Week 5: Climb for Clean Air – Hurdles

Plan:

Monday: Long Cardio

Tuesday: Strength Training with Weston

Wednesday: Long Cardio

Thursday: REST Day!

Friday: Strength Training + Interval

Saturday: Hike day

Sunday: Strength Training + Interval

Did you ever have a plan something, and totally blew it?   Well, this week is kinda like that.   It started good and it shifted somewhere half way in the middle of the week and my plan is completely out of whack.   I can make all the excuses in the world, but at the end of the day, I am accountable for things that I didn’t do and I’m not to pleased with myself this week.   Yes, it’s mama day weekend and I’m supposed to cut myself a slack and be pampered and all, but it didn’t really give me a hall pass to skip a work out, let alone TWO days of work out.   I faced life hurdles this week.  Between work, family, children and just life in general, I am having a very hard time to find those hour or two, to do my work out, let alone 3 or 4 hours to do training hike.   In result – I skipped a work out this week and no training hike.    Not a happy Yanni.   However, I’m not going to mope around and hide.   I ‘fess up.  Let the world know, that I will get my behind back into the program tomorrow.    Get up, dust myself up, and move on.   I have exactly 73 days to my climb days and I really need to get with the program.   I don’t have too many weekend to do training hike and the one that I do have, not all of them are available to me to do it, so I really, really need to plan it wisely.

How it actually went down:

Monday:

Long Cardio day.   After a week of letting my leg rest, I’m ready to get a lot of lower body exercise.   I did an hour at elliptical machine, using a cross-ramp, training hill program on the machine.    I kept my heart rate at the endurance zone at all time (hover at my 80% of MHR) and I did really good.   The whole hour went by just like that and I did 5.26 miles on that hour.

Tuesday:

Weston decided to mixed up my strength training.   We started with just regular squat, but with kettle bell in my hand, did variety of upper body combination while I did about 4 sets of squats, follow by lunges.   Then I did single legged squat, also with kettle bell in my hand as an extra weight.   Half way into it – he had me walk into the treadmill for 10 minutes to stretch my muscle, since some of the routines still gave me the sharp pain, but it went away.   We repeated the same routine.   I did total 8 sets, 12 reps each of combination of squat, lunges and single-legged squat and step-up with kettle bell upper-body combo.   I was so spent by the time I was done and barely able to walk

Wednesday

Long Cardio Day.    I loaded 45lbs weight into my pack, strapped in my back and set the treadmill to 15% grade and walk for an hour.   Since this is going to be my summit pack, I thought this would be a good long cardio since it will also help me train with my pack.   I found out really quickly that I need to exchange my pack from the medium frame to small, since my shoulder is a bit sore afterward.   I set the treadmill on 2.0 mph and able to maintain it speed for the entire hour, even though I have a hard time to maintain my heart rate within the endurance zone.  It was peaked all the way up on the upper level of the zone.    I was panting most of the time.   I didn’t want to adjust my pace nor drop my weight (yes, stubborn me) and just kept walking.

Thursday:

Weston told me to NOT take a rest day this Thursday, and did strength training on the traditional leg work out.   Bummer.   So I went to the gym.   I did my warm up at the treadmill for 10 minutes then start my routines.   It consist of Lunges and Squat – both used 10lbs dumbbell combination with upper body routine, then I did Leg Press, Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Hip Adduction and Hip Abduction.  Then I did my cores exercise consist of plank, side oblique crunch and bridge.  I did 3 sets of 12 reps of all routines.

Friday:

I skipped work out.   I was planning to do it after work, but I just can’t make the time.

Saturday:

REST DAY!  This is my planned rest day.  Even tho I skipped work out the day before, I already made a plan with the family to do thins today.   Yes, I could squeeze an hour to do something, but I didn’t.

Sunday:

This is when things went downhill.    I didn’t go for any hike.   I plan to, even dropped the my girls to my mom so I have absolutely no reason to not go.   Instead, I decided to go over my gear.   I laid out all my hiking gear in the floor and went over my list.   I went and exchange my pack to the right size, had it readjusted and got the right model.    I didn’t go for any training hike, but I know for sure what gear do I have and what gear that I still need to get.   There is a wee bit sense of accomplishment.    I’m not happy that I didn’t go for any hike, but I feel better knowing that I know what gear inside that bin that’s been sitting in the garage in the last few years.

Fundraising:

I raised $1279.21 this week plus $779.21 company matching with total $2058.42 this week!!!  I did a happy hour fundraising party at my office and it’s a huge success!   Thank you SO much for those who participate on the event and supporting my cause and for the SQL community that keep surprising me with their generosity!   Keep the donation coming!

Update:  This post now become part of Get Hawt#5 series

Week 4: Climb For Clean Air – Week of Recovery

Plan:

Monday: Long Cardio

Tuesday: Strength Training with Weston

Wednesday: Long Cardio

Thursday: REST DAY!

Friday: Interval + Strength Training

Saturday: Hike

Sunday: Long Cardio

Wow, it’s been a month since I made a commitment to do this journey and time flies!   I found out earlier on this week that I tore a vastus lateralis muscle, which is a muscle that attaches to my iliotibial band.   My trainer suspected this might have been caused by doing two days in a row of long cardio workouts.  Doing the same repetitious movement and somehow the way I moved my leg, put certain pressures on it and ended up injuring it.   The fact that I hiked for almost 7 hours the day after didn’t help either.   Long story short, I was ordered to back down, take it easy and really nurse it this week.   I learned a lot about me, my limitations and that my patience is really, really being tested.   The most important thing that I learned this week – it is okay to slow down and to take a break.  It doesn’t make me weak, it makes me stronger.  My body needs time to recover, build, and heal.

How it actually went down:

Monday:

I did not do anything.   I can barely move my leg, or walk.  Everything hurts.   My left calves are throbbing, since I literally put my whole weight to them when I limped my way down to the mountain on the Saturday prior.  My right leg, well, it has this sharp pain that keeps reminding me it’s there.    I decided to take extra rest day.

Tuesday:

I limp my way to see Weston.  He took one look at my leg, asked me to do a few things and told me that I tore my muscle.   He was pretty certain of it.   We didn’t really work out but he taught me a few stretching exercise that I should do.   I was bummed.   He explained to me in great detail on what he think the cause of the injury was.

Wednesday:

Long Cardio day.   Per Weston instruction, I did 15 minutes increment of the cardio with total of 1 hour with stretching in between each interval.   I went on the elliptical machine, crossramp 10 and treadmill on 15% grade.   I worked up a pretty good sweat and the stretching helped with the pain.

Thursday:

Rest day.  I almost didn’t want to take it, but decided to take it anyway.

Friday:

I did interval training on elliptical machine for 30 minutes, follow with my strength training.   I decided to avoid any lower body work out and did upper body work out instead.   I did a workout on the machines, Upper Back, Pectoral, Low row, and Chest press with 20lbs on each, three sets of 12 reps each.  I struggled a bit with the pectoral machine and dropped the weight for two reps, and the next day wondered why my chest hurt.  I also did core exercises consisting of plank, bicycle crunches, and bridges.   I did three sets and 12 reps on all routines.

Saturday:

Hike day.   Well, this is actually the highlight of my week.   My husband surprised me for a weekend gateway for my birthday.   I didn’t know where we are going to go, until a day before.   Turned out, he took me to stay at this awesome cabin at Ashford on Friday, which is a town at the base of Mount Rainer National Park, with the intention of doing a hike out there on Saturday.     Weather wise, it was cloudy and foggy.   The sun came out only for a few minutes, enough to show the mountain to me.   It was cold, and windy, but as you walk, you can actually feel the sun penetrating the cloud.    The trail was covered with snow.   Usually, the trail to go to Pebble Creek from Paradise is all pavements and a lot of rock/steps but this time of the year, it’s nothing but snow.   We put our snowshoe on, and started to walk.   I noticed the thin air right away.   Paradise sits on 5,800ft so the air already somewhat thin there and try to walk, on a steep incline trail, with snowshoe, with somewhat limited lung capacity.  Yeah, it’s interesting.   My lung and I kept having a conversation as we went along, if you know what I mean.   We didn’t go all the way to Pebble Creek, and decided to stop at 6,200ft.   Due to snow, the switchback is gone, so the trail is on steep hill across Panorama Point (I’m talking straight incline for about 800ft) then it dropped down to the creek.   I didn’t feel like climbing that last hill and didn’t see the reason to do that other than a bragging rights, so we sat down, ate our lunch and enjoyed our day.    It was absolutely majestic out there.    My iPhone app shows that I hiked for almost 4 miles, for 3 hours.

Sunday:

Well, it was a gorgeous day today in the Pacific Northwest!  The sun is out, the weather is absolutely fabulous!  I was going to do a long cardio at the gym, but there’s no way I’m going to do any inside work out so I was planning to do another hike, but then we got home from church, and unpacking from our trip and before long, my husband was working on the yard and I’m cleaning up my car.   I didn’t get any work out done, but the yard is looking really good and my car looks pretty clean inside.   I am thinking to play some Wii Fit for an hour later after I finish up this summary, but it’s getting late, so that might not happen either especially tomorrow I have to get up early.    I guess it’s another rest day for me.

Week 3: Climb for Clean Air – Week of Changes

The plan:

Mon: Interval + Strength Training

Tues: Strength Training with Weston

Wed: Long Cardio within Endurance Zone with 25lbs pack

Thu: REST day!!

Fri: Interval + Strength Training

Sat: Training Hike – 6 Hours Hike, 30lbs pack

Sun: Long Cardio within Endurance Zone

Oh, where do I begin.  Let see.   I introduced a lot of changes this week.  I changed my schedule around to accommodate holiday, used a new pack, hiked in the afternoon instead of the morning, have no rest days until the end and I struggled to identify what caused me to, well, struggled during the hike.   If there’s a lesson to be learned this week, I need to have compassion for myself.   I need to allow myself to fail, since failure is just a beginning to another success.  I need to learn to be more forgiving, more patient and not to introduce too much change at the same time.    As a Production DBA, I should have known better.  We hate that during deployment, yes?

In overall, this week is a week of changes.  I learned a lot about myself and my limit.   This is only my week 3, and I know I’m doing pretty awesome so far <this is me patting myself in the back>

How it actually went down:

Monday:

I had a hard time finding motivation to do my training today.  I was super sore and just plain tired, and my schedule today is a bit out of whack so I can’t really work out in the morning and have to do it after work, which is very difficult to do after full day at work.   I did do it tho.   I started the work out with a Cardio Interval Training at the treadmill.   I ran 2.1 miles in 3o minutes, with 3:1 ratio again, which means – I ran with 6mph for 1 min to push my heart rate above 163, then slowed down to 3.5mph for 3 mins and let my heart rate drop below 163.   I did okay until the last 5 minutes when I can’t really get my heart rate down, so I didn’t push it and just coasted through the end of the interval.   Shortly after, I did the strength training, new routine that Weston designed for me.  Today its routine B as describe here.   Let me start by saying, I have a LOT of work to do.   First routine – I literally cried from being so frustrated due to not able to do even one rep.   My husband John was trying to help me by holding my back and feet, but I was being a way too stubborn and wanted to be able to do this routine on my own.  Did I do it?  Yes.  I did.  Second and third set – I did them all by myself without weight but this is just another thing that I know I have a lot of work to do.   The second routine – I suck.  Again.  I can not lift my hips from the floor at all, especially my left one.   So we improvised and only lifted my leg and I had to report this back to Weston tomorrow to see if he can adjust my routine.   The rest of the routine, I did pretty good.   Overall – I am not too happy with tonight’s strength training but I have to keep reminding myself that I’m creating a baseline.  This is where I am going to look and compare weeks from now to see how far I have become.

Tuesday:

This is the day that I’m working out with Weston and I think the fact that I show up means something, or he probably just feeling sorry for me, haha, but he gave me a semi-rest day!  We didn’t really work out today, but worked more on doing a review on the plan and how I did.  I had to repeat a few exercises to him and show him things that I can’t do.  He adjusted a few things for me, showed me the right way to do a few routine. The most important thing that I took from today’s session is I have to do my repetitions slow, focused and within my range of motion. He’d rather have me do lighter weight, but complete reps, rather than heavier one.   We agreed that every strength training will consist of four hip exercises, lunges, squat, step-up, and four types of cores exercise.   Ten routines total, 12 reps, 3 sets.   We also talked about cardio and how important it is for me to build a lactic acid tolerance by doing a long cardio activity within my fat burning/endurance zone.   He used the comparison of a storm drain.   My body is trying to build more storm drains by doing a long cardio so lactic acid can be flushed faster and my endurance level will increase.   All in all, it was a very good session.

Wednesday:

I changed my plan around.   Instead of long cardio, I decided to do an interval training and strength training today.   I did the interval at the elliptical this time, no weight.   I put on the interval program on the machine and go with it.   I made sure that my heart rate is pushing to 170 during the 1 minute interval and hover around 160 for 3 minutes and I was able to keep it the same interval for the entire 30 minutes.  I noticed a big different though.   I’m no longer struggling as much compare with last week.   That.is.progress!

Thursday:

Due to my semi-rest day on Tuesday and the fact that this Sunday is Easter, I decided to move my rest day to Sunday and do my long cardio today.   I set my music on, get my book ready on my iPad and just get going.  I made sure my heart rate hovered between 148-150,  which is the border of fat burning zone and the endurance zone and I was doing great.  I didn’t feel tired at all and I knew I could carry on conversation just fine with others during it.   I kept on going and going and going…. and when an hour pass, I looked at my iPhone and it said… 4.42 miles!!   Wow!   This girl just did 4 miles.   This girl.  I smile cheek-to-cheek.   I know for all of you runner out there, that prolly nothing, but for me — this is huuuuge!!!

Friday:

Another long cardio day.     I had to cut down the work out time today to 45 minutes due to the limited time I have due to an event I was attending at our church.   I hopped on the elliptical machine and just started walking.   My iPhone app said I did 3.42 miles in 45 minutes and I was right on the border of fat burning and endurance zone the entire time.   I felt great and hopped off the machine.   Shortly after, I immediately felt this sharp pain on my right thigh.  I stopped walking and somewhat puzzled and kept walking.   Did my thing, went to my event and when I finally lay in bed, I realized this is not just “I’m sore and my muscle hurt” kinda feeling.   Few peeps on the twitter told me that this might be an injury or some sorta strain.   I kept stretching it, took some Advil and went to bed.

Saturday:

Hike day.   I had planned to go to Mt. Si for today’s hike.   With 3,700 feet elevation changes, I thought this would be a great hike to test how my training been preparing me.   I also switched my day pack and used what I called my “summit pack” and I put my usual 25lbs weight plus my 10-essentials.   I can’t ask for a better weather to do a hike!  It was one of the best weather!days so far this year!   I still felt the pain on my left thigh but I shrugged it off and headed out.    Due to an Easter Egg hunt activity in the morning, we didn’t start walking until 1:30pm.   It was pretty hot and even with the cold breeze, the sun is warming the whole mountain out!   Within 10 minutes of walking, I noticed a significant different on my strength and energy.   I was struggling.  My right thigh hurt, my shoulder hurt, I was breathing heavy, it was hot, and I can’t get my breathing or my pace right.   I slowed down, tried to find my pace but it wasn’t working.   Half hour into it, I gave up.   I looked at John and told him that I had to dump some of my weight (I put extra water as a weight on my pack) since I barely can walk.   It was very hard for me to do that mentally.  I felt like I’m moving backwards.   One step forward, two steps backwards.

We hit 2 mile mark about 1hr 45 mins and decided to keep going.   As we went higher to the mountain, the air was getting cooler.  I breathed better, and was able to focus more on my walk.   I wasn’t struggling and managed to walk slow, focus and steady.   At mile 3, the trail was covered with ice.  It was slippery and I was quite amused to see others who walked on this trail with tennis shoes and slip and slide on this ice.   I didn’t bother to put my Yak Trax on and just kept walking since my boot had a good traction and I had my good hiking poles with powder basket on them, so I was on a good shape.   The only problem, the pain in my thigh was getting worse and I had to even walk slower.  3 hours and 45 minutes later, I was finally arrived at the top of Mt. Si, about an hour longer than I was anticipated.     Heading down the mountain turned out to be more challenging than I thought.    It was by far, the worst descent I ever had for the history of my hiking (and I did a lot of hiking in my life-time!).    My leg hurts every time I took a step down, and I used my poles to shift my weight to it and my left leg and I literally limp my way down to the mountain, for entire 4 miles!  It took me almost the same time we hike up to the mountain to come down.   It was a long day, a long hike.   I was soooooo happy when I took off my hiking boots and elevated my leg.   I did an 8 plus mile hike, for 7 plus hours.   That’s huge.   Yes, it wasn’t my best day and I was a little discouraged by it,  but as I write this post, I know that I accomplished something.    And I’m pretty darn proud about it.