Endurance Check-In Winter 2021~~Swim, Bike, Run, Row, Hike, and More

[Vantreesta]

Sigh. I'm off the rails again. My father-in-law was tested on Monday and I have been worrying/planning/thinking since then and haven't worked out since Monday. Results came back covid positive today. He is in the high risk group. He is getting IV treatment tmrw morning so I'm thankful for that.

Monday I actually ran for the first time since Oct 6! It went well. I did wk1 day1 on the treadmill so it was just run 60 seconds, walk 90 seconds, so only 8 run intervals, but my cardio was great and while I had some muscle discomfort there was no pain. I also did the next day of Lesley Fightmaster's challenge, the last two days of the Qi Gong challenge, a Tae Bo Express workout (the boot camp one, didn't care for it) and my PT exercises. Yesterday I shoveled for an hour.

[Pratima]

Hello all! I managed to watch parts of the inauguration yesterday. It was very inspiring. Oddly enough, DS watched it at school and DD didn't. I did show her parts of it. I haven't gotten to watch any of the inauguration concert yet so will have to look for that.

Daphne, do you work near the Capitol? Seems like everything went well, at least from what was televised.

Allison, a civilian I work with has every other Monday off. Is that a government thing? I've never asked! This week they were of course closed M and W so she also had Tuesday off. Yay for having a whole week off!

Vantreesta, I'm sorry to hear your FIL is sick. I will say that according to DH, the new treatments they're using (remdisivir and blood transfusions) seem pretty effective. A good friend of mine's parents both have COVID. Her dad is in the hospital with pneumonia. I keep thinking about what you said when we met--that we're at a stage in life where there never is an uneventful phase anymore. Yay for running! I remember shoveling--we had a huge drive when I was growing up. Now THAT is a workout!

I had yesterday off and it was nice having a day off with DH asleep and the kids at school. I was going to accomplish a bunch of stuff and instead decided to go easy on myself. I did still accomplish a few things but mostly just relaxed.

Rowing--Today I tried out my rower with the iFit app. The app is pretty cool in that it connects to the rower and will show my metrics plus control the resistance. I'm still baffled by rowing though. I felt like my muscles were working pretty hard, but my heart rate stayed low. I'll have to try a non-beginner workout.

I've spent the last two months interviewing pool companies. I'm determined to put one in before the blazing hot summer returns! I've narrowed it down to two and am hoping to make a choice before we head up north tomorrow for DH's birthday. Seems like such a huge decision, because it's so much $$!

[Daphne M]

Vannie - I'm sorry your FIL is COVID+. I'll echo Pratima on this -- if he can get that infusion, he will be so much better positioned to come through it well. I have a colleague who had a bad case for nearly 3 weeks (got it at his mom's funeral and she died of it), very sick, unable to breathe and got the infusion and was dramatically improved within 48 hours and now back at work. I'll keep you and your FIL in my thoughts. Meanwhile, way to go on getting those run intervals done! Woot!

Pratima - I kept meaning to comment on that one crazy day you had with your son's medical appointment, etc. What a day! It's truly heroic what you can get confront and deal with for your kids in a day. You'll have to make sure your daughter sees some of the ceremony highlights with Kamala. My husband and I don't agree on much politically -- we run true to our demographics -- but we do agree that it's exciting to have a woman vice president. My office is by Lafayette Park and the White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol. Yes, everything went well, thank goodness. It brought back memories of being stuck in DC on 9/11.

Pratima - Rowing and HR. My HR never gets that high with either rowing or spinning. I have to go nearly anaerobic at a very high stroke rate for my HR to shoot up. I'm told it's because they are both non-weight bearing. However, your HR doesn't have to go that high to burn a lot of calories in rowing. There is so much muscular involvement that it's an incredibly metabolic exercise. Hope this makes sense. There are times that I am D-Y-I-N-G on the rower and my HR is about 115.

iFit - I am having one of those "too many workout programs, too little time" phases. Hydrow has all these programs I want to do; I'm committed to running/walking 100 miles OUTSIDE in January for my EX2 challenge; I'm intrigued by the Peloton running program that is now on my Peloton app and I'm really tempted by iFit. It's the iFit trail running workouts that tempt me. I'm getting tired of that same Peloton dark confined workout space and iFit has some beautiful outdoor workouts. (I need to see the instructor running too, I can't stand the virtual reality workouts with just scenery, they make me dizzy.) I can't believe I'm complaining about having so many fun alternatives, but I guess that's exactly what I'm doing.

Mollie - Where did you go? I hope all is well in the great North.

[AlisonH]

Hi Everyone!

Vantreesta: I echo everyone’s thoughts about your FIL. I hope he can get the treatment and can recover well.

Pratima: Yes, at least at most federal agencies in DC, there are options to have every other Friday or Monday off, and there are options to work 4 10-hour days and have every Friday or Monday off. They hoped it would help ease traffic.

Daphne: I haven’t been able to find the stacking on the Peloton app. I doesn’t look like I’m missing an update, but maybe I am somehow. I looked at a lot of the Hydrow On Deck videos on YouTube and saw that guy—he looks fun! I like how a lot of their non-rowing workouts are outside too.

Mollie: I hope all is going well for you!

Me: I went on a long hike on Wednesday. I wanted to watch the inauguration live, but my friends wanted to “get away from the DC craziness,” and I didn’t want to turn down a chance to go. Of course they talked about political stuff almost the whole time! But it was a nice day in the woods—a little windy but not too bad.

While I’ve made a ton of progress cleaning out my house, I have fallen off plan, both fitness and eating. But I’ll get back next week when the schedule is normal. I have done 2 Peloton rides, 2 strength workouts, and 1 mobility workout this week.

I’m finding old school papers and notebooks as far back as 2012 in the living room. That’s not surprising since that’s when I started working as a personal trainer and then went back to school and then got the communications officer job that led to my current full-time job. I’m guessing the kids asked me what they should do with it, and I had 20 things going on, so I said “just put it in the corner,” and there it sat for going on 9 years.

Rowing: Just when it was starting to come together, I got away from it. I’ll start with another beginner row next week.

[Vantreesta]

Hey, guys. I woke up with that awful feeling of anxious dread and doom for some reason. This hasn't happened in quite a while. Not sure what's up. I'm hoping it's just bc my hamstrings hurt more than usual, the fingertips on my right hand have been kind of numb since lifting weights on Saturday and the toilet seems to be clogged, and not bc smthg actually bad is on the horizon. I need to get outside for our walk and see if I can shake the feeling.

Wed and Thu I don't think I worked it at all. I was in such a state of waiting and wondering if I would need to go stay with my father-in-law and I am VERY bad at being in that state! His treatment on Wed went fine and so far he is still feeling some sick and very tired but nothing worse than that. Praying it stays that way. I really appreciate everyone's prayers and good thoughts for him.

Friday I did workout some. Trying to remember what I did though! I think I did another Tae Bo Express workout, a Barre3 segment and Rodney's AM Yoga for Your Week hip openers. My phone was almost dead and rapidly going down even while plugged in so I wasn't able to do Rowvember (the intervals were set in an app on my phone) or Fightmaster yoga (no internet so no YouTube). Saturday I did Crossrope day 5, Perfect 30 Upper Body (I didn't like the premix with the upper body bonus bc it felt so disjointed and more rushed since it interjects the bonus exercises into the main workout) and the next day of Fightmaster. Yesterday was a big fat nothing! I slept in till 9 and still ended up taking a 2 hour nap. I worked on my workout catalog/spreadsheet and thought I had index cards for every workout until I sorted and found many still don't have them. Groan. I love doing it but I never seem to get it all done. Many still don't have physical location listed either but I'm not working on that till I can actually get them reorganized like I want.

We got another 6-7" of snow on Saturday. When I took Cyric out to do his business first thing yesterday morning the snow was almost up to his belly! I think we should have enough to kind of snowshoe now so my goal for this week is to find the energy to load up my gear and Cyric an go to the nearby state park to snowshoe a little. He has never gotten to go. D'Argo and Chianna always seemed to enjoy it. Well, I KNOW Chianna did being a snow dog!

[Daphne M]

Vannie - Your variety is putting me to shame. Your arms are going to look awesome between the cross rope and the cardio boxing/kickboxing. I'm glad FIL hasn't gotten worse and will keep fingers crossed that he will start getting better soon. And I know that feeling of low level dread and hope it just gradually dissipates. It happens to me sometimes when I've gotten accustomed to bad news to the point that I feel uneasy waiting for the other shoe to drop, even when there is no other shoe. (That was a terrible metaphor, but I don't know how to fix it! SORRY)

Alison - Those long hikes are so good for your soul, I'm sure you made the right decision on Wednesday. Hope this week is full of good workouts for you. PS - I think I finally cleaned out all my kids' high school junk when they were seniors in college. It was so worth the wait because I LOVE THROWING THINGS AWAY.

RE: Peloton stacking, I have confused myself. I thought I had stacking because when I opened the app on my phone a week back, it instantly generated a pop up in the app all about stacking. So I figured I could stack. But the pop-up went away and I don't see anything labeled stacking on the app, so maybe it was just a promo to try to get me to buy their equipment? Beats me.

More Peloton- They did add a lot of (what I *think* are) new features to the app like "Programs" and "Collections", which I have been exploring. Since I got my Hydrow in November, I haven't been using Peloton very often, so these features might not be all that new after all.

HI Pratima!

Mollie - Don't give up on us yet. We hope you'll come back.

Me Looking Ahead -Between my EX2 January outdoor challenge and Hydrow, I've got a routine that I love but I know I need to expand it and start adding in more strength training. So I haven't set concrete goals for February yet, but I know I need to.

Me - Looking Back - January was a good month for me.
I am at 90+ miles of outdoor activities for my EX2 challenge. I guess I should have signed up for the 100 mile challenge instead of the 50 mile challenge. What I forgot to factor in is that the activities included both running and walking.
I completed the Hydrow 14-Day Home Challenge. I earned my 250,000 meter socks (cumulative since I started rowing, I do lots of short rows.)

Recent workouts (you'll see what I mean about needed to add some strength workouts!):

• Friday - Walk 3 miles outside + 10 minutes of rowing
• Saturday - Run 7.5 miles outside (got a great selfie of me with Burke Lake and a deer over my shoulder) + 30 minutes of rowing (great row with my fave dude Nick)
• Sunday - Run 12 miles, most of it with Debbie and most of it in Mason Neck State Park. Surrounded by Pohick Bay, bald eagles, frozen wooden bridges and all kinds of natural beauty.
• Today - Walked 1.5 miles outside. Ran 13 minutes (1.2 miles) to a Rebecca K Peloton workout. Rowed 15 minutes on the Lamoille River in Vermont - my own music and Hydrow's ambient sounds. Just blades in the water. Nice.

Onward and upward, the future looks bright for us, ENDURANCE women.

[Pratima]

Vantreesta, I haven't gotten that feeling of dread in a while, but over the weekend I had a weird similar feeling. The weekend wasn't going how I wanted, somehow, and I guess I was waiting for something really bad to happen. Maybe that's how you feel? My weekend wasn't horrible, just things that should have been good weren't (more on that below). Hang in there!

I'm jealous of your snowshoeing! I was hoping to go this weekend but it requires a lot of logistics around here.

Allison, do you use Peloton on an iPad? I think I saw the stacking there, but not on my Android phone or Kindle Fire Stick app. The every other day off thing is seriously slowing down my projects! At least now I understand it. Have you been rowing? I'm planning to fit in 1-2 row workouts per week starting this week.

Daphne, I love throwing things away too! Or giving them away if someone can use them. I went through my pictures from 2020 last week (I do that every year and put together a calendar for the current year) and realized that once I stopped working, I was clearing stuff out like crazy. I also did a ton of stuff with the kids, so being jobless was apparently not all bad!

You mentioned iFit trail runs and at first I was like, "OOO I need to try those!" Then I realized it requires a dreadmill and I don't have or want one, so oh well!

We went up north this weekend for DH's birthday. We did get to see some snow and play in it. DS is having some sort of stomach issue though, and is going to the bathroom like every half hour! We had to stop before we'd even made it out of town. The town was really crowded, so getting food was tough. And the one shower I tried to take at our rental started out hot and within 5 minutes was ice cold! I also had trouble sleeping because the air was so dry (will take a humidifier next time!) so overall it wasn't the peaceful trip I'd hoped for.

I started week 2 of Beast Phase 2. I was looking at the calendar and just can't imagine going back through all the same workouts in phase 3! I don't really understand the thinking behind it. And Phase 2 doesn't seem TOO different from Phase 1. I was thinking maybe I'd do Hammer and Chisel instead of Phase 3. We shall see. I AM enjoying the shorter workouts!

Today I did a 20 minute Peloton outdoor HIIT workout and my Beast workout for the day (chest). It's super impressive that I ran outside because it was cool and windy. But now it's raining and is supposed to get even colder this week, so thank goodness I went!

[AlisonH]

Vantreesta: I hope it ends up just being one of those feelings and all is well. I’m a bit jealous of your snow, which is not normal for me to say! Since I don’t have to commute anywhere, I was really hoping for snow this winter. I think there’s a small chance later this week, but so far, it’s been a huge bust.

Daphne: You’ve accomplished so much this month! I never had been to Prince William Forest before this summer, but now we go there all the time, and never the same route twice. It’s empty this time of year.

Pratima: Sorry it wasn’t the weekend away you had hoped for. I hope DS is ok. The good thing with the last phase of BB is that it mixes and matches, so you don’t have all the build workouts in one week. But I did have some dread factor and was glad to be done.

Peloton Stacking: From what I just read, you can set up your stacks if you log into your account on the web, and then they’ll show up in the app. My problem is I don’t have a real computer right now (signing into something like Peloton on my work computer is frowned upon), so when I try to use the website on the iPad, it automatically goes to the app. Hopefully they’ll update that sometime soon. I did the Wicked ride today. It didn’t feel hard, but I got so caught up in the music and suddenly my output was outrageously high.

I did Body Pump this morning, and yesterday I did Mobility Rx warmup and workout 1 and some floor lower body on my own. The other Mobility Rx is on tomorrow morning’s schedule, along with more lower body, and then rowing is on tomorrow’s lunchtime schedule.

[Vantreesta]

Hey, guys. Sorry I didn't post yesterday after feeling all gloom and doom the day before. Yesterday and today have been much better. Monday I finally convinced myself to do Rowvember day 10. I couldn't mentally muster anything more but I was happy I didn't bail completely. I've pretty much convinced myself the numbness in my fingers is a carpal tunnel type thing. I shredded a 3 lb roast and by the time I was finished all my fingers were numb, and it reminded me that when I worked at the ice cream shoppe in college the same thing would happen on nights I had to chop a lot of veggies for pizzas. I had some problems with pain in my right wrist when I was at my last job until I bought a mouse pad with gel wrist rest. Plus my dad and all his siblings have had carpal tunnel syndrome and Dad is the only one who hasn't had surgery for it. I freak out anytime I have unusual symptoms bc I'm so scared it could be ALS. Dad reminded me that if I live in fear of it then the disease wins even when I don't have it. Most of the time I don't let it enter my mind but there are days I can't fight the thoughts about it even though I know he's right.

My father-in-law said he is feeling much better and isn't even exhausted. So thankful! Our old pastor had been in the hospital with covid then moved to rehab and he got to go home yesterday. More to be grateful for. My grandma got her first vaccination today.

Yesterday before breakfast I did LWR Fitness Advent day 9, which was a short walking type workout, and then Fightmaster day 15. After our walk I ran 1.988 mi on the tm for wk1 day2, which was still run 60 sec walk 90 sec. I bumped up the speed a little on the runs but still not trying to go fast (for me). Then I did a premix of Super Cuts. I was thinking there was smthg else but now I can't remember. This morning before breakfast I did the next days of LWR (short "HIIT" workout which was not actually HIIT) and Fightmaster. After our walk I shoveled for 70 minutes. This was the hardest shoveling bc it was the ice chunks and hard packed snow the snowplow threw onto our sidewalk. It needs about that long again but it's passable for dog and human side by side and I didn't want to push my back too hard. I ended up skipping the rest of my planned workouts after that. My knee is hurting so I figured it was just as well not running and jumping rope on it today. It hasn't bothered me in close to two years so not sure what's going on with it.

[AlisonH]

While I wait for a video presentation, where the presenter was lost, to start...

Yesterday I did a hodgepodge of workouts: early morning: Mobility Rx warmup and workout 2, floor lower body on my own, lunchtime: 15 minute wonderful Sam 60s Peloton ride, 10 min so-so Fitness+ row, 10 min of HIIT drills with the ladder and step, and 5 min of boxing.

They found the presenter, so I guess I should pay attention. I still am thrilled to be working at home, but the tech issues are so frustrating sometimes!