Tag Archives: Orangetheory

How Is This Year Almost Over? (or Doing A Check In On My Goals)

Posted on October 28, 2015 | 1 comment

I was on the phone with a friend the other day and it came up that this year is over in 2 months. I know I say this every year but it’s crazy how fast the year is going by! It feels like my birthday was just a few weeks ago!

I’m not the type of person to do quarterly check ins with my goals (so many friends are trying to get me to do this and I’m thinking about maybe doing it next year), but with 2 months left I did want to see how I’m doing with what I set as goals for this year.

My first goal was to do 175 workouts at Orangetheory this year. Not counting the workout I’ll be doing today, I’m at 142 workouts. I’m very much on track to hit my goal, but I need to get back to 4 workouts a week soon so I make sure that I get there. But it’s very possible and I’m really happy with myself that I’ve gotten this close so far.

My next goal was having at least 4 home cooked dinners a week. This one I’m not doing so great with. If you could microwaved dinners as home cooked (I don’t), then I’m doing amazing. But I’ve really gotten out of my cooking trend that I was in for so long and I’m struggling to get back in to. A lot of that has to do with working one of my jobs on the weekends when I used to do meal prepping or knowing that I won’t be at home many nights a week. This is a scheduling issue that I’m always working on and I know that I need to make it a better priority in life.

Next on my list was getting down to 2 main day jobs. This one I actually did! I now have my box office from home job (which I’ve been at for over a year) as one of those main jobs and my data entry job with my old boss as my other main day job. I also have my sporadic jobs (babysitting, the film festival, my weekend box office job with an old boss), but I’m definitely down to 2 main day jobs. I have to admit that I’m shocked that I accomplished this one since it was the hardest one in my mind. I’m now looking at some other day jobs with more flexibility (my main box office job isn’t as flexible as I’d like it to be), but I’m very happy for now with the 2 main jobs I have and I’m super grateful to have them both.

Getting into an improv class was checked off the list last week when I started at UCB and I’ll be doing those classes for 6 more weeks. Again, I’m super shocked that I got this done because I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and haven’t had the chance or money to do so.

I haven’t been able to travel a lot this year. I’ve gone to San Diego a bunch and I went to Napa earlier in the year, but I was really hoping to do another New York trip this fall. There were schedule and financial issues with doing that trip, but it’s looking like it might be in the works for 2016.

And my final goal (as it always has been) was to keep blogging. I’ve had people ask me how long I can keep up blogging 5 days a week every week and I’m happy that I haven’t quit doing that yet. There may come a day in the future that I miss a day or that I decide to go down in the number of posts a week. But I’m still happy with my schedule as it is and it seems that you all like reading my posts too.

So that’s my almost the end of the year check in with my 2015 goals. They aren’t all done yet, but I’m making huge steps and progress so far and I feel like on December 31st I will be looking back and realizing that I got most or all of my goals accomplished for the year.

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Default Thumbnail2015 Recap (or How I Did On My Goals) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default ThumbnailMy 2016 Goals (or I’ve Got Some Big Ideas This Year) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year) Default ThumbnailAn Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals) Default Thumbnail2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

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

Posted on October 26, 2015 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Default ThumbnailWorkouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury) Default ThumbnailTough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries) Default ThumbnailNew Limits (or Having Friends To Push Me) Default ThumbnailTime To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post Workout

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Workout Failure (or I Tried My Best)

Posted on October 5, 2015 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

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

I decided to call this “fake flu”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Workout Struggles and Wins (or My First Early Workout In A While)

Posted on September 28, 2015 | 1 comment

I’m still on the path of recovery for my calf injury (I laugh now when I think back at how I thought before it would only take 2 or 3 weeks to recover). I’m in a weird balance point of trying to push myself more and more and trying not to re-injury myself. I’m so terrified of another tear but I know that I do need to get myself stronger. It’s a weird thing for me to really want to hold back and push forward at the same time, but I think I’m finally understanding my body more and figuring out things I can do to both protect my muscle and build it at the same time.

I’m learning that if we are going to be on the treadmill for the first half of class uninterrupted (instead of either having a run/row day or switching between blocks), I’ve got to take it easy. Taking it easy is still at 3.4 miles an hour, but I’m not really pushing it any more than that. I’m feeling twinges in my calf when I go faster after being on the treadmill for an extended period of time, so I’m taking that as a sign that I’m not ready for that yet.

But when we are switching between blocks or doing a run/row day (we did both of these in workouts this past week), I’m able to do almost all my treadmill time at 3.5 miles an hour. I’m still keeping the incline on the lower end of things, but I’m testing the waters there a bit too. On Friday, we had very short treadmill segments on the run/row (1 minute or 45 seconds each), so I was able to try slightly higher inclines. But I’m not sure if I’m going to keep pushing myself on the inclines as much because I really want to focus on speed.

Besides the treadmill improvement, I’m still working on my form and other things like that on the rower and on the weights. The rower is tough because of both my hip and calf, but it’s getting better (and less painful). For weights I still have to be careful with some lower body things (I did something on Monday that made my legs hurt through Thursday) but I’m testing my limits there too.

The biggest struggle of my workout week was Friday. Because of my crazy schedule, I had to do a 7:30am workout. I don’t do those that often (I sometimes do 8:30am but that feels so much later than 7:30am), but it was the only way I could get in 3 workouts this week. I’m not sure if it was the early wakeup time or the fact that my heart rate monitor wasn’t registering correctly for the class, but I had the worst time in class. I was constantly dizzy and when I would look at the heart rate monitor for guidance if my heart rate is too high, it was showing false low heart rates. I tried to take my heart rate by feeling my pulse, and my heart was racing higher than it probably should be. I had to take it easy a lot during the rowing and weights segment, but I stuck it out through the entire class.

This week will bring another potential struggle for me. I’m going to be doing 3 workout days in a row. It won’t be the first time I’m doing this, but it will be the first time in a while. It’s not ideal for me to be doing this, but if I don’t I won’t be able to get 3 workouts in for the week and I haven’t done fewer than 3 workouts in a week since starting at Orangetheory. I’m going to try my very best in those 3 classes and I know that even a half-ass workout is better than no workout at all.

And I’ve got the new parking validation stamp from Orangetheory to remind me of that fact.

OTF Validation

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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 ThumbnailBalancing My Workouts (or Doing Some Planning) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness) Default ThumbnailI Hate Not Having As Much Motivation (or A Week Of Workout Struggles) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Get Better (or Still Finding Wins In My Workouts)

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Over Scheduled In The Best Way (of Taking Time For My Friends)

Posted on September 22, 2015 | Comments Off on Over Scheduled In The Best Way (of Taking Time For My Friends)

While I’ve been a bit over scheduled lately, I’m trying to not let that overwhelm me to the point that all I do is work and chores. So even though I’m still catching up on sleep from not sleeping a ton during ENMNCon, I dedicated this past Saturday to being a friend filled day!

I started my day with my short shift at work. A customer kept me on past the end of the shift, so I was a bit late leaving my house, but it wasn’t too bad.

My first (and technically second) stop was in Hollywood. I was meeting one of my workout friends for lunch at The Counter! I love eating at The Counter (their burgers are really good!) and it was an awesome hangout because this workout friend and I had never hung out outside of a workout before!

We had a nice catch up chat because I haven’t seen her in a while. She is working at a new school and is going to be going to a different Orangetheory location now, so she isn’t going to be working out with me anymore. It was great getting to talk and make some plans for some hangouts in the future.

My next stop was right across the street from The Counter at the DGA. I was going to a screening of “Everest” in 3D there and invited one of the girls from my Women In Film mentoring group to join me.

I’ve read “Into Thin Air” and have seen the TV movie, so I was pretty familiar with the tragedy that happened on Everest. But I really thought that this movie was well done and kept me interested even though I knew who was going to live and who was going to die. And my friend only knew a bit of the story and she thought the movie was great too.

My final hangout for the day was back in Culver City at Rush St. (where my birthday party was) with another workout friend! We had tried to coordinate it so I could hang out with both workout friends at the same time (we are all friends), but schedules never matched up so I got double the workout friend hangouts!

Again, I hadn’t seen this friend in a while. She’s also working out at a different Orangetheory location (I guess that’s what happens when there’s more than one location!) and she’s also been recovering lately. So it was another great catchup chat with each of us filling the other in on our lives and other random stuff.

And since this friend had missed my birthday, she decided that we should celebrate it now even though it was over a month past my birthday!

Extra Birthday

After two meals out and a movie (plus my work in the morning) it was a super full day. But getting to see a bunch of friends and doing lots of fun stuff really did revitalize me. The exhaustion I had been feeling for the past week is gone. And that’s a good thing because the next two weeks are going to be a bit crazy! But I’m ready to take it on!

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Default ThumbnailHow I Spent My Actual Birthday (or Friends, Friends, and More Friends) Default ThumbnailAn Evening Out With Friends (or An Excuse To Dress Up) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Celebration (or An Orangetheory Reunion) Default ThumbnailA Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out) Default ThumbnailSeeing Friends In Random Places (or Unscheduled Hangouts) Default ThumbnailGetting Through It Because Of My Workout Friends (or 3 Days In A Row)

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Almost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri)

Posted on September 21, 2015 | Comments Off on Almost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri)

Another week of ups and downs with my workouts. Since I like to end on a positive note, I’m going to start with the negatives.

Last week I was debating whether or not I’d be doing the Dri-Tri this past Sunday at Orangetheory. Then I found out that the Dri-Tri was moved to another date and was going to be a partner challenge, so I got really encouraged by that. I figured that there was no reason now to skip the Dri-Tri and I was all set to find a partner.

Until I found out the date that it was switched to. There is no way I can do the Dri-Tri on the new date. I’ve got one thing I have to do from 8am-noon that day and then I’m working from 2-8pm. Technically I might be able to do it between the events, but with driving time and having to be clean and in professional clothes for work I doubt that I could make it happen.

I believe that this is the last Dri-Tri of the year, so this will now be my second year of not being able to do one. It’s so frustrating because even though I know it will be very tough, I know that I could do it. And I want to prove to myself that I can and now I will have to wait a year to do that. And of course I think that knowing my luck I’ll end up having something else that prevents me from doing the event next year.

But I can’t think like that. I just have to focus on working on my workouts as hard as I can from now until the event next year so my first attempt will be great and I’ll be able to get a fast Dri-Tri time.

And working on my workouts is going better and better. My calf almost feels 100% normal now. I’m still struggling with my inclines a bit, but perhaps I was overdoing them before and that’s what caused the injury to happen. I’m getting the inclines high enough that I can get my heart rate up, and that’s most important to me. I’m not too worried if I’m told I should be at 15% and I’m at 8 or 10%. It’s what I can do right now and that’s all good with me.

And as far as my speed goes, I’m testing out 3.5 miles an hour now. I was able to do it a couple of times in the workouts this past week. And when I wasn’t at 3.5, I maintained 3.4 miles an hour the rest of the workout! I’m so close to where I was pre-injury. I still have a goal of being a bit faster before my next 5K in about 6 weeks. But if I’m able to do my treadmill workouts the week leading up to the race at 3.5 miles an hour, I’ll be happy.

I’m still hoping for a new PR at the race, but my PR expectations are lower than they were before. I know now that being a minute faster might not be realistic. But even if I’m 1 second faster at this race, I’m going to be happy now. That will prove to me that I’m 100% recovered from the injury and I’ll be able to train for speed for my next 5K after this one (that next one will be in the spring).

Now that my power walking is very close to what it was pre-injury, I need something new to focus on improving. I never realized that having a very specific workout goal could be as powerful as it is. I don’t think if I had as specific of a goal for the treadmill that I would have gotten back to (almost) normal as fast as I have. I’d love to get better on the rower. My power is still not as high as I wish it was. But I’m also aware that that might be due to my hips and my calf still healing. And I did recently improve on my weights for the strength portion of the workout, so I’m not sure if I can move up to the next weights very soon. I’m going to spend the next couple of days working on ideas for my workout goals and hopefully I’ll have something to work on soon!

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Default ThumbnailDri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready For The Dri-Tri (or Working My Way Through The Workouts) Default ThumbnailDri-Tri (or Suffering From Fear Of Missing Out) Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailMy First Dri-Tri (or Beating My Expectations) Default ThumbnailThird Time’s Not The Charm (or Being Ok With An Ok Dri-Tri)

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Steps Forward And Back (or Working On Frustration)

Posted on September 14, 2015 | Comments Off on Steps Forward And Back (or Working On Frustration)

My week of workouts were both good and frustrating. I’ve had this injury for too long (in my opinion) and whenever I feel like I take a step forward I end up taking a step back too.

The next Dri-Tri is this coming Sunday. I really thought I’d be better by then so I can do it, but I’m having some serious hesitations too.

My weight work is doing pretty well. I’m noticing that my balance is getting better and my core got significantly stronger recently. I’m wondering if compensating for my injured calf helped to strengthen my core. Whatever it was, I was finding my weight work to feel easier and more natural this week. This been a while since I’ve had a step forward like that and I’m pretty happy about it. My weakest part are still my arms/shoulders, but I think I can work on those.

My rowing also had some strides forward this week. I’m getting my wattage closer to what it was pre-injury and I’m doing well in my sprints. The longer distances are still my struggle. And that concerns me as far as the Dri-Tri goes. That has a 2,000 meter row. The longest distance I’ve done post-injury has been 1,000 meters (I’ve done 1,600 meters pre-injury). And with that 1,000 meter row I did have to take a bunch of breaks. I’m sure I could do 2,000 meters, just not sure how many breaks or how long it would take me.

But as it’s been lately, my biggest concern is the treadmill. I’m getting closer and closer to my pre-injury speed, but I’m not even close to where I was on incline. I’ve done a few quickie segments at 3.5 miles an hour, but I’m pretty much sticking to 3.3 or 3.4 for now. I’m feeling the muscle in my calf straining so I know I can’t do much more. And for inclines I’m doing pushes at 6% and all outs at 8% or the occasional 10%. I’m not sure if I’d have to do inclines for the Dri-Tri, but if I do those might disqualify me.

I’ve got a few more days to figure out if I’m going to do the event or not. I’m going to ask the staff/trainers about my concerns and try to make the best unemotional choice for me. As much as I really want to do it, I’m worried that pushing myself that hard is going to either make my recovery take longer or possibly even tear the muscle again.

I find it so odd that this injury is frustrating me as much as it is. My hip issues have been an ongoing problem for about 10 years now. And even though I know I need surgeries to correct them still, I put up with it and know that it is what it is. Now I have an issue that is going to be better without medical intervention and in the somewhat near future and I’m beyond impatient and annoyed with my progress. You’d think that I’d be more annoyed with an almost permanent issue than a temporary one.

I’m working really hard at being patient and knowing that this will be a memory and not an issue soon. And there will be more Dri-Tris next year, so this won’t be my last opportunity to do one. I just really had my heart set on doing the one last month (which I skipped due to the injury) and the one this month. I figured I’d be better by now, but I guess I was wrong.

But if things turn for the better, you’ll see a post from me next week recapping the Dri-Tri!

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Default ThumbnailTransitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow) Default ThumbnailBeing Ok At A Beginner Speed (or Not Trying To Impress My Friends) Default Thumbnail2 Steps Forward 1 Step Back (or Going With The Flow) Default ThumbnailLearning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal) Default ThumbnailSeeing My Heart Rate Spike (or What It’s Like Working Out On The New Medication) Default ThumbnailWorking Out Burnt (or No Excuses)

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Almost Back To Normal (or Making Progress)

Posted on September 7, 2015 | Comments Off on Almost Back To Normal (or Making Progress)

I’m feeling really great about my last week of workouts! I’m still at only 3 workouts a week (and I laugh that I use the word “only” in that sentence), but those 3 workouts were really awesome!

I had some workouts where I spent 22 minutes straight on the treadmill and some workouts where the treadmill segments were until 5 minutes. And each of those types of treadmill workouts had their own advantages and made me feel really great about my treadmill progress.

For those 22 minutes straight on the treadmill, I’m still keeping myself at a lower speed than before. I’m starting at 3.3 miles an hour, but I did test out going 3.4 for brief moments. Sadly, I couldn’t stay that long at 3.4 miles an hour for more than a minute toward the end of the treadmill workout. But that’s still progress and I’m getting closer and closer to my speed pre-injury.

But for the quick treadmill segments, I had a milestone (at least to me). One block involved going 1/4 mile on the treadmill and then moving on to strength work (it was like a run/row day but instead of rowing we did floor work between treadmill segments). I decided that since I knew that I would spend less than 5 minutes doing that 1/4 mile, I would see if I could start at 3.4 miles an hour. It didn’t feel that bad so I was able to bump it up to 3.5 miles an hour! I was hurting a bit at the end of that workout, but it wasn’t bad pain so I’m ok with that.

Beyond the improvement with the treadmill, I’m feeling like other parts of my workout are benefitting from my healing.

The most obviously one is the rowing machine. Right after the injury, I really couldn’t row because my leg wouldn’t bend enough (part of that was due to pain and part of that was due to the compression bandage I was using). But that’s not an issue anymore so I can go all out on my rowing like I did before. I’m still a little lower in wattage than before, but that’s all about building the strength back up and not because of my injury. I didn’t realize how much strength I’d lose taking it easy in my workouts, but it was pretty significant. I guess my fear of not doing enough workouts is valid. It’s easy to slip backwards.

The weights part of the workout didn’t really suffer from my injury, but I know I took it a bit easy while recovering. Again, I’m working on building things back up. My struggle there is my stubbornness. I like to use the same weight for as much of the workout as I can. But I know that some parts of me are much stronger than others and there’s nothing wrong with switching weights for each part of the strength workout. But I like to move easily from exercise to exercise so keeping the same weight makes that easy. But I need to slow down, take my time, and make sure I’m using the proper weight for each movement.

And finally, there is one part of my workout that I’m still struggling with quite a bit: the TRX Straps. Some of the moves I’m totally fine with. Pretty much anything where I’m facing the straps is fine. But things where I’m facing away (like chest presses or triceps moves) involve being on your toes to do the moves. When I’m on my toes, my calf muscle is screaming in pain! I’m finding that if I stand in a wide stance it helps, but it’s still the worst part of my workout for now.

While I’m going to be in injury recovery for another few weeks (at least I hope it’s only for a few more weeks), but I’m working on getting out of the post-injury mindset and moving on to the usual just kick ass in my workouts mindset!

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Default ThumbnailMaking Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout) Default ThumbnailLearning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal) Default ThumbnailTransitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailAlmost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailMajor Progress (or I Can Run!)

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