Tag Archives: goals

Another Goal Setting Session (or A Quarterly Check In)

Posted on October 5, 2017 | Comments Off on Another Goal Setting Session (or A Quarterly Check In)

The podcast I work for has started to do quarterly check ins/goal setting workshops, and we just had our 3rd quarter check in this past weekend. I hosted it again at my house (even though it means I have to clean it also means I don’t have to worry about getting somewhere) and we had a really great group at the workshop.

A lot of what we did this time was the same as last time, but that’s not a bad thing since we aren’t in the same place now as we were 3 months ago. We started with just chatting together and getting to know each other before we moved on to the more serious work. But since most of us didn’t know each other, getting to chat a bit helped to make us all comfortable since this can be very personal work and we didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable sharing.

The first thing we did was the 4 Tendencies quiz by Gretchen Rubin. This was the same quiz that we did last time and I had the same results that I had the first time. I wasn’t surprised since I was pretty strong in what tendencies I fit into the first time, but it was still cool to take it again to see what happened. And I believe that nobody else in the group had done this quiz before so it was fun watching them discover what each thing meant and what tendencies they fit into.

After that, we worked on our personal reviews of the past 3 months. This was broken down into multiple sections. First, we wrote down what didn’t work. I had a bunch of things to put in that section, but I realized that there was a theme when I was writing. So many things that didn’t work had to do with me not feeling like I deserve something or am worthy of something or that I was letting someone else set the rules and guidelines for the situation. Some of this was related to dating and some of this was related to work. But so many thing fit into those descriptions and I hadn’t realized that until I was writing it down.

Next we wrote down what is important to us right now in life. This was more varied for me than what didn’t work. I had things like being more open and honest, working on union work and my acting career, strengthening my relationships with friends and family, and working on my fitness.

The next section was a two-parter. First, we wrote down what we want. For me, that included having success in my acting career, living within my means, having healthy and happy relationships, and getting into recovery for my eating disorder. The second part was what we wanted to live through ourselves. I want generosity, helpfulness, and being of service to come through me. I know that those are all pretty similar, but I feel like when I can help that I am at my strongest so I want to do that as often as I can.

The final section was what is next for us for the next 3 months to bring us to the end of the year. And mine fell into the ideas that I had written in the previous sections. I want to stop tolerating mediocrity in myself and in others. I don’t want to give up control to others because that doesn’t do anyone any good to just go along with things. I want to be more active in multiple aspects of my life. And I want to work on living a full life and not to forget to have a life outside of the routine I’m already in.

After we went through those sections, everyone had the opportunity to share and everyone did share. All of us are working through very different things, but that didn’t mean we didn’t learn from each other. I was taking notes as everyone else was talking and I got some great ideas that I know I want to use for myself. And after we reviewed what we had written, we all worked on some action steps to take to make sure we work on what we had written. For me, the action steps all boiled down to one main idea: stop taking crap from people and when I want to be involved in something that I should not worry about it and go for it. Obviously that is easier said than done, but it has given me something to think about.

We ended the workshop with some visualization and discussion of affirmations. Even though I use a daily affirmation app, I got some ideas for affirmations that are more specific to me and I’m looking into how to create some sort of affirmation alert for myself that randomizes which one I see. I won’t have time to work on that for a little bit, but hopefully I can do it during this last quarter of the year.

Even though I’m pretty big on goal setting for myself, having these workshops is so amazing and I always learn so much from them. I learn more about myself and what I’m thinking about situations. And I learn how I want to change things and create real action steps that I can take to accomplish them. It’s very empowering and I’m already looking forward to the workshop we have for the first quarter of 2018!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailA Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme) Default ThumbnailHow My Goal Setting Is Going (or A Spark Planner Update) Default ThumbnailMonthly Recap Update (or My New Habits) Default ThumbnailHow Is This Year Almost Over? (or Doing A Check In On My Goals) Default Thumbnail5K Update (or Why It’s Not A Goal For This Year) Default ThumbnailAnother Brunch Check In (or Wishing I Had Done More)

Comments Off on Another Goal Setting Session (or A Quarterly Check In)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

Rethinking Being A Warrior (or Refocusing On My Word For The Year)

Posted on July 28, 2017 | Comments Off on Rethinking Being A Warrior (or Refocusing On My Word For The Year)

I’ve talked about how my word for the year this year is “Warrior“. It’s a strong and powerful word and I’m very glad that I chose it this year. It meant a lot to me to have it as my word at the beginning of the year when I was preparing to have a major surgery. When the surgery was cancelled, I didn’t immediately think about how the word warrior was going to change in my mindset. But recently someone asked me about my warrior bracelet and why I had it.

I explained how it was my word for the year and how I was planning on being a warrior through my surgery, but that was cancelled. They asked me if it was still my word for the year and I told them yes. But later I was thinking about how I want to be a warrior for the rest of this year since I’m not focused on recovering from surgery.

I guess I never really thought about how I should readjust my thoughts for being a warrior. It wasn’t all about my liver, but honestly a majority was about it. And that’s not really something I’m focused on anymore.

I’m still being a warrior for my liver. I’ve got my next scan in the fall and I want my tumors to be even smaller! That’s the best thing I could ask for and I’m doing everything I can (which really isn’t much) to try to make that happen. I’m working on my visualization every day, I’m not drinking since that puts stress on your liver, and I’m now taking some supplements that help with liver health. I know I can’t really fight for my liver to get better, but I think that I’m doing the best that I can to be as close to fighting for my liver now.

And I’m still a warrior in my workouts. I’m trying to run more, but I’ve been having some setbacks lately. I’m lifting heavier weights when I can and I’m trying to not let my mind tell me that my body can’t do something. It’s tough not to be frustrated when I don’t make the progress I think I should be making, but maybe being kind to myself is also being a warrior for myself in a way. But I’m still hoping that this year will be a good year for me making progress in my workouts.

I guess you can also say that I’m being a warrior in online dating. Part of me being a warrior with dating is catching cheaters and calling them out on it (and telling their wives/girlfriends so at least they can find out). That’s not something I would have done before this year. I’ve been the other woman before and I didn’t tell his girlfriend that he was dating me too. I didn’t feel like it was my place to do that and I kind of regret it. But I’m also being a warrior by putting myself out there and trying online dating again when I’ve been burned in the past. It’s not easy doing it, but I do want to find someone and this is one of the few ways I know I can do that.

But all this reflection has made me think about where I’m lacking in trying to be a warrior. As much progress as I’ve made with my eating disorder, I haven’t been fighting as hard as I should have toward recovery. I’ve made some great steps and I know that they are helping me build good habits that I need to make recovery a possibility for me. But I also know where I’ve been slacking and ignoring some warning signs that I need to work harder. I don’t need to get into specifics, but just know that I know I’ve been doing things that aren’t helping me and I haven’t cared enough to try to change those. It isn’t something that I can just turn on or off, but hopefully awareness and admitting that I haven’t been doing great will help get me a bit more on track.

And the other thing that has been less than warrior like is related to something that is a warrior thing. Because I’ve been going full force into online dating, I’ve been prioritizing others over myself. If I’m chatting with a guy and he wants to meet up for a drink or coffee, I’ll rearrange my schedule to make myself available because I’m scared that if I can’t meet him then that he will move on and I will miss my chance. That has happened to me before, but I shouldn’t be in fear of that. If a guy can’t wait a little longer to meet me because I have a busy schedule, then I shouldn’t want to meet him. But I’m still in fear that whoever I meet will be the last person who will like me and I need to get over that.

Every time that I’ve been scared that I will never find someone who wants to go out with me, I meet another guy and that cycle happens again. I don’t get dates as often as I probably would like, but going out with someone every other week or so isn’t that bad. It’s significantly better than what I was doing before I put myself out there. And I need to be more focused on fitting someone into my life instead of rearranging my life to fit someone else.

I don’t know how to phrase it properly, but in essence I need to be a warrior for myself first and foremost. That’s the most important thing. I can be a warrior for myself in fitness and health but I also need to be a warrior for my emotional wellbeing and my life. I don’t have to let someone else’s schedule dictate mine or wait for a text or phone call to find out what the plans will be that night. I don’t want to be the girl sitting at home waiting for the guy to let her know what’s going on. I need to put my life and what I want to do first and hope that I can find someone who will either join me or will fit in. Or at least someone who makes plans with me in advance so I can schedule around it.

It’s going to be tough for me not to prioritize others, but I know that doing that will make me happier. And if I’m happier and doing more of what I want to do instead of waiting for others to make plans with me, that will make me a better person and hopefully someone more fun for a guy to date.

I usually don’t focus this much on if I want to alter how I think of my word of the year in the middle of the year, but I think it was necessary this year. It’s not that the word of the year took a backseat after my surgery cancelled, but I didn’t take the energy I was focusing on getting through the surgery and put it toward other things once that wasn’t needed anymore. Hopefully now I can make the second half of this year even more powerful and more warrior like.

SaveSave

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Word (or I Am A Warrior) Default ThumbnailMy 2019 Word (or Finding Trust) Default ThumbnailStarting To Wrap Up 2017 (or Getting In All My End Of The Year Things) Default ThumbnailWas I Bold? (or Recapping How I Did With My Word Of The Year) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailWorking On Being A Warrior (or Something To Remind Me)

Comments Off on Rethinking Being A Warrior (or Refocusing On My Word For The Year)

Posted in Dating, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

Posted on July 10, 2017 | Comments Off on A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

I’ve had a few weeks of 3 workout weeks, so it was nice to be able to get back to a 4 workout week this past week. 4 workouts a week is starting to feel so normal to me which still surprises me. But even though this was a 4 workout week, it was a bit of a weird week. It was weird because of a few things including the holiday and my Orangetheory location was getting an equipment upgrade and was going to be closed down for 2 days. But none of the weird stuff was going to stop me from getting my workouts in.

Monday’s class was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between the blocks. We technically had 2 different 10.5 minute challenges, but I forgot to reset my treadmill before the first one and wasn’t able to do the challenge properly. So since the first challenge wasn’t going to be for distance for me, I did it with the plan the coach gave (instead of just running the entire thing). So I ran the push paces and walked the base paces without worrying too much about distance.

For the second challenge, I did remember to reset my treadmill and very determined to PR on my 10.5 minute challenge. I ran the entire thing which is still a big accomplishment for me. I started at 4.5mph like normal and occasionally did a bit at 4.7mph as a little sprint. I knew I’d be close to my old PR (which was .812 miles) so for a minute toward the end I went to 5mph and for the very last 30 seconds went to 7mph just to get every bit of distance I could get. I’m glad that I did that because I did PR, even if it wasn’t as much of a PR change as I was hoping it would be.

Once I got to the floor, I was pretty tired but I wanted to do the best I could. The first block was arms, lunges, and abs so that wasn’t too bad after all the running. The second block was arms with squats and ended with a 500 meter row. I was excited to try the row because I wanted to PR on it too. I didn’t know what my 500 meter PR was going into class so I was really excited when I finished it thinking I got a new best time. It was a bit frustrating to realize that I tied with my PR. I know I should still be happy to tie with my PR when I’m tired at the end of class, but as you all know I’m super stubborn with myself.

I also went to Tuesday’s workout since I do try to work out on holidays. This workout was a 3G 3 partner workout and it was set up as 3 blocks that were each 14 minutes long. A lot of partner workouts are for the entire class, so it was cool that this one was broken up into smaller bits. Each workout had a similar goal which was to see how far the group could get on the rower in 14 minutes even though each block had a different station controlling the switching.

For the round where the rower controlled the switching, it was 400 meter rows. For the other rounds, it was just rowing for distance but I think we all pretty much averaged 400 meters each time we were on there. When the treadmill controlled the switching, it was .2 miles (I did it as a power walk for .1 miles) and the other rounds were running or walking for distance. For the floor, we had a decent amount of variety. When the floor controlled the switching, it was lunges and ab work. For the other rounds there were biceps, pop jacks, dead lifts, and squats.

As a group, we did best on the rowing distance in our first round which was almost 3100 meters. The other rounds weren’t too bad with about 2900 meters each time but I know that we wanted to top our first round row. It was a pretty tough workout, but it was a good workout and a nice change from what we do normally. And knowing that we’d be switching between stations every 3 minutes or so was pretty helpful in getting through the tougher moments.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we switched after 2 blocks. Normally I would run that workout, but it was my 3rd workout in a row and I was feeling a bit sore and tired so I ended up walking. All of the treadmill blocks started with a 2 minute push pace and 1 minute base pace. After that, it was push to all out paces with different times. But on the very last block on the treadmill, I knew I’d do a little running. After Wednesday’s workout, all the treadmills and rowers were going to be replaced. It was my last time on the original treadmill 11 (my favorite treadmill) and we were encouraged to go for our fastest speed ever because we were ending on a 30 second all out. Since I wanted to give my treadmill a proper goodbye, I ended with 30 seconds at 8mph. It’s probably too fast for me (I think that speed is for someone with longer legs), but I was able to do it for 30 seconds and felt like I gave the treadmill good farewell.

And yes, I’m aware that I probably sound crazy for having a favorite treadmill like this, but I think most people at Orangetheory have their favorites and knew that the new treadmills probably wouldn’t feel the same as the ones we were used to.

On the floor, each block had a 200 meter row in it. I was averaging 37-38 seconds per row which isn’t bad but not my best either. We also had a lot of plank/core/abs work in the blocks. I was tired because I did a tough workout but also because it was my 3rd workout in a row. I knew that I couldn’t be too tough on myself that day for not always doing my best. And I’m happy to say that I was able to go easy on myself and felt glad that I was able to do what I could do.

Orangetheory was closed on Thursday and Friday to spruce things up and get the new equipment in, so my next workout was on Saturday. As usual for Saturday workouts for me, it was a 3G workout. I got there a bit late and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to start on a treadmill, but somehow not only did I get to start on a treadmill but I got to start on the new treadmill 11! The treadmills looked similar to the old ones, but I could feel a difference. They do still need to be a bit balanced out (very common issue with new treadmills), but it was good to be on my normal treadmill. I was dealing with some hip pain, so I planned on doing a lot of walking. And that worked out well because it was a strength day.

There was some push pace times at a flat treadmill incline, and I did run those. But for all the incline work, I walked and I’m glad that I did. It wasn’t a really difficult hill workout, but I know I couldn’t have done it as a run. I did try to run briefly at 4% and it was feeling pretty bad. So pretty much all my treadmill time with the few moments of push paces on a flat incline were walking.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lunges and shoulder work followed by abs. And the second block was lunges, abs, and pushups. Each block was only about 7 minutes long so it went by pretty quickly. And on the rower, we had rowing with work with medicine balls in-between each row. My rowing was pretty slow, but that might have been because of the new rowers. The seats are different with these rowers compared to the others so it might take me a bit of time to get used to it. But I’m sure they will feel normal to me soon.

After completing Saturday’s workout, I went to the app on my phone that I use to track my workouts. Having an app like that is so much easier to figure out if I’m on pace to hit my workout goal for the year than if I tracked it on paper or something. And Saturday’s workout was a bit of a milestone one for the year.

I’m ahead of pace to hit my workout goal for the year and that makes me pretty happy. Hopefully this momentum continues!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailNew Year New Challenges (or Getting Ready For Peak Performance) Default ThumbnailFriends and Milestones (or Another Amazing Workout Week) Default ThumbnailWeird Workout Times (or My Final Workouts Before My 5K)

Comments Off on A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

A Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme)

Posted on July 5, 2017 | Comments Off on A Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme)

I’ve been pretty good about setting goals for myself. I set goals each year that I want to be able to accomplish in a year. I also set weekly and monthly goals in my Volt Planner. While goal setting is relatively new to me, I feel like I’ve gone in head first and really have embraced it. I like to have things to try to achieve and while it is frustrating when I don’t make a goal I’m learning how to be ok with that.

So when the podcast I work for was going to do a goal setting workshop, I was so excited to be able to participate! I ended up hosting the event at my house because it is a pretty central location and my living room is a good space to hold events like this. It ended up being a pretty small group, but I think that allowed everyone to get more out of this workshop than they would have if we had more people.

The workshop was based around the idea of the 4 Tendencies that Gretchen Rubin created. There was a quiz to take to help us figure out what type of person we are. Of the 4 Tendencies, I was a pretty even mix of 3 of them (Upholder, Questioner, and Obliger). I don’t know what I was expecting, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be the other type (Rebel). But to be a mix of the other ones was interesting.

I know that some of the reasons I’m a mix is because of my OCD and panic/anxiety disorder along with me wanting to be a perfectionist. But I totally want to look more into these things so I can learn more about each type and see if there is a way I can maximize knowing this to help me do better with my habits and goals for the future. I haven’t really thought about how I could adjust my goal setting process to benefit me so this was really educational for me.

After learning about what type of person we were, the next step was to work on our goals. I’ve already got so many goals for the year and I really didn’t want to cover something that I already am working on. We were advised to try to only set goals for parts of our lives that we need to work on. If we have a goal but are making good progress, we shouldn’t be writing it down since that goal is working.

So for me, the first thing I wanted to do was to write what is working in my life so I can remove my focus from that. The main things that are working for me right now are my day jobs and my exercise. I do have goals for both of those things right now, but I’m doing really great with them so I didn’t need to brainstorm more about it. And once I had that written down I worked on focusing on what I wanted to do.

I got it narrowed down to 3 aspects of my life that I know I want to set goals in. I want to have new goals in my personal relationships, financial life, and my recovery effort. I wrote down several things within each aspect that I know I want to accomplish in the long-term. Most of them are pretty basic, but again it’s always good to write stuff down. I don’t have a lot of variety in what I want to set goals to do, but those few things that I’m focused on aren’t necessarily the easiest.

For personal relationships, that’s about dating and friendships. I want to be more active on both sides. I need to set more plans and not have my relationships just be virtual (FB with my friends and online dating with dating). I want to be ok with being bossy or forceful with trying to make plans. I’ve been ok with being wishy-washy and not trying to get something scheduled. But I don’t want to be ok with that anymore. That’s how I can go months without seeing a friend or spend weeks messaging back and forth with a guy online. I want to be more aware of the relationships that I’m focusing on and not getting as distracted.

For finances, I want to stay aware as well. I’m doing pretty great with that so far but I want to make sure that it continues for a long time. Mindless spending is easy to do (especially with online shopping) and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to use shopping as a distraction for something else. And hopefully by doing that I will reduce my spending, get my debt more in control, and be in a better place financially.

And for my recovery, it’s a very similar thing. I want to work on being more aware. I want to use what I’ve learned recently in therapy and really work hard and seriously on taking those steps. I don’t want to make excuses for myself and to take responsibility for whatever I chose to do. I don’t want to let my eating disorder rule me. I want to be making choices, even if those choices are bad ones.

After writing down these ideas and 90 day and 6 month goals for each one, I totally noticed a theme. Everything is about being mindful and aware. I don’t know why this has become such an important thing to me now, but clearly it’s something I need to focus on. I don’t feel like I’ve been on auto-pilot, but maybe I have and I just didn’t realize it. Maybe I needed to combination of my appointment with my therapist and this goal setting workshop in the same week to come to this realization.

Whatever brought this realization to me, I’m glad that it’s more obvious than ever on what I want to focus on and what I think I really need to do. Saying that I’ll be more mindful is easy to say but hard to do. But I think that having some action steps and ideas is going to help me get closer to accomplishing this mindfulness now and hopefully things will snowball from there in the right direction.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAnother Goal Setting Session (or A Quarterly Check In) Default Thumbnail5K Update (or Why It’s Not A Goal For This Year) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailWorking On Forgiveness (or Accepting Things As They Are) Default ThumbnailHow My Goal Setting Is Going (or A Spark Planner Update) Default ThumbnailAnother Attempt At Mindfulness (or I Think I Need To Work On This Until I Figure It Out)

Comments Off on A Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme)

Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Running And Walking (or Accepting My Limits)

Posted on June 19, 2017 | Comments Off on Running And Walking (or Accepting My Limits)

It was an interesting week of workouts this past week. I had some really great stuff, but again I’ve been having to understand what my limits are and how to work the best with them. I’m still in such a mindset of trying to improve by huge leaps every workout, but that’s not a realistic mindset. So I need to just focus on doing what I am able to do and do the best I can with that.

Monday’s workout was a power day and we did a bit of switching. We had a total of 4 blocks on the treadmill and 4 blocks on the floor and we switched after 2 blocks. For the first half of the treadmill time (so the first 2 blocks), it was mainly push to all out paces. I was able to run all of them and feel totally fine. But when we got back to the treadmill for the last 2 blocks, I started to run and it just wasn’t feeling right. It was tough since I was doing so great with my running at the beginning, but I knew not to push myself too much. So I ended up walking those 2 blocks (which were mainly 45 or 30 second intervals).

On the floor, the first block was weight and strap work. The second block was pushups and crunches with rowing. The rows went pretty well for me, but I didn’t get any records. I was able to do 200 meters in 38.3 seconds and 150 meters in 28.3 seconds. The third block was more weights and straps work and the last block was timed work. We had 30 second intervals of pushups, squats, and running men and I figured it couldn’t be too bad. But those 30 seconds seemed to take forever to go by and by the end of that block I was exhausted.

Wednesday’s workout was a fun one. It was split in 2 and the first half was a pretty normal endurance, strength, and power workout. We had 10 minutes on the treadmill with a mix of longer push paces, short push paces, and push to all out paces. Then there was 10 minutes on the floor with biceps, froggers, plank work, and situps. And after that, we came together as a class and partnered up for a 23 minute partner challenge.

The way the partner challenge worked was the person on the floor and treadmill set the pace. We started with floor work with a medicine ball and then we went to the treadmill for a short run (.2, .15, and .1 miles). The other partner was on the rower just rowing until they were tagged and then you’d switch. I partnered up with Helena (who I’ve seen in class a ton but we’ve never partnered up together for a workout) and I started on the floor and treadmill. I did feel a bit bad because she was able to do way more rowing than I could do and I felt a bit slow, but she never made me feel bad about not doing my fair share.

There were goals in hit on the rower for that challenge. The minimum was 3,000 meters and I honestly questioned if we would be able to do that. I know we should have been able to do it, but my rowing wasn’t nearly as good as I know it can be. But I just made sure that I kept rowing and didn’t stop. I didn’t want to let Helena down and I wanted to make sure that we hit the goal. And I guess I didn’t really need to worry because we did way more than 3,000 meters!

Friday’s workout was a crazy one! It was a power workout but it was tornado style. Tornado style means that you are switching between each block and going in a circle around the room. But not only was this a tornado workout, the blocks were all only 2 minutes long! 2 minutes on the treadmill, 2 minutes on the floor, 2 minutes on the rower for 5 rotations (a total of 15 blocks). For the 5 times I was on the treadmill, I ran the entire time. Since each block was only 2 minutes, I knew I could do them as a run. Most of the time it was a push to all out pace (there wasn’t much time to do more than that).

On the floor, 4 of the 5 block was a block of 2 moves. We had squats, lunges, and plank work. But on the last block, we had a set of 30 second intervals with abs. The ab work usually isn’t too bad for me, but this time it was a bit tough. I think it had to do with how tired I already was and pushing myself to do some ab work that I know can be tough on my hip. And on the rower we had a few different things. 2 of the blocks were 2 minute rows for distance (I got about 440 meters each time), 1 block was all 30 second intervals, and 2 blocks were 200 meter rows for time with squats after. I don’t remember what I did for my 200 meter rows, but they weren’t records. I did like switching things up every 2 minutes, but it was much harder than I was expecting!

Saturday’s workout was the normal 3G workout. I was able to start on the treadmill but I knew that running just wasn’t going to be an option for me. I really wanted to run, but again I had to listen to my body and know that if I did try to run that it wasn’t going to be good for me. Instead, I worked on trying to get my inclines up a bit higher. The treadmill time was split into 2 small blocks. In the first block, there were a few different distances to do with recovery in-between. I decided that the way I was going to push myself was to not do the recovery. So I did all 3 distances without a break in-between and increasing my inclines during it. It felt pretty good and I felt pretty proud of myself. The second block was more incline work and I was able to get my incline up to 12% which is usually a bit too much for me.

Next was the floor where again it was 2 shorter blocks. The first block was strap rows and chest presses along with ab work. And the second block was chest press and hammer curls with weights and more ab work. The ab work was some of the stuff that is tough on my hips, but I was feeling like I was kicking butt at it this time. I wasn’t hurting but I did have to take breaks in the middle of the sets. And finally, I was on the rower. The beginning of the row block was to do 3 sets of 200 meter rows where the goal was to do it in as few pulls as possible. I was able to get it down to 16 pulls which is pretty good (the goal was 25-15 pulls). After doing those 3 rounds, it was rowing and squats. I was feeling pretty tired from the 200 meter rows, but I wasn’t too bad at my other rowing. I wasn’t fast, but I wasn’t slow either.

I’m almost halfway through the year and I’m more than on pace to hit my workout goal for the year. I have to focus on that and the other positives I’m having in my workouts and not what limits I might be hitting. I’m sure at the end of the year I’ll be doing better than I’m doing now, so the slow progress will be worth it.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailContinuing My Running Progress (or Only Having Minor Setbacks) Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailWalking And Running (Mixing Up My Workouts) Default ThumbnailBack To More Walking (or The Heat Is Messing Up My Running) Default ThumbnailNew Limits (or Having Friends To Push Me)

Comments Off on Running And Walking (or Accepting My Limits)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Just A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok)

Posted on June 12, 2017 | 1 comment

I’ve had amazing workout weeks the past few weeks. Something has kicked in that has helped me reach so many amazing goals. It’s been so great that I’ve been struggling with figuring out what new goals to set for myself. I’m still working out new goals for myself, but this past week of workouts wasn’t anything spectacular. That’s not to say that my workout week was bad, it was just nothing super special. But that fact makes it special because it’s still crazy to me that this is my normal now.

Monday’s workout was a run/row day. I still love run/row days, especially now that my running and rowing are so much better. There were 3 blocks each with 3 runs and 3 rows in them. The first block was all 1 minute all outs at 1, 2, and 3% inclines. I was able to run all of those pretty easily. We all had 150 meter rows between the runs. I did ok on the rowing, but since I was tired from the running it wasn’t close to a PR. The second block was all 45 second all outs at 2, 3, and 4% inclines. Again, I could run all of those pretty easily although the 4% run was getting a bit tough. And between each run we had a 300 meter row. Again, no PR times for me but I was doing pretty ok. And I only made it to the beginning of the  third block which was a 450 meter row. All of my running was at 5.5 mph which is my pretty standard all out pace.

Once I got to the floor, we had 3 blocks each with 3 moves. Since it was an endurance, strength, and power day we had one move representing each element in each block. That was a pretty fun thing to have. We had a lot of rowing type moves using the straps and the weights. We also had skater lunges which have been something I’ve been improving on slowly. I used to always have to put my back foot down, but now I can pretty much do them without ever touching my back foot to the ground. There were also burpees that day which are always a tough one for me, but they didn’t seem as tough as usual for me.

Wednesday’s workout was a mix of strength and endurance and it was a switch day as well. Every block was 10.5 minutes long which seemed pretty great with the switching. The treadmill was pretty much all 90 second push paces with 45 second base paces. But in the first block we were doing our push paces on increasing inclines (1-5%) and in the second block we did decreasing declines (5-1%). For some reason, running was going really smoothly and I wasn’t having much problem running at 5%. It was nice to feel like things were falling into place even if I wasn’t doing anything too crazy.

On the floor, the first block had 4 moves but different numbers of reps. One round was endurance with higher reps and then we repeated the same moves with half the reps to represent strength. For the endurance reps I was using 15 pounds weights and for the strength rounds I was using 20 pound weights. The second block had rowing in it and we had a 300 meter row. This has become such a marker for me in my workouts and I thought maybe I could do it in 59 seconds flat. I ended up doing it in 59.4 which is still great and I had to remind myself that it is still considered an amazing time for me.

Friday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power. I was a bit tired (more about that in tomorrow’s post) and I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do running. The endurance block on the treadmill was increasing push paces starting at 30 seconds and going up to 90 seconds. I was able to run all of those but it was a bit tough. The strength block was 45 second hill intervals and I knew that I just couldn’t run on the hills that day so I walked that entire block. And the power block was all 90 second intervals with a mix of push to all outs. And again I was able to run all of those.

The floor was also 3 blocks but I wasn’t feeling my best on the floor. I tried to do what I could, but I was just feeling really tired. The first block was chest, shoulder, and abs work. The second block was rowing with froggers. I didn’t go that fast on my rowing but it wasn’t that horrible either. And the final block on the floor was abs and arm work.

Saturday’s workout was an endurance day, but it was a 3G workout so there was only 15 minutes at each section. I started on the treadmill and the entire time we alternated 1 minute or 90 second push paces. Between each push we had a 1 minute base pace. And I did my usual walking for the bases and running at 4.5 mph for the pushes. I originally planned on walking that workout, but for some reason I felt like I should try running. And I’m glad that I did because the running felt really good. Again, it felt pretty smooth to me and very normal and regular to me. It’s such a nice feeling and I’m glad that I had that on a day that I usually look at as a recovery day.

Next for me was the floor work where we had one long block. It was nice to have it as a long block so I didn’t have to worry too much about what I had to do. The floor work was a mix of strap rows, squats, pull overs, chest flys, and mountain climbers. The 15 minutes on the floor seemed to go by really quickly for me.

The last part of Saturday’s workout was the rower which was a bit complicated but really awesome. It started with a series of timed rows and rests. We had a 3 minute row, 1 minute recovery, 90 second row, 45 second recovery, and 45 second row. At the end of those 7 minutes, we were supposed to see how far we rowed. I was able to do about 1300 meters which isn’t that great but I had to remind myself that I had a lot of rest/recovery time in those 7 minutes so I couldn’t think about it as a 7 minute row. After that timed row, we were supposed to take that distance and take it in half and then do that as a row (so for me that was 650 meters). And to end the workout we had a 1 minute wall sit and a plank until time was up. My last monthly challenge was plank work and I’m currently in a wall sit challenge, so I thought it was pretty funny that my workout ended with those.

So like I said, this wasn’t a goal or record-breaking workout week, but I still did a lot of great stuff. And the more normal this feels to me, the better I feel about my fitness journey. I want this to just feel like any other week and not something that I have to keep struggling to push myself to do better. I do want to keep improving, but I don’t want to burn out when I’m not able to break any records.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Powerful Workout Week (or Feeling Amazing Again) Default ThumbnailA Shorter Workout Week (or Doing Some 5K Prep) Default ThumbnailAnother Normal Workout Week (or Getting Back To Everything Feeling Routine) Default ThumbnailCan 4 Workout A Week Be My New Normal? (or Pushing Myself Beyond) Default ThumbnailAnother Mixed Workout Week (or Biking More Than Normal)

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Setbacks and Goals (or Still Figuring Out What’s Next)

Posted on May 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Setbacks and Goals (or Still Figuring Out What’s Next)

Last week I wrote about how I’m trying to figure out what is next in my fitness journey. I’ve hit more goals than I ever could have imagined and that has encouraged me to set my goals bigger and better. So many things I’ve done this year were not even an idea in my head a year or two ago. I never imagined a year ago that my running would be where it is now. So while I really do want to have more goals in my workouts, it’s hard to know what to set them at because I don’t know what I can do. But I decided to try this past week to see what I could do to try to get some new goal ideas.

Monday’s workout wasn’t one of my better ones. I’m still having nausea issues now that I have my period again. It’s much better than when I was a teenager (before I went on the pill), but I can get some days where it’s pretty horrible. Fortunately, my OB/GYN prescribed me some anti-nausea meds and those help so much. And I am now packing them in my purse with me for emergencies. But having them in my purse is a new thing and I didn’t think about it on Monday.

My workout on the treadmill started out ok. It was a strength day which meant running on hills. I started running at a lower incline when my nausea hit me hard. It almost took my breath away it was so bad at first. I immediately stopped running and started to walk. I did my inclines as usual, but the nausea was making me need to jump the rails of the treadmill pretty often to catch my breath. And when we were about 27 minutes into the 30 minutes on the treadmill, I remembered that I have my anti-nausea medication in my purse which was in my locker in the lobby. I ran out of class (probably the fastest I’ve ever run), got my purse, took my meds, and hoped the medication would take effect quickly. Most of the time, I feel relief within about 10 minutes and I knew I’d be on the floor then. It’s unfortunate that my treadmill workout had to suffer so much, but hopefully if this happens again to me I’ll remember that I pack my medication.

Once I got to the floor, I was waiting for the medication to kick in but I got to work on the first block right away. It was squats, tricep work, and knee tucks using the ab dolly. I’ve been testing out using the ab dolly on my toes and not my knees and was able to do about half of the knee tucks that way. I still need to work on strengthening my hips to be able to do all the work on my toes, but I’m getting there. On the second block we had lunges, roll outs on the ab dolly, and hip bridges followed by a 300 meter row. I’ve PRed on my 300 meter row recently and figured that feeling the way I felt I probably couldn’t PR again that day. But I still wanted to be under 1 minute (I’m so stubborn!). I worked so hard and felt like I was going to make it, but I did my row in 1:00.0 exactly. It’s a bit frustrating to know how close I was to hitting that goal even when I felt as bad as I did.

Wednesday’s workout went better for me. It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power and I was doing some pretty good running. I was fine with the longer push paces on the endurance block which included a 3 minute and 2 minute push. When we got to the strength block, I was able to run at 2% but after that I decided to walk. And in the power block it was push and all outs and I was able to run them all.

The floor was one long block that had a good mix of things to do. We had squats, hip swings, rowing on the straps, push ups, plank jacks, and ab work. But then there was a rowing component that started with a 1200 meter row. 1200 meters is a pretty long row and I remember back when I couldn’t row that much without taking a break. Back then, my goal was just to try to do it without stopping. Now that I know I can do that I’m working on what time goals I want to have. It used to be that I would do 100 meters every 30 seconds. My power on the rower has been increasing a lot, so I decided I wanted to see how close I could get to 5 minutes for the 1200 meter row. That would have been an average of 25 seconds for each 100 meters and that’s pretty fast for me when I’m doing more than 300 or 400 meters. But to my surprise, I was able to do it in 5:06.2! That’s a lot closer to 5 minutes than I thought I could be!

Friday’s workout was another strength one and I knew going into the workout that I wasn’t going to be able to do a lot of hill running. Fortunately, this workout has some decent flat road work and there was a walking segment built in. Each of the treadmill blocks started with 90 seconds of a push on a flat incline so I could run that. Then there was a 3 part hill climb where runners were supposed to run at 4%, 8%, and then power walk at 12%. I did that as a walk (6%, 8%, and 12%). And each block finished with an all out pace at 4%. 4% was a bit tough for me that day, but I’m glad I challenged myself and did it.

The floor work was 2 blocks and the first block was all work on the bench. We had chest fly, triceps, plank rows using the bench for balance, and hop overs. My hop overs are getting more like hops and less like steps, but there is still a lot of work to do to get those better. I’m not sure what work I need to do to make my hips move better for hopping (or if that just isn’t possible), but it’s something to think about. And the second block on the floor was lunges with bicep curls, strap work, ab work, and then rowing after. My first row was 350 meters and I did it in 1:14.4. That’s pretty good and I’m still thinking of a goal idea for 350 meters. And my second row was 250 meters which I knew I wanted to try to get it under 45 seconds. I did it in 47.4 which is pretty close to my goal!

Saturday’s workout was a power day and it was 3G so I was only at each section of the room for about 15 minutes. I started on the treadmill where we had 3 short blocks. Each block has a longer push followed by a shorter push and an all out. I ran everything except the base paces but I didn’t really do much speed work like I should have done for a power day. I think having this be my 4th workout of the week was making my running a bit slower than normal, but at least I was running.

Next I was on the rowers. The rows were all 200 meter rows followed by a lot of squats (seriously, my butt has been so sore lately from all the squat work!). I know that when I’m going really fast I can do 100 meters in about 17 seconds. So I was thinking and decided that I wanted to set a new goal for my 200 meter row and one day be able to do it in 35 seconds. Usually, I think my 200 meter row takes me about 40 seconds when I’m going fast, but for some reason I felt like I could do much better on Saturday. On my first attempt, I got my row done in 38.7 seconds. My coach was super impressed with me and said she wanted me to try for 38 seconds flat. I told her my 35 second long-term goal and said that I would be beyond excited if I could get it done in 37 seconds in that workout. And for my last row before switching to the floor, I beat my own goal for the day.

36.7 seconds is so close to the goal I have right now for that row! And being able to do that has made me think that I might need to start tracking my rowing and running goals a different way. Right now, I have each time or distance written down in Evernote with a log of how fast I have done it. I put the fastest one on top (with the date) and then move them around as I get faster. But I might want to set something up to help me track what my long-term goals are for those as well. It’s a work in progress and I’m sure that eventually I’ll figure out the best way to work on my new fitness goals.

After the rowing, I was ready for class to be done but I still had the floor work to do. This time it was a mix of lunges, squats, pop jacks, plank work, and sit ups. I was grateful for the sit ups because that gave me some time to lay on the floor and catch my breath a bit. The rowing really took it out of me but I made it through the entire set of floor work just as time was called to end class.

I think considering I had some setbacks this week, I did pretty awesome. I gained some extra motivation for goals in my workouts and really started to think more about my workouts as training with goals than just a workout. I want to start tracking things better than I am right now. This blog is great because I can go back and remember what I did, but I might need to take things to the next level now. I have so much more than I can do, but I won’t know what I can do until I start tracking and pushing myself more.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRunning And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailSome Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals) Default ThumbnailA Few Setbacks (or Not Being Hard On Myself) Default ThumbnailWhat Fitness Goals Are Next? (or Continuing To Impress Myself)

Comments Off on Setbacks and Goals (or Still Figuring Out What’s Next)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , , ,

1 Year Of Running (or A New Anniversary To Celebrate)

Posted on May 25, 2017 | Comments Off on 1 Year Of Running (or A New Anniversary To Celebrate)

Earlier this month, I was talking to a friend of mine about my running adventures at Orangetheory and in my 5K races. In some ways, it seems like I’ve been doing my running for a long time. In other ways, it seems like I just started last month. And when my friend asked me how long I had been running, I had to think about it. I figured it was close to a year but wasn’t too sure. Fortunately, one of the benefits of this blog is being able to go back and look at when I posted certain things. And by going back to looking at that original running post, I realized my 1 year running anniversary is today!

I still remember that first class when I tried running. Running for 30 seconds seemed like it would be impossible, but I am so stubborn and when I was told to try it I knew I had to go for it. And it shocked me how easy those 30 seconds were for me. I was terrified that it would be painful to run since I was told that it could be with my hip issues. I think maybe I in disbelief about how easy those 30 second running spurts were. And that just got me into making some big plans with my running.

When I started running, things were coming very easily for me. Going from 30 seconds to 45 seconds or to a minute were pretty easy. I was able to get my speed up often without issues. I was on such a high about running and had some great ideas of what I wanted to be able to do. I hadn’t really run since I was a kid, so I had no idea how my body would react to anything and only based my ideas on how easy it was in the beginning.

After a little bit, I definitely hit a wall with my running progress. But I’m very lucky that I have so many running friends and I was able to turn to them for tips and advice. I worked on different stretching, increased my weights at Orangetheory to make me stronger, and planned out some interval training. I started to do my own interval work at Orangetheory instead of just following the coaches. But since all my coaches knew I was working on running, they were all very supportive and didn’t mind that I wasn’t following the standard workout.

Then I started to hit some huge milestones. I was able to run a 1/4 mile. I was able to run on inclines. I took a running class. I was able to run for 5 minutes without stopping. I ran for 10 minutes without stopping. I ran for a mile without stopping! I think running a mile without stopping is still something that shocks me and I’m so proud I hit that milestone.

I also started doing running on my own outside of my workouts. I got a running watch and did my own interval training work. I met up with friends to do running interval training and didn’t let me bug me that they were doing so much more than I could do. I focused on my own training and my own path and didn’t compare myself to others.

Even though I did all this work, I still questioned how my first attempt at a run/walk 5K would go. I had never done run/walk intervals for that long and I wasn’t sure my body would be able to take it. But I think between being stubborn and the adrenaline I get on race days, I was not only able to do it but I beat my big goal I had for how fast I wanted to do a 5K!

Then when I got to my second 5K as a run/walk, I was increasing my intervals and had hills to deal with. I hadn’t done as much running training as I had the first time (due to all my medical stuff) so I tried to not set any goals for myself. I knew the combination of all those differences meant that I might not be able to do better than my last time even though I was running more. That race was more of a struggle than the first one, mainly because of the hills. But I had to be flexible and willing to change my running plan. And by doing that (and probably again because I’m stubborn), I was able to PR at my race!

Now, I’m feeling more and more comfortable with my running. I’ve hit a few walls lately, but I think a lot of that has to do with other health issues. I’m running for pretty decent stretches at Orangetheory and I’m trying to plan what my goals are going to be coming up. I also may be meeting with a running coach soon to discuss a training plan and what may be possible for me in the long run (no pun intended). I’m also toying with the idea of trying to do a 10K for the first time, but that won’t be happening too soon since I need to do some training for that.

To think that I’ve come this far in just one year of running is insane to me! I never thought I’d be able to do most of what I’m doing now. And sometimes I do wish that I had tried running sooner because I’d be farther along now. But I can’t look back and wish I had done things differently. I can only work on moving forward and continuing to improve myself.

So here’s to my first full year of running! I never knew I’d get here, so I can’t even imagine where I’ll be when I’m celebrating my 2nd running anniversary!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailUpping My Game (or Getting Serious About Running) Default ThumbnailWanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing) Default ThumbnailTime To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills) Default Thumbnail1 Year Of Going Orange (or Anniversary Celebrations) Default ThumbnailMy SoulCycle Anniversary (or 1 Year Of Spinning) Default ThumbnailAnother LA Anniversary (or What Will Year 15 Bring?)

Comments Off on 1 Year Of Running (or A New Anniversary To Celebrate)

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

What Fitness Goals Are Next? (or Continuing To Impress Myself)

Posted on May 22, 2017 | 3 comments

You may have noticed in my past few fitness posts that I’ve been hitting some amazing goals lately. I don’t know why things have been going so well for me, but I think it might be that the weight of thinking I need surgery is off of my mind now. I’m able to focus on me again and doing what I want to do and I don’t have to stress about a setback that would potentially set me back months.

With this positive flow going in my workouts, I’ve started to question if I’m doing enough. I’m not in a plateau or anything, but I wonder if I could do more or better. And I also have to figure out what that more or better means to me. I want to do so much, but figuring out the steps to get there are tough for me. So this past week of workouts, I focused on just doing my best and seeing what I could do so I could start planning some ideas for new fitness goals.

Monday’s workout was a power based one and we switched between each block of work. Not only did we switch between blocks, every block was only 4.5 minutes long which isn’t that much. I knew I would need to focus on doing as much as I could in those 4.5 minutes each time to maximize the time I had in that section of the room. The treadmill work started with push to all out paces and I was running everything. I kept my speeds where I’m comfortable with my push at 4.5 mph and my all out at 5.5 mph, but in the end we were just doing all out runs with very short walking recoveries. I wasn’t able to recover that much in those short walks so I had to bring my running speed for those all outs down to my normal push speed.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks with 2 moves in each block. It was a good variety of work with squats, weighted arm work, sit ups, hop overs, and single leg deadlifts (which I was able to do as single leg deadlifts with one hand on the bench for support). With the blocks being so short, I never got to do too much of each exercise so I didn’t really get too tired at all. And the last floor block was actually a rowing block that had the same pattern as the treadmill (45 second all out rows with 30 seconds of recovery in between).

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and it was the perfect day to test out some new fitness goal ideas. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m wondering what I should do as far as training for my next 5K. I’m torn between increasing my run time (like I did with my last 5K) or decreasing my walk time. I don’t know what would be best for me and I haven’t really had a lot of opportunities to test each out. That is until this past workout.

Pretty much the entire treadmill time was 90 second push paces followed by either 30 second or 45 second base paces. I ran all my pushes and walked all my bases. While 90 seconds is less running time than I did in my last race, the walking time was decreased too. It was an interesting test for me to see how my body would take it and I think that it’s still something that I need to try out more often. I was feeling a bit more tired than usual during the workout because of the reduced walking time, but I wasn’t feeling like I couldn’t keep doing it. And it make it happy to see that even with the shorter running time, I was still able to do more than 2 miles in class.

The floor had another day of a good variety of floor work. There were squats, hamstring work, ab work, and shoulders. We also had a 1 minute timed row. My best 1 minute timed row was 313 meters, but that was a while ago. I know that I can do 300 meter in a minute since I finally got that back down, but this time I was so tired at the end of the workout that I knew I wouldn’t be able to get that far. But even with the tiredness, I was able to do 285 meters on the first round and 288 meters on the second. Not too shabby for me.

Friday was a power day which meant a ton of running for me! There were 3 treadmill blocks that all had the same pattern. It was push to all out paces where the all outs in block 1 were a minute, block 2 were 45 seconds, and block 3 were 30 seconds. Since there were no base paces except during the warm-up, I pretty much ran everything that was supposed to be a run. I wanted to work on increasing my all out pace and was able to bump it up a bit each block, but I finished that workout knowing that I probably could have done more than I did. I hate that feeling, but sometimes I don’t know how far I can push myself until I’m done.

The floor had 3 blocks this time. The first block had skater lunges, plank work, weighted swing work, and rows with the straps. There was also a 250 meter row in that block. I only made it to the rower once and that was a bit annoying to me. The next block was all core work with mountain climbers, planks, and sit ups. It was so tiring working my core that much, but I’m glad I got through it. And the last block was on the rower with decreasing rows with frog squats.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and it was also a 3G workout. The very beginning of class was a mini tornado workout. We were on each part of the room for 2 minutes and switched. The treadmill was 2 minutes on a hill, the rower was a 2 minute row, and the floor was a mix of push ups and squats. After those 6 minutes, I felt like we had done half a class! But then it was time to get the class really started.

I started on the treadmill but I knew as soon as I got to class that I’d be walking the entire time. I had worked pretty hard the rest of the week and taking one easy day is helpful to make sure I don’t exhaust my body too much. I think I’m finally finding the good balance that will allow me to make 4 workout weeks the norm and not something I do only sometimes. The treadmill work was some pretty high inclines. In fact, even for the people who run they were instructed to walk so I didn’t feel as bad about having to walk for that class. It was only 15 minutes on the treadmill, but we were pretty much at an incline the entire time. I was usually between 6-10% but there were a few times we were up at 12% and that was starting to get a bit too much for me.

Next I was over on the floor where we had one long block with lunges, shoulder work, arm work, and abs. Even though it was just one block, it felt pretty quick unlike some of the other times that one long block feels endless. And after 15 minutes it was time for me to head to the rower. On the rower, we had 500 meter rows with lunges in between each row set. I didn’t really have that much of a goal in mind with my rowing because I couldn’t remember what I had done in the past and I wasn’t going to look it up on my phone. I decided that maybe under 2 minutes would be nice. And for both of the rows, I was able to do just that! And it turns out that my second row was actually a new PR for me!

I’m glad that I did some new PRs and tested some new things this past week. I’m still working on what I want some new fitness goals to be but at least I have a much clearer picture in my head on what my body is able to do now!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailRunning And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Impress Myself (or A New PR) Default ThumbnailSetbacks and Goals (or Still Figuring Out What’s Next) Default ThumbnailBeing Ok At A Beginner Speed (or Not Trying To Impress My Friends) Default ThumbnailFinishing The 12 Days Of Fitness (or Some PRs and Some Setbacks)

3 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Rowing Adventures (or A Funny Workout Injury)

Posted on May 15, 2017 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts were very rowing focused for me. This could be because I’ve been making a lot of progress in my rowing and I want to continue doing that. I’ve got some really high goals that I’m trying to reach in rowing and it’s getting tough to get there since it’s now trying to take off fractions of a second in many cases. And because of my intensity with my rowing, I ended up starting off my workout week with what might be my funniest workout injury.

Monday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power mixed together. I was dealing with some odd hip pain (I think I slept funny) so when I was trying to run on inclines I was having some issues. I was able to run at 2 and 4%, but anything higher than that ended up being a power walk. In the endurance block, I was able to do the 3 minute push and pushes to all outs as runs (which is always a good thing). And for the power block it was a bunch of 30 second all outs and I ended up getting to 7 mph!

The floor was split into 2 blocks and the first one was a shorter block. It was chest work with the straps, hip bridge chest fly work where I could do the hip bridge part, and plank work (which again made me laugh because of my monthly challenge). The second block was a longer one with squats, squats to bicep curls, squat fly work, and push up with rowing with weights. And then we also had rowing sprints. It was supposed to be 100 meters to start and each time we got back to the rower it went up 100 meters.

I really wanted to PR on my 100 meter row and I know that in order to do that I have to go pretty crazy on the rower. I must have a ton of power and I need to have very long pulls. And I guess that I was going a bit too intense because somehow the seat of the rower went forward and I went backwards! My feet were still strapped in, the seat was under my knees, and my butt landed hard on the rails of the rower! It took me by surprise and fortunately I was able to bend forward to unstrap my feet and get up, but I couldn’t believe that happened to me. I’ve never seen someone fall off of the rower before!

My Monday coach, Brendon, told me that he’s seen it happen a few times when people are rowing super hard. And he said that I should look at this as a badge of honor because it doesn’t happen that often. He knew I was working on PRing on my 100 meter row, so when I went back to the rower I did 2 rounds of 100 meter rows instead of 1 round of 200 meters and Brendon was coaching me and giving me tips on what to do. I still didn’t beat my 100 meter time, but I’ve got some really great things to work on and I have a feeling that I’ll be getting a new PR soon.

After falling off the rower, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have rowing on Wednesday but we ended up having some rowing again. My butt had some impressive bruises from falling off but I was determined to do my best. But since I started on the treadmill I had some time before I had to worry about that. Wednesday’s workout was a strength day which means hills on the treadmill. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill that each followed the same pattern: a push on flat incline, base pace, 2 minute push on a hill, base pace, and an all out on a flat road. The hill running ranged from 6-8% and I was determined to do what I could with the hills before going down to a walk. And somehow, I was able to run the 2 minutes on the hill each time! Even at 8% which has been a struggle for me to walk at in the past!

Because I was doing a lot of running on hills, I was able to get my 2 miles in on the treadmill. This used to be a huge accomplishment for me but lately it’s been happening most days that we don’t switch between blocks. But to know that I did this on a hill day was even more special since running on hills is something that has been tough for me since I started running.

On the floor we had 2 blocks and a lot of the work was squats or ab work. But I was really happy with that because I did get to test out how much stronger my core muscles are now with the ab work. I usually can’t do the core work that involves lowering and raising my legs because it bugs my hips. But because my core is getting much stronger the pressure isn’t as bad on my hips and I’m able to do them! And on the second block on the floor we had 300 meter rows. I’ve been working on getting my 300 meter row down under a minute again and while I was a little worried about falling off the rower again I wanted to see what I could do.

And to my surprise, I was able to do it in 59.9 seconds! I was so excited and then I realized my phone was over by the weights section and I couldn’t take a photo of the proof! So when I had another attempt at the 300 meter row, my only goal was to get 59.9 seconds again so I could take a photo. Not only did I do that, I took another .5 seconds off of my time. Those small decreases in time is all I can ask for at this point so getting half a second off is huge for me!

Friday’s workout was another day with endurance, strength, and power. With the endurance block on the treadmill, I was able to do my usual plan of running the push and all out paces and walking my base paces. But I did increase my base pace to 3.5 mph (instead of 3.4 mph) so that was pretty great for me. On the strength block, I ran when we were supposed to be at 2% but when I tried 4% my body was just too tired. I ended up walking everything else above 2% for that block. And the last cardio block was on the rowers with 30 second push, 30 second all out, and 30 seconds of rest. I really didn’t pay too much attention to how far I went but my wattage was pretty low for me so I know it wasn’t anything too great.

The floor work was more squats and abs! This was totally the week for squats and abs. I was able to do some single leg squats using the straps for support and did some good modified ab work. And the very end of the floor time was 30 second timed intervals of speed skaters, mountain climbers, and weighted torso rotations. It was tough to switch every 30 seconds and I sometimes wasted a bit of that time trying to catch my breath but it was a good challenge to end the workout.

Saturday’s workout was a tough one for me. I debated cancelling class because I felt like I might need it as a rest day, but I went and decided to do my best. It was an endurance day but since it was a 3G class I knew I wouldn’t have too much time at any particular part of the room. For the treadmill, I started the first push as a run and realized within 30 seconds that it was not going to be a running day for me. My legs felt like lead and I didn’t want to risk getting hurt. So I did the entire treadmill block as a power walker and noticed that I just couldn’t get my heart rate up into the correct zones. I don’t know if my heart rate monitor was acting up (I’m thinking about getting one of the new armband ones instead of the chest strap I use) or if my body is just really used to running so walking isn’t enough of a workout anymore. But I tried to not focus too much on my heart rate and just think about the workout.

After the treadmill I went to the floor where it was a lot of arm work. We had 2 small blocks with shoulder work, chest press, low rows with weights, bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, and a little bit of ab work. I was using some pretty heavy weights and was happy to see that they weren’t as tough as I thought they would be. I think I might be getting close to being able to increase my weights again on the floor work. And my last block was on the rower with 3 minute timed rows. The goal was to get over 700 meters and the first time I did it I only got to 640. But the next time was just over 700 meters so I was happy that I was able to reach the goal that was set.

It still surprises me how much I’m able to do in my workouts now. And the achievements I had in my rowing this week was beyond what I expected could happen right now! I do still have the bruises on my butt as a badge of honor for falling off the treadmill, but that’s ok. Now I just need to focus on what I want to focus on for my next set of rowing goals for the workouts over the next few weeks!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailWanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) Default ThumbnailAn Off Workout Week (or Just Trying To Do My Best) Default ThumbnailA Short Workout Week (or 3 Workouts In 3 Different Locations) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailThe First Of 2 Short Workout Weeks (or It’s Funny That This Feels Weird To Me)

1 Comment

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,