Tag Archives: strength

Wanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing)

Posted on July 25, 2016 | Comments Off on Wanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing)

My week of workouts last week were a bit interesting. I’m discovering that I need to push myself harder to get my heart rate up, but my endurance isn’t quite there yet. I’m finding the most trouble on the treadmill. I used to be able to get my heart rate into the orange zone while power walking, but now it doesn’t want to get there unless I’m running. I know this is a good sign and I’m getting much stronger with my cardiovascular ability. But I need to work on the endurance to get there too and I’m not finding it as easy as it was when I started running to build endurance now.

I don’t think I’ve necessarily hit a wall, but I’ve hit a small barrier. It’s like weight loss. When you start losing weight, you tend to lose very quickly at first and then it slows down. When I started running I found I could push my time by huge jumps without too much effort. Now, I’m finding it tough to run longer than a minute at times. I’m not giving up or losing hope, but it’s made me realize that I have to focus on training a bit differently now and perhaps I was just staying in my comfort zone before and now I’m truly pushing myself.

On Monday, we had a power day that switched between blocks. All the blocks were pretty short so I was able to do some good treadmill work. I was able to run during all of the all-out segments which were either 30 seconds or 1 minute long. I’m pushing things a bit with my speed on those all-outs, so I’ve been doing more at 5.5 mph when I’m not too tired (when I’m tired I’m scared I’m running sloppily and don’t want to hurt myself).

With the power day, we also had rowing to do. The rows were timed sprints and they weren’t too horrible for me. We had 3 timed sprints (1 minute, 2 minutes, and 4 minutes) and while my wattage on the rower was pretty low for me, I was able to do all of the sprints without taking a break and I hit my goal for the distance each time. There was a rowing workshop this past weekend that I wished I could have gone to (I was out-of-town) but I really want to go to the next one. I know I could be doing better with my rowing and I’d like to work on improving that.

Wednesday was a power day again, but no switching between blocks. It felt more like an endurance day for me because of the long time on the treadmill, but we had several walking recoveries during the 23 minutes on the treadmill so that helped a lot. Some of the push paces were 2 or 2 1/2 minutes long, and for those I had to stick with power walking. I really wanted to run (or run/walk), but I knew I needed to save my strength a bit for the all-outs. I did run during the shorter 1 minute push paces including the time that we had a 1 minute push into a 1 minute all-out (so that was 2 minutes of running). While we had the shorter all-outs, I decided to really push myself (I had barely been in the orange zone at all with my heart rate) so I ran for 30 seconds at 6 mph. That is definitely fast for me and I don’t think I could have done it for more than 30 seconds at a time. But it made me happy and gave me a boost of confidence when I was losing a bit of confidence in my running.

After all that treadmill work, I was exhausted. But I was only half way done with my workout so I tried to catch my breath so I could do my best during the floor work. For the floor, we had 2 long blocks that had a couple of different things to do in each one. But we started each set in each floor block with a sprint row. One block was a decreasing row and the other block was a constant row. But they were always sprint rows. I was starting to feel a bit competitive with one of the people on the rower next to me so we decided to race each other for one of the 150 meter rows. The goal time for 150 meters is under 45 seconds. But in my race I was moving so hard that the rower was starting to move with me and I was able to do it in 29.8 seconds! I lost the race (the other person did it in 28.8 seconds), but I was still pretty happy with what I was able to do. And I did another race (but with myself this time) for one of the 200 meter rows at the end of the workout and was able to do it in 47.9 seconds (goal time is under a minute).

I didn’t work out on Friday (I was on the plane on Friday during my usual workout time) so I did a Thursday workout instead. Thursday was endurance, strength, and power all in one workout. And it was a run/row day so I was really able to work on those workout elements. Because there was endurance, strength, and power for the run/row; each of the segments of the run were different. Some were longer distances, some were at inclines, and some were super short. So I had to work on a plan on how to use running during them all. For the long distance one, I did 1 minute of running and 1 minute of walking. I did the walking distance for it (which is half of the running distance), but my coaches have all been ok with that. They know what I’m doing and they have all been really supportive.

For the strength running, since it was at an incline I had to plan carefully. But I did want to try the running with an incline because it’s a good way to push myself without having to run longer. I still did 1 minute of running and 1 minute of walking for it and I was splitting the difference between the running distance and walking distance. I ran at the running incline and walked at my usual walking inclines for push paces. This was pretty tough (especially running at 5% incline), but I was able to stick with my 1 minute/1 minute plan so I was feeling pretty awesome about that.

The power running were all short bursts of .15 miles. I really planned on just running the entire thing because I know I can do that and have done it plenty before. But this was at the end of the workout and I was pretty exhausted (I was rowing sprints between all of the running segments so that was a lot). I really tried my best to run as long as I could, but I was feeling like walking after 45 seconds. I stuck it out for the minute and then started to walk.

I felt a bit disappointed in myself but as soon as we were switching to the floor my coach told me how impressed she was with my running improvement. While I’ve been so focused on times and distance, I haven’t really thought too much about form. But I guess I no longer look like I’m struggling for each step and things are starting to look really smooth and fluid. That gave me a huge boost of confidence and made my floor work on Thursday a lot happier.

After my Thursday workout, I started asking my running friends about help on building endurance. A couple of them are going to be sending me some notes and advice that they’ve seen online or have heard in running groups. I need to start thinking more seriously about my running training if I want to keep improving. I never realized how hard I could push myself and train like this, but I’m so glad I’m doing it. Since the beginning at Orangetheory I’ve felt like an athlete (not just someone at a gym). But now I feel like not just an athlete, but an athlete in training and I need to take that mindset outside of just my workouts and start researching running and planning things out.

I’ve got a few more months until my next 5K race. I feel pretty good that I can PR on the race (unless I get hurt I will be doing a run/walk race for the first time). But I don’t just want to PR on the race. I want to set a goal for myself that is tough but achievable. Hopefully I can reach that goal and prove to myself that even if my running progress is stuck now that in the long haul I made huge progress.

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Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default ThumbnailBack To 4 Workouts (or More Rowing!) Default ThumbnailRowing Adventures (or A Funny Workout Injury) Default ThumbnailTesting Myself (or Running More)

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Pushing Myself (or So Many Hills!)

Posted on May 23, 2016 | Comments Off on Pushing Myself (or So Many Hills!)

This past week of workouts seemed to all be strength days (or at least partially strength days). I know that Orangetheory mixes things up, but I really did hit the strength days only! Strength days are days where you are supposed to be heavier on the weights on the floor and during cardio you do inclines. Since power walkers always do inclines for push paces and all-outs, strength days are days I try to push my inclines higher (like you are supposed to) and I always seem to struggle with that. So I’m guessing somehow I needed this week of strength workouts to test myself to my limits!

Monday was not just a strength day, but we didn’t switch between blocks so I was on the treadmill for 30 minutes straight. I managed to do my hills at between 6-10% even though I know I was supposed to do some at 12 and 15%. I used to be able to do those inclines without any issues, and it does make me sad that I’m still not back to where I used to be (and there’s a chance I might never be able to do those higher inclines again). When we don’t switch between blocks, my body is pretty exhausted by the end of the cardio. So by the end of things, I was doing my base, push, and all-out paces at the same incline and just bumping up the speed .1 mph for each of them. I was supposed to up my inclines, but I just wasn’t able to do it.

On the floor, it was very legs focused. We had lots of lunges and squats which are getting better for me. My lunges are still difficult with balance issues, but my form is significantly better. And my squats are much easier and I’m getting closer and closer to being able to use heavier weights while doing them. The only problem I’m having is that my arms aren’t strong enough to hold those weights. I’m struggling a bit with my grasp with the 25 pound weights and that’s with using workout gloves. I’m not sure how to strengthen my arms, wrists, and hands to be ready to hold heavier weights so I’m open to any suggestions.

On Wednesday, it was an endurance, strength, and power day that also happened to be a run/row day. But it still felt like strength only because during the run/row we were doing all inclines. All the rows were 250 meters and I managed to get faster each time I did the row (which is not normal for me). My best row was 250 meters in 57.4 seconds, which isn’t that bad at all! I’m pretty happy I got that row done in under a minute at the end of the cardio block! For the treadmill, we had progressively increasing inclines but decreasing distances. I did .4 miles at 6% incline and 3.5 mph, .2 miles at 8% incline and 3.6 mph, and .1 miles at 10% incline and 3.7 mph. The fact that I’m doing 10% inclines is good because for a long time the highest I could go was 8%. I’m really trying to focus on that improvement versus the improvement I would still need to make to be back to where I was almost a year ago.

On the floor on Wednesday, it was a lot of arm work. I was doing my chest flys at 20 pounds (chest flys are harder than chest presses which I can do at 25 pounds). For my squats I was holding a 25 pound weight and was able to use that same weight for my triceps work too. We also had some planks and pop jacks, and both of those I was able to do on my toes (versus my knees).

Friday was another all strength day. There were 6 blocks total (3 on cardio and 3 on floor) but we did do a switch in the middle. We did 2 short cardio blocks first, then switched to do 2 short floor blocks. Then we went back to do the long cardio block (11 minutes long) and the finished with the long floor block. I was so happy for the switch because it did give my hips and legs some time to rest before the long block. For one of the short cardio blocks, we worked our way down the hill. I started at 10% incline and every 30 seconds we went down 1%. I did that entire thing at 3.5 mph and it didn’t feel too fast for me at any of the inclines. On the long 11 minute block, we worked our way up the hill and my inclines ranged from 6-10% incline. For the last all-out I really wanted to see if I could go higher than 10%, but I was too tired to try it in the end and I’m sure it’s for the best since I don’t want to try a high incline when I’m tired (and my walking form is sloppy).

For the floor on Friday we did all abs for one of the short blocks and while I could do most of the ab work, there was one thing that was about moving our legs that my hips just weren’t going to do. So I did some basic crunches during that time. For the other blocks, they seemed to focus on arms again. We did a couple of rows on the straps and then did chest presses and bicep curls (I did both at 20 pounds instead of 25 because I was dealing with some weird pain on my chest from sleeping weirdly).

Even though this was a 3 workout week, I think I pushed myself pretty hard during all 3 workouts. I pushed myself for some heavier weights when possible, pushed myself for faster rows, and pushed myself for higher inclines. I know that soon I’ll be at whatever the next level is for me in my workouts, but with all the hard work I’ve been putting in it’s tough not to be a little impatient and want to see that improvement now.

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Default ThumbnailWorking On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries) Default ThumbnailHoliday Workouts (or Hills, Hills, and More Hills) Default ThumbnailKeep Pushing (or Why Was I So Scared Before?) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max) Default ThumbnailTime To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

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Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

Posted on May 2, 2016 | Comments Off on Busy Workout Week (or Maybe Overdoing It A Bit)

I had a 4 workout week this past week. I totally needed a 4 workout week (it was actually the only 4 workout week I had for April), but I think that some of my activities on my off days (or before my workouts) made it seem a bit tougher than it usually feels. Of course, I also might have felt it more because it had been way too long since my last 4 workout week and I’ve learned that I need to make sure that I’m doing them more often so I don’t get out of the habit of it.

I think my Monday workout went pretty well. It was a day that had endurance, strength, and power and those can be really fun. It was a switch day, so I was never on the treadmill for that long at a single stretch. The endurance block was full of longer push paces, but those weren’t too bad for me. The one treadmill thing that got to me was the strength section. Strength on the treadmill means hills and sometimes the power walkers are expected to go much higher on the incline than I’m ok with right now (I’m wondering if my calf will ever feel back to normal again). I tried my best, but I’m really not ok going above 8% (or on really good days 10%) on the treadmill. So I had to keep my inclines lower than I would have liked, but I tried to bump up the speed when I could.

The floor work wasn’t too bad, but my body wasn’t loving the pop jacks or knee tucks. Knee tucks are much easier for me, but they can be a struggle when I’m tired or my hip is feeling ready to be done. But what I liked the best about this workout was that the end was the endurance block that was a partner challenge. So I felt extra motivated then because I had a partner counting on me and the treadmill part of the partner workout was a 1 minute push to all-out on the treadmill so it was pretty fast.

Wednesday was a tough day for me at first. I had gone to Disneyland after the workout on Monday, and I might have overdone it a bit with the walking after a workout. Tuesday I was really sore and Wednesday I was still feeling a bit off. I tried to do some stretching work to make my legs and hip feel better, but when I’m having an off day sometimes there is nothing I can do to make it better. So when I got to the workout, I was happy to see that it was a run/row day. All the treadmill blocks were pretty short (I think the longest I was on the treadmill at a time was under 4 minutes), and the rowing wasn’t too bad. The rows were between 100-200 meters each time, so that was basically under a minute of rowing. I tried to take a moment between the treadmill and the rower to catch my breath and make sure I wasn’t pushing my hip too much. I think I did ok with that because when I got to the floor block, it went really well for me!

I was doing my squats with 20 pound weights in each hand and managed to do all my arm work with the same weights! I’m getting close to being able to move to 25 pound weights for my chest presses (somehow that is where my upper body is strongest), but I’m still doing great with 20 pounds and the last few moves of each set can be a struggle. But knowing that I’m getting close to moving up to the next weight makes me feel pretty awesome. We also had lunge work to do that day, but I wasn’t able to do my lunges how we were supposed to (with our back leg on the weight bench). So I did my regular lunges instead and didn’t feel too bad about it because I was feeling so great about the weight work I had already done.

Friday was an interesting day. Before the workout, I had put a challenge out online that for every donor we get on the film Kickstarter, I would do a burpee before the class. I really was hoping we’d get a bunch of donors, but we only got 2. But then again, that meant I only had to do 2 burpees. I’m not the prettiest doing burpees because of the hip issues, but since I was filming this to share online I tried to look awesome doing them. Sadly, trying to look awesome also made both of my hips hurt so badly (even with only doing 2 burpees), so I was already feeling a bit sore before the workout even started.

Friday was a solid 30 minutes on the treadmill to start. We had a couple of 2 minute pushes, and those felt like 3 minutes or more to me. But I managed to get through it. When we had to do hills, I had to keep them pretty low (I basically stayed at 6%), but I did bump up my speed to balance it out. On the floor, I got to use the 20 pound weights again for my chest and arm work and we had some shorter rows. By the end of the workout, my hips were feeling a bit better than they did right after those 2 burpees (I’m so grateful the workout didn’t have any burpees in it!). But even though I was feeling a bit better, I knew that Saturday was going to have to be a bit of an easier day for me.

Saturday I was using the bike instead of the treadmill. The cardio blocks were back to back so I was on the bike for 30 minutes straight. It technically wasn’t a distance challenge day, but we were given a distance to try to get to in class. The runners on the treadmill were supposed to do a 5K (3.1 miles) or better in the 30 minutes, so I figured on the bike I should try to go 12 miles since for run/row days the bike has to do 4 times the distance of the treadmills. We had a lot of long pushes between the treadmill blocks. It seemed like a majority of them were between 2 or 3 minutes and I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the blocks. But once we were told to switch to the floor, my distance on the bike was 12.1 miles, so I was pretty happy about that.

The floor work was a lot of should work and we had some longer rows too. One block was an 800 meter row and the other was a 400 meter row. I managed to do both without having to take a break, but it wasn’t easy. And I was under the time that we were supposed to be under for the rower, so that was pretty awesome. At the end of each floor block, we had a 1 minute plank challenge. I still have to do planks on my knees (on my toes hurts my calf), but being on my knees also allows me to focus much better on my form. I could feel the planks in my core a lot, but I was able to keep going for the entire minute both times.

This week, I know I’ll be doing 3 regular workouts. There is also a dri-tri on Saturday that I’m debating about doing. I know I’ve felt left out in the past when I didn’t do the dri-tri, and I think that maybe I should just push myself to do it. But I also somehow don’t feel ready for it yet. I’m hoping that by tomorrow I will have a decision made on whether or not I will go for it. This dri-tri is the preliminary for the regional dri-tri, but since I know that I will not be a contender for representing my studio if I do it my focus will only be to finish and not to beat anyone else. I know that if I do it, the chances of me being the last person to finish is really high, but if I go for it I think finishing is the only goal that I’ll have in my head.

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Reaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out)

Posted on March 14, 2016 | 1 comment

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

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

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

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

Attempt 1

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

Attempt 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

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

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

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

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Birthday JZ!

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

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

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

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Peak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs)

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

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

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

Peak Performance

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

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

500 Meters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Mile

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

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

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

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

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Some Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week)

Posted on December 28, 2015 | 1 comment

For Christmas week, my workout schedule was a bit funky. This was due to my work schedule being weird (we unexpectedly got Christmas Eve off when we were told before we had to work) and Orangetheory not being open on Christmas (which I totally get). But even with the weird schedules, I still managed to get my 3 workouts in this week.

After being on the bike all week the week before, I decided to try to the treadmill and see how it felt. Fortunately for me Monday was an easy treadmill day. The treadmill time was very short and I think the warmup was actually the longest I spent on the treadmill without a break. That was a great way to ease back into the treadmill and I was so happy to not have the shin splint issues I was having before.

My Wednesday workout was a bit tough. The class did do the treadmill blocks back to back so I was on the treadmill for about 30 minutes straight. While between blocks we got to cool down a bit (3 miles an hour instead of 3.4), it was still a long time on the treadmill. I was terrified that the shin splints would come back then, but they never reappeared. I did take things a bit easy, but I was still pushing myself a bit because I’m so close to my pre-calf injury speed. I really want to be back to where I was, but I don’t want to hurt myself.

Since Orangetheory was going to be closed on Friday, I did a workout on Thursday. Originally I scheduled it to be after work, but since my work day was cancelled I got to go in the morning! Bruce was the coach for that class and he wore the Santa hat that I got for him last year.

OTF Christmas

It was a run/row day so the time on the treadmill wasn’t as bad as the day before. That was good because I was so tired from the workout on Wednesday. With the shorter treadmill blocks I didn’t have any issues with my shin splints or calf, but my hips were starting to bug me after a few rounds because of the incline we were using. So I lowered the incline and things felt much better.

With all the focus on the treadmill this past week, it would have been easy to ignore working on my floor work. But I tried really hard to focus on the floor when I was there and forget about the work I had done on the treadmill.

I was able to use the 20 pound weights for a lot of things this week. I was using them for squats (which I’m used to doing), triceps work, and hammer curls. The 20 pound weights are still a bit tough for me, but I’m starting to notice that a lot of the time the 15 pound weights don’t cut it for me anymore. They are feeling light at times and I know that if they are feeling easy it’s really time to push myself more and if I need to move down to the 15 pound weights partway through the block, I can do so then. But I’m working on starting higher on the weights and going down if needed.

I was originally planning on working out this past Saturday, but there were some things that were potentially going to be conflicts. So I just stuck with my 3 workouts for the week and was happy with that.

The end of the year is almost here and I’m almost to my workout goal for the year. My next workout blog post will be after I’ve hit my 2015 goal and after I’ve announced my 2016 goal (and have gotten a workout or 2 done with the new goal)!

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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 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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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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