I’ve posted a few times in the last couple weeks about the weather finally getting warm enough to run outside. There is something so relaxing about just losing yourself in your thoughts as you settle into a good running rhythm. But there is more to love about running.
Here is a great graphic from NordicTrack spelling out a few more of the great benefits that come from tying on your shoes and hitting the pavement:
Like I told my class last week, I am SUPER excited about tonight’s warm-up song. I stumbled upon it on some list of “the best music videos this week” about two weeks back … and was let down when I found out it wasn’t even set to be released until May 14. It’ll probably make its way into the rotation going forward, but as I tend to do … I get so excited about a new song that I just want to play it, and not knowing it well enough yet, it becomes the warm-up. So, something to look forward to. And how fitting is the title “Endorphins” for a start to a workout (sounds like time to start releasing them)?
Enough about that … on to tonight’s Spinning playlist:
Warm-up (Flat Road; Resistance 3-4 on a Scale of 10)
Endorphins – Sub Focus ft. Alex Clare
Building Block #1 (Start Resistance 5, Build to 8-9)
Starstrukk – 3oh!3 ft. Katy Perry
Repeat – David Guetta ft. Jessie J
Give Me More – Britney Spears
My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up) – Fall Out Boy
Building Block #2 (Start Resistance 5, Build to 9)
Touch Me – Smash Cast ft. Katherine McPhee
Animal – Neon Trees
Clarity – Zedd ft. Foxes
Forever Now – Ne-Yo
Lighters – Bad Meets Evil
Building Block #3 (Start Resistance 4-5, Build to 7+)
Can’t Hold Us – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Ray Dalton
Wild Ones – Flo Rida ft. Sia
Titanium – David Guetta ft. Sia
Desert Rose – Sting
Cooldown
I Never Told You – Colbie Caillat
Stay – Rihanna
As always, let me know if you have any great new song ideas – I’m always on the hunt for some great new tunes! It looks like spring is finally – FINALLY – starting to hit us here in the DC area (at least until it’s full-on 90 degree summer in probably, oh, two weeks), so try to get out and enjoy your weekend! See you next Thursday, for our last ride before Memorial Day (as in, pre-summer, pre-beach, bikinis are coming) ride!
Many people have a hard time believing me when I say it, but the truth is, I love exercising. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing – running, cycling, lifting, teaching a class – but if I’m challenged, chances are I’m pretty happy.
I have written previously about exercise as therapy, and shared a great graphic on the 12 mental benefits of exercise. I’ve shared my personal story – and that I didn’t always love fitness the way I do today.
The fact is, we all go through ups and downs in our lives. We have bad days. Bad weeks. Heck, sometimes even bad years. I know I’m probably weird, but even on the good days, I often consider my workouts to be the best part of my day. More often than I care to admit, my workouts have been my therapy, and my classes my savior. There’s something about pushing yourself, knowing that you have complete control over just how much you can accomplish, that is hard to recreate in any other area of your life. And there really is a lot to be said for the effect of endorphins on our bodies. It’s truly addictive (why do you think I refer to running as my “gateway drug”).
I had a kind of funny conversation the other day about exercise, and not making it to the gym as much as you’d like (and trust me, in this person’s case, lack of time really is a valid excuse – he doesn’t have enough hours in the day to get a decent amount of sleep, let alone spend two hours in the gym). It’s amazing the difference you start to feel after a few days sans exercise. You’re less alert. You’re a little more stressed. Perhaps even a little more short-tempered. Maybe unmotivated, or just kind of blah. You don’t feel like you. And, quite frankly, you don’t like it.
I recently wrote a post about feeling kind of unmotivated – but trust me, this is a matter of getting out of a rut, and just needing something new to start seeing the results on my body I want to see. Though many people – I’m looking at you, resolutioners – have no problem just skipping a regularly-scheduled workout once or twice a week (though hopefully not every week), I could never see myself doing this. I still find myself struggling to say no on that rest day at the end of the week.
Why? Because it’s part of who I am. It’s what brings joy to my day, and what I love to share with those around me. And I’ve had more than one person recognize the way that my face lights up when I start to talk about fitness. It really is my passion – one I love to share with those around me, and I wish I could share more if the opportunity allowed.
That said … overall, I like to think I’m a pretty happy person. And as the picture at the top says, I’m just a happier person when I work out.
A few weeks back, I wrote about my first outdoor run in a long time. I have to admit, I think it may have inspired me a bit. I spend so much of my time in the gym, that I often wonder if I forget about all the other exercise opportunities that are outside of those walls – including what I’ll admit was my exercise “gateway drug” (also know as outdoor running).
I got lucky tonight – it just happened to be my usual “long run” (or cardio-only) day of the week, and the weather was perfect to take it outside. There’s something about a slightly overcast, mid-60s day that just makes a run fantastic. You never really get too hot, the sun doesn’t keep you squinting, and it’s a little easier to get lost in your thoughts when you’re looking at the beauty around you (in my case, my route took me past a skyline including the Washington Monument and the Capital Building … twice … not to mention the really cool landing route of the planes into Reagan National). To be honest, I spend most of my work day looking forward to my workouts anyway. But knowing that I had a run outside instead of the treadmill tonight? It gave me even more to look forward tonight.
I think I’ve finally figured out a great route, too – from my apartment, down into Alexandria, out past the Pentagon, and back around to the other side of my neighborhood. Makes for a 7+ mile route, which is what I tend to do on the treadmill. It’s nice to focus more on how I feel than when the treadmill tells me I need to speed up or slow down. I’m pretty sure there were times I was running slower than I typically do, but I know there were a few times I was trucking, too. And we’re not even going to talk about some of those hills (yowza, that’s a change from the treadmill!!)
Here’s hoping we have a few more spring days in our future … though the way the weather here has been lately, it’s winter one day, summer the next … because these outdoor runs have been fantastic.
On Friday afternoon, I did something I haven’t done in quite a while … I let one of the trainers at my gym put me through the ringer. I have been feeling kind of stuck in my routine as of late – feeling like my workouts are the same thing, different day, or feeling like I’m a slave to my schedule (that said, I love my classes, but I strictly teach two days a week, and on the one day that I only teach one, it can be a challenge to head upstairs to lift once I’ve climbed off the bike). So when I got an offer for a beatdown from a pro? Naturally, I took it.
Having worked with a trainer consistently – and learned a lot of the lessons I pass along to my classes today from my trainers – it was really nice to get that tired-but-it-feels-good-even though-I-feel-like-crap feeling again (not sure a certain someone appreciated it too much when I showed up to his door looking spent later that evening, though…). As I was taking a few seconds to catch my breath, one of my regulars came up to me to ask why I was working so hard. I told her it was because “big man’s making me do it” … but the truth is, I’ve always had a thing for those breathing hard, dripping sweat kind of workouts. I don’t like to do things the easy way. That’s not how you get real results. And if I can’t get it right away? Well, I’m sure not going to tell you. But you’ll be able to tell in my eyes that I’m going to get it if it kills me.
I guess you could say that the monotony that has plagued my workouts as of late is just a byproduct of the rest of my life feeling like it’s almost stuck idling. You can’t really complain that there’s too much going wrong, yet at the same time, you feel as if you could do something great if you just knew how. Perhaps a little change – albeit only this one day (please, my full-time job took away our fitness reimbursement last fall, I can’t afford training now) – can be the spark I need to get back to where I want to be. Have I gotten lazy? I don’t think that’s the right word. Content, perhaps? Maybe. But that’s not where I want to be. I am a believer that when you stop wanting more is when you stop making progress. So I guess this might be time to make a commitment to start picking things up a little bit again, because I miss that ache, that sweat, that exhaustion that follows a good, hard workout.
Welcome back everyone … I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve had a chance to ride together. (Why did they have to go and plan a gym closure on the one day I teach my favorite class? At least I got a great run out of the deal last Thursday.)
After the week off, it was great to be back in the saddle, for sure! Here’s the playlist from tonight’s class:
Warm-up (Flat Road; Start Resistance 3-4 on a Scale of 10)
Mr. Brightside – The Killers
Building Block #1 (Start Resistance 5, Build to 9+)
Can’t Hold Us – Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Ray Dalton
Feel So Close – Calvin Harris
Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
Hard – Rihanna ft. Young Jeezy
Building Block #2 (Start Resistance 4-5, Build to 9)
Blister in the Sun – Violent Femmes
Don’t Wake Me Up – Chris Brown
Tommie Sunshine’s Magamix Smashup – Katy Perry
Dirrty – Christina Aguilera ft. Redman
Building Block #3 (Start Resistance 5, Build to 8)
I Write Sins, Not Tragedies – Panic! at the Disco
Sex on Fire – Kings of Leon
The Other Side – Jason DeRulo
Clarity – Zedd ft. Foxes
Misery – Maroon 5
Cooldown
Lego House – Ed Sheeran
Walking in Memphis – Pat Magee Band
One more day until the weekend … here’s hoping we can make it there. I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like we should be somewhere in the middle of next week, as slow as this one has been moving (but you know that always happens when you have something to look forward to at the end of it). Enjoy your weekend, and hopefully we’ll see you again next Thursday, if not sooner.
Every once in a while, something outside of my control forces me to shake up my weekly routine a little bit. Late last week, my gym was closed for building power upgrades on Thursday night … meaning no Spinning class for me to teach that evening. Luckily, the weather outside was nice, so I decided to do something I haven’t done in a while, and run outside.
The area in which I live is very pedestrian-friendly (being on the more urban side), and designed in such a way that it’s pretty easy to just take a big loop and end up back where you started. So I suited up, put on the one pair of pants that could hold both my apartment key and my mp3 player (I know, city running with music in my ears is probably not the best decision … but I kept it low enough to be aware of my surroundings), and set out on my way.
It actually ended up being a great run. I wore my heart rate monitor to make sure I was pushing myself as hard as I should be, but other than that, it was really nice to be able to just run, rather than being so focused on how much time was left on the treadmill, or how fast I was going, or what I needed to do to get to X number of miles by X time. It was just me, the road, and my body telling me when I needed to speed up or slow down, or when I’d done enough (okay, that’s not totally true … once I was about an hour in, I started playing that mental “once I get to …” game that always ends up turning into something more once I get to the initial “once I get to”). I ran for 75 minutes, and predicted I’d probably run somewhere close to 8 miles – which, yes, being me, I plugged into MapMyRun.com this morning, and found that the route I run was, in fact, just over 8 miles.
While I likely ran a slightly slower pace than I typically do, I’m also taking into account the fact that I had to tackle a few hills, and at times I allowed myself to just get lost in my breathing or take in my surroundings (fun fact: there is a bridge/park in my neighborhood a little farther north than I have ventured before. I did not know it existed. But once I was both a little freaked out and enthralled at the same when I realized exactly how close to the ground the planes landing at Reagan get? I realized that clearly I need to make a point to actually explore my own neighborhood. Because it was pretty cool).
I guess the biggest discovery I made that day was more of a reminder than anything else. You could almost say it brought me back to what made me love to run in the beginning … and how it became my “gateway drug” to the world of fitness. It’s hard to admit, but I’ve been a little burnt out lately. I have been feeling like I’m going through the motions, and those motions weren’t quite giving me the same joy that they had for so long. The fact is, it wasn’t always about how fast I was running, or how many miles I was covering, or how heavy I was lifting, or how many heavy hills I could cram into a Spinning class. In the beginning, it was about feeling good. Being one with nature – and my own thoughts. Feeling the breeze on my skin, and the fresh air in my lungs. What could you say I learned (again) that day? That the rush doesn’t have to always come from, well … the rush. There’s a lot to say for just letting your body tell you how it feels, and letting that drive you, rather than the external forces. We spend so much of our days in the go-go-go of today’s society … every once in a while, we have to let our workouts slow down a little, turn off our thoughts, and just be.
