Tag Archives: rowing

Surviving Hell Week (or I’m A Liar)

Posted on November 2, 2015 | 2 comments

Remember how last week I said that I knew I’d only get 3 workouts in for the week because of my schedule?

I totally lied.

I went into Hell Week with the intention of only doing 3 workouts until on Monday I found out that it was 4 Hell Week Workouts to earn the shirt (I thought it was 4). So I decided to suck it up and do 4 workouts to get my shirt.

Death Row

Monday’s workout was Dead Man’s Row. I knew this would be the 23 minute row day, and I was terrified. I made sure that my rowing segment was first so I could get it done with, and then I’ll do my best with the floor work.

I’m still getting used to the 7:30am workouts so I was pretty exhausted going in. And doing that long row didn’t perk me up. But there was a plan with push rows and recovery rows, and I did my best to follow along with that.

I didn’t have much of a goal for my row. I just wanted to beat my row of about 3300 meters from last year. And when my 23 minutes were up, I was pretty darn excited to see that I did 4142 meters!

Rowing Record

I don’t remember much about the floor workout after that except that one of the floor moves was a low row on the straps and I felt that that was extremely mean to do when we had a 23 minute row.

The Hills Run Red

Tuesday (the extra day I added) was The Hills Run Red. I thought it was be a really tough hill day for me, but it ended up not being too bad. All the treadmill segments were on inclines, but they were all sprints that were about a minute or less. Between sprints we had to go on the rower (I wasn’t happy about 2 rowing days in a row), and I managed to do 3000 meters on the rower then! While I was happy that I’m getting better and better at the rower, I was ready for a few rower-free days.

Silence Of The Lambs (Legs)

Wednesday was The Silence of the Lambs (or Legs depending on where you read it). Yes, this was a leg day and there were a bunch of squats and lunges to do. And yes, there was more rowing!

Final Destination

After 3 workouts in a row, I was ready for a rest day so I was happy taking Thursday off. But I was back on Friday for day 4 (my first 4 workout week since my calf injury!). That day was The Final Destination and again it involved the rower! There were 2 rowing segments (400 and 800 meters) so those felt almost like sprints. And the treadmill had 4 segments at either .13 miles or .25 miles so that wasn’t too bad.

The floor that day was crazy. It was a single 23 minute floor block and it was so tough! There were lunges, squats, burpees, full body pull ups, and speed skaters. I had to take several breaks in those 23 minutes, but I got the entire routine done so that was good enough for me.

Doing 4 days of Hell Week exhausted me, but I proved to myself that while my calf might not be totally healed, I can get back to 4 workouts in a week if I have the time. I won’t be doing that this week because of my race, but I’m going to try to do that again soon so I can get as many workouts in this year as possible!

I seriously had the best time with Hell Week this year. Last year it terrified me for a couple of reasons. First, I was still pretty new to Orangetheory so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the workouts. I proved that I can totally do it. And last year Hell Week was the first time I did 3 workouts in a row. Again, I can totally do it. While I was worried about how I would do in the workouts this year, I got to have more fun than stress. I loved pushing myself to new limits and seeing the awesome costumes that the coaches wore.

JZ Bruce

Yes, in that second picture I’m standing on top of a rower to be almost as tall as Coach Bruce.

I’m actually excited for Hell Week for next year. I know that there will be more challenges before next Hell Week, but I like having that as a standard thing to hold myself to. If there is another 23 minute row, I know what distance I want to beat. I know how I felt in the workouts this year and I want to push myself more next year. I’ve got a year to train for Hell Week 2016, and I’m already starting to get ready!

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Setting Some New Personal Records (or Getting Closer To My Old Self)

Posted on October 19, 2015 | Comments Off on Setting Some New Personal Records (or Getting Closer To My Old Self)

I’m happy to share that I actually had a pretty amazing workout week! I’m actually surprised that I feel so great about my workout week because I had a setback on the treadmill and that’s how I’ve been measuring my success for a while now.

I’m not doing horribly on the treadmill, but I’m back to 3.4 miles an hour. I can do some moments of 3.5 miles an hour, but it’s starting to hurt again. But I’m starting to not stress about that as much as I was before. At 3.4 miles an hour, I’m about 30 seconds slower than my 5K PR time. And I know that I have a tendency to be faster on race days and my treadmill training is at 4% incline (at least) and my race day is pretty much a flat road. So knowing that, there is still a decent chance that I will PR at my race in a few weeks even if all my treadmill training until then is at 3.4 miles an hour (although I’m not going to stop pushing myself to go faster).

While I had a small setback on the treadmill, I had jumps forward in everything else. My strength work was much more fluid and less jerky than it was in the past. I also finally conquered my fear of using the next set of weights when I was doing arm work. I finally did some of my upper body weights with the 20 pound weights! I’m not going to do that for everything, but it’s nice to prove to myself that I can do it and that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I also had to use fewer modifications this past week. Some of that was because of what the workout programs were during the week, but there are some things (like certain types of planks) that I was able to do the normal way instead of the way I’ve been doing them. I still had to do a modification on one move on the Bosu (where you do a sit up and then stand), but that’s something that I’m aware will likely always be very difficult or impossible to do. And I did burpees much cleaner than I think I ever have!

But my biggest success of the week was my rowing. Yes, it shocked me as well that I have good rowing news to share. We had a ton of rowing to do this past week. And while most of my rowing kind of kicked serious butt (including getting a higher wattage than I can ever remember), I mainly want to share about my rowing victory on Wednesday.

Part of the workout routine on Wednesday was a 1,000 meter row. Those intimidate me so much. I know that if I want to do a Dri-Tri that I’ll have to do a 2,000 meter row, but for some reason that doesn’t scare me as much as the 1,000 meter row.

Whenever rowing is part of the workout plan, there is a guideline for how long it should take you to complete it. Beginners should average 100 meters every 30 seconds. For the shorter rows, I can do that pretty much all the time. But when I have to do the longer rows, it normally doesn’t happen.

So going into the 1,000 meter row, I just wanted to be under 5 minutes. I knew that I could maintain that pace for at least the first half of the row, but the second half would be a struggle. So I set up my rower so it would count down the meters and stop when I got to 1,000 (instead of just continuing to go as long as I don’t reset it). With the rower set up that way, I could focus on other things in the room and not really pay attention to the countdown. I also knew that with it set that way I would see exactly how long it took me to complete it versus making a guess.

When I started, I just counted each stroke in my head. It doesn’t really mean anything to me, but it’s a good distraction. The first time I checked the monitor I was about a quarter of the way done. I just kept going and trying to not slow down. It was so hard. I was sweating like crazy (and not stopping to wipe off the sweat) and my heart rate got a bit higher than I like it to be. But I managed to complete the 1,000 meters with pretty much no breaks.

And when I looked at the monitor (and I regret not having a picture of this), it said 4:58.9. I was just over a second under my 5 minute goal!

Of course, the rest of the workout was a struggle for me because I was exhausted from the row, but I was also on such a high from accomplishing something that I wasn’t sure would be possible.

Of course, I had to take a post-workout selfie to celebrate this accomplishment!

Post Workout

I’m excited to see what this week of workouts will bring. I have to start doing very early workouts on Mondays for a while (more on that tomorrow), so hopefully I won’t have too many issues with that.

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Workout Struggles and Wins (or My First Early Workout In A While)

Posted on September 28, 2015 | 1 comment

I’m still on the path of recovery for my calf injury (I laugh now when I think back at how I thought before it would only take 2 or 3 weeks to recover). I’m in a weird balance point of trying to push myself more and more and trying not to re-injury myself. I’m so terrified of another tear but I know that I do need to get myself stronger. It’s a weird thing for me to really want to hold back and push forward at the same time, but I think I’m finally understanding my body more and figuring out things I can do to both protect my muscle and build it at the same time.

I’m learning that if we are going to be on the treadmill for the first half of class uninterrupted (instead of either having a run/row day or switching between blocks), I’ve got to take it easy. Taking it easy is still at 3.4 miles an hour, but I’m not really pushing it any more than that. I’m feeling twinges in my calf when I go faster after being on the treadmill for an extended period of time, so I’m taking that as a sign that I’m not ready for that yet.

But when we are switching between blocks or doing a run/row day (we did both of these in workouts this past week), I’m able to do almost all my treadmill time at 3.5 miles an hour. I’m still keeping the incline on the lower end of things, but I’m testing the waters there a bit too. On Friday, we had very short treadmill segments on the run/row (1 minute or 45 seconds each), so I was able to try slightly higher inclines. But I’m not sure if I’m going to keep pushing myself on the inclines as much because I really want to focus on speed.

Besides the treadmill improvement, I’m still working on my form and other things like that on the rower and on the weights. The rower is tough because of both my hip and calf, but it’s getting better (and less painful). For weights I still have to be careful with some lower body things (I did something on Monday that made my legs hurt through Thursday) but I’m testing my limits there too.

The biggest struggle of my workout week was Friday. Because of my crazy schedule, I had to do a 7:30am workout. I don’t do those that often (I sometimes do 8:30am but that feels so much later than 7:30am), but it was the only way I could get in 3 workouts this week. I’m not sure if it was the early wakeup time or the fact that my heart rate monitor wasn’t registering correctly for the class, but I had the worst time in class. I was constantly dizzy and when I would look at the heart rate monitor for guidance if my heart rate is too high, it was showing false low heart rates. I tried to take my heart rate by feeling my pulse, and my heart was racing higher than it probably should be. I had to take it easy a lot during the rowing and weights segment, but I stuck it out through the entire class.

This week will bring another potential struggle for me. I’m going to be doing 3 workout days in a row. It won’t be the first time I’m doing this, but it will be the first time in a while. It’s not ideal for me to be doing this, but if I don’t I won’t be able to get 3 workouts in for the week and I haven’t done fewer than 3 workouts in a week since starting at Orangetheory. I’m going to try my very best in those 3 classes and I know that even a half-ass workout is better than no workout at all.

And I’ve got the new parking validation stamp from Orangetheory to remind me of that fact.

OTF Validation

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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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Feeling Special This Workout Week (or Maybe I Influenced My Coaches)

Posted on May 25, 2015 | Comments Off on Feeling Special This Workout Week (or Maybe I Influenced My Coaches)

This past week was a really fun workout week for me. It was another 4 workout week which is good. And yes, it was another week filled with lots of rowing.

While all my workouts were really good this week, the highlights for me were on Wednesday and Thursday.

About a month ago, one of the coaches, Lal, promised me that he would take a workout class with me and be on the treadmill next to me. I’ve taken Lal’s class a bunch of times. He is my Saturday coach from time to time. But I’ve never taken a class where he was doing the workout and not as the coach.

Right after he made that promise, he hurt his arm. I completely understand injuries, but at the same time I told him that if I was injured he wouldn’t let me use that excuse. He would tell me that I could just modify what I need to so I can work around the injury (like I do with all my hip issues). He said that once his arm was better, he’d workout with me.

I saw him on Monday after my morning class and reminded him that he had made that promise to me and hadn’t fulfilled it yet. He said that he would take a Wednesday class either this week or next and he let me put his photo on my social media pages and publicly shame him and hold him accountable.

And wouldn’t you know it? It worked! Lal was in this Wednesday’s class. He didn’t let me know ahead of time so I didn’t save him the treadmill next to me (sorry Lal), but he was still there and that is what counts.

Of course after the workout I had to get a photo with him so I could let everyone know on social media that he held up his end of the bargain and nobody needed to bug him about the promise.

Lal At OTF

The next day I was back at Orangetheory for another workout. I couldn’t work out on Friday due to a screening I was attending, so I did a Thursday afternoon one. And I was so happy because Whitney was my coach! I haven’t seen Whitney in a while since she is the head coach at the Santa Monica location (which is farther for me to get to than the Brentwood one so I don’t go there). She seemed pretty excited to see me as well. In fact, she named the run/row after me.

Jen's Run:Row

This was not an easy run/row for me to do. While my rowing skills have improved so much over the past few weeks, I’m definitely a sprinter versus a distance rower. And to me sprints are usually 200 meters or less. So 250 and 500 meters aren’t that easy for me. I’m able to complete them without resting in the middle, but I really do get tired.

Also, the run (or for me walk) segment of the run/row was longer than it usually seems to be. So it really tested my endurance (which was the point) and while I didn’t get through all 4 sections I go to the final run segment and only missed doing the final row. I don’t think a majority of the class got through all the segments so I’m not too disappointed in myself. Plus, Whitney seemed pretty proud of me. I might have to start taking some Thursday classes so I can see her more often!

I also had a nice workout victory in my Saturday class. Lal was the coach then and it was another run/row day. All the row segments were 250 meters and Lal was pushing us all to do them around 50 seconds every time. I can usually get a longer sprint in for the first row but my time increases a lot over the course of the workout because I get tired and burnt out.

But I really wanted to focus on trying to be as close to 50 seconds for all my rows. I stayed between 51 seconds (my fastest) and 56 seconds (my slowest) for every row. So even though I didn’t get to 50 seconds like Lal wanted, I stayed pretty close to my fastest time each time. That’s pretty awesome for me.

I’m toying with the idea of doing 4 workouts this week too. As of right now, I’m signed up for 3 classes. I’m still waiting to see if I have to do something on Saturday afternoon, but if I don’t I might try to go for my 3rd 4 workout week in a row!

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Back To 4 Workouts (or More Rowing!)

Posted on May 18, 2015 | Comments Off on Back To 4 Workouts (or More Rowing!)

I finally had another 4 workout week. It had been about a month since my last 4 workout week, and I’m not totally sure how that happened. I’ve been trying to stay on top of getting in 4 workouts every other week, but no matter what happened I’m getting back on track this past week.

I thought with all the rowing we did last week, this would be a light rowing week.

Nope.

It wasn’t as bad as the rowing last week. All of the rowing segments were on the shorter side and some of them were just sprints.

I’m noticing that my rowing form is getting better each week. And I’m able to bend my legs in a more upright way than I did before (my legs used to have to bend more toward the side like a butterfly stretch during rowing). And I’m finally feeling like I’m able to row with very few issues caused by my hips.

I’m still struggling with getting the wattage up high enough, but that’s a tough thing to improve on. There are times where it is exactly where it needs to be, but it’s tough to maintain. So I guess I need to work on rowing stamina.

I also broke a personal rowing record. I was able to row 200 meters in 46.5 seconds! This was a new record for me, I haven’t tracked my 200 meter time in the past. And my records for 100 meters is 19.5 seconds so I’m not really sure if at one point I did 200 meters faster. All I know is for as long as I remember in my Orangetheory workouts I’ve been at about 55 seconds for 200 meters. So I’m happy with this new record!

Beyond my rowing accomplishments, I’m continuing to try to improve my strength work. Unless all the 15 pound weights are taken, I’m always using those for my arms, shoulders, and back work. And I did deadlifts this week with 25 pound weights in each hand. When I started, I was at 8 pound weights in each hand. That’s a huge improvement within the year!

My treadmill work is a bit stalled. I’m still at 3.4 miles and hour and doing my crazy inclines, but I’ve hit a bit of a wall. I can increase my inclines for my push pace (I’m currently at 10% incline), but when we have pushes that are more than a minute or two I find it too difficult. I did do 1 push pace this past week at 11% incline, but I was hurting after that. And my all-outs are at 15% incline which is the maximum incline. I’d like to increase my speed soon, but 3.5 miles an hour feels way too fast right now. So I have to be patient and maybe in a month or so I can go up to that speed.

But one of the things that I’m proudest of from the past week is how well I did with my 4 workouts. I was scared that my body had gotten too used to 3 workouts a week and that the 4th would be a big struggle. The 4th workout wasn’t easy, but it was a typically hard workout struggle and not the struggle of being too tired.

I don’t believe that I will get 4 workouts done at Orangetheory this week due to my schedule, but it’s nice to know that my body will be ok doing them from time to time when my schedule does allow it.

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Getting My Rowing In (or Burning Lots Of Calories)

Posted on May 11, 2015 | Comments Off on Getting My Rowing In (or Burning Lots Of Calories)

It had been a while since I had a run/row day at Orangetheory and I kept asking if we could have one on one of my workout days. I guess this week was the payback for asking for that.

Monday was a pretty normal day. Or at least as normal as a workout could be after going to the dentist in the morning. To be honest, because I was coming down from my panic meds I don’t remember too much about this workout. I know that I got through it just fine and I had moments were I started to wonder if I should increase my weights again. That’s a good sign and I’m hoping to start thinking about which movements I can do with a heavier weight and start doing that this week.

Wednesday was a run/row day. It was a pretty typical run/row set up and I was happy about that. Since rowing is one of my weaker things, I’m always happy to get to have some time to work on improving it. I still struggled with the longer rows, but I’m definitely much better at sprint rows (200 meters and under are sprints in my mind).

I did learn one thing about run/row days that I didn’t think about before. I’ve been averaging 3,000-4,000 steps in my workouts. So I know that I can get those added to my goal of 10,000 steps on my Fitbit on any of my workout days. On run/row days, I still will get some steps in, but it’s much less than compared to a usual workout day. So I can’t keep depending on my workouts as being a big chunk of my steps for the day. I need to get more done at home before working out.

Friday was one of the hardest row days since Hell Week. I don’t even know if you could call it a run/row day. It was just a crazy day.

To explain this the best I can, I will call one half of the class the weights section and the other half the rowing section. But you’ll see that that isn’t quite how it split up.

I started on the weights section. We had about 6 different things to do (mainly ab work) on the floor. After getting through those 6 movements, we then had to head to the treadmill. We then had a 90 second push (I did this at 10% incline) followed by a 60 second all-out (I did this at 15% incline). Once we finished on the treadmill, we headed back to the floor to repeat the cycle. I think I got about 3 1/2 rounds down before the 22 minutes were up.

Next was the rowing section. First, we had to do a 1,000 meter row. I managed to do it without resting, but it was so hard and I needed time to catch my breath after that. Once that rowing was done, we used a medicine ball to do 15 shoulder press squats followed by 30 static squat presses. Then we had to do an 800 meter row. Followed by the same medicine ball routine. Then 600 meter row and medicine ball routine. At the end of this 22 minute section, I just finished the 400 meter row.

That is a lot of rowing to do in one workout! Fortunately the vertigo I had been experiencing recently had ended and my sunburn is almost completely healed so I was able to really feel like I did my best during all 3 workouts. Now reflecting on last week I really wish I had added a 4th workout to my week, but since the past 2 weeks were tough on me I was scared to push it. But for this week, I currently have 4 workouts scheduled so I’ll be back on track to reaching my 2015 workout goal.

If anyone from Orangetheory is reading this, I got my rowing fix in this past week. Hopefully this week will be less rowing!

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Fitting In My Workouts No Matter What (or Last Workouts Before The 5K)

Posted on April 13, 2015 | 3 comments

It was not easy to get my 3 workouts in this week, but I did it.

I knew that it was going to be an odd week of workouts even before having to go down to San Diego. I had the Hollywood Half 5K on Saturday and knew that I would not be working out on Friday. And there was a chance that I was going to be at Disneyland on Monday with a family friend.

So the original plan was to work out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.

Then my grandpa passed away and my schedule got crazy.

I cancelled my Disneyland plans right away. Then I started to wonder how I could get 3 workouts in during the week.

It’s probably stupid that I was worried about my workouts when there was a death in the family, but I guess that is how I was coping.

I started to think about what time I would have and how late I would be getting back from San Diego on Tuesday to see if I could do a Tuesday evening workout. But after debating it all for a few minutes, I figured out a schedule.

I would do my Wednesday and Thursday workouts as planned and add an early Sunday workout before driving to be with my family.

Sunday morning was not a great workout for me. Again, I had issues with getting my heart rate high enough (I guess the side effect of a speedy heart rate with my new medication went away). I was also pretty stressed out about going to San Diego. It didn’t feel real that my grandpa died, so I was worried that as soon as I got to San Diego it would all hit me (it did, but not in the way I was expecting it to). I tried my best to get through the workout, but I know that I wasn’t doing my best.

Wednesday was a pretty good one for me. I was worried that I would feel a bit out of shape from the lack of exercise and the good food from the past few days, but it didn’t affect me nearly as much as I thought. The biggest challenge I had in my workout on Wednesday was the 800 meter row.

We had to do this 2 different times in the workout. We had to write down our first time and then try to beat it the second time. And for every second longer our second time took, we had to do a burpee. I pushed myself like crazy on that rower. My goal was to be under 4 minutes, and I did it!

800 Meter Row

My name is toward the bottom of the board. And you can see that my second time was exactly 1 second slower than the first. So I owed 1 burpee. But considering that my goal was to be under 4 minutes, both my rows were pretty amazing!

After that exhausting workout, I was feeling a bit sore for my Thursday workout. But since it was my final workout before the 5K, I wanted to push myself as much as I could on the treadmill. I wanted to see if I could get a new PR on the 5K, and treadmill training is what will get me there.

The treadmill workout was all hills. I usually hate the hills, but I was grateful for them on Thursday. A majority of the 5K is on a flat road (there are a few hills), so since I’m used to training at an incline the 5K should almost feel like a downhill race.

Besides going hard on the treadmill, I’m still working on upping my weights when I’m doing the floor work. I’m finally starting to see (and feel) the results of the heavier weights. Even though the scale isn’t going down that much, I feel much lighter. And I have some pretty decent sized muscles now (they are just covered up by fat). Hopefully when the scale starts dropping again, the visually results will be seen more because I have more muscle to show off.

I’m so glad I got my 3 workouts in even though I was dealing with so much. I know I say this again and again, but it just proves to me how much of a priority working out is for me now. I never felt like that prior to Orangetheory and it makes me so proud that I’m dedicated to my workouts now.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be recapping the Hollywood Half 5K!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Not Loving Early Workouts (or Trying My Best)

Posted on March 9, 2015 | 1 comment

Between my weekend trip, my new temp job, and the film festival; last week was a very limited week for workouts. I knew that getting 4 workouts during the week would pretty much be impossible. But I was going to do whatever I had to do to get my 3 workouts in.

Doing whatever I had to do included getting up early (for me) and working out at 7:30am twice.

Tuesday was my first 7:30am workout. It was not easy waking up. My flight home had been delayed over 2 hours and I was home much later than expected. But I managed to wake up and get my butt to Orangetheory in time for the 7:30am class.

7:30am Orangetheory

It was one of the toughest workouts for me since my very first workout. First of all, my last workout had been on the past Wednesday. So it had almost been a week since I worked out. I haven’t taken that much time off between workouts since I started in the summer. So my body was feeling a little weak and things were harder than I remembered.

The second reason that the workout was tough for me is for some reason I could not get my heart rate up. I’m used to completing the 12-20 minutes in the orange zone each workout. But for some reason in this class, I barely got a minute. And I was constantly trying to push myself to get my heart rate in the orange zone, so that was making me more tired as well. Eventually I had to realize that it just wasn’t going to happen.

Wednesday’s workout was during my usual workout time in the afternoon. Overall, it was a great class and even though I had worked out the day before, my body was feeling much better than in Tuesday’s workout.

And it was a very rowing heavy workout. The rower is still tough for me and I have issues using enough power in my legs and not in my arms. But I’m working on it. And in this workout, we had to row 1200 meters two separate times. 1200 meters is a lot for me. I like the sprints like 100 or 200 meters because I can get them done quickly. But 1200 meters takes about 6 minutes of constant rowing.

Knowing that I had a long row, I set a goal in my head to take my time and to finish it without stopping. I was the last rower to finish each time, but I was able to do both sets of 1200 meters without taking any breaks!

I felt amazing after doing that! My legs might have felt like jello, but I was pretty darn happy with myself for not having to stop during 6 minutes of rowing!

And because of my limited time options for working out, I was back at Orangetheory on Thursday morning (there was about 14 hours between my Wednesday and Thursday workout). I’ve never had such a small turnaround time between workouts. I’ve also rarely done 3 workouts in a row. And of course I had the issues at the beginning of the week with my heart rate not wanting to go up in an early workout.

Sadly, my second 7:30am workout of the week was similar to the first. I struggled due to being tired from 3 workouts in a row. And my heart rate never made it into the orange zone. But I tried my best and even if it wasn’t a wonderful workout, some workout is better than no workout.

I have no idea why I can’t get my heart rate up for early morning workouts. I don’t have this issue when I work out at 9:30am. I don’t plan on doing 7:30am workouts regularly, so I don’t know if I’ll ever figure out the answer to this problem.

But at least even with all the craziness I have going on in my life, I was able to get my 3 workouts done.

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Doing Some Challenges (or Mondays Are Going To Be Tough)

Posted on September 22, 2014 | 4 comments

It’s been another week of workouts at Orangetheory, and this past week also marked that last week for the weight loss challenge. I had my weigh-in for the challenge yesterday and there will be a party next weekend where they will announce the male and female winner of the challenge.

Honestly, I don’t think I won. I had some setbacks over the past 6 weeks and my food has not been as good as it could have been. But the key for me is that even with all my setbacks (and some unexpected weight gain from the heat), I’m still a few pounds lower than I was when the challenge started.

This past week of workouts has been all about challenging myself.

This started with the newest thing that Orangetheory is doing: Monday Challenges. Every Monday at the end of each class there is a challenge that you can choose to participate in. I was exhausted after the Monday class, but I’m always down for a challenge.

This week, the Monday Challenge was a 500 meter row. I got off to a great start, but I overdid it. I was so tired by 300 meters and I had to take a few second break. I ended up finishing in 1:56.8, which I think it pretty amazing. My goal is to be at 30 seconds per 100 meters or less. So my time definitely fit into my goals.

They posted the challenge winners (the top 5 men and top 5 women) on Tuesday so I got to see it on Wednesday. I didn’t make it to the top 5, but I was happy to see that I was only 20 seconds away from that top 5. That’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

On Wednesday, it was another challenging workout. I always do the cardio portion of the workouts first because my hip issues seem to get worse after the weight training. So on Wednesday, I hopped onto the treadmill at the beginning of class like normal. Except this class it wasn’t going to be 30 minutes on cardio and then 30 minutes on strength. The cardio people went to strength after the warm up. Then after the first strength block, the sides switched (strength to cardio and cardio to strength).

I tried to go back to the treadmill but my hip kept catching. So after the second block of strength when we were sent back to do cardio, I tried the spin bike that they have in the workout room. I actually used it for 2 cardio blocks. It wasn’t bad, but it’s wasn’t as good as it could have been.

The pushes and all out moments in cardio are not as easy to set on the bike. And I didn’t have my spin shoes so I couldn’t clip in (there were straps to strap my feet into, but it’s not the same).

For the final cardio block, I sucked it up and used the treadmill again.

The workout week felt like it came full circle on Friday. It was a run/row day (which I love because it means less treadmill time). The first row section of the run/row was a 500 meter row.

I was a little scared to do that 500 meter row, especially in the beginning of the workout, because I knew how exhausted I was on Monday doing the challenge. So I tried to take it easy and I managed to do all 500 meters without taking a single break! It took me a little longer than 2 minutes to do it (I don’t exactly remember my time), but it’s almost more important to me to do the row without stopping than it is to do the row quickly.

I’m looking forward to the next Monday Challenge. As long as it isn’t a timed treadmill thing, I know that I can do it and have a decent chance on making it to the top people board. I guess I’ll find out what today’s challenge is when I go to workout in a few hours!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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