Posted onAugust 1, 2019|Comments Off on A Birthday Month Challenge (or Education And Celebration)
While every month is exciting for me now because it’s the start of a new monthly challenge for me, this month is extra exciting because it’s the start of my birthday month! I don’t have any grand plans for my birthday this year, but that actually fits with what my monthly challenge is this month. But first, a quick recap of my monthly challenge from last month.
I did a bit of a cheat last month and used the monthly challenge to work on something I had already started but wasn’t focusing on the way I had hoped. I wanted to spend the month working on the Brain Over Binge course and following the schedule the way it was set. While I had been doing all of the lessons, listening to all the different lectures, and filling out the worksheets; I wasn’t doing them throughout the week. I had been doing them in one or two days and just fitting all the lessons back to back. My challenge was to try to spread them out the way they were intended to be done.
Well, that didn’t quite work out for me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do that, but my schedule just isn’t in a place right now to let me do that. I think I underestimated how much time my union election work would take and there were plenty of days where I wouldn’t have time to even watch tv to try to decompress a bit. I started to stress myself out a bit that I wasn’t able to follow the schedule and then I realized that doing the lessons in one day isn’t the worst thing. The most important thing is that I’m doing them. And since I am downloading all the work, I can do it again with the spread-out schedule when my time isn’t as crazy.
Since I know this month is going to be just as crazy with union election work, I didn’t want to set myself up for failure with a big monthly challenge. But I still wanted something fun for my birthday month. And when I was listening to a podcast last week, I was inspired by something the hosts were saying about why they didn’t like the idea of having fancy dishes that you never used. Every day should feel like a celebration and you shouldn’t fear using nice things because it doesn’t feel like a special enough day.
So for my birthday month, I want to celebrate every single day. Every day is special and deserves to be recognized. I don’t know exactly how I will celebrate every day, but I will not let myself think that I shouldn’t do something because it is not a special enough day. If someone wants to go out for a fun dinner, I won’t say no because it’s a Tuesday or that I don’t feel fancy. I’ll celebrate that we are going out. I want to be in a celebratory mindset for this month and hopefully for beyond that.
I know this isn’t the biggest challenge and it really doesn’t require much for me to accomplish it, but it seems very fitting for my birthday month and it seems like something that would be a good thing to have as a part of my life. I shouldn’t be putting things on hold or hoping for the right time to do something. If I want to do something and have the ability to do so, I should do it. And that’s what I plan on doing this month.
Posted onJuly 2, 2019|Comments Off on I’ve Been Slacking (or I Need An Easy Challenge This Month)
I think it’s clear that I’m not exactly as enthusiastic about my monthly challenges as I was when I started. It’s been harder to find challenges to do and I’ve been failing at them more often. I think it’s because I have done so many of these, but I should be able to find something that motivates me again. But right now, that’s not happening.
Last month, I wanted to work on digital organizing to maximize what I could do with my various tech devices. I picked this challenge because it seemed easy enough and it was something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I know that I don’t use my phone or iPad as much as I could and I wanted to see what new things I could do that would make my life so much better. I was excited to see what would happen.
And then I didn’t really do it at all. I did a little bit of organizing when I downloaded a few new apps. I made sure I put them in the folders I wanted them in and when I was looking in those folders I did delete some old apps. But the goal was to do so much more than that and I just didn’t do it.
I did have some things last month that made it tough on me. I had a lot of work I had to do and it took more time than expected. When I thought I might be able to do some of the organizing between customers at work, I had to use that time for other work. I’m not upset about that because work does take priority. But I guess I just thought I would have the time and when I didn’t I wondered what happened. The days were flying by and I couldn’t believe how little free time I had.
But even though I didn’t do the organizing that I was planning on doing, I did use my iPad more than I have in the recent past. I have been trying to use it more often to do some work-related things when I don’t have to be sitting at my computer. And that is more often than I thought in the past.
Because of my lack of enthusiasm for these challenges and how lost I have felt a bit with getting them done, I wanted to make things easier on me by using a challenge that I technically already have been doing.
For July, I wanted to make sure I am following the Brain Over Binge online course every day. I’m in the 3rd week of the course and I have struggled to keep up a bit because of the time issues I’ve been having. But I want to devote this month to catching up on what I missed and making sure I do the lessons every day as they come out. I want to also work on some of the extra work that can be done with the course that I haven’t been doing.
I know that this is a bit of a cheat for my monthly challenge, but because I have already fallen a bit behind I don’t want to add something else to my plate. I want to give myself the ability to focus on this because it is important to me. I don’t know if it will work to help get me into recovery, but I won’t know if it will unless I try and follow the class. So that’s exactly what I plan to do this month.
The class does go until August, so I will be doing this challenge beyond July. But I want to have the good habits built up this month so the last 2 weeks of the class are easy to complete. I know that if I put my focus on this, I will be able to catch up and get all the work done. And being able to accomplish that will mean so much to me so I want to put a lot of effort into it.
Posted onJune 10, 2019|Comments Off on Doing Some Theme Workouts (or Unique Challenges At Orangetheory)
This past week of workouts at Orangetheory were really fun for me. First of all, I was having a week where I was feeling good. I wasn’t feeling as great as I know I can, but it was a significant difference from the week before. And also, most of my workouts this past week were fun themed workouts! It wasn’t like Hell Week or Mayhem Week where they are all super hard. These were different themes and they all were really enjoyable while being tough.
Monday’s workout was an endurance day, but it was also a switch day so I was able to push myself a bit harder than I normally could for endurance workouts. This was the one workout that wasn’t really a theme, but it was still a great class. We had a bit of a run/row element which helped to split things up even more. Even though I was finally doing better and not feeling nauseous, I always feel like it takes me a workout or two before I feel like myself again. And this class seemed to be a great way to ease back in.
I started on the bike and cardio had a 1 minute all out pace. I did my new all out resistance level since I knew we’d be going to the rower when we were done. Once we switched to the rower, we had distance rows with pulsing half squats between. That was the end of that block and then my group stayed on the rower so we started there. We had a 1 minute all out row before going back up to cardio. And on cardio we had a push pace, base pace, and push to all out pace to end the block. Because we were on cardio a bit longer, I used my lower push and all out resistance level. After that then my group was on the floor but we did the cardio and rowing rotations one more time just after the halfway mark of the workout.
On the floor the first block had chest presses with weights, tricep extensions with weights, and knee tucks. I was able to use my normal weights for the chest presses, but when I got to the tricep extensions I struggled. I think I slept funny because my neck was just feeling off. So I had to switch to lower weights. And the second block had shoulder presses with weights, lateral raises with weights, and scissor kick static crunches. Again, I went a bit lower with the weights than I would have liked to have been. But I also knew it was a random reason why and not something I should have to struggle with the rest of the week.
Wednesday’s workout was Catch Me If You Can. I didn’t do this workout the first time they had it so I was excited to try it out. The idea was that we had distance goals for cardio. If you didn’t make it to that goal when you were supposed to, you were caught. People on treadmills had to walk at a high incline for the rest of the block if they were caught.
But it was a bit different for me on the bike because there wasn’t really a punishment if we didn’t make it to the distance and were caught. And when I saw the list of the distance goals we were supposed to hit, I knew I would only make it for the first half of them. But what I did was while I was still chasing the goals I had my resistance level between my base and push paces. And when I was caught, I put it between my push and all out so it made it very tough on me. While I knew before we started when I would probably be caught, that didn’t lessen the fun I had with the challenge.
On the rower, we had rowing and squats. We started with a 600 meter row and 20 squats. The rows and squats decreased each round. I didn’t make it as far down the plan as I would have liked to, but I was very happy about the rowing I did and how consistent I was able to keep my pace. And on the floor, we had one long block. We had skier swings with weights, rollouts on the ab dolly, bicep curls with weights, side planks, and hip bridges with weights. I went very heavy for my hip bridge weights, but I didn’t go too heavy for the rest because they were all high rep exercises. But it was still a strong way to end my workout.
Friday’s workout was a new and interesting one for me. We had a very unique rowing challenge where we were supposed to work together as a group and try to row at the same pace and pattern. It was supposed to be like we were a real rowing crew. That was totally a challenge to stay with the others, but it was fun to try! I found out later it was supposed to be a themed class for the Dragon Boat Festival which explained the team rowing.
For cardio, we had our own distance challenge for the entire block. The treadmills had rounds of .25 miles (the bike had rounds of 1 mile) followed by a minute of walking recovery. The goal was to do as many rounds as possible and to keep your speed either the same or increasing each round. I started with doing the distance challenge at my push pace resistance level, but after 3 rounds I had to decrease it to be at the level between my base and push for the rest of the workout. I was feeling a bit off due to lack of sleep the night before, but I just tried to focus on pushing myself when I could. I was actually very glad to have a repeating challenge for cardio because it helped me take my mind off of it.
For rowing, we alternated between the group challenge of rowing together and having rowing on our own. The group challenges were 2 minutes, 90 seconds, and 1 minute. While I’m not the slowest rower, I do row slower than most. I struggled a bit to keep up with everyone else, but I discovered if I did short rowing strokes that it was much easier. When we had the rowing on our own, we had a distance challenge within a certain time. The time was always long enough to allow for some rest time and I did take advantage of that break. I needed it to be ready for the next group row.
And on the floor we had 1 long block. We had step up with weights, hip swings with weights, tricep extensions with weights, plank jacks, and sit-ups. I have been modifying the step ups so I could do them, but I can’t do them with weight because I have to hold onto the straps. So I decided to do lunges with weights instead so I could still have weight work. We started with lower reps but they increased by a lot each round so I did have to switch up my weights in order to still have good form when we had a lot of reps.
And Saturday’s class was themed for Best Friend’s Day. The entire workout was a partner workout, but we were always at the same section of the room as our partner. We did tag each other to switch things up, but we weren’t moving around the room within a block. Instead, we were constantly switching as a class. We had 4 blocks at each section of the room. 3 of the blocks were 3 minutes and 1 block was 1 minute, but the 1 minute block was done solo and without workout with our partner.
For cardio, it was the only time we weren’t really working with our partners. For the 3 minute blocks we had a 3 minute distance challenge and the 1 minute block was a 1 minute all out. I wanted to keep my resistance level either between my base and push level or at my push pace level, but I could only do that for the first 2 blocks. For the last 2 I had it at my base pace level but I made an extra effort to try to pedal faster to make up for the lower resistance.
On the rower, we were rowing next to our partner. We worked as a team and one of us was doing a 100 meter row and the other was doing a recovery row. As soon as the person doing the 100 meter row was done, the other switched from the recovery row to doing the 100 meter. We switched back and forth the entire time for the 3 minute blocks. This seemed easy when I heard that’s what we were doing, but it was so much harder than expected. The recovery rows were so quick so I never felt like I was catching my breath. And for the 1 minute block, we had a 1 minute all out row.
And on the floor, we worked with our partners again. We switched back and forth doing either an exercise or a static move for the 3 minute blocks. We had shoulder presses with weights (the static move was a static hold of the weights), front squats with weights (the static move was holding a squat), high rows on the straps (the static move was holding the high row position on the straps), and superman (the static move was holding a plank). We alternated between the moves quickly so the static moves didn’t feel like a rest. The reps started low and increased and it was tough to keep going with the higher reps. But I knew my partner was counting on me so that was extra motivation. And for the 1 minute block, we had 1 minute of burpees. I used the bench to modify them, but I tried to go quickly and was able to do 10 in a minute.
I really loved this past week of workouts. I don’t always need themed workouts, but it’s so fun when we have them and I find that they seem to be challenging but in unexpected ways. I know we have some other great workouts coming up and I’m really feeling motivated to find how I can push myself before I have to worry about feeling awful again.
It’s crazy to think that after this month the year will be half over! I’ve said it dozens of times (and will say it probably thousands more), but time is just going so fast! I do love that I have so many checkins with myself to not let time slip by. I have things that I do to check in every week and every month and it does help me stay more mindful as time goes by. And one of those checkins is my monthly challenge.
Last month, I had a challenge to work on my sleep a bit more. I have finally gotten to a place where I don’t struggle to get up in the morning. Even when I can sleep in on a Sunday, I still usually wake up at 7am since that is the time I get up every other day. But because I naturally get up early, if I stay up late it means I just won’t get the sleep I need. And I had been noticing that I was going to sleep later and later even on the nights I needed to be up early. So I wanted to work on my better bedtime routine so I could be closer to getting all the sleep I needed most nights.
There were still a few nights that I know I was up too late and I did suffer for it. But I am in a better place now with being used to going to bed a bit earlier now than I was before I started the challenge. I did think about it more when I wanted to watch another show before going to sleep and I would often decide it wasn’t worth staying up. I still have a lot of work to do so that I’m averaging enough sleep a night when I take tossing and turning into account, but I’m much closer to that.
One unexpected thing I did discover about myself while doing this challenge was what later bedtime would also work. While I don’t want to be getting under 5 hours of sleep a night, there is something about making sure you are in the best part of your sleep cycle when you do wake up. So if I’m up a bit too late, I now have a slightly better idea of how much later I should stay up so getting up doesn’t feel as hard. It’s weird to think that sometimes forcing myself to have less sleep will result in not being as tired, but it does work. But it’s not something I want to get into the habit of and I want to work on increasing my sleep.
My sleep challenge is going to continue over the next few months for sure, but I’m glad I did focus on it last month so I could get some of the better habits started and I have a better idea of what to work on. I knew I needed to fix things, but the specifics were a bit up in the air until I tested them out and I discovered new things that I hope will help me.
I wanted to shift to a bit more concrete challenge this month so my progress was easier to see. I had a few ideas of what I could do, but I ended up being inspired by a few different things that happened. First, my phone gave me an alert that I was running out of space. I am waiting to see if Apple will release another smaller iPhone because I don’t like the giant ones, so I have to do what I can to make my current phone work as long as possible. I also realized that I wasn’t using my iPad the same way I had been using it when I got it. I still use it and am so grateful to have it, but I was just getting frustrated with a few things that were’t working the same way my phone would do.
So I decided that for this month, I’m going to do some digital organizing. I have already been clearing things out of my phone to add more space, but I know there is so much more than I can do. And I know that a lot of my frustration with my iPad comes down to not finding my apps as easily because they aren’t organized the same way and I just grab my phone because it is easier.
I know this is really a first world problem, but I know that being more organized on my devices will help me be more productive. And that really is my goal with so many different aspects of my life. I don’t want to have to waste time trying to find where something is on a device and then waste time being frustrated after I can’t find it. I do have a bit of this issue on my computer as well with a few things on there that I don’t need or links in my bookmarks that are outdated, but I don’t notice it as much. Maybe that’s because I spend so much time on my computer with work so I don’t feel like I’m wasting as much time. But I want to try to work on that as well.
I’m sure in working through this organizing I’ll discover other things with my devices that I want to work on. Maybe I’ll find new systems to make my life easier. Or I’ll discover new apps that I will want to help with things that aren’t as simple as they can. Doing any sort of audit or organization really brings out new and interesting things. I’m excited to see what I will discover over this next month working on it.
Posted onJune 3, 2019|Comments Off on Normal But Still Hard (or Having My Own Workout Challenge This Time)
We just had Mayhem Week at Orangetheory and that was a week of challenging workouts. And this past week of workouts, the workouts were technically normal but they were still a challenge for me. It was my week of nausea and that makes things feel so much harder than they should be. But the past few times I’ve had to deal with the nausea I have been finding new ways to work through things. And that’s what I continued to do this time.
Monday’s workout was a themed workout and it was supposed to be a 3 partner class. I usually love partner workouts because it pushes me to work harder and do more. But in this class I was so nauseous and I didn’t want to slow a team down or have my partners wait on me so we can switch. So I told my coach that I volunteered to be on my own, and it happened to work out that way. I was glad that I could be alone because I did need to take a lot of breaks in the workout.
The way the partner workout was supposed to go was to have the rower as the pacer. The floor and treadmill switched back and forth until the rower was done and they all switched. For me, I just did 1 round of whatever we were supposed to do at each section of the room and switch when I was done. The cardio work was the easiest for me. All the bike distances were very short and I was always done in under 3 minutes. I kept the resistance level at my base pace level which helped me not have too much nausea on the bike.
For the floor, it was always the same exercises and the reps decreased each time. We had low rows on the straps, burpees, pushups, and sit-ups. I used the bench for the burpees and pushups which did help the nausea a bit, but it was still slow for me on the floor with the breaks I needed to rest.
The rower was the toughest part of the workout and what made me most grateful for being on my own. They were all long distance rows and I took significantly longer than I usually do. It started with a 1600 meter row, then 1200 meters, and I was doing the 800 meter row when class was done. If I had partners for this workout, I would have been so stressed out on the rower. For example, 1600 meters should be 8 minutes or under and I usually can do that. But because of needing the breaks to let the nausea pass, it took me almost 14 minutes. I would have hated knowing my partners had to wait almost twice as long to switch. I was happy knowing I was on my own and just doing what I could.
Wednesday’s workout was an interesting day with a mix of endurance and power. It was also another bad nausea day so I went into the workout just planning on doing the best that I could. We had 4 blocks at each section of the room and 2 of the blocks were about 5 minutes and 2 of the blocks were only 1 minute. Sometimes we had time to work through different exercises and sometimes it was just a quick change around the room.
For cardio, for the longer blocks they were pretty standard endurance blocks. We had push paces and base paces with an all out at the end. I did manage to change up the resistance levels a bit, but they weren’t what I usually use. And for the 1 minute blocks, we had 1 minute all outs. Again, I did go up a bit with the resistance level but it wasn’t what I normally do.
On the rower, the longer blocks were rounds of 100 meter rows and lunges. And the shorter blocks were 1 minute all out rows. The first time we had a longer block I was fine with the lunges. But the second time I was just not feeling ok and it was taking me so much time to get on and off the rower. So I just rowed that block without the lunges.
And the floor had side lunges, skater lunges, upper cuts, and leg lifts for the longer blocks. And the 1 minute blocks were 1 minute of burpees. I was glad the longer block didn’t require modifications but I did use the bench for the burpees. Considering how I was feeling going into this class and how much movement there was, I was happy with what I did even though it didn’t feel like much.
Friday’s workout was a benchmark challenge day. It was the 12 minute run (or bike) for distance. I’m still newish to doing benchmarks on the bike, so I didn’t feel the same sort of competitive spirit as I did on the treadmill. I’m grateful for that because I didn’t feel like I had to push extra hard to beat myself when I wasn’t feeling so great.
I did set a goal for myself on the bike and I was very happy to see that I did pass that goal. I kept the resistance level between my base and push level so I wasn’t going as hard as I probably normally would for a challenge like this. But it worked for how I was feeling and I still felt like I was doing more than I normally would.
On the rower we started with a 3 minute row. Then we had single leg bicep curls and hip hinge rows using weights. We continued that pattern but decreased the row each time. It was a tough row block and I did take a lot of breaks. And doing any single leg work is difficult for me so the bicep curls were hard. But I was grateful that the work we had on the rower were things that I didn’t have to modify too much because of how I was feeling.
And on the floor we had a mix of strap work and ab dolly work. On the straps we had Y raises, high rows, and low rows. On the ab dolly we were supposed to do rollouts and pikes, but I couldn’t do either of those. I did the rollouts on the straps instead of the ab dolly because of my nausea and I did knee tucks instead of pikes because of my hips.
Saturday’s workout had a heads or tails theme. Each section of the room had a heads option and tails option. We had 2 blocks at each section so we did do both, but the coin flip was to see what we started with.
For cardio, one block was doing a specific distance and then squats after you completed the distance. You repeated the pattern until that block was done. The other block was rounds of 30 second all outs with 30 second recoveries. I was doing much better by Saturday and was able to use my new resistance levels for everything.
On the rower we had a similar pattern to cardio. One block was rounds of all out rows with recovery rows and the other block was distance rows with squats between each row. The floor had different blocks but the heads or tails determined if you had to start the block doing burpees to squats. The first block had lunges, sit-ups, and triceps on the straps. And the second block had pushups to plank jacks, sit-ups, and sumo squats using weights. I used the bench to modify all the exercises that involved plank work, but other than that I was doing everything normally.
Obviously this wasn’t the same type of challenge as Mayhem (or Hell Week), but it was still a challenging week for me. I’m just glad that I made it through and I’m hopefully back to normal now. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how this week goes!
This post is going to be a little different from my usual workout recap, but it’s for an awesome reason. First, this past week of workouts was Mayhem Week, which is similar to Hell Week. All of the workouts were extra hard and if you completed 4 out of the 6 workouts you got a hat. I was totally excited to get the hat, but even more excited when my friend Andrew asked me if I wanted to collaborate again. He and I worked together in the beginning of the year when we discussed our Orangetheorygoalsfor the year. This time, he was planning on doing all 6 days of Mayhem and a vlog for each day. He asked me to be a guest on one vlog, and since he was going to do all 6 workouts I asked if he could do some recaps for me!
So this post is all quick recaps of the workouts from both of us. Andrew (which will be the italics text) has something to say every day. I had a lot of rest days (which I will discuss at the end of this post) so I don’t have as much to say. But before I get into our recaps, Andrew wanted to share a little bit about his plan:
This year was my second All Out Mayhem at Orangetheory (kind of strange to write that) and, unlike last year, I decided to go beyond the minimum amount of classes to ‘complete’ the challenge and aim for all SIX days…
Those six days came and went and since I’m still alive, I thought I would give a quick review of each class (written RevRun-style, soaking in a tub of Epsom salt).
Sunday (Unrest)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: To Paraphrase Maya Angelo, “people won’t remember what you said or did, but how you made them feel”. That’s me with this workout. I don’t remember what the format was exactly, but I do remember during it I began to question my plan of doing this 5 more days in a row…
Monday (Bedlam)
Me: This was the day that I appeared on Andrew’s vlog, so you can see a little bit about my experience on there. I was happy to have a 3 group class because we didn’t have nearly as many all outs as the 2 group class. I had to go a bit lower on my resistance level on the bike because all of the all outs were at inclines/high resistance levels, but even going lower than normal made it hard for me. I didn’t get as far on the rower as I would have but I still had a great time with this workout and felt amazing after completing it!
Andrew: This was the day with the 20 (Yes, TWENTY) All Outs on the treadmill. While it did have a “sticker shock” effect upon hearing it presented by your coach, it really wasn’t that bad -Although I might have preferred to start my Monday morning with the 3G version (only 12 All Outs). Spoiler: in hindsight this day ended up being my favorite.
Tuesday (Epocalypse)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: This is when my body started to get a little mad at me. With this being my 3rd day in a row, my legs and arms really started to hurt. After class, I actually had to foam roll the backs of my arms (you can laugh) to relieve the pain.
Wednesday (Commotion)
Me: This workout was a bit weird for me because the rower at my station wasn’t working. So instead of having 15 minutes at each section of the room, I had 30 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the floor. But it turned out that the rowing blocks actually were almost no rowing but instead 30 seconds of rowing and then we finished the block with sumo squats and tricep extensions. The floor was all squats, sit-ups, and push ups. Everything was very repetitive and I was so glad to have work after my workout so I could sit and be lazy.
Andrew: I hated this one. Moving on.
Thursday (Disturbance)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: At this point in the week, my body was giving up. I powered through however and made modifications to both the floor and the tread blocks to not make matters worse for my lower legs & feet (I threw the burpees away).
Friday (Pandemonium)
Me: This was the first workout of the week that I had my horrible nausea. I am so glad it started toward the end of the week because I honestly was expecting it all week. We had a ton of squats in this workout and they were unfortunately making me nauseous (which I don’t think has ever happened with squats before), but I just took my time and did them at my own pace. The floor was all upper body and went much better than I thought I could do with how I was feeling.
Andrew: I remember telling the staff at the front desk before that I was jealous they got to sit there while I had to go workout (I swear I like Orangetheory y’all, I’m just dramatic lol). By the end of class I decided I had put in way too much hard work & dedication to end the week with a less than average effort. So I spent the last 30 seconds at a 10.2 on the treadmill -super high for me!
Overall, I’m really proud of myself for sticking with my goal of going all 6 days. The point of Mayhem for me was to get myself back on track with my consistency and I think it truly worked.
*drains tub*
As you can see, I only did 3 days of Mayhem. I don’t know what I was thinking but I thought it ended on Saturday so my Saturday workout would have been the 4th day. I only realized my mistake when I was in class on Friday so it was too late to do anything about it. I had a moment of real disappointment and feeling mad at myself, but I got that thought out of my head quickly. I still did 3 days of Mayhem and 4 workouts that week since I did still go on Saturday. That’s not something that everyone can do.
And what Andrew did with doing all 6 workouts is even more incredible! I’m so lucky to have friends like him who inspire me to do more and work harder. Hopefully I will be able to do better with the planning for Hell Week and Mayhem next year.
Make sure you go to Andrew’s channel to subscribe so you can see all of his vlogs about his fitness journey! And you can see my appearance regarding Monday’s workout below!
Posted onMay 6, 2019|Comments Off on Trying New Things When I’m Having A Bad Week (or Having An OTF First)
I was really prepared for the worst this past week at Orangetheory. I knew it would be my week of nausea and I really don’t expect much from myself that week. I usually go into my workouts just hoping I can keep moving while I was in class and if I can do more than that it’s a bonus. What I never expect is to have a small breakthrough in my workouts. But this past week surprised me with just that.
Monday’s workout was endurance based and was having moderate nausea. I haven’t decided if I prefer having one horrible nausea day and the rest of the time being only a little nauseous or having moderate nausea for an extended period of time. This past week was moderate nausea for the entire week which made Monday a bit better (but the rest of the week a bit harder). But it helped for making the endurance workout a bit easier.
For cardio we started with a long 3 minute push pace and then we had rounds of 1 minute push paces and 30 second base paces with an all out pace at the end. The 3 minute push was tough to keep going the entire time, but I put my resistance level a bit lower than I normally would. The rounds of 1 minute pushes were a bit better and I felt like I could actually push myself a bit more. I ended up using the base pace time to stop and get some water (and let my nausea pass) so I didn’t really have a base pace during the workout. But considering what I was expecting to be able to do I had a much better time and did a lot more work.
On the rower we started with a 3 minute row for distance. The plan was to go down 100 meters on the rower each time we rowed and have squats with the medicine ball between each row. I usually try to use round numbers when I have this type of rowing workout so I just did the 3 minute distance row and then went down to 500 meters after (I did around 600 meters in those 3 minutes). The long rows weren’t easy, but it was nice to have the ability to zone out a bit while I rowed. I still had to rest in the middle of the rowing a lot, but I wasn’t too worried about that and didn’t stress too much about how far down the row distance I could do.
And on the floor, the first block had side lunges, regular lunges, and crunches. Those all went well and as expected and weren’t anything too crazy. But in the second block, I had a pretty great breakthrough. Whenever we have exercises on the floor that involve stepping on and off the bench I do something on the floor instead like lunges. But the first block already had lunges so I asked my coach what else I could use as a replacement. We worked on figuring out how I could use the bench a bit but I held onto the straps for balance and I wasn’t exactly stepping on and off. I was balancing on one foot while moving the other foot behind me. I’ve done something similar on the floor, but because I’m on the floor I’m limited in how far I can drop the back foot. By doing it on the bench, I had more room to squat down and balance. I still wasn’t doing exactly what we were supposed to do, but it was a big change from what I normally do and I felt how hard I worked after that workout! It was so awesome to know I could do something that I really didn’t think I could do!
Wednesday’s workout was a power day, but I ended up treating it a bit like another endurance day. My nausea was close to what it was like on Monday and I really was expecting it to be better than that. Because of that feeling, I didn’t want to overdo things on the bike and I really wanted to be able to zone out while I was on it.
The cardio was supposed to be different distance challenges with base paces between them, but I really didn’t want to have to focus on the distance on the bike and to do the math needed to plan it out. Both blocks for cardio were 6 minutes so I just kept my resistance level between my base and push paces and just went for the entire block. I had to take lots of breaks during the block, but I was grateful to have a steady resistance level so I could skip focusing on that. I know I didn’t get as hard of a workout as I normally do, but it was better than many nauseous days. And I feel like not having the pressure of focusing on the distance allowed me to do more work than I could have done if I was trying to keep up the pattern.
On the rower, we had only sprint rows. Both blocks had 200, 150, and 100 meter rows. The first block had overhead medicine ball presses between the rows and the second block had medicine ball front presses between the rows. The sprint rows were nice because they were done quickly. I know I was slow and not able to push back as hard as I would have liked on the rower which made them take longer, but they were still done faster than the rows I had on Monday.
And on the floor I had another chance to work on my new bench standing skill. The first block had high rows on the straps, double crunches, and what was supposed to be toe tap hop overs on the bench. I can’t do the hop overs, but I did a similar exercise as I did on Monday with holding onto the straps. This time, I balanced on one leg while putting the back foot back and to the side. I couldn’t do all the reps without standing on the bench again to get my balance, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. The second block had pullovers with weights, lunges, and skier swings. It was nice to have a floor workout that only required minimal modifications for my hip issues and no modifications due to my nausea.
Friday’s workout was the hardest day for me by far. My nausea was the same it had been all week, but I had not slept the night before. Going into a workout with only about 20 minutes of sleep is not ideal but I didn’t want to skip the class either. This was the time I feel like I really went in with the mindset that I’m used to having when I’m nauseous. I just wanted to get through it and doing something is better than doing nothing.
The workout was endurance based and I really took it easy on the bike. We had one block with rounds of decreasing push paces with 30 second bases between and one block with rounds of decreasing push paces with 1 minute bases between. I was using my old push and base paces and it was really a struggle. Exhaustion was hitting me really hard in class (although I think having my workout is what helped to keep me awake during work later that day) and all I could think about was trying to keep going. I didn’t do what I know I can do, even when I feel nauseous, and I had to be ok with that.
The rower was also 2 blocks. The first block started with a 300 meter row with squat front presses. Then it was a 600 meter row and we were supposed to hold a squat the rest of the block, but I didn’t finish the 600 meter row before the block ended. The second block followed the same pattern as the treadmill and we had push rows and ground to press with medicine balls as our recovery when the treadmills were in their base pace. After the ground to presses I had about 15 seconds each time to get ready for the next row so it felt like we didn’t have much rest that entire block.
And on the floor, we had 1 long block that was split into 2 mini-blocks. The first mini-block was lateral raises to front raises with weights, alternating shoulder presses with weights, and Y raises with the straps. The second block was goblet squats with weights, regular lunges with weights, and side lunges with weights. The regular lunges were actually supposed to be step ups on the step and I could have tried to figure out a way to modify that on the step with the strap, but I didn’t feel comfortable trying that when I was so tired. I need to be focused when I try things on the step and that day I know I wasn’t.
Saturday’s class was a themed class. It was May The 4th Be With You and everything was pretty much related to 4. We had 4 minutes runs and rows and 4 or 8 reps of things on the floor. It was a bit of a crazy class with a lot of switches, but it ended up being my best class of the week. I was dealing with some anger in my life and I was taking it out in class. Turns out working angry means you get to work hard and you feel better when it’s done!
The cardio and rower blocks worked together and had a run/row type format. If you were doing cardio you did cardio, rowing, cardio and if you were doing rowing you did rowing, cardio, rowing. When we were doing the cardio work, it was a 4 minute distance challenge. I set my resistance level to be at my old push pace for that and it worked really well. It was a bit tough, but considering it was 4 minutes without a break it should be tough! And when we were doing rowing it was 4 rounds of 100 meter rows with 4 frogger squats between. If we finished those 4 rounds we rowed for distance until we switched. Every time I made it to the rowing for distance.
The floor was one long block and it was focused a lot on upper body. We had chest presses, push-ups, high rows on the straps, chest flys, sit-ups, squats, and rollouts on the straps. My arms were still a bit sore from Friday’s workout so I had to take my time with these exercises, but I was able to get a lot of rounds done. I definitely feel the hard work I did still, so I might have gone a little too heavy with the weights, but it was totally worth it to me.
I still can’t believe that I had such great work during a week that I was prepared for the worst. I know that having these not-so-bad nausea weeks are a surprise and I wish they would be more often. But if I get them every few months that would be nice too. I got so much done this past week that I never thought I could do and it was a great boost to my self-esteem during a week that I had some struggles. Hopefully I can keep that going through this week too!
Posted onApril 3, 2019|Comments Off on Making Challenges More Challenging (or A Dri-Tri First For Me)
When I did the Dri-Tri this past weekend, I pretty much knew what to expect. I’ve done it several times before and I’ve learned new tips and tricks each time that usually help me. I don’t always improve every time, but I feel better about it each time I do one. So when I got off the wait list for the Dri-Tri this time, I was so grateful because it was another opportunity for me to test myself and see what new things I could figure out.
But even though I knew what to expect, I also knew this one would be very different from the other ones I’ve done. First of all, I was having a bad nausea/pain day. While I’ve had some nausea, this was going to be the worst of all my Dri-Tri attempts. I was prepared for this, but at the same time it’s hard to be prepared until you are in the middle of the workout. Also, this would be my first time doing a Dri-Tri using the bike instead of the treadmill. If I wasn’t having a bad nausea day, I might have debated using the treadmill even though I haven’t been on it for months. But knowing how I was feeling, there was no way to do anything other than the bike.
We had a 2000 meter benchmark row earlier in the week which I found so helpful. I had an idea of what my row time would be since you are supposed to go slower than the benchmark since the row is only the beginning of the Dri-Tri. I still wanted to be under 9:30 even though that would keep me close to what I did for the benchmark. But I’m stubborn and had that in mind. A lot of people in my heat were doing it for the first time, so there was a lot of emphasis before we started to not burn out on the rower. I listened because I knew I needed the reminder too.
Once we started, I quickly found my pace on the rower. I was not worried about anyone else around me or what was happening other than maintaining my pace. There were a few times I noticed I was getting a bit too speedy and slowed things down, but I was pretty steady without too much effort. I tried to zone out since I knew the row would take time, but that didn’t quite happen. But even with my focus on random things, I still did pretty well with my row. I was the last person to finish, but I did it in under 9:30 so I was very happy with that.
The floor was a challenge that I wasn’t totally prepared for. I always remember the floor as being tough, but I forgot how many things we had on the floor that were face down exercises. Those make me more nauseous so it was a tough section for me. I did modifications when I could like using the bench for plank work, but I still needed a lot of breaks to let the nausea pass. But because I do lunges instead of step ups, I feel like I make up some time doing that. The floor could have been much worse, but it still more than I really thought it would be.
By the time I got to the bike, I was ready to be at the final stage. I had a general idea of how long it would take me to do the bike, but I also haven’t really done that far on the bike in a long time. I started a little higher on the resistance level than my base level, but I decided to drop it back to my base level after the first few minutes. If you are running on the treadmill, you don’t have to go faster than your base. I also knew that if I kept it to my base level that I could probably go faster. And since it’s a timed event, going faster is always better.
I did have a few issues on the bike, but nothing too bad. Whenever I needed some water, I had to stop completely since I’m still not coordinated enough to drink water and pedal at the same time. I also was having waves of nausea during the bike that I had to stop to let pass. I wasn’t sure if the nausea was still from being on the floor or just happening because they happen, but they felt a bit more frequent than I would have thought they would have been. I tried to not stop for too long, but sometimes I just had to.
While I was on the bike, other people were completing their Dri-Tris. I never expect to finish in the first half of the group so I always figure that I will see lots of people finishing before me. I’m never completing against anyone else (even though they do have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners I’m not eligible due to my modifications) so I don’t care where I rank in finishing. And it is always fun watching people complete it because everyone in the room is cheering them on.
As I was getting close to finishing the distance on the bike, I realized that because the staff was focused on seeing who was close to finishing on the treadmills (because they could easily see those numbers) I would have to pay attention to the time I finished. I didn’t mind that there wasn’t attention when I finished because I honestly wasn’t super happy with my time. While I had no idea how long it would take me to finish with using the bike, I still wanted to finish in under 50 minutes. I ended up finishing in 50:50 and it was a little bit frustrating. Those extra 50 seconds could have been one or two water breaks and I hate that I was so close to the goal I set. But I did finish and that is really the most important thing.
I finished around the middle of the pack, and as soon as I caught my breath and recovered a bit I started to see who was close to finishing their 5K on the treadmills. I joined in to cheer on as each person finished and I was so happy I could be a little bit of motivation as other people were finishing. Everyone who started the Dri-Tri was able to finish it. And that is the only goal that really matters.
There were 2 heats for the Dri-Tri and I was in the first one. I had a few friends in the second one and I promised to stick around to cheer them on. I wasn’t sure how late I’d stay, but I wanted to be there for support for my friends. They were nervous with this being their first Dri-Tri and I wanted to help out however I could.
I ended up staying until all of my friends finished their 5K on the treadmill. I didn’t stay for everyone in that heat to finish because I did need to get home, but I wanted to make sure my friends had support even if it was at the very end of their run. They all did amazing and I am so proud of them for taking on a challenge and kicking butt doing it!
While this Dri-Tri wasn’t the same as any of the other ones I did, I’m glad I did it. I found new challenges I had to overcome and I was able to do it. I also now have an idea of how long it would take me to complete the bike section. There’s a good chance I’ll still be using the bike when the next Dri-Tri happens so I’m glad that I have a goal in mind. And I do also know how to deal with my bad nausea days for the Dri-Tri, although I hope the next one will fall on one of my better weeks.
Posted onApril 2, 2019|Comments Off on Failing And Succeeding In One Monthly Challenge (or Another Repeat Challenge This Month)
Last month, I decided my monthly challenge would be all about skin care. While I have been good about taking care of the skin on my face, I knew I could be doing a lot more work with the skin on my body. The idea was to discover some new things that I could do to help my skin, but the main thing I wanted to do was to work on dry brushing.
Well, I totally failed at dry brushing. I did it a few times, but it just didn’t really work for me. So many times when I’m taking a shower it’s right after a workout. My skin is still damp with sweat and I don’t want to have to dry off the sweat before jumping into the shower. I tried to do it the times I shower when it’s not immediately after a workout, but I didn’t see a benefit from it. I’m not giving up on it, but I know that this part of my skincare plan was a total fail.
But I wouldn’t consider this past challenge a fail because I did discover a few amazing things that have been helping me a lot with skincare. And the new things I figured out have been things that I’ve been doing every day.
First, I stopped using a regular loofah. I’ve been using a loofah poof for as long as I can remember for my body wash. I don’t like using a washcloth or my hands for body soap. A loofah was the best option I knew of. But then when I was in Catalina, my aunt was telling me about exfoliating bath sheets. I had never heard of these before but they seemed like a great upgrade. First, they dry so much faster than a loofah poof which helps to make them not as gross. But you can also scrub your back much easier since it’s a long rectangle. As soon as I got home I got one and I’ve been using it ever since! I feel like I’m getting my skin so much cleaner.
Another thing I discovered was wet skin lotion. I’ve tried in-shower lotions before, but I never liked them. You washed them off your skin so I felt like they were just being wasted. And they always made my shower or tub so slippery. But wet skin lotions are different. You do put them on while in the shower, but after the water is turned off. You apply it just like regular lotion but your skin doesn’t have to be dry. I have found this makes my skin feel much more moisturized and I dry off so much faster! I still use my regular lotion other times during the day, but I know putting this one on right after my shower is the best option for keeping my skin feeling soft.
So while I didn’t succeed at what I planned to do with my skincare, I still succeeded. And I want to take the idea into this month’s challenge. This month, I am challenging myself to be much more accurate in tracking various things in my life. And all of those things are things I’ve had as previous monthly challenges.
This is a combination of a few things. As I mentioned recently, I restarted my budget and I’m working on getting everything set up. It’s pretty much there, but I have to get back into my habit of tracking my money the way I used to. I was getting lazy before and I need to be accurate again in order to make budgeting work. I also have been slacking on tracking my weight and food intake. Both of these things can be an act of defiance, but I see them as more avoiding things. And I’m not always avoiding bad things. I wasn’t tracking my weight when I knew it was going down because I was scared how I would react if I lost more or less than I expected. And with food intake, when I have a very low calorie day for whatever reason, I don’t want to see that and get scared that either I need to force myself to eat or that this is going to cause me to binge later.
I’m not as worried about tracking my money because I feel much less emotion with that. But tracking my weight and food intake will be tough challenges for me to do. I already know I failed at being perfect because yesterday I wasn’t accurate (I was having a horrible nausea day and food was more about trying to see what would make me feel better and not thinking about what I’m eating).
But as I learned last month, just because I started as a fail doesn’t mean I can’t end as a success.
Posted onApril 1, 2019|Comments Off on Some Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or Trading One Ailment For Another)
This past week of workouts were interesting for me. I was finally getting over my bronchitis, but I also started dealing with nausea. It was really annoying timing because the day I was finally feeling better from one thing was the day that I started being nauseous. It was also an interesting week because the workouts were designed to help us get ready for the Dri-Tri. At the beginning of the week, I was on the waitlist for the Dri-Tri, but by Friday I knew I was officially in. I was hoping to get in so I did do my workouts with the assumption that I was prepping for it.
Monday’s workout was the class that was very clearly prep for the Dri-Tri. We had a workout with endurance, strength, and power and the endurance portion of the class was a 2000 meter row benchmark. This is the same distance that we have as the row for the Dri-Tri. While it is a benchmark, we don’t do it that often so I was happy that I had it as a part of my workout so I could have an idea of what I’d be able to do.
I knew I wouldn’t get a personal best with the row because of how I was feeling. I also know that my endurance is still lower than it’s been before so I have to work up to that again. But I still wanted to set a goal time in my head. I would have loved to have been under 9 minutes, but I knew that would be pushing myself too much. I wanted to push myself a little, but also not hurt myself or make it so that rowing throughout the week would be painful. So I went with just wanting to be able to do the row in under 9 1/2 minutes. That’s still better than many of my 2000 meter rows and it seemed like a good number to have in my head.
I was pretty steady with my rowing. I didn’t change up the speed for a majority of the row. I was just going and trying to not push too hard since that is the downfall for longer rows. I kept checking in with my time and my distance and saw I was right about what I would need to be to get to my goal time. But I also knew at the halfway mark that I’m often slower for the second half than the first half and if I wanted to hit my goal I would need to push it at the end. So when I got to the last 200 meters, I just went hard and I made it under my goal!
The cardio work was decreasing distance runs. We were doing our own tracking and timing. For the bike, it started at 2 trips and then we had a minute to recover. Each round went down by .4 with a recovery after. I was trying my best to track my distance each time, but sometimes I got a bit distracted. I always went the full 2 trips if I forgot what distance I started at. I figured overdoing it was better than under-doing it.
And on the floor, we had a mix of Bosu work and weight work. On the Bosu, we had back extensions and running men. For weights we had squats to overhead presses and tricep work. We also had bicycle crunches. I was going heavy for my tricep work and medium heavy for the overhead presses. Even though I was going from being on the ground to standing up over and over, my nausea wasn’t kicking in during that the way I was expecting it to. That was a nice surprise and allowed me to do more rounds on the floor than I thought I would be able to do.
Wednesday’s workout was a strength based class, and it ended up being special because I realized it was my 50th class of 2019! I’m ahead of my goal for my workouts this year and that’s exactly where I want to be. I want to be ahead so that when I do have a week where I can’t do 4 workouts that I already have workouts banked to cover that.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks that had a similar format. We started with doing a distance run/bike and we were supposed to go to a recovery once we hit that distance. I was having a really bad nausea day, so I never hit the distance by the time we were moving on. But that just meant I skipped the recovery time which was fine since I wasn’t pedaling too hard. After the distance each block, we had incline work. We increased the incline/resistance level every 30 seconds and it ended with an all out pace. The way the resistance levels worked for me, I increased the level every 30 seconds and 1 level higher than the hill was my all out level which worked out nicely.
On the rower, we had 2 similar blocks. We started with a 2 minute timed row. After the row we had lunges with rotations for the first block and regular lunges for the second block. Then we did half the distance we got on the 2 minute row with more lunges. And we ended with cutting the distance in half again. I never made it to the lunges after the 3rd row, but I was happy with how I was doing with the rower for all my distances.
And the floor was 1 long block with almost all weighted exercises. For weighted exercises we had kneeling low rows, sitting shoulder presses to stands, hip hinge reverse flies, and double crunches. We also had low rows on the straps. Because of the nausea I was dealing with, I had to go a bit lighter on the weights. I was able to go a bit heavy on the double crunches since I was laying on my back, but the other exercises were bringing my nausea out a bit.
Friday was my last regular workout of the week and the first workout I had were I knew for sure I’d be doing the Dri-Tri. I went easy on myself because of the nausea and because I knew I’d have a hard day the next day. I’m glad I knew to go easy because I would have hated it if I worked hard and was sore and then found out I got off the wait list for the Dri-Tri.
The cardio was 2 blocks with hill climbs. Each block started with a 90 second hill where the incline/resistance level increased every 30 seconds. We had a base pace with no incline work before a 90 second push pace without incline. Both blocks ended with a push pace and an all out pace. I was using my new resistance levels for all the work and the hill work was around the levels I use for my push and all out paces.
On the rower, the first block was timed rows with lunges between each row. We had a 90 second row, 60 second row, and 30 second row. The second block was distance rows with lunges between. The rows were 400 meters, 200 meters, and 100 meters. I did pretty well with how far I got with the timed rows and how quickly I could do the distance rows. But I struggled a lot with the lunges. For the second block, I decided to do squats instead. It can get tough for me to step over the rower to have the space for the lunges and I can do squats just standing over the rower.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks as well. The first block had sit-ups to sumo squats, goblet squats, and bicep curls. I had to separate the sit-ups and sumo squats because it’s very difficult for me to do them as a single move. But because I split them, I could go heavier with the weight I used. And the second block was push-ups, squats, and side plank rotations. The second block was a bit harder for me in terms of my nausea, but it wasn’t as bad as it was on Wednesday.
After my 3 workouts for the week, I did feel as prepared as I could be for the Dri-Tri. I am always a little nervous before doing it and I’ve got a little extra nerves this time because I’ve never had to do the Dri-Tri while getting over a cold and dealing with nausea. But I know I did a lot of work during my workouts to be in the best place I could be going into it. My expectations were lower than other times and I was curious to see what would happen. And I’ll be writing about how it went a little later this week!
Taking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)
