Tag Archives: Orangetheory

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.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, goals, Orangetheory, workout

Another Weight Loss Challenge (or Getting Back On Track)

Posted on June 6, 2017 | Comments Off

This past week, a new weight loss challenge got started at Orangetheory. This challenge is only for the month of June and there aren’t too many requirements for it. Mainly it’s a weigh in at the beginning and end of the month and I have to do a certain number of workouts (it’s either 15 or 16 but I know I’ll get that done). There will be a prize for the winners, but they haven’t announced what that will be yet.

I’ve done a couple of the weight loss challenges at Orangetheory and they are a fun challenge to do. I’ve placed in one of them, but usually I’m not able to do that because it’s based on a percentage of weight loss and I have more weight to work with. But I like that it’s a challenge with everyone supporting each other and that nobody is too competitive. Everyone is excited for everyone else and I am just as happy seeing someone else win as I was when I placed in second.

While my focus right now hasn’t been on weight loss, it should be again. I was trying to lose weight before my liver surgery and I didn’t do as well at that as I had hoped. And after finding out that my surgery was cancelled, I stopped stressing about losing weight and got focused on getting my life back to normal. It was important to get my life back (and I’m honestly so much happier now than I was before), but I need to focus back on my health again. And yes, I’m aware that losing weight can totally be related to getting my life back. It just hasn’t been that way in my mind recently.

I think that my exercising is pretty close to what I need it to be right now. I probably should be doing more on my days off from Orangetheory, but working out 4 times a week is pretty great. My trouble is (and pretty much always has been) food. I hate how hard dealing with food can be for me. I’ve said it before that I wished that my addiction issues were with something that I could avoid every day and not something I had to deal with 3 times a day. But that’s the hand I’ve been dealt and I just have to work with it.

I had lost quite a bit of weight around the time I found out I had the tumors and managed to keep most of it off. But it has slowly been creeping back up on me over the past month or so. I haven’t gained all of it back, so that is a victory for me. But I’m up about 10 pounds from where I was and I want to get back down to that and to continue to lose more. Ideally, I want to get to my goal weight/goal size and stay there. But I also know that this journey isn’t a linear one and can easily have lots of ups and downs. That’s how my journey has been for pretty much my entire life and I have no reason to believe that it would be any different now.

So while I’m doing this weight loss challenge this month at Orangetheory, my main goal isn’t necessarily to win. Winning would be awesome and I’d love it if that happened. But I can’t just compare myself to other people like that. What other people are able to do shouldn’t affect what I can do. And I just need to focus on myself and use this challenge as a personal one. If my personal challenge ends up winning, great. But if it doesn’t I don’t want that to affect how I feel about any weight loss that I have this month.

Hopefully, things will be able to get back on track this month and I will be back down to (or lower than) the weight I was before. I still have some big weight loss goals that I’m trying to accomplish and I know that I have to take baby steps to get there. The first step is to get back to where I was and keep going. I actually reset my weight tracking app to start at what I weigh now so I don’t have to see the recent weight gain. Seeing that gain was actually causing me to feel less motivated and even though the number is the same now, I feel much better about it. I feel like I’m starting fresh and able to kick some butt again.

Maybe in a month I’ll be sharing with you all that I placed in the weight loss challenge. That would be awesome. But to me, what would be even more awesome is if I could tell you all that I lost the weight I gained recently and am still continuing to lose. That is the best thing that I could hope for right now and I really want that to be true.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged challenge, Orangetheory, weight loss

Celebrating At Orangetheory (or 3 Years Down)

Posted on June 5, 2017 | 1 comment

I didn’t realize this going into this past week of workouts, but this week was my 3 year anniversary at Orangetheory! It’s so crazy to think how 3 years ago I had my first class that was so tough I could barely walk the next day. I’ve come so far in those 3 years and I’m just so grateful that I was given the opportunity 3 years ago to try a class. I never thought I could fall in love with a workout so much, but here I am 3 years later loving things more and more and wanting to push myself further and harder.

Monday’s workout was a 3G because it was a holiday. Holiday workouts are always like that, so I was prepared going into class that it would be a 3 group workout. I started on the treadmill and it essentially was a 15 minute run for distance. It really was more like run 1.5 miles, walk, and then run more; but I knew that I couldn’t do 1.5 miles in 15 minutes so I looked at it as 15 minutes for distance. I had never run for 15 minutes before, but I’ve done close to that so I figured I should go for it and see what happens.

I did the first 12 minutes at 4.5 mph and tried to kind of go into my head and just think about anything other than running. I went through my schedule in my head and did some blog post planning and just kept running. Then for the last 3 minutes I was bumping up the speed a little bit each minute just because I wanted to see how far I could get. I didn’t really have a real goal in my head for how far I wanted to go, but I figured 1.125 miles sounded nice to me. And of course because of how stubborn I am, I was able to do more than that and ran the entire 15 minutes without stopping! Sorry for the blurry picture, I was so out of breath at the end of the run!

Next, I went to the rower where we had a 2,000 meter row. We don’t have 2,000 meter rows that often, but I do have them when I do the Dri-Tri so I’ve done them a few times. I was not expecting to PR on the row since my PR was during the Dri-Tri when the rowing was first so I wasn’t tired. All I wanted to do was row the entire time without taking a break. And I wanted to see if I could be under 9 minutes. Those seemed like good goals considering I had just come off of a 15 minute run.

Again, I just tried to get into my head and think of anything other than the rower. I was daydreaming and just trying to keep a steady rhythm on the rower. It was tough not to go really hard at the beginning since I do that a lot on my sprint rowing. But I started slower than I’m used to and was able to stay pretty steady the entire time. I didn’t take a break, did it under 9 minutes, and I was only 12 seconds slower than my PR! That was totally unexpected!

The floor work that day was pretty varied and I focused more on form than anything else since I was so tired from the running and rowing. We had chest presses, deadlifts, pullovers, strap work, and plank work. By the time class was done, I was feeling on top of the world from all the awesome work I did!

Wednesday’s workout was a power day. Every block was 4.5 minutes long so I decided to challenge myself to run everything including my base paces. With the blocks being so short, I would only have to run for 4.5 minutes at a time before having a walking recovery. It would be more running than I’m used to, but the length of each run wouldn’t be too bad. I used my normal push pace speed to be my base pace and only increased the speed about .2 mph to be my push pace. That’s not as much of a difference as you are supposed to have, but I didn’t think I could do much more and still come back down to a run. It wasn’t easy to not have the walks that I’m used to, but this was a good test for me with intervals for 5K training. Maybe I can do 4 minutes running/1 minute walking next time?

The floor was also 4.5 minute blocks and each block had 2 moves in it so it went pretty quickly. We had lots of chest and plank work in those mini-blocks and we had rowing in the last block. It was a 100 meter row and I wanted to see if I could PR. I had thought that my PR at the time was 17.4 seconds so I wanted to beat that. I did the rows in 17.6 and 17.5 seconds and was a bit upset about that. But then when I looked at my rowing record tracking, it looks like my old PR was 17.6 seconds so it looks like I did PR after all! I’m not as good at tracking my rowing records as I am with my treadmill ones (mainly because I don’t always have my phone with me to take photos on the rower) but I’m working on getting better at that so I can focus on those records now too.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between blocks. I didn’t try to do anything too crazy with my running since I had 2 very run heavy days already. The entire workout on the treadmill was basically 90 second pushes with bases in-between. The bases were between 30 seconds and 2 minutes and I did walk then for each one. I kept my pushes at my normal speed but worked really hard to sprint for the all out paces that we had (I got up to 6.7 mph). In the 29 minutes we were on the treadmill I got 1.95 miles done. So I was pretty much at my 2 miles in class target.

The floor work was in 2 blocks and the first block had chest presses and squats which I was able to do with 2 20 pound weights. We also had Spiderman planks and rowing. The rowing was 300 meters and all I wanted to do was be under a minute. My first attempt was 59.7 seconds and my second attempt was 59.2 seconds which was a new PR for me! I’m only able to take a few tenths of a second off of my rowing PRs which is tough for me since I’m used to huge PRs on the treadmill. But any improvement is a good thing and I’m starting to get used to seeing only minor improvements. The second block was mainly strap work and abs which was a nice break and I was able to slow down my heart rate a bit and just focus on my form.

Saturday’s workout was a strength day and a 3G class. I had decided even before knowing it was a strength day that I would be walking. But it’s always easier for me to walk on strength days. It’s funny how I’m thinking of a day where I only walk as a recovery day compared to even a year ago where my recovery days were on the bike. It’s funny to me how much I’ve changed when I was so sure that I wouldn’t be able to do it.

The treadmill was pretty normal for a strength day. Lots of incline work and I just tried to increase my inclines a bit more than I’m used to. I was doing a lot of my work at 8-12% incline and kept my speed steady at 3.5 mph. I didn’t get my heart rate up as much as I would have liked, but again this was a recovery day and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do as much as I normally do.

After the treadmill my group went to the rower where we had increasing rows with bicep curls on the rower and lunges off of the rower. The first row was 300 meters and I had no goals in my head. I wasn’t even worried about getting it done in under a minute. It ended up being around 1:06 (I’m not totally sure) but that was fine with me. The bicep curls on the rower were a nice recovery and I was able to go really deep with my lunges because I could steady myself on the water tank of the rower. My next row was 350 meters and I don’t really remember what time I did that in. My last row was 400 meters and I had an idea in my head that I want to be able to do this in 1:30. That’s really fast considering not long ago I was doing 300 meters in 1:30. But since it was my last row I went all out and ended up being pretty close to my goal! Now I’ve got something to work toward and I’m excited to see how long it takes me to get those last few seconds off.

On the floor, we had a longer block that had a lot of things that I was able to do with 20 pounds weights (lunges, deadlifts, single arm thrusters) and we also had a bit of plank work. And on the floor we ended with a 3 minute core blast where we had regular crunches, static crunches, toe reaches, leg lifts, and a 1 minute plank hold. That 1 minute plank hold wasn’t too bad, but I think that’s because I’m used to the super long planks from my last monthly challenge. I’m so happy that I’m seeing the results from that challenge in my workouts.

Overall, another amazing 4 workout week for me. I didn’t know it was my OTF anniversary until Thursday, so I think it’s awesome that I was able to accomplish some great challenges and PRs not even knowing that I was celebrating my time at OTF. I’ve accomplished so much in the past 3 years, and even more in just the past year. And I can’t wait to see what my fitness journey will look like in the next 3 years!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged anniversary, challenge, Orangetheory, pr, rowing, running, workout

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

Posted on May 29, 2017 | Comments Off

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.

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Tagged fitness, goals, Orangetheory, progress, rowing, running, workout

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!

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Tagged fitness, goals, Orangetheory, rowing, running, workout

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!

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Tagged fitness, goals, Orangetheory, progress, rowing, workout

Lots Of Running And Hills (or Back To A 4 Workout Week)

Posted on May 8, 2017 | Comments Off

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had a 4 workout week, so it was good to get back to it this past week. I am still on pace to hit my workout goal for the year, but I know that I can’t have too many 3 workout weeks in order to stay that way. I am trying to prioritize my workouts more again now, and by having a 4 workout week I think I did just that.

Monday’s class was a bit tough for me. I was having a lot of hip issues the entire class and I think it might have been due to me being in the car so long the day before. I hate when I have bad hip days because it’s tough for me not to push myself to do what I know I can do. But I tried my best to take things a bit easier. It did help that we had a bit of an odd format in the class. Our cardio was a mix of treadmill and rower and the floor was a mix of floor and treadmill. So while it wasn’t a switch day, we did switch back and forth a bit.

I was able to do my push and all out paces on the treadmill as a run despite my hip issues. And on the rowing, I got pretty close to some goals that I’ve been working on. We had 300 meter rows which I’ve been trying to get under a minute. I was able to do them in 1:01.6 which is pretty close considering that I wasn’t feeling right that day. But what threw me as a challenge in that workout is that the floor had an entire section that was plank work. Normally I don’t mind that, but Monday was day 1 of my new plank challenge. I hadn’t done my plank challenge before going to the workout, so I tried to do my best knowing that I’d be doing more plank work when I got home.

Wednesday’s workout was pretty amazing and I’m so glad that it was a class that I was in. It was a power day which always means short sprints on the treadmill. I love those because I know I can do some pretty great sprints and I get time to walk and recover after doing crazy speeds. This time, we did have some push to all out paces which were a bit longer, but a lot of the class was focused on very short all out paces (under a minute). I did most of the push paces at 4.5mph and the all outs right after them at 5.5mph, but I was going really fast for the stand alone all out paces. I was doing most of them at 6.5mph and got all the way up to 7.2mph at the end. And even though we had the walking recoveries between all of the fast running, I still did over 2 miles in under 29 minutes.

For the floor, we focused most on arm work which was a good break from using my legs. It was a lot of chest and tricep work with some pushups in there too. In the second block, we were on the rowers and followed the same pattern that the treadmill had with all out paces with recoveries. In 4.5 minutes on the rower, I was able to do just over 1,000 meters which is great for me!

Friday’s workout was a run/row (which I love!), but it was a challenging run/row. This time, we were doing hills with the run row and I was determined to run my hills. We pretty much had .1 mile runs with increasing inclines (starting at 1% and going up to 5%). There were also decreasing inclines but I never made it to that part of the run/row plan. Running on hills will probably never be easy for me but I’m so motivated to get better at doing them. I’m pretty ok with running at 2 or 3% and I used to be ok running at 4% but that’s become more challenging for me lately. And 5% has always been tough. But I managed to run every single hill (I did slow things down a bit for 5% but I was still running).

And for the rower, we pretty much had 100 meter row sprints. I had recently PRed on my row but of course I wanted to do better. But since I was coming off of the treadmill I was feeling a bit tired. I did take time to try to get my heart rate down so I could do a better row (which is probably why I didn’t get that far down the run/row plan) but I couldn’t get a new PR on my row. I was getting some higher wattages than I’m used to, but my stroke rate wasn’t as high. But it does give me hope that a new 100 meter PR might be coming up soon.

And when I moved to the floor, it ended up being pretty much one long block with adding exercises for each round of the floor work. We had a variety of burpees, shoulder work, using the straps for rowing work, and some ab work. And in the middle of the long floor block we did get a bit of a break (which was nice). But that break wasn’t easy because we were doing timed rounds of squats and 4 point planks. It felt like a pretty long floor block, but it was good and I felt pretty awesome after I was done with it.

I was a bit nervous for Saturday’s workout. It was my first 4th workout for a few weeks plus I had done the running on the hills the day before. And of course, this workout was running on hills again. I think that most of the time I would have just skipped running knowing that I had worked on my hill running earlier that week, but I decided to go for it and see what happens. Fortunately, the workout was a 3G workout so I was only going to be on the treadmill for about 15 minutes. We had push paces at 2, 4, and 6% and was able to run all of them. The 6% run was pretty tough and I debated about going to a walk, but I decided to stick it out and I’m glad that I did.

Next, I moved to the floor where we had 2 short blocks. The blocks were a mix of abs, upper body, and lower body work. We did squats, weighted rows, plank leg lifts, weighted arm fly, pullovers, and running men. And my last rotation was the rower where we had 2 short blocks as well. The first block was rowing with rests between each set and the second block was 250 meter rowing with squats between each set. My rowing was not that fast or that strong since it was the end of the workout, but I wasn’t trying to do anything too crazy at that point.

I’m so glad I got another 4 workout week in. It’s funny how not that long ago I was scared of 4 workout weeks and now I almost miss it when I don’t get in the 4th workout. Something feels like it’s not complete with my week if I’m not doing an extra workout in there. I do want to see about maybe adding some more workout stuff at home to do on my days off because I know that doing a little something every day is probably the best thing. But I don’t think I could do Orangetheory more days a week (maybe I could do occasional 5 workout weeks but not on a regular basis) but I want to see what else I can do to work on building up my physical fitness.

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Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, rowing, running, workout

Friends and Family Workouts (or Getting Pushed To Do Better)

Posted on May 1, 2017 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts was awesome! And it’s not just because I had thought for so long that I wouldn’t be able to work out. I really had some great things happen in my workouts and in each workout I had someone with me to cheer me on! I was planning on doing 4 workouts once I knew that I wouldn’t be having surgery, but it ended up being a 3 workout week. But that’s ok because I think I got more out of each workout than a normal workout day!

Monday’s workout was while my parents were still in town. One day I’ll get my mom to take class with me, but this time it was just my dad. He’s done a couple of Orangetheory workouts before so he knew what he was in for. And since he reads this blog (hi Dad!) he knows what some of the workouts consist of so he can try doing things at his gym. Since going to Orangetheory he has started to use inclines on the treadmill and he pushes himself harder in his workouts. But he always says that he works hardest when he’s in a class with me because there is a coach pushing him on (plus, he and I are competitive).

The workout on Monday was endurance, strength, and power and we didn’t switch between blocks. My dad and I started on the treadmill and the first block was endurance based. We had some longer push paces and I was able to run all of them (I really did want to impress my dad with my running). The second block was a mix of strength and power and we had only short all outs but they were all on hills (3, 5, and 7% incline). I usually don’t run at those higher inclines, but again I wanted to impress my dad so I did it! It wasn’t too bad doing the 7% incline for only 45 seconds, but I don’t think I’m ready for longer running at that incline. So with the last block, it was longer hill time so I spent that block walking all my inclines. But even with the walking, I got to about 2 miles on the treadmill in class.

On the floor, each block started with rowing. Rowing is where my dad and I are most competitive. He easily beats me with running and I almost always beat him with weights. But rowing is where we challenge a lot. He still tends to beat me, but I’ve had some great rowing workouts lately and he doesn’t usually get to row at his gym. So I was happy to see what we were going to do. Between each of the floor blocks we had a 300 meter row (I did it in 1:03.3 and my dad did it in 1:03.1), a 90 second timed row (I got 384 meters and my dad got 387 meters), and a 15 stroke pull test (I don’t remember the exact numbers but I beat my dad that time). This was the closest I’ve been to beating my dad on the rower and that was awesome! I’m even more excited to see what I will be able to do by Thanksgiving!

While we were rowing, another friend in class took a photo of me and my dad getting our rowers set up. It is a super cute photo and I loved seeing that the official Instagram account for my Orangetheory location put it up in their Instagram story!

I think my dad was super excited to see us on there (and he doesn’t use social media so for him to be excited about it means it’s that much more awesome). For the rest of the workout that day we had squats, chest presses, lunges, triceps using the straps, plank work, and ab work. I think my dad had a great time working out with me and he said he was a bit sore the next day.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and my friend Dani was in class with me! It was a switch day, but we did 2 treadmill blocks back to back before switching the first time. The running was mainly very short segments (either push to all out paces or just all out paces) and I ran all of those and then walked my base paces. It was a pretty good speed running day for me but I didn’t hit any new records with my speeds. But to me, I’m still so happy that I can run so I’m always impressed with running days. I did end up walking the last treadmill block, but that’s because of what I did on the floor.

When we moved to the floor, we mainly had squats with shoulder work and then sprint rows in-between the sets. The sprint rows were 100, 150, and 200 meters and Dani and I decided to race. Dani is insanely good at rowing and I knew that she could always beat me, but the idea of racing her would probably help me get my sprint rows done faster. And while Dani did beat me each time, I managed to do some PRs and almost PRs with my rowing! The downside to that was that I was starting to hurt pretty badly after the rowing. My hip was killing me and I was starting to get some stomach cramps. So because of that, I had to take it easy for a lot of the workout (which is why I walked on the treadmill).

My last workout of the week was on Friday and my friend Elizabeth joined me! She’s a new member of Orangetheory and we aren’t always able to be in the same classes. But she might be able to start going to the same time on Fridays as me. And our workout this day was a run/row that had endurance, strength, and power elements to it. I was excited for a run/row and this one seemed pretty awesome for me. The running segments that I got to were .5 miles, .4 miles at 2%, and .3 miles at 3%. I was able to run all of them (not run/walk, just run) and it’s still so amazing to me that I can run for .5 miles without stopping!

For the rowing, I only got to 2 rowing segments which were 100 meters and 200 meters. My 200 meter row was good, but nothing special (I was also pretty tired by that point). But for my 100 meter row I decided to see what I could do. My PR for that distance is 17.7 seconds and I had done 17.8 seconds on Wednesday. I was going as fast and as hard as I could on the rower and I managed to get it down to 17.6 seconds! At the speed I’m going on that row, there isn’t a ton of room for improvement so just taking that .1 seconds off is a huge accomplishment! I didn’t get that far down the run/row plan, but that’s because my running is still on the slower end of things.

On the floor, each block was 3 moves and then we were supposed to hold a plank until time was called. We had a nice mix of things including hop overs, lunges, squats, burpees, chest presses, and bicep work I only made it to the point that I had to hold a plank once and holding the plank was tough. I don’t think I hold plank too often in my workouts and that got me thinking (more on that tomorrow).

I’m so glad that I was able to work out this week and that I’m already back to my normal workout schedule. I had been so worried about how much time I was going to have to take off and I’m glad that I didn’t have to experience that. I’ve made so much progress lately because I was worried about the time off, and I’m thinking that pushing myself all that time was perfect. I’ve proven to myself that I can do more than I thought and I have the intention to keep that momentum going.

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Posted in Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, family, fitness, friends, Orangetheory, workout

A Short Workout Week (or I Would Have Ended On A High Note)

Posted on April 24, 2017 | Comments Off

When I thought that this past week of workouts was going to be my last week before surgery, I knew it would be a short workout week. There were only so many days in the week before Thursday and I booked 3 classes in a row so I could at least get 3 classes in. And once my surgery was cancelled, I decided to keep my workout schedule the same since my parents would be in town and I was going to spend time hanging out with them. But if this week had been my last week of workouts before a long break, I would have been pretty happy with myself. It was a great week of workouts and I felt super accomplished!

Monday’s workout was one that I had heard about online the week before. It was called the Everest Challenge and it was 23 minutes on the treadmill all at inclines. We started out at 2% incline and went all the way up to 15%. I’m not that used to being at the much higher inclines as I was before so my goal was to try to wait as long as possible to reduce my speed on the treadmill. I made it until 13% incline at my usual walking speed that I use for my base pace and then I dropped it down a bit for the last 2 inclines. And even though I spent the entire time walking and sometimes walking slower than I’m used to, I still got 1.3 miles done during class.

The floor was mainly upper body work which was good after all those hills on the treadmill! The first block was chest presses, hammer curls, squats with shoulder work, and a 250 meter row which I got done in 50 and 48 seconds. The second block was a lot of work using the weight bench including leg lift ab work. I usually can’t do the leg ab work because of my hips but I decided to test it out and found that I could do them with a decent range of motion. It took me forever to do all my reps for the ab work, but I did it and that’s what matters! I totally felt it in my core and not in my hips which is a huge victory for me.

Tuesday’s workout was a power day that was a very unique switch format. There were 6 total blocks, but it wasn’t just floor, treadmill, or rowing blocks. I started on the treadmill and had all push to all out paces. Since there were no base paces, I was able to run everything. Next, I moved to the floor where it was all work with the Bosu ball. I had lunges, squats, mountain climbers, and sit ups all using the Bosu. Then it was back to the treadmill where we had more push to all out paces but in between each set we had squat bicep curls. Then it was to the rower where we had sprint rows with squat shoulder presses. Back to the treadmill again for more push to all out paces. And finally I was back on the floor for lunges, chest presses, and pop jacks.

It wasn’t an easy workout, especially for a power day which usually are my favorites. Moving around like that was fun and it was a nice switch from the standard blocks that we do most of the time. Even though it was tough, I was having a lot of fun and felt like I was challenging my body more than normal because the blocks were so short. I also had to think more about my workout than I usually do because it wasn’t the routine that I’m used to. All of these things are good things that challenge me that I don’t get to do as often as I probably should.

My last workout of the week was on Wednesday which was an endurance day. Originally, when I thought this was going to be a big deal workout since it was going to be my last one for a while, I tried to get a bunch of friends to sign up for a class with me. But once I heard that surgery was cancelled, some of my friends decided to try another class another time. It’s not a great time for many of my friends to take class and I’d rather have them in a class where they are more relaxed and not stressed about traffic.

The workout had 2 different 6 minute distance challenges on the treadmill. I know that I can totally run for 6 minutes and I was excited to see what I could do during the challenges. It’s not easy to do these challenges sometimes because I overdo it in the beginning and then the second challenge suffers. This time, I took it easy the first time just to get more comfortable with a longer run. But even though I took it easy, it wasn’t easy. And for the second attempt, I bumped my speed up more just because I wanted to be able to beat myself. And I managed to do over .5 miles each time which it pretty great for me!

Between those challenges we also had a regular treadmill block. I did my normal plan of walking all my base paces and running my push and all out paces. I probably could have run the entire time, but I wanted to save my energy for the last distance challenge. And I’m glad I did that because I’m so happy with both of my distances.

On the floor we had 2 blocks that were a nice mix of work. We had alligator and tricep work on the straps, 4 point plank and sit ups for core, and burpees and mountain climbers for all over body work. Plus, we also had a 600 meter row that I did in 2:28. Overall, the floor work was pretty awesome but I unfortunately was hit with some bad nausea while on the floor and I forgot to pack my anti-nausea prescription in my pill container I keep in my purse with the medications that I don’t take all the time (I keep pain pills in that container mainly). I was taking a lot of breaks on the floor to make myself feel better so I didn’t get as many reps in as I could have done. But it was important for me not to push things too much because I didn’t want to make the nausea worse.

Overall, these were 3 incredible classes where I got to push my body a lot and worked really hard. And if these were my last classes before surgery I think I would have felt ok about that. Of course, I’m much happier that I didn’t have surgery and I’m not missing any classes now. I’m back to my regular workout schedule already and can keep working toward more and more goals! I’ve got about 6 months before my next 5K race and I’m already looking at my workouts as training for that!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged challenge, fitness, Orangetheory, running, workout

Dancing With The Stars (or A Workout Friends Hangout)

Posted on April 21, 2017 | Comments Off

I haven’t watched “Dancing With The Stars” since the beginning, but I have been interested in this current season. The son of my late acting coach is one of the stars this season and I was so excited to get to see him on the show. And as soon as the cast for the current season was announced, I went online to try to get tickets. I was put on a wait list for tickets and was hoping I’d get tickets in time to see Chris on the show. Sadly, he was eliminated after the first week and right after that I got the email that I could now get tickets.

Even though Chris was eliminated, I figured it could be really fun to go to a taping. I’ve been to many tv tapings before, but I never had been to a live show. I knew that it would be really cool to see how everything happens during the commercial breaks and decided to get the tickets and then just enjoy whatever stars were still in the competition at that point. I asked around to a couple of friends to see who could come with me, and 2 of my Orangetheory friends were able to go! So it was Orangetheory night at “Dancing With The Stars”!

The way that all tv tapings work is that they give out more free tickets than there are seats. They assume there will be no shows (or in my case I ordered 4 tickets and only needed 3) so they ask you to get there early to try to get in. We got there about an hour before we were supposed to be there by, and that ended up being perfect for us. Even though we heard the speech multiple times that not everyone would be let inside the studio, the 3 of us ended up being the last 3 who got in! It’s so crazy that we were the cut off point, but I’m so glad we made it!

There were no phones allowed inside the studio so I don’t really have that many photos from the taping. We were in the first balcony toward the side behind the judges. We had some moments where the view was blocked, but we could see most of the stage. And when we couldn’t see things there was a tv monitor that we could look at so we could see what it looked like on live tv. I know so people want to be seen on tv when they go to tapings like this, but I didn’t care to be on tv. The only time you could almost see us is when they showed the entire audience. But unless you knew where to look, you’d never see us.

Yeah, you can barely see the 3 of us between those red arrows.

When I got my tickets, I didn’t know what the theme for the show would be. But it ended up being Disney night and that seemed so perfect to me! Each of us had Glow with the Show Mickey ears to wear during various parts of the taping. I was so excited about that because I never had those ears before. But when the taping was done we were told that we didn’t get to take them with us. Oh well. I only wish that I didn’t have to turn my phone in to security before going into the taping so I could have taken photos with the ear. They were super cute!

The advantage of going to a live taping is that you know exactly how long it would be (unlike going to a sitcom taping where it can be 5 hours for a 22 minute show). Neither of my friends watch “Dancing With The Stars” and I think they were a bit worried that being there for 2 hours would feel like a long time. But it really flew by! All the dances were so amazing and there were a couple of live singing performances at the show as well. And of course, I loved the music because they were all Disney songs. I knew pretty much all the songs and was excited to see how the dances matched with the songs.

And while the dances were awesome, I did love watching the crew during the commercial breaks to see how quickly they changed over the set. There was a big clock on the screens during the commercial breaks so they knew exactly how much longer they had to do everything. They were super efficient and you can tell that they practice a lot to do the set changes in the time they had. And while the show was live, it was neat to see the choreography that the cameras had to do. There was a lot of work with a steady cam, but it was also interesting to see how the stable cameras worked with the steady cam and to see the camera work on the floor and then look up at the tv screen to see how it looked for tv. I know that I’m a bit of a nerd with the behind the scenes stuff like that, but it really is amazing how much work the crew does to make everything look as perfect as it does on tv.

Once the live taping was done, we were excused from the studio pretty quickly. It took a bit of time to get our phones back (the security team was super organized but there were so many of us in line to get phones) but we were quickly on our way out of the studio. Even though we were only in the taping for 2 hours the entire time including being in line was about 5.5 hours. It was still a shorter day than most tv tapings, but it was still a good chunk of time.

Even though Chris isn’t a part of the “Dancing With The Stars” season anymore, I have been watching the show this season and will continue to watch this season to see who wins. There are a lot of amazing dancers and stars on the show still and I’m excited to see what dances come up next! And if I get another opportunity to go to another live taping, I’d probably do it. It was a fun thing to do and I know I have other friends who couldn’t go this time but would love to go with me!

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged friends, Hollywood, Los Angeles, Orangetheory, reality tv, taping, TV

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