While on the floor, we had to do push ups, pop jacks, and squats. Pop jacks aren’t that fun for me (it isn’t easy to do with my hips) but I was really motivated to get them done so I could get my partner off of the rower since that was the harder part (at least it was in my mind). We were able to switch back and forth pretty quickly and pretty evenly and at the end of the workout I was exhausted but felt great about what I was able to get done.

Wednesday was a power day where we switched between blocks. But we switched after having 2 blocks together for a very good reason. We did some distance challenges on the treadmill that day. So 2 of the blocks were the same time so we did those back to back to compare what we were able to do. I was pretty excited to see what I’d be able to do and since they were shorter than most treadmill blocks I knew I could push myself a bit more.

For the 5 minute distance challenge, we had a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. It’s a lot to do and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to run for all the push and all out segments. So the first time I did it I walked for the 2 minute push and then ran the 1 minute push and 1 minute all out. I was pretty happy with the distance I got, but I knew I could do better. So right after doing that we did it again and I ran for the first minute of the 2 minute push and then walked for that second minute (and kept the rest of it the same as the first attempt). I did bump my speed up a bit as well, and I had a major improvement from the first to the second attempt!

5 Minute Challenge

I was pretty proud of myself for how much better I was able to do and while it was tough to run for 2 minutes (between the push and all out), but I’m so happy I did it because I need to work on my endurance and I have to make myself uncomfortable to get better.

After those two blocks, I went to the floor. The first block was 5 minutes of rowing and the second block was a lot of arm work but I was able to use some pretty heavy weights. But I was ready to get back on the treadmill to try the next distance challenge.

The last two treadmill blocks were both 4 minute challenges. It was a 1 minute push, 1 minute base, 1 minute push, and 1 minute all out. I knew that I could run all the of the push and all out segments and I would walk for the base to recover. This time I knew it would be much harder to have an improvement between the first and second attempt, but I did my best to bump up the speed the second time around so that I could get at least a little bit more distance. It wasn’t as huge of an improvement as my 5 minute challenge, but I’m still so happy that I got a little bit farther.

4 Minute Challenge

The final work on the floor that day were pretty tough for me. I know I pushed myself a bit too much on the treadmill and my body was feeling it. I wasn’t feeling so great by the end and I didn’t want to do anything that might make things feel worse. We were supposed to do burpees during that floor work, but I knew I couldn’t do that so I did pushups on the TRX straps instead. I hate not being able to do something we are supposed to do, but I also have to do what’s best for my body.

And to wrap up my workout week, Friday was also a partner workout! This time, it was 3 people on each team and my blogger friend Jordan was in class so we partnered up. We also partnered up with another awesome lady, but I never caught her name (sorry!). This time, as a group our goal was to row 6,000 meters. Each of us were responsible for 2,000 meters and we did them 500 meters at a time.

So for this workout one of us was on the rower, one was on the treadmill, and one was on the floor. The person on the rower controlled the pace of things. They would row 500 meters and then tag the person on the treadmill to stop so they could get on the treadmill. The person on the treadmill was doing a push pace for the entire time they were on there. And once the treadmill person was tagged, they went to the floor to tag that person and the floor person went to the rower to do their 500 meters.

It was a lot of switching, but it was great because we were pretty much only doing one thing for 3 minutes at a time. My group didn’t quite make it to 6,000 meters during the workout (it was my last 500 meters that didn’t get done), but that wasn’t because of our speed on the rower. We had some transition issues that I know slowed us down and prevented us from finishing right on time.

Since I was going to the treadmill from the rower (where I was working really hard to row fast), I didn’t do any running during the partner workout. I power walked at 6% incline to try to get my heart rate down a bit but still trying to workout. On the floor, we had some arm and abs work to do and I tried to take that time to catch my breath more and take sips of water to get ready to be back on the rower.

I really enjoyed this workout even though we didn’t complete the challenge. It was a great way to push myself for really quick segments and then move on so I didn’t get too tired from one thing. I was exhausted after it was all done, but it was a good exhaustion and not too overwhelming like it is sometimes when I push myself too hard.

I’m starting to get really excited for when my running watch gets here because I’m thinking I’ll test it out for some OTF stuff too. It will be a great way to test out features and to figure out how I want to use it, plus it might give me more insight into my running at OTF than I get from the treadmill or heart rate monitor. The watch may arrive this week or it might not make it for another 2 weeks, but as soon as it gets here I know it’s going to make my workout recaps even more interesting!

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Another Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges)

Posted on August 2, 2016 | 1 comment

With July being over already (it really just flew by!), it’s time to recap my July monthly challenge. This time, my challenge was to read 10 pages of an eating disorder recovery book every day. I set this as a challenge because I’ve been having trouble finishing any recovery books and I thought breaking it into smaller chunks would help.

I’ll admit, this challenge got off to a rocky start. Since I do almost all my reading on my Kindle, I was finding it tough to switch between the recovery book and whatever fun book I happen to be reading at the time. Fortunately I solved this problem pretty quickly. I have my fun book reading on my Kindle, and my recovery book is read every day on my iPhone on the Kindle app. I don’t love reading on my phone for too long, but this works for the 10 pages I read (which usually only takes a few minutes).

There were a couple of days where my 10 pages were done at almost midnight, but I did set an alarm on my phone right around when I go to bed to remind myself to read my pages. Most days, I ended up doing my reading right before of after dinner so I got them done pretty early. And even though I knew I could read more than 10 pages a day, I didn’t want to get myself burned out like I have in the past so I tried to keep myself to that limit (I went over a bit when I was close to the end of a section or chapter).

By reading my 10 pages a day, I got one book finished and I’m about halfway through another one. I have several recovery books that I’ve purchased over the years on my Kindle, so I’ve got a ton of options for future reading. And since it seems to take me about 3 weeks to read a book this way, I could also get Kindle books from the library (the e-book rental period is 3 weeks so it would be cutting it close). I’m not going to worry about my book choices until I read everything I already own, and that’s going to take me a while.

Just like all my previous monthly challenges, I plan on continuing this one. It’s a good habit to be in and I don’t see how I could have anything but positive results. And because of my reading, I was inspired for my August challenge.

This month, I challenge myself to start practicing mindful eating. This is something that I read about in one of the books I read and I know it will be a challenge for me. While many people who practice mindful eating pray or say grace before eating to get into a mindful mentality, since I’m not religious that’s not really going to work for me.

Instead, I’m going to use the self-meditation timer on the meditation app I’ve been using for my daily mediations (my June monthly challenge that I’ve kept up). I can set the self-meditation timer to be as short as 1 minute so I don’t have to worry about it being too long. Eventually I’d like to be at a point where I am practicing mindful eating before every meal, but I know I need to ease into this. So I’m setting a goal to practice mindful eating for at least 1 meal a day.

This isn’t going to be easy for me. For my first day, I struggled to even try to do this before most of my meals. I was able to do it before dinner, but I had to force myself and it felt like the least natural monthly challenge I’ve given myself. I know this will be a good thing and I need to be pushed to do this, but I hate feeling like this is tough. I don’t give up easily that often, but when I’m really struggling it can feel useless. I even debated changing the monthly challenge but that’s the moment I knew I needed to do this. If I wanted to give up, that meant it was a good challenge that was pushing me to a new place and that’s the entire point of this.

I’ve got a couple of ideas for the monthly challenges for the rest of the year, but I also have to see what inspires me along the way to do. I have a lot of things I want to accomplish this year and I feel like I’m making some great strides toward all my goals. I love how successful this year has been so far and I just keep reminding myself in my down days that overall I’ve been doing so much better than before.

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