Tag Archives: Orangetheory

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

Posted on October 31, 2016 | 2 comments

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

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

hell-week

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

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

bike-challenge

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

row-challenge

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

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

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

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

group-row

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

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

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

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

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An Off Week (or Being Ok Being Weak)

Posted on October 24, 2016 | Comments Off on An Off Week (or Being Ok Being Weak)

I had a weird week of workouts this past week. When I started the week, I had no idea that I would be getting so sick on Wednesday. But even though I was in the hospital that day, I still managed to get 3 workouts in (it was originally going to be a 4 workout week, but I’m proud of my 3).

Monday obviously was my best workout day. This was before I got sick and I was pushing myself quite a bit. It was a strength day and we didn’t switch between blocks, so I had a long time on the treadmill. I still am not running hills, but I decided to run the flat parts that I could and get my inclines as high as possible. We started the workout with a 2 minute push pace that I ran in full and we ended the treadmill time with a 1 minute push and 1 minute all out (both minutes were run). And in the middle we had 2 30 second all outs that I was able to run.

But besides those parts, I was walking the rest of the treadmill time. Hills are tough in general for me, so running hills is not a priority for me right now. I was keeping my inclines pretty high most of the time by averaging between 8-12% incline with my usual walking pace. The hills are starting to feel more like they did before I hurt my calf, so I was very happy with that. It’s been a long time since the hills felt like that, so I saw that as a huge improvement and something to be proud of.

The floor work was a bit tough for me. My abs were hurting (I thought it was because of the MRI, but I’m now wondering if it was something related to my current issue). When we were doing ab work, I was able to do it but things were tougher for me than normal. I wasn’t able to get up from being on the floor as easily as I usually can and I decided to be a bit careful with my weights for the rest of the floor work. I wasn’t going with really light weights, but I took it a bit easier than I probably would do on a strength day.

Wednesday’s workout didn’t happen because I was still in the hospital at that time and there was no way that I could go anywhere once I was done. I honestly thought that there was going to be a chance that I couldn’t do any more workouts for the week, but I decided that since the doctor I saw said I could work out once I was getting better I figured it was worth trying. I told myself that if I could only make it 10 minutes into the workout before I had to leave, that would be ok. So I kept my already scheduled Friday and Saturday workouts.

Friday was really a challenge for me. I know I must have been getting better, but it was hard to believe that. I was still hurting so much and there were only so many positions that my body could be in that made the pain go away. There was no way I was going to walk on the treadmill (even if I kept it really slow, I would be tempted to push myself more), so I went onto the bike. I kept the resistance very low and didn’t pedal too fast the entire time I was on there. It wasn’t easy, but I made it through.

Friday was a run/row day, and I think that was the best thing I could have had. I didn’t spend too long on the bike for a stretch and the rower had the ability to be a good way for me to stretch a bit. My bike time wasn’t fast, but I wasn’t pushing myself at all. I just wanted to make it through what I could. The rower wasn’t that great for me (crunching my body up was hurting my stomach), but I just did a bit of a lazy row and got all the meters in that I needed to. My coach knew I was dealing with health stuff, so he wasn’t pushing me that hard and kept checking in to make sure I was doing ok.

When we moved to the floor, I decided there was no point in me trying to use my normal weights. I needed to keep things easy, and that means easy weights too. So when I usually would use 15 or 20 pound weights, I was using 10. I felt a bit pathetic and weak, but I had to keep telling myself that I was feeling like crap and wasn’t letting that keep me from the gym. Most of the floor work was focused on arms, but there was some ab work as well. I knew the ab work wasn’t going to happen, so I just skipped that part and did more arm stuff. I ended up leaving class a bit early because the last 3 minutes was a core blast, and I knew I couldn’t do any of it. Plus, I was feeling a bit exhausted since that was my first real workout or movement since I got sick.

I went into Saturday a bit more optimistic. I knew I could do the bike and make it through a workout with significant modifications. It helped the nerves go away since I knew I could do it. I got on the bike again and even though it was a power day (my favorite) and there were a bunch of push and all out paces, I didn’t do any of that. I just tried to ride the bike at a steady resistance and cadence for the entire time. I did have to take some breaks (my stomach would hurt or I needed to stretch out a bit), but I did ride for a good amount of time. The computer on the bike stops when I stop, and in the end it said I was on it for 25 minutes. Not too shabby at all.

The floor work was a bit tougher for me, but I stuck with my Friday plan and used 10 pound weights again. We had a bit of squat work to do and I was modifying those and doing what I could. I was feeling my muscles working so even if I felt like I wasn’t doing much, I was doing something. We had some ab work that I skipped (like toe touches) and some ab work that I tried (mountain climbers which were very difficult but doable) and we had a bit of rowing as well. My stomach wasn’t hurting more at the end of the workout than it did in the beginning, so I consider that a victory.

This was not the workout week I was expecting to have. But I did my best to make it the best I could. I’m not disappointed in myself since I know that it would have been so easy to decide not to go at all. But I still wish I wasn’t hurting so I could have done more.

With Hell Week starting this week (and going through the beginning of next week), I’m still planning on doing all the workouts I have signed up for. I’m hoping that I won’t be in pain for all of the workouts and can really push myself to see what I can do, but if I have to be on restricted exercises I’m going to try to make the most of it. I want to earn my Hell Week shirt and I know what I need to get it!

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Default ThumbnailA Full Workout Week (or Sticking With My Plan) Default ThumbnailA Week On The Bike (or Ending My Year By Taking It A Bit Easy) Default ThumbnailHell Week Part 1 (or Not Pushing It Too Much) Default ThumbnailA 4 Workout Week (or Only A Few More Weeks Of 2015 Workouts) Default ThumbnailBusy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit) Default ThumbnailTaking It Easy (or Trying Not To Be Hard On Myself)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Building My Endurance (or Lots Of Running)

Posted on October 10, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve been trying to focus my running at Orangetheory a bit more than I have before. When I started to run, I was just so excited that I could do it that I was going crazy with everything! I wanted to be able to run 5 minutes and I wanted to get faster and faster. I haven’t experienced burnout (thank goodness!), but I’ve been noticing my progress has been stagnant and I realized that my scattered focus could be part of the problem.

So for this past week of workouts, I really wanted to focus on my endurance. I know I need to build endurance in order to do my next 5K as a run/walk. I don’t necessarily need to be able to run for a long time in a single stretch, but doing longer stretches means the shorter ones I’ll be doing during the race will be easer. Building endurance isn’t easy, but I think I did a pretty great job this week working on it!

Monday’s workout was an endurance one that switched between blocks so I could push a bit harder with my running. We had some pretty long push paces and I decided to run a bit longer with them. When the push paces were 2 minutes or more, I ran for 2 minutes (double my usual 1 minute run time). It wasn’t easy to run for 2 minutes at a time a few times, but I’m glad I did it to prove that I could. The second treadmill block had shorter push paces, but since I had come from the floor I was a bit tired and I went with my usual 1 minute run time.

Usually switch days are easier on me since I get a break from the treadmill, but Monday wasn’t like that. The floor work was pretty tough on me and we had endurance rows to do. Both blocks had 800 meter rows and I’m happy that I could do them without stopping. But I know that pushing myself that much did affect how my second treadmill block and second floor block went. I wasn’t going as hard after the halfway mark, but since I was pushing myself in the beginning my second half was really just like a normal workout for me.

Wednesday was a strength day, so I wasn’t able to do as much running. I really am not really to work on hill running, and I have to be ok with that for now. Whenever we had flat road work, I did run to make up for it. We had a 1 minute push and a 2 minute push on a flat treadmill so I ran for those. And I decided to do the all out at 3% as a run which confirmed it for me that I’m not ready for hills as a runner yet. The floor work was a bit easier for me (I love strength days on the floor) and I was able to do some nice heavy weights. We also had a 2 minute sprint row which was nice compared to the endurance row from Monday.

Friday was a run/row day that had some hill work, but I decided to just go for the regular run/row format using my run/walk work. The run parts were a bit long, but I decided to go for 90 second runs and 1 minute walks which is a bit different compared to normal. It wasn’t easy to do it for the distances we had to go, but it proved to me that I could do it and I know that this will be helping my endurance so much. Because I was focused so much on the treadmill work and doing my distances, I didn’t make it that far down the run/row plan. But it felt so good doing a longer run segment that it didn’t bother me at all.

The big thing that bugged me on Friday (and I’m aware this is stupid) is that I wore new pants to the workout. They are the same pants that I usually buy, but I think they changed how they are stitched or the fabric because they felt way too tight. A lot of the work on the floor was abs that day, and wearing tight pants didn’t help at all. I was struggling and my form was looking sloppy. I hate to blame the pants, but I know that they caused that problem.

And I finally did a 4th workout in the week! I made it to a Saturday workout for the first time in a while! I knew I needed to do this and I’m so glad that I did. And this workout ended up being the perfect way for me to end my workout week. It was another endurance day, and this time we had distance challenges in it. All of the blocks were 10.5 minutes long and we had 2 treadmill blocks back to back (so no switching).

The first treadmill block was supposed to be 3 minutes at a push pace followed by 1 minute of walking. I didn’t want to run for 3 minutes (nor do I think I can do that more than once or twice), so I did the 90 seconds of running followed by 1 minute of walking for the entire block. In the end, I did a little less running so I could end with the all out as a run (I needed a walking break before the all out). At the end of the block, I noticed I was close to .75 miles and I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to it.

Fortunately, the second treadmill block was a distance challenge for 10.5 minutes! So I did the same pattern as I did before, but I bumped up my speed for my running segments. Going faster was pretty tough since I was tired and I’ve been doing almost all my running lately at 4.5 miles an hour, but in the end it totally paid off.

distance-challenge

I’m pretty proud of myself for what I was able to do and I felt amazing after not only reaching a goal that I set for myself but passed it!

After all that awesome running, I wasn’t going to let the floor work get me down. We had endurance rows (1,000 and 500 meters) and I managed to do both of them without stopping and being under the time that I wanted to be done in. Most of the rest of the work that day was lower body stuff like squats and calf raises, but there was also some ab work so I got a bit of a rest on the floor.

Considering it’s been a while since I’ve had a 4 workout week, I’m so happy with how well this past week went for me. It wasn’t easy, but I made it through. My race is coming up soon and I’ve been a bit concerned on how my progress has been going. But this past week proved to me that I’m doing better than I believed I was doing!

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Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up Endurance (or Shocking Myself) Default ThumbnailMore Running! (or Gaining Endurance) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up My Running Skills (or Getting A New PR) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running And Hills (or Back To A 4 Workout Week)

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

Posted on October 3, 2016 | 1 comment

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

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

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

monday

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

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

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

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

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

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

friday

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

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

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

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

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Taking It Easy (or Trying Not To Be Hard On Myself)

Posted on September 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Taking It Easy (or Trying Not To Be Hard On Myself)

This past week of workouts were a bit off for me. Part of the problem was that during the second half of the week I wasn’t feeling ok (more on that tomorrow), but the workouts just didn’t seem to mesh well with me for some reason.

Monday was a strength day so I didn’t get to do much running, but it was still a pretty good workout for me. I walked all of the hill work for the push paces, but we also had some flat incline pushes. So I was able to run those plus the all outs which were on a flat incline as well. I was even able to do 6.5 miles an hour for one of my 30 second all out paces. That’s a little too fast still for me, but I can handle it for 30 seconds especially since the treadmill takes a bit of time to get up to speed.

The floor work on Monday was a lot of arm work and for some reason when I started I had some weird shoulder pain. I’m not sure what caused it because it’s gone now (maybe I slept funny?), but it made me a bit concerned so I did lighter weights than I normally do. I didn’t want to hurt myself so I knew I had to take it easy. I was also having that same pain for some of the body weight work that we did (walkouts were the main one that hurt), so I did my best but also wasn’t able to do as many of each thing as we were supposed to do. I didn’t feel great about my workout, but I also didn’t know that I would have a worse workout later in the week.

On Wednesday, I was feeling a bit off. I thought I might be getting sick, but I didn’t feel too bad so I figured I’d be able to do a pretty tough workout. This day was endurance, strength, and power so there were more opportunities for me to get some running done. For the endurance section, we had a couple of 1 minute push paces followed by 30 second base paces. I’ve been doing a lot of 1 minute run/1 minute walk things, so this was pretty good for me. I think that 30 seconds to walk between running is a bit short for me, but it was nice to try and hopefully will make future runs a bit easier. During the strength section, I walked since it was hills. I thought about trying to run on hills again, but since I was feeling off I didn’t want to push it. And for the power section we had some 1 minute push paces followed by 30 second all out paces. I was able to run for all of that which was awesome and I finished with a 1 minute all out pace at 6.3 miles an hour.

On the floor, we had rowing for each block. The first block was 200 meters (I forgot to track my time), the second block was 300 meters (I did it in 1:09), and the third block was 600 meters (I did it in 2:41 which shocked me!). The rowing didn’t feel as awkward as it has in the past which may explain how I did some really great times on my rows. It was another day focused on arms and I was able to use some heavier weights than on Monday since I wasn’t having that weird shoulder pain. Even though I was still feeling off at the end of the workout, I was feeling great about how I did in class.

Friday was not a good day for me. I’ll explain more about what happened to me on Thursday, but I decided to stick it out and do my Friday workout. But I knew I had to take it easy no matter what I did. So I skipped the treadmill and went on the bike. It’s been a while since I’ve used the bike and it was a bit weird at first. But I got back into the groove pretty quickly. I didn’t focus a ton on what the workout was that day (sorry Bruce), but I tried to increase the gears on the bike when we had push paces or all outs. I wasn’t doing as much as I used to during my 4th workouts of the week on the bike, but it was better than doing nothing.

For the floor work, we had 300 meter rows (I did them in 1:24, 1:19, and 1:13 which is weird because I usually don’t get faster throughout the workout) and some arm work where we were either in a plank position or on our backs on the weight bench. It was tough to do those things because I was feeling dizzy in those positions, but I did better for things where we were sitting down or standing up. I had to use some lighter weights again and they felt really heavy to me that day. But I just had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t hurting myself by doing a workout and it was better to do this than to not come to class.

I don’t have the highest hopes that this week of workouts will be better. As I’m writing this post (on Sunday), I’m still feeling off. I’m sure my Monday workout will be affected by it but I’m hoping by the end of the week I’m back to normal again. I don’t like to take it easy because I’ve been making such huge improvements lately, but I also know that it’s better to take it easy than to overdo it and not be able to work out the next time.

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More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

Posted on September 19, 2016 | Comments Off on More Running! (or Gaining Endurance)

This past week of workouts really made me happy. My biggest issue lately has been my endurance. I can do some running, but I question how much I can really do in a row. I still feel like I get tired easily and I know that if it is my plan to run/walk my next 5K race, I have to get stronger and gain more endurance.

I did do another non-Orangetheory run this week and for that run I went for 20 minutes, so I did prove to myself that I have a bit more endurance than before. But that was toward the end of my week so I think that my Orangetheory workout really helped to make that run/walk as great as it was for me.

Monday’s workout was a power day. I think power days are my favorites because they are designed as close to what a regular run/walk feels to me. They tend to be a lot of all out runs with walking in between. And this workout wasn’t that different. We had 10 all out runs in the class. I ran for each of them, and while I wasn’t doing my fastest speed I was still happy that I ran for those 10 minutes. We also had a 2 minute push pace, and even though I know I can run for 2 minutes I didn’t want to push myself too much so I ran for 1 minute and then walked for the other. That felt comfortable but challenging so I think I made the right decision with that.

On the floor on Monday, we had sprint rows for each block. The sprint rows were  100 meters, 150 meters, and 200 meters so they were always under 1 minute on the rower. In between the rows we had mainly upper body work (which was nice after all the running). I was pushing myself again with the 20 pound weights and even used a light weight for the weighted sit-ups instead of doing them without a weight. I didn’t want to feel so tired that I was in pain later that day (since I went to Universal), but I did find a great balance between going hard in the workout and not overdoing it.

Wednesday was an endurance day. Ironically, even though my endurance is what I need to work on, endurance days aren’t my best run/walk days. We have very long push pace segments that I can’t always run in full. I want to push myself, but I don’t want to go so hard that I can’t finish the treadmill workout. I tried to keep things the same as usual. For the long push paces, I ran for a minute and then walked the rest. For the all outs, I ran the entire thing (several times at 6 miles an hour). We had a progressive push which basically means that you bump your speed up every minute, but since it was longer than I knew I could run I did it as a power walker with increasing my incline each minute. And since we didn’t switch between blocks, I got a pretty great distance on the treadmill when we were ready to switch to the floor.

treadmill

It used to be a goal for me to get to 1.75 miles during the treadmill segment when we don’t switch between blocks. Now I’d love to see it if I could make it to 2 miles within those 30 minutes. I know that at my current average mile speed it’s possible, so I’m glad I have that goal to strive for now.

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I need to get some 4 workout weeks in, but I’m struggling to find the weekend time for that). It was another power day but this time we did switch between blocks. It was a smaller class than usual, but that meant that we all worked as one group which is a nice change of pace. Again, we had 10 all outs to do between all 3 treadmill blocks. I ran all of those and I tried to be at 6 miles an hour for each (sometimes I could only do 5.5 miles an hour). A friend of mine who usually isn’t in class with me was there on Friday and he started to yell at me that I should go faster. So for one of the all outs I managed to be at 6.3 miles an hour.

We also had some longer push paces during the treadmill and I stuck with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk for that. When I started to run again, I set a lot of goals for myself about how long I could run at a time. The quarter mile one is the longest I’ve done so far. By now, I really thought I could run for 5 minutes non-stop. And honestly, if I tried and had no other running to do I could very possibly do it. But I’m realizing that being able to run/walk for a long period of time is more important to me right now than running without walking breaks. It’s tough to let go of some goals that I’ve set for myself, but I think I’ll be doing a lot of reevaluation after my next race and seeing what happens then.

The Friday floor work reminded me a lot of Monday. Again we had sprint rows for 2 of the floor blocks. And almost all of the floor work was body weight stuff like lunges, burpees, and ab work. It’s nice to do body weight stuff since I can always do those at home (I don’t own weights at my house yet). And for our 3rd floor block we had a 4.5 minute core blast. This included plank jacks, palms to elbows (which I really hate) and static ab work. My abs were so tired by the end of the core blast and I was happy that I made it through the class without a ton of modifications.

This month is quickly coming to an end and I’m realizing that I’m probably not going to make it to as many workouts as I was hoping to. There are some chances to do 4 workouts weeks this week and next depending on how things go (and doing those may eliminate the runs I’ve been doing on my own). My weekends are getting really busy now and that doesn’t allow for the workouts to be added in like I want. But I know that even if I’m going 3 times a week, that’s so much better than I’ve done any time before Orangetheory so I can’t be too upset with myself.

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Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Posted on September 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Ever since I started running again, I’ve pretty much avoided running whenever we had to do hill work at Orangetheory. While my first few run attempts at Orangetheory were sometimes at a 4% incline (because I forgot it was set to that while I was walking) or a 2% incline (because the 1% felt almost downhill to me), that was while I was doing much slower running and I wasn’t going for as long. But since I’ve gotten into slightly longer running segments, I’ve pretty much decided that if we had to do hill work that I would be walking during it. But this past week of workout got to test that limit and I’m pretty excited about what I was able to do!

Monday’s workout was a 3G workout with 3 groups of people. That was because of the holiday, but since I rarely get to do 3G workouts I was pretty excited to get to have that on Monday. Usually with 3G workouts, we are split into 3 groups and we spend time on the treadmill, rower, and floor as a single group. But this time, it was a 3G 3 buddy workout. So basically we all were split into groups of 3 and we worked together as a team the entire time. There were 6 rounds and each round each group member was on the treadmill, the rower, and the floor.

In each round, we had different things to do on the floor. Sometimes we had planks, sometimes we had hop overs, sometimes there were lunges, and sometimes there were burpees. We repeated going whatever was the plan for that round until we were tagged by a teammate. And on the rower we were rowing until we were tagged out. The entire workout timing was set by the person on the treadmill.

On the treadmill, if you could run 6 mph or faster, you ran for 1/4 mile. If you couldn’t run that fast, you did half of the distance but you had to be at 4% incline. While I can run 6 mph for a bit of time, I couldn’t do an entire 1/4 mile at that speed. So I went for the half distance at an incline option. Because I didn’t want to overdo things, I did do it as a run/walk. I ran for a minute at the incline and then I put the incline up to 6% and walked it until I was done (I pretty much could get it done in under 2 minutes every time).

The run part was definitely a challenge for me at times. While I’ve done running at that incline in the past, it’s not really something I’ve done that much lately. And I had to do it 6 different times! Toward the end it felt like the incline was at least double what it really was at, but I’m glad I made it through it and I think it was a great training thing to do with my upcoming races (since it’s not always a totally flat road).

Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout, so a lot of the work on the treadmill was on hills. I did try to run at least a little bit of each of the hill runs, but when we were getting to the higher inclines I wasn’t able to make it more than a few seconds before I had to slow down to a walk. Walking up hills isn’t necessarily easier for me, but I think being slower does help me not feel like I’m doing too much at one time. Fortunately, we all some all-outs that were on a flat incline so I could run for all of those. And I even did one of the 1 minute all-outs at 6 mph (which was really intense but I felt amazing when I was done).

On the floor, we had some lower body work like squats and hip work. We also had some arm work to do and for all of the weighted work I was able to use 20 pound weights. I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to being able to use 25 pound weights soon, but when I tried them a bit this past week they were just a little too heavy and I wasn’t feeling like I was safe to do the work we were going to do. I’m always terrified that I’ll drop a weight on my foot or something, so I’d rather use slightly lighter weights that I can feel in control with than heavier weights that don’t feel as in control.

My last workout of the week was on Friday. My legs were feeling a bit tired after doing my outside run on Thursday, so I know that I need to figure out a good way to balance those workouts in with my Orangetheory schedule. I had some shin splints on Friday morning (I didn’t feel them at all on Thursday so they surprised me), so I was glad that when I got to my workout it was a bit less treadmill work than normal.

The workout had elements of endurance, strength, and power which was probably the best thing I could have had that day. We started with power on the treadmill and a 2 minute push to begin the block. I ran for 1 minute of it and then walked the second minute. Then we had 1 minute all-outs followed by walking recovery. I ran for all of the all-outs (I think we had 4 of them) and I was noticing my shin splints weren’t starting to hurt as much after that block. I’m not sure why that happened, but I was pretty happy about it.

For the strength block on the treadmill, it was hills again. I decided to walk for all of the hills just because I had done so much hill work earlier in the week and I had pushed it a lot in the power block with the running. But at the end of the strength block we did have an all-out on a flat incline so I was able to do some running for that one. And for endurance, we actually went over to the rower instead of staying on the treadmill. We had a 2 minute row, 1 minute to rest, and then another 2 minute row. I was able to get over 400 meters for each of those rows which isn’t bad and I was pretty tired by the time we headed over to the floor.

Thankfully, the floor work seemed to be focused on arms and upper body work more than anything. For all of the arm and shoulder work, I was using the 20 pound weights. And when we had some lower body work, even though we had the option to use weights I decided not too because my hips were starting to get a little sore and I didn’t want to have bad form and risk hurting myself.

I’m really glad that I tested out running on hills this past week. I don’t know if I’ll try doing that every week (I definitely felt it in my hips after each workout), but it’s always good to keep pushing myself. I really do want to focus on my running endurance more than anything right now and while hills aren’t the best way to do that, it’s not the worst either. I have ideas of what I need to do for my training for the next few weeks to be ready for my race in November. I’m still a bit worried that I won’t be able to do the entire thing as a run/walk (which is my biggest goal), but hopefully whatever I’m able to do between my Orangetheory workouts and running on my own will help me get close and closer to that goal!

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Continuing To Impress Myself (or A New PR)

Posted on September 5, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts were pretty amazing for me. I had 3 workouts which was fine (especially since I did a “workout” at Disneyland by walking almost 8 miles there). I wasn’t expecting to have anything awesome happen since I had such a wonderful PR with my mile the week before, but I’m glad that I surprised myself!

Monday’s workout was an early one for me. I usually go in the morning, but I went an hour earlier than normal so I could have more time at Disneyland after (and I’m aware that I’m crazy for going to Disneyland after a workout). Getting up earlier than I’m used to was a bit tough, but fortunately my workout didn’t feel that much harder than my usual morning one.

This time, we had an endurance day. On endurance days we have really long push paces and I usually can’t run for the entire thing. Usually I try to run as much as I can, but since I didn’t want to overdo it before Disneyland I decided to run for 1 minute of each push. I’m sure I could have done more, but considering how bad my hips were feeling that night, I’m glad I didn’t push myself more. We also had a row block as part of our cardio where we were doing 90 second sprints. Those were pretty short sprints so I was able to do them without too much trouble.

On the floor that day, we did some more rowing with 300 meter sprints (which takes me about 90 seconds so all the rows were about the same). We also had a lot of variety with the floor work with using the Bosu, straps for rollouts, weights with the squats, and body weight with plank jacks. I was definitely feeling exhausted after the workout, but I’m glad I didn’t skip a Monday because of Disneyland.

Wednesday was a bit of a sad day. My Wednesday coach, JZ, has been my Wednesday coach since my first full week at Orangetheory. I’ve loved having her as my coach each week and she’s been not only a great coach but has become an awesome friend too. There have been very few weeks where she wasn’t my coach on Wednesdays and I love having that consistency in my life. But JZ has her own company and that is starting to take up more time so she cannot teach classes on a regular basis at Orangetheory anymore. She’s still going to be on the sub list (so hopefully I’ll get her from time to time) and she’s going to work out there too so this workout wasn’t a goodbye, but it still was a bit of a downer.

JZ

Even though I was sad about this being JZ’s last regular class, I still wanted to kick some butt in the workout. It was a power day so I was excited to have shorter push paces so I could do more running. The push paces were between 2 minutes and 1 minute and I’m happy that even thought the 2 minute ones were tough, I still ran for the entire time! The second half of the cardio workout was a run/row (usually a run/row is the entire cardio workout) and it was a combination of push paces to all out paces. The longest time on the treadmill was 2 1/2 minutes, and I did manage to run for that entire one. I was really exhausted on the rower after that, but I’m just happy that I’m doing slightly longer running times more often now.

On the floor that day, we had 4 short blocks and each block started with holding a plank. The first time (which was 30 seconds) was easy and I felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t have a problem with any of them. But each time they got longer and it was harder and harder for me to hold the plank. When we had to do it for 2 minutes, I was taking a couple of breaks because my core just couldn’t stay up. I used to be amazing at planks (when I had a personal trainer 10 years ago, my PR was over 3 minutes in a steady plank) and I really do want to get back to being able to do that.

Friday’s workout was another endurance one, but this one had a challenge in it as well. In the beginning of the workout for cardio, we had a 6 minute challenge for distance. I’ve done 5 minute challenges and 7 minute challenges, but never a 6 minute one so I wasn’t sure what distance I was going to hope for. But I figured if I could be at a similar distance to my 7 minute challenge one, I’d be happy.

I did the 6 minutes as a run/walk with running for the first minute, walking for the second, repeating that for the third and fourth minutes, and then running the last two minutes without a break. It wasn’t easy and I was tired because I was pushing my speeds to be a lot faster than I’m used to. But I was so happy to see that I not only matched my best 7 minute challenge, but I beat it!

6 Minute

After the challenge, we had another 7 minutes on the treadmill doing regular endurance work. I tried to run a bit more, but I was pretty tired from the challenge so I stuck with walking until we had the all out at the end of that block.

Then we switched the floor so the other half of class could do their first 6 minute challenge. On the floor, it was a long block filled with squats, rowing, burpees, hamstring work, and abs. After we got through that, we had a 500 meter row. My time on the rower wasn’t great, but between the challenge and all the floor work I was ok with that. I only made it over to the rower once during the floor block and then it was time to switch again to be on the treadmill.

We repeated the 6 minute challenge and I figured I could bump my speeds up more since I knew this was the last 6 minutes on the treadmill for class. I was going a bit too fast in the beginning so I had to bring my speed down a few times, but I was able to keep the same pattern I used the first time. And when we had the last 30 seconds, I got my speed up to 6.0 miles an hour and sprinted to the end. And since I worked so much harder the second time, I managed to PR on the challenge compared to the first attempt.

6 Minute #2

That’s almost 1/2 mile in 6 minutes! I remember when I started at Orangetheory that it would take me about 5 minutes to go 1/4 mile! I did wonder if I should have tried a bit harder because I might have actually been able to make it to that 1/2 mile mark, but this just gives me something to strive for next time so I can have another PR.

After the second challenge, we headed back to the floor where we did a lot of work on the Bosu (which mean I could sit down for a lot of it). I’m glad I had that time to catch my breath and decompress from the workout because it still boggles my mind sometimes that I’m not just running but running at speeds I never imagined I could do!

This workout continued to prove to me that I am making major progress even if I doubt it at times. When I don’t have things like treadmill challenges or rowing challenges to compare myself to, I can feel like I’m stuck even if I’m not. I’m trying to get that stuck feeling out of my head because I don’t think it’s going to help me improve on my endurance, and that’s my big focus now. I know I can run/walk for a mile, but I need to be able to do that for 3.1 miles in about 2 months. I know that I can always just walk it if I get too tired, but my goal is really do to the entire thing as a run/walk and that’s only going to happen if I get my endurance up a lot in the next 2 months.

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Feeling More Progress (or Olympic Workouts)

Posted on August 29, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week at Orangetheory was another themed week. This time, it was Olympic week. Each class would have a challenge that we would all do and they would post the top people each day (each challenge had 4 winners, men under and over 40 and women under and over 40). I had no expectations of being number one for any challenge, but I think you all know that I love a challenge and I was ready to see what I could do!

I was warned that Monday’s workout was the mile challenge, so I went in expecting that. Turns out, it wasn’t the mile but instead a mile by mile challenge. The plan was that we would do a total of a mile on the treadmill and a mile on the rower, but it was broken up into quarter mile segments. Even though I know I can run a quarter mile, I was still feeling the run class a bit so I didn’t want to push myself too much. So I did my 1 minute run/1 minute walk plan and did .18 each round (runners were supposed to do .25 and walkers .125 so I tried to do something in the middle). The treadmill went well and I can actually feel that my form is starting to get better.

The rower is where I was struggling a bit. My form has always been a bit off because of my hips, but I was just feeling like I couldn’t get my legs to do what I needed them to do that day. I know my rowing was really sloppy and probably didn’t look that pretty, but I got them done. I don’t know what my exact time was for the challenge, but I did get it done within the first half of class which is good. I hate when there is a challenge but I’m not able to complete it due to time issues.

On the floor on Monday, I ended up doing a lot of squats and lunges. Normally that would be ok for me, but my hips were starting to get really weak and I could feel the pain coming on. I was trying to do my best, but I know that I was doing less than I typically could. I know that I’m really tough on myself and I shouldn’t be when there is a real physical issue stopping me, but I’m still frustrated at times that I can’t do what everyone else is doing.

Wednesday’s workout had a 4 minute row challenge. I did this challenge after some of the treadmill work, so I was a little tired but also a bit warmed up. We were challenged to try to get at least 1,000 meters in 4 minutes, but I knew that wasn’t going to be possible for me. I know that the average that I could do would be 800 meters, so I really wanted to get to 900 meters this time. During those 4 minutes, I tried to zone out and not pay attention to the clock or the computer on the rower. I wanted to not think about how much more I had to do or get frustrated if I wasn’t going to reach my goal. When we were told that we had 1 minute left, I tried to get as much speed and wattage on the rower and when it was done I finally looked at the rower computer. I got to 890 meters, which is much better than I normally can do but just shy of what I wanted to do. But overall I’m pretty happy with that distance.

On the treadmill, we had some hill work so I was walking for those. But for the non-hill work I was able to run almost all of the push paces and then all of the all out paces. I’m starting to notice my endurance is getting a little bit better, but it’s not getting better as quickly as I thought it would. Hopefully by the time I have my next 5K it will be closer to what I need it to be for the race! But I did push it a bit on the speed and every time we had a 30 second all out, I was going at 6mph (instead of 5.5) so that felt pretty amazing!

Friday was a workout that I should have been waiting all week for, but I had no idea that it would be the challenge that I look forward to the most: the mile challenge. I really didn’t know that was on Friday (all the challenges were surprises) so I had no time to get excited or nervous about it. Fortunately this time, we had a run/row after the mile challenge so I wasn’t feeling too rushed to get it done.

I know I had an insane PR my last mile challenge, so I went into this mile not caring if I got a new PR. I just wanted to run/walk the entire thing and to be under 15 minutes for sure. I kept things the same as last time with my 1 minute run/1 minute walk, but I was going faster with the speeds than last time. The mile wasn’t easy and I did have to take 2 small breaks for water but I was definitely doing better than I ever had before on the mile challenge. At about the half mile point, I saw that I was pretty much on pace with my last mile, and I was very happy about that. Again, I had no intention of trying for a PR because that last PR was so tough for me and my body felt it afterwards and I didn’t want to go through that again. I ended up running the last .1 straight and went a lot faster than I usually do, but in the end I managed to easily be under 15 minutes and got a new PR too!

My Mile

This is 11 seconds faster than 2 months ago! And not only that, this mile was less painful and hard on my body than the one 2 months ago! Again, this is just proving to me that even if my progress is feeling slow to me, my body knows better and there really is some great progress happening with me!

I didn’t get a ton of the run/row done after the mile. I got my 600 meter row done and then was on the treadmill for the last 2 minutes of that part of class. I know that some people got the entire run/row plan done, but to me it was most important to try to do the best I could do on my mile. And I think I did exactly that!

The floor work after the mile challenge was a lot of arm work so I was using 20 pound weights for most things. We had a lot of squats and some plank and ab work (during which I felt like I could finally catch my breath). And when we were stretching at the end of class, I felt a lot more flexible than usual which is odd for me. I’ve always been a pretty flexible person and even after my hip surgery my flexibility wasn’t affected too much. There are a few stretches now that I really can’t do because of the issues with my hips, but in general I can stretch pretty far. But to feel extra flexible after a workout really made me feel amazing and I’m glad that my mile challenge day ended that way!

I also had a workout on Saturday, but the Olympic week was over by then. Even though I told myself before that 4th workouts in a week would be on the bike, I went for the treadmill this time. My hips don’t hurt as much when I’m running as they do when I’m walking, so I’m not hurting as much in my 4th workout as I was before. I’ll still probably use the bike from time to time, but I’m glad that I’m able to do more running work in a week.

Saturday’s workout was a power day and we didn’t switch between blocks. But I like the power workouts because they tend to have shorter pushes with all outs, so I can do more running. We did have one longer push that was 2 minutes, so I only ran 1 minute of that. But for pretty much all the other pushes I ran everything. And we had 8 all outs and I ran them all. I even bumped up my speed a bit on the 30 second all outs with going 6.3mph. That’s a bit too fast for me right now, but it was fun to try going that fast to see how it felt.

All of the floor work on Saturday was pretty short blocks, so I never got too tired in a single block. There was a ton of arm and chest work that I did with 20 pound weights, and some lunges that I did without weights (my balance isn’t super great and the weights make it a bit too tough for me). We also had sprint rows of 100 meters and then after each 100 meters we had to do power jacks using a medicine ball. By the time we were done with the workout, I was ready for a nap!

This really was a great week of workouts for me. I loved the Olympic week challenges and each day I was pushed quite a bit. I got a new (unexpected) PR on my mile, and I did running on the treadmill for 4 workouts in the week! I don’t think I could have expected anything more than this and I’m glad that not only did I have some great workouts but I feel like I did some great work! The plan for this week is to do 3 workouts, but I think that because of the work I did last week those 3 workouts are going to be amazing!

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