Tag Archives: fitness

A 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts)

Posted on December 7, 2015 | 2 comments

With the end of the year approaching super quickly, I’m making sure that I do as many workouts as I can do to make sure that I hit my 2015 goal. It’s going to be close, but I think I can do it. I just have to up my workout game a bit for the next few weeks and do 4 workouts in a week more often.

It’s been tough getting back into 4 workout weeks. I was doing so great before I got hurt, and I’ve only done the rare 4 workout week since then. But this past week was a 4 workout week and I think it was pretty great.

My first workout of the week was on Sunday. I was still recovering from Thanksgiving, but it was great to have an early workout to get me back into a normal routine and out of vacation mode. The workout went ok. I was a bit too exhausted that morning and I know that my workout suffered for that. It’s tough when I’m tired, but I try my best and in the end I know that it’s better to be there doing not my greatest than to be still in bed sleeping.

Monday was another super early workout (only 1 more week of my class which means 1 more super early workout for a while). Again, being tired didn’t really help me and I know that if it was a later workout that I could have done better. But I’m trying to be easier on myself with those early mornings and not stressing out too much about it.

I wasn’t at the workout on Tuesday, but Tuesday marked the beginning of the 12 days of workouts at Orangetheory. But when I was there on Wednesday, because it was the second day it was a partner workout! I really love partner workouts because they motivate me so much. I don’t want to slack off because then my partner is stuck waiting on me to finish to they can move on to the next thing.

This partner workout was a bit different. The treadmill segment wasn’t partnered but the floor work was. On the floor, it was mainly leg work. Lots of lunges and then when my partner was on the floor I was on the rower. It was a pretty good combination of what we each had to do. And since my partner and I were pretty equally skilled in doing the floor work, we spent equal amounts of time between the floor and the rower.

The treadmill time was a lot of hills. While I do hills all the time on the treadmill because I’m a power walker, I’m still keeping things on the lower side to protect my calf. And when the runners have to do hills, I’m supposed to do even higher hills. I couldn’t do that, but I did my best with the hills that I could and I know that I got a really great workout in.

Friday was the 4th day of holiday workouts, and the theme for it was that there were 4 floor blocks and 4 treadmill blocks. And each block was about 4 minutes. So there was a lot of transitions and switching between the floor and treadmill (which I like) and the workout just flew by! After those 8 blocks, we also had a quick partner block on the floor (one person using the straps and one person using the weights).

After this 4 workout week, I feel much better about my future 4 workout weeks. I know that they should be doable and fine. I’m working on balancing things out and trying to not do 3 workouts in a row on 4 workout weeks (I think I’ll be ok avoiding that for these next few weeks). But it’s also getting me thinking about what I want to set for my 2016 workout goal. I don’t think that it is realistic for me right now to try to do 4 workouts every week. I like alternating 3 workouts and 4 workouts a week. But I think I might try to set a goal that would require me to do more 4 workout weeks than 3 workout weeks next year.

I’m still crunching the numbers (and I’ve got time before I have to declare my goals) but I think I’ll be upping my game again next year.

Next week may end up being another 4 workout week (there’s a potential scheduling issue that may prevent me from doing that). And now that I’ve got another successful 4 workout week under my belt, I’m not that worried about it anymore.

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Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailWaiting On The Wait List (or The Text That Made My Week) Default ThumbnailSome Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week) Default ThumbnailA Planned 3 Workout Week (or Medication and Workouts) Default ThumbnailFirst Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times)

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Pre-Burning Thanksgiving Calories (or Working Out In LA and San Diego)

Posted on November 30, 2015 | 1 comment

Because of Thanksgiving this past week, I knew my workout schedule would be a bit tough to fit in. Not only did I have the schedule of when I’d be out-of-town to think about, but I had limited time when I was in LA because of work and class. And since I still want to make sure I hit my workout goal for the year, I planned my workouts carefully and managed to get 3 in for the week.

My workouts in LA were on Sunday and Monday morning. Both days ended up being days where the workouts were half treadmill and half floor work without switching between blocks. So that means about 30 minutes on the treadmill without a break. Those days are tough, but they aren’t horrible. I just have to be careful because I know that I can try to overdo it to get my mileage to be as high as possible (I’m super competitive with myself).

I’m still struggling to get my treadmill speed or incline up, so I’m just trying to be ok with where I am right now. I’m testing the speed increases but it’s not maintainable for me just yet. I’m working hard to be patient, but it’s tough when I know that I can do better.

My floor work on Sunday and Monday were a bit tough too. I’m so used to having shorter blocks with the treadmill blocks as a “break” from the floor work. When that happens, I push myself harder because I know I’ll have some recovery time on the treadmill before I have to lift heavy weights again. But as always, I’m trying my best and I feel like I can start using the heavier weights more often.

I left for San Diego on Tuesday as soon as I was done with work, so the next chance I had to work out was on Thanksgiving morning for the workout tradition that we started last year. My dad was totally ready to join me again this year and so was my Aunt Cindy. My brother couldn’t make it to Thanksgiving this year so he wasn’t there, but my Aunt Nancy decided to come for her first Orangetheory class ever. And we actually had the same coach that we had last year for the class!

We worked out in the morning and it was a 3G class (which means 3 groups instead of the usual 2). But it wasn’t “tornado style” so we spent about 15 minutes at each station (last year it was 5 or 6 minute blocks and we moved between every block). We didn’t know that at the La Jolla location you have to get a card to be on the treadmill first, so we started with our floor work.

My Aunt Cindy hated the burpees that we had to do last year, and we had to do them again this year (although without the BOSU so that made it a bit easier). There was also lots of arm work and pushups in the floor block.

Next we had our rowing block. And our first row was a 2,000 meter row! As much as I wanted to beat my recent PR on the 2,000 meter row, I knew that since I had just done my floor work that I’d be a bit tired. So I just wanted to do the row without stopping.

I didn’t PR on the row, or even really come close (I was about a minute slower than my PR), but my dad totally kicked my butt on the rower! He did his row so incredibly fast and he never uses the rower at his gym! I said that I’d possibly be able to kick his butt on the row (I knew I couldn’t on the treadmill), but clearly I was wrong.

Our final block was on the treadmill. The treadmills in La Jolla are different from the ones in LA, but I found one treadmill on the end of a row that was the same one that I’m used to. That made things easier on me because I knew where to press to change my speed and incline and could just focus on my walking. It was a couple of inclines, but mainly just a lot of push paces (and my dad would like you all to know that he was going 10mph during the push paces).

As we did last year, we had to get a post-workout photo with the coach.

OTF La Jolla

When I compared it to last year’s photo, it was kind of funny how similar it was. Same coach, my Aunt Cindy and I were in the same spot, and my dad had the same shirt on.

Last Year and This Year

It wasn’t my highest calorie burn class, but It felt really good to get a workout in before eating a big dinner. I have a feeling that this tradition is here to stay and more family members want to join in next year. I’m pretty sure that there is a Orangetheory near any location we might have Thanksgiving at, so we are pretty set for the future.

Now that I’m back from Thanksgiving, I’m back on to a more normal workout schedule for me. Only a few more weeks before the end of the year and I’ve got a bunch of workouts still to do in order to reach my goal!

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Fitting In My Workouts (or Planning For The End Of The Year)

Posted on November 23, 2015 | Comments Off on Fitting In My Workouts (or Planning For The End Of The Year)

I had a reality check this past week when I was seeing how many workouts I had done so far in 2015. While I was on track for a long time to hit my workout goal, only doing 3 workouts in a week for a while due to my calf injury plus missing a week of workouts when I was sick really messed up my plan.

So before this past week started, I planned out some workouts in the app that I’ve been using to track my classes. I got it figured out for the rest of the year how I can hit my goal.

Workout planning

It’s not that crazy of a plan, but of course the next day I realized that my plan wasn’t going to work the way I wanted it to, so I’m thinking things through a bit more. But it helped me realize that I do need to push it a bit the next few weeks and my goal is going to be a stretch but it’s totally realistic.

My plan for this past week was originally to do 5 workouts and then do 2 7am workouts this week before leaving for Thanksgiving. Due to scheduling issues, I wasn’t able to do my 5 workouts and I’ve moved my workouts around this week too. But as long as I add in another workout in December I should be ok.

This past week, I worked out Sunday/Monday/Wednesday/Friday. I’m glad I changed my plans from working out 5 times because these workouts were pretty intense.

2 days only had 2 blocks each. That means that I spent pretty much 30 minutes on the treadmill straight and then did 30 minutes on the floor without a block. And I did that twice. It’s been a while since we have had workouts that didn’t switch between blocks. It’s nice to have that challenge, but when we switch between blocks it feels better on my hips and it makes the time go by faster for me. But I know I need to push myself and having these long blocks gives me that chance (but I’m glad that this doesn’t happen more often).

With those long block days, my floor work suffered a bit. I was pretty exhausted so I didn’t push myself as much as I could (or should) with the weights. But I’m still using heavier weights than I was at the beginning of the year.

While my weight work wasn’t as good as I know it can be, I had a big improvement in my pushups. Pushups have always been hit or miss with me. Sometimes they do hurt my hips. And ever since I tore my calf I had to stop doing them on my toes because that strained my muscle too much. So instead of trying to get back on my toes I’ve been focusing my form when I do pushups on my knees. And I’m getting some good muscle fatigue now while I’m doing modified pushups. And I even was able to do pushups with the bosu ball as part of ultimate burpees. That made me pretty happy.

My treadmill work is still a struggle too. It’s both a physical and a mental struggle. I do have my pain from time to time, but I’m also terrified that my calf still isn’t fully healed and if I push it too much I’ll injure myself again. So I’m trying to be easy on myself and not stress out that I’m still not where I thought I’d be. I’m hoping that I can increase my treadmill speed at the beginning of the new year, but I’m not going to hurt myself over that goal.

This week is going to be a short workout week for me due to Thanksgiving, but I’ll be getting my 3 workouts in for sure (including my new tradition of a workout on Thanksgiving morning)!

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Peak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max)

Posted on November 16, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s been a crazy few weeks at Orangetheory lately! First there was Hell Week. Then there was Recovery Week (which didn’t feel like a recovery but more like a normal week). And this past week was Peak Performance Week.

We had a Peak Performance Week back at the beginning of the summer, and I had a pretty great time with it. I got some PRs, challenged myself, and felt like I had set some good benchmarks to try to beat. Not all of the challenges were the same as the beginning of the summer, but it’s nice to have something to compare to. Especially when that last time it was right before I tore my calf muscle. I was able to see how close to fully recovered I am.

Monday’s challenge was a 10 minute run/walk for distance. The goal for all the runners was to get at least a mile done in 10 minutes. So technically the goal for me as a power walker was to get half a mile done. I know I can do half a mile in 10 minutes, so I set my own goal of trying to get to .6 miles in 10 minutes.

I did most of the work at 6% incline and as much as I wanted to increase my speed, my hips and calf weren’t having it. So while I didn’t get to my personal goal, I think I did pretty great.

10 minute distance

Wednesday’s challenge was something that I was really looking forward to. It was the 1 mile challenge. When I did this over the summer, I had a PR with my mile. While that was amazing, it was very disappointing for me how I wasn’t able to translate that mile time into my 5K (and yes, I know that the PR was pre-injury and the race was post-injury). I knew that my mile time wasn’t going to be a PR. But I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than I did at my race.

I spent most of my mile alternating between 3.4 and 3.5 miles and hour. In the last minute, I bumped up the speed as much as I could. And when I was done, I was so happy with myself.

1 mile time

This is about 30 seconds slower than my mile PR (which isn’t that much) and about 50 seconds faster than my mile time from race day. I needed this boost because I had still been feeling a bit low from my race. I know that somehow I could have done better, but I’m not sure what I would have had to do. So showing myself on the treadmill that I’m not as far back from fully recovered as I thought really made me feel great.

Friday was a pretty exciting day for me. First of all, it was my 150th workout of 2015! That’s amazing to me! Also, Friday’s challenge was the 2000 meter row. I’ve had so much rowing lately that I knew I could do some great work on this challenge. My PR for my 1000 meter row is 4:58.9, so my goal for my 2000 meter row was anything under 10 minutes.

Since I knew the row would totally take it out of me, I chose to do that first instead of the treadmill like I usually do. I set my rower to count down from 2000 meters (it would also stop the clock once I reached that distance) and tried to not look at the screen. I counted the strokes in my head as a distraction and once people next to me were finishing I knew I must be getting close. I rowed as hard and fast as I ever had for those last 100 meters and when the clock stopped, I almost couldn’t believe my time.

2000 meter row

I was a little more than 16 seconds faster than my goal time! And since distance rows are a weakness of mine, to be able to do this was amazing! The only downside was that after the row we had to go on the treadmill and my hip gave me one of the electric shocks I get from time to time and my calf muscle was feeling like it was pulling and tearing. So I got off the treadmill and did the rest of my cardio on the bike. I wasn’t happy to be on the bike, but I needed to do that to keep my body from being in pain and damaging itself.

Overall, I would consider this Peak Performance Week a huge victory for me. While not everything was a PR, I proved to myself that while I’m still recovering I’m getting closer and closer to where I was pre-injury.

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Surviving Hell Week (or I’m A Liar)

Posted on November 2, 2015 | 2 comments

Remember how last week I said that I knew I’d only get 3 workouts in for the week because of my schedule?

I totally lied.

I went into Hell Week with the intention of only doing 3 workouts until on Monday I found out that it was 4 Hell Week Workouts to earn the shirt (I thought it was 4). So I decided to suck it up and do 4 workouts to get my shirt.

Death Row

Monday’s workout was Dead Man’s Row. I knew this would be the 23 minute row day, and I was terrified. I made sure that my rowing segment was first so I could get it done with, and then I’ll do my best with the floor work.

I’m still getting used to the 7:30am workouts so I was pretty exhausted going in. And doing that long row didn’t perk me up. But there was a plan with push rows and recovery rows, and I did my best to follow along with that.

I didn’t have much of a goal for my row. I just wanted to beat my row of about 3300 meters from last year. And when my 23 minutes were up, I was pretty darn excited to see that I did 4142 meters!

Rowing Record

I don’t remember much about the floor workout after that except that one of the floor moves was a low row on the straps and I felt that that was extremely mean to do when we had a 23 minute row.

The Hills Run Red

Tuesday (the extra day I added) was The Hills Run Red. I thought it was be a really tough hill day for me, but it ended up not being too bad. All the treadmill segments were on inclines, but they were all sprints that were about a minute or less. Between sprints we had to go on the rower (I wasn’t happy about 2 rowing days in a row), and I managed to do 3000 meters on the rower then! While I was happy that I’m getting better and better at the rower, I was ready for a few rower-free days.

Silence Of The Lambs (Legs)

Wednesday was The Silence of the Lambs (or Legs depending on where you read it). Yes, this was a leg day and there were a bunch of squats and lunges to do. And yes, there was more rowing!

Final Destination

After 3 workouts in a row, I was ready for a rest day so I was happy taking Thursday off. But I was back on Friday for day 4 (my first 4 workout week since my calf injury!). That day was The Final Destination and again it involved the rower! There were 2 rowing segments (400 and 800 meters) so those felt almost like sprints. And the treadmill had 4 segments at either .13 miles or .25 miles so that wasn’t too bad.

The floor that day was crazy. It was a single 23 minute floor block and it was so tough! There were lunges, squats, burpees, full body pull ups, and speed skaters. I had to take several breaks in those 23 minutes, but I got the entire routine done so that was good enough for me.

Doing 4 days of Hell Week exhausted me, but I proved to myself that while my calf might not be totally healed, I can get back to 4 workouts in a week if I have the time. I won’t be doing that this week because of my race, but I’m going to try to do that again soon so I can get as many workouts in this year as possible!

I seriously had the best time with Hell Week this year. Last year it terrified me for a couple of reasons. First, I was still pretty new to Orangetheory so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the workouts. I proved that I can totally do it. And last year Hell Week was the first time I did 3 workouts in a row. Again, I can totally do it. While I was worried about how I would do in the workouts this year, I got to have more fun than stress. I loved pushing myself to new limits and seeing the awesome costumes that the coaches wore.

JZ Bruce

Yes, in that second picture I’m standing on top of a rower to be almost as tall as Coach Bruce.

I’m actually excited for Hell Week for next year. I know that there will be more challenges before next Hell Week, but I like having that as a standard thing to hold myself to. If there is another 23 minute row, I know what distance I want to beat. I know how I felt in the workouts this year and I want to push myself more next year. I’ve got a year to train for Hell Week 2016, and I’m already starting to get ready!

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Still Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard)

Posted on October 26, 2015 | 1 comment

I had every intention of doing 4 workouts this past week. My calf feels normal most of the time and I’m almost back to my old treadmill speed. Instead, I only did 3 workouts and it looks like I’ll be doing that for the next few weeks as well.

It’s not really all about how my calf feels. I did feel some pain this week (many during a strength day when all the treadmill work was on hills), but it’s not unbearable. I also felt some hip pain that was a bit scary at first, but fortunately was not my cartilage tearing because the pain ended the next day.

One of the big reasons for not adding the 4th workout into my week yet is scheduling issues. I know that that shouldn’t be my excuse, but it is. And with my 5K coming up soon, I don’t want to push myself too hard so that I can do the best that I can at the race.

Besides only doing 3 workouts this week and having some pain issues, I did have some pretty great moments in my workouts. I’m still working on the rowing improvements (which I’ll need this week because it’s Hell Week!) and I had some great sprint rows. I know that distance rows are my weakest point, but those are rare in class and they get pretty painful for me to do.

On my weights, I did most of my things with 15 pound weights, but I was doing squats and pullovers with 20 pounds so I’m very happy with that. I’m hoping that I can do some of my stronger arm things (like bicep curls) with 20 pound weights soon. I’ve never been scared of bulking up by using heavier weights so the only thing holding me back is my own strength.

I’m still stuck at 3.4 miles an hour on the treadmill. And I have a feeling that I’ll probably be there for the next two weeks leading up to the race. If my race ends up being at 3.4 miles an hour, I won’t PR. But since my adrenaline on race day always makes me walk faster (plus I won’t be at an incline), there’s still hope for me. But I’m scared to increase the speed and hurt my calf because that will definitely hurt my race time. So I’m just going to focus on staying where I am for now and after my race is done I will reevaluate and see what I’m hoping to do for my race in April.

I’ve had so many huge improvements over the past year that it can be tough to feel stagnant and not moving forward anymore. But no matter what fitness level someone is at, there is always a point where you hit your max. I know I’m not there yet, but I have to get through this time now where my focus is recovery before getting back to working on improvements again.

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No More Slacking (or Paying Attention To My Fitbit)

Posted on October 21, 2015 | 1 comment

I have a confession to make. I have not been doing my 10,000 steps a day lately. This all started when I lost my Fitbit. When I didn’t have it, it was pretty much impossible to get my steps in for the day (my phone counts my steps, but I don’t always have my phone with me). I started to not really look at my Fitbit app, even when I got my replacement. There were plenty of days where I looked at the app first thing in the morning (to turn off the sleep tracker) and didn’t look at it again until bedtime (to turn on the sleep tracker). I didn’t look at how many steps I was getting in for the day, but I know that I was not getting close to my goal.

I was in such a habit of not thinking about getting in my steps that I wasn’t doing them. The only 10,000 step day I had since getting my replacement was when I was at Disneyland. It’s pretty easy to get in my steps there. I average 3,000 steps in an Orangetheory workout, but I wasn’t doing the work to do the other 7,000 steps.

But on Monday, I had my workout early in the morning (and got about 3,000 steps in) and with all the games in my improv class and walking around doing errands I got another 2,000 steps in. So I decided that it was time to start taking charge again and making sure I do my best effort to get to my goals each day.

Fitbit

I managed to get my 10,000 steps in on Monday. And yesterday, I was back at my old routine of doing steps in place before work while catching up on my DVR. And I got my 10,000 steps in again.

I’m really hoping that this will be the start of the trend of hitting my step goals. When I first got my Fitbit, I was obsessed with not missing my goal every day. I remember the first time I missed my step goal and how upset I was. But since I’ve lost my Fitbit and have had a couple of weeks where I didn’t get my step goal, I’m much calmer about this all. Of course, I want to reach my goal every day, but if it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen. It’s not the end of the world.

I’m not sure how much getting my steps in helps my weight loss efforts, but I know that it can’t hurt. And the more healthy routines that I can build into my life and don’t have to really think about, the better.

I think part of the motivation that got me back into my steps was the fact that I was invited to be a part of a bunch of step challenges this week. I don’t care if I win, but I want to at least try to be in the top half of the challengers.

So, thank you to my friends who invited me to a challenge this week. Because of you all, I’m back on track.

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Setting Some New Personal Records (or Getting Closer To My Old Self)

Posted on October 19, 2015 | Comments Off on Setting Some New Personal Records (or Getting Closer To My Old Self)

I’m happy to share that I actually had a pretty amazing workout week! I’m actually surprised that I feel so great about my workout week because I had a setback on the treadmill and that’s how I’ve been measuring my success for a while now.

I’m not doing horribly on the treadmill, but I’m back to 3.4 miles an hour. I can do some moments of 3.5 miles an hour, but it’s starting to hurt again. But I’m starting to not stress about that as much as I was before. At 3.4 miles an hour, I’m about 30 seconds slower than my 5K PR time. And I know that I have a tendency to be faster on race days and my treadmill training is at 4% incline (at least) and my race day is pretty much a flat road. So knowing that, there is still a decent chance that I will PR at my race in a few weeks even if all my treadmill training until then is at 3.4 miles an hour (although I’m not going to stop pushing myself to go faster).

While I had a small setback on the treadmill, I had jumps forward in everything else. My strength work was much more fluid and less jerky than it was in the past. I also finally conquered my fear of using the next set of weights when I was doing arm work. I finally did some of my upper body weights with the 20 pound weights! I’m not going to do that for everything, but it’s nice to prove to myself that I can do it and that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I also had to use fewer modifications this past week. Some of that was because of what the workout programs were during the week, but there are some things (like certain types of planks) that I was able to do the normal way instead of the way I’ve been doing them. I still had to do a modification on one move on the Bosu (where you do a sit up and then stand), but that’s something that I’m aware will likely always be very difficult or impossible to do. And I did burpees much cleaner than I think I ever have!

But my biggest success of the week was my rowing. Yes, it shocked me as well that I have good rowing news to share. We had a ton of rowing to do this past week. And while most of my rowing kind of kicked serious butt (including getting a higher wattage than I can ever remember), I mainly want to share about my rowing victory on Wednesday.

Part of the workout routine on Wednesday was a 1,000 meter row. Those intimidate me so much. I know that if I want to do a Dri-Tri that I’ll have to do a 2,000 meter row, but for some reason that doesn’t scare me as much as the 1,000 meter row.

Whenever rowing is part of the workout plan, there is a guideline for how long it should take you to complete it. Beginners should average 100 meters every 30 seconds. For the shorter rows, I can do that pretty much all the time. But when I have to do the longer rows, it normally doesn’t happen.

So going into the 1,000 meter row, I just wanted to be under 5 minutes. I knew that I could maintain that pace for at least the first half of the row, but the second half would be a struggle. So I set up my rower so it would count down the meters and stop when I got to 1,000 (instead of just continuing to go as long as I don’t reset it). With the rower set up that way, I could focus on other things in the room and not really pay attention to the countdown. I also knew that with it set that way I would see exactly how long it took me to complete it versus making a guess.

When I started, I just counted each stroke in my head. It doesn’t really mean anything to me, but it’s a good distraction. The first time I checked the monitor I was about a quarter of the way done. I just kept going and trying to not slow down. It was so hard. I was sweating like crazy (and not stopping to wipe off the sweat) and my heart rate got a bit higher than I like it to be. But I managed to complete the 1,000 meters with pretty much no breaks.

And when I looked at the monitor (and I regret not having a picture of this), it said 4:58.9. I was just over a second under my 5 minute goal!

Of course, the rest of the workout was a struggle for me because I was exhausted from the row, but I was also on such a high from accomplishing something that I wasn’t sure would be possible.

Of course, I had to take a post-workout selfie to celebrate this accomplishment!

Post Workout

I’m excited to see what this week of workouts will bring. I have to start doing very early workouts on Mondays for a while (more on that tomorrow), so hopefully I won’t have too many issues with that.

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Default ThumbnailBack To 4 Workouts (or More Rowing!) Default ThumbnailLots Of New Records (or Killing It In My Workouts) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs) Default ThumbnailDri-Tri Time (or Beating My Own Records) Default ThumbnailFriends and Rowing (or More Records In My Workouts) Default ThumbnailNew Workout Gadgets And Records (or Improving On My Workouts)

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Getting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break)

Posted on October 12, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break)

After only being able to do 1 workout the week before, I was pretty nervous about how my workouts would go this past week. Would it not seem so bad or would I hurt like I did for a few days after my very first Orangetheory workout ever? I decided to not push myself too hard and see how it went.

Monday was definitely a struggle. I felt like I was huffing and puffing through the entire workout but my heart rate stayed pretty low. I sometimes have that problem with my morning workouts, but this one felt worse than usual. I really tried to do what I could, but I felt like I had taken 1,000 steps back in my workout progress. I was also possibly holding back a bit since I knew I’d be at Disneyland that afternoon. I’m just grateful that my calf is starting to feel better because that was one less thing I had to worry about.

My Wednesday workout felt a bit more normal. The only big issue I was dealing with was some horrible blisters that I got on both of my heels (not quite sure what happened, but they are still horrible). I didn’t have any pain leftover from my Monday workout like I thought I would and I was doing things at the same speed/weight that I was doing them before I was sick. The only thing that is still behind pretty significantly is my rowing power. That doesn’t seem to make progress like I would like and I’m wondering if it has to do with my calf, my hip, or maybe a combination of both. I’m adding it to my list of things I want to talk about with hip surgeons when I start meeting with them to decide for sure who will be doing my next surgery (and what my next surgery will be).

Friday I finally felt back to normal. And not only did I feel back to normal from being sick, I felt almost back to normal after the calf injury! For that workout, we spent the first half of the workout (about 26 minutes) on the treadmill without a break. When we had walking breaks, I brought my speed down to 3 miles an hour, but the entire workout time I was at 3.5 miles an hour! I’m almost back to what I was doing pre-injury! I’m still not able to boost my speed during the push and all-out paces, but knowing that I did 3.5 miles an hour for 26 minutes gave me a huge confidence boost! I’m feeling better about my next 5K and that I will be able to PR (even if it’s only a few seconds faster).

I feel like I might be ready to start back at 4 workouts a week occasionally. I’m still a bit nervous on how my calf might feel, but I haven’t had any popping or pulling sensations in it for about 2 weeks now. I think that it’s finally completely healed and I want to get in the extra workouts so I can still meet my 2015 workout goal. I also feel like while I’ve been pushing myself due to injury or illness, I haven’t really been pushing myself for real. It’s just been pushing myself to get back to what I can usually do.

Orangetheory will be doing Hell Week again during Halloween week. I’m feeling pretty sure that I can do 4 workouts that week. But I’m starting to think that maybe I should make it a challenge for myself to workout each day of Hell Week. Last year, they gave out a prize for doing that, but I don’t care about getting a prize. I care about proving to myself that I’m not in recovery mode anymore and I’m back to improvement mode.

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Default ThumbnailAlmost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailAlmost Back To Normal (or Making Progress) Default ThumbnailWorkout Struggles and Wins (or My First Early Workout In A While) Default ThumbnailWorkouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury) Default ThumbnailStill Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard) Default ThumbnailTaking A Break To Be Sick (or Hitting A Road Bump)

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Workout Failure (or I Tried My Best)

Posted on October 5, 2015 | 1 comment

I was nervous when I wrote about my last workout recap because I knew I was scheduled to work out 3 days in a row last week due to my upcoming crazy schedule. I’ve done 3 workouts in a row before, and they have never been easy. I don’t want to have to do those regularly but it’s always good to challenge myself.

Before I talk about what happened, I’ll talk about my Monday workout. The treadmill is still going well for me. I’m not ready to push myself with speed on the push or all out paces, but I’m getting close. And the fact that my base pace is almost what it used to be is still making me so happy. I’ve got about a month to go before my 5K and that is motivating me every time I have to get on the treadmill (it’s still not my favorite thing to do).

My strength section went fine. It wasn’t anything fabulous, but I did it and I pushed myself to fatigue as often as I could. I don’t like to do that (even though I know it’s good for me) because when I get fatigued, my form gets sloppy and I can hurt myself. I’m not sure how to push to fatigue safely, but that’s something that I’d like to look into more.

Monday after my workout was my epic doctor afternoon. I know that you can sometimes feel off after a flu shot (and my arm can hurt from those and tetanus shots) so I was prepared to have a bit of an off workout on Tuesday afternoon.

At about 1am on Tuesday morning, I woke up in a disgusting sweat, my head was foggy, and my body ached like there was something punching me constantly. I managed to be able to take my temperature after a bit and discovered that I was running a really high fever. I know that you can’t get the flu from the flu shot, but there is a slim chance that you can have a bad reaction to it which includes fever, sweats, aches, and other flu-like symptoms.

I decided to call this “fake flu”.

I posted online about my fake flu and some friends shared with me that it can last a day or two. Obviously, with my fever and horrible sweats there was no way I could go to my workout. I had to late cancel that class and I ended up napping for 4 hours after work and then going to bed an hour after that.

I still had hopes that I could go to Wednesday’s class, but I spend another night with a high fever, sweats, and the rest of it. So no Wednesday class for me.

I ended up pretty much recovering from fake flu by Wednesday night (I feel totally better now), but 2 of my 3 workouts of the week were not going to happen. With my schedule for the SAG-AFTRA Convention no class times would work for me again until Monday (trust me, I checked even for the earliest class time on Thursday and Friday and that would have made me late for Convention).

This is the first time since I started going regularly to Orangetheory over a year ago that I didn’t get at least 3 workouts in during the week. I wish I could say that I was fine with that, but I wasn’t. I was really mad. I wished that I had not gotten the flu shot then and had waiting for a Friday sometime when I could spend 2 days being sick without missing a workout. I wished that this had happened any other week where I could have made up the classes on other days in the week. And I’m hoping that this set back won’t prevent me from meeting my workout goal for the year.

I knew that one day something like this was bound to happen. I honestly thought it would be whenever I get my next hip surgery since that might take me between 6 weeks and 6 months (depending on which surgery I go with) to recover. I’ve worked out sick before, but this fake flu was different from anything else I have had before. It happens to everyone. It’s not the end of the world (even if it feels like that a bit).

I just have to be thankful that this week I should be able to do my 3 workouts and hopefully I can make up some extra workouts in the coming months so I can still meet my year goal.

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Default ThumbnailNot Being So Hard On Myself (or Missing A Workout Goal This Month) Default ThumbnailCan 4 Workout A Week Be My New Normal? (or Pushing Myself Beyond) Default ThumbnailShort and Sweet Workout Week (or Taking It A Bit Easy) Default Thumbnail5 Workout Week (or I Did It, But I Don’t Know When I’ll Do It Again) Default ThumbnailWorkout Struggles and Wins (or My First Early Workout In A While) Default Thumbnail“Only” 3 Workouts This Week (or Testing A Pre-Work Workout Time)

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