Tag Archives: progress

Another Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard)

Posted on April 11, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory. I actually have come to love Peak Performance Week. It’s a great way for me to check my how I’m doing compared to how I’ve done in the past. It’s the same way with Hell Week. It’s nice to have workout benchmarks to compare to because I know I make improvements in my workouts even if the scale isn’t going down.

I would have loved to have done 4 workouts during Peak Performance Week this time, but with my 5K race on Saturday I knew I wasn’t going to work out on Friday. I added a Thursday workout in, but since I didn’t want to do 4 days in a row I had to keep it at 3 days.

Since I was pretty stuck with what days I could go, I’m glad that the workouts on the days I went were pretty much the ones I would have wanted to go to anyway.

Peak Performance Week

Monday was the 1 mile challenge. This one is the one I have the most feelings about. I feel like my mile time means so much to me and I know what times I want to get to. So since this is the most important one in my mind, I’m glad it was first so I could get it over with.

Our last Peak Performance Week was about 4 months ago and I was able to do a 16:58 mile then. My PR is 16:30 and as much as I want to get back down to that, I knew my body wasn’t there yet. I really had hope that I could at least do better than what I did 4 months ago. When we started the treadmill, I was at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline. I pretty much stayed there until I was 3/4 of the way done. By then, everyone around me was already done with the mile challenge and on to the next cardio block (thankfully my coach let me finish it even though power walkers only have to do a half mile).

I was really hurting toward the end of my mile and I kept bumping up the speed because I could see that I was going to be really close to my last mile time. And when I was done, I was a little bit slower than last time.

1 Mile Challenge

It makes me so mad how close I was because all it would have taken was a little more speed for a such a short amount of time to get to where I was last time. There’s nothing I can do about it now, but it was making me feel a bit off about how my 5K would go on Saturday.

After the mile challenge, we had a run/row to finish out the cardio block. Since I had taken so long, I really only had time for a little bit before we moved onto the floor (where we were doing a ton of lunges and my legs felt like jello).

Wednesday’s challenge was a 1000 meter row. I had looked at my past records and couldn’t find what my PR was when I went to class (I now know that it is 4:58.9). So I just sent my goal time at 4:50 thinking it sounded good to me. I had warmed up on the treadmill first before getting on the rower and then when it was my group’s turn to row I got strapped in. I really didn’t focus on the computer on my rower at all. Since I had set it for distance I knew that the timer would stop when I reached 1000 meters and chances were that I would know when I was close. So I just tried to look straight ahead at the treadmills and not think about the rowing at all.

By the time I was halfway, I was exhausted. I really thought about taking a few second break to stretch and catch my breath, but I decided against it and kept going. Somehow, I did my 1000 meters without taking a break once. Honestly, no matter what my time was, I would have been happy just knowing that. But my time was pretty awesome too.

1000 Meter Row

I made it 1/10 of a second under my goal time! I just barely made it under my goal time, but it still counts! After I got of the rower, I was a bit wobbly. I know I really pushed myself hard on that and my body was feeling it. It ended up being  run/row day on the treadmill so I still had more rowing to do, but they were all pretty short compared to the challenge. On the floor we did a bunch of upper body work, especially on the TRX straps. I know my arms were done because by the end of class my form had gotten really sloppy and I was needing a bunch of corrections.

Thursday was my last day of Peak Performance Week. I knew it was going to be another treadmill challenge involving hills, but before I got to class I didn’t know much more than that. What it ended up being was a 13 minute run for distance. Runners and joggers had to be at 2% incline (normally they are at 1%) and power walkers had to be at 6% incline. So basically for me, this was going to be a 13 minute push pace (normally the longest push pace is 3 minutes).

There was a white board on the side of the room that showed how far you should be able to go in 13 minutes. For power walkers, it was at least .8 miles so I assumed that was based on being at 3.5 miles an hour (the slowest power walkers are supposed to be) for the entire time. So my goal was to beat .8 miles. I did 3.5 miles an hour for the first 10 minutes (that was a challenge in itself!). Then the next minute was at 3.6 and the following minute at 3.7. For the last minute I bumped up the speed every 20 seconds (so 3.8, 3.9, and 4.0 miles an hour). Clearly the chart showing how far we should be able to go wasn’t correct for power walkers because for all the extra speed I did at the end I wasn’t able to get to my goal distance.

13 Minute Hill Challenge

I actually don’t know how fast I would have had to go to get to .8 miles, but I only set that as my goal because I assumed that it was based on 3.5 miles an hour. I still did 13 minutes at 6% incline and did the entire thing at 3.5 miles an hour or faster! I think I might need to start playing around with my base pace again because I think I might be ready to be back at 3.5 miles an hour very soon.

For Thursday’s floor work there was some rowing (500 meters) and a lot of heavy weights for me. I was using a lot of 20 pound weights for squats, lunges, and deadlifts. After working so hard on the treadmill the 20 pound weights felt like 50 pound weights, but I stuck with it (and just took breaks to help me catch my breath).

Even though I didn’t always beat my past Peak Performance Week records, I think that this week went really well. I struggled from time to time, but I kept going and I know that whenever the next Peak Performance Week comes up, I’ll be ready to see if I can beat these records or my other ones.

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Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Posted on March 14, 2016 | 1 comment

I had a pretty intense week of workouts. I had thought I might try to do 4 workouts this week (it’s been a while since I’ve done that), but now I’m so glad that I kept it at 3. But I know that I need to do another 4 workout week soon in order to reach my goals. But these 3 workouts totally felt like I did at least 4.

Monday was a tough day for me starting out. I was exhausted and in a lot of pain from when I woke up that morning. I tried to stretch as much as I could before class, but when you are going to an 8:30am class, there isn’t a ton of time to get ready before the workout. So I went into class hoping it wouldn’t be too tough and planned to do my best.

This class was insane! We had 9 all out segments between the 2 treadmill blocks. In a typical treadmill block, I’d say we would usually have maybe 2-3 all outs. But to have 4 all outs in one block and 5 in the other was a lot! And for all of these all outs, I did do my typically all out speed/incline (3.6 mph at 8% incline). The good thing was all the all outs were short enough that it wasn’t too horrible, but I could really feel the work I did later that day. Despite being tired and in pain, I didn’t let that stop me from working really hard on the floor work too. I was using my heavy weights and not doing too badly at it.

Wednesday was a crazy class, but I only have myself to blame. I found out before class started that it was going to be a 7 minute challenge day. Basically you have 7 minutes to go as far as you can on the treadmill. You do your own speed and incline settings and it’s just a personal distance challenge. I keep photos of my records on my phone (it’s the easiest way to remember them), and I thought that my previous 7 minute challenge distance was .424 miles. So I was determined to beat that. And when I looked at the treadmill after my first attempt, I was pretty frustrated.

Attempt 1

We had a short block between the 2 7 minute challenges so I tried to not let my first attempt get me down. I went even faster on my next attempt, spending 5 of those 7 minutes at 3.6 miles an hour and was so happy when the 7 minutes were done.

Attempt 2

I was so happy that I got a new PR! And when I looked at my phone to delete my old PR photo, I realized that I had remembered my old PR wrong. My old PR was .421 miles, not .424. So I beat my PR both times. Not only that, my old PR was a .007 increase over my old one and this time I had a .008 increase. I know it’s not a lot, but that’s improvement to me!

After the 2 7 minute challenges, I was so tired. Thankfully, most of the floor work was abs so I was able to relax a bit while doing it. I wasn’t trying for any other records after my new PR, so I didn’t push myself too much on the floor work.

On Friday, I was still on a high from my new 7 minute challenge PR. That helped because we had to do 30 minutes straight on the treadmill and we had a lot of all outs. All the blocks seemed to be 3.5 or 4 minutes and thankfully we had walking recovery time between each block. With all the short blocks, the treadmill block actually felt shorter than the 30 minutes usually feels. But even with it feeling shorter, I was still so tired by the time the treadmill was done.

On the floor on Friday, we had a lot of rowing, TRX strap work, and planks. I’m definitely getting some balance improvement with my TRX strap work (I can occasional do work where we have to balance on 1 leg). My planks are a struggle because it’s still a bit painful in my calf to do the work on my toes. So I’m usually doing plank work on my knees, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Just typing out all of the things I did in my workouts this week is making me tired! I was telling a friend that I swear the classes feel harder now than they did when I was starting (with the exception of my first class that made my quads hurt so badly). I’m sure that this isn’t true. But I’m also not used to trying harder and to improve in my workouts the way I am now. In other classes, it’s so easy to just keep doing things at the same effort that you always have. Nobody really notices and you don’t worry about it.

But now, I have my heart rate monitor keeping me on track, my coaches knowing what I’ve done in the past and pushing me to do more, and finally being motivated myself to want to see how much better/faster/stronger I can get. It’s no longer a big deal that I’m maintaining a regular workout routine, it’s that I’m really improving and not just using it to try to lose weight.

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Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

I really had a great week of workouts this past week. I was very nervous that I’d have a bad week (more on that in a bit), but it ended up pretty good and I think that I could not have improved on it.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday morning. I got home late on Monday night from Sacramento and had my WIF meeting on Tuesday afternoon. So my only workout time option was 7:30am on Tuesday. I’m not the biggest fan of those early mornings, but they’ve become much more tolerable as I’ve done more. Bruce (who is usually my coach on Fridays) was my coach that morning and he saw me in the lobby while he was wrapping up the 6:30am class. I think he was pretty shocked to see me since he usually only sees me in the afternoon.

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

I was super happy to see that Tuesday’s class was a run/row day! That means less time on the treadmill for me so I try to do speed training. Most of my treadmill segments were at 3.5 miles an hour, but I did do some bits at 3.6 miles an hour and it didn’t feel as difficult as it did the week before! So that’s some good improvement for me. And the rowing was 200 meter sprints, so I was able to really push myself on those without getting too tired.

Even though I was pushing myself a lot in class, my heart rate stayed pretty low. I’m thinking it was a false reading because I was really out of breath in class and felt like I was pushing myself as much as I normally do. Maybe it was low because I was tired or something, so I didn’t let the low heart rate affect me too much.

Wednesday was another fun class because it was my Wednesday coach JZ’s birthday class! Technically her birthday was later in the week, but it was the Wednesday class closest to her birthday so that counts too. The treadmill section of class was a solid block (so 30 minutes without the breaks on the floor) and it was full of push paces. It almost felt like almost every part of the treadmill time was a push or all out with very limited base paces between them. Most of the push paces were 1 or 2 minutes so they were a bit long but not too long. I was able to maintain my regular push pace of 3.5 miles an hour (which isn’t easy on the long treadmill days). But with all those push paces (and the incline associated with them), my hips were hurting me pretty badly by the time we got to the floor.

I’m not sure if the treadmill time was too tough on me or I was just having an off day, but I was having some serious issues with my balance on the floor. I was trying to do my best, but I was spending a significant time trying to balance myself and not doing the workout. I was able to do at least one round of everything on the floor, but I can usually do at least 2 rounds.

After the class, of course we had to take a birthday photo with JZ!

Happy Birthday JZ!

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I only did 3 workouts this week). It was a switch day, but the switching between blocks wasn’t the way we usually do them. For me starting on the treadmill my blocks went treadmill, row, treadmill, floor, treadmill, and finishing on the floor. The treadmill rows were pretty tough with long push paces including a 3 minute push pace (which is the longest we do). That 3 minutes seems to take forever, but I was able to get through it and didn’t hurt too much. And for the brief all outs we had to do, I was able to do 3.6 miles an hour even after the really long push pace.

My legs were feeling wobbly after the treadmill blocks, so I was a bit careful on the floor blocks. We were supposed to do running man and plank jacks on the Bosu for one of the blocks, but I knew that it would be too much for me. But I was able to do them without modifications on the floor. There was a time that I couldn’t do either move at full speed, so to know that I’ve improved enough to not need modifications for the basic move made me feel really proud of myself.

This coming week will either be a 3 workout or 4 workout week (I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go on Saturday). But I’m happy that I’ve been pushing myself more and more each week because I’m really starting to see some big improvements in my workouts, strength, and endurance. Even if I’m not losing weight right now, improvements are signs of progress and that’s really what I want!

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An Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body)

Posted on February 15, 2016 | Comments Off on An Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body)

After doing a couple of 4 workout weeks, it was really nice to have a 3 workout week this past week. I had actually originally planned this past week to be a 4 workout week, but due to scheduling issues and street closures from the LA marathon it wasn’t possible. But I know my body needed a bit of an easier week, so I enjoyed my 3 workouts and taking things a bit easy.

I was so happy on Monday that we got to switch between blocks. I’ve been saying that I feel like we are switching between blocks less often than we had in the past, and I have been missing those. It seems to help me do better on the treadmill because it breaks up the treadmill block and I don’t get as tired as easily (but I think getting over being tired is the reason I probably need the solid 30 minute treadmill blocks).

During the treadmill blocks, we had some 3 minute push paces to do. I think 3 minutes is the longest push pace we ever have (except when we are doing timed or distance challenges where you set your own pace the entire time), and 3 minutes is a long time! I’m pretty ok doing my 3.5 miles an hour push during 2 minutes or less, but that 3rd minute seems so difficult and I really want to break through that time barrier. I think I did pretty ok with my pushes, but I’m pretty hard on myself and I wish that I was doing my pushes (and base pace) faster by now). Besides those long treadmill blocks, I was using 20 pound weights for all of my arm work today. And I’ll admit that I feel like a bit of a badass using 20 pound weights for my bicep work (I started at 10 pounds).

The end of the workout on Monday was pretty fun with a partner challenge. The partner work was a combination of treadmill, rowing, and lunges on the floor. One partner was on the treadmill while the other person did 200 meters on the row and then did a lap of walking lunges around the floor space. Many people used weights during the lunges, but since walking lunges are very tough on my balance I kept my hands free. I worked really hard to make sure my partner wasn’t stuck on the treadmill any longer than I was, and that was a great motivator!

Wednesday was back to a 30 minute treadmill block. There was nothing spectacular for me about that treadmill block. I know I can do better in my mind, but my body isn’t ready for it and that’s such a tough thing to battle through. I was pushing things a bit more with my all outs and picking up the speed, but that was always a short sprint and not something that I feel like I can maintain for a decent amount of the treadmill time.

I was pretty happy with my floor work that day though. We did a lot on the Bosu and that’s one of pieces of workout equipment I have a love/hate relationship with. I know I can do Bosu work because I have done it before, but the condition of my hips have gotten worse since then so I’m struggling a lot. I want to improve my balance because I think that will help so much more, but it’s baby steps. We had to do sit-ups to standing on the Bosu, but my body can’t do that combination yet. So I do a round of sit-ups and then a round of squats. Still the same motions, just broken down a bit. But when we used the Bosu for the arm work, I felt amazing! I was having a bit of balance issues, but I was able to correct myself much quicker than I have in the past and I felt like it was less of a balance change and more of an arm workout.

I wasn’t able to work out on Friday (more on that tomorrow), so I went in on Thursday for my 3rd workout of the week. Again, we had 30 minutes straight on the treadmill. There were a bunch of treadmill blocks and each one started with a 2 minute push pace. I toyed with being at 3.6 miles an hour (instead of 3.5), but I wasn’t able to maintain that for the entire 2 minute push. But just doing those sprints within the push of a couple of seconds each was a good step forward and helping me hopefully reach my goal of increasing my treadmill speed soon.

While I didn’t love the 30 minute treadmill block, there was a good reason for it this time. The floor block was 22 minutes straight with 8 different exercises to work through. It was kind of similar to the idea of a run/row, but it was weights/row. We had 3 floor work exercises followed by a 400 meter row, then 3 different floor work exercises followed by a 200 meter row. Then we repeated that cycle as many times as we could. It seemed easy enough to me and I was really looking forward to the weights/row segment. But as soon I did my first row I started to feel off. I thought maybe I had overdone it, but then I noticed that I wasn’t recovering as quickly from the row that I’m used to. I pushed through and kept feeling a bit off. By the second row I realized that there was a good chance that I didn’t eat enough before class. When I looked back at my food diary after class, I had only about 600 calories between my breakfast and lunch when I usually try to get more than that on a workout day. So clearly I was light-headed due to that and I had to keep taking it easy. I ended up skipping my last row because it’s not so easy for me to take it easy on the row and just moved on to the next round of floor exercises.

Even though my Thursday workout ended on a bit of a not-so-great note, I still consider this entire week a week of wins for me. There were so many times I could have been frustrated and given up, but I didn’t. I modified what I needed to and kept going. Despite my head and body disagreeing in what I could do, I focused more on what my body was saying and I know that it was for the best.

This coming week is a 4 workout week, plus there will be 3 workouts in a row! I’m thinking about some ideas for how to make this coming week another successful workout week for me, and I’ll share what I end up doing next week!

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Doing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time)

Posted on February 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Doing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time)

I think we’ve all seen tons of articles that talk about how cooking from home is so much better than getting take out, delivery, or going out to eat. Obviously, it is cheaper (unless you are making something really elaborate or with a ton of ingredients). But there are also dozens of articles that I’ve seen over the years saying that it’s much faster to make your own dinner than it takes for a delivery person to get to your house.

Cooking has always felt like an event to me. Maybe it’s because I live alone and cooking for one person isn’t always that fun. But it’s never felt like part of the routine or natural in my day. I’m really working on fixing this because I was doing great cooking all my own meals while I was on the cleanse a year ago. It’s been really tough for me to get back into really cooking but it’s an effort that I’m working on right now.

After making my chicken dish on Monday, I was feeling a bit better about cooking again. It was my first big cooking thing in a long time and it did feel great to cook again. And since there were leftovers, I knew I’d have some home cooked meals for a few more meals.

I had ever intention of eating the leftover chicken for dinner the next night, but I ended up eating it for lunch and then feeling very uninspired to make dinner that night. I’m not happy I did this, but I ordered delivery food. While the delivery food tastes good while I’m eating it, I know my body doesn’t love it. I feel a bit sluggish after eating and I know that it is a big factor in my weight gain.

I don’t know why I ordered the food. Obviously I needed dinner, but I didn’t need to order food. It’s almost like an impulse or reflex that I didn’t think about until after the fact. I need to work on being in the moment or more aware when I do this, because I know that I could have done without the delivery food.

From the time I placed my order for food until the time I was eating was just over an hour. And the next day I was determined to prove to myself that I can do much better for myself in an hour with food that I had in the house.

The next day, after getting home from my workout and showering, I cooked myself some dinner. It wasn’t anything fancy. I cut up some zucchini and an onion and cooked those in one pan until the zucchini was brown and the onions were soft. And in another pan (yes, it was a 2 pan dinner!), I cooked a frozen turkey burger that I had in the freezer from Trader Joes. I started the veggies first and then the turkey burger and by some miracle they were basically done at the exact same time.

I have to admit that not only was it healthy and tasted great, it looked pretty nice too.

Home Cooking

I sat down and ate my dinner and then started working on the dishes. There were a lot of dishes to do (knives, 2 pans, cooking utensils, a cutting board, the plate and fork I used to eat) so that took me a while to clean and figure out how to fit everything into the drying rack since I don’t have a dishwasher at my house. By the time that I was done cleaning, I felt like it had been a big production to cook and clean. But I looked at the clock and it hadn’t even been an hour from the time I started cooking until the time I was done with all the cleanup.

I know it shouldn’t have surprised me, but I was pretty shocked. I figured that obviously cooking is faster than waiting on delivery since you can easily cook in under and hour and most deliveries seem to be an hour. But I wasn’t expecting it to be faster to cook, eat, and clean in the time I wait for the delivery guy.

I’m not going to say that I will never order delivery food again. That would be a total lie. I know I’ll order it again because it is delicious and there is nothing wrong with an occasional treat. But I need to work on making it a treat and not a habit. And now I know that the most important thing for me is to make sure my house is stocked with foods that are easy to put together. I’d love to make awesome meals all the time, but when I’m tired and lazy I just need something that is easy to make and will be healthy and fill me up.

I’m sure that at some point it may be possible that I will “forget” this lesson and go back into my bad habits. I’m hoping that won’t be true, but I’ve learned that setbacks are a part of life and I can’t let those get me down. I need to be able to have my setback and then get right back to the regular game plan right away. And I’ve proved to myself that I can do that.

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health

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More Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest)

Posted on February 8, 2016 | 2 comments

I had a long 4 workout week this week. It was long because there were 4 workouts (the 4th workout is still a tough one for me) and it was long because it was a difficult week for me. A majority of the week didn’t have us switching between blocks, so I was spending 30 minutes straight on the treadmill. I was hoping for a run/row day, and never really got one.

Monday was one of those 30 minute treadmill days. I’m still testing myself with my push paces, but I’m really most comfortable at 3.5 miles an hour for my pushes (and 3.4 miles an hour for my base pace). I’d really love it if before my next 5K I could bump both of those paces up .1 miles an hour, but it’s so tough for me to do it. I think I’ve hit a wall with my speed training, and I need to figure out something that will help me get out of that rut.

Besides the long treadmill time, we had some rowing that I didn’t do too much speed one. I wanted to work on my form so I kept things pretty slow. So often I’m the last person getting off the rower when we have rowing, so it doesn’t bother me at all to be much slower than everyone else. We also had a ton of TRX strap work which is starting to be something I’m enjoying more and more. I’m finding that I can push myself a lot more with squats and other leg work because I’m holding on to something that helps me balance. I’ve been scared to push myself too hard because I know when I’m doing bodyweight work my hips hurt. But I’m starting to see that as long as I’m holding on to the straps really tightly and with very little slack in the straps, I can do more than I thought.

Wednesday was another 30 minute treadmill day. The blocks were all 5 minutes long and it really felt more like a 30 minute block and not 4 blocks that were 5 minutes each. Since we only had a minute of walking between blocks and long push paces, it felt like we would never get off the treadmill. But I think I did really great on the treadmill and took pretty limited breaks during the blocks (I look forward to the day that I don’t need to take breaks during the blocks because of pain). Since I was kind of on a high from doing so well on the treadmill, I kept things going with using 20 pound weights on the floor work. Those 20 pound weights are something I’m using a lot more often and I think that it’s a great thing that I’m more and more comfortable using them.

Friday was a pretty tough day. Again, it was another 30 minutes on the treadmill day. I was doing ok for the first few minutes and then my shin splints came back really strong. I have no idea what set them off (I’m doing research on what I’m doing that might be triggering them) but I know that once I feel them I probably won’t get rid of them during the workout. I tried to do my best, but I was doing more like 1 minute on the treadmill and then close to a minute break after. It was on and off like that. My Friday coach, Bruce, encouraged me to lower my incline to help so I spent a good portion of the workout at 2% incline (instead of 4%) and at 3.3 miles an hour. I didn’t feel too great about my work, but I know that doing something is better than nothing. Fortunately, the shin splints didn’t bother me during the floor work and I was feeling better that night.

Just like I have planned, my Saturday workout was done on the bike since it was my 4th workout of the week. I think that was smart anyway because of the shin splints the day before. Of course, this was the day that was closest to the run/run I had been hoping to have all week. It was a run/bodyweight workout. We had short cardio segments (I think the longest I was on the bike was about 3 minutes) and then we jumped off of the cardio equipment and did bodyweight work like squats or calf raises. It was nice to have the workout broken up and I think that I probably could have done the treadmill if I wanted to. There was also rowing before each of the cardio blocks and I was able to get my wattage on the rower pretty high since everything was a sprint.

On the floor, we had a lot of squats, lunges, and crunches. All of these things are pretty fine with me, but I usually don’t push myself too hard because I know for squats and lunges I can get a lot of pain in my hips. One of the lunges we had were lunges where your back leg was on the weight bench and then you did the lunge. I rarely do these because it is so difficult to balance, but I took my time and was able to do them all that way! I’m pretty happy with myself.

So this past week wasn’t really any great progress but wasn’t too much of a set back either. It was more like 1 step forward and 1 step back. But the consistency is paying off and the little improvements I’m making really are making a difference.

This coming week is a 3 workout week, and I’m glad to have a short workout week. Hopefully the shin splints won’t come back and I’ll be able to do my treadmill work. I did just order new calf sleeves to wear because I was feeling my others were a bit stretched out (I’ve had them about 6 months). So think that those might help me this week keep the shin splints away.

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A Full Workout Week (or Sticking With My Plan)

Posted on February 1, 2016 | 2 comments

I had a 4 workout week this past week and I feel really great about what I did in my classes! This was my second workout week after making the decision to use the bike on the 4th workout of the week and I’m glad that I made that choice. This week was tough, but I don’t feel totally exhausted from it.

Monday was a bit of an odd day. After the warmup (which was about 5 minutes) we all gathered on the floor and did a core blast for our abs. It was partnered work and used regular sit-ups and some with the medicine ball. It was tough and my abs were so tired after it was done, but that was only the beginning of the workout. After the core blast, we all stood around while our coach Brendon counted us off and split up the group. I almost always do my cardio work first, but this time I didn’t have a choice and I had to do my floor work first. I wasn’t too happy about that, but it is what it is and I got through it the best way that I could.

Once I did get to the treadmill, we had some speed training blocks. Normally during speed training the power walkers just work on incline training. But since I’m still struggling to get past 8 or 10% incline, I didn’t want to push the incline work too much. So I decided to try the speed training with the runners. For the runners, they were supposed to increase their speed by .3 or .5 miles an hour each time, but I knew that it would be too much for me. So I did my increases by .1 miles an hour and got pretty fast (at least pretty fast for me). I know that I can’t do the really fast speeds for more than a minute at a time, but just proving to myself that I can do little sprints made me feel awesome!

On Wednesday, the treadmill block was a solid 30 minutes without floor work in between the blocks. Each block was 5 minutes long (which felt long when we were in the blocks) and I kept all my push paces at 3.6 miles per hour because they weren’t too long. That’s still feeling almost too fast for me, but I know that the more that I do them in short bursts the more normal they will feel. So I’m glad that I was able to push myself a little bit more this time. And I felt even better about my work because I was exhausted that day! I know that going to the Pantages the night before didn’t let me sleep as much as I’m used to. But those Tuesday night shows are a rare thing for me so I’m not too worried about them.

Friday was another 30 minute treadmill block day (I really don’t love those but I’m working on tolerating them more). We had a bunch of pushes that were 3 minutes long which are a big challenge for me. I kept my speed at 3.5 miles an hour for those. And while I did have to take some breaks during the pushes, I tried to go as long as I could before taking a break. 3 minutes is a long time to do a push and having multiple pushes like that really tested my limits. I think I was pretty tired from the workout by the time that I got to the floor. I think I could have used 20 pound weights for a lot of my work, but I just couldn’t lift them so I stuck with 15 pound weights. I regret not trying the 20 pound weights more, but at the time it just didn’t seem possible.

And finally on Saturday I did my cardio on the bike. My heart rate really can’t get that high on the bike (I’m not sure if it’s because of the bike or because my heart rate monitor doesn’t work as well when I’m hunched over on the handlebars), so I don’t stress about what the heart rate screen shows (unlike how I am on the treadmill). Our blocks were about 6 minutes each and we switched between cardio and the floor between the blocks. My legs did get tired on the bike because I was pushing it with the resistance, but I know that my legs and hips were grateful for the break from the treadmill. And getting that break helped my floor work because I was doing a lot of work with the 20 pound weights this time! Those 20 pound weights felt like 100 pounds weights at times, but I pushed through and am so glad that my body doesn’t hurt as much as I would expect after working so hard.

I’ve got another 4 workout week coming up this week and I’m really happy about the plan that I’ve made for myself for that 4th workout of the week. I’m still pushing my limits, but I’m pushing them safely and not hurting my hips as much as I have been in the past. And that’s good because my hip pain has been increasing lately. I have no idea if it’s random or if I have done some additional damage lately (which is expected and I’m almost waiting to have happen before my next surgery), so I want to be cautious. But I think with the mixture of the bike and the treadmill I’m protecting my body while pushing myself at the same time. And that’s exactly what I need to do right now.

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Peak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs)

Posted on January 25, 2016 | Comments Off on Peak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs)

It was another Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory! The last Peak Performance Week was back in November and it was a bit tough for me. I had really wanted to beat what I had done in the previous Peak Performance Week, but since I had my calf tear I’ve been trying to work my way back to where I had been before. It’s tough to know that I had been doing things better/faster/stronger before, but I’m trying to thing of my pre-injury time and post-injury time as two different things (I also have separated my life into pre-hip surgery and post-hip surgery).

So this time, I wasn’t necessarily trying to beat my best time, but just beat what I had done last time. Also, some of the challenges I would be doing were different from last time, so it made it easier not to compare myself to my former self.

Peak Performance

Monday was the 500 meter row. This was going to be a lot easier than the 2000 meter row I did last time (I was going to be missing the 2000 meter row day this time), but just because it was going to be easier didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to push myself like crazy to do something awesome.

It was a 3G day, so we didn’t really have a lot of time at each station. We rotated around a bunch and when it was time for me to do my 500 meter row, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted my goal time to be. You are supposed to do at least 100 meters every 30 seconds, so if I followed that I would do it in 2:30. As much as I wanted to see if I could do it under 2 minutes, I knew that wasn’t realistic for me right now. So after I had done about 250 meters, I decided I wanted to come in under 2:15.

500 Meters

It was close, but not quite there. I know I could have done it if the straps around my feet hadn’t loosened so much that I had to stop to tighten them, but I can’t let that get to me. It’s still a good time for me and I know that the next time I have to do 500 meters that I’ve got a good benchmark to try to beat.

Wednesday’s class got off to a bit of a tough start for me. There were so many accidents on the road while I was trying to get to class that I ended up being a few minutes late. Normally, I start my workout on the treadmill because that seems to be easier on my hips. But because I was late, I had to start on the rower first. Fortunately, we switched between blocks so I didn’t have to do 30 minutes on the treadmill at the end of class.

This day’s challenge was 1 minute of burpees. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with burpees, but they are getting easier for me to do. In my 1 minute, I was able to do 10 of them (and we had to go all the way down to the ground each time so it was like having to do a pushup with each one). I didn’t have a goal in mind for this challenge, so to me 10 sounds pretty awesome!

Besides the rough start to my Wednesday workout, the rest of the day went pretty well. My treadmill work was feeling easier than it had in a long time and I was using only 15 pound weights for my floor work (I’m working my way to using those 20 pound weights, but it’s a big jump).

Friday was the day that I had been waiting for. The 1 mile challenge. I think those of you who read this blog regularly know that this challenge is a big deal for me. I do use it as a benchmark for my progress. I’ve had mile times in the past that were over 20 minutes. My ultimate goal is to get down to a 15 minute mile. I know that my mile times on the treadmill versus on a race day aren’t always the same, but I still compare them against each other all the time. Sometimes I’m faster on the treadmill because it forces me to walk faster and sometimes I’m faster at a race because it’s a real flat road and I’ve got adrenaline going. So in my mind, they can be interchangeable.

I’ve had one 1 mile challenge since my calf injury. And while it was slower than my past 1 mile challenge, it was progress compared to my 5K mile time. So I was pretty happy. This time, I knew that it would be close to impossible to beat my 1 mile PR so I didn’t go into this with that mindset. I wanted to beat my last 1 mile challenge time (which was 17:08) and ideally be under 17 minutes.

Technically, at Orangetheory power walkers only have to do half the distance for any treadmill things. So I only had to do half a mile. But I wanted to do a mile no matter what, and I’m glad that my coach Bruce put all the treadmill blocks back to back so I would have enough time to complete it (otherwise, there would only be 14 minutes for me to finish).

When I started my mile, I was off to a great start. I was at 3.5 miles an hour for the first minute or so and then bumped it up to 3.6 miles an hour right after that. I hit the .25 mile mark and was going strong. But then, my shin splints came back. I slowed back down to 3.5 miles an hour hoping that maybe that would help make them feel a bit better. They didn’t and I started to hurt quite a bit.

At the half mile mark, I debated ending my treadmill challenge and just being ok with doing that half mile. But I knew that I would be regretting it later so I kept pushing on. It wasn’t an easy mile and I’m sure it didn’t look pretty. But I did it. And in the end I reached my goal.

1 Mile

My official time was 16:57, which is 11 seconds faster than what I did back in November. It’s 27 seconds slower than my PR, so I’m getting closer to being back there.

I’m so glad that I didn’t give up at the half mile. While I wished that the shin splints hadn’t come back during the challenge, they did and I did the best that I could in the circumstances. I’m sure that if my mile was pain free, I would have been maybe 15 seconds faster. But I met my goal and I’m proud of myself for that.

Since all the treadmill blocks were back to back and I took longer than everyone else to finish their mile (I’ve realized that I might have had the slowest mile of everyone at Orangetheory, but I’m ok with that), by the time that I had walked and recovered it was time to move from the treadmill to the floor work. I missed the run/row that everyone else got to do, but I was glad that the treadmill time was done because I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stand the shin splint pain. I know that pushing through the pain isn’t always the right choice, but I knew it was right for me then.

Overall, I’m very happy with how I did during Peak Performance Week. I always tried my best no matter how I felt and I think that the results show that. I’m happy with all 3 of my challenges and I love that I have new challenges that I can track in the future.

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Pushing Myself Enough (or Listening To My Body)

Posted on January 11, 2016 | Comments Off on Pushing Myself Enough (or Listening To My Body)

I had some really great highs in my workout week and one kind of low. But the positives outweigh the negatives and I’m really excited about that.

The biggest thing that I accomplished this past week was continuing to increase my treadmill speed. I’m still sticking with 3.4 miles an hour for my base pace and when I’m starting out. As much as I’d love to increase that to 3.5 miles an hour (where I was before my calf tear), my body is not having it. I’m trying really hard to be ok with that, but I feel like I’ve been stuck at the same speed for a long time and I should be able to increase it. But I’m not going to push myself so hard that I hurt myself again.

But even though my base speed is the same, I’m been testing myself more and more with my push pace and all-out pace. For power walkers, you only have to increase the incline and not the speed. But I’ve been doing both for the past few weeks. I’m very comfortable with 3.5 miles an hour for both my push and all-out speeds so I’m going faster. I’m up to 3.7 miles an hour for my under a minute push and all-out paces (which is awesome!). If I’m in a push pace for over a minute, I’m at 3.6 miles an hour. For the really long pushes (like 3 minutes), I have to go back down to 3.5 miles an hour a bit. But those aren’t too common.

All 3 workouts I went to this week were 30 minutes on the treadmill straight. Those are the hardest for me and I made it through. And not only did I make it through, I pushed myself more and more on the treadmill and am getting closer to the speeds I want to be working at so I can PR on a 5K. So the progress I’m making, even if it seems minor, is really getting me close to where I’ve been wanting to be.

Besides my treadmill work, I was able to do some really great work on the floor. I was using 20 pound weights for a lot of my arm work and my chest presses. And I was using 25 pound weights for my squats (squats have always been a strong point for me). I had a bad day on Friday with my shoulder work and was only able to use 10 pound weights.

But I had a reason that Friday was bad. I had a horrible gallbladder attack on Thursday night/Friday morning. It kept me up most of the night and I was in incredible pain. I toyed with the idea of going to the hospital, but I’ve done that before and there isn’t much that they can do for me. They can give me painkillers (which I already have for my hip) and do an ultrasound to confirm that I’ve got gallstones (had that done before and I do have them). I know that the next step one day will be to have my gallbladder removed like most of the women in my family have, but I’m not close to being there yet. This was my first gallbladder attack in a long time. And when most people are close to having theirs taken out, they have attacks every month (sometimes every week). So this is just a minor inconvenience for me right now.

But this minor inconvenience did cause me to have a not-so-great workout on Friday due to being exhausted. I actually surprised myself by how well I did on the treadmill, but I had to take a bunch of breaks. But after pushing myself on the treadmill I was almost too tired to do the floor work. It really took a toll on me. And I had every intention of doing a workout on Saturday, but after feeling so tired on Friday I knew that the workout on Saturday wouldn’t be in my best interest. So I cancelled it and took that day to rest and recover from not sleeping Thursday night/Friday morning.

Like I said before, the positives really outweighed the negatives. I’m trying to keep focusing on what I did well and not what I wish I could have done better. I’m aware that it’s always baby steps to get to the goals I set for myself, but I’m so impatient! I just always reminding myself that when I started at Orangetheory I was at 3.0 miles an hour on the treadmill and was so excited to be at 3.1 miles an hour because that meant my 5K would be an hour and not over an hour. In about a year and a half I’m almost half a mile faster. So I just can imagine how much faster I’ll be in 4 months (when I have my next 5K), 10 months (when I’m thinking the 5K after my next 5K will be), or in year. It’s going to be great and I can’t try to rush my progress (no pun intended).

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Finishing The 12 Days Of Fitness (or Some PRs and Some Setbacks)

Posted on December 14, 2015 | 3 comments

It was another 4 workout week for me this past week. It’s still tough to do that many workouts in a week, but I need to do it to hit my 2015 workout goal!

My Monday class was my final 7:30am workout due to my improv class. I still might have to do occasional 7:30am workouts, but they won’t be on a regular basis (unless my next improv class is at the same time). This week was the end of the 12 Days Of Fitness challenge. And even though I wasn’t there for all 12 days, I still wanted to do my best each of the days that I was there.

Monday was a 7 minute challenge on the treadmill. I’ve done these before and they always kick my butt because I push myself harder on the treadmill than I usually do (and maybe harder than I should at times). I try to keep photos of my PRs on my phone so I can always check to see what my past workout PR was. Lat time, my PR on the 7 minute challenge was .414 miles. I haven’t beaten a PR since my torn calf, so I didn’t really have any expectations for this 7 minute challenge.

For this 7 minute challenge, I did try to push the treadmill speed up as I went along. I kept the incline at 6% for the entire time, and I did get it to go pretty fast by the end. When I hit the stop button for the end of the challenge, I was very pleased by what I saw!

OTF 7 Minute Challenge

This was a .007 mile increase over my last PR. It’s not a huge different, but it’s a difference in the right direction! My goal one day is to be able to do half a mile in 7 minutes (although I don’t ever expect that to be how fast I can walk during a 5K). Baby steps toward my ultimate goal is the way I need to be! And having my first PR since my calf injury was really a great feeling for me. I felt like I was maybe finally at the end of my recovery (it’s been taking forever!).

Wednesday was another tough day, but part of that was due to me feeling a bit off. I started some new supplements this past week and I’m pretty sure I had a negative reaction to one of them. So I actually don’t remember a ton from my Wednesday workout because my head was so foggy that entire day.

Friday was another tough challenge. The plan was to do a mile on the treadmill during one segment and a mile on the rower during another segment. Since I’m a power walker, I only had to do a half mile (and since the time limit was 11 minutes I wasn’t going to push myself for the mile). I felt fine at first, but then I started to get horrible shin splints. I’m not quite sure what happened, but that half mile was one of the most painful half miles I’ve ever done. My row wasn’t fabulous, but I did get it done in just over 8 minutes (my goal was under 8 minutes but since it was at the end of my workout I was exhausted).

I thought that maybe the shin splints on Friday was a one day thing, but when I worked out on Saturday they returned. There was someone else on the bike for a while, so I had to stay on the treadmill until almost the end of the workout and then I moved. I’m not sure what I did to cause this pain, but I’m really going to be cautious now. I’m thinking maybe taking a break and being on the bike this week might be a good thing for me. I can still do decent cardio work on the bike, and maybe my legs just need a break from all the 4 workout weeks.

Overall, I’d say I had a very successful week at Orangetheory. It wasn’t the best week I’ve had, but at the same time I wasn’t as upset with myself with the setbacks as I have in the past.

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