Inside the Mind of Suz

This week, I learned yet another valuable lesson along my fitness journey. I’d like to share with you all.

I live in Ohio & we had unseasonably perfect weather this week. There were some stretches this summer where it was in the 90s with a lot of humidity. Those days usually came with air quality alerts that kept me from my running all together.

But this week was different and I wanted to take advantage of the weather while I could! I’ve condensed my workouts down to just one session taking place sometime in the 2-5 PM window. On Wednesday, I decided I’d run. I was encouraged since I had just shared with you all how much improved my running was thanks to a few short weeks of TurboFire.

Well, that optimism didn’t last long! After the usual 6-8 minute adjustment period — when I usually settle into a nice pace — I wasn’t feeling it, like I usually do. But I kept going. After a total of 15 minutes, I felt terrible. It was like my balance was off & I was almost dizzy. I knew it wasn’t the weather, so it had to be something else, right? (more…)

I’ve been putting this post off for a couple of weeks now, and I’m putting my foot down now! I must talk about the latest and greatest fitness program from Chalene Johnson, TurboFire!

I mentioned that I’d be doing this program on my last fitness post, but I didn’t go into details. I’ll be doing that right here.

Being an alum of both Turbo Jam and ChaLEAN Extreme, I am extremely familiar with Chalene and her fitness programs. Also, as someone with a background in dance, I pick up choreography pretty easily. So, I approached TurboFire with a lot of optimism. (more…)

It happens to me every year.

I rock the shit out of my workout schedule from January through the end of July, and then August happens.

I’m not sure if it’s the weather or just a sense of satisfaction in accomplishing my fitness/body goals, but with August comes maaaaaajor slackage in my fitness routine. Usually, all I do is Couch to 5k training and running a 5k. And those workouts are only 3 times a week. No weight training. No ab work. No stretching. No pilates/ballet/yoga.

Then, come September, the c25k runs get even less infrequent. Maybe once a week, if the weather cooperates (which it rarely does). By the time October rolls around, I am doing absolutely nothing and remain rather idle until late December or early January, when I start all over again.

This year I’ve vowed to break the trend of late summer slacking. Conveniently, I ended my second round of ChaLEAN Extreme at the end of July, so that left me open to a new routine, beginning in August. I stuck with Chalene and chose TurboFire. I am a big CJ fan and have thoroughly enjoyed both Turbo Jam and ChaLEAN Extreme, so I figured I’d give TurboFire a try. (more…)

The 2010 version of the World Famous Pig Run 5k at the Columbus Jazz & Ribfest is next Saturday, July 24th. It looks promising and let me tell you why: it starts at 7PM.

I know a lot of people wake up and run first thing in the morning. Good for y’all! I don’t roll like that, though. I run at night. 8AM 5K races will be run as a last resort, and only when there are no options for later races. My body simply does not function properly in the AM hours.

I usually like to decide on a race and then give myself a couple of weeks of fine tuning to get ready. This one would give me maybe 1 or 2 more trial runs (Sun/Tues or Mon/Wed), then I’d need to rest the legs ahead of race day. I’ll sleep on it. If I can’t do this race, it might be another month before another evening one shows up…

It happens every year. And every year, a voice in the back of my mind says “there’s no way!” or “I’m not sure we’re ready!”

What am I talking about? The Week 5, Day 3 Couch to 5k running workout that moves us up to one 20 minute run after only previously doing a max of 8 minutes. I always see it as this huge obstacle and almost dread it as it looms; this year was no different.

But every year I do it (with no stopping), and when I’m done I’m proud and almost surprised that I was able to complete the run.

At this stage of my c25k training, I’m usually pretty good to go after about 8-10 minutes. I’m able to settle into a comfortable stride with good and productive form. This is confirmed by how my pace (according to RunKeeper gets faster every 5 minute segment).

I completed the 20 minute run on Saturday and it was the most muggy and humid day of the year so far. So gross outside! At first I could barely breath and thought “oh boy, this is going to be a rough workout!”, but it really wasn’t bad once I got going.

I come to this conclusion every year, so I thought I’d share this small bit of wisdom to anyone who reads this. Even if you don’t think you’re going very fast, it doesn’t matter. Just know that if you continue to push through, chances are it probably will get easier. So keep running!

P.S. BEP’s “I Gotta Feeling” is pretty much the perfect song to use for a warm-up or cool down walk. Great BPM pace for me. Same with Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”, BEP’s “Let’s Get Retarded/It Started”, and Michael Jackson’s “Leave Me Alone”.

P.P.S. I had an old high school friend ask me about my podcasts on iTunes. I briefly shared with her that I had had trouble making my XML file iTunes compliant, so I abandoned all hope of getting it back on iTunes. Well, I’m trying again. Hopefully I can figure it out this time!

Well, you guys have talked me into it! I asked for feedback, and you guys have delivered! I now have all the info I need to resume my podcast-creation hobby!

I’ve decided to begin with the Gateway to 8k running plan, as outlined by DJ Steve Boy and will be starting from Week 1. I’ve decided that when the plan requires you to lower your BPM, I’m going to say something to the effect of “slow down your pace”, in the vocal cues. Then, based on however your fitness is, you can decide whether that means just to slow your run down a little (to a job) or walk. For most of the weeks, the slow BPM interval is only for a minute, so I don’t think a walk would throw you off too much.

So, that’s my plan! But I still need some feedback from y’all. I want to know what type of music to use for these. At the end of the day (don’t you hate when people say that?), I’m picking the songs, but I’m perfectly fine with y’all choosing the genre of the playlists. So, to help decide, I’ve created a little poll. Feel free to vote below! I’ll leave it open for a week or so, and use the results to decide which priority to make the g28k podcasts in.

And don’t even bother writing in Country or Rock, cuz it’s just not going to happen lol. You can write in artist-specific playlist ideas, though. After all, I did do a Britney Spears and Michael Jackson playlist and was thisclose to doing a Janet one.

Now, keep in mind that it’ll be a few weeks before the first week’s podcast gets posted. I want to give some time to vote in the poll, as well as some built in “lazy time” before I start sharing. What if I get distracted, fall behind, and y’all have already started the plan? Then I’m already messing up your training. I don’t want that to happen. So, I’ll probably already have a few weeks finished before I even start posting, so that doesn’t happen!

Also, I’ve received some emails, and a comment, about putting up a donation button on the blog. I’ve always enjoyed this process since I, too, use these podcasts. But, if you really want to, I’ve never been one to turn down donations! I thank you all for spreading the word about my running podcasts and giving me such valuable feedback.

I’d been putting it off for a while, but I had an excuse: I couldn’t find the folder where I kept all my running podcasts!

When I was forced to get a new computer, after my old one crapped out, I needed Spotmau Powersuite 2009 to recover my files. But then I couldn’t remember where I moved them to! Figures, right? I finally located them this weekend and gave the podcasts page a much needed update!

First of all, I finally fixed the Week 3 podcast, since it had one too many interval in it, much like Week 4′s before I fixed it earlier this fall. I updated the playlist for Week 4 as well. Then, I added the Michael Jackson Week 4 podcast to the page. It hadn’t been there yet, but it is now!

If there’s anything else, please let me know and I’ll try to get to it. I am still planning on longer podcasts. Please feel free to give your feedback to my most recent post on the matter.

If you are one of the thousands of peeps who have downloaded my podcasts, this post is for you. Specifically if you are in the group that has requested more podcasts of the longer distance variety. I stopped at 5k, but there are training plans for 8k and 10k and quite a few of you are fiending for podcasts to help in your training. I have said before that I would have no problem creating a new set, and looked for feedback, and never really got any.

So, if you are one of the visitors that is interested in this, I really need you read this entire post and comment below, so I can figure out how to do this for y’all.

About a year ago, I wrote about how after I got to Week 9, I just kept repeating it week after week. That meant I was just doing 30 minute runs, not increasing my workload, and thus, not challenging myself further. I actually did get some feedback in that post and was directed to Gateway to 8k and other similar training programs. So, that’s not the problem.

Thing is, I don’t know where to jump into any of those sets. Also, I don’t monitor BPM. All I deal with is run/walk intervals.

So take the Gateway to 8k program [LINK]. Week 1 looks like this:

5-min. warmup @ 132-137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
5-min. cooldown @ 137-132 BPM

The whole BPM thing throws me a little. Is the lower number, 137, supposed to be a walking interval or just a little slower paced run? Also, doesn’t it seem that, after doing a full 30 minute run (Week 9 of c25k), that this run would be taking a step backwards? Should I start a little further into the program instead? These are the questions I ran into last year when I was asked to consider making more podcasts. I figured that since more people are commenting on the site, that now would be a great time to bring this up again.

(Likewise, the Freeway to 10k outline can be found here.)

If someone could chime in and “break it down” for me, that’d go a long way towards me figuring out how to hook everyone up! I know I’ve already said I would create a new set of podcasts, to train for the longer races, and I will. I just need a little direction! Please?

I’ve been contemplating this for a while and decided — within the past hour — that I’m ready for another round of ChaLEAN Extreme.

If you’re relatively new to my blog, then you probably don’t know that I did my first round from February through May of this year with great results! I also documented every step right here. At the end of every week of the 90-day program, I wrote a post about my experiences, how I was feeling, and any changes in my appearance/fitness.

My one minor gripe about ChaLEAN Extreme was that it really bulked up my thighs. Yes, it was muscle, but my jeans were very tight and I did not enjoy that! I messaged Chalene on Twitter (follow her, she’s great!) to get some tips on how to minimize the bulking up of my thighs and she suggested more cardio and decreasing the weight load I use on lower body exercises. Sounds like a good idea! After I finished, I noted that I didn’t think the program, in its most basic rotation calendar, gave me enough cardio work. I went directly into Couch to 5k training and felt extremely out of shape. I will be sure to work more cardio (Turbo Jam!) in this time around!

What I love most about ChaLEAN Extreme is that I have my workout schedule set for the next 3-4 months and it’ll force me to keep working out through the holidays! I know exactly what I’ll be doing and can plan for it every day. So, here I go…again! “Time to get extreme, baby!”

‘Tis the time of the year where I start to refocus on my workouts and get back into a fitness routine. I’m a little more loose and casual in the summer, but that’s mostly because I concentrate on running and training for a 5k. I’m still in the couch to 5k mindset right now, but after I run that race, in a few weeks, I’ll begin to look ahead and try to figure out what to do for the remainder of the fall.

I’m thinking I want to get a plan together that I can continue through to February, when the entire family goes to Hawaii. So, this ought to take some planning.

Back, at the end of spring, I said I’d probably repeat ChaLEAN Extream or do P90x this fall. I’m not so sure that’s the plan anymore. If I do either of those programs, I’ll need to modify them slightly. And let me explain why. (more…)