Posted onJanuary 9, 2020|Comments Off on Thinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First)
I’m only 9 days into the month, but I’m already rethinking the monthly challenge that I set for January. I said that I wanted to have all my reading this month be self-help or self-improvement books. This challenge was something I chose because I realized I was behind in my more serious reading because I was enjoying my fun reading too much. I have gotten books that I know I need to read because they will teach me something I need to know but I just kept putting it off. I didn’t want to have that excuse anymore and I wanted to get through my book list. I knew I probably had enough to read for the month, but I also thought maybe this challenge would help me find more self-help books that I should read.
I really thought this would be a great challenge for me. I knew it might not be easy because I do like to have some fluff reading in my life, but the idea of a challenge is to push myself. And I thought this would be a good push and that I would be able to do it.
But 9 days later, I’m thinking that this might not have been the best challenge for me.
Reading has always been one of the ways I relax and escape. I love getting lost in a good book and getting sucked into a story. It’s something I do every night when I’m getting ready to go to bed. And even though I can read something serious or intense when winding down for the night, it’s not the only thing I want to read. I need to have some of that entertainment and escape from time to time. Sometimes I have a stressful day and all I want to do before going to sleep is to have something easy to read that will calm me down a bit.
And I have had some of those stressful days the past few days. It’s nothing horrible, but I haven’t been calm and relaxed when I was trying to sleep. And I continued to read the self-help book that I started this month as my bedtime reading, but it just was starting to stress me out a bit more. The book isn’t about anything crazy, but it is something that is making me think a lot and that keeps me up later when I already can’t quiet my mind about everything I dealt with during the day. I pushed through when I could, but on Tuesday night I had a bit a breakdown and realized I just needed to switch up my books and read some fluff.
And honestly, reading that fluff that night was exactly what I needed to do. I was able to be a lot calmer as I fell asleep and I slept a lot better that night. I know that things haven’t been completely normal for me lately, but I still felt so guilty that I had already failed my monthly challenge. I hate knowing that I won’t be able to be successful in what I set out to do.
And I let that feeling sit with me for a day before I realized that I didn’t have to make this challenge a fail. I could change what the challenge would be. There’s nothing that says I can’t change the challenge if I realize that this isn’t going to work for me. And this might be a good opportunity to change it to fit what I need the challenge to be. I’m still playing around with what I would want the new version of the challenge to be, but I’m thinking about making a list of the top 3 or 4 self-help books that I want to read this month and making the challenge completing the list. I’m not sure that’s what I want the new challenge to be, but it gives me a starting point for reworking it.
I’m glad that I was able to change my mindset and not think of this as a failure of my monthly challenge but an opportunity to find a better way to challenge myself. But it still bugs me a bit that I wanted to push myself to do something that I knew would be hard and I wasn’t able to do it. I know I’m very competitive with myself and that’s probably something I need to work on. But I can’t help thinking that I can accomplish any goals that are within my control. But I guess it’s a sign of growth that even though I have those feelings that I was still able to reframe it and make the situation a bit more positive.
I’m going to take the rest of this week to figure out what my new version of the monthly challenge will be, but I probably won’t be posting about it again until I do my challenge recap. I don’t think I will need to change it more than once, but I also want to give myself permission to do that if I need to.
Posted onJanuary 3, 2020|Comments Off on First Monthly Challenge Of The Year (or Setting Up For The Year And Self-Improvement)
As I have done for several years, I am using a Volt Planner to work on my goal setting for the year. And that includes the monthly challenges that I’ve been doing every year I’ve had the planner. When I started using it, I think I was a bit more successful with the monthly challenges. Maybe I was doing easier challenges or maybe it was the novelty of it. But in the past year or so, I haven’t been completing them as much as I used to. I don’t know what I can do to change that, but I’m going to try hard to pick challenges that push me but are doable.
And my challenge for December was one that I was able to be successful with. I wanted to spend my month getting prepared for this year. A lot of that meant getting organized because I know a cluttered space makes things more chaotic for me. I did get a lot of organizing done with different spaces in my house. It’s not a completed project, but it’s significantly better than it was before. I also wanted to be in a better mental place for the new year and I feel like I was finally able to release some negative feelings and people from my life. I didn’t do anything special to do that, but I did make a focus on why I was dealing with those feelings and somehow they faded away. Maybe I just needed to acknowledge them and that allowed my brain to know they were there and I didn’t have to think about it more. I still have a few things that bring me down that I want to let go, but just like my organizing, it is a work in progress. But the most important thing is that I got started on the right path and I know it will be better for me.
Going along with the idea of being ready for the year and in a better mental place, my January challenge will be another one that hopefully will put me in a better space. My challenge for this month is to only read self-help and self-improvement books. I usually do a mix of self-help/improvement books with fiction or fluff books. Lately, I’ve been neglecting the non-fiction books and I’ve just been reading things that make me happy or are an escape. But I want to get back into the habit of changing up what I read and I want to catch up on books that I’ve been putting off.
I have several books on my Kindle that are self-help/improvement ones that I bought when they were super cheap and told myself that I would read them soon. So I already have lots of books to choose from. I don’t know if I have enough to read to get through the entire month, but if I need more I know I can get some e-books from the library. I have been putting some books on my wishlist that would be good options. I usually buy these books instead of getting them from the library because I like to take my time reading them. But I think that reasoning isn’t the best one. I can always get something from the library to make sure I like it and then if I want more time with it I can buy it. My book purchasing habit is significantly less than it was before, but I do want to find more ways to save and this is one way. Fortunately, I’m pretty sure all the books I bought are ones that I will like so I’m not too worried that I wasted money.
Since I read every day, I know I’ll get a lot of reading done this month. And since I will only be reading books that fit into this challenge, I feel very good that I can be successful at it. I will need to resist the temptation to read something silly as a break, but maybe I can find a self-help/improvement book that isn’t as serious or intense to read if I need that mental break. But challenging myself to not go easy on me is a part of this challenge that I want to try to do. I know that I can try to do something hard but I want to prove that I can complete what I set out to do. And hopefully, that will give me the boost I need to keep pushing through future challenges if they seem too hard to do.
I’m excited to work through this challenge this month. Not just for proving to myself that I can do it, but also to see what I will learn from what I read. I know that I will learn something from every book I read even if it’s not exactly the perfect book for me or my situation. And those things I learn can only benefit me in my life.
Posted onDecember 3, 2019|Comments Off on I Actually Wrote A Book! (or Getting Myself Ready For 2020)
Last month, I did a repeat monthly challenge. I’ve attempted to write my book about online dating for several years now and I’ve never been able to complete that challenge. I knew going into it this past month that even if I complete the challenge it doesn’t necessarily mean that I finish a book. But I wanted to see what I could get done and I was hoping it would be better than my pastattempts.
I had changed what my book was going to be about when I thought about it earlier this year. Instead of just telling stories about dates I went on and guys I met, I wanted to organize it into lessons I’ve learned through dating. This allowed me to work on the book without figuring out where things were going or needing to have an ending to it. This book has the potential to be a work in progress with new chapters for a while, so I didn’t want to have to feel like I needed a way to wrap things up. And by making it more about life lessons got me into that mindset.
I was following the NaNoWriMo plan again this year as I had in the past. I knew that I might have some days where I wrote more words than I needed to and other days would be fewer words. My goal was to work on one lesson (or one chapter) a day. And while I had done a lot of research and planning, I knew I would need to plan more lessons during the month because I wasn’t going to have enough. It wasn’t always easy, but I figured out how to split things up differently and new lessons to add so I had enough to work on one a day. And on Saturday, the last day of the month, I made it to the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000 words!
Writing this book ended up being very therapeutic for me. I had to work through some things that I didn’t realize I wasn’t completely over. I had to revisit some moments that are not positive or that I am ashamed or embarrassed about. I had to be brutally honest with myself as I wrote things because I’m not always the hero of the story. Every day that I worked on the book, new emotions came up but at the same time, I found new peace with some things as well. I didn’t realize how much I needed to write this book for me.
Since I know this is still a work in progress, I don’t want to say that I finished a book. There are still things that may change about it, but I have a full draft of the book as of right now. And I want to start working on the editing process on the chapters I have completed so far. I have several friends who have offered to read it, but I don’t know if I’m ready for that just yet. I can do some editing on my own first and that’s what I plan on doing. Hopefully, soon I will feel ready to share it with some friends for some feedback and editing. And then after that, I can do some more research on what it would take to get my book published in the future.
For this month, I wanted to do another reflective monthly challenge. Not only is this the last month of the year, but it’s also the last month of the decade. That seems monumental and made me think about how I started this decade. I was in the middle of a lot of change and it was a very chaotic time for me. This decade hasn’t always been the best, but I think that I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in with my life so far. And I want to continue doing that into the next decade (and beyond).
So my plan for this month is to spend the time preparing to kick off the new year and new decade as my best self. I want to work on being in the best place I can mentally and working toward the best place physically. And some of the mental work includes working on my physical space, which is something I have been working on lately. I’ve been cleaning up my house and getting it more organized. I’ve been working on finding new ways to store things so my space doesn’t feel as cluttered. It’s been a process, but I’m feeling much better about how my house looks now.
I need to do some serious organizing work with my kitchen and it feels right to do that before the new year. I want to find ways to use my kitchen more and more efficiently. I also have a plan to do some food reaction testing soon and I need to have my kitchen in a good place to do that the best I can. I’m also looking at other things around my house that I want to change because I have lived here for almost 10 years now and some things are things I got when I moved here. I think updating my space after 10 years seems right.
I’m so excited that I’ve finished my first draft of my book (so far) and that I’m in such a good headspace for the new year. Now, I just want to make sure I’m continuing to work on those things so I can kick of 2020 with a bang!
Posted onNovember 4, 2019|Comments Off on Finishing Hell Week (or Fires and Being Tired)
This past week of workouts was the end of Hell Week. I was sad that I didn’t work out on Halloween since it’s always fun to work out in costume, but I couldn’t make that work with my schedule. Hell Week was hard and the workouts after it were hard from not getting enough sleep, so it felt like a full week of Hell Week workouts.
Monday’s workout was my 4th Hell Week class. This one was called Us. But even before getting to my workout, things were crazy. We have been having fires here lately, but they usually aren’t too close to my house. But I woke up on Monday morning and saw that there was one much closer. And the evacuation area was very close to Orangetheory. Looking at a map, I realized it was still a few blocks away from where they were requiring people to evacuate and the fire wasn’t too close.
I called the studio to confirm they were still open, and when I got there I saw all the smoke in the air.
A lot of people weren’t in class because they were evacuated in the middle of the night. Our workout coach had been evacuated, but his family was safe and he was still going to coach class. The mood was weird in the room, but I’m glad that we all were there and worked out since there wasn’t anything we could do about the fires.
The workout was a 3 group format even though we only had 2 groups in class. The cardio and floor switched back and forth every 3 1/2 minutes and it was the same format every time we were on cardio or floor. Cardio was always a 3-minute push pace to a 30-second all out. And the floor had hip hinge swings, low rows on the straps, overhead tricep extensions, and single-arm snatches. We had to remember where we stopped on the floor each time we switched and we picked back up where we left off. Because of all the switching we did, I was grateful we didn’t have a full class. It helped to keep things calm and that was needed that morning.
And on the rower, it was simple. We had a 13 1/2 minute row. That’s it. I’ve had a 2 group Hell Week workout where it was a 23-minute row and I’ve had long rows since then. But this time the row was the very last thing I did in class. I would have loved to have rowed the entire time without breaks, but I did need to take some breaks from time to time to either drink some water or tighten the straps on the footplates. We were told to try to keep our split times under 2:30, and except when I was starting back up after a break, I usually was around 2:27. I didn’t get as far as I had hoped to because of the breaks I took, but I still rowed over 2500 meters and that’s a lot!
Wednesday’s workout was the last Hell Week class for me. This one was called Psycho. It wasn’t the hardest workout I’ve done, but it was still a good ending for Hell Week. But what did make it challenging was that we were switching back and forth between cardio and the rower a lot.
This one isn’t the easiest to explain, but basically we did an all out on cardio and then switched to do the all out on the rower. And we went back and forth during the block. When I was starting the block on the rower, it was the same thing with switching each all out. It wasn’t a lot of work, but it was a lot of movement (if that makes sense).
On the floor, we mainly had lower body work. We had burpees, hip hinge low rows, sumo squats with upright rows, regular squats, and full thrusters. I tried to go heavy with the weights when I could, but it wasn’t easy because the exercises weren’t easy.
But even without going super hard, I still completed the Hell Week challenge! I will be getting my Hell Week shirt soon (there was a mixup with the order so most of us get our shirts in a week or so), and all I wanted was to earn my shirt so I’m happy.
Friday’s workout wasn’t a Hell Week class, but it still was tough. I slept horribly the night before and that really made me sluggish in the workout. It is also the start of a rowing focused month, so I knew I was in for a lot on the rower.
For cardio, it was a pretty standard power workout with rounds of push paces, base paces, and all outs. It was nice to have something that wasn’t too crazy on cardio since that’s where I start for the workout.
The rowing had 2 blocks. The first block was rounds of 250-meter rows with 8 squats. And we just repeated that until the block was done. The next block started with a 500-meter row and then we had 16 squats. The row went down by 200 meters each time but the squats stayed the same. If you finished that, you held a squat, but I didn’t make it to the end.
I felt my tiredness kicking in the most on the floor. A lot of the movements were things I had to modify and that was also making me feel a bit low. We had burpees to a squat jack, plank work, plank jacks to push-ups, and low rows on the straps. I used the bench to modify most of the exercises and that helped a bit. But they weren’t easier just because I modified them.
I was feeling a bit better by Saturday. But I still was a little tired. It was a strength workout and I wanted to work with the resistance levels, so being tired wasn’t as big of an issue.
On cardio, we had rounds of push pace and base paces at inclines. I was going higher with the resistance levels on the bike than I normally use for push and all outs. I had a few moments where my legs felt like they weren’t moving much at all, but I know that also means I’m working hard and using lots of muscles.
On the rower, it was all about stroke drills. We started with a 15 stroke count and then we had 15 squats with the medicine ball after. We repeated that again and then the stroke count and squats went down by 1. I worked hard at being slow and powerful with each rower stroke since I know my power isn’t as high as most people. But I was feeling really good after completing the rowing work and I know I was doing more powerful strokes than I normally can do.
And on the floor, we had bench sit-ups to sumo squats (I had to modify this by doing each exercise on its own), lunges with front raises, lunges with lateral raises, plank bird dogs, squats, and double crunches with weights. I really liked this floor block because it did have exercises that challenged me, but there were lots of things I know I’m good at and can have great form.
I’m so glad I made it through Hell Week and succeeded at completing my 5 workouts. And I’m glad I made it through the workouts that I struggled with because I was tired. I’m hoping to get back on a better sleep pattern soon (this is a recurring issue for me), and hopefully that will make my morning workouts a bit better this week.
Posted onNovember 1, 2019|Comments Off on Not Sure How I Did With My Last Monthly Challenge (or Another Attempt At NaNoWriMo)
When I set my monthly challenge for October to be working more on my acting career, I was so excited about the things I had in mind. I had some things in mind that were bigger plans that I knew would be things I would need to save up for, but there were several things I knew I could work on. And honestly, I don’t really know how much I succeeded or failed at my challenge.
I knew that I would have the convention and that would be a big acting related event. And it did help my career in many ways, but my plan was to try to do more than just that. I wanted to do some research into classes, work on organizing things to be ready when I have auditions, and schedule and hopefully take new headshots. And I did a little bit of research work (part of that includes my tv research), but I didn’t do a majority of what I wanted to.
I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but I know why this didn’t happen. First, I was dealing with money issues and that made me hesitant to plan for anything that would require money. I also didn’t expect to be as tired after the convention as I was and that took a lot out of me. Part of being tired (and another reason why I didn’t do much for my career) had to do with my grandma passing away. I’m grieving this loss very differently than I expected and I think part of that has been that it hasn’t fully hit me yet. When my grandpa passed away, I was with my family a few days later. When I have had friends pass away, it felt more real because of how I had been staying in touch with them. This time, I don’t know if it will fully hit me until Thanksgiving. But for the past few weeks, I’ve been just having this weird feeling that is almost like I have a bit of grief and sadness affecting other things. I’m ok and nobody needs to worry about me about being depressed or anything. This is just how I am processing it and it wasn’t what I thought it would be.
Obviously, working on my acting career is a challenge that isn’t going to stop just because it’s a new month. I need to work on this and keep working on this. I still want to accomplish the things I had in mind for last month, so I will keep making plans and trying to get them done. I do still have the same financial restrictions for now, but planning can be done without spending money. And for the things that will require money, I can take steps towards those too.
And for my monthly challenge this month, I’ll be repeating one I’ve done in November before. I’ll be working on writing a book. I’ve stopped working on the book about online dating that I was working on in the past because I didn’t like how it was coming together. And a few months ago, I had the idea to change the book to be more about life lessons I’ve been learning from online dating. I’ve been working on notes and organizing ideas for what these lessons are so that I could be ready to start working on the new book. And I’m planning on working on it this month.
I still do not think I will have a finished first draft for the book after the month is done because I don’t know if the book is done yet. I know that I will have more stories from online dating that haven’t happened yet, so I will want to add those as they do happen. But I want to get each section that I’ve got notes on right now written during the month. I don’t know if I want to work on one lesson/chapter each day that I write or just try to work a bit every day. I’m allowing myself to be flexible and see how it works best for me.
I feel much better about working on the book this time because I do have notes that help me see the flow of how the book can go. I have shifted lessons around so that it makes more narrative sense to me. And I’m excited to be able to write down some of the crazier stories that weren’t going to be in other versions of the book because they weren’t substantial enough. But now, I can’t put a bunch of stories together in one lesson if they work that way. I can’t wait to see what happens as I write and what I might be inspired to edit and change as I work on it.
I do also have an idea for a fiction book about dating that I have notes on, but I don’t have the same pull to work on it as I do with my life lessons book. I also think reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned will be a good thing for me and will remind me that even though dating hasn’t been going the way I wanted it to that I am getting some good things out of it.
Hopefully, when I do my update after the month is done I will have some great things to share about how the writing went. I have high expectations for myself since this is not the first time I have tried working on this. I know how I didn’t succeed before and want to make sure I don’t repeat those mistakes. And even though this book will still be a work in progress after the month is over, I want to feel like I’ve gotten a lot of work on it done and that it’s more of a book than a bunch of ideas.
Good luck to anyone else doing NaNoWriMo this month! I hope you get everything out of it that you are hoping for!
Posted onOctober 28, 2019|Comments Off on Starting Off Hell Week (or 5 Workouts And They Were All Hard)
This past week of workouts was an epic one for me. First, it was the start of Hell Week. I do love Hell Week workouts and enjoy the challenge they bring. But it was a tough week for other reasons too. I was also dealing with the end of the nausea cycle and I did 5 workouts this past week! And 4 of those workouts were back to back! That’s crazy, especially considering everything else I was going through. Hell Week didn’t start until Thursday, so I started the week off with normal workouts.
Monday’s workout was a strength day, and it was also a run/row class (which I usually can only have on Mondays since that’s my only 2 group class). It was a good class even though I wasn’t feeling great because of something that happened at the beginning of the workout. I didn’t realize the cleaning wipes and trash can were right behind the bike. And when I got off the bike the first time, I swung my leg over and karate kicked the can. It fell right over with a huge clunk. I would have been embarrassed if it wasn’t so funny. It really put me in a better mood even though physically I wasn’t feeling great.
The cardio run/row had 3 blocks, and the first and third were the same. Those blocks were the only run/row ones and they were all short segments. The rowing I got to were the 100 and 150-meter rows for each block. And on the bike, all of the things I did were under 2 minutes. We were switching a lot and that was nice. The second block was a more traditional strength block. We had incline work with increasing inclines and I was able to use the resistance levels on the bike.
On the floor, it was a day of lunges. We had 3 blocks and they all had lunges as a part of them. The first block was lateral lunges to suitcase squats (I split these two moves up and did them separately), regular lunges, and hip hinge low rows. The second block had swing lunges (I used the straps to help with these), single-leg bicep curls, plank spiderman (modified by using the bench), and crunches. And the last block had lunges to scaptions and plank low rows. It wasn’t a horrible floor block to do with my nausea, but I did take a few breaks to let the nausea pass when it started to feel really bad.
Wednesday’s workout was the last pre-Hell Week workout. But it felt extra hard because I injured myself on Tuesday. I chipped the bone on my little toe, and even though I buddy taped it there was still some pain. Fortunately, my nausea was done by Wednesday so I was only dealing with one issue. But it still made the workout interesting.
It was a strength day, and there was a lot of hill work for cardio. We had 2 blocks and each block had hill climbs with us increasing the incline/resistance level every 30 seconds. I was working with the resistance levels and they weren’t too high for me on the bike. I was getting to just 1 above my all out level so they didn’t seem as bad as some of the other strength days that we’ve had. I was happy with the work I was able to do and my toe wasn’t hurting too much on the bike which was a surprise.
Unfortunately, I discovered that rowing with an injured toe is very tough. The pain wasn’t as bad as it could have been because of how I taped my toe, but I lost a lot of power not having a flat foot on the rower to push back. The first block started with a 100-meter row and then frogger squats. We kept increasing the rowing by 100-meters each round and had the squats in between. The squats weren’t too bad and a nice break from the rowing. In the second block, we were supposed to row the total we rowed in the first block before doing squats again. But by this point, I was hurting a bit more so I never got beyond rowing the distance I got in the first block.
And on the floor, we also had 2 blocks. The first block was all weight work. We had upright rows, pullovers, and seated twists. And the second block had high rows on the straps, hip hinge reverse fly with weights, and we were supposed to do bear steps. I had to skip the bear steps because of my toe, but doing bicycle crunches was the closest thing I could do to modify it. I was proud of the work I did considering having issues with my toe. And I felt ready for the start of Hell Week, which was going to be the next day.
Because I want to get 5 Hell Week workouts in, I had to add an extra workout at some point because my normal schedule would only get me 4. I was excited for Hell Week so that took over any feeling of nerves from doing so many workouts in a row. And the first day of Hell Week was called Pulse.
This was an interesting workout and it’s not the easiest to explain, but I can share what my group did (every group had a slightly different workout). I started on the bike and the first block was a 14 minute cardio block with rounds of runs for distances or all outs followed by recoveries. We started with a 90-second run for distance and it went down 15 seconds each round. When we got to a 30-second all out, then we started to work our way back up.
Next, we switched between cardio and doing pulsing half squats (which is what inspired the name Pulse for the workout). The timing was the same as it was for cardio, but we alternated what we did during the active time. We did half of them on cardio and the other half was doing the pulsing half squats the entire time. It wasn’t easy to do squats for that long and my legs felt like they were in cement when we finished. But the bike was a nice break from the squats for me.
Finally, we had a run/row type workout for the second block. Again, we had the same timing as we had for the first block, but we switched between having our active time on cardio or on the rower. And the rower person used the cardio when we were on the rower. There wasn’t always a lot of time to switch back and forth, but we did our best to make it work. Even though I spent more time on the bike in that workout than I normally would, I’m glad I had the extra time there. I think if it was on the rower it would have been too hard for me. And the people who had extra time on the floor had to also do burpees and I was grateful to not have to do those.
Only about 14 hours after I finished my first Hell Week workout, I was back for another one. This workout was called Split I and it felt like a mix of a power and strength day. This workout was a bit more straightforward than the day before, which was nice since it was an early morning class for me.
On cardio, we had a workout similar to the Everest class. Every minute, we increased the incline/resistance level. That’s all we did for 14 minutes. There was no decreasing incline after we reached the top and no recovery. The goal was to keep our base pace going as long as we could. For me on the bike, it’s a bit harder since I actually don’t have a specific cadence for a base (I’ve realized I should probably work on this), but I did want to work on the hill work. Because we would be increasing so many times, I started lower than what my base normally is at. But even starting easier than normal, I ended up with a resistance level higher than I think I’ve ever used on the bike. I think it was 3 or 4 levels higher than my previous best. It wasn’t easy and I was moving very slowly at the end, but I did it.
On the rower, all the rows were 400-meters. We were supposed to do different types of squats after each row with increasing reps, but I couldn’t do much more than regular squats. So I added up the total number between each of the types of squats we were supposed to do at that time and just did that number of regular squats. There were so many squats and I don’t know if it would have been any easier if I had a variety of types to do.
On the floor, we had 1 block but it was split into 2 mini-blocks. And the reps were increasing each exercise and round. We had chest presses, overhead triceps with weights, and push-ups for the first mini-block. And the second mini-block had bicep curls, hip hinge low rows, and low rows on the straps. The way the reps worked was we had 3/6/9/12 reps for the first exercise, 4/7/10/13 reps for the second exercise, and 5/8/11/14 reps for the third exercise. The first 2 rounds weren’t too bad, but the second 2 rounds were really hard and I had to go lighter with the weights I used.
And my last (and 5th) workout of the week was on Saturday and it was called Split II (so I got to resolve the cliffhanger from Friday’s workout). It wasn’t exactly the same as Friday’s workout with the way we went back down the inclines, but it was close.
For cardio, we were on our own timing. Every cardio segment was .1 miles (.4 for the bike). We started at the top incline or resistance level and worked down each round. And between each segment, we had ground to press using weights. We started at 1 rep and added 1 each time. My legs were still tired from all the other workouts in the week, but I also knew I had a rest day on Sunday so I was able to go a bit harder. I did manage to make it down the entire resistance level which was a nice accomplishment.
And on the rower and floor, we had a bit of a partner workout. But we were partnered with the person next to us in the same section of the room. So on the rower, I was partnered with another rower and on the floor, I was partnered with another person on the floor.
The row partner workout started with one of us doing an 800-meter row. While the partner was rowing, the other person did rounds of 10 squats and 10 hard pulls on the rower. Then the other partner did the 800-meter row. Next was a 500-meter and 200-meter row with the same pattern. It was hard because there were no breaks, but my partner and I were pretty equally matched with rowing times.
And on the floor, it was a similar idea as the rower. We had 2 blocks and in the first block, one partner did squats while holding a medicine ball and front raises with the medicine ball while the other partner did lateral steps with the mini-band. And in the second block, one partner did plank jacks and plank side reaches while the other partner did front raises with the mini-band around their wrists. Just like with the rower, there were no breaks while on the floor which made it extra hard. My partner and I were so glad when the class was over.
I’ve got 2 more Hell Week workouts this week and then I’ll earn my Hell Week shirt! And getting the shirt is something I am excited about. This week is back to my normal workout schedule which will be nice. But I am proud of myself for challenging what I can do and going for 5 workouts in a week, but I don’t think I want to do that every week (at least, not yet).
Posted onOctober 2, 2019|Comments Off on Refocusing And Getting Back To Me (or Doing A Bit Of The Same This Month)
Last month, my monthly challenge was to reset myself. I had been dealing with so much in my life over the summer and I really needed to get back to me. I felt like I was not in the best mental space and I was feeling the effects physically too. I knew I needed to get back to myself and figure out how to make it work again.
I did my best with the challenge. Where I had the most success was getting my sleep back on track. There were still some nights where I was up too late or didn’t get a lot of sleep (like the night before my Dri-Tri), but in general, I was doing much better last month with my sleep. I was getting to bed closer to the time that I knew I needed to and I wasn’t as tired when I woke up. I know I should feel lucky that my sleep issues didn’t include oversleeping, but when I was staying up late and had the chance to sleep in, it would have been nice if I could do that. But I guess it was better that I only had to work on my bedtime when I was working on myself.
I didn’t make as much progress in working on my food or self-care practices. Food is always going to be a struggle for me, I know that. But I wanted to do a little better and be a bit more structured. I think the structure is improving and I am not having extreme hunger issues, but the quality of what I’m eating needs to be worked on (like it always does). And my self-care did improve a bit with making time for myself. But I always wanted to work on self-care practices for my skin and appearance. That is still not back to my normal routine yet, but I have worked on some of it and I’m slowly getting back to what I know makes my skin look better and makes me happy.
After spending last month working on refocusing and getting back to my normal self, I realized that there are other places I need to refocus in my life as well. And the biggest one is my acting career. Lately, it has felt like I have been doing so much for my career because of all my work with the election. But that doesn’t help my career directly. I still work on self-submitting every day and networking when I can, but there is more that I can do and I haven’t been doing it.
Some of the things I should be doing are things I can’t do because of money issues. I’d love to be in an on-going acting class and I haven’t found one that fits what I’m looking for and my budget. But I want to keep looking to see if I can find the perfect class for me. And I know I need new headshots, but those aren’t cheap (or if you do them cheaply, they don’t usually look good). But I have been saving for those and I am going to try to find a way to get them done soon.
So this month, I want to work on refocusing myself on my acting career. I want to make some good steps forward with things that I can control. I have a lot working in my favor, and I just need to make the effort to take advantage of them. But I don’t always know what the path is to do that and I can work on figuring that out without spending money. I don’t have any specifics on what I want to do this month (I know, another abstract challenge), but I have some ideas of things I can do or focus on. And while I doubt I will see results with auditions or bookings within the month, doing these things are going to be setting me up for those in the future.
It’s so easy to call yourself an actor because you don’t have to prove that you are doing anything. I know that I’m not just claiming to be an actor, but I also know there is so much more I can do for my career while I am not fully living as an actor. And this month, I want to add more of those things into my life and see where it takes me. I can only benefit from doing this, so it will be worth challenging myself and seeing what’s possible.
Posted onOctober 1, 2019|Comments Off on Learning Something New Every Time (or Being Ok With My Dri-Tri)
I’ve done the Dri–Tri multiple times over the years. And I feel like every time I do it, there is a new lesson or challenge that I learn. My first Dri-Tri was a huge learning experience. I had no idea how to pace myself for it and I really messed up by going too hard on the rower. I’ve worked on improving that every time since. I also learned lessons with how to modify the floor work and how to split things up to make things easiest on me (it’s still hard, but it helps when I split some exercises into smaller intervals). And for cardio, I’ve learned so many lessons on the treadmill. And my last Dri-Tri was the first for me on the bike so that was another new experience.
So when I was getting ready for my Dri-Tri this past weekend, I had all those lessons in mind. I remembered lots of things that I struggled with before and tried to keep those experiences in mind when I was thinking about my game plan. And I honestly did feel ready for it the day before. And then I made a dumb choice and went out the night before. I didn’t think I would be out that late, and it ended up being a much later night than I thought. And by the time I was home and in bed, I struggled to fall asleep. I maybe got 2 hours of sleep combined that night as little 20-30 minute bursts. It wasn’t good and it was a dumb decision to go out the night before. But I couldn’t do anything to change that before the Dri-Tri.
I did have work before going to Orangetheory and at least that wasn’t too stressful. And there was about an hour between work and the Dri-Tri so I used that time to relax and focus on what I wanted to do. I knew that being tired was going to affect how things went, but I really wanted to do just a little better than I did last time. My bigger goal was to be under 50 minutes again, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
Well, I was right that I couldn’t do it in under 50 minutes. I didn’t even do better than I did the last time. It actually ended up being my slowest Dri-Tri time ever. And that was really frustrating for me. I tried so hard and it didn’t have the results I wanted it to have. But I also was aware that being so tired was working against me.
But despite having my slowest time ever, I did have some really good moments in the event. First, I finished. That’s awesome because not everyone can do the Dri-Tri. Being able to complete it is an accomplishment and I shouldn’t look down on that.
When we are doing the 2000-meter row, we are told to keep the stroke rate lower than we think it should be since it is such a long row. That has been something I have been working on since my first Dri-Tri and it is getting better for me each time. I try to zone out a bit during the row and just focus on not stressing about going faster. I’m usually able to stay steady with the stroke rate and that’s something that continued this time.
But we are also told to keep an eye on the 500-meter split time on the computer. That time moves based on how fast and how hard you row. And doing a long row usually means that the number will get higher (and it will take you longer to complete a 500-meter split). I have seen this happen in my rowing a lot and I hate how much fluctuation there is. I usually have a great split time for the first half or so, and then it gets much higher than I would like it to be. But for some reason this time, I was able to keep my split time within 1 second except the first few strokes and the last 150-meters. It was so steady that I wondered if the computer broke and it was stuck. But then I’d see it go down and back up 1 second and I knew that it was just me being able to keep it steady.
On the floor section of the Dri-Tri, there isn’t much I can do to change which exercises I can do. I modify things like being on my knees for the push-ups, using the bench for the plank jacks and burpees, and doing lunges instead of step-ups. I try to find new tricks that might help me, but there aren’t a lot of things I can try. What I did this time was split the lunges up differently so one side wasn’t getting as tired as it has in the past. I tried to just focus on each exercise at a time and not what was coming up next. And I didn’t pay attention to what people were doing next to me. I didn’t realize that I was the last one to finish the floor until I was walking to the bike.
Using the bike for the Dri-Tri is still a new thing for me and I’m still learning a lot. I knew this time that I wanted to not worry about the resistance levels and just set it to my base pace level. When I got on the bike, I was so tired and it felt like I would be on there forever. I also knew by the time I was on the bike that there was no way I would be doing better than my last Dri-Tri so I had that affecting my mood a bit. But I tried to not think too much about it because there was nothing I could do at that point to change that.
I was able to keep it at my base resistance level for about the first half of the bike challenge. But it was starting to get really hard and I was slowing down a lot. So I dropped the resistance level lower to make the bike easier on me. I wanted to pedal as fast as I could since that was going to help me get to the final distance more than the resistance levels would. I was breaking the bike portion down into small chunks and trying to celebrate whenever I finished another small chunk. And I tried to limit how often I took a sip of water since I have to stop pedaling to get my water. So each water break stopped my progress and I didn’t want to do that too much.
When I was done, I was so tired. I wanted to lay down and rest, but I knew that doing that wouldn’t be great for my body. So I sat down and worked on stretching for a while before getting back up to cheer on the people still finishing their 5K on the treadmills. It’s so important for me to cheer on the other finishers because I know what it feels like to not have the same amount of encouragement and cheering as people who were faster than me. And it’s awesome watching someone finish who might not have thought they could do it.
In the end, while I had a slow Dri-Tri and I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to, I still finished and had a great time. It’s a challenge that I look forward to doing, even if while I’m in the middle I wonder what I have done to myself. But every time I finish, it’s a great reminder of how much I have accomplished and how strong I have become. I’m already planning on doing the next Dri-Tri and seeing what new lessons I can take from this past one and apply it to the next. Maybe that one will finally get me back under 50 minutes.
Posted onSeptember 3, 2019|Comments Off on Taking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)
Last month, I challenged myself to celebrate more often. That made sense since August is my birthday month, but it didn’t quite go the way I expected it to go. A lot of things didn’t go the way I expected them to go because of how much energy the election took. I did try to celebrate as much as I could and appreciate the little things in life, but I really had a bigger expectation of what I was going to accomplish.
I thought I’d be celebrating my birthday and bigger things like that. I ended up celebrating nights that I was in bed before midnight or didn’t wake up multiple times to get more work done. And I celebrated when I had the rare moments last month that I wasn’t nauseous. Those are still things to celebrate, but not exactly what I thought of when I originally started the month. But I guess I have to allow myself to be flexible and I did celebrate how I was able to do so. But like many of my challenges, this is one that I want to continue and remember that it’s important to celebrate even the little stupid things sometimes.
Because of how crazy and hectic August ended up being for me (and because I know that October is going to have a bit of craziness too), I wanted to figure out a good monthly challenge for September. I had a list of ideas that I created before the beginning of the year, but nothing really felt right to me. I wanted to find a way to be centered again and not feel like I am living from stressful moment to stressful moment. I also can feel burnout creeping up on me and I want to do what I can to stop it.
So I had to let go of the challenge ideas that I had because none of them would really accomplish what I want to do. Some of them might have ended up stressing me out even more because it would be adding something else to my life or only having me focus on one part of my life. I had to rethink about what the monthly challenge could look like for me. I realized I needed less of a challenge for September and more of a goal and plan.
So for September, my “challenge” is to reset my life back to normal. I have been doing horribly with some parts of my life that I know need to be regulated like sleep and my eating schedule. I need to spend this month getting back to a healthy place with things like that because if I don’t it’s going to be even more stressful for me. I need to work on getting to bed on time and not worrying about not being reachable in the middle of the night. I probably need to set alarms again to remind myself to eat because there were several days last month that I forgot one or more meals in a day. I know there are more parts to my life that I want to reset, but sleep and food are the big ones.
I also want to reset my free time scheduling and use it productively. I haven’t had a lot of free time lately so when I have it I usually nap or spend it doing as little as possible. I want to be productive and maximize each day. I want to get my spending and budgeting back on track because I haven’t been tracking it the way I need to. And I even realized that some of my self-care practices took a backseat last month and I want to get back to the regular routines that I have had in the recent past. Making sure I take care of my skin and appearance isn’t the most important thing, but it helps me feel better about myself.
Hopefully, by taking this month to get back to what I know to be my normal, I will feel less stressed soon. And maybe I’ll discover new habits I want to add to my day or old habits that I can drop or do more efficiently. While it’s not a challenge like most of the challenges are or what I want them to be, I am still excited to see what happens by the end of the month.
I am someone who likes to know what types of workouts I am going to do before I go to Orangetheory. I am lucky that I have ways of finding things out before I drive over there (knowing what class I have never makes me not want to go to class, I usually am more excited knowing what I’m in for). And sometimes I find out when there is going to be a benchmark class or something else like that. But somehow, I must have missed some of the warnings for the challenges of this past week, but it ended up working out really well for me.
Monday’s class was all about working with a new base pace, and I decided to take that challenge. I’ve been playing around with not necessarily using the exact same resistance levels on the bike all the time, so I figured I could play around with what my base level might be. I also know that I need to keep challenging myself when I’m having good weeks because it’s too easy to not do that because I feel like I’m just spending that time recovering from feeling so gross the week before.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block had decreasing push paces and all the base paces at 1 minute. And the second block had increasing base paces and all the push paces at 1 minute. The push paces for the first block started at 2 1/2 minutes and went down to 1 minute and the base paces in the second block started at 1 minute and went up to 2 minutes. Because the difference between my base and push was only 1 resistance level on the bike this time, it didn’t feel like a huge difference. Maybe I should have increased my push level too, but I didn’t want to go too hard and make the new base level too difficult for me. The new base level was challenging, but I also think it was because it was a 2 group class so I was on the bike for a while.
The floor was also 2 blocks. The first block had chest presses, squats, front raises using the mini-bands, and scissor abs with the mini-bands on our wrists. We also had rowing after each round of exercises. My feet were still going a bit numb with rowing, so I struggled a bit with that. I really think the numbness has to be a combination of foot position and my heart rate being elevated because it doesn’t happen any other time. So I have been working on stopping and trying to calm my heart rate down when it gets really bad and it seems to make it a little better. The rowing was 400-meters, 200-meters, and 100-meters for that first block. The second block started with an 800-meter row which took me much longer than I would have liked it to take. Then we had mini-band plank side reaches, mini-band strap low rows, and tricep work on the straps without the mini-bands. At least the non-rowing floor work went well for me.
Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we were moving around the room so quickly! All the blocks were under 5 minutes and we had 3 blocks at each section of the room.
Every block for cardio was the same. We had a 30-second push pace, 30-second base pace, 30-second all out, recovery, 30-second push pace, and 30-second all out. I was using my new base pace for this and my normal push and all out. For the recover,y I was using my old base pace since that’s what I’m used to using for my recovery. The new base pace was used so little during these blocks so it didn’t feel like that much of a change for me. That was probably a good thing and an easy transition for me so I’m glad that I had this class as my first one after the new base pace class.
On the rower, we had very similar blocks for all the blocks. The first block started with a 300-meter row and 12 frogger squats. Then it was a 200-meter row and 12 frogger squats. I made it to starting the 100-meter row before the block ended in the first block. The second block had the same rowing but the frogger squats were down to 10 reps. And in the third block, the frogger squats were 8 reps. But every block, I was always working on the 100-meter row when the block was done so I never did the very last round of frogger squats. Fortunately, the foot numbness problem was better in this class than it had been. I had changed my dosage that day to add a pill in the morning, so that might have helped somehow. I will never try to understand side effects, but it was interesting to see how it worked that day when I had been very nervous to see what would happen.
The floor had different blocks for each block. The first block had step-ups and squat jumps. I had to modify these to be lunges and regular squats. If the block was longer, I would have done modified step-ups with using the straps, but it takes me time to get onto the bench and to get my balance and I didn’t want to use up too much time during the block. The second block had hollow hold chest presses and pop jacks. I modified the pop jacks to use the bench instead of the ground, but that isn’t a big modification. And the last block had reverse mountain climbers and sit-ups. I changed the reverse mountain climbers to be regular ones because I don’t have the same range of motion and wanted to do the full exercise, but again it was a small modification.
Friday’s class was an endurance class, and I continued to challenge myself with my new base pace level. This was a really hard challenge in this class for me. Not only was it just a tough class, but I was exhausted from not sleeping well (or sleeping enough) and my hips were hurting a lot from that lack of sleep. But I wanted to try to push through the best that I could and see what I could do.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block had 3 rounds of 1-minute push paces to 90-second base paces and it ended with a 30-second push to 1 minute all out pace. And the second block had 2 rounds of 1-minute push paces to 1-minute base paces and ended with a 30-second push to 1 minute all out pace. I did the new base pace level for all my base paces and the normal push and all out levels. For my recovery between the blocks, I did go a bit lower than I normally go, but I needed that recovery time. And I did take a few more breaks than I would have liked to have taken, but again, I needed them. Even though the cardio time wasn’t longer than a normal 3 group class, it felt longer than a 2 group class for some reason. I think it really was just because I was so tired.
On the rower, we had 1 long block. We started with an 800-meter row. Then we had 20 squats with a medicine ball. Then it was a 400-meter row and 15 squats and 15 overhead presses with the medicine ball. Then a 200-meter row followed by 10 squats, 10 overhead presses, and 10 tricep extensions with the medicine ball. I was just sitting down to start the 100-meter row when the block was done. I had a little bit of the numbness issue in my feet during the rowing, but just like on Wednesday it was better than it had been the week before. And I’m learning how to deal with it a bit more. I’m still hoping that it will go away, but at least it’s getting better and I’m doing better with my rowing.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had chest presses with weights, push-ups, and tricep extensions on the straps. And the second block had lateral raises with weights, full thrusters with weights, and plank work. I had to change the full thrusters to be shoulder presses because my hips were not able to squat down anymore. It’s not the biggest modification, but it still annoyed me for some reason because it felt like a big one. Maybe because I felt like I was going to make it through a workout without modifications and then one just snuck in there. But I still did something and worked hard so it counts and I should be proud of myself.
Saturday’s class was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and it was yet another opportunity for me to work with my new base pace resistance level. I had a few things I had to modify to make the workout work for me, but since so much of the week was focused on the new base pace I wanted to continue to work on that.
The cardio was split into 2 blocks. The first block was 4 rounds of 45-second all outs with recovery in-between. Because things were going back and forth so quickly between the all outs and recovery, I decided not to change my resistance level on the bike and I used my new base pace level for everything. I just worked on pedaling faster for the all out time. And the second block was 4 rounds of 1-minute push paces with base paces in-between. This time, I did switch up my resistance level and used my normal push level (I still haven’t played around with increasing that just yet).
The rower was one long block. We started with a 100-meter row and went up 50 meters until we got to 250 meters. Between each row, it was supposed to be lunges with tricep extensions using a medicine ball but I modified them to be squats with tricep extensions. Then we worked our way back down from 250 meters to 100 meters and the exercise between each row was squat front raises with the medicine ball. As the trend was over the week, the numbness issue continued to get better. I still had a few moments when my feet were numb, but it was so much better than it had been and I was so grateful for that.
And the floor was also one long block. We had reverse lunges, side toe touches, side plank pendulums, hip bridges with weights, and sit-ups. I had modifications to the first two exercises, which I expected to need. But I went heavier than normal with my hip bridges so I figured that balanced things out for me.
Going into this past week, I had no idea I’d be increasing my base pace level and I hadn’t really been thinking about doing it. But I jumped into that challenge on Monday and really went for it all week. I will hopefully be able to continue to keep it up from now on, although I am open to playing around with the resistance levels on the bike depending on the type of workout like I’ve been doing. But knowing that I can just increase my resistance level as I did with no preparation and really go for it makes me feel so strong and powerful.
Another Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges)
