Tag Archives: progress

My Last Workouts of Being 31 (or 174 Workouts)

Posted on August 10, 2015 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Orangetheory Birthday

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Workout Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OTF June Challenge

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

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

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

Posted on June 29, 2015 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Feeling New Aches And Pains (or Working On More Pain Management)

Posted on June 25, 2015 | Comments Off on Feeling New Aches And Pains (or Working On More Pain Management)

I’ve gotten pretty decent at managing my hip pain. I’ve been dealing with this for almost 10 years now (this coming October will mark 10 years since I collapsed in an airport and the pain started). I have a routine with painkillers and while that has changed a bit because I need to limit narcotic painkillers on Vyvanse, I’m still pretty on top of things.

But with all my workouts plus other things in life, I’m having more pain and having trouble managing it (which in turn makes my hip pain feel worse). Some of the pain is from things that I know I need to deal with. My muscles feel sore after workouts, especially when I’m pushing it with the weights I’m using. Right now, I’m dealing with a lot of shoulder pain in my right shoulder. I’m guessing it’s a combination of my workouts and maybe sleeping weirdly.

I’m also dealing with foot/toe/ankle pain. I’m guessing that that is partly due to the increased speed on the treadmill during my workouts. But it’s also probably due to me marching in place every day to make sure I get my steps in. Walking for hours at Disneyland didn’t help that either.

The rest of the pain that I’m experiencing is stuff that I know is temporary (and somewhat out of my control). Mainly sunburn soreness and feeling sickly (which makes me achy) because of the heat wave.

I’m still working on getting my mind to think about pain differently. It’s not something to stop me and make me take a break all the time. Of course, sometimes that’s exactly what pain means. But I used to always stop when I have any pain and that would prevent me from attempting to work out.

I’m not giving myself that excuse anymore. I’ve become the master at modifying my workouts. And I just have to keep that mindset for other things. Just because my feet are sore, that doesn’t mean that I can’t get my 10,000 steps done. It just means that it might take me all day instead of being able to get them all done in the morning (and then working toward 15,000 for the rest of the day). It might hurt to type with my shoulder pain (it’s weird, but true) but I have to push through it and try to take typing breaks when I can.

I know that pain is temporary, and I just have to keep telling myself that. And most of the pain I’m feeling is because I’m working so hard on improving myself and soon I won’t feel the pain anymore with similar activities.

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Keep Pushing (or Why Was I So Scared Before?)

Posted on June 22, 2015 | Comments Off on Keep Pushing (or Why Was I So Scared Before?)

This past week of workouts was almost like a breakthrough for me. I wrote about how last week I finally got above 3.4 miles an hour on the treadmill. That was so huge for me. For so long I felt stuck there (even though I wasn’t at that speed for a very long time) and 3.5 miles an hour seemed so out of my reach.

After doing it on the treadmill the week before, I decided to try to continue my progress. And I was able to almost always be at 3.5 miles an hour on the treadmill (except for when we were supposed to walk after an all-out pace). Not only did I do that, I was occasionally going to 3.6 miles an hour.

My issue in the past was getting to the orange zone during the push paces. I was usually at 10% incline because if I wasn’t that steep my heart rate wouldn’t get high enough. Now that I can play around with the speed on the treadmill a bit more, I’m able to get into the orange zone at 8 or 9% incline (usually at the beginning of the workout I have to do 10% just to get my heart rate to get up at first).

3.5 or 3.6 miles an hour on the treadmill isn’t easy, but it’s definitely doable. I don’t know why I was so worried about it in the past. I honestly think I could have gone to 3.5 miles an hour at least a month ago. But there was something about that number that terrified me. And now that I’ve proven to myself that I am able to do it, I feel much more comfortable increasing my speed throughout my workout. I’d love to eventually be at 4.0 miles an hour so I would feel comfortable doing a race at Disneyland (they have pretty strict time restrictions on their races), so with the progress I’ve made so far, I’m almost half way to that goal!

I also did another thing that scared me in my workouts last week. With all my hip issues, I have a lot of balance issues as well. So for core strength work that involves balance, I usually get a modification to do instead. There are several things that I still can’t do (step ups on the bench are almost impossible because my hips don’t want to bend that much), but I’m trying to do more things that feel a bit safer to me.

On Friday’s workout, one of the strength movements was doing squats on the BOSU (flat side down). I’ve done those in the past, but only before my hip surgery when my balance was a bit more normal. Since then, I’ve avoided most balance things on the BOSU because there is a lot of risk for me to fall off and hurt myself. But I was at the strength station near the wall so I moved my BOSU close to the wall so I could steady myself on that.

It took me awhile once I got on the BOSU to get my balance, but after about 15 seconds or so, I was able to take my hand off the wall and do a couple of squats while standing on the BOSU. We were supposed to do 20 and I broke it up into smaller segments. After about 5 I would put my hand on the wall again to balance myself before moving on.

But even though I had to do the 20 squats in smaller chunks, I still did all of my squats on the BOSU that day. My hips were killing me afterwards, but it was worth it!

Beyond my workout victories, I also had some fun moments in my workout week. About a week ago, I decided to order a cute Orangetheory shirt that I saw online. I ordered it in the largest size that they had and it arrived this week.

Eat Sleep OTF

It’s a little small for me, but not so small that it’s discouraging. So hopefully I can wear this for a workout soon (maybe for the workout closest to my birthday!).

The other super fun part of my workout week was having two of my favorite trainers, Bruce and Lal, participate in JZ’s class on Wednesday. Sadly, they couldn’t be on treadmills next to me (since they have to wait until the class starts to see if there will be room for them in the class), but it’s still nice to have them there supporting and encouraging me.

Of course, I made them take a post-workout photo with me.

Bruce and Lal

Now that I appear to have broken the 3.4 miles an hour boundary that was in my head, I’m really getting excited to see what new things I can accomplish on the treadmill. I’ve got a 5K coming up in November and I’m looking at some speed training schedules online to see if there is one that would work well with my Orangetheory workouts. If I can keep this all up, there’s no doubt in my mind that in November I will be blogging about yet another PR!

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Daily PRs (or I Did Reach My Peak Performance)

Posted on June 15, 2015 | 3 comments

This past week was a 4 workout week (yay!), but I just want to talk about my first 3 workouts of the week.

Monday-Friday was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory. Every day there was a difference challenge (almost like the Monday Challenges) and the goal was to push yourself to go the most you could do. And the top people each day got a prize.

I knew that there would be no way for me to rank #1 in the challenges so I was only competing against myself. I like that I wasn’t stressed about competing against others so I could really focus on myself.

Monday’s task was 24 minutes on the treadmill for distance. I really didn’t have a goal distance for this one. I just knew that I wanted to do my best and since this was the first time I had done a 24 minute distance challenge that whatever I get would be considered a PR. In my dreams, I would love to have been as close to 1.55 miles because that is half of a 5K, but that would have meant that my speed would have been significantly faster than anything I’ve done.

The first 3 minutes of the 24 minute distance time was at a push pace, which for me meant 10% incline. I was at 3.4 miles an hour and after those 3 minutes were done I went back to my “flat road” of 4% incline. Then I decided to see if I could go 3.5 miles an hour for more than a minute or two. So I bumped up the speed to 3.5 at 4% incline. 2 minutes went by and I was feeling good so I decided to go close to a push pace again at 8% incline (still at 3.5 miles an hour).

I did the last 21 minutes of the challenge at 3.5 miles an hour alternating between 4 and 8% incline. The final minute I kept bumping up the speed because I saw that it might be possible to get to 1.4 miles in 24 minutes. In the end, I didn’t quite make it.

OTF Distance

But even if I didn’t go quite as far as I thought I would, I still did 21 minutes at 3.5 miles an hour! I’ve been working toward that goal for a while and I finally made it!

Wednesday’s challenge was a plank challenge. I used to be amazing at planks. I remember back when I was losing weight for my hip surgery that my personal trainer was always amazing that I could hold a plank for what seemed like an endless time. But after my hip surgery, I could barely hold a plank for any amount of time. It has to do with how my hips sit when in that position. It causes my bones to rest against each other in an awkward and uncomfortable position.

Since I struggle with planks, I didn’t have a ton of expectations for this challenge. I didn’t want to be the first person to drop, but beyond that I didn’t know what I could do. My trainer wanted me to make it 90 seconds, so I figured I’d try for that. I don’t have any photos from my attempt (I was busy holding my plank), but I did manage to hold it for 2 minutes exactly!

While I was pretty happy with my plank time, I hated what happened to the rest of my workout. Because of the pain from the plank (the plank was the first thing in the workout), I was struggling to just walk after that. I wanted to go back to 3.5 miles an hour, but my hip was catching and the pain was making me tear up. So I went back to 3.4 miles an hour and just tried to focus on walking and not quitting. I hate when my hip issues cause problems like this, but I need to know that the pain and discomfort is temporary and won’t be there for all my workouts.

For the final day of Peak Performance Week, we had a 1 mile run (or for me, 1 mile walk). I didn’t know what my PR for a treadmill walk would be, but I looked at my fastest 5K time and the mile time that went with that. That mile time was 17:23 so my plan was to just be faster than that. I really wanted it to be under 17 minutes, but I would have been happy with even 17:22. Just anything that proves I’m making progress.

I did the entire mile at my “flat road” of 4% incline and started at 3.5 miles an hour. At about .3 miles in, I decided that I’d try to bump it up some more (I know, I’m crazy). I went to 3.6 miles an hour at that point. Then the coach bugged me that I needed to bump up my speed some more so I promised that I would try to bump it up another .1 miles an hour at .7 miles in. And as I promised, I did just that.

When I was at .9 miles in I realized that I was easily going to get a mile PR time and that it might be possible to beat my old PR by a minute! So I kept bumping it up bit by bit as I got closer to the mile mark. In the end, I got up to 4.2 miles an hour but that was crazy fast and uncomfortable for me.

But I did manage to get another PR this week with my mile time.

OTF 1 Mile

53 seconds faster than my mile time at my last 5K! That’s pretty amazing! The only thing I wonder is if I could maintain this speed for 3.1 miles and not just 1 mile. Also, I do have the advantage in my races by being at a real flat road and not my 4% flat road. So I have no idea what this means for my 5K time just yet.

But no matter how this relates to my 5K time, this is still faster on the treadmill than I was going before my last 5K. So I feel pretty confident that by the time November gets here (when I’m doing my next 5K), that I should be able to get another race PR.

I really feel good about how I did during Peak Performance Week. I definitely pushed myself to do better than I have in the past and I’ve proved to myself that maybe my mind has been holding me back when my body was ready to be pushed. I’m hoping that I can maintain 3.5 miles an hour for my treadmill workouts. If I can’t maintain it for my entire workout I at least know now that I can start there and go back down if I have to.

I’m hoping that Orangetheory will do another Peak Performance Week soon. I really liked it and it really motivated me to keep pushing my workouts to be better and better.

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Trying To Keep All My Good Habits (or I Need To Get Back On Track)

Posted on June 4, 2015 | 1 comment

Why does it seem like whenever I make progress, something comes that sets me back?

Once again, my weight loss progress has stalled. And I know it’s my fault. I’m not doing so great with my food (again).

I tried to go back to my cleanse plan, but my body wasn’t happy with that. I was getting nauseous and dizzy throughout the day, especially during workouts. And those symptoms would last for an extended period of time where I didn’t feel safe driving or sometimes even walking (I ran into several doors in my house and got lots of bruises). So I tried to just say with a good “normal” diet plan with trying to stay in my calories each day.

It’s just not working. I’m finding that I’m screwing up almost on a daily basis. It’s  not as bad as it’s been in the past, so that is some progress. But these little slip ups do add up and they really are effecting my weight loss.

The one thing I will say is that no matter how bad I feel after eating “bad” foods, I’m still going in for my workouts. In the past, if I had a binge episode I would spend the next day or so recovering from it. And that recovery usually meant laying in bed or the couch waiting for my body to stop hurting. But now, even if I’m hurting or feel sick I still work out. I might not work out as hard as I know I could, but something is better than nothing.

And with this setback with my food, I’m also having a problem for the first time with water intake. I’ve always been someone who drinks too much water. In fact, I’ve had to monitor my water to not drink too much (that can cause issues). I’m still getting in close to 100oz of water every day, but that’s less than I’d like to drink. I’d rather be closer to 125oz.

I just bought a new water glass for my house online and it should be delivered in the next week or two. This one is a 24oz tumbler that is double-walled so I can have it next to my computer while I’m working and I don’t have to worry about the water sweat. Hopefully that will help me get more water in while I’m working (that’s been one of the toughest times for me to hydrate).

Even though I’m having these setbacks, acknowledging them is a major step. And stopping my bad habits before I get back to my before weight is progress too. The water issue seems easier for me to fix than the food one. But I’m really hoping that I can slowly get back on track soon.

Maybe all these setbacks and needing to get back on track moments aren’t really setbacks. Maybe this is just what “normal” eating is like. I’ve never really experienced that so it is a foreign thing for me to deal with.

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Some Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

Posted on June 1, 2015 | Comments Off on Some Progress and Some Setbacks (or Trying To Set New Workout Goals)

I thought that this past week of workouts were pretty successful at first. While I only did 3 workouts, I worked really hard at them and even though I wasn’t able to increase my weights or my treadmill speeds yet, I’m feeling like I’m getting close.

Again, this week was a lot of rowing, but I’m happy with that because I feel like I’m making significant progress in my rowing. We had 100 meter sprints this week on Friday. I was able to do them in 22 seconds. I was super proud of myself until I looked at my list of workout records I saved on my phone.

While I thought that 22 seconds was fast, my record is 19 seconds. Those 3 seconds aren’t much of a difference, but that record was set several months ago. I’m disappointed in myself that I haven’t improved my rowing speed at all. My form is getting a bit better, but with that I would have expected that speed would follow.

I’m really trying not to get too down about this. That record was set when we had the Monday Challenges. So I had already cooled down before doing my row. This time, my row was in the middle of the workout and my heart rate was already pretty high before doing the sprint. So comparing a middle of the workout record against a post-cool down record might not be too fair for me.

I’m really trying to make as much progress as I can each week. It’s tough not to feel like I’ve plateaued when I haven’t been able to increase my weights or treadmill speed lately. But I know that the progress will come eventually and it’s just a matter of time before I’m ready to move to the next level. And while my rowing progress has been backwards lately, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be progressing the correct way again soon.

Beyond my disappointment with my rowing speeds, this week was very successful for me. Monday’s workout was a 3G workout because of the holiday. That means that there were 3 groups in the class instead of 2 and we rotated around the room more often than usual. Personally, I like the 3G classes, but since I don’t work out doing peak times I rarely get to take them. I like switching things up more often in the class because I can’t focus on how tired I am.

The other thing that was really cool on Monday was that my coach, Brendon, was on American Ninja Warrior that night.

OTF ANW

I had wanted to go and watch it live when it recorded a few months ago, but it was on a Friday evening and I had to work early on Saturday morning. But it was great to get to see what he was able to get done!

It really inspires me that Brendon decided to challenge himself and do the show. I’ve always thought of the coaches as people who are what I hope to be as an “after”. But Brendon proved that no matter what, you can always find something else to challenge yourself and try to better yourself with.

My other two workouts were on Wednesday and Friday (no 4 workout week this week for me). Friday was my first day with a new batch of painkillers and I’m not sure if the workout or the new painkillers made me hurt more than usual, but either way I was in a lot of pain on Friday evening. I took it easy and continued to take some painkillers on Saturday as well.

I’m not sure why I’m so focused on the setbacks this week. Maybe it’s because the challenge of working out regularly is no longer a challenge for me. This is a habit now and I’m able to focus more on the little things that annoy me versus struggling to work out enough times in the week.

But as always, I’m trying to focus on the positive and know that even if I’m progressed backwards I’m still doing better than I would be doing if I wasn’t working out at all.

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