Tag Archives: progress

Surprising Myself (or Maybe Progress Is Faster The Second Time)

Posted on July 16, 2018 | 1 comment

Last week I blogged about how I finally got back on the treadmill after 7 weeks of only using the bike during my workouts. That was a huge accomplishment for me not only because I knew my endurance would be lower than before but because I was terrified that walking would be so difficult for me. I didn’t want to feel disappointed or frustrated with myself and I knew that was going to happen. I would have to take time making progress and I’m not the most patient person. But this past week of workouts, I made progress that I wasn’t expecting to happen for a while.

Monday’s workout was a power switch day, so I was excited to try to see what I could do on the treadmill. We were never on the treadmill for more than 5 minutes so it was a good day to work on my speed and not feel too overwhelmed. But we switched so much that I was exhausted because the workout was crazy!

When I was on the treadmill, I used my slower speed for my base pace and my normal speed for my push and all out paces with the inclines all being my normal inclines. It was a bit tough at times to keep the speed up, but it was feeling easier than it had before so I know there was progress. It was very limited treadmill time compared to other switch days because even though this was a 2 group class we were using the treadmill, rowers, and floor sections.

When I was on the rower, it was always the same thing with rounds of 30 second all out rows with 15 seconds of recovery. I know my rowing wasn’t my best, but it was nice knowing that all the rowing was going to be 30 seconds because that goes by so quickly.

But the craziest section to me was when we were on the floor. We had a mix of timed exercises and counting the reps but they were equally hard. In the timed sections we always had just one thing to do. One block was squats with front presses using the medicine ball. Another block was skater lunges. And the last timed block was frogger squats. The timed work was always 30 seconds of work with 15 seconds of recovery but the recovery felt like nothing! In the other blocks we had things like chest presses, push-ups, and sit-ups.

About halfway through this workout, I felt like I was done. I thought it was just me from being so tired from the heat. But I asked a friend who was working out at the station next to me and he agreed that this workout was one of the tougher ones we had done. I think the combination of the quick switches, power moves, and lack of rest really made this hard. But I was glad I did it and as always felt so accomplished when class was done.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and was supposed to be a workout to prepare us for when we have a 12 minute distance run again. I’m nowhere near ready to do a distance run, so I knew this workout was going to be more of a focus of just trying to get my endurance back.

The first block on the treadmill was a 5 1/2 minute distance run, a 90 second recovery, and another 5 1/2 minute distance run. We were supposed to be in a push pace during the distance run sections, and I did have my incline at the push incline I normally use. But I just knew that I couldn’t do my normal speed for that amount of time yet so I just did the entire thing at my slower speed. I was a bit disappointed in myself because I probably should have at least tried, but I could just feel it in my body that I was not going to be able to do it. The second treadmill block was 3 rounds of 1 minute push paces and 90 second base paces with an all out pace at the end. Again, I did my inclines like normal but used the slower speed.

On the floor, the first block was split up with a row in the middle. We had rounds of bridge rows and tricep extensions on the straps first and then a 300 meter row. Then we had ab dolly knee tuck and rollouts after. And the second block started with a 600 meter row and then we had more ab dolly work and swimmers. My floor work wasn’t my strongest, but I think that was because none of it involved weights and that’s when I’ve been doing my best. But I need to learn how to push myself more with body weight work too.

Friday was where I made my huge progress. I saw that the workout was going to have lots of 30 second all out paces. This format was similar to what the workout was like the first time I tried running. It was a little different with some of the all out paces being after a push pace, but there were plenty of all out paces that were right before and after a walking recovery. Even though I just got back to the treadmill, I thought this would be the perfect chance to test out running. I was a bit terrified that I was pushing myself too much, but I told myself that I could always stop running if it didn’t feel right.

There were 3 blocks and they all started with a 2 minute push pace followed by a 30 second all out which I walked at my slower speed. Then we had 3 different 30 second all outs sandwiched between the walking. And I decided to go for it and run. I ran at my old running speed and was surprised how it didn’t feel as difficult to get back to running as it did to get back to walking. The third 30 second all out each block was tough because I was getting tired, but not anything like I thought it would be.

I couldn’t believe that I was running again. I hadn’t really run at all since the end of last year and I was only back on the treadmill for a week and a half before trying running. And I really wasn’t expecting to be able to do this for at least a month or so. But I guess when I’m coming back to something I had done before, it was easier than when I started the first time.

After the running on the treadmill, I was ready to move to the floor. The workout was a Friday the 13th theme so all the floor moves were either 13 or 26 reps. It was one long block with adding on exercises to start and then taking away exercises after that. And each round had a 30 second all out row as well. The exercises were hop overs, triceps with weights, bench sit-ups to squats, and burpees. The hop overs were tough and my legs were feeling like bricks. And I knew there was no way I could do 13 burpees. So I decided to do modified burpees with putting my hands on the end of the bench instead of the ground. And with having that extra leverage with not being totally parallel to the ground, I was able to hop my feet out and back instead of stepping back! That was another thing I wasn’t expecting to be able to do.

After my huge progress on Friday, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect on Saturday. And when I saw it was a strength based run/row day I was still a bit unsure. But I decided that working on my running progress was going to be a priority to I didn’t do any of the incline work. We had 4 blocks that all started on the rower and then had a run for distance until time was called. The first row was 400 meters and each block went down 100 meters so we had more time on the treadmill each block. I went with my old interval training with 30 seconds of running and 1 minute of walking for my running plan. But because of the timing of everything, I usually ended up running for a bit longer at the end of each block. I even had a block where I ran for almost a minute! That was pushing it a bit much for me, but it just proved to me that my progress was going to be easier than I thought.

On the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was lunges with weights, chest fly with weights, and ab work. I did both the lunges and chest fly work with 25lb weights which is higher than I was doing before. I figured I needed to make up for the strength work on the floor since I didn’t do it on the treadmill. And the second block had deadlifts, bicep curls, hip bridges, and side plank dips. For my deadlifts I used 30lb weights (instead of my usual 20lb), for my biceps I used 20lb weights (instead of my usual 15lb), and for my hip bridges I used one of the 30lb weights (I don’t really have a usual for this since I am newer to using weights for this move). I love how much stronger I am than I thought and it still makes me so happy when I get to walk over to the heavy weight rack to pick up heavy weights.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to have this much progress this past week. I thought the week before was the huge thing with getting back on the treadmill. But I guess I underestimated myself and I’m proving that I really can do it. I don’t know how long it will take me to get back to running like I was doing before. I’ve learned now not to set plans for myself. I am a bit worried about how I will feel running when I will be nauseous (which will probably be happening this week or next), but again I’m just going to listen to my body and do what feels right. My body was telling me I could run again when my brain was telling me not to. I’m glad I listened to my body.

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Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, running, workout

Finally A Power Walker Again (or The First Steps Toward Running Again)

Posted on July 9, 2018 | 1 comment

Sometimes when I set a goal by writing it on here, it really gives me the extra push to try to do it. I hate when I set out to do something and say it publicly and it doesn’t happen. And last week I said on here that I wanted to at least try to get back onto the treadmill. It had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill and I was a bit scared to take the step to get back on again. But I said I was going to do it and I’m so glad that I can say that I did it!

Monday’s workout was a strength based class. When I saw that I figured that since it would be incline work on the treadmill that I would just use the bike. But I realized that I needed to just jump in and try. Worst case, I could go to the bike partway through the workout, but I should at least start on the treadmill.

We were on the treadmill for the first half of class and there were 4 blocks during that time. All of the blocks were about progressive push paces, but 2 of them were about increasing speed and 2 of them were about increasing inclines. I decided to just do the same thing for all 4 blocks to keep it simple for myself. I started at 4% incline (my usual base incline) and every minute I went up 1% so I ended at 8% for the 30 second all out (which is the incline I’m usually at for all outs). I started slow on the treadmill and went up to my normal speed, but during that first block it was feeling a bit too fast so I went down .1mph. I was able to maintain that for those first 3 blocks and for the last one I went back to my normal speed to push myself. It wasn’t easy and I had to take breaks to catch my breath, but I did it! My distance wasn’t anything amazing, but considering it had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill I didn’t care what I did as long as I did it!

When I got to the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lateral lunges with weights, overhead triceps with weights, weighted crunches, and a 200 meter row. I was using 30lb weights for my lunges and triceps (heavier than I normally would do!) and a 12lb weight for my crunches. And the second block was deadlifts and chest presses with weights with another 200 meter row. And I stuck with the 30lb weights for the work which made me so happy! The chest presses were a bit tough, but I knew I could do it since I did during the Orange X workout. My 200 meter row did get a bit faster from the first block to the second block. I was still off of what I know I could do, but since I had used the treadmill plus used heavier weights I wasn’t expecting my row to be anything spectacular.

I didn’t have to work on Wednesday because of the holiday, but when I was scheduling my workouts for the month I wasn’t thinking about that so I was in my usual early morning class. I would have loved to have slept in a bit that morning, but it was probably for the best for me to keep my usual schedule. And this class was a special 4th of July themed workout where we had the freedom to choose what we wanted to do on the rower and on the treadmill and it was a 3 group workout.

On the treadmill, we had the option to either do intervals with increasing incline or with increasing distances. Since I was still getting back into being on the treadmill I went with increasing distances. I was doing all of my intervals at my base pace incline and at .1mph slower than my normal speed. It started at .05 miles for the power walkers, then .08, and then .1 miles. We were supposed to keep increasing the distances but I was struggling a bit with my endurance so I just kept doing intervals at .1 miles each time with the walking recovery between. I could feel myself getting more comfortable on the treadmill as the time went on, but I know I still have a way to go.

On the rower, we started with a 100 meter row and then 7 frogger squats. Then we could choose if we wanted to increase the rowing distance by 50 meters each time or if we wanted to add 2 frogger squats each time. I went with the longer rowing just because I wanted the cardio time. My rowing at the beginning was pretty standard for me with how high the wattage was and the time it took me to get to the distance. As it went on, I was getting a bit slower but I was never that much slower than normal. I ended up rowing about 1800 meters by the end of the block before I moved to the floor.

The floor didn’t have choices, but we did have one block of timed exercises and one block where we had an assigned number of reps. For the timed exercises, we had lunges using the bench, jump lunges, and heel touch crunches. I wasn’t feeling too stable so I wasn’t using the bench for my lunges and I can’t do jump lunges. So I did them as weighted lunges and regular lunges. My legs were feeling dead after all the lunges! The second block was pull ups on the straps, rollouts on the straps, and then sit-ups until the class ended. It was a hard class, but a good type of hard. Plus, I wanted to work hard before I was lazy at a BBQ that afternoon.

Friday’s class was a strength based workout and I was a bit worried about using the treadmill since we were going to be doing cardio for the first half of class without switching. But I realized that I just needed to do it and use modifications because I am done with making excuses for myself.

We had 3 blocks that had the same format. We had a long base at an incline, a 1 minute base at a flat incline, a 1 minute base at an incline, a 1 minute base on flat incline, and then a 1 minute push to 30 second all out pace at a flat incline. Each block had a different time for the first push and the inclines were supposed to increase as the time went down. But I really kept things basic for me and used my regular push incline of 6% for all the incline work except for the 30 second all outs that I did at 8%. And my speed was still .1mph slower than I normally do. I will start testing the speed thing a bit, but this workout didn’t really seem like the right time to do that. Just like before, I had some struggles with my endurance, but I noticed a slight improvement over the other days.

But I really loved the floor work! After the Orange X workout, I really have a better idea of how strong I am and what I can do. The first block had single arm low rows and bench pullovers. I used 35lbs (just like I did for the Orange X workout) for the rows and 30lb for the pullovers. I thought about trying the heavier weight for the pullovers, but I wasn’t able to get a strong enough grip on the weight to feel ok with having it over my face. The second block was hip hinge reverse low rows and bicep curls and I did 20lbs for both of those. And the last block was Turkish half getups and bicycles. I started using a 15lb weight for the half getups, but it was a bit too heavy so I used 12lbs after that. But for that, we were told we didn’t have to use a weight so to use anything is awesome! For all the floor blocks, we also rowed at the end if we completed all the exercises and I did make it to the rower for the first and second block.

Saturday was a rough day for me. First, I was dealing with some issues because of the insane heat we had here (more on that tomorrow). I was exhausted, feeling a bit heat sick, and just not myself. But I knew that the a/c at Orangetheory would be way better than my window unit so I looked at my workout as my a/c break.

It was an endurance day and we had 3 blocks on the treadmill with similar formats. Each block had a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 1 minute push pace, and a 30 second all out pace. The difference in the blocks was how long each base pace was. At Thursday’s workout, there was a goal to increase our base paces, but for me I really am just trying to get back to my old base pace. So what I ended up doing was my old base pace for all the push and all out paces (at 6% and 8% incline) and my slower base pace as the base pace speed. It was not easy doing the 90 seconds at the normal speed, but I did make it through and it’s giving me hope that I’ll be back to my old base pace soon. I think I’ll just have to keep doing this type of plan to ease myself back into that speed.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first block was with the mini bands. We had walk outs using the bands and then squats with single leg lifts. I’m getting much better at using the mini bands and I was even able to balance better doing the single leg lifts. But my heat exhaustion was starting to catch up with me on the floor and I had to sit down and get myself together. It was a bit frustrating because I knew this had nothing to do with my endurance but an outside issue. But I just took my time because I didn’t want to feel worse.

The second block started with a 500 meter row. I would have loved to have finished in under 2 minutes, but I was at 2:08. Considering the heat issues, I was pretty happy with myself. That block also had squat bench taps where I used 2 20lb weights and sit-ups. And the last block was lunges and single leg v-ups. I was pretty happy with doing the ab work because it gave me time to lay down and try to cool down a bit.

After 7 weeks of not using the treadmill, I’m still a bit surprised that I was able to do 4 workouts with it! And it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I knew a lot of the worry was in my head, but I needed to prove it to myself. It’s still going to be a while before I’m back to where I was before. I’m hoping in the next month or two to try testing running again by doing the 30 second all out paces as a run (just like how I started). But for now, I’m just happy that I’m almost back to my old power walking self and I’m on the path to make more progress again!

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Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, treadmill, walking, workout

Continuing My Progress (or Still Pushing Through)

Posted on June 18, 2018 | Comments Off

After having some great workouts the week before, I was really excited to see what could be done this past week of workouts. I knew that there was a chance that I was going to start feeling nauseous during the week, but I really wanted to see what would happen without setting too many expectations for myself.

My Monday workout is usually a 3 group workout even if there aren’t enough people in class to need the 3 groups. But for some reason this time it was a 2 group workout. But that was fine since we did switch between blocks so I wasn’t on the bike for too long. We also had a benchmark row challenge to do.

When I was on the bike, the blocks were pretty simple with push paces to base paces and ending with an all out pace. Even though it was a strength based day, the treadmills didn’t have much incline work so I stuck with my usual resistance levels on the bike. I did manage to do all the blocks without needing to take a water break in the middle of the block which was nice. I also was doing almost all of my bike time sitting up in the seat instead of leaning over the handlebars which does help add a little bit of core work to the biking.

On the floor, the first block had the benchmark row. It was a 500 meter row and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to beat my current PR. I wasn’t being pessimistic, I was being realistic. I knew I’d be coughing while on the rower and that my endurance is still lower than normal. But I wanted to get as close as possible to my PR and to row without taking a break. When I was done, I was about 10 seconds slower than my PR which isn’t too bad considering the issues I’ve been having. After the row we also had ab work to finish that block. In the other floor blocks, we had mini band work doing toe taps and squat walks plus a lot of single arm work using weights.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day and I was excited to see what distance I could get on the bike. The cardio work was technically 1 long block, but it was broken up into 5 minute segments plus a walking recovery. Each segment was a 3 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute all out, and then the walking recovery. Since I knew it was endurance work, I stuck with my usual resistance levels and just tried to pedal a bit faster than normal. Each of the 3 minute push paces felt like they took forever, but I made it through them. And the only times I took a water break was during the walking recovery. I didn’t get my furthest distance on the bike, but it was very close to my furthest which I had done the week before.

The floor was also 1 long block but also broken up into different segments. The first segment was squats using weights, bicep curls with weights, shoulder presses with weights, and a row. The row started at 300 meters and you did the exercises for 3 rounds with the row going down each time (so after the second round it was 200 meters and after the third round it was 100 meters). Then it moved to 3 rounds of squats, pop jacks, and the same rowing pattern.

Usually with pop jacks (or burpees), I step my feet back and step them back up since I can’t do the jumping motion. I don’t know why I decided to try it, but I discovered in this class that I can jump my feet back! This is the first time I’ve been able to do this ever and it was really exciting! I still need to step my feet back up, but I’m 50% toward doing the exercise without a modification! There was another group of exercises after that, but I didn’t make it that far. But that’s ok because I was happier taking the time to do the pop jacks than to rush through them to get to the last set of exercises.

Friday’s workout was a signature workout for Orangetheory. It was the Everest workout. That means that you are on the treadmill for 23 minutes starting at 2% incline. Every minute you go up 1% until you get to 15% and then you start going down 2% each minute. I’ve done this workout a few times, but doing it on the bike was a different beast for me.

I started the bike resistance at what my normal base resistance is at 6 (my normal push is 8 and my normal all out is usually 10 but sometimes 12). Later I thought this might be a mistake, but it ended up working out ok for me. Every minute I increased the resistance by 1 and for a while it was fine. Even when I got a little above my usual all out resistance I was still feeling good. Then at about 14 it started to feel like I was pedaling through jello or something. I didn’t think I could keep going higher but I was determined to do it. 18, 19, and 20 were impossible resistances and I was barely moving but I was still going. When we finally started to decrease it, I was happy but it took until getting to about 14 again before it felt normal. And when we were done, I was so ready to get off the bike to stretch out my legs!

The first block on the floor was chest presses with weights, hammer curls with weights, squats with weights, and then a 250 meter row. I usually use the same weights for chest presses and squats, but go down to the next weights for my hammer curls. But I couldn’t find any 15 lb weights to do my hammer curls with so I had to use the 20 lb ones. I know my form on my hammer curls wasn’t the best, but I just tried to take my time and broke up the set into smaller sets. I probably would use 15 lb weights again since I prefer to have good form and not feel like I’m swinging my body, but it was a good challenge. And the second block was plank low rows with weights, tricep extensions, and leg raises. The leg raises were definitely a challenge on my hips (and after doing all the high resistance work on the bike my hips were not doing so great), so when I was doing the second round of all the exercises I ended up doing crunches instead. But it still felt like a pretty victorious workout!

After the Everest workout, I knew I’d have to go a little easier on Saturday. On the cardio, we had 5 blocks. Each block started with a 90 second push pace and ended with a 1 minute all out. The second and fourth blocks had a 1 minute base pace in the middle and the third block had a 1 minute base and a 1 minute push pace in the middle. I went back to my usual resistance levels on the bike and I was getting more tired than I had in the past few days. I figured that was due to the hard work the day before and didn’t push myself too much to allow myself to recover.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was 3 rounds of rowing with arm raises using the mini-bands and then plank arm raises and crunches. The second block was lateral raises using weights and mountain climbers. And the last block was bench sit-ups to squats, hop overs, and more rowing. I tried to go hard on the rowing in the first and last blocks, but I was getting burned out pretty quickly and having issues with catching my breath so I had to take it down a bit.

I feel really lucky that I wasn’t nauseous much during this past week of workouts. I had a few brief moments where I questioned if I needed my medications, but they passed quickly and I was able to get back without any issues. This week is also another potentially nauseous one so I’m a bit hesitant about what will happen. I would love to be optimistic and say that I won’t be nauseous at all, but I know realistically the I just have to expect the worse while hoping for the best.

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Continuing To Get Better (or Still Finding Wins In My Workouts)

Posted on June 11, 2018 | Comments Off

I’ve been using the bike for my workouts for a while now and I’ve finally started to be able to find my groove as far as challenging myself goes. I’ve had a few different ideas with challenges on the bike and this past week I was able to try them out in my workouts.

I was feeling excited for Monday’s workout with how things went the previous week. I did still have to fight the little voice in my head telling me to try the treadmill because I knew that I shouldn’t. But it was extra tempting because not only was it a power day (which means short push or all out paces), but it was a 3 group workout so the time on the treadmill was shorter than a 2 group class.

I ended up started the workout on the rower and the rower and treadmill workout were actually the same. There were 5 little blocks within the block that were push to all out paces with walking recovery in-between. All of the all out paces were 30 seconds and the push paces started at 30 seconds and went up 15 seconds each time. And for the rower, we did push to all out rows with recovery rows in-between. That meant we would be rowing for 14 minutes. I would have loved to have been able to do that without stopping, but that just wasn’t going to happen. I did limit my breaks to when we had recovery time, but I did have to take a break during each recovery. I had a goal in my head for how many meters I would have liked to have rowed (which was much lower than what I know I could do normally), but I didn’t make it to that goal.

For the treadmill time, I was on the bike and all I wanted to do was see if I could go a majority of the time without needing a break. I stuck with my normal resistances for the push and all out time and during the recovery time I was at my base resistance. Doing that made me realize that I probably could work on increasing my resistance on the bike. I haven’t been doing that since these levels were what I had been using before I was sick, but before I was sick I wasn’t working on the bike as often as I have lately. So this is proof that I’m getting stronger even if my endurance is still down a bit. During the 14 minutes on the bike, I only took 2 breaks and that was because I needed a drink of water. I’m not coordinated enough to drink water and pedal at the same time, but maybe I’ll get there one day!

And the floor was one long block with pull ups on the straps, squat swings using weights, lunges, and squats using weights. I was using my normal weights for the weighted work but it was a little bit of a struggle. I know that I push myself harder on the bike to prove that I’m getting better and that is causing my floor work to not be as strong. I could try doing the floor work first, but to be honest I love my routine and I really don’t know if I want to change it. But even with the floor work not being excellent, it was still good and I was using what I used before I was sick. Using my normal floor work weights is awesome and I don’t have to prove to myself right now that I could do better than that. I do need to keep working on increasing my weights to get stronger, but it doesn’t have to be my focus while I’m also focusing on getting my endurance back.

Wednesday was Global Running Day and Orangetheory had a workout designed for that. It was a 23 minute run for distance and as much as I would have liked to have seen if I could get anywhere close to what I was able to do in the past, I knew this was not meant to be my first workout back on the treadmill. So I decided to use this workout to see what I could do as far as endurance goes on the bike. We also had distance goals to hit that corresponded to various ribbon colors, but based on what the distance was I pretty much knew even before starting what ribbon I’d be at so I wasn’t too worried about that. I just wanted to see how long I could be on the bike before taking a break.

Since it was 23 minutes straight, my original idea was I wanted to wait until at least 10 minutes went by before taking a break. I felt pretty certain that I could do this as far as needing a breathing or coughing break, but since I need to take a break to drink water too I wasn’t totally sure I wouldn’t need water in the first 10 minutes. But since I set that goal in my head, I made it just past 10 minutes before taking my first water break. I went another 8 minutes before my next one. And the entire 23 minutes I never needing a breathing or coughing break. I was really happy with how well I did and when I finished I totally forgot that I set the resistance to be at my push pace resistance at the beginning and never changed it! So I did the entire thing as a push pace!

The floor was 3 blocks and I knew that they would be a bit tough after the cardio. The first block was using the mini-bands for plank work as well as hammer curls plus bench sit-ups to squats. The second block was a 4 minute distance row. I did get over 800 meters which was what we were supposed to at least get to, but I know that in better circumstances I could have done much better. And the last block was upright rows using weights, ab dolly knee tucks, lateral arm raises using weights, and rollouts using the ab dolly. The last block got really tough and I was coughing a lot, but I just took the time I needed to recover before moving on with the workout.

After a big endurance workout on Wednesday, I was glad that Friday was a power day. I’ve got it in my head that I’m going to stick with the bike for at least a little bit longer so even though this could have been a good day on the treadmill I was on the bike. Every block was 4.5 minutes and there were 4 blocks on each side.

The first 3 blocks on cardio were a similar format with a push pace, a base pace, and then a push to all out pace. The difference was that the first push got shorter and the second push and all out pace got longer each block. It was pretty easy for me to not worry about taking a break during each block since they were short and I tried to keep my water breaks between blocks short so I wasn’t taking too much time away from pedaling. The last block was 4 all out paces with walking recovery between and that was the block that I struggled with. I was having a pretty horrible coughing fit during that entire block and it wasn’t getting better with drinking water. I did have to take breaks during each recovery to try to get whatever was caught in my throat out, but whatever it was wasn’t leaving and I finished cardio still coughing up a storm.

The floor was also 4 blocks, but the last block was a rowing one. The first block was single arm snatches with weights and speed skater lunges. The second block was pull-ups on the straps and sit-ups with rotations. And the third block was high rows on the straps and bench hop overs. My coughing was continuing during the floor and I was having to take breaks to let it pass. I started to cough so much I was getting a bit nauseous, but it was mild compared to what I normally have to deal with. The last block was rowing with the same pattern as the treadmills with the 4 all out rows with recovery rows in-between. My rowing was ok, but it wasn’t that strong and my form was getting a bit sloppy. I was trying to slow down to make sure my form was better and not worrying about the distance, but I just struggled. It wasn’t the best way to end a workout, but I was glad I got through it considering how much difficulty I had with all the coughing and the issues with breathing.

Saturday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power based and I had my friend Elizabeth in class with me. We hadn’t been in a class together for a while so it was nice to have her there. And she decided to try using the bike with me so that was an added bonus for me since it’s sometimes a bit lonely being alone on the bike. There were 3 blocks on the treadmill and the first and third blocks were both challenges for distance. Both blocks had some push and all out paces plus a 3 minute distance challenge. For the distance challenge, I used my push pace resistance and was just able to beat my distance the second time I did it. I biked further during this class than I had in any other class and that was awesome. I’ve gotten used to the patterns I have on the bike so I can see when I’m making improvements.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks as well. The first two blocks had a focus with using the BOSU ball. We had running men, kneeling shoulder presses, crunches, plank jacks, sit-ups, and hip bridges using it. I wasn’t able to use the BOSU for the plank jacks, but I did for everything else. I usually don’t try doing hip work on it because I like having more stability for hip work, but I tried it and while it did take me longer to do the set I was able to do it. The last block was a 750 meter row which I did just under my time goal and then chest presses and rollouts using the straps.

Overall, this past week of workouts had a lot of successes for me. There were moments where I had moments of wanting to skip the bike and test myself on the treadmill, but I’m glad I didn’t because I still struggle with getting over this cold. And being forced to use the bike for as long as I have is really giving me an idea of goals to have when I use the bike in the future. I am looking at reorganizing how I track workout records on my own and I think I really do need to add a bike category so I can track my progress.

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Tagged bike, fitness, improvement, Orangetheory, progress, success, workout

Finally Gaining Endurance (or Finding Little Victories)

Posted on June 4, 2018 | Comments Off

Mentally, I’ve been ready to get back to the treadmill in my workouts for a while. But physically, I’m just not there yet. I feel like I could do it, but then on the bike I realize that I’m still struggling a bit. I know this all comes down to my endurance. Between taking time off for being sick and the fact that I haven’t really done any running since the beginning of the year, my endurance is significantly lower than where it was before this all happened. Fortunately, I think it’s still much better than it was when I started, but I have to work on getting it back and that’s what I focused on this past week.

Even though Monday was a holiday, I still wanted to do my same morning workout. The workout schedule was a bit different so my class was a little earlier than I’m used to, but since I’ve been going to earlier classes on Wednesday and Friday it was fine. The class was pretty full (even for a 3 group class), but it was nice to see a lot of the regular Monday morning people.

The idea for this workout was kind of choosing your own adventure for the treadmill and rower. You had 3 different options to choose from on each side to work on during the 15 minutes that we were there. For the treadmill, it was 3 different distances to choose from with different recovery times. I was on the bike and I just decided to try to bike the entire time with my push resistance. I was doing a bit better as far as how long I could go without needing to take a break, but I could still tell that I was lacking in endurance. But biking for that time did feel good and I wasn’t feeling too tired by the time I was on the rower.

The rower had 3 different distances to choose from with jumping jacks. The longest distance was 2000 meters and you only had jumping jacks when you were done. The other distances were shorter but had jumping jacks before repeating the row. Just like with the bike, I decided to just try to row the entire block to see what I could do. Normally, I could do 2000 meters in under 10 minutes, but this time I couldn’t even get it done in 15 minutes. I was taking breaks every 200-300 meters to catch my breath and to cough. I would have loved to have completed the row (even though I didn’t want to do jumping jacks), but I’m glad this format at least let me work on rowing for the entire block without worrying too much.

On the floor, everything we had were timed exercises. In the first block, we had lateral arm work with weights and high rows on the straps. We had 3 rounds of those before moving to the next block where we had plank rows and triceps on the straps. Again we had 3 rounds of that before the last block which was 1 minute of goblet squats using weight. It was a tough workout but I was glad that I had to opportunity to work on my endurance in class.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength based class. Before I knew it was a strength class, I debated about trying the treadmill but ended up on the bike again since I didn’t want to try working with inclines. There were 3 blocks and the first 2 blocks were a similar pattern. We had 1 minute hills (the first block was increasing hills and the second block was decreasing hills) with 1 minute base pace at no incline in-between.

I stuck with my usual plan of having my resistance on the bike at the same number as the incline would be as a power walker and that was working out really well for me. I managed to do the entire first block on the bike without needing to take a break which was a big accomplishment! The last block was 1 minute intervals between base and push paces and I was using my normal resistance. But where I excelled was during the 30 second all out pace at the end of each block. I went even higher with my resistance than I normally do! It wasn’t easy, but I really wanted to do something that challenged me on the bike and doing something for 30 seconds seemed to be a reasonable amount of time.

The floor was also 3 blocks. The first block was upper cuts, deadlifts, and tricep work using weights. We were encouraged to use a weight for the deadlift that we never have before. Usually for deadlifts I’ll use 20 or 25 pounds depending on how many reps we need to do. But I decided to go for it and I tried using 30 pound weights. The only struggle with that was that my hands were hurting a bit with the heavier weight, but my legs were totally fine with it. And the second block was plank work, squat swings with weight, and alligators on the straps. For both of those blocks, we had 3 rounds of the exercises and then a 300 meter row. Both blocks I just finished the row as time was done. And the last floor block was knee tucks, ab roll outs, and hip bridges. With the hip bridges, again I used a weight I never had before and it was fine. So I really did prove to myself that I really should be using some heavier weights from time to time.

Friday’s workout was a mix of endurance, strength, and power. And again I was on the bike to see what I could do. For the cardio, we had a lot of push paces with base paces between. I really did try my best to keep pedaling through the entire block, but I did end up having to take a break during some of the base paces. I did try to get back to pedaling as quickly as possible so I wasn’t skipping the entire base pace so that was improvement. But it did remind me of how much further I did need to go before I was back to where I was.

On the floor the first block was skater lunges, high rows on the straps, and push-ups. I did to the push-ups on my toes instead of my knees because they were lower reps and that felt pretty great. The second block was a 2 minute row for distance and then bicep curls, front raises, and more push-ups. I managed to row the entire time without stopping which did make me happy. And the last block was squats, sit-ups, and more push-ups. This time I did have to do the push-ups on my knees because we had more reps, but that didn’t bring down how happy I was that I did some on my toes.

Saturday’s workout was an endurance one and I really was feeling like I was going to do great work on the bike. It also ended up being a run/row, but it was a bit less traditional than most run/rows. The first block we had a 1/2 mile run (which on the bike is a 2 mile ride) and then we rowed until time was called. I managed to do the entire biking without stopping and even though I was only on the rower for about 2 minutes I rowed without stopping. The second block started with a 800 meter row and then back to cardio until time was called. I finished my row in under 4 minutes and did it without stopping. And the last block used the distance we rowed in the first block and the distance we did on the cardio in the second block to create our own run/row format.

I was so happy with how well I did with my endurance during the workout. I know that the blocks were a bit shorter so I didn’t have to bike or row as long as I’ve had in other classes, but it’s still a victory to me! And with how frustrating it’s been lately with things, I’m taking any victory I can get. But even though I did some great work, I could still feel my lack of endurance at times. It took much longer for me to catch my breath and I felt like I was working much harder than I know I was. But it was still improvement and I’m hopeful that it will keep getting better.

On the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was low row with weights, skier swings with weights, and Y raises on the straps. We also had different plank work to do after each round. We had plank swings, plank side crunches, and plank hip dips. And the second block had flys with weights, front raises with weights, and sumo squats plus the plank work. I didn’t go too heavy on the weights because the reps were higher plus I was still catching my breath from the cardio work. But it was still easier than it had been in other recent workouts so I focused on that.

Overall, I was really happy with how this past week of workouts went. I know that getting my endurance back is still going to take more time, but it’s getting there. I’m guessing I’ll probably still be using the bike for another 3-4 weeks (I could possibly use the treadmill sooner, but that will be when I typically feel nauseous). But this past week really helped me to refocus my mindset on the positive and it felt much less frustrating than it has previously.

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Tagged endurance, improvement, Orangetheory, progress, workout

Getting Back To My Workouts (or Dealing With Not Being 100%)

Posted on May 21, 2018 | Comments Off

After having half a week of workouts off last week due to being sick, I was so ready to get back to Orangetheory! I knew at the beginning of the week that I was probably a bit weak from taking time off, but I just needed to get back to my normal routine.

On Monday I was still feeling a bit sick and knew my workout was going to have to be a light one with much less intensity than I’m used to. It was a 3 group strength workout, but to be honest my focus on the workout was just to get through it.

I used the bike instead of the treadmill and I really didn’t focus at all at what we were supposed to be doing as far as incline/resistance. I kept my bike at what it usually my base pace resistance and never moved it from that during the 15 minutes I was on it. I had to take breaks to catch my breath or to cough probably every 2-3 minutes, but even doing the bike for 2 minutes was exhausting me. It was shocking how out of shape I felt, but I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t necessarily being out of shape but still dealing with being sick.

Next I was on the rower where we had rowing and shoulder exercises. We started with a 500 meter row and did decreasing rows for the first half and then for the second half started at 100 meter rows that increased. Between each row, we used the mini-bands on our wrists to strengthen our shoulders. Just like on the bike, I had to take breaks during the rows. I would have loved to have done each row without a break, but I knew that was not going to happen. But I just tried to focus on the fact that I was there instead of what I wasn’t able to do.

And for the last part of class I was on the floor where we had 2 blocks. The first block was squats with weights, hip bridges, deadlifts, and side plank leg lifts. I used lighter weights than normal for my squats and deadlifts and they still felt heavy for me. The hip bridges were a bit tough because of my nose being stuffed up, but I still was able to do them and used a weight during them as well. And in the second block we had the mini-bands on our legs to do suitcase squats with a weight and squat walks. While these were a bit easier for me to breathe during, they were still tough for me to do and I had to take several breaks. This workout was far from being one of my great ones, but it felt great to be back and to be getting back to my normal life.

I was still feeling a bit congested on Wednesday, but I was definitely on my way to getting better. But I still needed to work on my endurance and getting back to normal so I stuck with the bike. This workout was a mix of endurance and power but for my time on the bike I didn’t really focus on that. I again just stuck with the resistance I use as my base resistance on the bike normally and tried to go as long as I could without taking a break. I still needed breaks every few minutes, but it wasn’t as often as I needed them on Monday. Technically we had 5 blocks, 3 as power blocks and 2 as endurance blocks, but I didn’t worry about that since I just wanted to work on my cardio and getting myself to where I was before I was sick.

On the floor, during the 3 blocks that were power based we had rowing blocks. The first 2 blocks were 150 meter rows with squats between each row and the last row was 30 seconds of a push row and 30 seconds of an all out row. For the 150 meter rows, I just worked on not needing a break and fortunately I was able to do that. And for the push and all out row, I just rowed. For the endurance blocks on the floor, the first block was chest presses while laying on the Bosu, sit-ups on the Bosu, and Y-raises using the straps. And the second block was lunges while holding a weight and triceps using a weight. I was so happy to be back to using a weight that I would normally use. I did have to take some breaks to catch my breath or to cough to clear my lungs (I knew I sounded gross but I warned people near me about that), but it was much closer to normal for me than I was expecting.

I was still working on getting better on Friday, plus I saw that the workout was going to be strength based, so I was on the bike again. But even though I go a bit easier on the bike, I did take it up a step compared to the past 2 workouts. I did increase my resistance for push pace, all out pace, and incline times. But I didn’t do a ton of variation with the resistance. I used the same resistance for my push pace resistance and all inclines. I didn’t want to push things too much. But I did increase it more than that for the all out resistance. It’s baby steps towards being back to my normal self. And while it is slower than I would like or expected, at least I am seeing some progress.

On the floor, we had 3 blocks. The first block was mini-band work. We had squats with single leg lifts and lateral squat walks. I was happy that I was able to do both with less difficulty than expected. The single leg lifts aren’t easy and with being congested I was worried I’d have very little balance, but that wasn’t the case. I did have to take more breaks than I would have liked during the block, but I’ve learned that will just be the case while I work on getting better. The second block was bicycle chest presses, lateral raises, and lunges. I was using slightly lighter weights than normal and I struggled with the bicycle presses since I was on my back and it was a little bit more difficult to breathe. But again, I pushed through and did better than expected. We ended with a 4 minute core blast which was definitely not one of my best core blasts. I was tired and starting to realize that I might have overdone it a bit earlier in the workout. But I did what I could and still felt impressed and happy when the workout was done.

On Saturday, I was feeling a little bit better but also was a bit sore from going hard at Friday’s workout. So even though this workout was a power based one that was a run/row and it would be ideal to test myself on the treadmill, I stuck with the bike. It was tough to not do the treadmill when I was feeling like seeing what would happen, but I just kept reminding myself that by doing the bike I was going to be able to be back to the treadmill sooner instead of getting sick again.

The run/row for me started with 3 rounds of .4 miles on the bike. After the first round I had a 300 meter row, the second round had a 200 meter row, and the last round had a 100 meter row. The second block had the same row pattern but the bike distance was .6 miles. I was using similar resistance levels to what I was using on Friday but I was able to pedal faster which helped me work harder. And when I had the rowing everything was under the time goal. I even managed to get within 1 second of my 100 meter row PR! I was not expecting that at all.

When I got to the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was low rows on the straps, crunches, and plank punches. But between each of the exercises we had a round of lunges. And the second block was tricep work on the straps, toe reaches, and mountain climbers with speed skaters between each exercise. I started the first block going pretty fast through everything. I even was using a weight on my chest during the crunches which was something extra. But when I got to the second block, my breathing issues kicked in. I had to take a ton of breaks to cough and catch my breath. I still got through everything, but I struggled. But in the end, I still did better than I had done in the previous workout. And that’s all I can hope for right now.

I honestly think I may end up being on the bike for a longer time than I thought. I’m still dealing with congestion and being short of breath. If this doesn’t go away in a few more weeks I’ll go to the doctor, but I know that with a cold it can take a few weeks to have all symptoms go away. But until I feel better, the bike is the safer option for me and I’m able to be a little bit easier on myself. But at least I’m back at my workouts and I am seeing progress and improvement. I’m just ready to be back to my normal self already!

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Tagged bike, fitness, Orangetheory, progress, sick, workout

Trying To Make A 5K Plan (or Maybe This Is The Motivation I’m Missing)

Posted on November 8, 2017 | 1 comment

I’ve been feeling a bit stuck (or even going backwards) in my running lately. It’s unfortunate that I’ve been feeling like that because I have made some amazing progress. But things like getting sick or having a weird schedule have been affecting me more than I would like. I want to get back into making awesome progress with my running, but I don’t know what it will take.

You might have also noticed that I haven’t written about doing a 5K in a while. I usually have a race around this time of year, but I actually won’t be doing one. The race that I normally do was supposed to be last month but then it never happened. It was very odd because it was promoted as a certain date but you couldn’t register for it. And then the week it was supposed to happen they announced it wouldn’t be happening. I wasn’t thinking I would be doing this race since there was nothing about it online, but it was still a disappointment when it didn’t happen.

And I haven’t signed up for the race that I usually do in the spring yet. That race has always been a 5K, 10K, and half marathon. But we got an email earlier this year that the race was merging with another race and it now appears that there are only options to do a 10K or half marathon. It’s also more expensive now. So I’m not sure what I want to do about that.

I’ve never done a 10K but I’ve been considering it. But I said I would want to do a 10K as a Disney race because that would be extra motivation to work hard. And then Disney announced that there won’t be any races coming up at Disneyland because of the construction happening. So there went that idea.

It’s weird to not have any 5Ks in my future. There are a few other races I’ve done in the past that I’m thinking about doing toward the end of this year or sometime next year, but it’s not the same as the tradition that I’ve had for the past few years. But I really think I need to get back into doing races because I think that is what I need to do to get my running back to where it was.

When I have a race that I’m getting ready for, I’m so competitive with myself. I always want to PR on a race and I know that I have to work really hard in my treadmill workouts to do that. Plus, then I also go out and do running workout on my own. Right now, I don’t feel the sense of urgency that I have in the past and maybe that is allowing me to be a bit lazy in my workouts. As much as I want to blame not feeling well, I have to remember that one of my last 5Ks was right after I had been at the hospital for the day with horrible stomach pains (which helped to lead me to discover I have the liver tumors). If I could have an amazing race after being in the hospital, then I can work on my treadmill workouts after feeling sick.

If I had a race that I was working toward, I would push myself to work harder in my workouts because I know what I have to be able to do to match what I’ve done in the past and I usually push myself to do more than that. I have a goal in mind that I’m working toward and I didn’t realize before how important that is for me in my workouts. I really need another race to know is coming up to keep me accountable and working hard. Otherwise, I can take it easy but still feel like I’m doing a good job because I’m there for my workouts.

I need to look at my schedule to see what 5Ks I could possibly do and which ones aren’t too expensive. And I am going to think about doing that 10K in April but I’m really torn if I think I’m ready for that or not. But the planning needs to start happening because if I don’t then these races will happen and I won’t be a part of them. And as hard as it is to believe, I think I actually miss doing 5Ks. They have been a part of my life for a while and it feels weird not to be doing them or having more medals to add to my collection. Hopefully I can figure out a plan to keep doing them so that I don’t feel like something is missing in my workout life.

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Tagged 5K, fitness, progress, race, running, setback

Finishing Hell Week (or I Need To Get Back To Running)

Posted on November 6, 2017 | 1 comment

After doing 4 Hell Week workouts the week prior, this past week I only had to do 1 more Hell Week workout in order to earn my shirt. Even though I was tired from having my first 5 workout week, I knew this past week I wanted to stay on track and do a 4 workout week. It’s nice that 4 workouts a week is becoming so normal to me, but I’ll admit that I think that after a 5 workout week I probably should have taken things a bit easier.

Monday’s workout was the final Hell Week workout for me (there was another Hell Week class on Tuesday, but I wasn’t going to be working out on Tuesday). This time the class was called Inclines Of Death. I was prepared for this to possibly be the hardest of the Hell Week classes, but I think I lucked out by having this class be a 3 group workout. It wasn’t as tough as some of the other Hell Week workouts but it was still a tough day.

I started on the floor this time, but the floor and rower people worked together (kind of like a partner workout). On the floor we had triceps, chest presses with weights, chest presses with straps, rows on the straps, hammer curls, and rows with weights. We had some of those moves and then we tagged out the person on the rower and did a 500 meter row. When we were done on the rower, we tagged the floor person and repeated things. And when it was my turn on the rower, it was the same thing as the floor except that I didn’t set the pace. So I rowed until I was tagged by the floor person and I did the floor work until the rower tagged me.

The last rotation for me was on the treadmill which was all inclines. Because I had done so much on the floor and the rower my body was not really too happy to be on the treadmill. I ended up walking everything at a much slower speed than I’m used to. The format for the treadmill was to go up 1% every 30 seconds until we maxed out and then we went down 1% every 30 seconds. When we were working on decreasing the inclines I decreased it to 8% and then stayed there for the rest of the treadmill time.

I didn’t love that I ended Hell Week with a workout that wasn’t to the best of my ability, but I still completed 5 workouts and earned my Hell Week shirt. And not only was this day the day I completed Hell Week, it was also my 600th Orangetheory workout! That’s pretty amazing and I am proud of myself!

Wednesday was a run/row workout that focused on strength and power. Because of some issues traffic I got to the workout a bit later than normal and had to start on the floor instead of on the treadmill (there will be a studio opening up in a few months that will cut my commute to my workout from 30 minutes to 5 minutes and I can’t wait!). The floor was focused mainly on squats and my thighs were feeling it! We had goblet squats, regular squats, weighted squats, jump squats using the straps, and lunges to squats. We also had pull overs, jumping presses, and ab work.

After the floor, I got to work on the run/row. Usually a run/row is one long block for that half of class, but this time we had 2 blocks. The first run/row block was decreasing distances with increasing inclines and increasing rows. The second block was increasing distances with decreasing inclines and decreasing rows. I ended up walking all the treadmill segments but I was able to keep my speed at my normal speed and the inclines at the inclines that were recommended to do (instead of a lower incline). And my rowing wasn’t super fast, but I finished in under the recommended time each time I was on the rower.

Friday ended up being kind of a run/row too. It was pretty great to have 2 run/row days in a week since they tend to be my favorites. But this time, everything was timed and we weren’t on our own to switch back and forth. Everything we did was a distance challenge. We had a 6 minute challenge on the treadmill, then a 3 minute challenge on the rower, and then repeated both things. On the 6 minute run challenge, I would have loved to run the entire thing. But I realized that I hadn’t done a lot of running lately (which I really need to fix) so I had to do the 6 minutes with run/walk intervals. Both times I did it I ran for 2 minutes, walked for 1 minute, ran for 1 minute, walked for 1 minute, and ran for the last minute. But I did increase my speed for the second attempt so I was able to get farther than I did the first time.

When I was on the rower, I wanted to focus on keeping my wattage up but my speed down. It’s tough to do that since my wattage only seems to get high when I’m moving really fast. But I did my best to figure out quickly what a good pace would be that I could try to do for the entire 3 minutes. The goal was to get between 600-900 meters in 3 minutes. The first time I got 627 meters and the second time I got 634. Unlike on the treadmill, I can’t really tell if I’m going to beat my time or distance. While I can see if my speed or wattage is higher, it’s tough to tell if I’m doing better. So it was a surprise to me that I beat my first row!

The floor was 3 blocks. The first block was a long one with deadlifts, alligators on the straps, and pushups. The deadlifts were supposed to be single leg deadlifts and I did do one round of them like that but while holding onto the bench to keep my balance. I know it’s good for me to work on balance but it’s tough to do with my hip issues. But challenging myself with these were good for me. But I wasn’t able to do more than one round as single leg work, so the other times I did them I did them with both feet on the ground. The second block was skier swings, hip bridges, and toe touches. And the last block was a 3 minute core blast.

Saturday was a 3 group workout that had endurance, strength, and power. I went into the workout with the intention of doing running, but I had a combination of a bad hip day and horrible nausea. So again, running wasn’t in the cards for me. On the treadmill, we had 2 blocks. The first one was more endurance based with longer push paces. And the second one was more strength based with working with the inclines up higher. I was able to do my incline work a bit higher than I normally do which was great since I was a bit down on myself for not running at all.

I was on the rower next where we also had 2 blocks. Every block was focused on 1 minute rows for distance. On the first block, we had wall sits between each row. And on the second block we had squats between the rows. I know that I can do 300 meters in a minute if I work really hard, but I also knew that I’d be doing lots of attempts at 1 minute rows. So I just tried to work on keeping my pulls long on the rower and I averaged around 230 meters each time (which is better than the 200 meter minimum we were supposed to do). The wall sits were much easier than I expected and I was able to balance a lot better than I could the last time I tried doing them.

And on the floor, we had a mix of things. We had squats to shoulder presses, triceps, squats with flys, knee tucks, and hip bridges. I was starting to feel super nauseous on the floor and that wasn’t helped by going from standing to laying down as often as we did. I just tried to keep breathing and going slow, but I was really waiting for class to be done because I didn’t want to feel any worse.

Overall, it was an ok workout week. With each individual day, I thought I had done well. But as I look as the week as a whole, I’m a bit disappointed with myself. I know that there have been outside circumstances that have preventing me from running or making all the progress I have been hoping to make, but I don’t want to make excuses for myself. I know that I can do better and I need to make myself do better. I want to be running more often and seeing what new running goals I can hit. It’s been a while since I’ve had a big running accomplishment and I think I’m due to make that happen soon.

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Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, running, struggle, workout

Feeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri)

Posted on October 2, 2017 | Comments Off

After my Dri-Tri, I was feeling pretty low about myself. I lost so much confidence in myself and my abilities in the workouts. It’s really a bad place to be in and I know that I need to believe that I can do better. But it’s tough to take myself out of a slump when I’m in it.

Monday’s workout was a strength 3 group class. There was a weird amount of traffic that morning and I ended up starting on the floor, which I never do. We had 2 blocks at each station and we rotated after each block so I didn’t stay on the floor for too long. The first round was all 8 minute blocks for us. On the floor we did goblet lunges, goblet squats, pull overs, and knee tucks. And then on the rower we started with a 200 meter row and 20 lunges and each time we went up 50 meters on the rower and down 2 lunges.

Then it was time for the treadmill. I was pretty grateful that it was a strength day so that I didn’t even try to run. I was still feeling awful about the Dri-Tri and I know I would have pushed myself to try to run even if I shouldn’t. It was all 90 second hills and I was more than happy to walk everything.

Then we had the second round and everything was 5 minute blocks. On the floor we had sumo squats, tricep extensions, and crunches. And then on the rower and treadmill we had the same pattern with a 2 minute push, 1 minute base, 1 minute push, and 1 minute all out. I just tried my best to row for 5 minutes without stopping and on the treadmill I just walked it all even though it wasn’t hill work. I wasn’t feeling so great about myself after the workout, but I knew that I was there and I did the work so I couldn’t be too upset.

Wednesday was the day that I think turned things around for me. It was an endurance day and I was feeling pretty awesome going into the class. I was still a bit down about my workout progress after the Dri-Tri, but I was more optimistic about things. And this ended up being the perfect workout for me when I was feeling like that.

I started on the treadmill and we had 3 blocks. Each block on the treadmill had a similar pattern with a push, a base, a push, an all out. The push paces changed times from block to block, but the pattern was consistent. I decided to see how much I could run of the push and all out paces but wasn’t expecting to be able to run them all. But somehow, I did manage to run all of them with walking my base paces. I noticed toward the end of the 3rd block that I was going to be very close to doing 2 miles in 30 minutes. So for the last all out pace, I ran at 6mph for the entire minute and I was able to hit that goal!

That totally proved to me that my performance at the Dri-Tri was just a bad day and not a real setback. Even though I had been telling myself that, I needed the proof that it was true and this totally proved it to me.

After that awesome running, I was a bit tired when I got to the floor. I took a bunch of breaks during each block, but I was able to get everything done. The first block was lunges with presses, hammer curls, and plank hip dips. The second block was all strap work with Ys and roll outs. And the last block was back extensions, crunches, and squats. It wasn’t the toughest floor work I’ve done, but I needed it to be a bit easier to recover from my cardio.

Friday was a strength day so it was another day of walking for me. I could have tried to run the all out paces because they were on a flat incline, but I ended up walking it all. Most of the inclines for me were at 6 and 8% but I tried doing some of the work at 10%. That’s still a bit too high of an incline for me but I need to keep testing myself and seeing what I can do.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was a long one and we did deadlifts, lateral lunges, front raises, and plank rows before going to the rower. The rowing started at 400 meters and then went down 100 meters each time. I didn’t get spectacular times on my rowing, but I was always under the goal time which I was happy with. The second block was pushups to side planks, squat rows, and crunches. By the end of the floor work, I was feeling a bit off but fortunately that was at the end of the workout and not at the beginning.

And even though I didn’t feel like doing a Saturday workout this past week, I made myself do it. The next 2 weeks are going to be 3 workout weeks due to scheduling issues, so I knew I needed to have a 4 workout week this week. It was a power workout with 3 groups. We had 3 rotations around the room and every block was 4 minutes (so 12 blocks total).

On the treadmill, it was mainly push to all out paces. I tried running the first push pace on the first block and realized that running wasn’t going to be happening for me. I was disappointed because I usually am able to run the power days, but my body wasn’t feeling right and I’m working on listening to my body more. I did all my inclines at 6 and 8% and it was ok but I didn’t feel like I worked hard enough.

On the floor, it was tough to keep going for the 4 minutes but I did my best. One block had shoulder and pop jacks. Another block was lunges using the straps with more squats. And the last block had some plank work which was nice for being toward the end of the workout. And the rower was interesting. The first block was a 4 minute row for distance and I did get over 800 meters. The second block was seeing how few pulls you could do to get to 200 meters and I got it down to 16. And the last block was the same pattern as the treadmill with push and all out paces. While I was not feeling like going to the workout before being there, I’m glad I went because I did feel pretty decent when it was all done.

Now I’ve got 2 weeks of weird workouts. I’m still going to fit my workouts in, but it will not be when I’m used to going and I’ll have more time off between workouts from this week to next week than I’m used to. I hope that it doesn’t affect me too much, but at least now I’ve proven to myself that I have made progress and even if I have an off day I can get back there.

Comments Off on Feeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri)

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, progress, struggle, workout

Birthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts)

Posted on August 14, 2017 | Comments Off

This past week of workouts was my birthday workouts! Since I usually have a birthday week, it only makes sense to have a birthday week of workouts. I didn’t have any expectations going into my week of workouts since I’ve had some really great running weeks and some really bad running weeks lately and I didn’t want to have something in my head that I wasn’t able to get done.

Monday was another 2 group class (instead of the 3G the it is supposed to be now) and it was a power workout. I was actually pretty excited since I know that power days are usually the best ones for me to work on running (and I wanted to run to burn off the calories I’d eat at Truxton’s later that day). In the 30 minutes on the treadmill, there were 13 all outs. It was pretty crazy!

There were 3 treadmill blocks and all of them started with a push pace which I ran. Then we had all out pace intervals with walking recovery in-between. The first block was 1 minute intervals, the second block was 45 second intervals, and the last block was 30 second intervals. I did the first block with my speed at 5mph and the second and third block with my speed at 5.5mph. I know I could have gone faster, but I’m really working hard at not burning myself out because I’m wondering if that is what has been causing the off weeks I’ve been having lately.

The floor on Monday also had 3 blocks. The first block had skaters, ground to press squats, row with weights, and a 100 meter row. I was pretty happy with my skaters because I was able to keep my back foot up the entire time (something that I still struggle with). With the 100 meter row, we were supposed to do both timed rows and counting the number of pulls. For the timed row, I did it in 18.1 seconds, which isn’t the best I’ve done but also isn’t that bad. And for my number of pulls, I got it down to 8 which beat my goal which was 9. The next block was lunges, ab twists, sit ups, and a 150 meter row. I only got to the timed row and did it in 28.6 seconds. And the last block was 200 meter rows (I didn’t focus on my time) and squats between each row set. Considering that this was my last workout as a 33-year-old, I was pretty happy about it!

Wednesday was a birthday workout! I was hoping that I’d have some friends with me in class, but it’s not easy for my friends to meet me at the time I go so I was on my own for the workout. But that was fine because the studio manager, Adam, decided to take that class and made sure that he pulled the treadmill card for my favorite treadmill and he took the treadmill next to me! And it was as if the universe was working in my favor because my birthday workout was a run/row!

It was also a strength day which means running on inclines, but I was determined to see what I could do. Usually a run/row is for the entire block and you go at your own pace. This time, there were 3 blocks and we repeated what we could in each block during that time. And then we switched with the floor between blocks. So I figured that since we would be switching I would try to run on the inclines. The first block started with a 400 meter row (which went down by 100 meters each time) followed by a .2 mile run. The run started at 2% and each round went up 1%. I was able to run the entire thing and even made it back to the treadmill to start the .2 miles at 3% incline. The next block was a 300 meter row (each round went down 50 meters) with a .15 mile run starting at 3% (each round went up 1%). Again, I was able to run it all but I only did the run once before time was called. And the last block was a 200 meter row (it stayed the same) with .1 miles at 4% incline. And I ran it all but only made it one round on the treadmill. Even though I didn’t do a ton of running, I ran all of it and did it at inclines which is a pretty awesome accomplishment for me.

The floor work was also 3 blocks and each block was a bit tough in the beginning since I was still catching my breath from the run/row. The first block was shoulder work, rowing with weights, lunges and abs. The second block was squats, flys with weights, and plank work. And the last block was all tricep work.

I would have to say that this was a pretty successful birthday workout. I’m glad that I spent my birthday at Orangetheory since it is such a huge part of my life now! And I think they were pretty happy to have me there that day too!

Friday was a power day (again, super happy because I could work on my running!). This time, everything on the treadmill was 30 second intervals. We had 5 blocks and the first 4 blocks all had the same pattern. Each block was 30 second push paces with 30 second base paces and the last minute of each block was a 30 second push to a 30 second all out. The first block was 5 minutes and each block got a minute shorter. The very last block was a slightly different pattern but the same concept with push to all outs with walking and more all out paces.

I was able to run all of my pushes at 4.5mph and all of my all outs at 5mph. I tried to do my base pace at my new faster base pace but I could only do that for a bit of the first block. All the running made me need to have a walking base pace that I’m comfortable with. But to me, being able to run as much as possible was more important than to work on my increased base pace. I’m glad that all the intervals were only 30 seconds because running was a bit tough for me that day. I was dealing with some nausea and I’m still experimenting with that time on a workout day it’s best for me to take anti-nausea medications.

The floor work was the same block pattern with the first 4 blocks being one minute shorter than the other. The 4 minute block and the 2 minute block were both rowing with the same intervals as the treadmill. The goal was when doing the 2 minute row to get at least half of what you got in the 4 minute row. In the 4 minute row I did 850 meters and in the 2 minute row I did 460 meters so I’m pretty proud of myself. With the other 3 blocks, we had a mix of squats, burpees, plank work, and biceps.

I felt like I had done a lot of great running work during the week and I was not expecting to be able to do much running on Saturday. But then I found out it was going to be a 15 minutes for distance challenge and I knew I needed to run. But there was no way I could work on running for the entire 15 minutes so I decided to follow the intervals that we were given.

It was a mix of endurance, strength, and power in the workout so the treadmill started with a 3 minute push pace. After that, we started to do push paces at inclines and I was able to run those as well. And the end of the treadmill block was 30 second intervals that were similar to Friday’s workout. And as always, we ended with an all out pace. I know that if I had run the entire 15 minutes I would have gone farther, but I’m pretty happy with the distance that I got to at the end of the cardio block.

Next I moved to the floor where we had one longer block and one short block. In the longer block, we had single leg deadlifts, squats, weighted swings, and strap work. Single leg deadlifts are a tough one for me since I don’t really have the ability to balance on one leg for that long right now. So I balance by holding onto the weight bench with one hand and then doing the single leg work. It is so much harder than regular deadlifts, so I know that I need to keep doing them to get stronger. I have no clue if I’ll ever be able to do single leg stuff without assistance, but I know the only way to find out will be to keep doing the work and trying. And the short floor block was situps and plank work for 3 minutes.

And I ended on the rower starting with a 3 minute row for distance. My goal was 650 meters and I wanted to scream in frustration when I got to 649 at the end of the 3 minutes. It was so annoying to be so close! After that, we had squats and more rowing. I didn’t go too hard in my rowing because I knew we’d be ended with another 3 minutes for distance and I wanted to beat 649 meters. The last 3 minutes for distance was a push, base, push, all out pattern similar to the treadmill and I really tried to do pushes and bases on the rower. It’s not easy for me to do that all the time because I’d rather be steady, but I wanted to see the difference compared to the 3 minute row I did at the beginning of the row block. I think my stubbornness paid off because I was able to get to 668 meters this time!

Overall, I’d say this was a pretty epic birthday workout week. I wasn’t expecting to do a lot of great running and somehow I did have that. And because I think I took it a bit easier than I could have done, hopefully this week of workouts won’t suffer from what I did the last week. I want to get over this one good week one bad week pattern and just have more consistent weeks. Hopefully that will happen for me soon!

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Comments Off on Birthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts)

Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, fitness, Orangetheory, progress, running, workout

Tag Archives: progress

Surprising Myself (or Maybe Progress Is Faster The Second Time)

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Continuing My Progress (or Still Pushing Through)

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Continuing To Get Better (or Still Finding Wins In My Workouts)

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Finally Gaining Endurance (or Finding Little Victories)

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Getting Back To My Workouts (or Dealing With Not Being 100%)

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Trying To Make A 5K Plan (or Maybe This Is The Motivation I’m Missing)

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Finishing Hell Week (or I Need To Get Back To Running)

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Feeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri)

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