Weekly Workouts: Burning Boot Camp & Rolling Hills Spin

After Monday this week was flying by.  I posted Tuesday morning about my latest smoothie concoction and have been meaning to post here again in regards to my weekly workouts.  This weekend my friend Jen and I (same friend I ran the very hilly More Half with) are doing the Ten Penny Ale Shamrock duathlon.  The race is two 5Ks separated by a 16 mile bike ride. My thought was that this would be good race prep and a nice way to gauge how well I am training and how prepared I am for the Olympic race I am dying to take on.  This week I ended up teaching an extra Spin class on Monday, which was good because the New York city area was hit by rain all the beginning of the week.  Since I was at the gym I was able to make myself run. I hate the treadmill so whenever I have to use it I play games on it. Either surges or a fartlek or tempo changes every five minutes. 

Tuesday, I taught the bootcamp class and I took my motivation from bodyrock.tv. They've been doing videos on burn and sculpt and I thought that might make a good class.  I combined high energy "burn" movements with high weight sculpt moves.  We did 5 heart pumping moves, ie. Jumps in the step, toe touch pushups with burpees, wood choppers, skater jumps etc.  We alternated this with 4 or 5 sculpt moves using a high weight. I used 15lbs for lunges, bicep curls, lunges, dead lift, overhead press, etc.  I had 2 sets of burn moves and 2 of sculpt moves and after the warm up each set too about 5 minutes so all together 40 minutes total. It is a 55 minute class.  We cooled down with abs and I can tell you I felt it. Wednesday!

I had started using a second Olympic tri training plan in conjunction with the tri plyo one.  This one is from Runner's World UK.  It gives more detailed workouts, which is especially nice for the pool, when I am usually out of ideas. I felt I was getting more out of my two pool workouts. 

To prep fori the season and provide a good spin workout I did rolling hills on Wednesday and Friday. One minute flat in the saddle, thirty seconds on a seated climb with the last ten seconds alll out and then a one minute climb in three.  My new favorite tunes for spin are David Guetta and Sia Titanium, Nicki Minaj Starships, and Calvin Harris Let's Go.  For running I am liking Wild Ones and Breathe Carolina blackout.

Wish us luck this weekend!

Happy training and keep tri'n!

Surprisingly Delicious Smoothie - Chocolate Almond Strawberry

In the morning, I rarely want to get up never mind eat breakfast.  I am the worst morning person despite teaching at 6 a.m. I typically end up coming home, showering and laying on the coach for 30-60 minutes, especially during allergy season when I am exhausted.  Since I had no time to cook eggs and pack a lunch, I decided to make a smoothie - which I drink while getting ready and toss in the sink on my way out of the door.  This way I know I've eaten something when I get into work and have to head straight into a meeting.  Normally I make Ellie Kreiger's Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie and to it I add some chocolate protein powder but today my bananas had rotted and my milk had joined our milk graveyard (aka our collection of rotten milks both mine and Billy's) so I combined what I initially thought would be terrible and turned out to be delicious so I thought I'd share.  With nothing in the house I combined:

5 Large Frozen Strawberries (I always try to keep frozen berries for smoothies)
1 heaping teaspoon of almond butter
1/2 cup Chocolate Zico Coconut Water
Half a container of Strawberry Greek Yogurt (I hate the other half)
1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder

It looked positively frightening.  However knowing it was this or nothing I whipped up the magic bullet - SUCCESS - it tasted delicious - I kinda wanted to freeze it and make ice cream out of it or just put it in a bowl and sprinkle granola on it.  YUM.  I think the frozen berries made it thick and the butter made it creamy and it tasted great. 

I had just come from my morning workout - I am on Week #4 of training for an Olympic triathlon  -- I've yet to sign up (mostly b/c I am short on funds and slightly scared but we'll get there).  I can definitely see myself getting more fit.  Today I started the day with a mini du (10 minute run all out, 45 min spin class, 10 min jog), a little core and then swimming for 30 minutes.  I will post about my week's workout this week as well as our Burn/Sculpt bootcamp class.

have a delicious day! Keep Tri'n!

April Road Races Bring More & May Training

April was a busy month so I haven't given myself a lot of time to post entries, which I need to correct.  However, I did have a packed month.

Starting off right on April 1st (April Fools), I ran a 15k run to benefit Colon Cancer in Central Park.  I had been running long distances pretty consistently while training, but I thought a race atmosphere might be good practice for the More Half Marathon I had signed up for with Jen on April 15th.  After over-training and injuring myself at a race last year, I decided to try to train a smarter this year. I ran my fastest consistent miles for a distance over 6 miles at that 15k.  I was able to do the whole thing without any walking as well, which made me feel very accomplished. I am definitely a fan of the 15k.

With two weeks left to the race and just over a month until The Hoboken Shelter Celebration Event, life got very busy and I completely forgot to keep posting to this blog.  Circumstances weren't perfect before race day.  We ended up vacationing in Newport from Thurs-Sat and on Sat I drove back from Newport to  NY to run the race on Sunday.  Newport was amazing - we stayed in a beautiful hotel called Forty One North that was gorgeous and had the most beautiful bathroom.  Early Saturday morning, Billy's sister and I were able to go back to do yoga overlooking the marina.  I held an imaginary wedding there because the backdrop was gorgeous. I loved Newport, there was great biking and amazing walking and running along the beach and marina and the cliff walk. But not in good race prep, I ended up out very late on Friday and was exhausted on Saturday and did a long walk with the family, so needless to say by the time I got home Saturday night I could've slept for days.

The More Half Marathon was tough, tougher than I imagined.  The hills and steamy weather didn't make it any easier; however I made my goal of a 2:45 half marathon along the hills.  This is Jen and I before the race...when we still were excited about running.

After 13.1 miles and trudging up the hills. I made it to the end and ran my way to the finish line and got my medal.  Some notes on Central Park, there are some serious hills, especially as you get up towards Harlem and going around it twice does NOT make it any easier.  But it was great fun to see so many women running/walking and out moving.   I will say the Central Park More Fitness Half Marathon seemed much harder than the 15K.  I did have to succumb to walking a bit on the Half Marathon. But one thing about the Half, you never leave feeling like you didn't do anything that morning. 2,000 calories later, I was ready for some eats and a nap. This is what I looked like at the end. (see left.)

I had been doing some informal triathlon training so after the More Half I gave myself a light week.  The pain definitely kicked in two days later on Tuesday when I couldn't jump off the ground to demo for bootcamp.  Monday I had felt fine and had gone for a run and taught a kickboxing class.  However Tuesday, Wed and Thurs I took it easy.  Friday I got back into spin class and by Saturday I decided to run a 5k in Liberty State Park. The race was close by and convenient and the weather was amazing. I ran an amazing race, 32 minutes and made a new running buddy.

I found a 10 week Sprint/Olympic training program online and started in on the 23rd one week after the More Half.  Week 1 went great and the diet went well too. Week #2 which was also the week of the Shelter event was pretty good on the training side but not so good on nutrition as working late nights and early mornings for the event led me to have a few extra snacks and enjoy some cake at the event as well as a celebration brunch with my parents and a dinner from the boyfriend who unfortunately had to miss the event. Billy and I have been out using the bikes and this past weekend we logged 25 miles.  Starting week 3 this week and with unexpected rain and event recovery in progress, I started with a rest day Monday. This past weekend after my event recovery I logged 7.2 miles on Sat and Sun 25 miles with Billy on the bike as well as a 30 min run and 60 min bootcamp. I was still sore today and decided to finish cleaning and grocery shopping today rather than run in the rain.

Jen and I are planning a duathlon this month and at the end of the month we are taking in another New England favorite and heading up to Cape Cod for a 2-day getaway.  June beings a serious month of races, tris and bike rides so I am hoping now that the Shelter event is over to log some training time and get back to keeping track of the diet. Hoping to log my progress with triathlon training weekly as well as upload some new spin playlists, bootcamp workouts and recipes.

Hope everyone has had an amazing April and kept on tri'ing (and running).