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A Post of Workouts – Turkey Day & Other

I have a race recap for you! I am so excited about it! But that will come tomorrow. Eeee! (I am giddy)

I want to talk about Thanksgiving this week. I feel like it is always Thanksgiving. Every time I turn around, it is time for Thanksgiving again. Last year was the first year I got in a workout on the holiday. I couldn’t go to my own gym because I had stayed over at my mom’s the night before. My little brother was visiting from The Seattles and I wanted to spend as much time with his mushy face as possible. I get guest passes to a bunch of a gym’s through my company’s Global Fit account and I was thrilled to see Meadows Spa on the list. Meadows Spa is an all women’s gym that I was a member of for a short time when I lived at home. I actually used to come home from my full time job, go right from the bus to my car and drive to the gym to take a class (never did machines back then) after work. What motivation!

Anyway, I used the guest pass there in the morning and got a good 1:05 on two different ellipticals. It felt great and I was so happy to have done something great for myself before the huge meal. I was able to enjoy my meal much more too knowing I got a great workout in.

Which brings me to my Turkey Day Tips. I know variations of these have been floating around the blog world, but I’d like to throw mine in there as well along with my plans for this year. Oh, and while I do not eat turkey, I just love saying Turkey Day.

Turkey Workout

Turkey Day Tips

  1. Schedule your Turkey Day workout. Otherwise it gets easy to lounge around with your family or watching the parade or football or whatever it is you do to lounge. I scheduled my workout — a Core Fusion class with one of my favorite teachers (my favorite teacher Brynn is no longer at CF, sad). I was so happy to see that my other favorite, Barbara, was teaching on Turkey Day, so I jumped at the chance to take her 11:00 am class. Now that I signed up, I am obligated to go. And excited to! If I happen to wake up early on Thursday I might try to get in a quick cardio workout as well, but if there’s no time, no worries! I know I will feel amazing after Core Fusion — I always do! Plus, I have been meaning to get my butt there more!
  2. Plan your Day After workout. Knowing you have a workout planned and ready to go the following day might help you not stuff yourself to the point of food coma, or, as my brother and I like to say thanks to Chris Rock, “the itis.” And a workout the day after Turkey Day will just feel nice, knowing you had a fantastic day of indulgence and now you are back to treating your body well. I already scheduled my Day After workout — another Core Fusion class with the same great teacher! I was happy to see Barbara is teaching on Black Friday because it made me really want to sign up for the class. She usually teaches on Wednesdays when I am at my writing class, so now I have two great opportunities to take her class!
    I will probably do a cardio workout this day as well since I will have more time.
  3. Work out throughout the week. From Sunday – at least Friday of Turkey Day week I will be/have been working out. More than I usually do but it makes me feel that much better about the festivities.
  4. Enjoy! If you workout before or after Thanksgiving, great! If not, also great! The point of this holiday is to enjoy your time with family and friends and eat delicious foods you really only have once a year. So enjoy it and don’t feel guilty or bad or anything negative at all about indulging — or over indulging. Just enjoy.

Looking for a fun and challenging Turkey Day workout? Read this post from Well + Good NYC, a great blog I just found out about. While this blog is NYC-centric, there are great ideas in the post for everyone, so check it out!

Speaking of NYC workouts, remember when I struggled with the decision to join a gym? The day after I made the decision and joined, I received an email from the PR Director at New York Sports Clubs. She had read about my issues with having little money but wanting to work out in a motivating environment, and she offered me a complimentary month! While I was really happy, I had also just joined and wasn’t sure if the offer was still valid. After some working things out, I am happy to say I received my free month and that makes me so happy! I am very impressed with NYSC’s keeping up with what people are saying in the social media/blog world and their generous efforts to make sure I got to belong to a gym. The signs of a great company. Thank you, New York Sports Club!

Speaking of NYSC, I wanted to update you on how I’ve been doing with my new membership. As for my home location, I’ve only gone twice, both times to spin. My evenings have all been so busy so I haven’t gotten there after work and I have been too tired to make it in the morning. But that is OK — since I have been using the location across the street from my job! I can only use that location during off peak hours which has been working out well.

Remember I discussed scheduling a Thanksgiving workout earlier in this post? Well, I’ve benefited from scheduling all my workouts when I go during the work day. I’ve found that if I block off a time in my Outlook calendar, I make it to the gym. If I don’t, I tend to let work wrap me up and I don’t make it. So I block off a time, go across to the gym, get in a quick 30 minute workout and get right back to work. It is as if I was never even there! As if I didn’t work out, except that I DID.

I love, love, love this new arrangement. I am kicking myself for not doing this sooner. Then when my day is done, I am done. No workouts hanging over my head, taunting me. I’m in, I’m out, I’m done.

I was doing elliptical mostly. I did the arc trainer once and I did the elliptical/stairmaster hybrid once. Then yesterday, inspired by Janna, I did a machine I haven’t done since I belonged to my old gym: the stepmill.

Stepmill

I forgot how hard this thing is! I did 30 minutes and I was dripping by the end. My shirt was soaked through! What an amazing workout when you are strapped for time. I will probably incorporate this into my workouts much more often now. Hopefully soon I will have less of a hard time on actual stairs! I definitely recommend the stepmill if you need a quick but tough workout. Just don’t attempt to pick up a water bottle or a BlackBerry during it because you might fall off. It requires focus and balance!

Another reason my gym membership has been worth it. The building gym doesn’t have this machine! And NYSCs are everywhere. The other day, I went with the boy to his haircut appointment and there was a NYSC across the street. If I’d known, I could have brought clothes and gotten my workout in. Next time!

I am kickstarting my return to Core Fusion with my Turkey Day schedule as well. I opted not to participate in Angela’s Whittle My Middle challenge because I have 25 Core Fusion classes to use up and I know they would whittle my middle and strenghten my core better than I could ever do on my own. But I haven’t been using the classes aside from a really great beginner yoga class that I didn’t hate a couple weeks ago. Starting Thanksgiving, I am back in Core Fusion mode. I will be whittling my middle there and strenghtening my butt, legs and arms as well. I can’t wait to get stronger again!

A quick random note on workout clothes. I was on eBay trying to find the Lululemon Run Swiftly Tech L/S shirt that is sold out in my size everywhere, and I came across some auctions for the Brisk Run Gloves that I have. In Lululemon stores & online, they cost $26. On eBay, they were being sold as Buy it Now for $40. Rip off! You could just buy it straight from Lululemon.com with free shipping. Always check to make sure you aren’t being ripped off on eBay — that made me really angry.

And lastly, some quick food news. I made amazing pumpkin pancakes. So perfect and fluffy — without a doubt the best pancakes I ever made. I used Arrowhead Mills Buttermilk Pancake & Waffle Mix. I replaced the vegetable oil with coconut oil and I added in a couple healthy spoonfuls of Whole Foods organic canned pumpkin. Perfection.

Dori's Pumpkin Pancakes Dori's Pumpkin Pancakes 2

And if you want a book of healthy, easy, yummy recipes please check out Jen’s PriorFatGirl e-Cookbook. It is an amazing collection of over 50 recipes submitted by Jen’s readers and put together by Jen herself, with tidbits on getting some movement into your day from the ever popular MizFit throughout. It makes a great holiday gift and is an invaluable resource for yourself. I have one and I can’t wait to use it. The cookbook costs $5, with $4 of it going to the YMCA, which promotes healthy living for millions of Americans. Click here to learn more and order your copy!

How do you fit a workout in on Thanksgiving? Ever done anything unique?

I will be back tomorrow for my 4 mile race recap and playlist!

Running is Amazing Because it is So Easy to Improve

So much to post about and really no time at all! I just uploaded all my Seattle pictures but I will have to get to that later this week. Or next. For now, I will leave you with a little food porn from my trip:

French toast baked in pumpkin

I will get into more detail when I write my Seattle post!

Anyway.

What is amazing about running is how easy it is to improve.

Let me start from the beginning of my story.

I had mistakenly assumed that after my October 25 5 mile race, my outdoor running days for 2009 were over. But then I went to Seattle and the weather was gorgeous. We took the pup to Green Lake and I ran the 2.8ish mile loop. My stomach was bad — I had eaten breakfast 6 hours earlier — so I had to walk a bit, but overall it was a beautiful run. At the end I met up with my brother, Mallory and Santana and I took Santana’s leash and we even went on a little confusing (for pup) run together!

Then I came back to NYC and found myself waking up twice before work to run in the 44 degree weather. And I didn’t even feel that cold! I did about 3.5 miles both times and decided I could keep this up until the weather hit the 30s.

This past Sunday was an unseasonably warm day and with temperatures reaching 65, the boy and I had to go for a run. The plan was 5 miles, which is a bit longer than the boy’s usual distance but I wanted to keep my mileage up in preparation for our 4 mile race on November 22.

I took the boy into a section of Riverside Park that is gorgeous in the fall! We ran past the point where I typically turn around for 5 miles and kept going until we reached tennis courts at 119th street where we turned around to come back. That was the 3 mile point! At this time, the boy went off ahead of me since I slow him down, and we both started on the 3 miles back home.

The longest I ever ran before this was 5 miles and both times my knee was killing me towards the end, so I was a little nervous about this. I had been feeling well during this run; all I had to eat was a green juice and while I did get a right ribcage cramp, I was able to battle it with my breathing. The first 3 miles went quickly since I was talking to the boy and watching a stream of people dressed in purple doing a walk for Pancreatic Cancer.

The next 3 miles ended up being really great! I felt strong, my music was great (testing out my next race playlist) and once I hit 5 miles I couldn’t stop smiling knowing I was PDRing (and feeling fantastic!) the entire time. When my Polar hit 6 miles I stopped, with a time of 1:02:17! I ran 6 miles! I ran for an hour!

I came home, ate and napped for 2 hours. At night we went to the most incredible dinner at Blue Hill, but I’ll save that experience for another post.

Stats:

Distance: 6 mi
Time: 1:02:17
Avg pace: 10:20
Max pace: 4:11 (that can’t be right)
Avg HR: 170
Max HR: 187

I was so happy to have run 6 miles for the first time in my life. It is crazy how just a few months ago I could barely run for 20 minutes and I proclaimed that running is not for me. Even more crazy is that today was another beautiful, warm day in New York City and I decided to go for another run.

I wasn’t sure how my knees would handle this since they usually kill me after 4 miles, but yesterday they were fine throughout all 6 miles — no pain at all. I decided to just run 2 or 3 miles and if I am hurting, I’d stop. I set out and the first mile was definitely a challenge. My legs felt heavy, which I had never experienced before. Once I got past the first mile, they loosened up and I felt great. Whenever I glanced down at my Polar, my pace was faster than normal (around 9:30) but I felt comfortable. I decided to run down this little path that goes under a highway exit underpass to see where I’d end up.

When I came out on the other side, I had to do a double take. I felt like I was in Super Mario Brothers and went down one pipe and came out the other end in a totally different part of the level!

Super Mario pipe

I was on the same path as I started out, along the water, but I was on the OTHER side — a side I did not even know existed! A SUPER MARIO BROTHERS PIPE WARP RUN!

Okay, let me explain. I run along the water on the Hudson River Greenway, starting at 68th street. At around 84th street, there is no more river path; for the past year or so, they have been building an extension so that the path will go straight up and when it is complete, I won’t have to run up into the park. I can stay along the water.

So when I ran up into the park and took a path that brought me under the highway exit, I expected to be brought into the other side of the park where I run my longer runs. I usually get there by crossing a street but I thought this would take me underneath the crosswalk and back into the park so I wouldn’t have to cross any busy street.

Instead, I came up on the Hudson River Greenway — on the OTHER SIDE of it. It is right at the other point of the construction to extend it. This means that when they finish the extension, I would go straight along the water to the point I was currently at. Does this make sense? I feel like I need to draw a picture but I don’t have a scanner.

As I said, I never saw this path before; it was along the water, stunning views of the George Washington Bridge, but it felt strange. Like I was on my usual waterfront path, but in a section where nothing was recognizable. A section so close to me but I never knew existed. It was SO weird! I kept glancing backwards to try and make sense of how this perfect running path had been here all along and I never knew to take advantage of it.

Because I wanted to run along this path, I ended up running a little longer than planned. By the time I got to a section where the pavement became extra smooth and the designated area for those on feet became narrow, I was at the 2 mile mark. As much as I wanted to keep running and see how far up I could go, I knew it was time to turn back to make this a 4 mile run. I had to be careful on my knees after running 6 miles the day before!

Despite having ran 6 pain free miles the day before, I had another amazing, happy, pain free run once again. The 4 miles was not only easy, my legs were going so much faster than normal! My typical “comfortable pace” is around 10:15. Throughout this run I was running at 9:15 without trying and feeling very comfortable. For my last mile I knew I could really pick it up and for the first time in a long time, I did! I was no longer running to be comfortable, I was running to be STRONG. I sped up, my breathing picked up, and I finished my 4 miles in 38:26! Aaaahh! I felt perfect, not like I was about to die as I had in the past after pushing myself hard. And the time went so quickly, I ran a mile more than I had planned, much faster than I had planned. I wonder if I could do this for my race in a couple weeks?

Distance: 4 mi
Time: 38:26
Avg pace: 9:40
Max pace: 8:06
Avg HR: 174
Max HR: 192

This is a low max HR for me! Yet another way I know I am improving.

THIS is why running is so amazing. A few months ago I could barely run for 25 minutes. I almost gave up on it — and once proclaimed to the boy that running was not for me — and I am so glad I didn’t because it seriously is just SO easy to improve! I ran 6 miles on Sunday and then 4 on Monday with no problem at all! I used to get the worst knee, hip and abdominal pain within a few minutes of running; now they are all kept at bay. Not gone, but definitely improving. And on top of that, Monday’s run was so much faster than my usual runs — and it felt so natural! I am so sure that if I keep this up, I will become a faster runner and won’t have to “take it easy” during my races. It only took me a few months to improve this much, so imagine where I will be in a year?!

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