workout

Running Slump

| cheriarmour

I’ve felt this way once before. Last year, right after my grandmother died, I hit a little running slump.  I was tired, my motivation was low, and when I was running, I felt slow and consumed by anxious thoughts, which really took away from my running.

This time, I think the reasoning for the slump is a little different, but the symptoms are largely the same.

In the span of two months, I got a new job, got married to my love, and we bought a house.  And none of it was planned to all hit at once.

With the job, I got a call in May, interviewed throughout the month of June, and was offered the position in early July.  The wedding had been set for August 23rd for some time, and the home came available, and honestly, the inventory is so low in Raleigh that it would have been silly to have forgone that home.

So we dove in headfirst.  And I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my entire life.

And like I do anytime I’m faced with any major life changes, I felt this exhaustion come over me.  It hasn’t affected my work, as I’m still in that phase where I’m killing myself to impress everyone, but it’s definitely affected my running and my motivation.  Rather than constantly being raring to go for those runs, I’ve had to pull out every trick in the book to make sure that I make my workouts.  I invite friends, I try new workouts, I make sure that I am scheduled to take one of my instructors classes, all in the hopes that I don’t fall behind on my workouts.  But motivating myself to go when ALL I want to to is lay around in the bed and watch reruns of Sex & the City is hard, and I’m really trying.

Honestly, the last time I felt like I was in this slump a year ago, I pushed through it, but had a few tricks to help get me through.

  • I went to a lot of hot yoga.  Granted, one of the times I went, a pose we got into tapped right into my emotional side and I finished out the class sobbing for whatever reason, but I sure felt good after.
  • I ran.  And I revamped my runs.  I listened to Motown the Musical, Les Mis, and sometimes, nothing at all, all different from my usual playlists.
  • I read Dean Karnazes books.  Which is really good cause he’s an ultra marathoner.  So it kind of made you feel like your little 26.2 wasn’t that bad.
  • I vomited my way through the Greensboro Marathon.  But the fact I finished convinced me I was a lot stronger than I thought I was, and rekindled my love for running.

So the slump sucks.  I don’t like the way it makes me feel, and it scares me – makes me feel like I will never love to run again.  But slowly and steadily, I will be back to exactly where I was before, maybe even better!

What do you do when you’re in a running slump?

Flywheel

| cheriarmour

I tried something new today.  Raleigh recently has exploded with apartment buildings, new exercise crazes, and everything that comes when your semi-small town becomes legitimate as a city.

It’s sort of cool – we had our first Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon last year, which solidified the city’s place in my mind as a real thing.  But I feel for some of the older folks, who really don’t care for or understand why the city is taking on this monstrous new life.

But I digress.

A friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn had been telling me about this thing called Soul Cycle, and how I had to try it.  Unfortunately, Raleigh has not quite caught onto that, but caught onto something called FlyWheel, a class-phenomenon that seems to be some type of relative of Soul Cycle.

Now that I blog, I feel like it’s my duty and obligation to try everything, whereas before, I was kind of in a workout lane – I liked my Zumba and my running, my cycling sometimes, mixed in with a little hot yoga, so this was a new frontier for me.

Flywheel

So, I walk into the studio, and first, I was set up by a really friendly guy, George, on the computer to check in.  Because I had already picked out a bike (the bikes were set up in a sort of stadium seating thing – think concert seating), my complimentary shoes were already pulled in my size, and George chatted with me for a few minutes, showing me showers, lockers, clean towels, and a fancy water machine.

A few minutes later, the door to this dark, almost move theatre-type room opened, and I was ushered in by George himself.  George adjusted my bike to my height, helped me clip into my bike, and I started pedaling away in prep for the class.

The teeniest little girl from Atlanta hopped into the instructor bike, introduced herself, explained what the numbers on the bike meant – torque, power, and RPMs, and off we went.

The experience was a number of things.  It was scary competitive – where you stood amongst your peers was projected on a screen at the front of the room, and I consistently toggled between the first and second places in the class, something that I killed myself to do.  The room was set up like a stadium, a little different from the rooms I’m used to at the Y, and the room was very dark.  It made for a different experience.  In a sense because it was dark, you felt like you were doing your own ride, and it felt a little like a party, similar to when your Zumba instructor flips off the lights and cranks the music so that you feel like you’re at the club.  The class felt very New York, and this was a very different experience than you’ll get at a lot of places down here in the south.

A few things I wasn’t too keen on?  For one, the price of the class was steep – at $21 a class, this stacks up as the most expensive group fitness class I’ve ever taken in Raleigh thus far.  Granted, the facility is gorgeous and you get free towels and access to a beautiful shower facility, but I have a hard time paying that much for something.  That is the equivalent of about 5 really pricy coffees at Starbucks, and nearly 3 bottles of Essie at Target.  I also feel a little bit funny about workouts that are that priced that steeply.  It makes working out really inaccessible and creates this elitist mentality about the workout.  If only rich women who wear fancy workout clothing can do the workout, are you creating a barrier to non-rich women to ever try the sport?  And lastly, the class was so fast-paced, that there was not a huge focus on safety and form.

So – my verdict?

Definitely mixed.  I will have to try this again, but I would definitely suggest that if you have one of these FlyWheel facilities near your home, you try it and let me know what you think.  Do you love it?  Think it’s weird?  Would you do it more than once?  Let me know!

Fitness Gods.

| cheriarmour

The best thing happened to me yesterday morning.

Let me back it up.

******

So I’ve been teaching Zumba® Fitness for almost 5 years – taking for longer than that.  And the entire time I was taking, and the entire time that I was training, I had a total fitness crush on my trainer/original teacher Koh Herlong, and then Tanya Beardsley, with whom I had the pleasure of taking a master class before she retired from the company to do her own thing.  I loved the way they taught, I found myself tearing up when they made a connection to their classes, and I’ve always strove (striven?!) to bring the same to my classes.  I love to teach, and I hope that comes through to my classes.

Yesterday, I was working in my office on the schedule when the kid from the fitness desk downstairs called.

“Yeah, there’s no one here to teach the 4:30 step class.”

Shit.

By the grace of God, I’d already planned to take a cycle class, and was already in workout gear.  I literally jogged downstairs, strapped the mic on, broke the news to the class that I would not be teaching Step, but a Cardio Dance class, and went for it.

“Whew, it’s over,” I thought 45 minutes later!

“The teacher that teacher this class always teaches the toning class after.  You’re teaching toning, right?”

Of COURSE!  I found a CD that was like 140 BPMs (a little fitness inside thing) with Miley Cyrus featured, and I WENT FOR IT.  I stepped out of my little Zumba box, dusted off my AFAA certification, and played my role of Fitness Director perfectly.  I had an awesome, awesome time, and after, a few of the chicks in class walked up after, and told me how awesome the toning class was, and how I’d kicked their butt! (Thank you Body Pump™ training!)

Which brings me to this.

******

Body PumpI’m still working through some of my team teaching for Body Pump, and was super nervous to teach with this beautiful goddess, Monica, who introduced me to Body Pump.  She’s a flawless instructor, and radiates a really unique sort of beauty and professionalism in her classes.

This morning, she allowed me to team teach with her, and following the class, she gave me a hug, complimented my connection with the students, and said that I was ready to teach.

I have died and gone to heaven!

Do you have any fitness crushes?  Spill!

 

10 Fitness things I could not live without.

| cheriarmour

I thank goodness that I was born in such an amazing time, with such insane technology, that I can exercise pretty comfortably without injury ::knock on wood::.  HRG blogged on this a few days ago, and I just had to follow suit!  So I present to you, 10 fitness things that I Could not Live Without. 

1.  My iPhone. 

I don’t always listen to music, but I think the combo of the safety factor, music, apps, at the occasional Netflix when I’m stuck on the treadmill in the winter is really nice.  During the infamous Greensboro Marathon of ’13, I was able to call Austin (sobbing, mind you) that I was really sick, and that my finish would be later than predicted.  I thank God for that and that I didn’t have to worry him for hours.

2.  My Garmin.

photo 1Now of course, as soon as I started writing about this, my Garmin started acting really strangely, and at one point I thought it had completely died, but I used it yesterday, and I think it’s going to be okay for the next little bit here.  It needs to be okay because we just bought a house and that means you have to be really really smart with money for a second while you pay for this little thing that crops up, and that little thing that crops up.

3.  Not technically a fitness thing, but pedicures.  So, over the past few months, I’ve definitely dialed back on the pedis for money’s sake, but I went on Monday night to get a mani/pedi, and I forgot how good they are for the feet, and for the soul/sole.  Seriously, I forget that between teaching a LOT of classes a week, and trying to stay up with my running, your feet can use the help of a professional.  And that’s just what I did, especially since we were going to be taking our engagement photos.  It was awesome.

4.  Hydration things.  More specifically, the hydration backpack.  Yes, it looks really silly, and it kinda smells now that it’s been through some times with me, but I would never ever have survived a single North Carolina summer without it.  It’s convenient, it has a LOT of hiding places, and it frees up your hands to do things OTHER THAN grasping a water bottle.

5.  Good running shoes.  Thank God for the opportunity and the education I’ve been given on running shoes, because I think a good pair of running shoes can mean the difference between loving to run, and hating it because everything hurts and feels terrible while you run.  No, running shoes will not inherently make running amazing, but it makes the ride a little more enjoyable.

foam rolling

6.  The foam roller.  I think that there are some folks who still don’t really know what this thing is.  It is the most incredible little piece of equipment.  It’s cheap, and the best thing to do for sore muscles, pressure points, knots, or anything that comes up when you’re really feeling horrid.  And if you’re training for anything right now, you know that will happen.

7.  The treadmill.  Okay, okay, okay, hear me out okay?  Most of us runners refer to the treadmill as the “dreadmill” because of how boring it can be.  But it can be really really useful, especially when it’s really really hot, and really really cold.  (Anyone flashing back to the Polar Vortex of early ’14?)  There would have been no way, a few of those days, that I could have gotten a run in, and I would have gone crazy.  Especially the day when poor Austie was stuck on the road for like 6 hours trying to get home during the snow.  I needed an outlet for sure.

8.  Compression gear.  <-In general.  Compression socks.  Compression tights.  Will save your LIFE.  I started sleeping in compression gear during my first marathon and it heals.  I swear, it heals.

9.  Nuun, and other forms of electrolyte replacement that have  been invented that don’t contain corn syrup and Red 40.  This stuff is great to replace some of the stuff you sweat out, but also kind of great in real life.  You drank too much?  Nuun.  You have the flu and you can’t really eat anything?  Nuun.  You want to spice your water up and make it a little tastier and interesting?  NUUUN.

10.  Rundies.  Runderwear.  Banish them pantylines and they’re wicking.  You don’t have to go commando in your tights any longer folks.  Rundies are the way to go.  They’re expensive – but SO worth it.  I actually have started wearing them with regular things because of the lack of pantylines that is involved with them.  What a wonderful, wonderful invention.

What’s on your fitness must-have list?

Wilmington, NC

| cheriarmour

I can’t tell you how incredibly just…happy I feel right now.

It kinda feels like all the pieces kinda are starting to fit together for the first time in a long time, and I feel happy, content, and incredibly grateful.

Let me backtrack, and this will explain, at least a little bit, what I’ve been up to for the past few days.

I told you guys a few days back that I’d gotten a new job, right?  Of course, the timing is pretty funny, what with our wedding being in a few weeks, but that’s life, right?  So on Thursday, I officially started my new job, and I totally hit the ground running helping out with a community wellness event.  I ended up spending the entire day teaching modified fitness classes to kids a variety of different ages, and of course, ended up sorer (is that a word?) than hell for the next few days.  When I came into work on Friday, I arrived to the sweetest sign, the sweetest basket full of goodies, and a day/schedule PACKED to the gills, but all with good stuff.  I know it might be early to call it, but I’m really thinking in my heart that this job is a really good fit.  I just want to do a great job and excel, and see where the health and wellness industry can take me.

photo 2

Body Pump Training Part One/My friends are the greatest

As if life weren’t crazy busy enough, I scheduled another wrinkle in time for this weekend, my Les Mills Body Pump training at UNCW.

First and foremost, my friends are incredible.  Realizing that the training was this weekend and that I had no place to stay, I group texted some friends, one of whom is a bridesmaid, asking frantically if we knew anyone in Wilmington.  Long story longer, bridesmaid did, and hooked me up a friend who opened his home up to me.  Added bonus?   There were no cats or poodles named Coco there to wake me up at regular intervals, and I had the best Friday night of sleep that I’ve almost ever had.

So I’m gonna totally recap the Body Pump training after all is said and done, but it’s a two-day training, and day one completely kicked my butt, but in the best way possible.  Today, we took the equivalent of like twoish 60 minute Body Pump classes, and we all presented a track that was assigned to us like two weeks ago.  I surprisingly don’t feel as bad as I thought I would – I think once your body shifts into that level of pain, it sort of resigns itself, and that’s what I’m feeling is happening here.  I’m also pretty sure I blacked out during my presentation because it was filmed, and I was like, who’s that tall chick clean and jerking?! Yeah, that was me so…

But my first day impressions are really cool.  The training is really really pushing me, the trainees are really already an active and well-prepped group, our trainer really knows what it is that she’s talking about , and I’m extremely impressed at the fact that rather than banging through exercises gratuitously, there is a ton of focus on form and technique, something I haven’t really experienced before in the many trainings I’ve attended.  And since I’m a total workout nerd, this has made me incredibly content as Saturday almost draws to a close.

This was pre-training, and pre-shoulder shredding workout!
This was pre-training, and pre-shoulder shredding workout!

So tonight, I’ll be reviewing more tracks, reading a book, missing my husband-to-be, and wondering what it is I’d do without these fantastic people in my life.

What are you up to for the rest of the weekend?

How long did it take you to fall in love with running?

| cheriarmour

I’m becoming a big fan of the Hungry Runner Girl, Janae, because she’s so freaking positive.  It’s funny, I’ve seen a few things written about her online, and the overwhelming “complaint” about her, if you even want to call it that is that she’s too positive or that she gets too excited about the littlest things.  I can relate to her – I actually had an associate at Barnes and Noble physically back away from me when I expressed my excitement that they had the Gavin DeGraw album in stock.  Okay lady, let me be happy, kay?

Anyhoo, so HRG posts yesterday and posed this question:

How long did it take you to fall in love with running?

The truth is, I don’t really know.

Sport Photo mailed me this blast from the past from my first race in 2011.  I’m not sure what possessed me to sign myself and my boyfriend (now almost-husband) for the race, except it sounded really really cool, and I think I saw in ad in one of the women’s fitnessy workout mags that I’d been reading like a Bible.

Mud Run

Austin so sweetly agreed to to the race with me, an obstacle 5k in Virginia, and we drove up there after a shift at the Whole Foods Bakery.   Yes, I know.  I’m a fitness director, and I worked at a bakery my first gig out of graduate school.  But I like my sweets, and I love Whole Foods so it worked.

I ran that race.  Finished in decent time.  Felt great afterwards, and within about a year’s time, I was running my first half-marathon.

There was never a moment where I was like “aughhh this is awesome,” but I guess I always just liked the way it made me feel.  I also loved the way you could kind of click into cruise control for a long run and just…run.  Like after a while it didn’t feel like death on a stick, but it just felt like a state of being, as natural as anything else did.  Sure, there were still some runs that made me feel like vomiting on on the side of the road, but the vast majority of the runs just felt…good!

So all that to say is, I just don’t know when I started to love running.  I’m not particularly fast or fancy, but it feels natural to me, and it feels like the kind of workout you can seriously do anywhere, and burn the most calories/stress off without killing yourself.

So my question on this wonderful Friday is….

When did you fall in love with running?

 

 

I couldn’t take it.

| cheriarmour

It’s super rare that I ditch a workout, but after a particularly hot trail run on Sunday night where I left completely drenched, a little nauseated, and with my achilles doing it’s own thing, I made the executive decision to meet a coworker at the pool, and pool run, instead of sacrificing my entire soul on a 95-degree trail run.

photo 1This was the trail run in question.  If you kinda look at my face, you can see my eyeliner is all runny.  I literally felt so sick after this run, and it was approximately 90ish degrees at the time of the run.

photo 2I took one feel at the humidity outside, grabbed my Kindle and bikini, and ran in the pool til I was over it.

And it was amazing.

I don’t think I’ve had the time (since the serious wedding planning started) to read a book, so it was nice to press the pause button while I tried to finish “Orange is the New Black”.

The deal is though, since I’m almost done with that book, and since I got a big fat $6 settlement in some Kindle class action lawsuit, I’m gonna need another book to read, and once we get married I’m gonna read the HELL out of some books.

Give me some books to read please!

“I don’t have time to work out” – Let’s fix it!

| cheriarmour

I’m kind of the office freak.  I’m tall, thin.  I eat green things.  I sometimes pack workout clothes, and then head out around 4pm for a run.  Often a coworker will look at me in disbelief or disgust, and say something like, “I don’t know how you do it!  I don’t have the energy.  I just don’t have the time to work out.”

That line of…interrogation sometimes irritates me.  Usually it’s said with some judgement.  Some disbelief.  A little bit of mean.  And there’s this assumption that I just am some kid with oodles of time and that it’s easy for me to find the time to work out.  I get it.  I don’t have kids.  I’m young.  So maybe people assume that I’m just an idiot.

Well, fun fact.  I work my day job.  I also have jobs at 3 or 4 gyms where I teach classes.  I work at Fleet Feet Raleigh when they need.  And I blog.  Like a decent amount.  So I’m not just some idiot with time and time and time on my hands, I do actually have to work to sneak my workouts in.  And trust me, these days it’s always a sneak.

But if you’re interested in figuring out how in God’s name you’re gonna make some time to work out, allow me to at least offer you a couple of suggestions for good ways to sneak in the time for physical activity that we all need to maintain a healthy weight, healthy heart, and healthy mind.

work out

 

  • Are you a grad/college student?  Got a break between classes?  Even if it’s like only a 40 minute break, use that time to put on some running shoes, and walk/run.  A lot of times on Tuesdays my second year in graduate school, the only way I could ever get a workout in was to run between my second and third classes.  A lot of times it meant that I got to my last class sort of sweaty, but honestly, I probably wasn’t going to show up to that class looking cute anyways so it all worked out.
  • If you’re into this, wake up early.  I truly hate to wake up early.  I do it two or three times a week now for a Body Pump/Body Attack class, and the waking up part of it is literally the worst thing ever.  I’m miserable when I first wake up, but I’m a happy gal by the end of it.
  • If you’re not an early bird, pack your workout stuff with you, and sneak out of the office when you can.  In my office, typically around 4 pm I can sneak out without anyone asking me too many questions.  I can come back, finish some work, and generally, no one asks me a question.
  • If you’ve missed the early morning, and you didn’t pack your workout clothes, do something after work.  For me, sometimes that means a run.  Sometimes a class.  Sometimes it means getting on my bike for a few miles and cranking it out.  But it makes me feel good, and as Austin says, it’ makes my dinner taste better 🙂
  • For the ladies with the kids, I understand how tricky this can be.  I honestly commend you for what you do.  And I’m not a mom, so I don’t want to overstep my bounds and give crazy suggestions, so I’m opening this part up to the moms – Mamas, how can you sneak your workouts in and keep yourself healthy and sane?  I’m really interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

So moms, kids like me – how do you sneak in your workouts? 

The 1800 Minute Challenge

| cheriarmour

I follow a really great chick named Erin at Living in Yellow.  Back in April, Erin challenged us to partake in her 1800 minute challenge, a challenge that entailed documenting 1800 minutes of exercise between April 1st and May 31st.
#1800MinuteChallengeThat number averaged out to about 30 minutes per day of working out, which for me, didn’t seem too hard, since I’m pretty active, but for this challenge, I focused on my old motto of sweating once a day (rather than relying on the fact that I was running for hours on end to carry me through the challenge) and I managed to complete the challenge with 2278.18 minutes, an average of about 37 minutes of activity a day.

The challenge was good for me.  I respond well to challenges, real or not, and I take them very seriously.  Last year, at this time, I was doing a streak, and something about the officialness (in my mind) of the streak, pushed me to continue running, even though in North Carolina it gets hot as hell, and staying active.

My activities over the 2k minutes included a lot of variety.  With me getting my Body Pump cert, I did a ton of Body Pump, some Body Attack, some trail running (cause it’s so crazy hot and humid here), as well as continuing to teach my regular Zumba class schedule.  The bod is looking good, and I want to keep it going so thankfully, Erin hooked us up with ANOTHER challenge, 1000 minutes in 30 days.  This time, the challenge has us averaging closer to 33 minutes a day, so I’m excited to see what I can do.

Anyone else in?