Tuesday, February 25, 2014

NYC Half Training


The NYC Half is exactly 3 weeks again! I wish I was excited as that sentence looks like I am but I'm just not. After being beyond thrilled that I made it in via the lottery, I've become extremely disappointed. If you know me in real life then you know the cold is not my friend. As someone who is naturally always freezing, these polar vortexes have not been my friend and training has gone down the drain. 

Last year I trained for the DC half during the winter, on the water and was perfectly fine. In the past 2 weeks I've tried to bring my mileage up too fast and ended up taking walk breaks and being really sore the next day. After being mentally prepped for 8 miles on Saturday (what a gorgeous day too!) I ended up only doing 7 with a few walk breaks. Moral of that story? I'm training hard but not smart. 


With that said, I don't care what happens during the race as long as I finish. Along with not being able to train (ps. don't say treadmill, I'm in a big tiff with NYSC) I have a few health issues that are NOT making training easy. Who knows if I'm even allowed to be running! 

My goal for the next 3 weeks? Slow and steady wins the race. I hope to end training on a high note with a 10 miler but if you remember when I trained for DC I only got up to 9 due to injury. So, who knows what March 16 has in store for me. I do know I will 100% be crossing that finish line. 

Xo,
Lynette

Monday, February 24, 2014

Classtivity Passport Class 7: Your Movement Wellness Center

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Yes I know I have not posted in a while. Between work and life, things got crazy! But I'm back and am excited to finish telling you about my Classtivity experience and how training is going (spoiler: not well). 

This class was called Whole Body Toning and it was only about 35-40 minutes long. It was over on the East side so I headed down after work. I got there a little early so hung out for a bit.Similar to Yoga Vida, Classtivity did NOT mention there was a fee for mats but they were nice enough to wave it after I told them that. 

The instructor had a lot of energy and seemed to enjoy what she did. The class lived up to its' name and we toned out whole bodies. We used resistance bands and weights throughout the class. 

The instructor had us start standing up to do a leg series. We did lunges, squats, pulsed moves out and more. Next was arms and abs. The class was split up pretty evenly which I liked and we even combined a few moves to target arms/abs, etc. We mostly used the weights for the arm series and a little for the abs. My arms were on fire during this section! We finished out with a nice stretching sequence. 

Here is the description Classtivity put in my calendar:

"Whole Body Toning is an aerobic strength training class with slight variations adapted from weight lifting and power lifting. The resistance training exercises help you to increase muscle tone and bone strength considerably. The root of strength training involves the altering of repetitions, exercises, tempo and sets, which will increase your strength on overloading of your muscle groups. The joints are very important in weight training and bear heavy loads, we help protect your joints by a steady increase of weight with respect to time!"

Overall it was a good class. I wouldn't say it was great or that I'd go back, but it was a good 40 minute workout after work. I really liked how up how upbeat the instructor was and how loud she had the music. Loud music is always motivating to me!

Have you ever been to Your Movement Wellness Center? What did you think?

Xo,
Lynette

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Classtivity Passport Class 6: Soho Strength Lab

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Last Tuesday I woke up bright and early and late to head down to the Soho Strength Lab for my 6th Classtivity session. After arriving 8 min late- sorry again guy!- I headed to the basement studio and tossed by stuff down to jump in  on the workout. 

Soho Strength Lab has 2 floors with a focus on personal training and small group classes. The class I took was called Soho Burn. Thankfully when I arrived the group was still doing the warm up. The class was primarily strength training with a few cool twists. 

We did air squats, push ups, lunges, planks, used weights for the arm portion, jump squats and more. In between everything we partnered up and used resistance bands to sprint down the "green" and shuffle. You placed the band around your waist and your partner stood behind you with the 2 ends pulled as tight as they could while you ran or shuffled. You don't realize how tough it is until you're done!

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The class finished off with 8 minutes of a continuous circuit. While I didn't sweat as much as I would have liked, the class was definitely good. I felt it the next day!

Here's what Classtivity put in my calendar:

"Use bands, body weight, and dumbbells to burn fat, shred your abs, and tone muscles in SSL's athletic take on bootcamp."

I wouldn't necessarily call this bootcamp but I do recommend trying it out. After class Iy chatted with the instructor, and apologized again for being late, and he mentioned there were a few other classes. I'm very interested in trying out the speed class (remember that race I'm "training" for?).

Have you taken any classes at Soho Strength Lab? What did you think?

Xo,
Lynette