Tag Archives: challenge

Recapping My June (or Still Thinking Up New Monthly Challenges)

Posted on July 5, 2016 | 1 comment

With June over now, I wanted to not only reflect back on my monthly challenge for June but what I’ve been able to do for the first half of the year. When I saw my therapist recently, he was really proud of the work that I had been doing and especially with my monthly challenges. I never expected that I would be able to keep every challenge up beyond the challenge month when I started.

But I’ve been keeping accurate food tracking since January, doing daily gratitude lists since February, not ordering delivery food since March, weighing myself every day that I’m home since April, looking to self-submit for acting jobs since May, and now meditating every day since June.

I’ll admit, the meditation thing was tough since I hadn’t really ever been able to do it for more than a few days in a row before. But because I’m an all or nothing person, it made sense to jump in right away without thinking about it too much.

I’ve been using an app called Breathe for meditation and I’ve been liking it a lot. You do check ins before meditating and it will recommend different meditations for you. Most of the free ones are under 10 minutes long, which is perfect for me. The ones I was doing the most were between 2-5 minutes.

It wasn’t easy to start and I’ve had to adjust things to make it better for myself. Because of all the hip issues, I get fidgety when sitting still. So I can’t sit while meditating most of the time. Instead, I lay down on my bed and try to find a comfortable way to lay down before I start the app. Also, I had set reminders for myself to meditate with the idea that I would try to do some in the morning and some at night. The morning meditations never worked for me this past month. I’ve been doing them right before bed each night and I’m actually really liking that. Maybe one day I’ll try to add in morning ones, but for now I’m happy with adding something new to my bedtime ritual because it helps to signal to my body that it’s time to fall asleep.

After so many months in a row of awesome monthly challenges, it’s getting harder and harder to pick a new one. I actually started thinking about my July challenge halfway through June because I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to figure out. I had planned out a couple of ideas and tried to pick something that I knew I’d be able to be successful with (for example, saying I’ll have a binge free month is not really achievable at this point and I don’t want to set myself up for failure). In the end, I think I thought of something great for this month.

For July, I’m challenging myself to read 10 pages of an eating disorder recovery book every day. I’ve actually had monthly goals in the past to read an eating disorder recovery book, and I’ve never been successful at finishing one. I get distracted or want to read a fun book so I’d take a break and never came back to the book I started. For me, I’m usually able to start a book and finish it without breaks, but I just can’t seem to do that with eating disorder recovery books.

So if I set up a plan to only have to read 10 pages a day, I’ll still get to do my fun reading but I should be able to finish an entire book this month. I used to do this with personal development books when I used to be in an MLM type of job, but when I stopped working with that company that habit was dropped. But I think this is a perfect time to bring that back to my life and I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for me.

I’m happy with this challenge I’ve set up for July, but knowing how hard it is to come up with new challenges each month I think I need to start thinking about my August challenge now!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailAdjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness) Default ThumbnailThinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First) Default ThumbnailGetting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailAlmost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November)

1 Comment

Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Truly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations)

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 2 comments

I had been pretty excited going into this past week of workouts. I really do love Peak Performance Week (it’s so much better than Hell Week!). I track a lot of my workout accomplishments on my phone so I do know how I’m doing week to week. But for some reason Peak Performance Week brings out the competitive side of me and I really go for it! I’ve hit some amazing goals and PRs during past Peak Performance Weeks, and I knew that while I wasn’t going to hit that every day I was going to have an awesome week.

I really wanted to go to 4 workouts this past week, but my schedule didn’t allow for me to do that so I only got in 3 workout challenges (the one I was sad to miss was the same day as my therapist appointment). But I think that I really maximized the time that I was at Orangetheory and I really couldn’t be prouder of myself.

Monday was the 500 meter row challenge. We started our workout doing the challenge (so we wouldn’t be tired doing it later) so I was able to get my row done within the first 10 minutes of class. My goal time was to be able to get this done in under 2 minutes, and I really thought I might get there. I was going really fast on the rower and was pushing back really hard with my legs. But even with the effort I was putting in, I came up just a bit short of my goal.

500 Meter Row

I really set the bar high with hoping to be under 2 minutes, so I’m pretty happy with what I was able to get done. Plus, since I know Mondays are usually tough mornings for me, I knew that I might struggle a bit. But I was pretty happy with my endurance during the row and I think my time is a good one that I can work toward beating next time.

After the 500 meter row, our coach split our group up more evenly to do the rest of the workout. I ended up being in the group that had to start on the floor (I really don’t like that). The floor block ended up being very similar to Friday the week before. It was a long block that had a lot of arm and ab work and we also had to do some more rowing during it. For the treadmill, I only ran during the all out segments because I was feeling a bit tired in the second half of class and I didn’t want to overdo things too much (that’s when I hurt more).

Wednesdays class was pretty fun for me. My friend Dani was able to be in class (she’s missed a few weeks because of work) and my friend Amanda surprised me by being there too! That was pretty awesome and made me be in a really great mood for class. The challenge that day was weighted sit to stands on a Bosu ball for 1 minute. Unfortunately for me, I can’t do sit to stands really well. I can do it if I use my hands and flip over to stand up, but my hips don’t really bend that way right now. So I ended up doing weighted squats for that minute and was able to do 32 squats!

The workout was a strength day, so that meant all inclines on the treadmill. I didn’t end up doing any running for the treadmill time. I knew what was coming up on Friday and I wanted to make sure my legs were ready. But I was able to bring my inclines up on the treadmill higher than I have in a while and that’s a pretty great accomplishment for me! My calf hasn’t been hurting at all lately so I’m getting a bit braver with testing my inclines. I’m not ready to try running really at inclines yet, but to know I can walk at them again is pretty nice.

The floor work that day was nice. I was tired after all of the hill work that we had to do, so I was pretty happy to see that there was an entire block of floor work that was on the Bosu! A lot of that was laying on the ground, so my heart rate got to relax for a bit.

Friday was the big day for me! It was the 1 mile challenge and I was feeling super excited and nervous about it. I know that I just had a major PR recently with my mile time, so I wasn’t expecting anything huge to happen this time. But I did know that I was able to run faster and a bit longer than I did when I got that PR, so I figured I would be getting a faster time that day.

My original plan for my mile was to run for 45 seconds and then walk for 1 minute and just keep repeating it. That seems like a good pace idea for me and I was happy with the plan. When I started my mile challenge, I was feeling pretty good with my running so I decided to run for 1 minute and walk for 1 minute until that was tiring me out too much. I figured I could probably do that a couple of times and then I’d go down to running for 45 seconds at a time. But I was actually feeling pretty great. In fact, I was bumping up my speed on both my running and walking segments (running at 4.8 mph and walking at 3.7 mph).

We technically only had 13 minutes to finish the mile, and I knew there was no way I could finish that quickly. So I just figured that I would stay on the treadmill while everyone was walking to recover and hopefully I could keep going into the beginning of the floor block and nobody would need my treadmill (we were switching between blocks this day). At the 12 minute mark, I saw that I was killing it with my time and I decided to just go for it and hope that I could keep going. I started running at 5.0 mph and decided that I wasn’t going to stop until I hit the 1 mile mark. I was bumping my speed up a bit throughout the time and in that last effort I hit 2 big milestones. I ran at my fastest speed yet (5.3 mph) and for the longest time yet (1:50 without stopping). And it totally paid off in my mile time.

1 Mile Challenge

That’s a minute and 40 seconds faster than my mile last month! That’s insane! I pushed myself harder than I ever have and while I know that this speed and intensity could not be done for a 5K race yet, just knowing I can do a mile like this is incredible! I really want to work on my endurance and continuing to run for longer and longer blocks. I had set a goal for June to run for 90 seconds straight, and I ended up beating that by 20 seconds!

After that mile, I was beyond exhausted. I was very out of breath and had to sit down while the rest of the floor work was being explained. I even had to take a bit of time during the floor block to work on getting my heart rate back down and to stop breathing as hard as I was. The first floor block was 13 minutes long (so the other half of class had 13 minutes to do their mile challenges) and it focused a lot on arms and abs. I was really grateful for the ab work because that meant I was laying down on the floor. I’m glad it was a longish block because I was able to take my time and I know I was going pretty slowly.

After the longer floor block, we got back up to the treadmill for the last 2 blocks of cardio. I was walking during all of it and keeping my inclines a bit lower because I really was tired. My legs were a bit sore (not in pain, just sore) and I knew I had pushed myself maybe a bit harder than I should have so I wanted to be easy on myself. And when we were back on the floor, the final block was 2 1/2 minutes of arm work (biceps and triceps) and I was sitting or laying on the weight bench for the entire time.

Overall, I think that this Peak Performance Week went really well. While I didn’t beat old records every time, the records I did beat were pretty amazing. And I was pushing myself harder no matter what I was doing. That competitive feeling was really making me want to do better than ever and I think that I accomplished that.

I’m not sure when the next Peak Performance Week will be, but I know that all this time between now and then will be training to beat these records and to prove that I’m getting stronger, better, and faster every day.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard) Default ThumbnailNew Year New Challenges (or Getting Ready For Peak Performance) Default ThumbnailBase Pace Challenge (or Exceeding My Expectations) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Some PRs and Some Not-So-PRs) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max)

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Seeing My Therapist (or Building Habits)

Posted on June 23, 2016 | 2 comments

I saw my therapist earlier this week. This was the first time that I had seen him in 6 months because he has been feeling like I’ve been doing a pretty good job lately. So he trusted me to be ok with a 6 month gap between appointments but let me know that if anything changed I could see him sooner if I needed to.

I had been feeling pretty good about this appointment lately. After my interview for the audition recently, I have really realized how much progress has been made and I knew that my appointment would be filled with positive news.

I had brought a couple of things with me to my appointment. Usually, I bring my happiness checklist, but I’m now using an app to track that so I made sure my phone was charged so I could show him if he wanted to see it. I also brought my Spark Planner with me. I’ve been tracking so much stuff in there lately and I wanted it to remind myself of anything as well as proof to show him if he wanted to see it.

The first thing discussed in my appointment was how I was feeling about Vyvanse. I think I’m doing pretty well on it and there was only one minor concern about things. I’ve been taking my larger dose in the morning and smaller dose at lunch, but I feel like maybe those should be switched. There is more time between lunch and bedtime than there is between breakfast and lunch. And since I’m not having sleeping issues with Vyvanse, I’m not worried about a slightly larger dose at lunchtime. My therapist agreed with me completely and my new prescription bottles will reflect that (for now, I just take the afternoon medication in the morning and visa versa until I’m using my refill).

After that check in, we discussed how I’ve been doing with my happiness checklist and other things. I told him how I had been using an app for the checklist since it’s easier and I always have it with me, and I think his biggest surprise is that I’ve continued to keep it up. He wrote down the name of the app (HabitBull) so he can tell other patients as well, so that made me feel pretty awesome.

And then we talked about my Spark Planner. I told him how I had been tracking a lot of stuff in there this year and I was showing off the various sections of it. I showed him where I can track my annual goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals and I think he was impressed that there is such a big focus on goal setting. It’s good for me to have goals to reach toward, so the more I can focus and have to think about my goals the better.

But what my therapist was most impressed with were the monthly challenges that are within the Spark Planner.

30 Day Challenges

I showed him the monthly challenges I’ve been doing and let him know that I’ve basically had 100% success with keeping up each challenge even beyond the month that I set the challenge for (the only one that hasn’t been 100% has been weighing myself in because I can only do that at home and I was in Santa Barbara for Rayshell’s wedding without my scale). And I know that I can’t do 100% perfection with all challenges for the rest of my life, but even if I only keep them up part-time these are all good habits that I’ve been building and that’s just awesome.

And habit building is exactly what my therapist wants me to focus on over these next 6 months. The more I build positive habits in my life, the more likely that recovery from my eating disorder will become a positive habit eventually. While the individual habits are sometimes recovery related, even the non-recovery ones are helping me get into a better space in my life and to build my habit building muscles up so that I can use them for whatever I need to.

I knew when I bought my Spark Planner that it was going to be a good thing for me, but to know that my therapist thinks that this is what will help me get to recovery one day is amazing. I’m still figuring out what recovery really means to me (and that’s something I did discuss with my therapist), but I’m feeling even better that recovery is in my future one day.

At the end of my appointment, I felt incredible and on cloud 9. My therapist even said that in some ways, I’m doing better than he is and he needs to get better and doing some things like I’m doing now. For me, so much of my habit work is having something to remind me to do it. I have so many alarms/reminders set on my phone so I know to do something. If I didn’t have that, I would easily forget and that’s what life was like before. There’s no shame in needing to be reminded to do something, but for some reason I was not willing to do that before.

But now that I’m fine with the dozens of alarms on my phone, I’m making sure I’m getting my new habits done and I’m excited to see how I’ll be doing in 6 months when I see my therapist again.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Good Therapy Check In (or Focus On The Good) Default ThumbnailMay Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation) Default ThumbnailAn Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier) Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapist Check In (or Showing Off My Happiness Checklist) Default ThumbnailI’ve Made Progress (or I Think My Therapist Will Be Proud)

2 Comments

Posted in Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

May Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation)

Posted on June 1, 2016 | Comments Off on May Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation)

We are getting close to the halfway point of the year! I’ve been keeping up with using my Spark Planner and I’m loving it so much! It’s such a great accountability thing and I’ve found new ways to keep myself on top of the tasks I want to get done. There’s still a ton more I think I could do with my planner, but I figure that I can figure those out in time. If I don’t do it this year, there are many more years to come to make sure I do.

I had a lot of goals for May, and unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of them done. I got about half done this time. I did push myself to do a bit more (like wanting to try new recipes or to do more yoga at home) and I know I could have done the things I wanted to do if I had managed my time better. Time management is on my list of things to work on, but it didn’t quite happen in May.

But of the things I did get done in May, I’m happy with what I did! I did 15 workouts at Orangetheory, I went out to 2 dinners with friends, I cleaned out my closet (I had way too many workout clothes and tank tops), and I read a non-fiction book (I read “I Thought It Was Just Me” by Brene Brown).

I also had 100% success with my monthly challenge for May. I wanted to search the acting self-submitting sites every day. I set an alarm that went off on my computer and phone every day to remind me to look to self-submit. Most days, I would forget to do it until the alarm went off so it’s clear I needed an alarm for this task. I have no intention of getting rid of this plan, so my alarm is set to continue indefinitely. Every single challenge I’ve set for myself each month has been something that I’ve continued every day without fail. I know that won’t happen forever, but to know that I’ve gained 5 new positive daily habits so far is pretty amazing.

I’m definitely starting to struggle with what monthly challenges I want to do each month. There are a bunch of things I’d love to do, but I know I can’t do them for an entire month (at least not yet). I also want to focus more on adding things to my life rather than trying to avoid things in my life. I did have the one challenge to not order delivery food for the month (which I’ve kept up), but I didn’t feel as empowered by that as I did with others. Not doing something is much more passive than trying to do something every day.

After some thought for the past few days, I found what I want my June monthly challenge to be: I want to meditate every day in June. I’ve tried in the past to meditate, but it hasn’t stuck. I know it can take a month or so to create a habit, so making this my monthly challenge is perfect! I have 2 different meditation apps on my phone, but after checking out both apps a bit more this past week I think I’m going to focus on Stop, Breathe, and Think.

Meditation

The mediations on there are free (you can pay for some, but there are a bunch of free ones) and they all seem to be pretty short. I have 2 alarms set every day for this, one in the morning and one at night. I don’t know if I will like to meditate during one time more than the other, so I’m setting myself up for success either way. I have a bunch of friends who meditate and I’ve only heard positive things about it. It can help to keep my anxiety and panic down, and anything that has the potential to do that makes me pretty excited! Worst case scenario, I don’t love doing this every day and I don’t continue it after June. It’s only going to take a few minutes each day so it won’t be a time waste. But if I love it and it makes a ton of positive changes in my life? I’ve got to try this out seriously to make an informed decision on if meditation is right for me or not.

I’m still working on the rest of my June goals like how many workouts I want to do and maybe even setting a goal related to running! But for now, I’m excited that I’ve set up my monthly challenge and I’m ready to start!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailRecapping My June (or Still Thinking Up New Monthly Challenges) Default ThumbnailAlmost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November) Default ThumbnailReflection on April’s Challenge (and Looking At May’s) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailThe Artist’s Way Recap (or 12 Weeks Later)

Comments Off on May Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation)

Posted in Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged , ,

Major Progress (or I Can Run!)

Posted on May 30, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week might not have been my best week of workouts, but it was the best one in my mind. I had so much progress that week that I can’t believe it, and I’m terrified that somehow this week won’t be as good. But I’m going to try my absolute best to make sure that I keep making these giant steps forward!

Monday was a pretty typically workout. We had a mile by mile challenge which meant we did a mile on the treadmill and a mile on the rower (split into 4 parts). Since I’m a power walker, my treadmill segments were all .125 miles (instead of .25 miles) so I knew they would all be pretty fast. I was able to do all my treadmill segments at 3.7 miles an hour and at 6% incline, which is usually the speed I use for my all-outs. All of my rows were pretty fast too and I was able to keep them at about a minute or under. The floor work was a lot of lower body work, but I was able to use some good-sized weights like 20 pounds for squats and my upper body work with the pullovers was using the 25 pound weight (only one weight in my hands for that one). I was pretty happy with that workout especially with my treadmill times, but I had no idea how amazing the rest of the week was going to be.

Wednesday was a power day where we didn’t switch between blocks. During the 3 treadmill blocks, 2 of them were the same format. We had 5 minutes of work where it was 30 seconds of all-out and then 30 seconds of walking recovery repeated 5 times. The first time we had that 5 minute block, I worked on increasing my speed each time. I started at 3.6 miles an hour and worked my way up to 3.9 miles an hour by the 4th all-out. But on the 5th all-out of the block, I decided to run.

I’ve done basically no running in the last decade or more. I’ve been warned by hip surgeons that high impact stuff isn’t the best for me, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care anymore. I know that I will need double hip replacements in my life. My original surgeon was so sure that by this point in my life I would have needed at least one of them done. But I haven’t and from my last set of x-rays, I’m actually looking better than I did a year ago. If I’m going to have to have the replacements done no matter what, I might as well use my hips now before they get replaced. They are going to be replaced if I push myself or if I just sit on my butt. So I’ve decided to push myself.

So for that last 30 second all-out, I ran at 4.5 miles an hour. It felt so good to do that and my hips didn’t really hurt at all (the bottom of my feet did a bit, but that’s totally different). I was feeling so amazing after those 30 seconds that I decided to push myself even more on the next 5 minute block like that. For all 5 all-outs, I ran at 4.5 miles an hour! I had a tough time with my walking recovery and I sometimes had to jump the rails of the treadmill to catch my breath, but I did it! I was on such a high from actually running that the rest of the workout kind of was a blur for me. We had some sprint rows for 150 and 200 meters and some squats and lunges. The lunges were a bit tough for me because my legs were feeling a bit wobbly, but I was still not in any extra pain in my hips because of the running! This was seriously such a huge step for me because I had believed for so long that I would feel the pain I had felt before surgery when I tried to run. I never thought that it wouldn’t hurt me any more than walking does!

Friday I was still on a high from running, and I had another great opportunity to test it out! We did a 12 minute challenge on the treadmill for distance. Our coach, Bruce, was going to call out when to be at a push pace versus at a base pace during those 12 minutes, but we could also follow our own plan. Most of the time, I follow the coach. But I was on a mission and I knew I had to do my own thing. For the first 11 minutes of the challenge, I followed the same pattern: I ran at 4.5 miles an hour for 30 seconds and then I walked at 3.5 miles an hour for a minute to recover. I was feeling pretty awesome through most of those first 11 minutes. I occasionally had to jump on the rails to catch my breath, but it wasn’t because of any pain issues. I just have to work up my cardiovascular strength. After those first 11 minutes, I had a minute of walking to do if I followed my original plan. But instead, I walked for 30 seconds and then finished up with 30 seconds of running! This was the most running I’ve done in over a decade and it felt so freeing! I was exhausted after those 12 minutes, but I had gone farther in those 12 minutes than I had in a 13 minute challenge earlier this year!

12 Minutes Treadmill

For the rest of the treadmill time on Friday, I just did walking. Running is so new to me so I have to take it easy and I didn’t want to overdo things. On the floor, we had a bit of rowing (between 200-400 meters) and a lot of arms and chest work. For my arms I was using 20 pounds and for my chest I was using 25 pounds. My heart rate was staying pretty high during the weights, but I know that it was because of the running. I’m hoping my body can adjust soon enough to get back to a lower heart rate, but this is so new and my body needs time to get used to it.

On Saturday I tried to take things a bit easier. We had 2 blocks on cardio and then switched to the floor, and for my cardio I was on the bike. That’s my standard 4th workout of the week plan and I know my legs and hips needed a bit of a break from the running and walking. My heart rate stayed a little lower than I would have liked, but it was also a recovery day for me so that is to be expected.

Once we switched to the floor, the first block was a lot of upper body work. We did chest flies, squats with bicep curls, and triceps presses. I was working mainly with 20 or 15 pound weights (I tried to do as many bicep curls as I could at 20 pounds, but I had to finish my reps with 15 pounds each time). The second block was a lot of core work including work on the straps. We had single arm rows and rollouts on the straps and then finished our block with some crunches.

After we all completed those 4 blocks, we got back together for a partner challenge. Because of the number of people in class, I ended up being without a partner, but for this challenge it actually worked out ok. Basically, we were split between the treadmill and the rower and we went for 90 seconds. Then the teams with partners switched spots and the goal was to see how many meters between the 2 partners you could get on the rower. I wasn’t able to see how many meters I got because the rower reset for me while I wasn’t on it, but that’s ok. For the first treadmill round, I went back to the bike until I realized how short the treadmill blocks would be. So for the second and third round I was on the treadmill. For the second round, it was a 60 second push and a 30 second all-out. I did my push at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline and for the all-out I ran at 4.5 miles an hour. And the final round was 30 seconds of a push and 30 seconds of an all-out and I decided to see if I could run for an entire minute. So I was at 4.5 miles an hour (2% incline since runners didn’t have to have incline) for an entire minute! I can’t remember the last time I ran for an entire minute (easily over a decade ago) and it was amazing!

Over the weekend, I didn’t have any extra pain in my hips from the running. My quads were a bit sore, but that could have been from other work too. I’m not sure how I’ll keep up the plan to try to do a bit of running during each workout. This past week just worked out really nicely for me to bring a bit of running back and I want to see how much I can do. I have no plans to try to run my next 5K (which is about 5 months away), but if I can run/walk it that would be incredible! I could easily get a new PR if I did that. Hopefully I can find a great way to add bits of running into my treadmill workouts from now on and this momentum will just keep moving forward!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailGetting Closer To The Leaderboard (or I’m Almost In The Top 5) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailMaking Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout) Default ThumbnailProof Of My Progress (or I Am Doing Better) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Progress (or Olympic Workouts) Default ThumbnailSome Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

4 Comments

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

A Shorter Workout Week (or Trying To Go All Out)

Posted on May 16, 2016 | Comments Off on A Shorter Workout Week (or Trying To Go All Out)

This week I did 3 workouts. Since I’ve had a couple of 4 workout weeks back to back (and the Dri-Tri), I was happy to go a bit easier this week. My body was definitely feeling the 4 workout weeks, but even though I was in a bit more pain than usual this past week I didn’t take it too easy.

Monday’s workout was a power day that didn’t switch sides between blocks. I would have really liked to have switched between blocks because doing the 30 minutes straight on the treadmill isn’t the easiest thing for me, but I did the best that I could. We had short push to all out segments (that’s basically what cardio is like on power days). I really wanted to do well on the push to all out segments because these shorter ones are the times that I can try to bump up the speed, but my body wasn’t having it. In fact, I had to do some of the segments slower than normal (basically not increasing the speed for the all outs like I normally do).

While the cardio segment was a bit weaker than normal, I did some great work on the floor. For my pullovers, I was able to use 25 pounds and actually felt like I might have been able to do it with the 30 pound weight. But since the 30 pound weights aren’t kept over by the weight benches, I didn’t think to grab it to try it. But if I’m feeling this strong this week, I’m going to see about grabbing some of the bigger weights. My chest work was done with 20 pounds and my row work was done with 20 pounds until my arms got too tired and I downgraded to 15 pounds. And we did have some sprint rows of 200 meters, but that wasn’t a big deal to me since we had done 2000 meters at the Dri-Tri.

Wednesday was a fun day. It was an endurance run/row day. I didn’t get that far down the chart for the run/row, so I pretty much was doing .25 miles on the treadmill (at 6%) followed by 500 meter rows and then .2 miles on the treadmill followed by 400 meter rows. I think I did the first treadmill distance twice and the first row distance once (and the opposite for the second round). The rows were a bit longer than I usually like, but again I was trying to compare the distance to what I was doing at the Dri-Tri so I wasn’t feeling too bad. On the floor, we had some really long blocks. One of the toughest things we had to do was during one block between every move we had to do walk out push ups. You start standing up, then you walk your hands out until you are in a plank, then do a pushup, and finally walk your hands back to get back to the start. Those are not easy and my shoulders get really tired, but I didn’t give up and even did my push ups on my toes instead of my knees. We ended our floor block doing 3 minutes of abs using a medicine ball (I was using a 10 pound one).

After class on Wednesday, I took a quick photo with my friends Dani (who took class with me) and Polly (who was taking the next class).

Triple Buddy Challenge

The three of us are doing the triple buddy challenge that Orangetheory is doing right now (it actually ends on Wednesday this week). We aren’t going to win the challenge, but I still wanted to get a team picture. My two partners have pushed me to do more workouts than I was planning on doing and I worked extra hard because of them. Even though we aren’t going to win, I’m so proud of all of us and I hope there is another challenge coming up that we can be a team for again!

Friday’s workout was a Friday the 13th theme. It started out with a trick. Normally if you are warming up on the treadmill, you start with cardio. But after the warm up, all the treadmills were brought over to the floor and the rowers got on the treadmills. There were 8 blocks total (4 on the floor and 4 on cardio), but we switched after doing 2 blocks on each thing (so we did 2 on floor, 2 on cardio, 2 on floor, and finished with 2 on cardio). I really don’t like starting on the floor, but I tried my best and was just happy that we were switching so I wasn’t going to end my workout with 30 minutes straight on the treadmill.

On the floor, we did a lot of plank work (I’m starting to get back to being on my toes and not having my calf hurt too much), arms, and using the TRX straps to do rows. But we had an entire block dedicated to work on the Bosu. We did Bosu burpees and Bosu pushups (one hand on the floor and the other on the Bosu) back and forth for about 5 minutes. That block was crazy and I was so tired after we completed it! On the treadmill, 2 of the blocks were a run/row that included 13 in it. So we had 1:30 minute row, 1:30 all out on the treadmill at 13%, and 130 meter rows. The run/row was pretty short so my hips weren’t hurting too much. The rest of the treadmill was a lot of push to all outs with a bit of walking recovery. Despite the fact that I started on the floor, since the treadmill time was pretty limited my hips didn’t start to hurt until the last 5 minutes on the treadmill. I’m pretty grateful for that because I know that it can be a lot worse than that and my power walking can suffer when I hurt.

I could have added a 4th workout this past week, but I’m glad that I’m taking the time to recover and get ready for the week. I’m not sure if this week I’ll do 4 workouts or not, but I’ve got a really busy week and I know that the stronger I am the better I can get through my week!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailA Short Workout Week (or I Would Have Ended On A High Note) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailAnother Short Workout Week (or Still Can’t Believe My Milestone) Default ThumbnailA Shorter Workout Week (or Doing Some 5K Prep)

Comments Off on A Shorter Workout Week (or Trying To Go All Out)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

My First Dri-Tri (or Beating My Expectations)

Posted on May 10, 2016 | 6 comments

As I mentioned yesterday, I did the Dri-Tri at Orangetheory this past Saturday. I have wanted to do the Dri-Tri a couple of times before, but they have always been on days that I couldn’t do it for one reason or another. I don’t do a ton of fitness events (mainly just my 5Ks), so to have something to train for and challenge myself with sounded awesome to me.

All the coaches at Orangetheory have been upfront about what exactly the Dri-Tri is. It’s a 2,000 meter row, 300 body weight exercises, and a 5K. For power walkers, you only have to do a half 5K but everything else is the same. And I’ve done all of those elements before. Technically I don’t know if I’ve ever done 300 body weight exercises in a row, but I figured that since it should take me a similar amount of time to finish as it takes to do a class it wouldn’t be that much worse than a class. I’ve done a 2,000 meter row and I’ve done a 5K (and I only had to do half of one), so I wasn’t too worried. But of course, the nerves just got worse every day leading up to the Dri-Tri.

The day of the event, I had to work in the morning (my heat wasn’t until 1:45pm) and I had found the perfect shirt to wear earlier that week.

Strong

There’s actually a workout shirt sold by Old Navy that has my word of the year on it! So of course I had to get it and I figured the Dri-Tri was the perfect opportunity to wear it!

When I got to Orangetheory that afternoon, they had our names on the treadmills and floor stations so there was no confusion on where we needed to go (and I was glad that I got one of my favorite treadmills). There were 12 of us in the heat (they have to keep it small so we all have our own stations) and we started with a group stretch and instructions on how the event would go. We had all the floor work demoed for us and there was only 1 thing that I couldn’t do because of my hip. I got my alternative given to me before we started so I felt pretty ready to go when we were going to start as a group.

Our first event was the 2,000 meter row. I’ve done that distance a couple of times in the past and I know that I can do it in under 10 minutes. But 10 minutes on the row is a long time and I knew it was going to be tough to get through it. I didn’t pay attention to the clock or the distance countdown and just looked at the treadmill in front of me and tried to get into a different head space. People were done with their rows starting at about 6 minutes in and I just kept trying to focus on not stopping. I’m happy to say that I only had to stop one time (the straps for my feet were getting loose so I had to stop and tighten them). And even though I was the last person off of the rower by about a minute and it took me over 10 minutes to get it done, I did it and was happy to say good riddance to the rower for the day.

I knew the floor work wasn’t going to be easy, but I really wasn’t prepared for how tough it was going to be for me. The floor work consisted of pushups (I did mine on my knees), burpees, step ups (I did lunges instead), hop overs, plank jacks, and squats. Each thing was a lot of reps (I think the smallest number was 20) and after we did the cycle one time we had to go back to the beginning and do it again to make it 300 body weight exercises. The pushups were fine and the squats were tough but not unbearable. But the burpees were pretty bad. My hips were starting to lock up and I was feeling a bit dizzy from going from standing to on the ground a lot. But I took breaks when I needed them and once I made it through the first round I knew I was half way through the floor.

The second round on the floor felt like it took so much longer than the first, but I also knew where I was going to hurt and I took a few more water breaks (and catching my breath breaks) than I did the first time. By the time I had finished it and moved on to the treadmill, I was one of the last people on the floor and I felt like I had already done more than a normal class. But I knew I still had 1.55 miles to go on the treadmill and the sooner I started it the sooner I would finish!

The treadmill sucked. There’s no other way to say it. It was pretty awful. My hips were in so much pain and I knew that there was a good chance this would happen. After doing floor work, my hips don’t always seem to be right so walking can hurt. But since I had to do things in the order of the Dri-Tri, I had to do the treadmill last. I originally thought I’d try to start the treadmill at 3.5 miles an hour, but after less than a minute I realized that was not a good plan. I pretty much did the entire 1.55 miles at 3.4 miles an hour and 6% incline. I had to take breaks every .1 miles or so to press on my hips (that helps to relive the pain), drink some water, and catch my breath.

After being on the treadmill for a few minutes, the first Dri-Tri finisher finished their 5K. People started to finish pretty close together and I was maybe only halfway through my 1.55 miles. By the time I was getting close to the end of my treadmill time, there were only 3 of us left (I was the only power walker in the entire group). I finished by 1.55 miles in a little more than 27 minutes and as soon as I was done I was ready to sit on the treadmill to rest. I knew I couldn’t do that so I stood up and worked on catching my breath and drinking more water. Eventually I sat down on a rower I watched everyone else finish.

My time for the event ended up being 52:40, which is much better than the hour I was expecting it to take me. I really had no clue how long I had been working when I was done (there was a clock on the heart rate screen but I forgot to look when I finished). I knew that it was under an hour, but I had no idea I could have done it in under 53 minutes. That’s pretty amazing and I think it’s a good time for my first every Dri-Tri.

Finisher

We all waited for the last people to finish their 5Ks on the treadmill and it was really great to cheer everyone on. At every stage we were being cheered on and when we were on the treadmills everyone was cheering for each person (it’s not easy to cheer on the rowers or floor). And as the last person was finishing their run, we were all clapping and cheering for them and they had such a huge smile on their face as they finished. It was such a wonderfully supportive room and I feel so lucky that I got to be a part of that experience.

Dri-Tri

They try to do the Dri-Tris at Orangetheory 2 or 3 times a year, so hopefully this is just the first of many for me. As long as I don’t have a conflict that I can’t get out of, I know I’ll be at the next one. It’s a struggle and challenge to do, but I like having things to work toward and now I just want to beat my time of 52:40 so I can say I have a PR!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailA Shorter Workout Week (or Trying To Go All Out) Default ThumbnailA Full Workout Week (or Sticking With My Plan) Default ThumbnailMore Running! (or Gaining Endurance) Default ThumbnailDri-Tri Time (or Beating My Own Records) Default ThumbnailTruly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations)

6 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Reflection on April’s Challenge (and Looking At May’s)

Posted on May 4, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve been keeping up with the monthly challenges with my Spark Planner. Even though I do weekly and monthly goals in the planner, the monthly challenges are nice because they are something I want to do every day and for each of them (100% accurate food tracking, daily gratitude lists, and no ordering delivery food), I’ve been able to maintain those habits since then. I’m sure that eventually I will not be doing everything 100% perfect, but it’s nice to know that I’ve added some great daily habits into my life that I’m keeping up.

For April’s challenge, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I eventually settled on doing daily weigh-ins. I have such a love/hate relationship with my scale and tracking weight can be so emotional for me because it’s a black and white status. If I gained 6 pounds because I ate something really salty, it upset me and any weight tracking things I used made it look so horrible.

So once I knew that I would have this as my challenge, I looked for a new way to track my weight. Weighing in every day is great, but if I don’t keep records then there is no point of doing it. After searching in the app store, I came across Happy Scale. You still track your weight similar to any other app, but in the tracking it shows trends versus just the current number. So if you are overall down 10 pounds but you happen to gain a pound, it will still have a line headed down. It also shows you what you will weigh by a certain time based on the trend that you are currently on. This app really helped me to focus on the overall view and not just pinpointing this particular moment.

As far as my monthly challenge goes, I wasn’t 100% this time. I didn’t bring my scale with me to Santa Barbara, so on Sunday and Monday that week I didn’t weigh in. But every single day beyond those I weighed in (I set an alarm to remind myself but I didn’t really need it). I’m fine that it wasn’t 100%, and now I’m trying to figure out how I want to continue in the future. I don’t know if I love the idea of daily weigh-ins, but I don’t know if weekly ones are good enough if I’m tracking a trend. I’m going to play with the frequency of the weigh-ins and I feel really confident that I will find a happy medium.

For my May challenge, I decided to change things up a bit. Most of my challenges have been related to my health or eating disorder recovery. I love that I’m making great strides in that, but I also want to improve other aspects of my life. And one thing that I feel has been falling behind is my acting career. I’ve had some great things so far this year with the short film I helped a friend with and the new short film that I’ll be starring in (don’t forget to donate to our Kickstarter!).

But I know there is so much more that I can do. And I can’t think that my agents will do 100% of the work for me. I need to be proactive and work on finding great parts to audition for as well. So for May, I’ve set my challenge to search the various self-submission acting sites every single day. I can’t guarantee that every day I will submit myself for something because there isn’t always something that matches me. But every day I will check to make sure. I used to be really great at doing this, but lately I’ve been slacking.

I’ve set an alarm to go off every single day to remind me to look on the self-submission sites. It does come in handy to have the alarm because it’s so easy to forget. But this way my phone (and computer) will keep reminding me until I click that the task is complete. So far, it’s been pretty easy to remember to self-submit but I know there will be days that I completely forget until the alarm goes off. But that’s exactly why I have the alarm and there’s no shame in needing to be reminded to do something.

Hopefully out of doing self-submissions checks every day, I’ll get some more auditions this month. Getting auditions isn’t something I can control, so I’m not focusing on the results (just the action). But having results would be awesome and I know that every opportunity I have to audition is another day that I get to live my dream and be closer to my dream career.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailDecember Monthly Challenge (or Wrapping Up For The Year) Default ThumbnailEnding My Challenge Early (or I Guess I Made A Mistake) Default ThumbnailReflection (or I’m Totally Living My Dream) Default ThumbnailGetting Weighed In (or A New Orangetheory Challenge) Default ThumbnailAttempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge)

1 Comment

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

Tagged , , , , ,

Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

Posted on May 2, 2016 | Comments Off on Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

I had a 4 workout week this past week. I totally needed a 4 workout week (it was actually the only 4 workout week I had for April), but I think that some of my activities on my off days (or before my workouts) made it seem a bit tougher than it usually feels. Of course, I also might have felt it more because it had been way too long since my last 4 workout week and I’ve learned that I need to make sure that I’m doing them more often so I don’t get out of the habit of it.

I think my Monday workout went pretty well. It was a day that had endurance, strength, and power and those can be really fun. It was a switch day, so I was never on the treadmill for that long at a single stretch. The endurance block was full of longer push paces, but those weren’t too bad for me. The one treadmill thing that got to me was the strength section. Strength on the treadmill means hills and sometimes the power walkers are expected to go much higher on the incline than I’m ok with right now (I’m wondering if my calf will ever feel back to normal again). I tried my best, but I’m really not ok going above 8% (or on really good days 10%) on the treadmill. So I had to keep my inclines lower than I would have liked, but I tried to bump up the speed when I could.

The floor work wasn’t too bad, but my body wasn’t loving the pop jacks or knee tucks. Knee tucks are much easier for me, but they can be a struggle when I’m tired or my hip is feeling ready to be done. But what I liked the best about this workout was that the end was the endurance block that was a partner challenge. So I felt extra motivated then because I had a partner counting on me and the treadmill part of the partner workout was a 1 minute push to all-out on the treadmill so it was pretty fast.

Wednesday was a tough day for me at first. I had gone to Disneyland after the workout on Monday, and I might have overdone it a bit with the walking after a workout. Tuesday I was really sore and Wednesday I was still feeling a bit off. I tried to do some stretching work to make my legs and hip feel better, but when I’m having an off day sometimes there is nothing I can do to make it better. So when I got to the workout, I was happy to see that it was a run/row day. All the treadmill blocks were pretty short (I think the longest I was on the treadmill at a time was under 4 minutes), and the rowing wasn’t too bad. The rows were between 100-200 meters each time, so that was basically under a minute of rowing. I tried to take a moment between the treadmill and the rower to catch my breath and make sure I wasn’t pushing my hip too much. I think I did ok with that because when I got to the floor block, it went really well for me!

I was doing my squats with 20 pound weights in each hand and managed to do all my arm work with the same weights! I’m getting close to being able to move to 25 pound weights for my chest presses (somehow that is where my upper body is strongest), but I’m still doing great with 20 pounds and the last few moves of each set can be a struggle. But knowing that I’m getting close to moving up to the next weight makes me feel pretty awesome. We also had lunge work to do that day, but I wasn’t able to do my lunges how we were supposed to (with our back leg on the weight bench). So I did my regular lunges instead and didn’t feel too bad about it because I was feeling so great about the weight work I had already done.

Friday was an interesting day. Before the workout, I had put a challenge out online that for every donor we get on the film Kickstarter, I would do a burpee before the class. I really was hoping we’d get a bunch of donors, but we only got 2. But then again, that meant I only had to do 2 burpees. I’m not the prettiest doing burpees because of the hip issues, but since I was filming this to share online I tried to look awesome doing them. Sadly, trying to look awesome also made both of my hips hurt so badly (even with only doing 2 burpees), so I was already feeling a bit sore before the workout even started.

Friday was a solid 30 minutes on the treadmill to start. We had a couple of 2 minute pushes, and those felt like 3 minutes or more to me. But I managed to get through it. When we had to do hills, I had to keep them pretty low (I basically stayed at 6%), but I did bump up my speed to balance it out. On the floor, I got to use the 20 pound weights again for my chest and arm work and we had some shorter rows. By the end of the workout, my hips were feeling a bit better than they did right after those 2 burpees (I’m so grateful the workout didn’t have any burpees in it!). But even though I was feeling a bit better, I knew that Saturday was going to have to be a bit of an easier day for me.

Saturday I was using the bike instead of the treadmill. The cardio blocks were back to back so I was on the bike for 30 minutes straight. It technically wasn’t a distance challenge day, but we were given a distance to try to get to in class. The runners on the treadmill were supposed to do a 5K (3.1 miles) or better in the 30 minutes, so I figured on the bike I should try to go 12 miles since for run/row days the bike has to do 4 times the distance of the treadmills. We had a lot of long pushes between the treadmill blocks. It seemed like a majority of them were between 2 or 3 minutes and I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the blocks. But once we were told to switch to the floor, my distance on the bike was 12.1 miles, so I was pretty happy about that.

The floor work was a lot of should work and we had some longer rows too. One block was an 800 meter row and the other was a 400 meter row. I managed to do both without having to take a break, but it wasn’t easy. And I was under the time that we were supposed to be under for the rower, so that was pretty awesome. At the end of each floor block, we had a 1 minute plank challenge. I still have to do planks on my knees (on my toes hurts my calf), but being on my knees also allows me to focus much better on my form. I could feel the planks in my core a lot, but I was able to keep going for the entire minute both times.

This week, I know I’ll be doing 3 regular workouts. There is also a dri-tri on Saturday that I’m debating about doing. I know I’ve felt left out in the past when I didn’t do the dri-tri, and I think that maybe I should just push myself to do it. But I also somehow don’t feel ready for it yet. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I will have a decision made on whether or not I will go for it. This dri-tri is the preliminary for the regional dri-tri, but since I know that I will not be a contender for representing my studio if I do it my focus will only be to finish and not to beat anyone else. I know that if I do it, the chances of me being the last person to finish is really high, but if I go for it I think finishing is the only goal that I’ll have in my head.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Full Workout Week (or Sticking With My Plan) Default ThumbnailAn Up And Down Workout Week (or I Love Having Workout Buddies) Default ThumbnailAnother Weird Workout Week (or Dealing With A Different Type Of Nausea) Default ThumbnailAn Emotional Workout Week (or Just Making It Through) Default ThumbnailTough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts) Default ThumbnailBeing Patient With Myself (or Being Ok With A 3 Workout Week)

Comments Off on Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Proof Of My Progress (or I Am Doing Better)

Posted on April 25, 2016 | Comments Off on Proof Of My Progress (or I Am Doing Better)

I had a really amazing week of workouts this past week. I wasn’t expecting it to be awesome, but it really was one of those weeks that I wish would happen every single week. I lucked out in the workouts that I went to and I think that also helped to make my week the best one that I can remember in recent past.

Part of the reason why this week was so great was that I had 2 days where it was similar to the run/row format (which I love and makes me so happy). Monday technically wasn’t a run/row. It was a run/floor day. So basically we had an assigned distance on the treadmill (I was doing a quarter-mile at 6% incline) and then I headed over to the floor to do my floor work. The floor stuff was mainly ab work, so it felt nice to get a bit of a rest on the floor after being on the treadmill. We repeated that format for the first half of class before we headed to the rowers.

The rower segment was longish rows (800 meters) followed by arm work and sprint rows. The longer rows were a bit tough for me and I was really tired when I was doing the sprint rows. I tried to focus on technique and form so I know my rows were a lot slower than they should have been. But since that was the second half of the workout, I expected that I’d be pretty tired and it wouldn’t be as easy as if I had done the rowing first.

Wednesday was a pretty traditional run/row day. The one thing that was special and that I loved was that the run/row plan was printed out and taped to each treadmill.

Run:Row Guide

Normally the plan is on a whiteboard on the side of the room and I end up wasting time trying to read it (or walking over to read it if it’s too blurry or there is a glare). So having the plan on my treadmill helped me save time and kept me on track.

The basic format for the run/row for power walkers was that we started with a .08 mile power walk and then did a 100 meter row. Each round, we increased the treadmill by .05 miles and the row by 100 meters. I was trying to keep my walks at 6% incline and 3.5 miles an hour for each one. I wasn’t feeling my usual pain that day and I’m not sure if it was because it was a run/row day (so less time on the treadmill than normal) or it was because I started taking a new supplement for my hips. But it was nice to not hurt and to have a good cardio day. The floor work was a lot of TRX strap work and that seemed to go pretty well for me as well.

Even though each day was awesome, the most amazing day for me was Friday. I knew before going to the workout that it would be a 22 1/2 minute run for distance thanks to friends who had posted workout pictures on Instagram or Facebook after they did the workout in the morning. We had done the same challenge last month, so I had a goal in my head to just do a little bit better than I did then.

Since my treadmill work on Wednesday had gone so well, I decided to see if I could bump things up a bit on Friday. I followed the coach’s instructions for when we should be doing a push pace and when we should be at base pace (we had the option of doing whatever we wanted to get the best distance, but I wanted to follow the plan), but I went faster for both my push and base paces than usual. My base pace was at 3.5 miles an hour and my push pace was 3.6 miles an hour. We had a couple of really long push paces (3 minutes, 2 1/2 minutes, and 2 minutes) and those were really difficult with the increased speed.

But somehow I was getting through it and halfway through the challenge I realized that I will definitely be passing the distance I did the last month. I wanted to see if I could do 1.35 miles and by the last minute I knew it would be close. So for the final 30 seconds of the challenge, I actually ran on the treadmill which I’ve never done before! I was still holding on to the handles, but I was still running! I easily did better than I did last time (which was 1.303 miles), but I was just off a bit from my new goal.

22.5 Minute Run

This challenge was exactly what I needed. I had been feeling a bit down since my last 5K. I really thought I had been making progress lately. And even though I said I didn’t think I would PR at my 5K, in my head I was thinking there would be no way I wouldn’t PR. So when my 5K was one of my slower races, I was really feeling upset. I couldn’t believe that I was so wrong in making progress in my speed and I was questioning if I was just taking it too easy at Orangetheory. So having this challenge and showing that in 1 month I had gone .046 farther than last time gave me such a confidence boost and gave me faith again in myself.

The rest of my Friday workout was a bit of a blur for me since I was on such a high from my awesome progress on the 22 1/2 minute challenge. We did a bunch of squats and had some sprint rows. But to me, all I could think about is how all my self-doubt was for nothing because there is no doubt that I’m making progress.

I’m now also debating about trying running again. I did a tiny distance of running at my last 5K (just the bit leading up to the finish line) and now I did the 30 seconds of running on the treadmill. I had done a bit of running before I had my hip surgery, but I have been too scared to try it again. The hip surgeon I met last week gave me so much good feedback about how my hips are looking pretty good and workout restrictions weren’t even discussed. I’m not going to try to do most of the things that were on the restrictions list (I know it’s way too risky to try ice skating or skiing right now), but I might test out running.

I’ve downloaded the Couch to 5K app for my phone and I’m hoping to find a friend who will want to do it with me. I’m not sure when I’ll try my first running day, but I think it will be in the near future. Until then, I might try running again on the treadmill at Orangetheory (maybe just during the all-out moments) just to see how I feel. I don’t want this boost in confidence to go away any time soon. It’s just so amazing!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailGuess I Motivated Myself (or No More Feeling Stuck) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Progress (or Olympic Workouts) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default ThumbnailMajor Progress (or I Can Run!) Default ThumbnailTaking A Run Class (or Proof I’m Faster and Stronger)

Comments Off on Proof Of My Progress (or I Am Doing Better)

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,