Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Transitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow)

Posted on August 31, 2015 | Comments Off on Transitioning Back To Normal (or Going Slow)

This week of workouts was all about testing my limits with my injury. I knew that this week would mark when I could attempt going on the treadmill again, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to push it.

I spent Monday on the bike again. I’m not a huge fan of working out on the bike, but it’s not the worst thing. I struggled again with getting my heart rate up because when I’m bent forward holding on the handlebars my heart rate monitor isn’t flush against my chest. But I managed and did what I could (even if the screen wasn’t necessarily showing my accurate heart rate).

After my workout on Monday, I spend the day at Disneyland. I did wear a compression bandage, but I did a lot of walking that day. I was probably close to 4 miles of walking over the entire day, which is the most walking I’ve really done since the injury. I was having issues with pain from time to time, but it wasn’t unbearable. So I decided that I would test myself on the treadmill on Wednesday.

Fortunately, my new compression sleeves arrived before my Wednesday workout. I got a set of them (one for each leg), but I went to my workout just wearing one on my injured leg.

Compression Sleeve

Wednesday’s workout ended up being the perfect workout to test myself on. It was a partner workout and my treadmill segments were under 4 minutes each time. I felt great! I was going slow, but I was still going faster than I had when I started at Orangetheory. I slowly increased my speed, but I never got to what I was at pre-injury. I’m a little concerned since I have a 5K in about 2 months, but hopefully I can get myself up to my previous speed in that time.

Friday’s workout made me realize that I’m still limited in what I can do. I did try wearing the sleeves on both legs after a recommendation from one of my coaches, but I’m not sure if I like that yet or not (I’ll probably try it another time or two before I decide). But on Friday, all the treadmill blocks were one after another. So I had about 30 minutes straight on the treadmill.

I did ok with that. I had to decrease my speed compared to Wednesday halfway through the treadmill time because I was starting to hurt, but with doing that and taking some breaks I was able to finish the treadmill segment on the treadmill and not taking time on the bike.

Obviously, I’m not fully healed yet. I still have some pain when I’m walking regularly around my house or while doing errands. And on the treadmill I had a few scary moments with a quick intense pain but those went away quickly and I don’t feel any additional tears in my calf. I really want to get back to normal, but I need to learn to be patient with myself. It’s not easy when my focus for so long was to push myself, to go faster, and to get higher inclines.

My plan is to stay on the treadmill from now on unless there is a pain that is unbearable or really scares me. I know I need to work on my endurance and muscle strength and hopefully I can spend the next few months just focusing on getting myself to where I was last month and not where I thought I’d be.

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Default ThumbnailWorkouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury) Default ThumbnailGetting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break) Default ThumbnailEasing My Way Back Into My Normal Workouts (or Not Being Upset I’m Slow) Default ThumbnailLearning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal) Default ThumbnailAlmost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailCan 4 Workout A Week Be My New Normal? (or Pushing Myself Beyond)

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Learning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal)

Posted on August 24, 2015 | Comments Off on Learning How To Maximize My Injury (or Feeling More Normal)

It’s been another interesting week of workouts. I’ve had some setbacks with my injury, but it has been getting better. I’m still using compression bandages most of the time (yesterday was my first day trying to get around without a bandage and it was pretty painful) and I’ve ordered a couple of different compression sleeves to wear for my workouts soon. The bandages get loose during the workout and I’m finding that I’m having to adjust them a lot. So hopefully the compression sleeves will help.

Since I’m still recovering (and will likely still be recovering for another week or so), I’ve been working really hard at getting better at the bike at Orangetheory. It’s very different from using the treadmill and I still find that I’m not getting quite as good of a workout on it. Part of the reason it isn’t as good of a workout is the pain from the injury, but I also know that I’m scared to push myself because I don’t know what my limits are on it yet like I do on the treadmill.

I’ve had to be ok with not meeting my splat points goals during the workouts. It’s very tough for me to get my heart rate up high enough on the bike. But on Wednesday I tried really hard to increase the resistance and to sit up on the bike instead of using the handlebars. And that effort really did pay off.

Workout Summary

It wasn’t easy getting my heart rate up, but I proved that I could do it. So while I know that this might not happen for every workout on the bike, I know that it is possible and that I can try my hardest to get to that point.

I also had a pretty great bike day on Friday. We didn’t switch between the blocks the entire workout (only once to switch from cardio to strength) so I was on the bike for a long time without a break. I did take little breaks on my own to drink water or to adjust my compression bandage, but I did ride for 25 minutes (the timer on the bike stops when I stopped pedaling so there really was 25 minutes of riding).

PR Bike

I was also pretty proud that I passed 10 miles on that cardio block. I had it in my head that it would be amazing if I got to 10 miles. So getting that extra .1 was a nice surprise.

Besides making strides with my cardio on the bike, I’m also getting better at rowing. I’m still not totally able to do a full row, but I’m getting closer and closer and I think that once I’m wearing compression sleeves and not the bandage that I should be able to (I feel so much pressure when my leg is bent and I think the pressure is the bandage and not the injury). We had a lot of rowing this past week, and while my wattage and distance isn’t close to what it used to be, it’s much better than last week.

And while cardio and rowing aren’t the best with the injury, it’s not really hurting my strength workout. Some things I can’t quite do, like lunges, but pretty much everything else is stuff that doesn’t bother me. I’m focusing on my form right now and not increasing the weights (I figured that’s probably the best right now) and I am totally feeling the difference! Even with the same weights (or sometimes even lower weights) that I was using before, I’m feeling the burn in my arms and legs during the workout more. And some of the weird aches that I had post-workout in my back and shoulders aren’t there anymore so I think the form improvement is a good thing.

This week I should be getting my compression sleeves in time for 1 or 2 of my workouts. So I should be able to see if those make enough of a difference to feel more normal. And Wednesday marks 2 weeks since the injury and I may try seeing how the treadmill feels. I’m a little nervous to test the treadmill since when I did it at the first workout post-injury it was horrible. But obviously that was way too soon to test out my calf. Maybe with over a week of treadmill rest it will feel different.

I know I said this before when I’ve had other pains or when I was sick, but in a weird way I’m glad I had this injury. I’m proving to myself that I’m not using it as an excuse to be lazy and not try. I’m just finding new workarounds for things and continuing to try to kick butt as much as possible.

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Workouts With Modifications (or Dealing With A New Injury)

Posted on August 17, 2015 | 14 comments

This was an interesting week of workouts for me. I was feeling great from doing 4 workouts the past week and had every intention of doing the same this week. But then everything changed for me.

My Monday workout was fine. I was a bit tired from my birthday fun the night before. I swear that I was sweating out cake during the class. I might have been a bit sluggish, but nothing too extreme. I continued working on increasing my weights and my treadmill speed and felt like I was finally getting into a good groove of taking my workouts to the next level.

Then on Wednesday, my right calf was bugging me all morning. I thought maybe I slept funny because it felt like a bruise or that my calf muscle had been squeezed all night (like a charley horse). I didn’t think too much of it because I figured a workout would help get things stretched out.

I gave the coach for the class a heads up that I was feeling sore, and she said to take it easy. I got on the treadmill to warm up at 3 miles and hour, and after maybe walking for a minute I felt a pop in my muscle and my vision went white.

I was terrified that I did something horrible, but the pain decreased a bit when I stopped walking and my vision returned to normal after a second. So I hopped off the treadmill and went over to the bike for my cardio. I told the coach what happened and she noticed that a bruise was forming on the back of my leg. She said that I needed to not push myself and to not do anything that would hurt me.

I stayed on the bike for the entire cardio portion and really took it easy with the weights. By the end of the workout, the bruise on my left was from my calf down to my foot and I was still in pain when walking.

After consulting with my mom and dad, we figured that I must have torn my calf (the bruise is from the blood from the torn blood vessels). There’s nothing you can really do for this type of injury besides rest, ice, and elevation. So that’s what I did all evening.

Busted Calf

Even with the pain, I knew that I wasn’t going to skip my Friday workout. I decided against doing a 4th workout for the week, but I was going to get my 3 in for sure.

By Friday, the pain was about half as bad as it was on Wednesday. I wrapped a compression bandage on my calf and went to my workout. I tried the treadmill but it was just too painful for the speed that I would need to get my heart rate up. So I moved back to the bike again (guess my birthday bike ride was getting me ready to work out on the bike at Orangetheory). The bike hurt a little, but I was ok. I had lots of issues rowing because I couldn’t bend all the way, so I did little half rows. And I used lighter weights for the lower body work, but that meant that I increased the weights for my upper body.

I’m so used to working out with my hip issues or when I get sick, but this is an entirely different thing. With the type of tear I have, I should be close to 80% better either today or tomorrow and fully recovered in a week or two. This sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. I just have to continue with extra modifications and remembering that it’s all about consistency.

Hopefully this week will be a bit better with my workouts, but if not, I know that soon enough that I will be back to my normal self.

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My Last Workouts of Being 31 (or 174 Workouts)

Posted on August 10, 2015 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was intense for me. The workouts were harder than they have been in a while (several people said that so it’s not just me), I finally did 4 workouts again in a week after several weeks of only 3 workouts, and I pushed myself harder than ever to celebrate my last 4 workouts of being 31.

This week had a bunch of run/row days. I personally like those because I’m not a huge fan of the treadmill. So when it’s a run/row day, you don’t spend as much time as usual on the treadmill. During the run/row days, we sometimes have longer treadmill segments, but sometimes we have sprints. And on Monday we had sprint segments. Those short segments were perfect for me to test out if I could bump up the speed a bit more on the treadmill.

I was able to do several of those run segments at 3.8 and 3.9 miles an hour. And for one I did it at 4.0 miles an hour, but that was starting to hurt me and make my heart rate up too high so I brought it down a bit. I’m still struggling with increasing my base pace, but it’s nice to know that I’m able to get sprints in a bit. I think that since 4.0 seems to be too fast for me (at least for now), I really want to try to focus on stepping up my base pace. That is important for me to do in order to increase my 5K time. I’ve got about 3 months before my next race, so I’m feeling like it’s time to get more into training mode.

Besides progress on the treadmill, I finally was able to make some improvements with my strength workout! I know I’ve been talking about hoping to do that for awhile, I just was too scared to do it. I’m still using the same weights for many of my strength exercises, but I’m definitely experimenting a bit with the heavier weights. I finally had a chance to use the heavier ones on Saturday. We had a strength block were all the exercises were 6 reps each. That’s nothing. Especially when in the block before it there were 20 reps each. So since the rep count was so low, I knew that this was my chance to work with the heavier weights.

For my pullovers (when you lay on the weight bench with your arms behind you and pull your arms up toward your stomach) I usually was using 15 pound weights. But we were encouraged to go for it and see what we could do. I went for 25 pound weights. It was tough and my arms were shaking, but I did it! I wasn’t able to do the bicep curls with the 25 pound weight, but just doing it for the pullovers was better than nothing.

And finally, this week I did my last workouts of being 31. I celebrated turning 31 at Orangetheory last year. That was at the beginning of my Orangetheory journey. I added up how many workouts I did between that birthday and this birthday. And as you can guess from the title of this post, I did 174 workouts. I was shocked by that number. I had set a goal of doing 175 workouts in 2015. That goal was set after my birthday (obviously since my birthday is in August and I set that goal in January). So the first few months of the last year of workouts was before that goal was set, and therefore before I really starting tracking my workouts. Even without tracking for those few months, I still was only 1 workout away from what I now have as my 2015 goal. That makes me think that maybe my goal was set too low.

I think that those 174 workouts were amazing. I think I’ve made some serious progress in my fitness and I think that others are able to see it as well. I’m seriously so beyond grateful that I found my workout home at Orangetheory. I love that the people who work there are awesome and that they care about the people who work out there (and not just because they are paid to).

Orangetheory Birthday

 

So that’s the end of my workouts as a 31-year-old. Now to see what great things I can accomplish in my workouts as a 32-year-old!

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Being Ok At A Beginner Speed (or Not Trying To Impress My Friends)

Posted on August 3, 2015 | Comments Off on Being Ok At A Beginner Speed (or Not Trying To Impress My Friends)

I had a pretty great week at Orangetheory, even though I was worried it would be tough. I’m still adjusting to my new medication levels (it’s affecting my heart rate more than I expected). But I also hurt my toe over the weekend. I’m not sure what happen, but I looked down and my big toe was black and blue and a chunk of my toenail is missing. I don’t remember hurting it, but obviously I did. I was still able to walk with the injured toe, but it was pretty painful so I knew that I would have to take it a bit easy.

But the problem is, I don’t want to take it easy. I’m finally feeling like I’m making regular progress in my workouts and not trying to stay comfortable at the levels I’m working out at for a long time. I don’t want to go backwards in my progress, but I also know that if I go too hard, it can make an injury worse.

So this week, I tried to focus on making my form as good as I could and not focus on doing things heavier, stronger, faster.

On our Wednesday workout, we had distance rowing to do. One was 500 meters and the other was 1000 meters. I hate long rows. I think that 200 or maybe 250 meters is the most idea distance for me to do. Whenever we have rowing for distance, there is always a guideline for how long it take you to complete it. I can’t remember what the speed is for intermediate or advanced rowers, but I know that for beginner rowers you are supposed to do 100 meters every 30 seconds. I still consider myself a beginning rower because I’m not able to push back with my legs as much as I’d like because of my hip issues. So while I may be fast, my force when I push back on the rower isn’t as much as I’d like.

So for the 1000 meter row, the goal was to do it in under 5 minutes (I think the range was 2:30-5:00, but I can’t be too sure of the lower number). When the distance is shorter, I never really have an issue maintaining an average of 100 meters every 30 seconds. But for the long rows, I always overdo it in the beginning and then tire out and have to take a break at some point. So that screws up my timing. But this time, I decided to focus on maintaining a good speed and not rush and see what I’m able to do.

Those 1000 meters seemed to take forever. It wasn’t fun. I’ll admit that I really didn’t want to finish them. But I really want to do one of the Dri-Tris in the future and those have an even longer rowing distance. So I pushed myself and just told myself to keep going even if I felt like I was going at a snail’s pace.

Finally, I finished and I looked at my time. I managed to finish in 4:54.9! I was the last person in the group to finish the row, but I don’t care at all. I managed to do 1000 meters averaging a speed a bit faster than 100 meters every 30 seconds! That really was a nice positive boost for me.

On Friday, one of my friends came for her first class (she ended up getting a membership so I’m going to get to work out with her on a pretty regular basis!). I do act like a bit of a show-off around new friends coming to class, but since I was hurting I didn’t feel like doing that as much. I just made sure that my friend knew what was going on in the class (it can be a bit overwhelming when it’s your first class) and tried to encourage her as much as possible. She was much better than I am at many of the elements of the workout, but that’s ok. Everyone has their own beginning point and hers is a bit more advanced than mine is.

Instead of trying to be a show-off, I worked on my rowing (it was a run/row day) and seeing if I can keep getting my push pace on the treadmill to be faster. Our rowing distance was based on how long it took us to complete the treadmill segment, so I had extra motivation to go faster on the treadmill.

I usually do about 3.7 miles an hour on the treadmill for push and all out paces. I’ve been experimenting a little with 3.8 miles an hour. On Friday, I also tried doing 3.9 miles an hour. I’m able to do it for about a minute, but I don’t know if I can do it as a push pace for an entire workout (I’m thinking I can do 3.8 miles an hour for an entire workout’s push paces and plan on trying that when my toe is healed).

That workout on Friday was one of the toughest ones that I’ve experienced at Orangetheory. I’m so proud of my friend for kicking butt at it. Another friend who was there joked that my friend wouldn’t get a membership now because of how tough the workout was, but she did get one and is planning on coming with me this Friday for another workout!

I love having friends at my workouts. Some of my usual crew hasn’t been in a workout with me for a while because there are other locations that are closer to their homes (when the West LA location opens I’ll probably switch to there since that’s closer to where I live). But until I change locations, I’m going to keep trying to bring more and more people with me to keep pushing me and to help make my workout hour a friend hour too.

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A Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness)

Posted on July 27, 2015 | Comments Off on A Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness)

I might have only had 3 workouts this week (I’m not trying to make 3 workout weeks a habit but my schedule is tough right now), but I really had 3 amazing workouts. And it wasn’t just what I got done in the class, it was a bunch of other things too.

To start with my wins in the workout, I did continue to push myself on the treadmill a bit more. I was able to do more on Monday than on Wednesday or Friday because I started the increased dosage of Vyvanse on Wednesday (so I had to be careful with my heart rate). I wasn’t able to push myself with the weights as much as I would have liked, but I did experiment with a heavier weight and heavier medicine ball for a bit. I wasn’t able to do it all with the heavier things, but at least I tried.

Now for the things that totally made my workout week.

On Monday I was hanging out in the lobby waiting for the last class to end so I could go into the room and get my treadmill (I’m particular about what treadmill I use). I noticed that there was a guy who looked familiar in the room, but I couldn’t get a good look at him. But I looked up at the heart rate monitor screen above the treadmills and saw my friend Sean’s name up there! Sean and I worked together at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios years ago and I haven’t seen him in forever!

After his class ended, I went up to him to say hi and he seemed pretty happy to see me too!

HHN OTF

He actually was talking to people in the lobby during my class so when my class ended he and I got to catch up for a bit. That really made my day on Monday!

Then on Wednesday I got to Orangetheory and signed in. The manager said that she had something for me. She brought out a box that had old ink cartridges in it! I had mentioned a few weeks ago to the owner that I recycle ink to help pay for my Disneyland pass and he saved their inks for me! That was so awesome and made me feel so special! Now I have another $10 toward my pass (and they said that they would continue to save inks for me).

OTF Ink

And finally, on Friday I had a non-scale victory (which I needed because I haven’t had a lot of victories on the scale lately). I’ve gotten all of my workout clothes from Old Navy. They really seem to be the only company that has cute workout clothes in my size (and workout pants that don’t look like diapers on me). I’ve mainly bought workout pants in black so they go with any of the tank tops I own. I’ve gotten a couple of pairs of patterned workout pants but have never looked how they looked on me.

I recently took advantage of a promo code at Old Navy that you could use on clearance clothes. I was able to get workout pants for about $10 each! I got some basic black ones and another pair of patterned ones. And this past Friday, I finally felt comfortable enough to wear them to my workout!

Old Navy Pants

I’m kind of in love with those pants. They were so comfortable and I think they looked really cute too! I’m thinking about trying the other patterned ones that I have and have only worn at home again. Maybe now I can be confident enough to wear them in workouts (which is why I bought them).

I love that this past week of workouts were so positive for me. I haven’t really been in a workout slump but I did hit a bit of a personal slump lately. I working on getting out of that as quickly as possible. Hopefully with my workout being so awesome it can now spread to other things being awesome as well!

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Being A Bit Of A Show-Off (or More Baby Steps)

Posted on July 20, 2015 | Comments Off on Being A Bit Of A Show-Off (or More Baby Steps)

I had a pretty great week of workouts this week. I might have only gotten 3 workouts in, but I really maximized them.

Monday was a really fun day. I had a friend come try out class with me! She had never been to Orangetheory before, but she was looking for a new workout class to motivate her. I love having new friends in class because if they get a membership then that means I’ll have more friends in class on a regular basis!

My friend was on the treadmill next to me and it happened to be a run/row day so the treadmill segments were pretty short. Because I want to push myself (and because I’m a major show-off), I decided to up my speed on the treadmill again.

My push and all-out paces have been pretty steady at 3.7 miles an hour (my base pace has been at 3.5). But I started at 3.7 for my pushes and then went to 3.8 and even 3.9 at times. I don’t think I can do those higher speeds for an entire class, but it’s good that I’m trying to add on speed for a minute or two. I’ve had issues with increasing my speed because I feel like it’s an all or nothing sort of thing. But it’s not horrible to have variable speeds throughout the class.

Since I was showing off at Monday’s class, I decided to see if I could push the limits of my push and all-out paces for the rest of the week. I was able to do a minute or so at 3.8 and 3.9 for my other two workouts. I even was able to do 4.0 miles an hour for about 30 seconds for an all-out segment (so it was also at 10% incline). I think I’m almost to the place where I can increase my push pace more often, but I’m still struggling with increasing my base pace. I’m testing the waters of 3.6 miles an hour, but it’s still a struggle for more than a few minutes.

Since Monday was a run/row day, I also had a good opportunity to work on getting better at rowing. Rowing is weird for me. I feel like I’m still struggling with it, but my coaches have been telling me that rowing might be my strongest thing. I’m great when it comes to sprints of about 250 meters or less, but the distance rows still make me struggle. One of the other workouts this past week had a 600 meter row and I had to take my time with that and that frustrated me.

I think this frustration I’m feeling is a real positive thing. It means that I know that I can do better and I’m not questioning myself as much as I have in the past. I’m still physically struggling, but I’m happier with that than I am with a mental struggle. I wish I could discuss this with my hip surgeon, but I know a lot of things I do aren’t really recommended. But since my hips are going to go bad no matter what I do, I figure I might as well work on my strength even if it might make my hips go bad a few months sooner than they would if I was cautious. Also, I’m been pushing the limits with my hips for a couple of years now, and I’m still doing way better than they ever expected I could.

Since I’ve been pushing myself on the treadmill a lot, I think it’s time for me to push myself with the weights. I’ve been using the same weights for a while. And I think the reason I’ve been nervous is because the weights I use look more like regular weights to me and the next set up looks a little scary. I know that’s probably really stupid, but I think that’s the only reason I’ve been holding back. It’s time for me to realize that I’m strong and can do more lifting than I have been doing. And by lifting more, I’m going to build more muscle which will help me in my weight loss.

I love this motivation I’ve found! I know that it can only lead to good things!

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Getting Through My Workouts (or Sweating When I Can’t Breathe Through My Nose)

Posted on July 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting Through My Workouts (or Sweating When I Can’t Breathe Through My Nose)

My workout week wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t horrible either. But I’m pretty darn impressed with myself that I did work out.

I got 3 workouts in. Part of the reason I only did 3 was because the week before I did 5 (and that was tough on me). But the other part was that I was sick.

I’ve read online that as long as all of your symptoms are above the neck, you are ok to work out. If they are below the neck (body aches) then you aren’t supposed to push yourself. While I did feel a bit achy, I figured that that was from pushing myself the week before and not from being sick.

My Monday workout was pretty tough. That was the day I felt the worst over the week. I had to keep stopping to catch my breath and cough. It wasn’t easy doing anything, but I did my best. And I did manage to stay at pretty much the same levels on the treadmill and weights on the floor as usual. I just wasn’t able to last as long or do as many rounds. But being able to do a little bit is better than me doing nothing and sitting on my couch. And I did feel a bit better after the workout so I joked that maybe I was able to sweat out the germs.

Wednesday was a bit of a blur for me. I had dealt with some people being really horrible to me at work and my head was foggy to begin with. Being sick on top of that really didn’t help. Again, I had to take more breaks than usual, but I was able to do a good chunk of the workout.

Friday was insane for me. It was a strength day, which means hills on the treadmill. I always do hills since I’m a power walker and can’t increase my speed like the joggers and runners can. But on strength days I try to do more extreme hills.

It seemed like every hill segment was 3 minutes long. And there were 3 sets of 3 minute hill segments back to back (with a 1 minute base pace at 4% incline between). It was so tough for me to get through those hills, but I pushed as much as possible. I still had to take more breaks than I would have liked to, but it was fewer breaks than the other days in the week.

I’ve talked about it before how glad I am that I’m able to work out while I’m sick. I’m not using being sick as an excuse the way I used to. I think part of this is because I work out of my house now. I can tell my boss that I’m too sick to work, but I really try not to do that. I can always bring my work stuff into my bed and work from there. So if I’m not allowing myself a sick day from work, why would I from a workout?

I’m finally feeling better (although I’m not 100% better yet). So I’m hoping that this week I can bring my workouts back to the level that they were before and that I can maybe get in 4 workouts this week to make up for only doing 3 last week.

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5 Workout Week (or I Did It, But I Don’t Know When I’ll Do It Again)

Posted on July 6, 2015 | Comments Off on 5 Workout Week (or I Did It, But I Don’t Know When I’ll Do It Again)

As I mentioned in my workout recap last week, this past week was potentially going to be a 5 workout week (basing the week to be from Sunday to Saturday). I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I managed to do it.

Workout Week

I’m getting pretty used to having workouts 2 days in a row once a week (usually on Friday/Saturday). I still struggle a bit on the second day, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was when I did my first back to back set of classes.

I was recovering from my sunburn for the first two days of the week, so I had to take it easy with weights when it involved my upper body. I only went down to 12 pounds weights (from my usual 15 pound ones), so it wasn’t a huge decrease. But I really did feel it as being much easier than I’m used to.

After the sunburn healed by Wednesday, I was back to my usual weight. I’m really wanting to move up to the next set of weights, but those are 20 pounds. I can use them for some lower body stuff, but when I try for upper body things I’m struggling to even do one rep. I’m not too stressed about getting up to the next set of weights. I know that it will take time and moving up to heavier weights is a bigger change than increasing the treadmill speed by .1 miles an hour.

Speaking of the treadmill, I’m getting into a nice groove with it now. I’m doing all  my base paces at 3.5 miles an hour and almost all of my push and all-out paces at 3.7 miles an hour. I still don’t know why I struggle doing 3.7 miles an hour (or even 3.6) during my base pace “flat road”, but it’s not horrible that I’m increasing my speeds for the pushes and all outs. That’s what the runners do and it allows me to use a more manageable incline for the longer push segments without my hips hurting as much. I’m happy where I am right now with my speed and am ok staying there for a while before I try to bump it up again.

Doing 5 workouts in a week was definitely doable, but it’s not something that will be done on a regular basis. If I did, I would do 5 workouts one week and 3 the next (unless I want to do 4 workouts in a row which I don’t). I’d much rather do 4 workouts a week as much as possible. I like having breaks between my workouts. But I’m glad that I did this because it proved to me that it can be done if I want to.

You might be wondering what the motivation was behind doing 5 workouts in a week. Well, all June there was a team contest at Orangetheory. You made a team of 3 and between the 3 of you the team had to get 45 workouts in for the month. You also had to post on social media (that was the easy part for me).

I joined a team and since one of our team members was going to be out-of-town a bit, the other girl and I had to pick up a little slack. So I needed to get 16 workouts in for the month. And to do that, I had to fit in an extra one in the week.

But it was all worth it when we got this email.

OTF June Challenge

I can’t believe that only 4 teams were able to complete the challenge! I knew that we would win because we were very on top of tracking everything. But I really thought that at least half of the teams that started would win. This makes me feel even better about the hard work my team put in to make sure that we got everything done that we needed to in June.

So far, there’s no contests for July. I’m still tracking my workouts and I’m over halfway to my workout goal for the year (which is perfect since the year is half over). But if there is some sort of July contest or challenge, I think you all know that I’m totally doing it!

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Short and Sweet Workout Week (or Taking It A Bit Easy)

Posted on June 29, 2015 | 1 comment

I “only” got 3 workouts in this week (I count my weeks from Sunday-Saturday). I was able to do my usual Monday/Wednesday/Friday workouts and that was all that I did.

I put only in parenthesis because that’s a pretty darn impressive amount. I remember when I started my partnership with Orangetheory pretty much exactly a year ago and was so scared to do 3 workouts in a week. Now that seems like a break to me!

I would have done more workouts this week, but I didn’t want to do one the Sunday that started the week because I was recovering from my beach workout (and doing that would have made it 4 workouts in a row). And I didn’t go on Saturday because I had something else I had scheduled (more on that later this week). And doing workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays are still a bit tough for me when I’m doing my regular workout schedule because that means that I will have 3 workout days in a row. I can do 3 workouts in a row if I have to, but I’d rather not at this point.

I’m still continuing to test myself on the treadmill and see what my limits really are. I’m getting quite comfortable at 3.5 miles an hour on the treadmill. And when I’m in push paces, I’m almost always going up to 3.6 or 3.7 miles an hour. For some reason though, those faster speeds are much more difficult for me at my “flat road” of 4% incline than they are at 8 or 10% incline. I’m hoping by the end of summer that I can start doing 3.6 miles an hour at 4% incline on a more regular basis. I still have a goal time in my head for my next 5K and to do that time I need to be at 3.7 during my workouts. My 5Ks seem to be faster than my treadmill times (maybe adrenaline or maybe because it’s a real flat road) so if I’m doing 3.7 miles per hour at my workout I know I can hit my goal time.

I’ve also made some significant progress on the rowing machine this week. I don’t know what clicked for me, but I’m finally doing what the minimum wattage should be (before I was at maybe 70% of what the minimum should be).

I also got to work out next to one of the owners, Paul, during my Wednesday workout. He made a comment about how much improvement he’s seen in me since my first workout. He remembers how I could barely walk after that first workout. And now I’m kicking some serious butt in class!

It’s nice to have someone notice improvement in me. I still don’t think it’s showing in my body (and it’s definitely not showing on the scale). So to have someone point out improvement or progress to me unprompted proves that even though I’m not seeing it in the way that I’d like to.

Having a 3 workout week was a nice break for me, but this coming week is going to be a crazy one. I haven’t decided for sure yet, but it may end up being my very first 5 workout week! And now that I’ve said that publicly on here, I feel like I have to do it!

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