Tag Archives: fitness

A Not-So-Easy Easy Week (Making Sure I Challenge Myself)

Posted on December 5, 2016 | Comments Off on A Not-So-Easy Easy Week (Making Sure I Challenge Myself)

After a week of tough workouts the week before, I figured I go a bit easier on myself. That did happen in the sense that I only did 3 workouts this week, but each of those workouts were ones where I pushed myself to go more than before so I guess I still couldn’t let myself off the hook.

Monday’s workout had endurance, strength, and power in it and we didn’t switch between blocks. During endurance on the treadmill, I did my 1 minute intervals during the 3 minute push. But for the 2 minute and 90 second pushes, I ran for the entire time. I’m getting more comfortable again with running those longer times and I’m working on figuring out what types of intervals I’d like to set as a goal for my next 5k race. I’m still testing things out, but I’m feeling like I can do better than 1 minute intervals.

I was thinking about my next 5k race while doing the strength work on the treadmill as well. I know that my next race will have hills in it and I really need to start training for running on hills. While I did walk for the higher inclines between 6-9%, I did do a 1 minute run at 2% incline. I know that’s not a lot, but it’s a start. For the power block, we had 1 minute pushes followed by 1 minute at base, so that’s pretty easy for me to do with my intervals. And we finished with a 1 minute all out pace where I pushed it and ran at 6.5 mph. That was not easy to maintain for a minute, but I enjoyed doing it.

For our floor work that day, we had a lot of focus on arm work. I ended up using some lighter weights than I would have liked to, but for some reason my body wasn’t feeling it with the weight work. We also had some single leg squats using the straps. Since I was able to do the single leg deadlifts while holding on the week before, I really thought I could do the single leg squats too. I really tried, but I had to stop and just do regular squats instead. I don’t know if single leg squats will ever be possible for me, but I do need to keep testing myself to see if that day is the day I can do them.

Wednesday was a strength day and I took that as a sign that it was meant for me to keep testing out running on inclines again. I was able to run for all the pushes between 2-4% incline. I’m not sure what the hills are in the 5k race, but I know they are more than 4%. I’m hoping to find out what the inclines are so I can use that as a guide to keep training with my running up inclines. I want to set up that race to be my best one on that course. Even though most of the running was at an incline (and I walked anything higher than 4%), there were some flat road moments too. I was able to run for a minute at 5.5 mph and for 30 seconds at 6.5 mph.

Floor work that day had each block starting with a 400 meter row. I ended up getting faster each time I did it which is pretty crazy. But all of my times were fast to me (the slowest was 1:48) and I felt pretty exhausted going into the rest of the floor work. The rest of the floor was more focus on arms (shoulder presses, tricep work, strap work) and that was good since my legs were tired from rowing.

Friday’s class threw me for a loop. It is normally a regular 2 group class, but for some reason this day it ended up being a 3 group class (like I had on Thanksgiving). It was an endurance day and I started on the treadmill. We had an 8.5 minute distance challenge. I thought for some reason we were doing it twice, so while I did push myself on it I knew I could have done better. My intervals were 2 minutes of running and then 1 minute of walking. I ended it with a 2.5 minute run. I am happy with my distance, but I’m so curious how much farther I could have gone if I really went crazy with my speeds.

treadmill-work

Next I was on the rower. To start, we did 100 meter sprints and the goal was to do it in as few strokes as possible. I did manage to get my stroke count down from 16 to 13, but I could never do better than 13. Next on the rower was a 800 meter distance challenge. I went a lot faster than I thought I could so I ended up needing some time to catch my breath. We had to hold a squat after that row and then try to do 800 meters again (I only made it about 300 meters the second time).

Finally on the floor, we had a ton of plank work. We had plank punches and plank leg lifts which were both challenging and I ended up having to do some modifications. We also had some lunges and sit-ups to round out things.

I’m glad that even when I’m not challenging myself with how many workouts I’m doing in a week, I’m still able to challenge myself in each class. I’m no longer trying to hit my workout goal for the year (it’s not going to happen and I’m ok with that now), but I’m still trying to find things that make me feel like I’m ending this year so much stronger than I was when I set that workout goal. If my workouts were easy, it probably would have been easy to hit that goal. Since I’m not doing that, I do need my rest days.

Only a few more weeks of workouts for 2016 to go!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Shorter Workout Week (or Doing Some 5K Prep) Default Thumbnail12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal (or Finishing Hell Week and Race Prep) Default ThumbnailFriends and Milestones (or Another Amazing Workout Week) Default ThumbnailWeek 1 Of Orangetheory (or Wow, I’m 1/8 Of The Way Done With My Challenge!) Default ThumbnailThe End Of My 8 Week Challenge (or The End Is Really Just The Beginning)

Comments Off on A Not-So-Easy Easy Week (Making Sure I Challenge Myself)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Thanksgiving Workouts (or Continuing A Tradition)

Posted on November 28, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts included some in LA and 1 in San Diego. It’s pretty much a once a year occurrence that I work out somewhere other than my Brentwood Orangetheory, but it was awesome to get to work out with my family in the middle of the week.

My workout on Monday was in LA and it was an endurance day. We had a lot of long push paces but I pushed myself a lot. I was preparing to work out with my dad and I wanted to make sure I was in the best running shape possible. For the 3 minute pushes, I did my 1 minute intervals. For all the pushes that were 2 minutes or under, I ran the entire time. We also had a progressive push for 4 minutes where we were supposed to get faster every minute. I know I can’t really run for 4 minutes yet, so I set up my own intervals. I did 90 seconds of running, 30 seconds of walking, and 90 seconds of running to get through that long segment. And when we had a 1 minute all out, I decided to go really fast to see what I would be able to get for my distance in class. And to find out I did 2 miles again was a nice confidence boost!

2-miles

For the floor on Monday, we had 2 blocks. And each of those blocks started with a 750 meter row. That’s a pretty decent distance to row and I knew it would be tough. But I still wanted to go as quickly as I could to see what I was able to do. I managed to get them done in 3:37.6 and 3:26.7 which isn’t bad at all! We also had a lot of arm work including chest presses and flies and using the straps to do rows and bicep work. By the end of the class, I felt pretty prepared for my Thanksgiving workout with my family.

My next workout was on Thanksgiving at the Orangetheory in La Jolla. As usual, my dad was able to join me (one of my aunts was supposed to come for the 3rd year, but she was dealing with some injuries that prevented her from working out). My aunt who came for her first class last year was also with us. My brother came back after missing the workout last year. And my cousin and sister-in-law were there for the first time! We had a pretty large group and our experience levels were a big range, but I was so excited about it. I think my cousin and sister-in-law were both a little nervous (and having me explain the workout wasn’t making it better), but I think everyone was happy that we were doing something to help burn off the calories we’d be eating later.

This workout was a 3G (or 3 group) workout like it is every Thanksgiving. We were able to start on the treadmill and it was an 8 minute distance challenge. My dad and I were on treadmills next to each other, but I knew he could go farther than I could since he can run pretty well. But it was cool to have my dad next to me since this was the first time he was getting to see me run. I did 2 minutes of running with 1 minute of walking for my intervals and I managed to get .6 miles done in those 8 minutes.  We were back on the treadmill one more time and we had a 5 minute block with pushes and all outs. Each segment was 90 seconds or under, so I was able to run the entire time for those.

We also had a bit of a partner workout between the rower and the floor. The people on the rower were rowing for distance while they waited for their partner on the floor to tag them out. On the floor, we had to do squats, squat half swings, and push ups. Because of how the partnering worked, none of my family was partnered with each other. But that might have been for the best because then we didn’t have to be mad at each other for taking too long to tag us out. On the other half of the partner workout, I didn’t end up having a partner (it wasn’t a full class). So we had 1 minute row sprints and then went over to the floor to do shoulder pressed, one leg deadlifts (I did them one-legged but held on with one hand) and more push ups.

For the end of the workout, we had 5 minute rotations where the rower was quick pushes and on the floor we did some plank work. It wasn’t an easy workout, but it wasn’t the worst I have done. But for my family who isn’t used to the pace or pattern, I know it was a bit tough on them. But fortunately everyone had a great time (my sister-in-law even said that she would join Orangetheory if there was one in Santa Barbara for her to go to) and I think that everyone will be joining us again for the workout next year.

And as always, we had to get a photo as a family with our coach. We had someone different this year (the past 2 years we happened to have the same coach each time), but this guy was awesome! I hope he will be our coach next year!

family-otf

We also got a silly picture after the workout. There had been an ongoing joke about if my brother would get sick from pushing himself too hard in the workout this year, so in the silly picture he is pretending to throw up (he’s hidden behind my dad’s arm).

silly-otf

I got back from Thanksgiving late on Friday, so my next workout in LA was on Saturday morning after work. It was a strength day and I was pretty glad for that. I was a bit tired from Thanksgiving and was happy to have a lot of walking during the treadmill time. But it ended up not being a standard strength treadmill day. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and each started with a 90 second push pace at no incline. I ended up running for all of those. Then we had our hill climbs. Those ranged from 3 minutes to 90 seconds and I walked at an incline between 8-12% for all of those. Then we ended each block with an all out pace (between 30-90 seconds) and it was at a 4% incline. Normally, I wouldn’t run those, but I figured I’d try it because 4% is my walking flat road. Running at 4% isn’t easy, but I was able to do it and I’m glad that I tried.

On the floor, the first block was more focused on arms. We had push ups with weighted rows plus bicep curls (I was using 20 pounds for the bicep work) We also had some ab work in that first block. In the second block, we had lunges plus some strap work and then rowing. The rowing was between 300-400 meters so it was more like a sprint than some of my rowing in the beginning of the week. I was glad that I chose to do a workout on Saturday because it really helped me to get back into my normal schedule after being out-of-town for a few days. And I also knew I ate a bit more than normal over Thanksgiving so I wanted to make up for that.

For the next few weeks of workouts, I don’t think I have anything too crazy going on. There is a contest at my Orangetheory where you have to do 15 workouts in 6 weeks, so I know that should happen for me (if you get that done, you win tickets you can use for various drawings for prizes). I’ve heard there is a sprint dri-tri coming up, so I’m going to look into that and see if it fits with my schedule. But mainly I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing to make sure I end 2016 better than I started it!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailMy Short Workout Week (or 6 Years Of Family Workouts) Default ThumbnailMaking Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout) Default ThumbnailThanksgiving Workouts (or Getting My Family Involved) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Get Better (or Still Finding Wins In My Workouts) Default ThumbnailCheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

1 Comment

Posted in Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Making Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout)

Posted on November 21, 2016 | 2 comments

This past week of workouts were really great! I’m not sure what happened, but I was able to do things better/faster/stronger and I wasn’t necessarily trying for that. I know that part of it might be that I’m getting ready for my workout with my family on Thanksgiving. My dad and I are pretty competitive with that. I know he will always do better than me on the treadmill (although he hasn’t seen me run yet), but I want to do better on the rower and lift heavier weights. And I think this week really got me ready for that.

Monday was a strength day. I was able to run during the flat road push pace during the treadmill time (it was for a minute). But since the treadmill time was very focused on hills (as strength days are), I mainly power walked. I did try to do my inclines at the recommended incline or higher. We had a lot of 2 minute hill segments and I was usually keeping the treadmill at 8-12% incline. The inclines are finally getting easier for me (they got really tough after I tore my calf and I don’t know why it took so long to get easier) so I’m testing the higher inclines again during strength days. I’m glad that things seem to be getting better and I think I can start to challenge myself on strength days again.

For the floor on Monday, it was mainly arm work. But we had rowing to do for each of the 3 blocks. The first block was 600 meters, the second block was 500 meters, and the last block was 400 meters. The average time I seem to get is about 30 seconds for every 100 meters (which is what beginners are supposed to do). When I tore my calf, rowing got tough but that didn’t last too long. But then when I got my stomach bug/gallbladder issue, it got tough again to row. My stomach didn’t like being compressed like that. It hasn’t been easy rowing lately, but I figured this was a good day as any to challenge myself. And I really went hard. I managed to do my 600 meters in 2:35 (instead of my usual 3 minutes), the 500 meters in 2:03 (instead of 2:30) and 400 meters in 1:31 (instead of 2 minutes). Some of those are the best rowing times I’ve done for those distances and it was at the end of the workout so I felt really great that I could still accomplish something that awesome when I was that tired.

I had to skip my Wednesday workout (more on that tomorrow), so I went on Thursday instead. And I honestly think that Thursday was one of the toughest days I’ve had ever at Orangetheory (several other people I know agreed with me on that). It was worse than the Hell Week workouts! It was an endurance day, but it wasn’t a normal workout day. All of the blocks were 6.5 minutes long. We started with the treadmill for a block. I was able to run the 90 second and under push and all out paces completely. For the 2 or 3 minute pushes, I ran for 1 minute and walked for a minute.

After that block, the treadmills headed over to the rower. We had 2 different 3 minute distance sprints. Inspired by my awesome rowing on Monday, I decided to see what I could really do with these sprints. Normally for 3 minutes, I would get just about 600 meters done. And rowing for 3 minutes straight isn’t easy, so I can’t push myself as much as I can with the sprints. But after completing the 2 distance challenges, I was pretty darn impressed with myself!

rowing-challenge

I’m very happy that I was close to 700 meters both times! And I got my further distance on the second sprint, which most people couldn’t do. That was nice. After the rowing, we headed back to the treadmill for another block of work.

When we got to the floor, it was a lot of hamstring work which is always tough for me. Most of that work is too tough on my hips, so I have to do modifications. It’s not bad, but it does sometimes frustrate me because I really do want to do what everyone else is doing. After one block on the floor, we headed up to the treadmill and had a treadmill block in the middle of our floor work. That treadmill block included a 3 minute push, so I did my 1 minute intervals with it. And we finished up with another floor block. I was so exhausted after that workout, but it was a good exhaustion.

Going back on Friday after that tough Thursday workout wasn’t fun. But fortunately for me, it was another strength day so I mainly was walking on the treadmill. Again, I ran the push and all out paces that were on flat inclines (30 seconds to 1 minute), but everything else was walking on inclines. This time, the inclines were a little bit lower (usually between 6-12%) but I was increasing my speed a bit more to compensate for the lower incline.

The floor work was a lot of focus on shoulders. I was doing my shoulder press at squat fly with 15 pound weights. I know that in the past I’ve done shoulder presses with 20 pounds, but I must have slept funny the night before because my right shoulder was bugging me. I didn’t want to push it too much and risk an injury, so I went a bit easier. But I was able to use the 20 pound weight for my triceps work (one day, I know I’ll have buff arms!). We also had some rowing to do while on the floor. During the first floor block, we had a 500 meter row. And with the second block we had a 350 and 300 meter row. I didn’t do any super spectacular row work that day, but considering what I had done earlier in the week, I was just happy to be able to do what I normally do.

And I managed to do a 4th workout this past week too! I’ve realized that there’s a good chance I won’t make it to my workout goal this year (at my last count, I’ll be 4 workouts short and I’m seeing if I can add them in somewhere). So I’m trying to get in as many workouts as I can to be as close as I can get to the goal. I worked out on Sunday (which is something I rarely do) and it was a pretty great workout. It was an endurance, strength, and power workout; but it wasn’t done in the normal order that I’m used to. It’s normally in the order it’s is described, but this time it was strength, power, and endurance.

For the strength block, we started with a 2 minute push pace on a flat incline, so I did that and ran for the entire thing. Running for 2 minutes isn’t easy, but I’m glad I did it. For all the incline work, I was at 8% incline and bumped up my speed a bit more with my power walking, But the final part of the strength block was a 1 minute all out pace at 4% incline. Since 4% is considered “flat road incline” for power walking, I’m pretty comfortable at that incline. So I decided to do my all out as a run with the incline. I really felt the incline in my legs, but it wasn’t unbearable.

The power block was pretty short with push paces to all out paces that were less than 2 minutes total. So I was able to run all of that and I even bumped up my all out pace a bit and finished that block running at 6mph. And the endurance block was tough as always. For the 3 minute push pace, I did my usual 1 minute intervals. But we had a 2 minute push toward the end of the workout and I figured since I ran a 2 minute push at the beginning I’d like to try to bookend the treadmill time with another 2 minute run. This was a bit harder than the first 2 minute push (I was tired by this point), but I’m really glad I did it.

For the floor work, we had a pretty good mix of things. We had some hip/leg work, some back work, some core, and some rowing. The blocks were going much faster than they normally feel and I was pretty happy with all my work on the floor. I did struggle with one of the ab things because my hips weren’t feeling up to it, so I just did regular full sit ups instead and that seemed like a good substitute to me.

I’ve got one more workout (this morning) before I head to Thanksgiving and have my family workout. But I think I’m in significantly better shape this year than I was last year and I’m in a great spot to be able to battle with my dad during the workout.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailHills And Power Outages (or Not My Usual Workout Week) Default ThumbnailRoutine Is Still Progress (or Proving I’m Improving) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailNot Too Much Progress (or Just Being Happy With What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailSome Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

My First Run/Walk 5K (or I’m Still In Shock)

Posted on November 8, 2016 | 1 comment

This past Saturday I had the Hard Rock Cafe 5K. I’ve done this race several times in the past and I had been really looking forward to it. It’s a really nice out and back flat course and since I have done the race before I’m very familiar with the course and know when I’m getting close to the turn around. For a while, I had been training hard to make this a run/walk race (for the first time ever!). But after getting sick I wasn’t able to train like I was before and I felt like I lost a lot of progress and endurance. I figured that I would do my best, but I wasn’t expecting too much for this race.

I was able to pick up my race stuff on Friday after work, so I prepped all my stuff Friday night before going to bed. I usually wear a hip pack to carry my phone, keys, and anything else I need before/during/after a race. But I knew that wearing that would make running very difficult, so I had to plan differently. Since my workout pants have a little pocket, I could put my phone in there and I strung my keys through my headphone cord and put those in the pocket too. So I was feeling very free for whatever running I was going to be able to do.

Race morning I woke up at 5am and quickly got ready. I ate a little bit of a banana so I’d have something in my stomach, but my nerves were getting the best of me so I couldn’t eat or drink too much. By 5:30am I was in my car and headed to Hollywood and Highland where the race was. Once I parked, I got ready in my car and in the parking lot since it was nicely lit down there and it was a bit warmer than it was outside. And about an hour before the race was supposed to start, I headed up to street level to stretch and do my best to prep before the start.

pre-race

I tried to keep moving around so I didn’t get too stiff and was stretching my legs and hips. I really didn’t want pain to be a reason why my race wouldn’t be good, so I was working hard to make sure my body was ready to go. I did find some friends before we started, and seeing them made me feel a bit more relaxed and ready to see what I could do. And before I knew it, we were ready to go (we started right on time at 7am which was nice).

I had my running watch ready to go with 1 minute intervals set. So I was planning on running for 1 minute and then walking for 1 minute for as long as I could. In my training runs on my own, I usually could do that 5 or 6 times and then I would have to start cutting back on the running time. I would do 45 or 30 seconds of the 1 minute run and then walk the rest. I knew this was likely to happen, so I wasn’t thinking ever that I could do the full running minutes for the entire race. I just wanted to try my best and see what I could do. For this race, I really just wanted to finish in under 50 minutes (which would easily be a PR). My long-term goal was to finish in under 45 minutes, but that wasn’t even a though for this race.

Once I started, I started my watch and my music and started to run. The first minute of running went by quickly and very easily. I tried to stay toward the side of the course so that I wouldn’t bother people by walking. Sometimes I had to go around walkers when I was running, but that wasn’t that big of a deal and just tried to not obstruct any other races.

When my running watch is doing intervals, the default screen is showing how much longer is in that interval and how many intervals I’ve done. I keep it on that screen and while I can get an idea of what time it is, I didn’t want to focus on my time while racing. The first mile marker came up and I was still able to do my full minute of running each interval and I was very happy with that. I passed the water station while walking and took a few sips of water before focusing on the second mile.

The second mile is always the tough one for this race for me. The turnaround is in this mile and I know the course probably too much so I’m pretty focused on how many blocks were left before turning back. I just tried to focus on my music and trying to do the best running I could do. I was still able to do my full minute of running each interval, which is significantly better than I’ve ever done during a training run. When I saw the turnaround sign, I was very happy. Normally, I try to tap the sign and I see it as good luck. But there was a slowish walker in my way and I couldn’t touch the sign this time. I tried not to let that get to me and just thought about how I was halfway done!

The second half was a bit tough. There were times where the running minute was feeling like it was taking forever. I would glance at my watch and see that there were less than 15 seconds to go before I could walk and I kept deciding to finish the running minute. I know that I told myself that I didn’t have to run/walk the entire race, but I am so competitive with myself and wanted to test my limits. Once I saw the 2 mile sign, I finally started to realize that I might actually be able to maintain my intervals for the entire race. There is a bit of a downhill going toward the finish line and that is always really nice to get to. I saw the markers for the 10K race and knew I had .2 miles left to go. I just kept saying to myself that I can totally finish at this pace because it was almost done.

My last walking interval was very close to the finish line. I knew I didn’t want to finish knowing I could have done more running. So I cut my walking minute short and decided I would run for the rest of the race. It ended up being about 90 seconds of running and I finished the race sprinting across the finish line.

I stopped my watch as soon as I crossed the finish line. I had seen the official race clock say that it was almost 46 minutes and I knew that I started after the official start since I was toward the middle of the pack. But when I looked at my watch to see what it said, I was so sure that I had screwed something up because I really could not believe it.

garmin-watch

My watch was saying that my time was 44:47.8. I really thought that I either started it too late or stopped it too soon and figured I would wait to see what the official time sheets said before I got too excited. I knew I finished in under 46 minutes because of the official clock and that was also unbelievable but I knew it was right.

While I was waiting for the official times to be posted, I found some of my friends. My friend Brenda is a part of the Oscars/Halloween party group. She also had some issues with being able to train recently and was not expecting anything too crazy. But she was able to PR for the race and did amazing!

with-friends

I also ran into Heather, who is the executive director of My Friend’s Place. My Friend’s Place is the official charity for the race and they always have a team running it. It was great to get to see her again and I’m hoping I can do some more work with My Friend’s Place in the near future.

with-heather

Finally, the official time sheets were updated so I could check what my time was. And after looking at it, I finally had to believe that I did was well as my watch claimed.

official-time

My official time was 44:48 (which is basically the same thing as 44:47.8) Not only did I PR (by over 9 minutes) I actually beat the long-term goal I had of doing a race in under 45 minutes! I really did not expect to do anything close to this and even a few days later I’m still in a bit of shock. After having several disappointing races when I felt like I did really great, I was expecting this to be similar. But I actually did better than I ever could have imagined!

post-race

I wasn’t able to drive home right away because I was in such disbelief. I made a couple of phone calls to people who I knew wanted to know how my race went. Each time I said my time, I could barely believe what I was saying. But soon enough hopefully I’ll start to believe that I did it. I’ve got to focus now on some new race goals because I did all of them in a race that I was so stressed out about.

Once I got home, I added my new medal to my medal hanger (I’m looking at buying an extension for it since I’m running out of room).

medal-wall

I spent the rest of my day relaxing and trying to nap since I had gotten up so early that morning. I kept looking online at my race time trying to believe it and not think that I’m dreaming or that some mistake happened. I know that I had trained hard for this race, but my training never got such incredible results. I think a lot of it had to do with race day adrenaline and that helped me to run more than I normally can do.

I never expected to have such an amazing race day. I’m glad that I still pushed myself even though I knew that things might not go the way I was hoping they would. Even though I thought I had given up on myself a little bit, I guess deep down I really hadn’t and this was my mind’s way of telling me to keep pushing it. And I’ll get the chance to test that out again in about 6 months when I have the next 5K happening (unless I find another race I want to do before then). But for now, I’m just so happy and grateful that my hard work paid off and I had the greatest race day I even could have wanted.

best-race-ever

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailHollywood Half 5K (or It’s Hill Time) Default ThumbnailHard Rock Cafe 5K Take 2 (or Trying To Not Be Frustrated With A PR) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up My Running Skills (or Getting A New PR) Default ThumbnailweSPARK 5K (or Come and Walk with Me!) Default ThumbnailRevlon Run/Walk (or I Survived 5K #3!) Default ThumbnailMajor Progress (or I Can Run!)

1 Comment

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Hell Week Part 1 (or Not Pushing It Too Much)

Posted on October 31, 2016 | 2 comments

Last week was the first part of Hell Week at Orangetheory. Technically part 2 of Hell Week is only today, but it’s still covering more than one week. This year, to earn the Hell Week shirt, you have to complete 5 out of the 8 days. Before I got sick, there was no question that I was going to do this. I signed up for all my classes and got super excited about it!

After getting sick, while I still knew I’d do my 5 Hell Week classes, there was a bit of hesitation. I didn’t want to push myself so much that I got worse but I didn’t want to not try either. So I tried to take it day by day and figured out what the best plan for each day would be for me. And last week, as planned I got 4 of my Hell Week workouts done! And each of those days ended up being a 3G workout, which I actually think helped me survive it despite the pain in my stomach!

hell-week

Monday’s workout was a hill based one, but I knew that I would be on the bike for it. I was able to increase my resistance on the bike a bit more than I had done the past few workouts. Plus, I was able to increase the resistance for the hills as well. It was still a bit of a struggle on the bike and I had to take some breaks while riding it, but it was much better than the week before. When we were on the rower, we had to row and then do squat arm work with weights. The rower was still tough because of my stomach so I was rowing pretty slowly. And the weight work was also tough because my body didn’t want to bend like normal. But I took breaks when I needed to and even though I didn’t do as much work as I would have liked to, I still did something. And finally, I was on the floor doing lunges, planks, and mountain climbers which surprisingly didn’t bother me too much!

By Wednesday, I was feeling so much better. I thought about going on the treadmill that day, but I knew that I would want to push myself more than I should so I stuck with the bike. And it’s a good thing that I did that because the workout had a distance challenge element to it. We had 2 segments that were 6 minutes each on cardio. The first time, we were given guidance on when we should be in base, push, and all out paces. The second time we were just supposed to beat that original distance. I really went crazy on the bike and I think I was working harder on it than I normally do on the bike! And I was very happy to see that I was able to beat my first distance when I had my second attempt.

bike-challenge

Next we had a rowing challenge that was set up the same was as the cardio challenge. 6 minutes to do our best, and then we did it again to try to beat the first time. The rower was still a bit tougher for me than it normally is, but I was very happy to see that I was able to row for the entire 6 minutes both times without stopping! And again, I beat my distance the second time (which I was not expecting at all)!

row-challenge

Finally on Wednesday, we had our floor work which had some lunges and mountain climbers (again those weren’t bugging me so I was able to work hard on them). We also had some arm work and I really wanted to use 12 pound weights again. I didn’t feel ready to use my normal 15 pound weights, but when I looked around all the 12 pound weights were being used by other people. So I was forced to use the 15 pound ones (I wasn’t going to use the 10 pound ones) and while it was a bit of a struggle I managed to get through and felt very accomplished!

Friday was the first day that I went back to using the treadmill. I knew my next 5K was coming up, and I wanted to see how I was doing after taking time off and feeling sick. I know that my expectations for what I would be able to do at my race need to be reevaluated because I’ve had those set-backs, but I still want to train as much as I can. For this workout, we started with a round of 3 minutes at each station. For the treadmill and rower, the plan was a 2 minute push and a 1 minute all out pace. I was able to do that for the rower, but for the treadmill I did a 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, and 1 minute run. The running felt different to me, but it wasn’t impossible. And on the floor for those 3 minutes, we had squats.

For the rest of the workout, we had a 3 partner workout. It was a rotation between the rower, treadmill, and floor and the person on the floor controlled the pace (the floor work was squats, lunges, and ab work). On the treadmill, we were supposed to run for the time it took for the partner from the floor to tag us out. And on the rower we were working toward how far we could row as a group for the workout (so we didn’t reset it between people). For the treadmill, I tried to stick with a 1 minute run/1 minute walk pace. I was able to do that for most of the time, but I did do one round where I just walked for the entire thing. But considering how awful I had felt a week prior, I’m very happy that I can still run and I have hopes that I can do a run/walk pace for at least part of my upcoming race.

And I have to say, as a team we did a lot of rowing for that workout! We didn’t place in the top 3, but the fact that our total was 6666 during Hell Week was pretty funny and I enjoyed that.

group-row

By Saturday, I was feeling a bit tired from all the work I had put in. Even though I was taking it a bit easier than normal during Hell Week, the workouts are very intense and tough. And of course, I’m very competitive with myself and try to see how far I can push myself. It’s not the best trait I have, but it really did push me hard when I planned on going easy on myself.

Saturday was a tornado style workout. We were never on one thing for that long and kept moving around a lot. We started and ended the workout with the same thing: 3 minutes on each section. For the treadmill both times, I did the 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, 1 minute run plan. And on the floor we had to do ultimate burpees and hop overs. But in the middle of the workout, everything was a 1 minute section. That’s very short so we were moving before you knew it! I stuck with running for the 1 minute I was on the treadmill. On the rower, I had to take it a bit easy because that was the only time I felt I had to rest. And on the floor, we pretty much always had to do burpees (that was the theme for the day). By the end of class, I was ready for a nap and to relax!

Today will be my last Hell Week workout (so I can earn my free shirt!) and then I’ll have 2 more workouts in the week before my 5K race. It’s so soon and I’m trying not to be nervous about race day. If I can’t run at all, I’m still going to do it and finish and that’s what is important. But hopefully the 3 workouts I have this week will prep me for the race as much as possible!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal (or Finishing Hell Week and Race Prep) Default ThumbnailHell Week To Orange Voyage (or One Challenge To Another) Default ThumbnailWelcome To Hell (or Pushing Myself Even More) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep) Default ThumbnailThis Felt Like Hell Week (or An Unexpected But Fun Workout Week) Default Thumbnail12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week)

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Slimmons Is Closing (or Maybe I Should Do One More Workout)

Posted on October 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Slimmons Is Closing (or Maybe I Should Do One More Workout)

Even though I haven’t worked out at Richard Simmons’ studio Slimmons in years, I was still pretty upset when I heard that the studio would be closing down next month. I know I’ve written about Slimmons before, but I feel this is important and I’m going to share a lot of my story there again.

I first went to Slimmons because of my friend Alex. She told me how much she loved going to workouts there and I decided that it could be something fun to check out. I never expected to go there regularly, I just thought I could have it as a fun story to tell people. Not everyone gets to work out with the one and only Richard Simmons, so I wanted to do it! I had no idea what to expect but went into the workout with an open mind.

And I was surprised to discover that I really liked it! This was right after I had regained a lot of weight that I had lost, so my confidence was very low. I didn’t want to return to the gym that I belonged to because I didn’t want people to stare at me (or worse, remember that I was recently thin and judge me for gaining back the weight). But at Slimmons, nobody is looking at you. Yes, part of that is because Richard is just so ridiculous that you can’t take your eyes off of him. But another part is that he made it such an accepting environment that you wouldn’t dare to think negatively about anyone else and you are very focused on bettering yourself.

Alex and I would go to Slimmons on a somewhat regular basis. I tried to do at least one of Richard’s classes each week. And I started to make friends in class pretty quickly. One of those friends is one of my current day job bosses (she actually got me a job shortly after we met at Slimmons). And one of my favorite bloggers (who is more of an acquaintance) was someone I met because he also went to Slimmons. I had a lot of people I saw each week, and it was nice to have people who expected to see me each week in class.

And of course, I had to share my love of Slimmons with other people. I brought a bunch of friends there (including having one friend celebrate his birthday there).

justins-birthday-at-slimmons friends-at-slimmons

And because my dad is always interested in trying whatever workout craze I’m loving, he had to come with me to Slimmons. I didn’t get a picture when just my dad and I went, but the next trip my parents had to LA got my mom to join us! My mom loves tennis and hiking, but I don’t know if exercise classes are really something she loves. But she had fun at Slimmons and I had to get a picture of her with Richard.

mom-and-richard

And as soon as Richard found out that our dog Dante was in the car, he wanted us to get Dante so he could meet him and get a picture with him too!

richard-and-dante

The time at Slimmons with my parents and dog was my last time working out there. I had something happen that made me not want to work out there anymore. And until I found Orangetheory, I never found another workout place that was as accepting and welcoming as Slimmons was.

As soon as I heard the news that Slimmons was closing, I was had a bit of a pit in my stomach. Slimmons was so important to Richard and it’s making me worried that there are more health issues that he’s dealing with than are known right now. While I don’t work out at Slimmons anymore, that doesn’t mean I want it to close. It’s an amazing home for so many people to work out in. There are people who wouldn’t think they could work out until they went to Slimmons. And to know that place won’t exist again soon is depressing.

There’s a few more weeks until Slimmons closes down. I’m thinking I’ll have to go back for at least one more workout before it’s gone forever. I know some people I know will be going for the last class ever, but I think that might be too crowded to go to. And while I wish that Richard would come back for everyone to work out with, I really doubt he will be returning again.

Like I said in my last post about Richard, I really do hope that he is doing ok. I hope that he posts more things on social media that are current and show that he is alright. And maybe he will make an appearance at Slimmons again before it closes, but that would be pretty surprising since he’s pretty much disappeared from public.

Even though Slimmons is closing, I’m so glad that so many people have happy memories there. Almost all my memories are very positive ones and I share stories from my time at Slimmons quite often with friends when they find out I worked out there. Hopefully I get the chance to be there again so I can make sure my last memory of Slimmons is another great one.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMy First Spin Class (or How HBO Might Have Helped Me Find My Perfect Workout) Default ThumbnailAnother SoulCycle Day (or Maybe I Really Have Found My Workout Addiction) Default ThumbnailRemembering My Time At Slimmons (or I’m Glad Richard Simmons Is Ok) Default ThumbnailWorkout Clothes Addict (or Didn’t I Used To Complain About Workout Clothes?) Default ThumbnailBeing Patient With Myself (or Being Ok With A 3 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailSome Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

Comments Off on Slimmons Is Closing (or Maybe I Should Do One More Workout)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged ,

Extra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do)

Posted on October 17, 2016 | Comments Off on Extra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do)

This past week of workouts at Orangetheory were pretty great for me. I’ve been getting ready for Hell Week (I just booked all my Hell Week classes so I can get the shirt for completing it) and I’m starting to trust that my body can handle more than I think it can. My progress is still slower than I thought it would be, but I’m seeing improvements that keep me happy. I also think this past week of workouts went well because I only did 3 workouts (and skipped my run/walk training that I do on my own) so I had more energy. But just because I did fewer workouts doesn’t mean that I was slacking on things.

Monday was a power workout day. We had a bunch of really short blocks so we never were doing something for that long. Each block was only 4.5 minutes long and on the treadmill it was going by really quickly. I ended up running for 2 minutes at a time for each of the treadmill blocks that we had. 2 minutes still feels tough to me, but I’m able to do it more and more often on the treadmill so I’m feeling pretty great. I figure the more that I do 2 minute runs, the better the 1 minute ones will feel during my next race.

After doing about 20 minutes on the treadmill, we switched over to the floor where again we had super short blocks. We were only doing the sets for the same 4.5 minutes so I didn’t get too tired of any strength exercise. The focus was on arms but we also had a bunch of lunges to get through. And after that, we had about 10 minutes left in class so we did a quick partner workout.

It was basically a run/row where one partner was on the treadmill and the other was on the rower for 1.5 minutes. The treadmill was a push pace for a minute followed by a 30 second all out. I did run for the entire thing, but I wasn’t pushing my speed up too much for the all out time since I was pretty tired at the end of the workout. On the rower, we rowed for 1.5 minutes and we were supposed to not reset the rower between switching. But I think my partner kept resetting the rower because at the end of 4 blocks of this it showed we rowed 400 meters (which is what is usually done in about 1.5 minutes).

Wednesday was an endurance run/row day. I’m not a huge fan of endurance days, but I love run/row days so I was feeling pretty ok going into the workout. The run/row was one of the tougher ones I can remember. Each of the run segments was .5 miles. Since I do the run/walk instead of just running or just walking, I try to split the difference between the run distance and the walk distance (which is half of the run distance). So I settled on doing .37 miles for each of the treadmill segments.

For each time I did the .37 miles, I ran for 2 minutes and then walked for 1 minute. I finished it with running for whatever distance I had left, which usually ended up being a little longer than 2 minutes. I probably could have increased my speed to that I could have gotten that done a bit faster, but since I’m focusing so much on running for 2 minutes at a time, I didn’t want to work on speed at the same time. It ended up being  pretty great pace for me and I was tired but feeling good after each treadmill part.

For the rower, we had a 600 meter row each time. The first time, it was just 600 meters straight and the second time it was split up a bit so we had a break on the rower in the middle. There were 4 rounds we were supposed to get through, but I had a bit of a delay on the rower because the foot straps weren’t working and I had to find a different rower to work on. So I made it to the 3 treadmill part and felt ok with that.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was pretty normal where we had a set number of reps to do for each exercise and we did as many rounds as possible. But the second block was insane! We had exercised to do, but instead of having a set number of reps, we had to do each thing for 1 minute and was told when we could move on. It got tough because I didn’t always know how much longer was left in the minute and I didn’t want to burn myself out. We had 2 rounds of each exercise for that minute and with a lot of exercises being squats I was feeling it when we were done.

My last workout of the week was on Friday which was another power day. We didn’t switch between blocks and while it was a power day, it really felt more like an endurance day. Each of the treadmill blocks had the same format: a push pace, 1 minute at base pace, and a 30 second all out pace. After each block, we had a minute to walk and recover. But those push paces started out at 3 minutes and then they got shortened by 30 seconds each time. For the pushes from 3 minutes down to 2.5 minutes, I ran for 2 minutes of that time. And for all of the ones 2 minutes and under I ran for the entire thing. I did run my all outs at a pretty fast speed (the best one was 6.3 miles an hour), but that was because it was short and I had some base pace walking before it.

The floor work was split into 2 blocks. The first one had a pretty good variety of things we had to do. Some things were using the TRX straps like triceps work, some things were body weight like squats, and we got to use the ab dolly to do some knee tucks and push ups. It was one of my favorite floor blocks that we’ve had in a while since the variety was really great and the way it was set up I didn’t have any muscle group feeling too tired from exercise to exercise. The second floor block was a mix of squat work using the medicine ball and rowing and we were running between the floor and the rowers the entire time.

I’m shocked that I was able to do 2 minutes of running for each of my workouts this past week. I think that I’m finally in a better spot to keep working on my endurance in my running and might try to push things a bit more in the next few weeks. I still think that for my next race, doing 1 minute intervals will be the best option for me. But like I said, the better my running endurance is by race day the easier those intervals will feel for me. This week of workouts will be the last week before Hell Week (which will go through the last 2 weeks of this month) so I better make sure I’m ready!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailRunning And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Default ThumbnailBuilding My Endurance (or Lots Of Running) Default ThumbnailFiguring Things Out (or Finding A Balance With Running) Default ThumbnailSetbacks and Goals (or Still Figuring Out What’s Next) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up My Running Skills (or Getting A New PR)

Comments Off on Extra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Getting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges)

Posted on October 4, 2016 | Comments Off on Getting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges)

I’ve completed 9 monthly challenges so far this year and I have to say that each one that I set for myself has made such a huge improvement in my life! It’s so crazy to me that I haven’t been doing these before because they aren’t hard for me (which makes me wonder if I’m picking challenges that are too easy) and I’ve pretty much been able to keep up with every single one.

I’m not 100% perfect, but I’m learning to be ok with that. But for the ones that seem to make the biggest difference, I’ve had no issues continuing with them. Reading recovery books has been one of the best ones for me so far and I’ve been learning so much with each book I read. And I think after that challenge is when I felt more inspired to push myself more and more.

Last month, I challenged myself to do 1 yoga pose a day. I really wanted to challenge myself to do 1 iPad yoga class a day, but I had been having so much trouble doing those classes on even a semi-regular basis. I had been making those classes part of my weekly goals for so many weeks, and most of those weeks were not successful.

Even though I set the bar really low for myself and I decided to do the best I could to do one iPad yoga class most days of the month. If nothing else, I’d learn more yoga poses I could do as my pose for the day. With the app that I have, there are a bunch of classes but you can also create your own class. Since I’m new to this, I stuck with the pre-made classes. They ranged from 5 minutes to an hour and I started with a short class.

It quickly became a habit to do one of my classes in the morning. When I couldn’t do one in the morning, I was feeling off and was missing how good I was feeling when I did the class before breakfast (which was most days except Mondays which I didn’t do since I have an early workout).

And wouldn’t you know it? I managed to do one iPad yoga class every single day in September!

yoga-challenge

I plan on continuing this, but I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with just this app. There are so many yoga classes on YouTube and I think I might try exploring those. This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while and for some reason when I set it as a challenge it finally kicked in!

And that helped to inspire my challenge for this month. First of all, the Volt Planner (the planner I use that has these challenges in it) is on Kickstarter again for the 2017 planner. They are way beyond their goal, so the new planner will be printed. And while they do try to sell them outside of the Kickstarter, those are limited so I recommend buying one on the Kickstarter if you want to join me in all the challenges next year!

I became a backer of the Kickstarter within the first few hours that it went live. I had no doubts that I needed to get a planner for next year, and I’m so excited to continue doing amazing with my goals. As a backer, I get updates on the campaign from time to time and one of the recent updates had a nice perk in it! It was a daily task sheet with a to-do list along with space to write notes, write where you need to follow-up, and set daily priorities.

I make to-do lists from time to time, but they usually are just on a post-it with a few random things that I don’t want to forget. I don’t plan out my day, especially since things are pretty consistent from day-to-day. But that also makes it where I will have a day and wonder what I actually got done outside of work. Sometimes I finish work and just don’t do anything else. And I need to make sure that I’m not slacking on things outside of work and being as productive as I can.

So I’m setting my monthly goal to be to use the daily task sheet every single day. I printed them out so there are 2 on a sheet and I’m not sure if I’m going to keep them together or just grab one each day. I’m not sure if setting up my tasks the night before of the morning of will be best so I’m going to play around with both options. Whatever I end up doing, I have a feeling that this is going to make October the most productive month for me!

I’m lucky that I got inspired by the Kickstarter for this month’s challenge since I was really drawing a blank on what I want to work on. There are a couple of fitness related challenges that I want to try, but I don’t want to do 2 fitness ones back to back. I think this is going to be a great way to start getting ready to close out 2016 and help me get even more productive than I ever could have imagined!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMy First 2017 Monthly Challenge (or Working On My Tumors) Default ThumbnailDecember Monthly Challenge (or Wrapping Up For The Year) Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailAlmost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November) Default ThumbnailRecapping My June (or Still Thinking Up New Monthly Challenges) Default ThumbnailAdjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness)

Comments Off on Getting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges)

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Being Hard On Myself (or Pushing Myself To Not Be Sick)

Posted on October 3, 2016 | 1 comment

Even though I was starting to feel better this past week, I was still feeling some of the effects of the cold I caught. The only thing really bothering me was feeling congested, and I really wanted to get over that. Since I wasn’t feeling too sick, I pushed myself pretty hard in my workouts and sometimes that worked and sometimes it didn’t.

Monday’s workout was the one where I was feeling the sickest, but it was still so much better than how I was feeling before. Mornings are also the toughest time for me feeling congested. I knew it was going to be a hard workout but I had to try my best and see what I could do.

It was an endurance day, which is always a tough one for me. When we had 2 minute pushes, I ran for 1 minute of it. When we had a 90 second push, I ran the entire thing. It wasn’t easy at all and I had some trouble catching my breath at times, but I got it done. And since we didn’t switch between blocks, I managed to do a decent distance on the treadmill between my running and walking.

monday

I was so exhausted after the treadmill, but I knew I had to get through the floor work too. We had 350 meter rows to do and they felt really long to me. 350 isn’t usually too tough for me, but they felt more like 1,000 meters after being so tired. The rest of the floor work was arm focused and we had core work during each block. The core work was plank focused and because of my congestion I was really struggling. I had to take a bunch of breaks with my planks, but I was just glad to get through the workout after being so horribly sick the few days before.

Wednesday’s workout was a real interesting one. It was another endurance day and we started with a 10 minute block. My 10 minutes on the treadmill went better than I could have expected. We had to do 2 minute push paces twice and I was able to run for the entire 2 minutes each time. We also had a 90 second push that I ran and a 1 minute push to all out that I ran. That was more running than I usually do, but it felt really good and I didn’t feel too sick at that point.

We then had a 10 minute block on the floor that was arm focused before we switched to doing a partner run/row for the remainder of the class. One person was on the rower and rowed until they were tagged. The other person had some floor work to do like pushups, side planks, and weight work and then went over to the treadmill. The treadmill segments ranged from .2 miles to .1 miles. I wanted to run for all of them, but I had overdone it a bit during that first 10 minutes so I ran for 1 minute and then walked the rest of finish the distance. Then the treadmill person tagged the rower person and they switched.

When I was on the rower, I usually spent about 4.5 minutes on it and I was rowing almost the entire time. I did take a bit of a break before rowing each time to drink some water because I didn’t want to do that when the switch was depending on me being fast. I didn’t want my partner to have to wait for me so I only took breaks when I was on the rower. We got through a bunch of rounds of the run/row and at the end of the class I was feeling a little light-headed but much less congested than I had earlier that day.

Friday was another endurance day (I guess I lucked out with all the endurance days I had this past week). There were 2 long blocks on the treadmill and we had some really long push paces. I pretty much stuck with running for 1 minute and walking the rest. The exception was the 3 minute push pace where I ran for the first minute, walked the second, and ran the third. I was feeling a bit more congested that day so I was keeping my running a bit slower. I didn’t want to try to up my speed and I really did just want to focus on my endurance.

I’ve had my new goal of being able to do 2 miles in class when we don’t switch between blocks, and I thought my distance on Monday was pretty incredible. But after doing the warm-up and both blocks, I got super close to my goal but not quite there.

friday

I have a feeling that soon I’ll be at that 2 mile mark in class and that’s going to be an awesome day!

The floor was one really long block, which really did test my endurance. We had rowing to do before each set followed by a series of strength moves. Each round we added more strength moves on so the rounds got longer and longer. The one strength move we had to do every round was doing ground to press, which I’m usually great at. But again, the congestion caught up with me and I struggled. I ended up not making it through 4 of the 5 rounds we were supposed to try to get through. I know if I didn’t have to keep taking breaks to catch my breath I could have done it. And it’s tough not to push myself to do more. But I know that this cold might still take another week or so to completely get over so I’m working on my patience.

This week of workouts will hopefully continue on the great momentum I build this past week. My schedule will be a bit off since I have to miss my workout today because I’m out-of-town (more on that soon), but I’ll still get in my 3 workouts for the week. And I’ve realized that I need to start getting a 4th workout in again more often, so I’m seeing if I can fit in 4 this week. If I can’t do it this week, I know I’ll be doing it soon.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailWorking On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger) Default Thumbnail3 Workouts In A Row (or Using Fitness To Beat A Cold) Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailWelcome To Hell (or Pushing Myself Even More) Default ThumbnailGetting Sick (or Pushing Through The Sniffles) Default ThumbnailPushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , , , ,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OTF Run Day

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

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

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

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailStill Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard) Default ThumbnailMore Running! (or Gaining Endurance) Default ThumbnailTaking It Easy (or Trying Not To Be Hard On Myself) Default ThumbnailProof Of My Progress (or I Am Doing Better) Default ThumbnailHomework and Other Work (or Taking My Class Seriously) Default ThumbnailStronger And Stronger (or Week 7 Is Done!)

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

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,