Tag Archives: Orangetheory

Weird Workout Times (or My Final Workouts Before My 5K)

Posted on November 10, 2014 | Comments Off on Weird Workout Times (or My Final Workouts Before My 5K)

This past week, I pushed myself extra hard in my workouts. I knew that they were the workouts leading up to my 5K. And even though I have done more treadmill training before this 5K than any of my other races, I still was a little worried. So I wanted to make sure that I was in the best possible shape I could be for the race.

Because of my schedule and not wanting to do a workout 12 hours before a 5K, 2 of my 3 classes this past week were not at my usual times.

My Monday workout was a morning workout. I might start doing more morning workouts on Monday since that is my day off from my day job and there’s no need for me to go to an after-work time for class (and deal with rush hour traffic). The benefit of going to that class was the instructor was Ashley, who I used to have a lot but hadn’t taken her class since she switched to a morning schedule. She’s a tough instructor and pushed me really hard, but I needed it.

The Monday Challenge this week was a 200 meter row. But instead of seeing how fast you can row, it was how few strokes you could row to reach 200 meters. I did ok. I wasn’t close to what the top 5 did, but I got it done quickly and had very powerful strokes and pushes with my legs (something that is tough for me).

Wednesday was my one workout in my normal time, and then I had a Thursday workout. Yup, two weeks in a row I did back to back workout days.

I was much more sore this Thursday than I was last Thursday, but I managed my painkillers carefully and did my best. It was a lot of hills in the treadmill section and my hips don’t love the hills. There were plenty of times that I had to jump on the rails of the treadmill and try to pop my hip back in (it’s as gross as it sounds). But I was grateful for a crazy hill workout because I knew my race on Saturday would be flat, so it would seem like a breeze compared to the hill workout.

And finally, I got my Thanksgiving Day workout scheduled. I will be going to the Orangetheory in San Diego (where we are celebrating this year) and my dad, my brother, and my Aunt Cindy will be attending the workout with me. I got all of us on the schedule and I’m making sure that everything is set up so that everyone has a good time at the workout. And the staff at the San Diego location were super nice to me and happy to make sure that everything should go smoothly when we come to workout (this will be my first workout at a different Orangetheory location).

This week, I’m back to my usual schedule for workouts, but I am looking into morning workouts on Mondays (that way my day is free after the workout instead of scheduling to make sure I will be done by the time my workout happens). And tomorrow, I’ll have my recap of my 5K!

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Default ThumbnailChecking Things Off The List (or 4 Workouts In 1 Week) Default ThumbnailFirst Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times) Default ThumbnailBack To Back Workouts (or It’s Hell Week) Default ThumbnailA Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New) Default ThumbnailNew Workout Gadgets And Records (or Improving On My Workouts) Default ThumbnailTough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts)

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Adventures In Customer Service (or Trying Not To Be The Bad Call)

Posted on November 7, 2014 | 1 comment

I’ve worked in customer service for many of my day jobs. Most of the time, I’ve been interacting with customers in person. But with my telesales job and my current box office job, I’m just doing customer service work on the phone (or in a chat feature like at my current job).

When I worked in telesales, I did discover that I was being much nicer to telemarketers on the phone. I didn’t hang up on them (unless they were robo calls) and if it was something that I know I wouldn’t be interested in, I would politely ask to be put on the do not call list.

But things have changed since I started my current box office job. I’ve had some really crazy customers since day one. I’ve never been threatened more at a job than with this one. Customers tell me that they are going to have me arrested to show up at a show and demand to see me so I can apologize for doing whatever they believed is wrong.

First of all, what saves me every day are my co-workers. While none of us work in the same city (I think only 1 other employee works in California), we are able to chat with each other through the chat feature while we work. We can ask if someone had previously spoke with a customer. Many times, customers will say that someone else told them that they could do something that is against the rules. I check with my co-workers to see who spoke to them and exactly what was said. That way, I can let the customer know that the information that they got from one of my co-workers is correct and I’m not able to bend the rules for them.

For some of the more detailed issues, we just direct them back to the location that they are attending. This is all done by email, so we have records of when we passed on a customer. Since a lot of the tough issues are not dealt with the box office, I’m grateful for that.

But ever since starting this job, I’ve noticed a change in how I deal with customer service people on the phone. I don’t believe that I have ever been mean to anyone, but I’m learning what preparation goes into making sure everything is done correctly.

For example, I ordered a DVD box set for my brother for his birthday. It was a pre-order so I knew it would take a bit of time to be shipped. I got an email 2 weeks ago saying that it would be shipped then, but there was no tracking number. I also had a charge and a refund on my credit card.

Before contacting customer service, I gathered all the information that I had gotten from the company. I knew when emails were sent to me, when the charge and refund was on my card, and when they claimed they would be shipping the DVDs. When I got a hold of customer service, I presented all my information and she was easily able to find out what happened and what went wrong (they are finally shipping the DVDs this month now).

I also recently called an Orangetheory location down in San Diego. I will be there for Thanksgiving and my dad, my brother, and my aunt all want to take a class with me on Thanksgiving. When I called the first time, the guy I spoke to seemed very confused by my request to schedule a class. He took down my information, but nothing seemed right.

After going to my Orangetheory and getting some more information about my membership from them, I called the San Diego location again to get everything straightened out.

The woman who I spoke to on the phone the second time kept saying how great it was that I was prepared to schedule everything and that I had all the information in front of me. It made her job simpler and allowed the problems to be corrected (it was mainly some typos and the previous employee using a different account to schedule my class).

Basically, from being yelled at on the phone every workday at least once, I’ve really learned that there is no reason to not do everything that I can do to make a customer service call as easy as possible. It’s not just about being nice (although that helps and I wish more customers were nice to me), it’s about knowing what had happened with your interactions with the company in the past and knowing what you need to have accomplished (as long as it is possible and not breaking any rules).

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Back To Back Workouts (or It’s Hell Week)

Posted on November 3, 2014 | 3 comments

This past week, my workouts challenged me in more ways than one. But they were all awesome challenges!

First challenge was when I worked out. I’ve been doing Monday, Wednesday, and Friday pretty much every week since I started at Orangetheory. I have done an occasional Saturday instead of Friday when there was a conflict. But I’ve never worked out 2 days in a row.

That is, until this past week. I didn’t want to work out on Friday evening because I had Halloween plans. And the only morning class that would have worked for me would have been around 6am (too early!). Saturday wasn’t an option either because I had other plans. So I decided to try doing Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I was really scared to not have a rest day between my workouts, but it actually worked out pretty well (I did take painkillers prior to working out just in case). It worked so well that I’m planning on repeating that schedule this week. I have a 5K on Saturday morning and I don’t think a workout on Friday afternoon/evening would be the best plan for me.

The second challenge I encountered this past week was the fact that Orangetheory (in all locations around the country) make the week leading up to Halloween Hell Week. So all the workouts were extra tough and had a specific focus. There was also a prize if you did all 5 Hell Week workouts, but I knew I couldn’t do that.

Monday’s Hell Week workout was all about burpees and rowing. First, I had 28 minutes of various burpees and short sprints on the treadmill. After the first round of burpees, my body decided that it was not happy. Getting my feet near my hands to get back up from the burpees is extremely tough for me (and something that I’m working on getting better at). So I ended up doing modified burpees by using the weight bench to put my hands on (instead of having them on the ground). After that, it was 28 minutes on the rowing machine! I’ve never done more than a few minutes of rowing at a time, so trying to go 28 minutes with minimum breaks was very tough and my legs felt very wobbly afterward. But I did manage to row over 3300 meters in that time.

After my Monday workout, I was so proud of myself that I did a quick post-workout selfie.

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I’m still not seeing changes in myself, but others are seeing it so I have to trust them.

Wednesday’s theme was Leg Day. It was not as bad as Monday, but it was still another killer workout full of squats (I must have done close to 1000 squats in the workout) and I thought that I wouldn’t be able to sit down and get back up afterward. Thankfully, the painkillers that I took before and after my workout helped a lot and allowed me to recovery easily.

Thursday was a Hill Day. I was seriously dreading this workout because I thought that it would be hills on the treadmill without breaks. And the incline on the treadmill is one of those things that really irritates my hip. But I was very happy to see that the hill workout was being done in sprints. Everything was in 1 minute increments. 1 minute at 15% incline and then some squats, then 1 minute at 14% incline and more squats, and so on. I made it down to 9% incline within the workout. The second half of Hill Day was all about using the TRX straps and rowing.

After I was done with my 3 workouts, I was exhausted. I had pretty high calorie burns for all my workouts and for 2 of them, I spent more time in the Orange Zone (the zone that helps you burn calories after the workout) than in the Green Zone (the standard fat burning zone). That was an awesome accomplishment and helped me realize that I really have come a long way since I started.

This week is back to more “regular” workouts but I know that they will still be tough. And this weekend will be my first 5K since I started at Orangetheory and I’m excited to see what this training translates to on race day!

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Default ThumbnailSurviving Hell Week (or I’m A Liar) Default ThumbnailChecking Things Off The List (or 4 Workouts In 1 Week) Default ThumbnailRecovery and Preparation (or Back To A 3 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailSecond Week Of My Orangetheory Challenge (or I Guess I’m Tougher Than I Thought I Was) Default ThumbnailBack To 4 Workouts (or More Rowing!) Default ThumbnailGetting Closer To The Leaderboard (or I’m Almost In The Top 5)

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Tough Workouts (or Having Challenges Every Day)

Posted on October 27, 2014 | Comments Off on Tough Workouts (or Having Challenges Every Day)

This past week was not my best week of workouts. I still went 3 times during the week, but I was not able to really put out a full effort each time.

It’s probably a good thing that I had a bad week. It proved to me that even when I can’t do my best, I can still do something. And I did burn at least 450 calories in each class (that’s a lot in 60 minutes!).

Monday wasn’t that bad of a day. The workout went really great and I was pushing myself like crazy. I’m trying to move up in what weights I use during the strength portion. I used to always start at 10 pounds and go from there, but now I’m starting at 12 pounds. And I’m finding that for most things (except lateral arm moves) that is a good weight for me. I’d like to eventually move up to the 15 pounds weights, but I don’t have a timeline for that yet.

The Monday Challenge was a running challenge. I hate those. There isn’t always a modification for the challenge for walkers so I’m not able to fully participate in them. This challenge was running at 10.5 MPH for as long as you can. I didn’t attempt it because I was terrified that I would fall off the treadmill. So instead, I did 4 MPH at 15% incline (the highest incline the treadmill can do). I managed a little over 30 seconds at that. I wasn’t timed because it wouldn’t count, but even if I was timed, everyone was over the 1 minute mark so I wouldn’t have made it on the wall. But I tried. And when this challenge comes around again, maybe I can do 45 seconds.

Wednesday was tough because it was the day after my bad food day. Eating like that really affected my workout. I felt sluggish and had trouble focusing. I was having dizzy spells similar to what I had when I had my ear issues. I was totally thrown off and the trainer, JZ, noticed. But the important thing is that I showed up and tried.

And Friday, my hip decided that it had enough of me. My bones kept grinding against each other all day. And while I was carefully timing my 2 types of painkillers and making sure to take them every 8 hours (for one pill) and every 4 hours (for the other pill), my hip kept catching and walking was extremely difficult for me. It didn’t help either that my heart rate monitor is class was glitchy. I usually look at it to see if I’m hitting the heart rate zones I need to. And if I’m too low or too high I adjust things. But my heart rate was going from 60% to 105% and all over the place. So I have no idea if my effort was what was needed. And I didn’t want to leave class to get a new one so I just sucked it up.

After my Friday workout, my hip started to get much worse. Every time this happens I freak out a little bit. Now it’s a bigger freak out. I’ve now realized that when I have my next surgery (no matter which hip surgery ends up being my next one), I’ll be out of commission as far as workouts go for at least a month or so. If my next surgery is making my left hip like my right one (not getting a hip replacement), there is a chance that I could at least do the strength section (I just wouldn’t be able to stand without crutches and therefore couldn’t go on the treadmill).

I can’t think like that right now, but I can’t help it. Now that I’m getting in a groove, anything that alters that makes me worry that I will have trouble returning to it. I’m debating making an appointment with my surgeon again, but I don’t think that anything he says will be different from last time (I have the option to do the surgery whenever I want).

In the meanwhile, I’m looking forward to another week of workouts this week and hopefully I’ll have some more positive days!

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Seeing What Other People See (or Losing Weight Without Losing Weight)

Posted on October 20, 2014 | 4 comments

Another week of workouts are done! I had some great challenging workouts and some personal challenges as well.

First of all, the Monday Challenge this week was a mini Dri-Tri. We had a 100 meter row, 20 burpees (without the jumps or pushups), and a .1 mile run. Even before I started I knew I wouldn’t rank in the top 5, but I was still excited to do it. The row wasn’t too bad. I was exhausted from the workout, but I still got it done pretty quickly. The burpees were a killer. It’s so tough to do them and even though I’m finally done with my ear problems, my equilibrium is still off sometimes when I go from sitting or laying down to standing. So those burpees made me so dizzy! And I did the .1 mile walk as fast as I could, but everyone else at the challenge was able to run.

In the end, my time was just over a minute from what the slowest time was on the leaderboard. So not bad.

These challenges are going to be in cycles. I’ve been told that they will do 8 challenges and then repeat them. I’m not sure if that is still the exact plan, but if it is, I’m excited to see what my time will be for this challenge in 8 weeks when we do it again.

On Wednesday, I was all decked out in pink for my workout.

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First of all, it was to show my support for breast cancer awareness month. But secondly, this past Wednesday was my mom’s very last day of chemo! So even though I wasn’t celebrating that awesome milestone with her in person that day, I wanted to celebrate it in my own way.

On Friday, it was a crazy challenging workout. It was a run/row day, which I haven’t had in a long time. I personally enjoy the run/rows because it means that I get to spend less time on the treadmill, which I still don’t love. But since it had been so long since doing a run/row, my transitions were slow and tough. I know that I can do better with that if I have run/rows more often, but I just focused on trying to get from the treadmill to the rower and back as fast as I could.

This week also seemed to be the week that I talked with people who have noticed a difference in how I look. First of all it was my parents who I saw on Thursday (more about that in another post). My dad mentioned that I look much smaller than the last time he saw me (which was last month).

Then on Friday, I was talking with 2 ladies who were on the treadmills next to me. One of them was pretty new to Orangetheory. That Monday (she was in my class that time as well) was her first class. And she was asking me all about the workouts. Then there was another lady who I have seen a bunch in class who joined in on the conversation. She mentioned that whenever she and I are in the same class, I motivate her to use heavier weights in the strength portion of class because she sees that I’m using heavier weights than she is.

I never realized that I could motivate someone who looks perfectly fit to me to try harder! That was pretty awesome. She also mentioned how I looked like I had lost a lot of weight since she first saw me in class (which I think was right around 4th of July).

Finally this week, I saw my brother and sister-in-law yesterday (again, a story for another post). My sister-in-law commented that I looked like I had lost a lot of weight.

What’s crazy about all of this is that I haven’t lost a lot of weight. I’m not sure why I’m not losing it at the rate I expect to, but I’m just happy that it is going in the right direction. But for example, since the last time my parents or my sister-in-law saw me, I’m maybe only 4 pounds smaller. That’s not a lot. But clearly it must be showing more than I realize.

I stopped doing photos of my progress after my initial 8 week challenge, but I think I need to go back to doing those. It’s really hard for me to see weight changes in my self (I have been diagnosed in the past with some body dysmorphia issues) but sometimes I can see them in photos. I think I’m going to wait until November 1st and then try to do them on the first of every month.

But for now, I have to trust in what other people are seeing and to keep kicking as much butt in my workouts as possible. Because obviously it’s working!

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Orange Goes Pink (or The Week In Workouts)

Posted on October 13, 2014 | Comments Off on Orange Goes Pink (or The Week In Workouts)

This past week was another killer week of workouts for me. It didn’t help that on Friday my hip decided to pop out as I was getting out of my car and didn’t want to pop back until after the workout was done. But I did my best given the circumstances.

The Monday challenge was a 2 minute row. And it was as simple as it sounds. Row as far as you can in 2 minutes. The top 5 distances for women and for men would be posted.

I was surprised when I did the Monday challenge. Only myself and one other girl decided to do it after my class. I’m not sure why nobody else wanted to.

But that was fine. She and I rowed next to each other and encouraged each other on (she had a goal to beat the distance her mom was able to do).

I did ok. I went farther than I thought I could, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be in the top 5 (there were more than 5 people who had done the challenge in the morning classes with farther distances than mine).

But what I thought was the coolest part of my week in workouts was the support that was going on because of October being breast cancer awareness month.

I think most of you reading this know what breast cancer means to me and my family. I am happy to report that I did get the results of my mammogram back and everything is fine. The only thing that makes me nervous is that the type of breast cancer that my mom had is not really detectable on a mammogram. So even though my doctor is advising me to do annual mammograms now, my mom suggested that I see about doing mammograms and MRIs on alternating years (my mom’s cancer was found on an MRI).

Anyway, back to how OrangeTheory is support breast cancer awareness. This past Saturday there was an event at the gym (sadly I couldn’t make it). For every calorie burned during class for the entire day, they were going to donate a penny to breast cancer causes. So for example, I typically burn about 500 calories in class. They would donate $5 for that. Between the calories burned over the day and some other donations that came in, they were able to give a nice donation to the charity.

They have also decided to make the orange zone on the heart rate monitors pink for the month.

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So instead of striving to be in the orange zone for 12-20 minutes in class, you want to be in the pink zone.

Not only is it a nice way to show support, I think it’s pretty fun too.

Beyond that, my workouts have been pretty normal. I’m getting used to the schedule and have been able to maintain my M/W/F workouts. I’m getting a little nervous about Thanksgiving and how I will keep up my workouts then, but I’ve got plenty of time to figure that out.

But I keep thinking to myself that the fact that I’m trying to plan my workouts for something that is a month away is a major step for me. I have never been this dedicated to working out without a goal date (the only other time I was this dedicated was when I was losing as much weight as possible before my hip surgery). While the food plans are still tough on me, now that working out is seeming to be normal and expected, I’m getting better and better.

I’m excited for my next 5K (which is less than 4 weeks away). I’m curious how much progress I will have made now that I’m doing treadmill training 3 times a week.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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Believing In Myself (or My Wish From Last Week Came True)

Posted on October 6, 2014 | 2 comments

Last week in my workout recap of the week prior, I talked about the Orangetheory Monday Challenges. I was so close to the top 5 that week and I really hoped that I would make it to the top 5 for a Monday challenge soon.

Well, it happened a whole heck of a lot sooner than I expected!

This past week, the Monday challenge was how many push ups you could do in one minute. Push ups on your knees were not an option, but you could do push ups using one of the weight benches, so I chose that option.

The Monday workout prior to the challenge was a crazy one, so I thought that maybe I could do 15 or if I was lucky 20 push ups. I’m not great at push ups, but I have noticed a serious improvement in the time that I’ve been working out at Orangetheory.

There were only about 6 of us doing the challenge this past Monday and there was only one person who was able to time us. So we all started at the same time and we had to do our own counting.

As soon as the time started, I was off! I have never done push ups so fast before in my life! I was so focused on just getting them done that I got 15 done pretty quickly. I hadn’t realized how quickly until after my 15 were done, the 15 second mark was announced.

I realized that I was only 1/4 of the way done with the challenge and I really wanted to see how many I could do. So I kept going even though I felt like my arms were going to explode.

I’m sure that my push ups weren’t that pretty to look at, but I kept going. My focus slipped for a moment and I forgot what number I was at, so I went back to the last number I remembered (so I’m sure I did more than I counted but I’d rather underestimate than overestimate).

Finally, the one minute mark was called and I collapsed.

I somehow managed to do 43 push ups in a minute. I have no idea how that happened, but I know I did it because my arms were killing me.

That evening, I couldn’t really lift my arms properly, so it was pretty comical for me to try to wash my hair.

I had no idea how well I had done in the challenge. I had been told that from all the morning classes, I would have ranked #2, but there are more people who work out in the evening and I knew many of them women would try for the challenge.

On Tuesday, Orangetheory put a picture up online with the top 5 men and women for the weekly challenge.

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Yup, that’s my name listed as #5!!

I was shocked that I accomplished my goal of making it on to the list so quickly!

Of course, when I went to my Wednesday workout, I had to get a picture of me with the wall.

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Having jello arms for a couple of days was totally worth it!

I have no idea what the Monday challenge will be today, but I know that I’ll be doing my best to kick butt at it!

And who knows, maybe I’ll make it on the wall again this week!

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Challenge Winners (or OK Being A Loser)

Posted on October 2, 2014 | Comments Off on Challenge Winners (or OK Being A Loser)

This past weekend was the party for the Orangetheory weight-loss challenge. I knew how much I had lost because the weigh-in was the week before, and I was pretty sure that I didn’t win.

There was going to be a men’s and women’s winner and while I had no clue who the winner for the women would be, I had a good idea who the winner for the men would be.

There is one guy who I talk with from time to time. Sometimes we are in the same workout class, but more often he’s in the class after mine. We would check in with each other throughout the challenge and made sure that neither of us were slacking off. It also turns out that we have a mutual friend.

The day of the final weigh-in, he shared with me that he had lost over 30 pounds in the 6 weeks. In my opinion, there was no way that someone else could win.

And I was right. He was the winner for the men.

On the women’s side, until I showed up for the party, I couldn’t guess the winner. But while we were all waiting for the party to start, one of the trainers and I were talking and she brought another woman into the conversation. They were discussing her weight loss and it turned out that she had lost 17 pounds (which was 10% of her original weight).

As soon as I heard that, I knew that she would end up being the winner for the women.

There were also second and third place prizes for both men and women, but I didn’t rank in the top 3.

And you know what? I’m totally cool with that. In the 6 weeks, I had lost 9 pounds. I might have been able to lose more if I hadn’t had any setbacks (including food setbacks and health setbacks), but 9 pounds in 6 weeks is great! It’s a good pace for weight loss.

As much as I want to lose it all quickly, I’ve done that twice before. And it hasn’t ended well for me. So this time instead of the quick fix, I’m going for the happy ending.

But what I’m most proud of is that I was part of such an amazing group of people for this weight-loss challenge. I have really found my community and workout home. I thought that I had found it before, and maybe one day it will become more of a workout home for me. But this time I really feel completely comfortable with the staff and everyone who works out at Orangetheory and I feel no judgement at all.

That’s a prize that no contest can award me and I’m lucky that I got it.

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Getting Closer To The Leaderboard (or I’m Almost In The Top 5)

Posted on September 29, 2014 | Comments Off on Getting Closer To The Leaderboard (or I’m Almost In The Top 5)

Instead of focusing on my week of workouts at Orangetheory, I want to focus on what happened on Monday.

As I mentioned last week, there are now Monday challenges every Monday. And it’s my plan to do the challenge each week (I will be doing one today).

I missed the very first challenge because the trainer forgot to do the challenge in my class (it was a new thing so I’m not too upset). The second week I did the rowing challenge. And I walked in this past week with every intention of doing whatever challenge happened.

Then I found out what the challenge was.

It turns out that the challenge this past week was a treadmill challenge. You had to be at 15% incline (which is what I do when I do the “all out” segments on the treadmill) and you had to be at 6 miles per hour for the speed. And the goal was to be on the treadmill at that speed and incline as long as possible.

That’s not a reality for me.

I’ve been doing 3.1 or 3.2 miles per hour most of the time. Sometimes I can push myself to 3.3 or 3.4, but it’s tough. And as soon as I hear what the challenge was, I felt defeated. There’s no way that I can run at 6 miles an hour.

In class on Monday, we had a unique treadmill workout. The first and last segment were each 7 minutes long and we had to be at a push pace (which for walkers mean about 6% incline). For those 7 minutes, we were supposed to go as far as we could go.

The first 7 minutes I made it to .392 miles. I thought that was pretty awesome. Between the segments there was some regular interval work on the treadmill and then it was time for the next (and last) 7 minute treadmill segment.

I started at 3.1 miles an hour. I like that speed because it means if I maintain that for an hour, I can do a 5K. And my goal is to get my 5K time to an hour or less.

Then I decided to see if I could make it to .4 miles in those 7 minutes. So I decided to increase my speed every minute. I was fine up until 3.6 miles an hour. That was tough, but I felt like I was cutting it close to my goal of .4 miles.

So I decided to increase my speed every 30 seconds for the last 2 minutes. And shockingly, those last 30 seconds I was going 4 miles an hour! I can’t maintain that for very long, but I did it!

Those second 7 minutes I made it .408 miles.

I finished up the workout and while I was so proud of what I had done on the treadmill earlier, the challenge was still making me feel defeated. I joked to everyone that I will go 1 second on the challenge.

Finally, it was time for the challenge. I started to bug the trainer that it was completely unfair that there wasn’t a walking option for the challenge. After bugging him and the owner, they decided that my challenge would be 15% incline and 4 miles an hour.

The fact that I had just done 4 miles an hour on the treadmill for the first time in forever seemed to be fate.

I got it in my head that maybe I could make it a minute. So I decided that unless I fell off the treadmill, I was going to stay on there for that minute no matter what.

The first 15 seconds seemed easy. Then my legs started to feel like lead. But I was so damned determined not to quit until that one minute mark had passed.

As soon as the clock passed one minute, I thought for a moment about going more and then my hip popped out (it happens quite a bit and pretty regularly during workouts). It was clearly a sign that I had done all that I could do for that challenge.

I ended up making it 1:02. That’s passed my minute goal.

The next day, the results were posted. I didn’t make the top 5 for women, but I was only 30 seconds away. And shockingly the men did not do as well as the women. On the men’s top 5, I was tied with #5!

I tried to see the lesson in this. Obviously, I shouldn’t feel defeated until I try something. But I feel like there’s something more.

I’ve been looking at these challenges as something to do for me and not to be competitive. But both weeks I have not been that far away from making the top 5 list. If I really tried to push myself and not just do it to do it, I might actually make the list soon!

So that is my intention for the challenge today. I’m going into it with the mindset of a competitor. I want to see myself closer and closer to making it onto the top 5 list. And I know that sometime soon, I will be there.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health

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Dri-Tri (or Suffering From Fear Of Missing Out)

Posted on September 23, 2014 | 1 comment

This past Sunday was a really busy day for me. I started my day with a doctor appointment (post about that to come tomorrow) and I ended my day with a shift at one of my day jobs.

I did have an appointment to get weighed in for the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge and that was squeezed in in-between my other obligations.

While I was there for my weigh-in, the first Dri-Tri was going on. The Dri-Tri was a challenge that consisted of rowing, strength workouts, and a 5K on the treadmill (or 1.5 miles for power walkers).

I originally planned on doing the Dri-Tri. It sounded awesome and even if it took me forever to finish it, I knew that I could do it. But once I saw what my schedule was like for Sunday, I realized that it was going to be impossible to do the Dri-Tri.

I wasn’t too upset at first. I figured that I would totally do the next one. And since it was happening during my weigh-in, I was able to go inside the workout room and cheer on a friend of mine who was doing it.

On Sunday, I was fine when I got there. I did my weigh-in and then waited until there was an empty treadmill next to my friend so I could go and stand next to her and cheer her on as she finished the event.

And as soon as I got in there, I had a feeling of instant regret in not figuring out how to arrange my schedule so I could do the Dri-Tri. While everyone looked exhausted when they finished, they also looked so happy. And I wanted that too.

I stayed in there until everyone had finished and was getting ready to walk back to my car when I was asked if I wouldn’t mind taking the group photo so they could post it on Facebook. I was happy to help out.

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I’ve never felt such regret in not doing something. I’ve missed parties, movies, and other events because I couldn’t attend or I just didn’t feel like it. And I’ve always been ok with my decision. But this time, I still can’t shake the feeling that I was meant to do this event.

I know that there will be another one, and there’s no question that I’ll do it (and my dad might come down to do it too). But I’ll always know that I missed the first one.

Hopefully this feeling of missing out and regret will go away after I complete my own Dri-Tri.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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