Tag: Running

Weekly Workouts: Tough workouts, being sore & putting myself first

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Hi, friends! I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was very relaxing compared to last weekend, but I’ll catch you up on that later. For now, let’s talk workouts, like we do every Monday morning. I use this as a way to reflect on my workouts from the previous week, look ahead to what I want to accomplish this week and hopefully motivate all of you to think about your workouts and to make a plan.

Last week, I had some awesome workouts. I was supposed to rest more than I did, but since the weather was back to summer-like temps, I had to take advantage of the warm evenings and the fact that there was still daylight after work, so I went on some runs. I also had some intense lifting workouts, which left me veryyyy sore (nothing like rolling over on a Sunday morning being completely sore from BodyPump!).

On top of that, I did something I never do: I said “no”. And, you know what? It felt pretty good. It was just one of those days where I really needed MY OWN workout. Teaching is amazing and I love it, and when I first started, I thought teaching would still be MY workout, but I quickly realized that it’s not my workout at all; I am there for my members and ensuring that THEY have a great workout. So, when I was teaching a crazy amount of classes, I noticed how much my own workouts started to slack and it really bothered me. Now that I don’t teach as much, I focus on making my “off” days from teaching for me and it’s done wonders for my fitness levels!

And, rant over… let’s get to the workouts!

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I said last week that I was going to rest on Monday, but the weather was great and I found out I was going to dinner with coworkers on Tuesday after work so I wanted to make sure to get my planned Tuesday workout in on Monday since I had more time. I ran 4 miles and it was awesome! But, on the way back I felt like I was racing the sunset.

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  • Tuesday- I ended up having a lot of time after work until dinner, so I headed up to the gym in my building and had a surprisingly good and strong strength session. I think I’ll post the workout for you soon because it left me pleasantly sore! I also did my Fall Into Fitness challenge; I had forgotten how much I love lunge & knee lift jumps!

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  • Wednesday- After saying no to subbing the class before mine, I went for a 3 mile run along the Charles. The views never get old and there’s really no better way to clear your head! Since I was so sore from my Tuesday strength session, I didn’t do much of the class with my members when I taught UXF Burn. It was a great class, though. That class loves to work hard

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  • Thursday- I felt back to my normal self on Thursday so I did all of SHRED and Kickboxing with my classes. I taught a timed circuit, Tabata cardio and Tabata abs class, thanks to a suggestion from Athena. My members loved this format, so I am definitely doing it again!
  • Friday- I did the glute press and hydrant for the Fall into Fitness challenge and walked .75 miles to the bar and back, but besides that, I rested.
  • Saturday- I warmed up with 20 minutes on the elliptical before going to BodyPump. My glutes were still sore from Thursday, so I went lighter on the leg tracks, but pushed myself with the upper body tracks. I’ve gotten stronger lately and I love it.
  • Sunday- Rest, besides walking around the mall. I was sore and since my workouts had been strong and intense all week, I thought rest was best!

This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I will probably run after work and then do some ab work.
  • Tuesday- Less cardio and more strength focus.
  • Wednesday- Cardio before teaching UXF Burn.
  • Thursday- Teaching SHRED and Kickboxing, probably using the same format in SHRED this week as I did last week.
  • Friday- Rest, besides my Fall into Fitness move of the day.
  • Saturday- Teaching Kickboxing at the YMCA.
  • Sunday- I think I am going to Maine this weekend so I will try to do something there, maybe even with my mom!

Questions for you: Are you participating in Athena’s Fall into Fitness challenge? What’s a new fitness goal you have? Instructor friends, do you feel you need to work out in addition to teaching since when you teach you’re more focused on your members’ workouts?

I said “no”

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Yup. I said “no”. As someone who always says yes (or tries to always say yes), this was a big accomplishment. Let me explain:

On Wednesday, I got an email from the instructor who teaches the 5:30 Cardio Conditioning saying she was really sick and asking if I could sub. Normally, I am more than willing to help and am really lucky that my job has the flexibility that allows me to leave early when I need/want to, but for some reason on Wednesday, it was the LAST thing I wanted to do. I was having a rough couple of days and was really looking forward to going for a run before teaching so I could clear my head. Plus, I was REALLY sore from my workout on Tuesday and didn’t want to do any lifting, which I would have done had I subbed.

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I literally hemmed and hawed for a  long time before finally saying “no”. And even after I said no, I was second guessing my response and feeling awful that I said no because technically I could have subbed.  I just didn’t want to teach a double on Wednesday and a double on Thursday. I didn’t want to.

And you know what? It all worked out OK. I’m not doomed with automatic bad karma or getting a bad name at the gym because I said no. I doubt anyone is even thinking about it anymore. Big thanks to Athena for confirming that I did the right thing and even saying she was proud of me for saying no 🙂

So the point of this post is: it’s ok to say no, it’s ok to put yourself and your needs/wants in front of others, it’s ok to not do things because you feel like you have to, it’s ok to not do everything and to try to make everyone happy. It’s ok. (if I keep telling myself this, I’m hoping it will be easier to do these things!)

Questions for you: When’s the last time you said “no”? Are you someone who always tries to make everyone happy and put others’ needs in front of yours?

On a side note… I said no 2 times on Wednesday; apparently I was on a roll! It was 7:10 and my class was 20 minutes from being over and a girl walks in, puts her stuff down and starts to get her weights, without so much of blinking an eye to the fact everyone was sweaty and looking like they were quite far into the workout. Here’s how the conversation went:

Me: “oh, I’m sorry, Zumba starts at 7:30.”

Her: “I know, it’s ok I’ll just join this class”.

Me: “Well the workout is more than half done and you’re not warmed up so it would not be very safe for you to join now”.

Her: “I ran here. I’m 9 minutes late, I can’t believe you won’t let me join.”

Me (as nicely as I could): “Actually the class started at 6:30 so you’re almost 40 minutes late and we are on the last bit of class, so it’s really not safe for you to join. I’m sorry.”

Girl storms out.  Fitness instructors, what would you have done? I just wouldn’t feel comfortable having her join the class 40 minutes late! Not to mention it was an incredibly distracting 3 minutes for the class and for me.

Weekly Workouts: Outdoor Boot Camp

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Hey there! Phew! What a weekend 🙂 I had my “housewarming” party on Saturday and it was an absolute blast! I’m very thankful for all of my friends and family who came.

Let’s talk workouts, though. Last week was an awesome week of workouts! I had my full teaching schedule (UXF Burn, SHRED and 2 Kickboxing classes) and got in some good workouts on my own, too.

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- I worked from home on Monday so I was able to start my workout earlier than normal (always a nice treat!). I went for a 3.5 mile run and then went to the East Boston YMCA and did an upper body superset workout. I picked two variations of exercises for the following muscle groups: biceps, triceps, back, shoulders and chest. I did 15 reps and 3 rounds of each superset before moving on to the next. It was a great workout!

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  • Tuesday- I had errands to run after work so I got up early and did an at-home, no equipment cardio and core workout that I shared with you here. It wasn’t anything crazy hard, but it was perfect for what I wanted.

No weights, no problem workout

  • Wednesday- I did 22 minutes on the elliptical before teaching UXF Burn (22 because I didn’t have time to do any more!). The UXF Burn workout was hard, but I loved all the moves I chose!
  • Thursday- I taught the same Tabata workout in my SHRED class as I did the week before when I subbed Kate’s class. And again, it left me incredibly sore! Love that. It’s funny, though, because when I teach Tabata I think everyone hates it and is bored (it’s a lot of repetition), but after class I had multiple people tell me how much they enjoyed it. Weird. After SHRED I amped up my cardio and taught Cardio Kickboxing.
  • Friday- I rested 🙂 Well, I rested in terms of not working out, but I was very busy party-prepping!
  • Saturday- I taught kickboxing at the Oak Square YMCA. Athena came, which is always a fun treat!
  • Sunday- Athena sent out an invite to some gym friends seeing if anyone wanted to go to a free, outdoor boot camp sponsored by City Sports. Obviously, I was all about that, as were a few other gym friends, so we did that yesterday morning. There was a great crowd and the instructor was hilarious. We ran about 3/4-1 mile to a park and from there, we did a circuit style workout consisting of a minute at each station with a cardio burst between stations. We did lunges with a bicep curl using bands, push ups, squats and “anything abs” (a core station where we could pick whatever core exercise we wanted). It wasn’t as hard as I was expecting, but it was still really fun to try something new and workout with friends (and not be the instructor). I contemplated buying new sneakers at City Sports after, but I was good and restrained.

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This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- My plan is to rest today besides my normal walking commute. Since last week was heavy on the workout front, and I am a little sore, I feel like I should take it easy. I may try to video some workouts for a fun post I have planned 🙂
  • Tuesday- I’ll probably run after work and do another strength workout at the EB YMCA.
  • Wednesday- Cardio and then teaching UXF Burn.
  • Thursday- SHRED and Kickboxing
  • Friday- I’m not sure. Since I rested today, I may be up for a workout. We’ll see how it goes.
  • Saturday- I’m not teaching, so my thought is I’ll get up and go to BodyPump at the Wellington BSC.
  • Sunday- Not sure! If I rest again on Friday, I’ll probably be antsy for something on Sunday. My weekend is pretty open so I’ve got loads of time to workout!

Make this week awesome, friends!

Questions for you: Do you like outdoor boot camps? What was your favorite workout last week?

Weekly Workouts: Travel Edition

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Hey there! How was your weekend?? Mine was a whirlwind of a weekend, but an absolute blast! I can’t wait to recap because it was such a fun little mini vacation. Before I get to that, though, let’s talk workouts! After a slightly more indulgent long weekend, I’m always super motivated to get back on track starting on Monday morning. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do for a workout tonight, but it will surely be something to make me sweat and feel like I kicked my own butt 😉

Even though I traveled and was surrounded by family the whole time, and was tempted to skip a workout to have wine and snacks I still made it a point to sneak in workouts when I could, and at times when I knew I wouldn’t be missing out on anything fun! Did I really feel like getting up to run the morning after my parents and I drank incredible amounts a few glasses of wine? Nah, not really, but I knew it would make me feel SO MUCH BETTER, so I got up and did it before I really even fully woke up. I was so glad I did because once we got to the hotel in Michigan, the last thing I wanted to do was workout!

Last Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- Since I ran 4 miles on Sunday, which was supposed to be my weights only day, I made Monday my weights only day. I headed to the East Boston YMCA after work (which, with my new commute, I’m walking almost 3 miles on any given day, which is awesome!) to complete an upper body tabata workout. I had worked my lower body a lot the week before (hello, Booty Burner workouts!), so I decided it was time to give my upper body a little attention. I asked Athena for a good upper body workout and she told me she had recently posted an upper body tabata workout. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to check it out, but when I compared what I came up with to what she had come up with earlier, they were pretty close…. we think more alike than we both realize! Anyway, it was awesome and I was sore for a few days- haven’t had that in a while!
  • Tuesday- I had dinner plans with my girlfriends after work, so I dragged myself out of bed and went running in 45 degree weather… I can’t say it was fun, but I was glad I did it! New songs on my playlist also helped get me up and running!!

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  • Wednesday- Since I had to get subs for my Thursday double, when Kate asked me to sub her sports conditioning class, I jumped at the offer! I taught a tabata themed workout that looked like this: upper body tabata, lower body tabata, 2 minutes of cardio, 1 minute of abs. Holy moly. I always forget how hard tabata workouts are (if you do them correctly) until I am on the 7th set! Between that and an awesome UXF Burn class right after, I woke up Thursday REALLY sore. My glutes literally screamed at me for 2 days… that kind of scream where it hurts to sit on the toilet (TMI?). I loved it!
  • Thursday- I originally thought I would get up and workout before my parents picked me up, but I decided that since I hadn’t rested in way too long and since I was really sore, I would foam roll instead. Good choice! I did instruct my mom through a 30 minute water aerobics workout at the hotel pool. I may have had a wine glass in hand, but I actually had a blast teaching her! I think it’s better to teach water aerobics from the pool deck, so I kicked off my sandals and got into instructor mode. So much fun. I think I want to start teaching H2O aerobics! Mom said she got a great workout.

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  • Friday- I didn’t sleep well (shockingly enough. Wine usually puts me to sleep) so I was up and ready for a hotel treadmill workout at 7am. I hadn’t run on a treadmill in so long and I forgot how much “easier” it is to run on a treadmill vs. outside. When I run outside, my pace is usually between 6.85-7.5 the whole time, so when I hopped on the treadmill and started at my normal 6.4, I quickly realized that speed isn’t appropriate anymore! I ended up running a 5K in about 26 minutes and felt like I could’ve run 5 miles. Love days like that!

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  • Saturday- Danielle and I were in bed by 10:30 on Friday night and slept straight through until 8:30, which is almost unheard of! After breakfast, I caught up on a little blogging and then hit up the hotel gym once everything had digested. Though the gym wasn’t big, they had some pretty sweet treadmills. I didn’t want to run a lot since I had run on Friday, but I hopped on one and chose to do a 3 mile route (pre-programmed in the treadmill). It said the highest % grade would be 12.5, and I figured that would be after a bit. Umm, no. I literally climbed up to that 12.5% grade in less than 5 minutes and was dyingggg. I ended up walking/jogging a mile of that route and then switched to manual for the rest. I just wasn’t up for pushing myself since my main focus of the workout was going to be strength training. I ended up doing 30 minutes of walking & running and then used the machine to do 12 reps and 3 rounds of bicep curls, tricep extensions, standing row, oblique twist… and something else? Although I prefer free weights, it was nice to get out of my normal routine and use a machine. I ended with lots of abs! Nice start to a Saturday. I also danced a lot at the wedding… that counts as extra 😉

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Strong is the new sexy. Own it.

  • Sunday- Nothing! I could’ve gotten up to workout before my flight, but decided a rest day wasn’t a bad idea. Plus, I always walk a lot in airports (always take the stairs).

This Week’s Workouts

  • Monday- As I mentioned, I’m not sure what I am going to do for a workout today. Probably something with cardio and weights as a way to get back into total body workouts for the week.
  • Tuesday- I would like to get up and run before work so that I can have the evening off. I’m having a party on Saturday and could use some extra time during the week to shop and get ready for that.
  • Wednesday- Something on my own before teaching UXF Burn.
  • Thursday- SHRED followed by Kickboxing. I missed these classes last week!! I think I’ll do the same tabata workout I taught last Wednesday in my SHRED class. I want everyone to experience that class, haha
  • Friday- Rest day! Since I’m teaching on Saturday morning, I need to make sure my apartment is ready for the party before that, so Friday night will be spent running around doing errands, setting my apartment up, cleaning, etc.
  • Saturday- Teaching kickboxing at the Y! 🙂
  • Sunday- Probably another rest day, unless I feel up for a walk/jog around my neighborhood.

Questions for you: When you travel, do you try to get your workouts done in the morning? or skip them all together? Are you a fan of Tabata workouts? What’s your favorite workout song right now?? I need more updates on my playlist!!

Apple Picking and Enjoying the Weather

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Monday is over- woohoo! I hope everyone was able to get out and enjoy the weather this past weekend because it was beautiful! Still a little warmer than I would like (I am ready for fall!), but I really shouldn’t complain since it’s nice to have great weather.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was so bored! I didn’t have any plans after work or teaching last week and worked from home on Friday, so by that point, I was really ready to get out of the house and hang out with people! My sister was flying out the next morning, so I headed to Somerville and we grabbed dinner and drinks at Orleans in Davis Square. We shared the Brie, Mushroom, Caramalized Onions and Spinach burger which, unfortunately, sounded better than it tasted. We had been going back and forth between nachos and that, and totally should’ve gotten the nachos!

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Saturday, I got up and taught kickboxing (seriously my favorite way to start a Saturday. Nothing like getting a crazy sweaty cardio class first thing!) and then went to Market Basket to do my small weekly grocery shopping. Boy was that a mistake! It was a million times busier on Saturday than it is on Sundays. Yuck.

My college girlfriends and I had tentatively planned to go apple picking on Saturday and when I sent a text to see if anyone was still interested in going, I had three takers! We were going to go to a place in Stow, MA, but Jessi needed to get something at her parent’s house in Hampton, NH, so Lauren, Jess, Jessi and I ended up going to Apple Crest in Hampton Falls.

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Thanks for the photo, Lauren!

I think it’s safe to say that you can’t go apple picking without getting a cider donut, right?! I don’t even like donuts (I know, crazy. I’m a sucker for muffins.), but this thing was absolutely delicious!! Paired with a hot apple cider? Perfect afternoon snack!

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After we finished our treats, we hopped on the hay ride that took us to the area of the farm where picking was happening.

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So fun! We spent a bit picking and chatting and laughing.

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Before picking, though, we got a whole speech about how to pick an apple, with the emphasis on “twisting and pulling” the apple from the tree, not just yanking it off. Thank goodness the apple police wasn’t around when this happened

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We all died laughing!

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What a fun afternoon! So glad we were able to coordinate schedules 🙂 After we finished picking, we headed to Jessi’s parent’s house and had a glass of wine with her dad before heading back to Boston. Lauren and I had planned to go bowling with Jessi and her boyfriend, but by the time we got back and ate, both Lauren and I lost steam and ended up not going out. Whoops. Sorry Jessi!

Waking up Sunday morning feeling great was well worth being lame and not going out on Saturday night! I made some Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread, cleaned, went to Wal Mart, went for a run, did laundry, cooked dinner. All around, a very productive day! I hope to have a few recipes for you later this week!

Questions for you: Where is your favorite apple orchard? What did you do to enjoy the weather this weekend?