Tag Archives: struggle

Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

Posted on March 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Pushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off)

This week I had 3 workouts. I had originally planned for 4, but I was so exhausted after Friday that I knew that a Saturday workout wasn’t in the cards for me. I really did push myself hard this week and I think that my body was done after those 3 workouts.

Monday was an afternoon workout for me (instead of a morning one) because of an appointment I had that morning. I’m pretty used to my Monday morning workouts, but I still prefer afternoon ones so I was fine moving my workout. It was a run/row day, so that made me pretty happy too. Any time I don’t have to spend a full 30 minutes on the treadmill is a good day for me. All the segments in the run/row were pretty doable for me so I used the time to try to push myself in my speeds. I was actually able to do 1/4 mile (a little more than 4 minutes) at 6% incline and 3.5 miles an hour. That’s the longest I’ve done 3.5 miles an hour since my calf injury and it’s another sign that I’m almost back to where I was before my injury. It wasn’t easy to do that fast for that long, but it was a big step for me and I’m glad that I pushed myself to do it.

The floor work on Monday was an interested adventure. It was a single block (about 23 minutes) that had 6 exercises in it. We had to go through the 6 exercises continuously (each round had a different number of reps), but every 3 minutes we had to pause. Every 3 minutes we would get a 1 minute exercise to do (like burpees). After that minute we went back to the regular 6 exercise plan and pick up where we stopped. It was very different from what I’m used to, but I actually really liked the plan. It helped to break up a long block of floor work and since the 1 minute exercises were different and didn’t repeat, it almost felt like a break when we had them.

Wednesday was a switch day, so it was another day that I didn’t have to do the full 30 minutes on the treadmill straight. It was a strength day, which means lots of inclines on the treadmill. I always do inclines since I’m a power walker, but I tried to push my inclines a bit more that day since that was the goal of the day. I’m still struggling with going higher than 8% incline for a long time, but we had an interesting walking break in the workout that allowed me to work on that. Everyone had to do a power walk at 10% incline for 3.5 minutes. Since everyone was instructed to walk, we could slow down our speeds (even the power walkers). I did my 3.5 minutes at 3.1 miles an hour and was able to stay at the 10% incline for the entire thing. It wasn’t easy and my hips were feeling pretty sore after we were done, but it wasn’t as bad as the pain I’ve had in the past so I’m trying to think of it as improvement.

With strength days, we are also supposed to use heavier weights when we are on the floor. So I decided to go for it and did all of my bicep work with 20 pound weights. When the reps are lower that’s not that difficult for me, but the higher reps rounds were really tough and I could feel my arms getting so tired by the last few reps. But that’s exactly what we are supposed to feel. I know I was doing great with the weights I had chosen for my floor work because my Wednesday coach, JZ, came over and was very impressed that I wasn’t using 12 or 15 pound weights.

Friday was the day that kind of broke me. I have no clue why I was so tired (I didn’t get as much sleep as usual, but that wasn’t enough to make me as tired as I felt), but the entire workout felt like it was a struggle for me. For a lot of it, I felt like I was underwater and couldn’t move fast enough. It wasn’t supposed to be a switch day, but I’m so thankful that it ended up being one. I have no idea if I would have been able to do the treadmill blocks back to back.

On the treadmill, we had a couple of long push paces. I was doing them at my usual speed and incline, but I was barely able to make it a minute before I needed to step onto the rails and catch my breath. My heart rate was really high and I was sweating like crazy too and I don’t think I was pushing myself that much harder than I normally do. I just wasn’t able to keep up with what I do most days. On the floor, I worked on pushing myself (I was able to do squats with a 20 pound weight in each hand), but again I was exhausted and had to take several breaks during each block. It was really frustrating to feel so weak while working out, but I’m hoping it was a weird issue (maybe I was getting sick?) and it won’t return again.

With my days off over the weekend, I was dealing with a bit of soreness and feeling a bit off. But I’m hoping that after 2 rest days I’ll be back to normal this week and ready to get back to what I’m used to doing. I’m not used to having such an extreme off day, but maybe I needed it as a reminder of how far I’ve come lately.

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Default ThumbnailPushing Myself (or So Many Hills!) Default ThumbnailWorking On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger) Default ThumbnailWelcome To Hell (or Pushing Myself Even More) Default ThumbnailWorking Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend) Default ThumbnailBeing Hard On Myself (or Pushing Myself To Not Be Sick) Default ThumbnailWeek 3 Of Orangetheory (or Pushing Myself Even In Extreme Pain)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Hard Time At The Hard Rock Cafe 5K (or At Least I Looked Awesome!)

Posted on November 10, 2015 | 6 comments

This past Saturday was the Hard Rock Cafe 5K (this year they also had a 10K, but I wasn’t going to do a 10K). It was my 3rd year doing this race and I was really excited to be doing the race again this year. And even more exciting, my friend Kate flew down to LA for the weekend to do the race with me (more about our weekend adventures tomorrow).

I wish I could tell you that I killed it at the race and everything went amazing. But sadly, that wasn’t the case.

I’m not 100% sure what happened, but things seemed weird starting the night before. As I was going to bed, I said to Kate how it didn’t feel like the night before a race. Maybe it’s because someone was sleeping in my living room. Maybe it was because I hadn’t gone to the bib pickup that day to get all my race stuff (Kate and I were going to pick our race things up on Saturday morning).

On race day, I was up at 4:30am and we were out the door by 5:15. Traffic was light so we got to the Hard Rock Cafe nice and early. We got our race stuff, went back down to my car in the parking structure, and got ready. Once it was closer to 6am, we went back up to the street to warm up and make sure we had good spots in the starting area so Kate could avoid the walkers and I could be out-of-the-way for the runners.

Hard Rock Cafe

And of course, we had to take a pre-race photo together.

Pre Race Photo

Kate went up to the front of the pack after that and I hung back and tried to relax and not stress out about the race. While I was waiting for the race to start, I managed to make a few new friends because of the awesome tank top I was wearing that day (hi Susie!!). The race was supposed to start at 7am, but we ended up starting closer to 7:15am.

Right from the beginning, things didn’t feel right to me. My legs were stiff from waiting so long for the start of the race and I was feeling pain in my shins and calf starting at the half mile mark. As much as I wanted to push myself, I was struggling. I checked out my tracking app on my phone at the 1 mile marker and saw that the first mile was about 30 seconds slower than what my mile time was at my PR.

At that point, I realized it would be pretty impossible to make up that time plus be 30 seconds faster on the next two miles, so I stopped trying to push as hard and decided to just focus on finishing without having to take a break.

Right after that realization, Kate was passing me going back toward the finish line. She was having a tough race as well (but she ended up placing 4th in our division, 7th in women, and 41st in the entire race).

The rest of the race seemed to take a while. I tried to focus on the streets going by and knowing that I will be done with the race soon enough. My race photos are all pretty serious looking since I was so focused.

Race Time

As I was almost at the finish line, I saw Kate hanging out there waiting for me to finish. She walked next to me for the last minute and we both were sharing how we had pretty bad race days. I crossed the finish line about 90 seconds slower than my PR (I split the different between my time at the Hard Rock Cafe 5K last year and the Hollywood Half 5K in April).

Even though I didn’t PR, I still got my amazing medal!

Post Race Selfie

After the race, Kate and I got breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe and I got one last photo on the stairs to the Dolby theater to celebrate completing my race.

Oscar Stairs

As soon as I got home, I added my newest medal to my wall (which is starting to look very full now).

Medal Hanger

Even though the race wasn’t great for me, I did it and I didn’t finish last (which is something that I am terrified of doing one day). I’m so proud of Kate for how well she finished in the race and I’m glad that neither of us really gave up.

While I love my race medal (it’s so sparkly!), my favorite thing from the race was the shirt that I wore! I ordered a tank top from Mighty Petunia after doing a random google search for motivational tank tops. So many motivational tank tops are silly and cheesy, but I love the messages that are on the Mighty Petunia tanks. They are fun and I am already picking out which ones I want next! And I got a ton of compliments on it at the race.

Since I loved my Mighty Petunia tank top so much, Cathy (who is the owner of Mighty Petunia) has given me a promo code to share with all of you! If you buy something from their site, use the promo code “Bombshell” and you’ll get 10% off of your order. And the shirts are so reasonably priced already so the 10% off is just icing on the cake! I hope that you guys will take advantage of the discount and support this great business!

While my race day wasn’t great, I managed to find ways to keep a somewhat positive mindset and was able to focus on the things that made me happy (like my tank top and the medal I got at the finish line). My next 5K is in April and while I’m hoping I’ll PR at that race, I just want to have a more positive race experience and I’ll be happy.

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Recovery and Preparation (or Back To A 3 Workout Week)

Posted on November 9, 2015 | 1 comment

After surviving 4 days of Hell Week last week, I was happy to have a bit of a calmer workout week this past week. While this was considered a recovery week from Hell Week, this was also going to be my last workouts before the Hard Rock Cafe 5K. So I wanted to make sure that I got myself in the best position as I could to have a great race.

I knew going into the week that it was going to be a 3 workout week. And because there was a potential conflict on Thursday (plus having 2 rest days before the race sounded good to me), I did my workouts 3 days in a row. Doing 3 days in a row is tough and doing them the week after Hell Week is even tougher. But it was the best option for me so I was going to do it.

The workouts were a bit easier this past week when compared to Hell Week, but they weren’t easy. Each day was challenging for me and I had a couple of days where I was feeling a bit sore. But I’m glad I pushed myself.

One day this past week had 10 all-outs on the treadmill! That’s insane! Each all-out was a minute or less, but we would only have a minute or less between all-outs to walk and recover. I did my all-outs at 8% incline and either 3.5 or 3.6 miles an hour. That was really pushing myself and I was exhausted after it was done. But I got it done and continued to prove to myself that I’m getting closer and closer to increasing my speed on the treadmill again. It’s still difficult for me, but doing these little sprints are helping to get me ready to upping my speed again.

I had a pretty bad day on the treadmill on Wednesday (my third day in a row), but I’m thinking that it was more due to being tired from so many workouts in a row and not my actual ability. I had to keep taking breaks on the treadmill and the incline got very difficult for me to do. When I was supposed to be at 10% or higher, I was only able to be at 6% without pain. I’m trying to not let that get me down and focusing on my success on the treadmill, but it’s tough not to view that as a setback.

As far as my floor work this past week, I’ll admit that I took things a bit easy. I tried to be tough with the weights that I used, but for some of the arm work I went down a weight because I was feeling some odd soreness. But again, a recovery week is not the worst thing in the world.

I’m back to crazy work schedules for the 2 weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, but I’m hoping that at least one of those weeks will calm down enough to do 4 workouts in a week. And I’m doing another Thanksgiving workout down in San Diego this year! My dad and Aunt Cindy will be joining me again and my Aunt Nancy will be trying Orangetheory for the first time! That week will be a 3 workout week because of being out-of-town for so many days, but I’m ok with that since spending time with my family is more important than getting in a bunch of workouts.

Tomorrow, I’ll do my recap post of my 5K and let you know how my Orangetheory training paid off!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Working Out Burnt (or No Excuses)

Posted on May 4, 2015 | 1 comment

With having a killer sunburn this week, my workouts weren’t going to be easy. Not only was my skin hurting, I was exhausted from not sleeping well and once the peeling started my skin was getting really bad.

But I wasn’t going to let a little (or big) sunburn stop me from doing my 3 workouts this week.

On Monday, I really didn’t realize how bad a workout was going to be. In the past, I would have looked at a sunburn like this as a reason to take it easy for the week. To be honest, I doubt I’ve ever really worked out with a sunburn (I’ve never really had a regular workout routine until I started at Orangetheory).

I went into my Monday workout thinking that I could do everything like normal. I then discovered that sweat on my sunburned skin felt like acid. And I couldn’t wipe my sweat like normal with my towel because wiping my skin hurt too much. So I turned the fan on my treadmill on high and took breaks to dab the sweat from my skin (I felt really dainty doing that).

The only weights that caused me issues were upper body movement where I was working my chest, shoulders, or back. Basically any part of my body that was burnt. I went down on my weights a bit for those movements but for regular arm movements I went back up to my usual weight.

I discovered after my Monday workout that I needed to take better care of my skin both in general and before workouts. I was already putting coconut oil on my skin to help moisturize my skin as well as dabbing vinegar on at night to help with the stinging. But after my Monday workout, I realized that I needed something on my skin right before a workout to protect my skin from my sweat.

Sunburn Cures

So I started to do a layer of aloe vera followed by a layer of coconut oil. That seemed to make a nice barrier on my skin for me to protect myself from sweat (seriously, why does sweat hurt so much on sunburned skin?).

Wednesday was much easier on me. My skin wasn’t hurting nearly as bad and it was looking much better (so nobody was commenting on how much it must be hurting me). I was able to get back to my usual weights for my shoulders, back, and chest but I definitely struggled with them. Not sure if the struggle was due to lack of strength or the sunburn, but I pushed through.

Friday was much more like normal. The only weird thing was that my heart rate was staying pretty low. I was struggling to get it up to the orange zone but I managed to get it up enough to get the 12 minutes that we are supposed to do. I’m not sure why my heart rate has been much lower than usual, but having to push more to get it in the right zone isn’t a bad thing.

Now, I’m finally almost recovered from the sunburn. So hopefully this week of workouts will be with only hip pain and not skin pain. And I now know that even with a pretty nasty sunburn I can still get through workouts. It makes me think about all the excuses I’ve used in the past when I wasn’t feeling well to not go and work out. I really should have just gone and done my best. It’s better than nothing.

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Tough Workout Week (or I Made It Through My 4 Workouts)

Posted on April 20, 2015 | 1 comment

Even though I was on a high from my PR from my 5K, that didn’t help me get through one of the toughest workout weeks I’ve had in a while.

I’m pretty sure I narrowed down my workout problems to 2 different things.

First of all, ever since I started on Vyvanse, I haven’t been allowed to take my stronger painkillers. Vyvanse is a stimulant and my painkillers are depressants. So taking both would cancel each other out (or so I was told by my doctor). I don’t usually take my strong painkillers that often, but I have taken them prior to or right after a 5K many times in the past. So while I did take a mild painkiller before the 5K, I didn’t take the stronger one that I’m used to. So that’s making me have a bit more pain after the race.

The other thing that was making my workouts tough this week is how competitive I’m getting with my Fitbit. This is a good thing. In the past, I probably didn’t hit 10,000 steps most days. But now, I’m making sure that I do that every day. Even if that means marching in place in my house a lot. But since I’m not used to getting in all those steps each day, my legs are more sore than I’m used to. But on the positive side, on days where I do a Orangetheory workout plus get extra walking in, my Fitbit chart looks like this.

Fitbit Screen

With the Fitbit soreness, I know that I’ll get used to that eventually. I have to remind myself that my first Orangetheory workout made me so sore that it hurt to walk for a few days. Now I’m doing 3-4 workouts a week without many issues.

I’m finally starting to get used to having my Monday workout be in the mornings instead of the afternoons. I still have some issues getting my heart rate as high as it does in the afternoon, but it’s more where it should be now.

To be honest, I don’t remember a ton of specifics from my workouts this week since I found each workout to be difficult.

More specifically, I was having a lot of pain and other issues on the treadmill this week. It seemed like every workout this week was all hills on the treadmill. And while I’m doing a lot better than I used to, those hills were killing me! I had to take so many breaks to let the pain decrease a little before continuing. I’m not used to so much pain. And it frustrates me because this isn’t “I’m tired” pain but “my hips bones are grinding against my leg bones” pain. So if I wasn’t having that problem, I know that I could push more because the rest of my body and my mind is in it. My hips just aren’t agreeing with me.

But I was pretty darn proud of myself with my rowing. Rowing has always been tough for me because of my hips. I have a hard time getting the wattage up to where the coaches want it to be.

But in my rowing this week I was getting higher wattage than I’m used to (I’m used to being around 80 and I was staying around the 100 mark). There were even a few moments where I got my wattage to be at my body weight, which is something that we are constantly told to push for.

Just because I had a bad week of workouts doesn’t mean that it was for nothing. 4 workouts in a week is still pretty awesome! And I know that even if my cardio was suffering a bit that my strength work was getting better. I’m continuing to use the heavier weights that I recently moved to, even for my arms now! Before, my arms and shoulders weren’t strong enough all the time and I had to keep downgrading my weights partway through the sets. But I’m sticking with it now and I feel like in no time I’ll be increasing the weights again!

I have no idea if my workouts this week will be much better. The pain that I’m in is still much more than normal and it doesn’t seem to be going away. But I’m going to focus on doing what I can and not stressing out about what I’m struggling with.

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Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

Posted on April 6, 2015 | Comments Off on Lots Of Morning Workouts (or Maybe I Can Be A Morning Person)

This past week, I had 3 workouts. And 2 of those 3 were in the morning.

I haven’t been a huge fan of morning workouts. Sometimes I have trouble pushing myself or getting my heart rate up high enough.

But I’m definitely getting better at them.

I’m pretty much doing my Monday workouts at 9:30am instead of 4pm now. Like I’ve said before, there’s no reason for me to have an afternoon workout on a day that I don’t have to work. So that 9:30am class is starting to feel more normal to me.

This past Monday my focus was on continuing my speed and heavier weight training. I’m getting more comfortable with both and that’s making me happy. I’m seeing a transformation in how I feel during and after my workouts. And since I’m not seeing a lot of transformation on how I’m looking physically, having some transformation makes me feel like all my hard work isn’t for nothing. And I can’t help but smile at that.

Tough Workout

On Wednesday, since I had the podcast dinner in the evening, I had to do a before work workout. Before work workouts are always early for me (7:30am). It also requires me to wake up an hour earlier than I’m used to. I think that those are going to continue to be tough for me since I’m working out when I’m used to waking up. And I have no desire to wake up an hour earlier every day (I wake up the same time every day because that’s supposed to be better for you).

That workout wasn’t that great for me, but I was there and I did it. I was having a lot of trouble on the treadmill because it was almost all hills, but I took breaks when I had to and got through it.

Friday’s workout was a bit weird for me. I found out bad news on Thursday (more about that tomorrow) and I was just feeling off. It was a run/row day and I’m very grateful for that. It made me have to focus on the workout (since the coach wasn’t telling us during cardio when to transition) and not think about things outside of the workout.

But during the strength section, I had to do down in how heavy the weights were. I think part of that was because I was exhausted. I didn’t get a ton of sleep the night before and I know that being tired affects my workouts a lot.

This week, I’ll do another 3 Orangetheory workouts and then I have my 5K on Saturday. I’m starting to get really nervous about the 5K, but I guess I’ll see how it goes this weekend. And as long as I finish (and don’t finish in last place), I’ll be happy.

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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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Working Out While Cleansing (or Being Easy On Myself)

Posted on January 26, 2015 | Comments Off on Working Out While Cleansing (or Being Easy On Myself)

This past week of workouts were the first workouts I did while on the cleanse. Even though I am eating (and I’m working on keeping my calories up), I’m eating significantly less protein than I’m used to.

On normal days, that is a small annoyance but I can deal with it. But on workout days, I’m discovering how important protein is for me.

Going into Monday’s workout, I was pretty nervous. I just tried to focus on my fancy new shoes. Before going to the workout, I decided to take a quick picture of my new shoes along with the 2 pairs that I’ve gone through recently (I’m not sure why I never got rid of my old shoes).

IMG_4487

I knew that the workout was going to feel tough to me, even if I was taking it easier than I usually do. So I decided not to focus at all on my heart rate monitor and just pay attention to how my body was feeling. And it was pretty rough. I was tired a lot faster than I’m used to and I got some issues with dizziness when transitioning from seated or laying down exercises to standing ones. But I got through the workout and focused on how to better prepare myself for the next one.

One Wednesday, even though snacks aren’t allowed on the cleanse, I added a snack pre-workout. I need the extra energy and calories to help me get through the intense workouts that I’m doing. And I noticed a difference. I was still tired and a little dizzy from time to time, but it was much less and I recovered a lot quicker.

By Friday, I was finally starting to figure out what my food needs to be like during the cleanse on workout days, so I was doing even better. My heart rate doesn’t get as high as it did before, but I can’t be mad at myself for that. Again, I’m just focusing on getting through my workouts and doing the best that I can for that day.

And I finally got off the waitlist for the Saturday workout! So in my first week of cleansing, I did 4 workouts! I know that’s a little crazy. And Saturday’s workout was possibly one of the toughest ones I’ve ever done. We were all put into groups of 3 and then there was a set workout for our group to get through for the entire class. There were no breaks or switching blocks. We just went from one thing to another for the entire class. I was having some serious trouble completing the workout for the last 10 minutes, but I pushed myself through it and managed to have not only an awesome workout but one of my higher calorie burns (which meant that I had to add some extra food to my lunch and dinner).

It is definitely not easy to workout this hard when my protein levels are so low. There really isn’t a way to increase that too much while I’m cleansing, but I did buy some protein powder that fits into the cleanse rules that I can drink if I need to. I don’t like protein powders because they remind me so much of the RFO Diet, but hopefully I can drink this stuff quickly if I need it and not have to think about it too much.

I’ve currently got myself signed up for another 4 workout week this week. I’m not 100% sure I’ll be able to do Saturday, but I’d rather be signed up for it and then cancel than to be on the waitlist and maybe not get in. Even though things are tough for me, I keep reminding myself that change isn’t easy and this is all for the better. I’m not doing anything that will hurt me and that in less than 3 weeks I can add animal products (and therefore more protein) back into my diet.

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