Tag Archives: running

Truly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations)

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 2 comments

I had been pretty excited going into this past week of workouts. I really do love Peak Performance Week (it’s so much better than Hell Week!). I track a lot of my workout accomplishments on my phone so I do know how I’m doing week to week. But for some reason Peak Performance Week brings out the competitive side of me and I really go for it! I’ve hit some amazing goals and PRs during past Peak Performance Weeks, and I knew that while I wasn’t going to hit that every day I was going to have an awesome week.

I really wanted to go to 4 workouts this past week, but my schedule didn’t allow for me to do that so I only got in 3 workout challenges (the one I was sad to miss was the same day as my therapist appointment). But I think that I really maximized the time that I was at Orangetheory and I really couldn’t be prouder of myself.

Monday was the 500 meter row challenge. We started our workout doing the challenge (so we wouldn’t be tired doing it later) so I was able to get my row done within the first 10 minutes of class. My goal time was to be able to get this done in under 2 minutes, and I really thought I might get there. I was going really fast on the rower and was pushing back really hard with my legs. But even with the effort I was putting in, I came up just a bit short of my goal.

500 Meter Row

I really set the bar high with hoping to be under 2 minutes, so I’m pretty happy with what I was able to get done. Plus, since I know Mondays are usually tough mornings for me, I knew that I might struggle a bit. But I was pretty happy with my endurance during the row and I think my time is a good one that I can work toward beating next time.

After the 500 meter row, our coach split our group up more evenly to do the rest of the workout. I ended up being in the group that had to start on the floor (I really don’t like that). The floor block ended up being very similar to Friday the week before. It was a long block that had a lot of arm and ab work and we also had to do some more rowing during it. For the treadmill, I only ran during the all out segments because I was feeling a bit tired in the second half of class and I didn’t want to overdo things too much (that’s when I hurt more).

Wednesdays class was pretty fun for me. My friend Dani was able to be in class (she’s missed a few weeks because of work) and my friend Amanda surprised me by being there too! That was pretty awesome and made me be in a really great mood for class. The challenge that day was weighted sit to stands on a Bosu ball for 1 minute. Unfortunately for me, I can’t do sit to stands really well. I can do it if I use my hands and flip over to stand up, but my hips don’t really bend that way right now. So I ended up doing weighted squats for that minute and was able to do 32 squats!

The workout was a strength day, so that meant all inclines on the treadmill. I didn’t end up doing any running for the treadmill time. I knew what was coming up on Friday and I wanted to make sure my legs were ready. But I was able to bring my inclines up on the treadmill higher than I have in a while and that’s a pretty great accomplishment for me! My calf hasn’t been hurting at all lately so I’m getting a bit braver with testing my inclines. I’m not ready to try running really at inclines yet, but to know I can walk at them again is pretty nice.

The floor work that day was nice. I was tired after all of the hill work that we had to do, so I was pretty happy to see that there was an entire block of floor work that was on the Bosu! A lot of that was laying on the ground, so my heart rate got to relax for a bit.

Friday was the big day for me! It was the 1 mile challenge and I was feeling super excited and nervous about it. I know that I just had a major PR recently with my mile time, so I wasn’t expecting anything huge to happen this time. But I did know that I was able to run faster and a bit longer than I did when I got that PR, so I figured I would be getting a faster time that day.

My original plan for my mile was to run for 45 seconds and then walk for 1 minute and just keep repeating it. That seems like a good pace idea for me and I was happy with the plan. When I started my mile challenge, I was feeling pretty good with my running so I decided to run for 1 minute and walk for 1 minute until that was tiring me out too much. I figured I could probably do that a couple of times and then I’d go down to running for 45 seconds at a time. But I was actually feeling pretty great. In fact, I was bumping up my speed on both my running and walking segments (running at 4.8 mph and walking at 3.7 mph).

We technically only had 13 minutes to finish the mile, and I knew there was no way I could finish that quickly. So I just figured that I would stay on the treadmill while everyone was walking to recover and hopefully I could keep going into the beginning of the floor block and nobody would need my treadmill (we were switching between blocks this day). At the 12 minute mark, I saw that I was killing it with my time and I decided to just go for it and hope that I could keep going. I started running at 5.0 mph and decided that I wasn’t going to stop until I hit the 1 mile mark. I was bumping my speed up a bit throughout the time and in that last effort I hit 2 big milestones. I ran at my fastest speed yet (5.3 mph) and for the longest time yet (1:50 without stopping). And it totally paid off in my mile time.

1 Mile Challenge

That’s a minute and 40 seconds faster than my mile last month! That’s insane! I pushed myself harder than I ever have and while I know that this speed and intensity could not be done for a 5K race yet, just knowing I can do a mile like this is incredible! I really want to work on my endurance and continuing to run for longer and longer blocks. I had set a goal for June to run for 90 seconds straight, and I ended up beating that by 20 seconds!

After that mile, I was beyond exhausted. I was very out of breath and had to sit down while the rest of the floor work was being explained. I even had to take a bit of time during the floor block to work on getting my heart rate back down and to stop breathing as hard as I was. The first floor block was 13 minutes long (so the other half of class had 13 minutes to do their mile challenges) and it focused a lot on arms and abs. I was really grateful for the ab work because that meant I was laying down on the floor. I’m glad it was a longish block because I was able to take my time and I know I was going pretty slowly.

After the longer floor block, we got back up to the treadmill for the last 2 blocks of cardio. I was walking during all of it and keeping my inclines a bit lower because I really was tired. My legs were a bit sore (not in pain, just sore) and I knew I had pushed myself maybe a bit harder than I should have so I wanted to be easy on myself. And when we were back on the floor, the final block was 2 1/2 minutes of arm work (biceps and triceps) and I was sitting or laying on the weight bench for the entire time.

Overall, I think that this Peak Performance Week went really well. While I didn’t beat old records every time, the records I did beat were pretty amazing. And I was pushing myself harder no matter what I was doing. That competitive feeling was really making me want to do better than ever and I think that I accomplished that.

I’m not sure when the next Peak Performance Week will be, but I know that all this time between now and then will be training to beat these records and to prove that I’m getting stronger, better, and faster every day.

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Testing Myself (or Running More)

Posted on June 20, 2016 | Comments Off on Testing Myself (or Running More)

I’m so happy to share that the knee pain I was dealing with recently finally went away! I have no clue what was causing it or how I made it stop, but it did and I’m so grateful for that. And I needed a good week because I had another 4 workout week this past week and I wasn’t going easy on myself.

Monday wasn’t my best day (I’m starting to wonder if Mondays are too early for me to be good workouts). While I wasn’t having knee pain, I was dealing with some hip stuff. I could feel the clicks in both hips and I was getting the pressure pain I get a lot. But even with that, I was trying to go hard in my workout. It was an endurance day and we didn’t switch between blocks, so I knew I had to pace myself on the treadmill. We had some 2 and 3 minute push paces, and I stuck to walking those. I’d like to try running for the first 30 seconds of them again soon, but I was scared with the hip pain that day. But even though I was walking for the pushes, I was still doing my running for the all outs. That day we also had endurance rows (400 and 500 meters) and I know that those were to get us ready for Peak Performance Week (which is this week!).

Wednesday was a power day without switching, but that was perfect for me to practice my running with! I’ve quickly learned that the best days for me to run are the power days because we have a lot of all outs and walking recoveries (exactly what I need). This time, we had all outs in blocks of 3 and it repeated 3 times. First we did an all out for a minute, then a walking recovery, then an all out for 45 seconds, and a walking recovery, and finishing with an all out for 30 seconds. We were encouraged to bump up the speed on the all outs as they got shorter and for the first time I followed that advice! When we were doing them for a minute, I stuck with 4.5 miles an hour which is what I’ve been doing. For the 45 second all outs, I ran at 4.6 miles an hour. And for the ones that were 30 seconds, I ran at 4.7 miles an hour. I’m pretty happy that I was able to make speed increases and I’ve learned that the additional .1 faster feels much easier as a runner than it does as a walker. So I might have to keep trying to get faster while I’m also trying to build endurance.

That day on the floor, it was a lot of squats which I did with 25 pound weights. I also used that same weight for my tricep work, but when it came time for abs, I’m glad that I didn’t have to use weights because I was exhausted!

Friday was a run/row day. I was excited for this because I knew that I could test my running again during the run/row. All of the rows were 150 meters, so those were pretty easy. But the run part was a bit longer. It started for me at .25 miles, then down to .2, then to .15, and finally to .1. I walked for the first 3 sets (.25-.15 miles) because I knew that I couldn’t run that long and I didn’t want to push it too much. But when it came to the .1 miles part, I decided to see if I could run it. Before, the longest I’ve run is for a minute, and I know that it’s not .1 miles for me in a minute. But I’ve been hoping that at some point this month I could run for 90 seconds, so I figured this was the best time to try something in between. I’m happy that the longer run wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be and I think that my endurance is really getting better because I wasn’t feeling like I was dying at the end of it. But that day I did run for the longest distance and longest time I’ve done so far.

Run

For my Saturday workout, I did end up using the bike like I’ve said I would on 4 workout weeks. I really did want to try running again, but I also want to pace myself and make sure that whatever that knee pain was doesn’t return. It was a good choice because not only did we not switch between blocks, it was a strength day which means more hills on the treadmill. On the bike, it just meant more resistance. I was trying to go hard on the bike, but my body was just so tired from the week (the heat has been making it tough to sleep) so I just focused on continuing to pedal and not to focus on the resistance levels.

The floor block on Saturday was actually pretty cool. It was a single block for the entire time that started with rowing and then had a bunch of other things we added on. The rowing started easy at 150 meters, but it kept going up and once I was rowing 450 meters I could feel my body being done with it. The highest I had to row was 600 meters and while my time for it was pretty bad, at least I finished. The rest of the stuff on the floor included squats, shoulder presses, and doing arm rows with weights. It was a fun block because I knew I had the time to work through each exercise and I wasn’t worried about when the blocks would switch. But at the end of the class, I was ready to take a nap!

With this week being Peak Performance Week, I’m excited to see what I’ll be able to do. I know that Friday is the mile challenge, which is always the big one for me. But since I recently had the PR on my mile, I’m not going to get too crazy about it. If I beat that time, that will be awesome! But because I know I made some seriously leaps to get that PR, I just want to be close to that time to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.

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Building Up My Running Skills (or Getting A New PR)

Posted on June 6, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week at Orangetheory continued my re-introduction to running. I actually was feeling very scared before this week of workouts because I thought maybe the week before was a fluke and I wouldn’t be able to run again. I thought maybe that was a one week thing and I would be back to struggling during some of my power walking. And I was thinking that maybe the workouts wouldn’t be ones that I could figure out how to run during.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for me. I did have to play around a bit with how I added running into my cardio, but it wasn’t too difficult for me. With this past Monday being a holiday, the workout was a 3G class because so many people were signed up. So we only really had about 17 minutes for each block (and one block for the treadmill, one block for the rower, and one block for the floor). The plan for cardio was to do 1.5 miles as fast as possible. I knew there was no way I could do 1.5 miles in the time we had, so I told my coach I was going to try for a mile and he was ok with that. Since I’m still new to running, I didn’t want to go too crazy. But I really wanted to try to do a run/walk mile.

Since I had done a couple of 30 second runs, that seemed like a good plan to me. So I was going with 30 seconds of running followed by a minute of walking. The first few rounds went pretty easily for me. I was feeling really great and I thought that maybe I should try to do a bit more running than 30 seconds. But after I got about half a mile done, I was feeling very tired. I realized after the fact that I did my entire mile at 4% incline (runners only have to be at 1% while power walkers need to be at 4%), so I could have brought my incline down a bit. But once I got halfway done, I knew I was on pace for a great mile PR so I kept going. I kept up the 30 seconds of running/1 minute of walking pretty much the entire time. When I was close to the end, I wanted to try to finish up with about a minute of running so I did about 90 seconds of walking leading up to the last bit I had and I ran for a minute before I completed my mile.

1 Mile

My previous PR was almost exactly a year ago (before the calf tear) and it was 16:30. My dream was to get below a 16 minute mile (so I can do a Disneyland 5K). And while this was the first time I had added running into the mix, I had no idea that I would take an entire minute off of my mile time! I don’t think I could maintain this pace for a 5K yet, but this is such a positive sign to me!

After doing my mile, I still had 2/3 of my workout left. I did struggle a bit with the rest but I tried my best. We had a mile on the rower (1600 meters) and then our floor work was all sets of 100. We did squats, pushups, running men, swimmers, high rows on the straps, hop overs, and triceps dips. I didn’t make it to 100 of each thing, but I got close. But I didn’t really care too much since I killed it on my mile!

Wednesday was an endurance day, so I had to think about how to try to run on the treadmill. A lot of the push paces were between 90 seconds and 3 minutes, and there’s no way I can run that long yet. So I ran for the first 30 seconds of each push pace and then went down to a power walk (and raised my incline) for the rest of it. That seemed to work pretty well for me and I was able to really work on my running form. Because of my hip issues, I have issues walking in a straight line. So on the treadmill, I have to hold on while I walk because I can walk off the belt and if that happened I’m sure I’d fall off. I was holding on while I was running too, but on Wednesday I decided to test myself and I found that I actually can run in a straight line! I’m not sure why I can do that with running if I can’t with walking, but it might have to do with there being less time that my foot is down (and less chance for my hip to slip). While I was running for 30 seconds for my push paces, I did run for the entire minute that we had all-outs.

The floor that day was all arms, abs, and squats. I’m glad the leg work was a bit limited because my legs were feeling a bit weak after all that running. I know that I have to build up my running endurance and while I’ve done lots of walking cardio work, running is a new skill for me to work on. My body isn’t hurting as much as my lungs do when I’m running. But once I’m off the treadmill, I think the adrenaline I’ve got while I’m running goes away and I feel a bit weak. But soon the novelty of running will wear off a bit and I think the floor work will become a bit easier after cardio again.

Friday was a power day, so it was pretty ideal for me for running. We did have some longer push paces (3 minutes and 2 minutes) so I did the same thing I did on Wednesday where I ran for the first 30 seconds and then walked for the rest. That’s a good plan for me so far and I’m pretty happy with it. But after those long push paces, we had a lot of all-outs that were either a minute long or 45 seconds long. So I was trying to do my best to run for the entire time for those all-outs. I didn’t always succeed, but thinking that I ran for 1 minute straight 4 times is crazy considering that it was only about a week ago that I started running. I want to test my limits, but I know I have to take it easy too.

The floor on Friday was a bit tough. The first half was rowing (300 and 200 meters) and a lot of weight work focusing a lot on arms and abs. The second half had the same rowing and a lot of strap and ab roller work. I didn’t get as far in the blocks as I would have wanted to, but my body just wasn’t moving any faster!

Overall, I’m really happy how my running progress has been going. Obviously I wish it was super easy and I could run without having to worry about catching my breath, but that’s not realistic. I’ve got some goals in mind with the running that I think are very feasible such as being able to run for 90 seconds straight by the end of the month. Setting the small goals and milestones is going to be really important for me as I work on running more. I won’t have progress with running like I do with weight work or rowing, but the progress will happen eventually. But for now, I’m just proud of where I am so far and the fact that I’m doing any running at all!

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Major Progress (or I Can Run!)

Posted on May 30, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week might not have been my best week of workouts, but it was the best one in my mind. I had so much progress that week that I can’t believe it, and I’m terrified that somehow this week won’t be as good. But I’m going to try my absolute best to make sure that I keep making these giant steps forward!

Monday was a pretty typically workout. We had a mile by mile challenge which meant we did a mile on the treadmill and a mile on the rower (split into 4 parts). Since I’m a power walker, my treadmill segments were all .125 miles (instead of .25 miles) so I knew they would all be pretty fast. I was able to do all my treadmill segments at 3.7 miles an hour and at 6% incline, which is usually the speed I use for my all-outs. All of my rows were pretty fast too and I was able to keep them at about a minute or under. The floor work was a lot of lower body work, but I was able to use some good-sized weights like 20 pounds for squats and my upper body work with the pullovers was using the 25 pound weight (only one weight in my hands for that one). I was pretty happy with that workout especially with my treadmill times, but I had no idea how amazing the rest of the week was going to be.

Wednesday was a power day where we didn’t switch between blocks. During the 3 treadmill blocks, 2 of them were the same format. We had 5 minutes of work where it was 30 seconds of all-out and then 30 seconds of walking recovery repeated 5 times. The first time we had that 5 minute block, I worked on increasing my speed each time. I started at 3.6 miles an hour and worked my way up to 3.9 miles an hour by the 4th all-out. But on the 5th all-out of the block, I decided to run.

I’ve done basically no running in the last decade or more. I’ve been warned by hip surgeons that high impact stuff isn’t the best for me, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care anymore. I know that I will need double hip replacements in my life. My original surgeon was so sure that by this point in my life I would have needed at least one of them done. But I haven’t and from my last set of x-rays, I’m actually looking better than I did a year ago. If I’m going to have to have the replacements done no matter what, I might as well use my hips now before they get replaced. They are going to be replaced if I push myself or if I just sit on my butt. So I’ve decided to push myself.

So for that last 30 second all-out, I ran at 4.5 miles an hour. It felt so good to do that and my hips didn’t really hurt at all (the bottom of my feet did a bit, but that’s totally different). I was feeling so amazing after those 30 seconds that I decided to push myself even more on the next 5 minute block like that. For all 5 all-outs, I ran at 4.5 miles an hour! I had a tough time with my walking recovery and I sometimes had to jump the rails of the treadmill to catch my breath, but I did it! I was on such a high from actually running that the rest of the workout kind of was a blur for me. We had some sprint rows for 150 and 200 meters and some squats and lunges. The lunges were a bit tough for me because my legs were feeling a bit wobbly, but I was still not in any extra pain in my hips because of the running! This was seriously such a huge step for me because I had believed for so long that I would feel the pain I had felt before surgery when I tried to run. I never thought that it wouldn’t hurt me any more than walking does!

Friday I was still on a high from running, and I had another great opportunity to test it out! We did a 12 minute challenge on the treadmill for distance. Our coach, Bruce, was going to call out when to be at a push pace versus at a base pace during those 12 minutes, but we could also follow our own plan. Most of the time, I follow the coach. But I was on a mission and I knew I had to do my own thing. For the first 11 minutes of the challenge, I followed the same pattern: I ran at 4.5 miles an hour for 30 seconds and then I walked at 3.5 miles an hour for a minute to recover. I was feeling pretty awesome through most of those first 11 minutes. I occasionally had to jump on the rails to catch my breath, but it wasn’t because of any pain issues. I just have to work up my cardiovascular strength. After those first 11 minutes, I had a minute of walking to do if I followed my original plan. But instead, I walked for 30 seconds and then finished up with 30 seconds of running! This was the most running I’ve done in over a decade and it felt so freeing! I was exhausted after those 12 minutes, but I had gone farther in those 12 minutes than I had in a 13 minute challenge earlier this year!

12 Minutes Treadmill

For the rest of the treadmill time on Friday, I just did walking. Running is so new to me so I have to take it easy and I didn’t want to overdo things. On the floor, we had a bit of rowing (between 200-400 meters) and a lot of arms and chest work. For my arms I was using 20 pounds and for my chest I was using 25 pounds. My heart rate was staying pretty high during the weights, but I know that it was because of the running. I’m hoping my body can adjust soon enough to get back to a lower heart rate, but this is so new and my body needs time to get used to it.

On Saturday I tried to take things a bit easier. We had 2 blocks on cardio and then switched to the floor, and for my cardio I was on the bike. That’s my standard 4th workout of the week plan and I know my legs and hips needed a bit of a break from the running and walking. My heart rate stayed a little lower than I would have liked, but it was also a recovery day for me so that is to be expected.

Once we switched to the floor, the first block was a lot of upper body work. We did chest flies, squats with bicep curls, and triceps presses. I was working mainly with 20 or 15 pound weights (I tried to do as many bicep curls as I could at 20 pounds, but I had to finish my reps with 15 pounds each time). The second block was a lot of core work including work on the straps. We had single arm rows and rollouts on the straps and then finished our block with some crunches.

After we all completed those 4 blocks, we got back together for a partner challenge. Because of the number of people in class, I ended up being without a partner, but for this challenge it actually worked out ok. Basically, we were split between the treadmill and the rower and we went for 90 seconds. Then the teams with partners switched spots and the goal was to see how many meters between the 2 partners you could get on the rower. I wasn’t able to see how many meters I got because the rower reset for me while I wasn’t on it, but that’s ok. For the first treadmill round, I went back to the bike until I realized how short the treadmill blocks would be. So for the second and third round I was on the treadmill. For the second round, it was a 60 second push and a 30 second all-out. I did my push at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline and for the all-out I ran at 4.5 miles an hour. And the final round was 30 seconds of a push and 30 seconds of an all-out and I decided to see if I could run for an entire minute. So I was at 4.5 miles an hour (2% incline since runners didn’t have to have incline) for an entire minute! I can’t remember the last time I ran for an entire minute (easily over a decade ago) and it was amazing!

Over the weekend, I didn’t have any extra pain in my hips from the running. My quads were a bit sore, but that could have been from other work too. I’m not sure how I’ll keep up the plan to try to do a bit of running during each workout. This past week just worked out really nicely for me to bring a bit of running back and I want to see how much I can do. I have no plans to try to run my next 5K (which is about 5 months away), but if I can run/walk it that would be incredible! I could easily get a new PR if I did that. Hopefully I can find a great way to add bits of running into my treadmill workouts from now on and this momentum will just keep moving forward!

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