Tag Archives: treadmill

Finally A Power Walker Again (or The First Steps Toward Running Again)

Posted on July 9, 2018 | 1 comment

Sometimes when I set a goal by writing it on here, it really gives me the extra push to try to do it. I hate when I set out to do something and say it publicly and it doesn’t happen. And last week I said on here that I wanted to at least try to get back onto the treadmill. It had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill and I was a bit scared to take the step to get back on again. But I said I was going to do it and I’m so glad that I can say that I did it!

Monday’s workout was a strength based class. When I saw that I figured that since it would be incline work on the treadmill that I would just use the bike. But I realized that I needed to just jump in and try. Worst case, I could go to the bike partway through the workout, but I should at least start on the treadmill.

We were on the treadmill for the first half of class and there were 4 blocks during that time. All of the blocks were about progressive push paces, but 2 of them were about increasing speed and 2 of them were about increasing inclines. I decided to just do the same thing for all 4 blocks to keep it simple for myself. I started at 4% incline (my usual base incline) and every minute I went up 1% so I ended at 8% for the 30 second all out (which is the incline I’m usually at for all outs). I started slow on the treadmill and went up to my normal speed, but during that first block it was feeling a bit too fast so I went down .1mph. I was able to maintain that for those first 3 blocks and for the last one I went back to my normal speed to push myself. It wasn’t easy and I had to take breaks to catch my breath, but I did it! My distance wasn’t anything amazing, but considering it had been 7 weeks since I was on the treadmill I didn’t care what I did as long as I did it!

When I got to the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lateral lunges with weights, overhead triceps with weights, weighted crunches, and a 200 meter row. I was using 30lb weights for my lunges and triceps (heavier than I normally would do!) and a 12lb weight for my crunches. And the second block was deadlifts and chest presses with weights with another 200 meter row. And I stuck with the 30lb weights for the work which made me so happy! The chest presses were a bit tough, but I knew I could do it since I did during the Orange X workout. My 200 meter row did get a bit faster from the first block to the second block. I was still off of what I know I could do, but since I had used the treadmill plus used heavier weights I wasn’t expecting my row to be anything spectacular.

I didn’t have to work on Wednesday because of the holiday, but when I was scheduling my workouts for the month I wasn’t thinking about that so I was in my usual early morning class. I would have loved to have slept in a bit that morning, but it was probably for the best for me to keep my usual schedule. And this class was a special 4th of July themed workout where we had the freedom to choose what we wanted to do on the rower and on the treadmill and it was a 3 group workout.

On the treadmill, we had the option to either do intervals with increasing incline or with increasing distances. Since I was still getting back into being on the treadmill I went with increasing distances. I was doing all of my intervals at my base pace incline and at .1mph slower than my normal speed. It started at .05 miles for the power walkers, then .08, and then .1 miles. We were supposed to keep increasing the distances but I was struggling a bit with my endurance so I just kept doing intervals at .1 miles each time with the walking recovery between. I could feel myself getting more comfortable on the treadmill as the time went on, but I know I still have a way to go.

On the rower, we started with a 100 meter row and then 7 frogger squats. Then we could choose if we wanted to increase the rowing distance by 50 meters each time or if we wanted to add 2 frogger squats each time. I went with the longer rowing just because I wanted the cardio time. My rowing at the beginning was pretty standard for me with how high the wattage was and the time it took me to get to the distance. As it went on, I was getting a bit slower but I was never that much slower than normal. I ended up rowing about 1800 meters by the end of the block before I moved to the floor.

The floor didn’t have choices, but we did have one block of timed exercises and one block where we had an assigned number of reps. For the timed exercises, we had lunges using the bench, jump lunges, and heel touch crunches. I wasn’t feeling too stable so I wasn’t using the bench for my lunges and I can’t do jump lunges. So I did them as weighted lunges and regular lunges. My legs were feeling dead after all the lunges! The second block was pull ups on the straps, rollouts on the straps, and then sit-ups until the class ended. It was a hard class, but a good type of hard. Plus, I wanted to work hard before I was lazy at a BBQ that afternoon.

Friday’s class was a strength based workout and I was a bit worried about using the treadmill since we were going to be doing cardio for the first half of class without switching. But I realized that I just needed to do it and use modifications because I am done with making excuses for myself.

We had 3 blocks that had the same format. We had a long base at an incline, a 1 minute base at a flat incline, a 1 minute base at an incline, a 1 minute base on flat incline, and then a 1 minute push to 30 second all out pace at a flat incline. Each block had a different time for the first push and the inclines were supposed to increase as the time went down. But I really kept things basic for me and used my regular push incline of 6% for all the incline work except for the 30 second all outs that I did at 8%. And my speed was still .1mph slower than I normally do. I will start testing the speed thing a bit, but this workout didn’t really seem like the right time to do that. Just like before, I had some struggles with my endurance, but I noticed a slight improvement over the other days.

But I really loved the floor work! After the Orange X workout, I really have a better idea of how strong I am and what I can do. The first block had single arm low rows and bench pullovers. I used 35lbs (just like I did for the Orange X workout) for the rows and 30lb for the pullovers. I thought about trying the heavier weight for the pullovers, but I wasn’t able to get a strong enough grip on the weight to feel ok with having it over my face. The second block was hip hinge reverse low rows and bicep curls and I did 20lbs for both of those. And the last block was Turkish half getups and bicycles. I started using a 15lb weight for the half getups, but it was a bit too heavy so I used 12lbs after that. But for that, we were told we didn’t have to use a weight so to use anything is awesome! For all the floor blocks, we also rowed at the end if we completed all the exercises and I did make it to the rower for the first and second block.

Saturday was a rough day for me. First, I was dealing with some issues because of the insane heat we had here (more on that tomorrow). I was exhausted, feeling a bit heat sick, and just not myself. But I knew that the a/c at Orangetheory would be way better than my window unit so I looked at my workout as my a/c break.

It was an endurance day and we had 3 blocks on the treadmill with similar formats. Each block had a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 90 second push pace, a base pace, a 1 minute push pace, and a 30 second all out pace. The difference in the blocks was how long each base pace was. At Thursday’s workout, there was a goal to increase our base paces, but for me I really am just trying to get back to my old base pace. So what I ended up doing was my old base pace for all the push and all out paces (at 6% and 8% incline) and my slower base pace as the base pace speed. It was not easy doing the 90 seconds at the normal speed, but I did make it through and it’s giving me hope that I’ll be back to my old base pace soon. I think I’ll just have to keep doing this type of plan to ease myself back into that speed.

On the floor, we also had 3 blocks. The first block was with the mini bands. We had walk outs using the bands and then squats with single leg lifts. I’m getting much better at using the mini bands and I was even able to balance better doing the single leg lifts. But my heat exhaustion was starting to catch up with me on the floor and I had to sit down and get myself together. It was a bit frustrating because I knew this had nothing to do with my endurance but an outside issue. But I just took my time because I didn’t want to feel worse.

The second block started with a 500 meter row. I would have loved to have finished in under 2 minutes, but I was at 2:08. Considering the heat issues, I was pretty happy with myself. That block also had squat bench taps where I used 2 20lb weights and sit-ups. And the last block was lunges and single leg v-ups. I was pretty happy with doing the ab work because it gave me time to lay down and try to cool down a bit.

After 7 weeks of not using the treadmill, I’m still a bit surprised that I was able to do 4 workouts with it! And it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I knew a lot of the worry was in my head, but I needed to prove it to myself. It’s still going to be a while before I’m back to where I was before. I’m hoping in the next month or two to try testing running again by doing the 30 second all out paces as a run (just like how I started). But for now, I’m just happy that I’m almost back to my old power walking self and I’m on the path to make more progress again!

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Default ThumbnailA New Year Of Workouts (or Finally Starting To Feel Like Myself Again) Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailRunning And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default ThumbnailHills And Power Outages (or Not My Usual Workout Week) Default ThumbnailBack Into The Running Groove (or Feeling Really Great About My Workouts)

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Getting Back Into The Groove (or Rediscovering My Strength)

Posted on April 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Getting Back Into The Groove (or Rediscovering My Strength)

I feel like for so long I’ve been saying I’ve been in a bit of a slump with my workouts. I had a couple of different setbacks that I just couldn’t seem to get over (both physically and mentally). But more recently it seems like things have been getting better and better. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting better or my workout schedule is better for me, but whatever is causing it I’m just glad that I now feel so much more like myself.

Monday’s workout was at the Brentwood studio. I’m finding it so weird that it’s starting to feel less familiar to me even though I’ve been going there for almost 4 years! But no matter what, I’m comfortable there and I was happy to be back there for a workout. But the funny thing was that one of my Culver City studio coaches was subbing there so it was a mix of being at Brentwood and being at Culver City.

It was a 3 group class and it was power and strength based so we had shorter work but inclines on the treadmills. And I did go on the treadmill again. I did notice that the treadmill felt different from the treadmill at the other studio, but that’s just a quirk I’ll need to get use to. We had 2 blocks on the treadmill and the first block was all 75 second intervals and the second block was all 45 second intervals. We had push paces at inclines followed by base paces. I kept my inclines at 6% for all the push paces even though we were supposed to be increasing them because I was dealing with a little bit of hip pain, but just being on the treadmill to me felt like a win. Both blocks ended with a 30 second push pace to a 30 second all out pace and I did 8% as my all out incline.

Next I was on the rower where we had one block that started with a 600 meter row. Then we had squats and arm raises with a medicine ball before going back to the rower. We decreased the row and increased the medicine ball work each round. I was rowing pretty decently but I think I picked too heavy of a medicine ball because I was struggling with that work. But I got through 3 rounds before that block was over and I was over to the floor. The first block on the floor was lateral lunges with weights, pull overs, and weighted toe reaches. And the second block was lunges with weights, single arm clean to press with weights, and bench plank single arm low row with weights. For all my floor work I was using pretty heavy weights. I debated about going down to a slightly lower weight, but I decided it would be better for me if I took breaks and finished using the heavier weights than to have no breaks and use lighter weights. I definitely felt it after class in my arms (it was tough to blow dry my hair when I was home!).

Wednesday was a power workout and it was also a benchmark workout. We had the 200 meter row benchmark and it was the first benchmark workout at the Culver City studio. I’ve done the 200 meter row benchmark a few times but I was excited to get it done again to see if I could beat my previous record. The row was at the beginning of the workout so we would all be fresh and not tired while doing it and I felt like I was rowing harder than I ever had before! I was working so hard that my water bottle fell off the rower and I could feel the rower jumping as I was pushing off with my feet. Unfortunately, I missed my record by about 2 seconds, but I still felt pretty great about my 200 meter row.

After the benchmark workout, it was back to the treadmill where we had 3 blocks that were all pretty similar. We had a 2 minute push pace, a base pace, a push to all out pace, and then after a quick walking recovery one more all out pace. I started to have a little headache while on the treadmill and took some breaks because it was getting to me. I have no clue what brought on the headache and it ended up lasting the entire workout and the rest of that day. But I still worked hard on the treadmill and was doing my normal speed and inclines the entire time.

After the treadmill it was over to the floor where we had 3 blocks. We had upright rows using weights, front raises using weights, roll outs on the straps, lunges with the straps, running man, and hop overs. We also had a 45 second sprint row during the first block but I wasn’t going that hard on the rower because of my headache. But for the weight work I was using my heavy weights even as the reps increased during the block. And with my hop overs I was getting a bit more height while hopping which is tough for me to do with my hip issues.

Friday’s workout was an endurance day and I was a bit nervous about it. I feel like I’ve been starting over with the treadmill lately and I know endurance days are the toughest ones for me. But I was going to stick it out with the treadmill and just do my best. We had 3 blocks on the treadmill and they all had a pretty similar format with a 1 minute push pace, a 2 minute push pace, and a 1 minute all out. I kept my speed my regular speed and my inclines the regular inclines I use. And from time to time I did have to take breaks, but I worked through it. Toward the end of the longer push paces I sometimes had to go down to a slow walk (or jump onto the rails to drink some water), but to me that was still pretty good considering how nervous I was about having an endurance day. Toward the end of the treadmill time, I thought about trying to run again during the last all out pace. I knew it would be a minute long and would be my last thing on the treadmill for that workout, but right before that I was getting really tired and decided against it. My form would have been sloppy and I know that running when sloppy wouldn’t be the best way to get back into running.

On the floor we had 1 long floor block. We had hop overs, bench tap squats, plank punches, sit ups, and knee tucks. After going all of the floor exercises we had rowing. I was struggling a bit with the hop overs but I just broke it down and took breaks during that. And for the knee tucks we were supposed to be using the straps but I know I can’t really do those so I was using the ab dolly. After the first round it was a 600 meter row and my time was a bit slower than it should have been. But after the second round we had a 500 meter row and it was under the time we were supposed to be under which made me happy. I was getting through the exercises for the third round on the floor when class was done. I really thought I’d only make it through 2 rounds so to be onto the third boosted my confidence a bit.

Saturday’s workout was an endurance/strength day and it was the OTF Everest workout. While I had been doing great all week with my treadmill work, this workout scared me because I had not been bringing my inclines up that high. But I was determined to do my best and see what would happen.

I started the workout at my normal speed at 2% incline (which is what we all were supposed to start at). That felt pretty great since it’s lower than the inclines I’m used to using. I had it set in my mind that I didn’t want to lower my speed until I was at least at 10% since that is what I used to use as my all out incline. Every minute we went up 1% on the treadmill and until we were at 9% I was feeling pretty good. 10% was tough because it was an incline I don’t use that often, but I made it through that at my normal speed.

I did drop my speed down at 11% and again at 14%, but I was only .2mph slower than my normal speed which was much faster than I thought I could do at that high of an incline. It made me realize that maybe I needed to push myself a bit more on my inclines again. When we were starting to bring the inclines back down I bumped the speed up again at 13% and 10% and went back down at my normal speed from 10% on. And when we had our last 2 minutes, we were supposed to have a push pace and an all out pace. I didn’t think I could get my inclines up that high (my legs were feeling dead!), so I did 6% and 8% but got my speed up .2mph higher than I normally do for my power walking.

I didn’t quite hit my goal distance for the Everest challenge (I wanted to be at 1.4 miles), but considering that I did all the inclines and didn’t reduce my speed as much as I expected I was so happy! I also was thrilled I was able to bump up my speed at the end and it gave me some hope that maybe running can happen again soon.

When I was on the floor, I was so glad it was mainly upper body work since my legs were done after the Everest workout! We had 2 blocks on the floor and the first block was chest presses, hammer curls, and squats to shoulder presses. All of those were exercises with weights and I was using the heavier weights that I go with in my workouts. I had a bit of a tough time with the squats because of how my legs were feeling, but I took my time with those to make sure I didn’t have bad form. After those exercises we had a 250 meter row. My first attempt at the row wasn’t that great. But when I got back to the rower I tried to be steady with my speed and was able to do the row in 1:00.2. I have a goal of being under 1 minute but at least I was close. The second block on the floor was plank low rows with weights, triceps with weights, and leg lifts (the leg lifts were a killer after all the inclines on the treadmill!).

Obviously there are things I could have improved on with this past week of workouts, but I really am just so happy with how it went. I felt so strong after each of these workouts and I was sweatier than ever (and I see being sweaty as a good thing). I don’t know why I was finally able to push through but it was nice to not have so many doubts and excuses in my mind. I don’t know if this momentum will continue, but I really hope it will because these workouts gave me such a high!

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Default ThumbnailA New Year Of Workouts (or Finally Starting To Feel Like Myself Again) Default ThumbnailHoliday Workouts (or Hills, Hills, and More Hills) Default ThumbnailBack Into The Running Groove (or Feeling Really Great About My Workouts) Default ThumbnailGetting Back In The Groove (or Recovering From My Sick Break) Default ThumbnailFinding My Strength (or Continuing To Find New Ways To Push Myself) Default ThumbnailWorking On My Strength (or Feeling More Normal Again)

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Routine Is Still Progress (or Proving I’m Improving)

Posted on August 28, 2017 | 1 comment

This week of workouts seemed like a routine one for me until I looked back at what I did. Sometimes it’s tough for me to see that I’ve done some awesome things until I look at the week as a whole and that’s exactly how this week went. It also was a week where I took a moment to reflect on what I’m doing now that seems normal when not that long ago it seemed like it would be impossible.

Monday’s workout was a 3 group workout with switches plus it was a strength day. So that combination was a mix of something I like (switching and shorter blocks) with something that is really tough for me (inclines on the treadmill). There were 2 rounds so with the switches we had a total of 6 blocks in class. On the treadmill, the first block was 2 minutes of hills with flat base paces in between. And the second block was a 5 minute decreasing hill. I walked everything and for the decreasing hill I ended up doing all 5 minutes at 8%. I knew I wanted to take it a bit easier on the treadmill because I had Disneyland after the workout. But to think that walking for 5 minutes at 8% incline is taking it easy is huge progress.

On the floor, the first block was squats, lunges, and rows with weights. The second block was chest press, tricep, and plank work. And the rowing was decreasing distance rows. We started at 500 meters and decreased the row each time. In between the rows we had medicine ball work which included front presses, overhead presses, and front raises. The rowing felt a bit tough so again I tried to take things easy. I usually try to take it easier when I know I have Disneyland after a workout, but this time I was extra grateful that our Disney day ended up being a shorter one. Taking it easy is still pushing myself and I think I might have done more than I should have for a full Disney day.

Wednesday was a power day and it was an interesting workout. I usually do afternoons on Wednesdays, but because I had to be at FOX to work on the podcast that day I went to a morning workout. I’m not used to Wednesday morning classes, but it was fun because a lot of the people who are in my Monday morning class were in that class too!

The treadmill work was 5 blocks and we didn’t switch between blocks. The first 4 blocks had the same format. We started with a 5 minute block and each block was 30 seconds shorter. The blocks were a push pace, base pace, push pace to all out pace. The last block was just a 1 minute push pace to a 1 minute all out pace. I ran all the push and all out paces and tried to do them as push and all out speeds. But when it was a push to all out pace, I wasn’t able to increase my speed at all so I kept it at my push pace speed. But I had to remind myself that to be doing that much running is still impressive and progress from where I was a year or two ago.

The floor that day was one long block for the entire second half of class. Each round on the block started with 10 burpees, then we had increasing numbers of workout moves, and we ended with a 200 meter row. 10 burpees is a lot and it was tough to do that many, but I just took my time and got through several rounds of 10 burpees. For my rowing, my best 200 meter row was 39.2 seconds which isn’t a PR but it’s still pretty fast. And the moves that we added in between the burpees and rowing included planks with rowing, strap squats, tricep work, and plank jacks.

Friday was a strength day and I was ready to have a day of power walking on the treadmill. There were 3 blocks on the treadmill and each block had a similar pattern. The only time we had a push pace on a flat incline was at the very beginning of the first block so I ran that one. But all the other push paces and all of the all out paces were at inclines so I walked those. Each block had a push pace, a push pace to another push pace (changing the inclines), and a push pace to an all out pace. I pretty much kept a similar pattern with all my blocks with my inclines being at 6, 8, and 10%. It was a bit lower than the coach told us to do, but I also know that 10% incline is my limit a lot so I didn’t want to overdo things.

On the floor we had 2 blocks. The first block was squats, rows with weights, toe reaches, and roll outs on the ab dolly. The second block was a 90 second row for distance, lunges, hip bridges, torso rotation, and knee tucks. I made it to the 90 second row twice in class. The first time I did 330 meters which isn’t bad but I really wanted to get to 350 or more. So when I got back to the rower I went really hard and didn’t look at the computer to check my distance until my time was done. I was equally frustrated and amused that I did exactly 330 meters again. I don’t think I’ve ever had the exact same distance on back to back distance challenges before. At least I found a little humor in it instead of just being frustrated.

Saturday’s workout was another 3 group workout and it was an endurance day. I think I lucked out with power walking on Friday so that I was ready to go on Saturday. The treadmill was split into 2 blocks that were each 6 minutes. The first 6 minute block was 6 minutes for distance. I had it in my head that I wanted to do at least half a mile in 6 minutes. That’s pretty fast since I usually go at 4.5mph when I do any endurance work on the treadmill. But to get the distance I wanted, I needed to be at 5mph. I started at 5mph and decided that I would just see how it felt.

It did feel a bit fast to me, but not so unreasonably fast that I felt like I was at risk of falling off the treadmill or hurting myself. And when we got to the last minute, I decided to push it harder than I through I could to see how much I could do. I ended up being at about 5.7mph for that last minute and when it got to 6 minutes, I was so happy with my distance.

After I got home from class I did a bit of math and figured out that the average speed I was doing on this half mile was faster than the average speed for my best mile! And I felt better after this half mile than I did after that mile, so maybe I could do another mile PR soon. I’m so proud of myself and it’s been tough thinking that I’ve had some setbacks with my running. But this proved to me that I haven’t had setbacks, I just haven’t seen the progress I’ve made.

The second 6 minute block on the treadmill was more of a standard treadmill block, but I ended up walking it all. I know I pushed hard during the distance challenge and I had to take it a bit easier after that. But again I had to remind myself that I had just run for 6 minutes at a speed I usually only do for a minute. So I think I earned the walking.

Next I was over at the rower where we had distance rowing. We started at 600 meter rows and went down 100 meters each round. Between each rowing round, we had front raises and bicep curls. Because we didn’t have any recovery time on the rower, I had to take recovery time between the weights and rowing. So I didn’t make it as far down the rowing block as I thought I would do. And on the floor, we had 1 long block with squats, hop overs, situps, knee tucks, and planks. Everything was fine with those until almost the end of class when I hit my ankle bone on the weight bench. It wasn’t that hard of a hit, but it was the time of hit that takes your breath away for a second. And I now I’ve got a nice bruise as a reminder.

Overall, this was a pretty great workout week. I questioned my progress but then I proved to myself that I have been making improvements. I felt so strong each day and even having 4 workouts didn’t hold me back at all. Maybe being stuck in what feels like a plateau to me is really my body building strength and endurance so that when I need it I can do some amazing things.

 

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Default ThumbnailMaking Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailMixing Up The Routine (or Almost PRs And Dri-Tri Prep) Default ThumbnailFeeling Better About My Progress (or Coming Back From The Dri-Tri) Default ThumbnailNot Too Much Progress (or Just Being Happy With What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailGood Days And Bad Days (or Proving Myself Wrong)

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Mixed Up Workouts (or Not Knowing What To Expect)

Posted on August 21, 2017 | Comments Off on Mixed Up Workouts (or Not Knowing What To Expect)

This past week of workouts was an interesting one for me. I usually know what to expect with my workouts because I know which classes are 2 group classes and what classes are 3 group ones. I also have a good idea of what the workout will be each day because I have found an online forum where people post it each day. I like knowing what the workout will be so I can prepare mentally and physically for what I’m going to be doing. But this week things didn’t go as I thought they would and maybe that was a good thing for me.

Monday’s workout was an endurance run/row workout. I was expecting it to not be a run/row because it’s supposed to be a 3 group workout, but it ended up being a 2 group class instead. I think even though it’s posted as a 3 group one, it’s not going to be that way that often. I know some people aren’t coming to that class anymore because they don’t like the 3 group classes and because of that we don’t have enough people in class to make it 3 groups. But it was nice to have the run/row and I was happy that I was able to do it.

We started with a 1,000 meter row which I did without stopping but not in that great of a time. Next was supposed to be a .5 mile run on the treadmill. But my body wasn’t up for running. It was a combination of being tired and my hips hurting from sitting at Hamilton the night before. So I did the power walk version of .25 miles at 6% incline. Next was back to the rower for a 750 meter row and then another .25 miles power walking on the treadmill. I was on the rower doing the 500 meter row when time was called to switch to the floor.

Once I got to the floor there were 3 blocks and it was mainly arms and core focused. The worked out well for me because my legs and hips were pretty done after the run/row. The second block was interesting because we had 30 second intervals with plank work and running man and that was pretty tough. 30 seconds isn’t that long, but when it’s back to back it gets hard. And the last block was tough too because we had a core blast but had to do 3 burpees in-between each exercise.

Wednesday’s workout was a strength day, so I went into it thinking it would be a walking day for me. But that ended up being the perfect plan because half of the treadmill workout was designed to be power walking only. The first 2 blocks on the treadmill were normal strength ones. I run the 90 second push paces because they weren’t on an incline but I walked all the incline work. But the second 2 blocks were power walking blocks where everyone was walking. The inclines were supposed to be a bit higher than I normally do, so I was at a lower incline, but it was still everyone walking and I didn’t feel bad about not trying to run on inclines that day.

When I went to the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was bicep work on the straps, chest work with weights, and ab work. We also had a 300 meter row which I did in 1:15. Not a great row time for me, but if I’m being honest I wasn’t trying that hard on the rowing. The second block was tricep work, biceps with weights, and shoulder work. And we had a 500 meter row which I did in 2:23. Again, not a great time but I know I wasn’t working as hard as I probably should have.

Friday was an endurance day and I wasn’t planning on running because of that. But then when I got to class I realized we were going to do the 3 group format which meant less time on the treadmill. So I decided to try running and see what happened. We had 2 blocks on the treadmill and they all had the same format with a 1 minute push pace, base pace, 90 second push pace, base pace, and a 2 minute push pace to a 30 second all out pace. But the difference between the 2 blocks was that the base paces had different times. But to run all the push and all out paces was pretty awesome for me since I really expected to be walking the entire workout.

Next I was on the rower which was one long block. It was timed rowing with squats in-between each row. We started with 30 seconds and increased things by 10 seconds each round. Normally I love sprint rowing because I can do really well with it, but doing the squats in-between the rowing was tough and I wasn’t rowing as hard as I usually could. But it was a great block of work and was nice and challenging for me.

And I ended on the floor which was also one long block. It was deadlifts and work on the straps and then we had increasing numbers of exercises on the BOSU. Each BOSU thing was core work and while core work sometimes feels like a bit of a break and time for me to catch my breath, this time it was just constant work so I felt like it was just as tough as any other block I had done that day.

And I got my 4th workout in this week again. Saturday was a power day which usually means a running day for me. But that wasn’t going to be the plan for me this time. My legs were pretty dead from Friday’s workout and I ended up not being able to start on the treadmill like I usually do. I started on the rower, then went to the floor, and finally was on the treadmill. So by the time I was at the treadmill my body was not feeling like running would be happening.

There were 2 rounds in the 3 group workout so I spent 2 blocks on each section. With rowing, we had some distance rowing challenges. They were sprint rows but in the first block I wasn’t doing too great with them. They were decreasing distances with decreasing breaks between each round. But with the second block, we had 150 meter distance rows with some squats in-between. I was on my 2nd or 3rd 150 meter row when my coach came by. She normally gives me a challenge on the rower to do and she likes to make them pretty tough. I was averaging 40 seconds for 150 meters so she challenged me to do it in 30 seconds. I asked her to hold the rower because I knew I was going to go hard and I didn’t want it to move. She stayed there and I flew on the rower. I didn’t focus on the timer but watched the distance go down. And when I got to 150 meters, not only did I hit the goal my coach set but I beat it!

28 seconds is way faster than I ever thought I could do the row in! And I think my coach was pretty blown away by it too! It was a pretty high note to end my rowing with.

On the floor, everything was pretty quick. We had a variety of upper body, lower body, and core work. But the craziest thing we had to do on the floor were burpees with palms to elbows. But burpees and palms to elbows are tough enough on their own. But to combine them was almost just evil! I totally struggled with those, but I did my best.

And when I finally got to the treadmill, I started with trying to run the first push pace before realizing that it was just not safe for me to run. When I’m tired I can have sloppy running form and I didn’t want that. So I ended up walking on a day that I really was hoping to run. I felt a bit bad about walking because I knew I wasn’t getting as good of a workout as I would have liked to, but I just kept reminding myself that I was there and not sitting at home. Walking is better than nothing. And it was also my 4th workout of the week which is still something I occasionally struggle with.

No matter how much I try to prepare for my workouts, I guess the unexpected can always happen. Fortunately my fitness level is at the point where I can adjust and adapt as needed and my workouts don’t suffer too much. But I think I’m still going to prefer when I know what I’m in for when I walk into the workout.

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Default ThumbnailThanksgiving Workouts (or Getting My Family Involved) Default Thumbnail3 Workouts In A Row (or Using Fitness To Beat A Cold) Default ThumbnailA New Year Of Workouts (or Finally Starting To Feel Like Myself Again) Default ThumbnailBack To My Normal Workouts (or Another Challenge Switch) Default ThumbnailA Short Workout Week (or 3 Workouts In 3 Different Locations) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal Workouts (or Balancing Hard Work And Taking It Easy)

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Back Into The Running Groove (or Feeling Really Great About My Workouts)

Posted on July 31, 2017 | 1 comment

This past week wasn’t my best week of workouts, but it was exactly what I needed to do. I’ve been feeling a bit down about my running progress lately and how often I’ve had to power walk instead of run. And having a not-so-great Peak Performance Week really brought me down. I tried to not let it get to me, but it really was making me feel like a bit of a failure in my workouts. Fortunately, I was able to do some stuff this week that really helped me feel like I am strong again and that I’m just in a plateau and not losing progress.

Monday’s workout was a 3G one and it was a power day. Not only was it a power day (which are normally my best running days), it was a switch day so I wasn’t on the treadmill for very long at once. Each section of the room had 3 blocks (so 9 blocks total) and I was able to start on the treadmill like I like to. Each treadmill block started with a 90 second push pace followed 30 second all out intervals. I was able to run all the push and all out paces without struggling too much. It felt really great and freeing to be running like that again. I never knew that I could miss running, but clearly I had been.

On the rower, we had the same pattern as the treadmill with the 90 second push pace followed by 30 second all out intervals. I didn’t do any spectacular rowing, but that wasn’t really my focus during the workout. I do my best rowing when we have a timed or distance event that I can work toward. This time, I was just focused on trying to row the entire time I was on the rower and not how far I was going or how high my wattage was.

And on the floor, we had a nice mix of things. Everything that we did was 7 reps and that helped to make things easy. We had squat swings, mountain climbers, lunges with hops, squat jacks, and roll outs. We also had pike to knee tucks on the ab dolly. Those are extremely tough for me to do because I still struggle with doing knee tucks with my toes on the ab dolly. But it’s almost too easy for me now to do them on my knees. It’s tough that I can’t find a good middle ground, but for now I’m doing what I can on my toes before switching to my knees. This time, I only could do 1 pike on my toes before I had to stop. So I did double the knee tucks to make up for it.

Wednesday’s workout was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between blocks. Those are the toughest ones for me for running, but I had extra motivation to try my best in that workout. Whitney used to be one of my regular coaches, but she doesn’t coach at the times I go to now. The last time I saw her was when we ran into each other at Disneyland. So when I got to class and realized that Whitney was coaching, I was super excited! I love all my coaches and I’m always sad when I don’t get to see someone regularly. So this was a special treat and motivated me to push myself harder.

The treadmill was 3 blocks and they were pretty tough for me. The first block started with a 4 minute progressive push pace where you are supposed to increase your pace every minute. I was able to go from 4.5mph to 4.6mph after the first minute, but I couldn’t go any faster after that. But to do 4 minutes of running is good for me since I haven’t really done that in a while. After the long push, we had a long base pace followed by a short push to all out pace. The next block had a shorter first push pace but a longer second push pace. And the last block had an even shorter first push pace and a longer push pace leading up to the all out. It was a lot of running, but again it felt really great to do it.

The floor was one long block that took up the second half of class. It was a mix of weights, strap work, body weight work, and rowing. For weights, we did lateral raises and squat rows. For straps we had high rows and chest presses. For body weight work we had push ups and running men. And for rowing we started with 400 meter rows that went up by 200 meters each time. It was tough because it felt like some of the work we did back to back was using the same muscles (squat rows to rows on the straps and chest presses to push ups), but I managed to make it through 2 full rounds. The goal was to do 3 full rounds, but I didn’t quite make it back to the rower for the last round.

And of course, since it’s a rare treat to have Whitney as my coach we had to get a selfie together after class. I was so gross and sweaty, but I still had a smile on my face from an awesome workout!

Friday’s workout was a run/row day. I was pretty excited for a run/row since I had been making so many improvements with my running. And this was going to be a challenge for me. The running segments were longer than they usually are for run/row days. The first round was .75 miles and the second round was .5 miles. I kept my speed stable at 4.5mph and was able to run the entire distance both times! It wasn’t easy to do .75 miles but I felt so accomplished once I finished it. And while I only made it half way through the run/row assignment (the rows I did were 250 meters and 500 meters), I think getting the running done as a full run was worth the extra time it took me.

The floor had 3 blocks and they were a good variety of things. The first block was all body weight work with squats, pop jacks, and sit ups. The second block was all weight work and we were encouraged to try to use the same weight for all the exercises. We had rows, squats, shoulder presses, deadlifts, and lunges. The weight I used was a challenge for most things, but it was too light for the deadlifts. I probably should have switched my weights up for that, but I was more focused on getting through the rounds and not how easy the weights were for that move. And the last block was a core blast that had knee tucks, leg lifts, and crunches.

And I was able to do a Saturday workout too! And the running theme continued this week (it’s like Orangetheory knew I needed a running focused week) with the 3G workout I had. The treadmill block was a 12 minutes for distance run. I know that in the past I could run for 12 minutes without stopping, but I wasn’t sure that was going to happen this time. I was very tired from not sleeping that well the night before and I was tired from the workout the day before.

My plan was to keep the speed at 4.5mph and go as long as I could run before needing to take a walking break. Ideally, I would have been able to run the entire thing but I was realistic and didn’t push myself to the point that I was hurting. I managed to run for about 4 minutes before I had to go down to a walk. My plan then was to walk for about 3 or 4 minutes and then start running again. But after my walking break I tried to run again and my body wasn’t able to do it. I did end up running for the last minute of the 12 minute run, but it was disappointing that I wasn’t able to do as much as I wanted to. Still, my distance wasn’t too bad considering how much walking I did.

Next I went to the rowers where we started with an 800 meter row followed by squats. Then the row went down to 600 meters and more squats. I had just started the 400 meter row when time was called to switch. I didn’t do any spectacular times on my row, but just like earlier in the week my focus was really more on just rowing without stopping and not going fast. And on the floor we had squats, tricep work on the straps, plank work, and toe reaches. It was a hard block but I tried to only take breaks in-between exercises and not in the middle of a set.

I thought that the class was only going to have one rotation around the room, but there was one more short rotation after that. Everything was 2 minutes long. On the treadmill it was a push to all out pace and I had to walk it. The rower was also a push to all out pace. And the floor was skaters and plank jacks. It was a tough workout, but when it was done I was pretty happy that I had another running day where I was pushing myself.

This was exactly the week that I needed in my workouts. It pushed me harder than I had been pushed before and it reminded me what I am able to do with running. I’ve been underestimating myself and letting my mind control what my body can do. But obviously I’m stronger than that and this past week proved that to me again.

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Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep) Default ThumbnailMore Running! (or Gaining Endurance) Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailRunning And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Progress (or Olympic Workouts) Default ThumbnailWalking And Running (Mixing Up My Workouts)

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A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

Posted on July 10, 2017 | Comments Off on A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

I’ve had a few weeks of 3 workout weeks, so it was nice to be able to get back to a 4 workout week this past week. 4 workouts a week is starting to feel so normal to me which still surprises me. But even though this was a 4 workout week, it was a bit of a weird week. It was weird because of a few things including the holiday and my Orangetheory location was getting an equipment upgrade and was going to be closed down for 2 days. But none of the weird stuff was going to stop me from getting my workouts in.

Monday’s class was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between the blocks. We technically had 2 different 10.5 minute challenges, but I forgot to reset my treadmill before the first one and wasn’t able to do the challenge properly. So since the first challenge wasn’t going to be for distance for me, I did it with the plan the coach gave (instead of just running the entire thing). So I ran the push paces and walked the base paces without worrying too much about distance.

For the second challenge, I did remember to reset my treadmill and very determined to PR on my 10.5 minute challenge. I ran the entire thing which is still a big accomplishment for me. I started at 4.5mph like normal and occasionally did a bit at 4.7mph as a little sprint. I knew I’d be close to my old PR (which was .812 miles) so for a minute toward the end I went to 5mph and for the very last 30 seconds went to 7mph just to get every bit of distance I could get. I’m glad that I did that because I did PR, even if it wasn’t as much of a PR change as I was hoping it would be.

Once I got to the floor, I was pretty tired but I wanted to do the best I could. The first block was arms, lunges, and abs so that wasn’t too bad after all the running. The second block was arms with squats and ended with a 500 meter row. I was excited to try the row because I wanted to PR on it too. I didn’t know what my 500 meter PR was going into class so I was really excited when I finished it thinking I got a new best time. It was a bit frustrating to realize that I tied with my PR. I know I should still be happy to tie with my PR when I’m tired at the end of class, but as you all know I’m super stubborn with myself.

I also went to Tuesday’s workout since I do try to work out on holidays. This workout was a 3G 3 partner workout and it was set up as 3 blocks that were each 14 minutes long. A lot of partner workouts are for the entire class, so it was cool that this one was broken up into smaller bits. Each workout had a similar goal which was to see how far the group could get on the rower in 14 minutes even though each block had a different station controlling the switching.

For the round where the rower controlled the switching, it was 400 meter rows. For the other rounds, it was just rowing for distance but I think we all pretty much averaged 400 meters each time we were on there. When the treadmill controlled the switching, it was .2 miles (I did it as a power walk for .1 miles) and the other rounds were running or walking for distance. For the floor, we had a decent amount of variety. When the floor controlled the switching, it was lunges and ab work. For the other rounds there were biceps, pop jacks, dead lifts, and squats.

As a group, we did best on the rowing distance in our first round which was almost 3100 meters. The other rounds weren’t too bad with about 2900 meters each time but I know that we wanted to top our first round row. It was a pretty tough workout, but it was a good workout and a nice change from what we do normally. And knowing that we’d be switching between stations every 3 minutes or so was pretty helpful in getting through the tougher moments.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we switched after 2 blocks. Normally I would run that workout, but it was my 3rd workout in a row and I was feeling a bit sore and tired so I ended up walking. All of the treadmill blocks started with a 2 minute push pace and 1 minute base pace. After that, it was push to all out paces with different times. But on the very last block on the treadmill, I knew I’d do a little running. After Wednesday’s workout, all the treadmills and rowers were going to be replaced. It was my last time on the original treadmill 11 (my favorite treadmill) and we were encouraged to go for our fastest speed ever because we were ending on a 30 second all out. Since I wanted to give my treadmill a proper goodbye, I ended with 30 seconds at 8mph. It’s probably too fast for me (I think that speed is for someone with longer legs), but I was able to do it for 30 seconds and felt like I gave the treadmill good farewell.

And yes, I’m aware that I probably sound crazy for having a favorite treadmill like this, but I think most people at Orangetheory have their favorites and knew that the new treadmills probably wouldn’t feel the same as the ones we were used to.

On the floor, each block had a 200 meter row in it. I was averaging 37-38 seconds per row which isn’t bad but not my best either. We also had a lot of plank/core/abs work in the blocks. I was tired because I did a tough workout but also because it was my 3rd workout in a row. I knew that I couldn’t be too tough on myself that day for not always doing my best. And I’m happy to say that I was able to go easy on myself and felt glad that I was able to do what I could do.

Orangetheory was closed on Thursday and Friday to spruce things up and get the new equipment in, so my next workout was on Saturday. As usual for Saturday workouts for me, it was a 3G workout. I got there a bit late and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to start on a treadmill, but somehow not only did I get to start on a treadmill but I got to start on the new treadmill 11! The treadmills looked similar to the old ones, but I could feel a difference. They do still need to be a bit balanced out (very common issue with new treadmills), but it was good to be on my normal treadmill. I was dealing with some hip pain, so I planned on doing a lot of walking. And that worked out well because it was a strength day.

There was some push pace times at a flat treadmill incline, and I did run those. But for all the incline work, I walked and I’m glad that I did. It wasn’t a really difficult hill workout, but I know I couldn’t have done it as a run. I did try to run briefly at 4% and it was feeling pretty bad. So pretty much all my treadmill time with the few moments of push paces on a flat incline were walking.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lunges and shoulder work followed by abs. And the second block was lunges, abs, and pushups. Each block was only about 7 minutes long so it went by pretty quickly. And on the rower, we had rowing with work with medicine balls in-between each row. My rowing was pretty slow, but that might have been because of the new rowers. The seats are different with these rowers compared to the others so it might take me a bit of time to get used to it. But I’m sure they will feel normal to me soon.

After completing Saturday’s workout, I went to the app on my phone that I use to track my workouts. Having an app like that is so much easier to figure out if I’m on pace to hit my workout goal for the year than if I tracked it on paper or something. And Saturday’s workout was a bit of a milestone one for the year.

I’m ahead of pace to hit my workout goal for the year and that makes me pretty happy. Hopefully this momentum continues!

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Getting Back To Normal Workouts (or Balancing Hard Work And Taking It Easy)

Posted on January 23, 2017 | 1 comment

After Peak Performance Week, I was pretty tired from all the hard work. I knew I’d still be doing my 3 workouts for the week, but I didn’t feel like I needed to push myself as hard as I had the week before. Having a recovery day (or a recovery week) is a totally normal thing to do. But I usually am so competitive with myself that I don’t want to do that. But this week, I knew that I needed to. So I tried to find a good balance between working really hard and taking the recovery I needed.

Monday was a power day that didn’t switch between blocks. But even though we didn’t switch between blocks it almost flew like we did because the first 3 blocks were only 4 minutes each. For those short blocks, I was able to run all the pushes that were 2 minutes or under and all of the all out paces. We had a 3 minute push pace followed by a 1 minute all out. I did run for 2 minutes and then took a quick 1 minute walk break before running my all out. The last block on the treadmill was 7 minutes which was a mix of push and all out paces. I tried to follow the paces perfectly (only walking during walking or base paces). And by doing that, I ended up doing 3 minutes of running at the end which felt pretty good for me!

The floor work that day was a similar pattern with 3 short blocks and 1 long one. Each of the short blocks was 2 different things we had to do and I was able to get through 2 rounds most of the time. And for the longer block, we mainly did squats followed by rowing. I didn’t take it too easy while on the floor since the blocks were so short. I was using 20 pound weights for my squats and 25 pounds for the deadlifts we had to do. Even in my recovery weeks, I’m finding that sometimes I can use heavier weights (especially doing lower body work), so I’m glad I still did that.

Wednesday was an endurance day, but fortunately we did switch between blocks. For the treadmill blocks, on the first one I ran for 2 minutes, walked for 1, and ran for 2 again. I was really happy to see that I felt fine doing that but then after that first block my body decided that it was done. I was feeling pretty light-headed (I didn’t have the best food day before my workout) and was dealing with a bit of pain all over. So for all the other blocks, I ended up walking even during the all out paces. I ended up keeping my speeds and inclines lower than I normally do on a walking day because of all the issues I was having. But I was trying to keep focusing on remembering that this was now a recovery day and that was ok.

On the floor, I used some medium to heavy weights when we had our squat work. In the last floor block, we also had a 400 meter row which I did get done in under 2 minutes. But the light-headedness and pain were affecting me on the floor too and I was taking quite a few breaks. I thought that the toughness of the workout was just because of my personal issues, but after class everyone else seemed to agree that for some reason it was an exceptionally hard class. That did make me feel a bit better about all the struggles I was having in class.

Friday’s class was a power day without switching. I was still dealing with a bit of pain (all the rain we’ve been getting in LA makes my hips hurt so much), but fortunately my workout didn’t suffer too much from the pain. All of the blocks we had were 5 minutes or under and that was helpful. We had a lot of all out paces (I think it might have been 8 or 9 of them, but I lost count). We had 1 minute pushes to all outs, 90 second pushes to all outs, and 2 minute pushes to all outs. And I managed to run all of it. I did walk during the base paces and walking recoveries, but it felt really good to run as much as I did. I still want to push my running more, and I feel like this workout was a good way to do it.

The floor was similar with the short blocks. We had a lot of squat work, a lot of ab work with the ab roller, and I even attempted doing knee tucks on the ab roller on my toes instead of my knees for the first time (that only lasted for 2 knee tucks, but it was the first time I ever did that!). But one of the floor blocks was all rowing for 5 minutes. We had base, push, and all out paces on the rower; but basically it was rowing constantly for 5 minutes. I know I could have done better than I did, but I think I didn’t do too shabby.

For this being a bit of a recovery week and a bit of a challenge week, I think I found a great mix. I listened to my body when I needed to and adjusted when necessary instead of trying to overcome the issues. Hopefully this will be a pattern that I’ll be able to continue doing for a long time!

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Going Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs)

Posted on January 16, 2017 | 5 comments

This past week was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory and it went really well for me! Peak Performance Week is something that I do look forward to each time it happens. It’s a great way to prove to myself that I’m making progress and since I’m so competitive with myself I can get some of that energy out. My original plan was to only do 3 workouts, but I decided to go for it and do 4 workouts during the week (which meant doing 3 workouts in a row) because I really wanted to see what I could do.

Monday’s challenge was the 500 meter row challenge. I don’t have as crazy of goals with the rower as I do with the treadmill, but I still set goals for myself and want to do better than I’ve ever done. So with 500 meters, I set a goal of being able to do it in under 2 minutes. I started on the treadmill but we only warmed up while the first group was on the rowers. When they were done, it was our turn to row (this way, we weren’t too tired before doing the row). Even though 500 meters isn’t really a sprint for me, I knew that I could just go really hard and hopefully it would only be about 2 minutes of effort. So I did just that, and when I got to 500 meters, I was pretty excited to see my time!

1:55.9! Totally under my goal time and that’s all that I could have asked for! After doing the challenge, we had the rest of the workout. On the treadmill, I ended up walking for it all because I went so hard on the rower. For the longer push paces, I did my inclines between 6-8% and the shorter push paces at 10-12%. But walking was fine with me since I was tired and I knew I’d have more running during the week. And when I was on the floor, I stuck with slightly lighter weights for my lunges. We also had some strap work and ab work plus some short rows (which I took easy).

Tuesday’s workout was the one I wasn’t sure I’d be doing, but when the challenge for that workout was announced I knew I had to go. It was the 24 minute run for distance. I hadn’t done that one since I started running, so I wanted to see what I could do. I had a goal in mind to go .5 miles further this time than I did the last time but I mainly just wanted to do my intervals as long as I could. I was doing 2 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. I mainly ran at 5 mph and walked at 3.5 mph and was doing pretty good with that speed with my intervals. At the end, I did a few rounds of 1 minute of running/1 minute of walking and tried to bump my speed up. I really wanted to make it to the distance goal I had (which would have been 1.896 miles), and I was close but just missed it.

Even though I didn’t make that distance goal, I’m so happy that I went as far as I did and that I did so well with my intervals. I hadn’t done the 2 minutes of running intervals for that length of time before so it was really great to realize that I could do it!

After the 24 minute distance run, I had 2 blocks on the floor. Each of those block started with a 300 meter row and we did some arms and squats after that. And then after those blocks, we had a 3 minute core blast on the floor that ended with a one minute plank hold and I was able to hold it for about 45 seconds. That’s not my best plank hold, but considering all the other work that I did that day I’m very happy with it.

Wednesday’s workout was a floor rep challenge day. Since it was my 3rd workout in a row, I knew it would need to be a bit of a recovery day. I tried to run at the beginning of the workout and realized that my legs were pretty dead so it ended up being a walk day for me. We did switch between blocks and there were 4 blocks on the treadmill and 4 blocks on the floor. The treadmill was nothing spectacular for me since I was so tired, plus I knew I would be working really hard on the floor.

For the floor rep challenge, we got to do it twice and add up the reps from both attempts. We had 4 minutes and did 1 move each minute. We were doing squats, push ups, pull ups on the straps, and sit ups). I tried so hard to go each minute without stopping, but it wasn’t easy. I think for me, the easiest ones were the push ups and sit ups but none of them were too horrible for me. On my first attempt, I did 124 reps between all the moves and on the second attempt I did 110 reps. I think that that’s not too shabby considering how hard those 4 minutes were without a break. I would have loved to have done more reps the second try, but that wasn’t in the cards for me.

And Friday was the day I was stressing out about all week: the mile challenge. I think that I judge myself by the mile challenge more than I do with any other treadmill challenge. And since I recently had a major PR with my mile, I was worried that I couldn’t beat that. I know that I don’t need to PR every time I do the mile challenge, but that’s what I want to do. I knew that I went really hard with that last PR and I spent time this past week trying to figure out what I would need to do in order to PR again.

This time, I tried to stick with 2 minutes running/1 minute walking intervals. I had it figured out that I would only need to do that 4 times to get my mile done so it helped with getting my head in the right space. I started with doing as long as I could at 6 mph for my running time. I averaged going that for just over a minute and then I ran at 5.8 mph to finish out the 2 minutes. I did my walking at 3.8 mph, which is faster than I would have liked, but I knew I needed to keep my speed up. That plan worked fine for the first 3 rounds and then my stomach started to cramp up. I went back to 1 minute intervals and increased my speed even more. When I knew I had .1 miles left on my mile, I sprinted and kept increasing my speed. I knew it was going to be close to 11:48 (my previous PR) and I just wanted to get at least 1 second off of my time. And it made me feel so amazing that I did that.

It wasn’t a pretty mile for me. It was so difficult and I’ve realized that I need to figure out a new game plan for the next time I do a mile challenge since I can’t just keep increasing my speed. Hopefully I’ll have some time to figure it out before the next challenge, but for now I’m just happy that I got another PR.

We had a pretty low-key floor block while the other half of class did their mile challenge and then we all joined together to do a partner workout for the rest of class. One of us was on the floor and the other was on the rower. The rower person set the pace and had to do a 900, 600, or 300 meter row. While the partner was on the rower, the person on the floor had lunges, mountain climbers, ab work, and roll outs. We would repeat the floor work until our partner tagged us out.

I was pretty happy that we didn’t have to go back onto the treadmill. My right hip was really sore after my mile. It wasn’t my normal type of pain which is sharp and feels like an electric shock. This was more of a dull annoying pain and I didn’t want to push myself too much. I did take it easy on the floor since I wasn’t controlling the pace, but when I was on the rower I did my best to go as quickly as I could so I could tag out my partner. We each ended up doing 2 rounds on the rower so at least we were pretty equal with our work.

This Peak Performance Week was totally a win for me. While I didn’t meet every goal that I set for myself, I had a PR with everything. And those goals I set were pretty ambitious and I didn’t know if I could do every single one I set for myself. So to do 3 out of 4 isn’t too bad. Plus, I did 4 workouts in a week and 3 workouts in a row so that makes the week even more difficult! All of those things combined helped to make this week more amazing than I could have imagined!

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New Year New Challenges (or Getting Ready For Peak Performance)

Posted on January 9, 2017 | 1 comment

My first week of workouts for 2017 got off to a pretty great start! My first workout of the new year was on New Year’s Day and then I was ready for a regular full week of workouts. It was a 3 workout week since I had done 3 workouts over the weekend, but that worked out pretty perfectly for me. Monday and Friday were big challenge classes so it was nice to have those as my week’s bookends. Coming up this week is Peak Performance Week, so I considered these workouts my training to get ready for that.

Monday’s class was supposed to be a recovery day for me. It was my 3rd workout in a row and I knew I was exhausted. I had no expectations to do anything too crazy and was just happy that I was in class and doing something. Then I found out that we were going to have 3 distance challenges on the treadmill that day. We had 3 treadmill blocks and each was split in 2. For the first half of each block, I walked because I was still trying to take things a bit easy.

But for the second half of each block, we had a 3 minute distance challenge. I know I can run for 3 minutes at a time, but it is not easy for me. But when there is a challenge announced, I get very competitive with myself and need to push myself more than I think I can do. So for each of those challenges, I ran the entire time and I was so happy to see that I was able to increase my distance each time.

After doing all 3 of those 3 minute challenges, I was pretty tired but of course on the floor we had another challenge after that. The floor block started with a 2017 meter row (because of the new year) and that is the farthest row I’ve ever done outside of Hell Week. It wasn’t easy, but I’m very proud that I was able to do that row without having to stop for any breaks. I managed to get it done in 9:23, which is pretty good time too!

Wednesday’s workout was a power day. We had 3 treadmill blocks and all of those blocks started with a 90 second push pace which I was able to run for all the blocks. Then the first block was all 1 minute intervals, the second block was 45 second intervals, and the last block was all 30 second intervals. I ran for all the push paces and all outs and that included the back to back push to all out with the 1 minute intervals (so I ran for 2 minutes that time). And I ended my workout with doing the 30 second all out at 7mph.

Once I moved to the floor, the first block was pretty heavy with squats. We had shoulder work and burpees plus I did push ups on the straps. The second block was more core focused with plank work like mountain climbers and plank shoulder taps (I do those instead of palms to elbows because I can’t keep my hips stable enough yet). We also had to do some sprint rows in the second block and I was able to do 300 meters in 1:09 and 250 meters in :52 which are both pretty good times for me.

And the biggest challenge day ended up being on Friday which was an endurance day. I knew we had to do a 10.5 minute distance challenge because some of my friends posted about that on social media. So I was prepared to do that when I arrived at class. I started with 2 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking but about half way through I had to switch to 1 minute intervals. I was trying to keep my speed up, but I was dealing with being a bit congested that day so I had to try to keep things easy enough at the same time. After I completed it, I was so happy with the distance I got. And then I found out that we were doing another 10.5 minute distance challenge.

Normally when I know that we have multiple challenges in a class, I go a bit easier on the first round so I wouldn’t be too tired for the second one. But I did go all out on the first round and my second challenge suffered a bit. I did 1 minute intervals for the entire time, but I pushed my speed up a bit more for the run and the walk. And at the end I was bumping up my speed more and more hoping that I could get a better distance than the first attempt. I ended at 7mph at the end, but it wasn’t quite enough to beat my original 10.5 minute challenge.

I’m so competitive with myself and it was tough to not beat myself with back to back challenges. I almost always (or have always) beat myself when I do back to back challenges and it was not easy to accept that I couldn’t do it this time. But I also have to be really proud of the distance I went when you combine them. I did 1.618 miles in 21 minutes. That’s amazing!

After the treadmill, we headed to the floor where we had 4 short blocks. 2 of those blocks were leg and plank work. I had lunges in each of those blocks and we also had plank work like mountain climbers and Spiderman planks. But the other 2 blocks were on the rower where we had 3 minute distance challenges. This time, I was prepared to do 2 different rowing challenges so I was able to pace myself better. And I’m very happy with both of my distances, but even more happy that I was able to do better the second time!

With Peak Performance Week this week, I’m still debating which classes I want to go to. I know I’ll be there for the mile challenge, but I’m torn about adding a 4th class (which would also make it 3 classes in a row) to do the 24 minute distance challenge on the treadmill. I’d love to push myself to do it, but I also don’t want to overdo things. But no matter what, I’m so happy I had challenges last week to get me ready to have a full week of challenges this week!

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Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard) Default ThumbnailAnother Peak Performance Week (or Some PRs and Some Not-So-PRs) Default ThumbnailTruly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max) Default ThumbnailPeak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs) Default ThumbnailGoing Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs)

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Holiday Workouts (or Hills, Hills, and More Hills)

Posted on December 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Holiday Workouts (or Hills, Hills, and More Hills)

This past week of workouts were really great for me. I had some pain issues, but I was able to push through them most of the time and make the most of each workout. I knew going into this week that I was recovering from a week (and weekend) where I had gone out for a lot of dinners that were splurges. And I knew that on Christmas I’d be getting Chinese food and I wanted to work out in preparation for that.

Monday’s workout was a strength day where we switched between blocks. I knew that I would be doing a lot of walking that day, but I also made it my intention to try to push myself on my inclines and walking speed. And I had extra motivation to do so because JZ, who used to be my Wednesday coach, was on the treadmill next to me! I did run when we had flat road push and all out paces (where were all a minute or under). But when the pushes were on inclines I stuck with walking. I did bump up my walking speed a little bit and my inclines were between 6-10%. I think I might have been able to do a bit better, but for some reason I held back.

For our floor blocks, we did have some rowing. It was a 200 meter row, which is a sprint, and I was able to get those done pretty quickly. We also had some squats and back work that involved weights plus some rowing moves on the straps. We finished that workout with a 5 minute core blast and I thought I’d be fine doing them. But once we started, my stomach started cramping a bit. The sit-ups were tough but I was able to modify things and just do crunches when I couldn’t do what we were supposed to do. And when we had the 1 minute plank hold, I tried to stay up as long as possible, but only made it about 30 seconds before I had to take a break.

Wednesday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power and it was also a run/row. This was a pretty fun run/row for me. The first round was .5 miles if you were a runner and .25 if you were a power walker, so I did .375 with 2 minutes of running and a walking break. Then I had a 100 meter row which was nice and fast. Then it was a .35 mile run at 3% incline and I did .25 miles at that incline with 1 minute interval. Then it was a 250 meter row. Then the incline got tough and I did a .15 mile run at 5% incline. I wanted to do the entire thing as a run, but I was too tired so I did my 1 minute intervals instead. Then a 400 meter row on the rower. I finished the run/row with a .15 mile run at 3% with 1 minute intervals. It was a tough run/row, but it felt really awesome when I finished it!

On the floor, we had a good mix of upper and lower body work. We had some squats with weights and I was able to use 20lbs for those. Then for the shoulder work, I was using 15lbs. The rest of the floor work wasn’t with weights. We had ab work, bicep curls on the straps (I feel like it has been a while since I’ve had to do those!), rowing on the straps, and plank jacks. It was a really good workout and I was pretty happy with all the work I did that day especially since on Monday I didn’t run for any of the incline work.

Friday was another strength day. I’m not sure how I got so many days with inclines on the treadmill but I did. I’m not a huge fan of running on inclines, but I took this as a sign that I was meant to work on them. We had some push paces at 2 and 4% and I ran all of those. When we had higher inclines, I walked for those. We had 2 sets of 3 minute hill climbs and I walked those entire climbs at 6, 8, and 10% inclines. And all of our all out paces were at 2% inclines and I did run for all of those, but I did it at a slightly slower speed than normal. Overall, I was totally happy with my running at inclines that day.

For the floor work that day, I did struggle. My right arm was bugging me (I think I might have slept on it funny) so I had to use lighter weights than I would have liked to. The weights felt too easy, but when I used the heavier ones I could barely lift them. It was a weird feeling, but I just had to go with the lighter weights and be ok with them. The very last floor block was actually a rowing block for 6 minutes. My stomach was having some really bad cramps while on the rower so I was taking breaks pretty often.

Even though my Friday class ended on a slightly negative note because of the rowing, I still had a smile on my face during class. That’s because my Friday coach, Bruce, was wearing the Santa hat I got him 2 years prior. He’s worn that for the workout or two before Christmas each year and it does make me really happy that he does that.

And since I wanted to get ready for my Chinese food on Christmas, I did a workout on Christmas Eve as well! This workout was a 3G workout and it was the workout where you pull assignments out of stockings to find out what you have to do on the treadmill, rower, and floor.

I started on the treadmill for that workout. My first card said I had to do a 45 second push pace at 4% incline followed by a 30 second all out pace at a flat road for 4 rounds. I was able to run for all of it and did a walking recovery between each round. The next card I pulled was to do .24 miles, 1 minute of walking, and then another .24 miles. I did it as 1 minute intervals and I didn’t get through all of that but I got through most of it with my intervals.

Next, I was on the rower and I pulled a card that said do to 240 meters, a 20 second recovery, and then another 120 meters. That was for 3 rounds and it went pretty well considering how much I struggled with my rowing the day before. The next card I pulled was to do a 2400 meter row. I knew that there was no way I could get that done in the time that I had left, so I just focused on rowing for the rest of the block the best that I could.

My last block was on the floor and for that we either were going to pull a card that said we had to do the coal moves (which were the tough ones) or the present moves (which were still hard but easier). I ended up pulling the present card, but I had to do 24 reps of each move which made it seem harder than the coal ones would have been! The moves I had to do were single arm snatches (I did that with a 20lb weight), full squat shoulder presses (15lb weights for that), squats, tricep push-ups, and full sit ups. I just made it to the end of my second round when time was called. We finished with a 3 minute core blast and while there are still some ab moves that are very tough on me, I managed to do most of it without modifications.

Like I said before, since I know I’m not going to make it to my workout goal for 2016, I’m focusing on the intensity of each workout I have left this year. Even though some things weren’t as tough as I know I could have done, I think I did a pretty good job with my 4 workouts this week! I’ve only got 3 more workouts left in 2016 before I start my 2017 workouts. I know that I’m going to push myself as much as I can this week to end on the best note possible!

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