Dranks and the gym

[Day 135]

Was planning on taking a ride this morning. Didn't, by virtue of spending last night getting wasted out of my mind and pretty much all of today dying because I was so hungover. Did go to the gym with Hayley, had a really chill session b/c I was still hungover...Opted to keep all the weights really conservatively low since it's been like a month since I was last in the gym.

Today's Workout: PM gym sesh w/ Hayley
Summary:

• Back squats: 3 x 12 @ 95#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45, 3 x 12 @ 75#
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12/12/8-4 @ 7 plates
• Straight arm cable pulldowns: 3 x 12 @ 5 plates
• DB rows: 3 x 12 @ 40#

Hit Rate: 9/10 (90%)

Taking tomorrow off and getting back at it next week. Happy Saturday! (:

Much love,

Jess

The fourth month has not been kind to the blogging

[Day 102]

Sorry. I'm trying. I swear.

Friday's PM Workout: Base run w/ Henry riding on a bike next to me offering words of encouragement the whole time
Summary: 8.67 mi, 1:18:45, 9:05 pace, 176 spm
Pace splits by mile: 8:59, 9:08, 9:07, 9:03, 9:03, 8:56, 9:10, 9:12, 9:09
Notes: Definitely felt like I was fading towards the end and it was a relatively flat run since I took the bike path instead of the footpath, but I'm still happy with the pace and effort overall.
Hit Rate: 98/108 (90.7%)

Saturday's Workout: Easy run, paced Helena through the Go! St. Louis 5k!
Summary: 3.15 mi, 31:20, 9:57 pace
Notes: Was definitely hoping to get to a point pace wise where she could finish strong but we underestimated the terrain and she wasn't really prepared for that so things started out a tad too fast and fell off a bit as time went on. I'm still super proud of her though, she took something crazy like 8 minutes off her last 5k! Hoping she keeps running and we can do this again with more races in the future.

Sunday's Workout: Trainer brick, 2 hours on the trainer (mix of speedwork/sprints and hill work) and 4 mi FAST off the bike
Summary:

• Trainer set:
• WU: 10 mins easy
• Pre-set: 8 x :30/:30 spin ups, 2 mins easy
• Main Set: 
• 8 x (3 mins on, 2 mins recovery) at 95 rpm, starting at base (big ring in front, 2nd biggest ring in back to start), going up one gear each minute
• 4 x 5 segments at base +3/+4/+5/+4/+3, alternating 2 min segments and 1 min segments by set (total climb times are 10/5/10/5), 2 mins easy spinning recoveries between 
• 8 x :45/:45 sprints @ base +1 
• 10 mins steady state (prep for transition) 
• Total time: 120 mins
• Summary: 29.13 mi, 2:00:37, 14.5 mph
• Trainer speed splits: 13.4, 15.3, 14.6, 14.9, 14.8, 14.1
• Transition: 1:03.3
• Run summary: 4.49 mi, 38:45, 8:38 pace, 181 spm
• Run splits by mile: 8:32, 8:44, 8:42, 8:35, 8:36

Notes: I was challenged by Henry to do the run under 9:00 pace average (for a reward of ice cream, which I didn't actually take in the end lol) and I would have never gone for it if he hadn't made that challenge, but I did and it went spectacularly well. Things oscillated between feeling tough and feeling remarkably easy but basically as long as I kept my cadence up I felt pretty strong. I pushed up the hills and found it pretty easy to recover after them and I was holding pace well in the flats which I struggle with sometimes so all in all I was very very very happy with how things went. I wasn't going to be this aggressive with my run at the race but people tell me the Clemson course is flat so I think I'm going to shoot for under 9:00 pace on my 10k and if it falls apart in the last 2 miles, then so be it. But given how that run went, I think I definitely have it in me and it would be shame not to give it a try so that's the game plan for now.

Hit Rate: 99/109 (90.8%)

Today's Workout: Gym sesh, last lift before racing! (~1:15)

Summary:

• Back squats: WU 8 @ 95# (was rotating with a friend, this was the weight she was doing so I just went with it), 5 x 8/6/8/8/8 @ 115/115/105/105/105 (disappointed that I had to drop down, but it was the right call, 115s were a real struggle)
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8/8/6/6 @ 155# (probably could have gone for 8s on the later sets but prioritized protecting my back, don't want to take any injury risks this close to competing, felt strong even though it was right after squatting, the big deadlift plates definitely help since the bar starts pretty far off the ground)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 10/10/10/7-3 @ 7+ plates (didn't go for sets of 12 because honestly I just didn't feel like it...)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 10/8/7 @ 85# (these continue to disappoint...just gotta keep doing the thing)
• Leg stability set: 2 x
• Single leg glut bridges: 10/side (body weight)
• Single leg Romanian deadlifts: 10/side @ 25# (one DB)
• Band squats: 20
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 25#/side (still not understanding how I can do 8-12 drop sets at 25#/15# but somehow I still can't hit full sets of 12 with just the 25s...)
• Single arm DB row: 3 x 12/side @ 40# (go. up. in. weight. And need more grip strength looool.)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Fly pulls w/ resistance cords: 4 x 30

Notes: I felt pretty weak today, which was sort of disappointing, but I also made a point of trying not to take myself too seriously. The point of today was just to remind my body to try and hold onto as much muscle as possible between now and when I race so the strength doesn't just fall right off my body, the details of how much weight I'm moving right now aren't super important. The other half of that story is the fact that I'm as strong as I've ever been in my life which means inevitably I'm going to get to a point where it gets harder to keep going up in weight without some changes to how much time I'm spending working on strength. I'll save the attempts at serious progress making for when I'm not so focused on triathlons, for now just holding close to this set point is fine by me. I also went to the gym in the middle of the day, which I never do, and I had an interesting revelation about how vulnerable I feel when I'm training and how it freaks me out to show that kind of vulnerability around others. The other thing that I realized though is that I need to be willing to take ownership of what I'm there for and what I'm doing. Sometimes I worry about what other people think about the random girl in the boy space at the gym but at the end of the day, I know exactly why I'm there and what I'm out to get and it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks about it. (And you know, I don't subscribe to the patriarchy and all and I need to stop talking like I do.)

Hit Rate: 100/110 (90.9%)

I was really tired after this but it seems like a good amount of coffee is bringing me back to life. Much school work to be done now. Tomorrow will be a swim in the morning and if there's good weather, a chill ride in the afternoon, either in Forest Park or maybe elsewhere if I'm feeling adventurous. We'll see. But it'll be chill. Because we're starting to err into taper territory...not officially yet (I've been hesitant about declaring a day as official start of taper) but I do want to get some decent recovery in so that'll be the point of the ride. Happy Monday!

Much love,

Jess

Blogging "every day" amirite?

[Day 95]

Tired right now. Break was great. Too lazy to go into all the details. Here just have the summaries.

Monday's Workout: Gym sesh w/ Henry
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 3 x 8 @ 115#, last set drop set for 12 @ 95#
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12 @ 90#
• Flat bench: 12 @ 55#, 3 x 12/8/6-2 @ 85#
• Trap bar deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 165# (split 6-2 or 5-3 just sort of depending...) - we just googled it and found out how much the bar weighs, turns out that's why those were sort of rough lol
• Legs superset: 3 x 
• 15 goblet squats @ 45#
• 15 split squats @ 15#/side (DBs)
• 15 reverse lunges @ 15#/side (DBs)
• Dips: 3 x 12 @ 50 lbs of assist
• Seated cable rows: 3 x 12 @ 70#

Hit Rate: 87/95 (91.5%)

Tuesday's Workout: Run

Summary: 8.66 mi, 1:23:24, 9:37 pace, 171 spm average

Pace splits by mile: 9:11, 9:31, 9:43, 9:43, 9:47, 9:38, 9:42, 10:13, 8:57

Things worth noting: I had really bad period cramps that started about a mile in, I ended up stopping at 1.5 mi and thinking that I would just have to walk home and call it a day, but the cramps faded and I ended up deciding that I should try and get through it anyways and if I had to, I would just walk when the cramps acted up. They didn't come back, so I got the rest of my workout in nice and smooth. Was glad I decided to stick it out. (:

Hit Rate: 88/96 (91.6%)

Wednesday's Workout: Indoor brick at the hotel gym

Summary: (continuous)

• 20 mins biking as 10 mins @ 6-8 warm up, 5 mins @ 9, 5 mins @ 10, all at 95 rpm
• 10 mins running @ 2% incline, 6.2-6.4 mph speed
• 20 mins biking as 5 mins @ 10, 5 mins @ 11, 5 mins @ 12, 5 mins @ 11
• 10 mins running @ 2% incline, 6.5 mph speed
• Summed totals:
• Biking: 11.50 mi, 40:06
• Running: 2.19 mi, 20:42

Things worth noting: So sore from the gym sesh...but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Hit Rate: 89/97 (91.7%)

Thursday's Workout: Stadiums at Princeton w/ Henry

Summary: 2 rounds of stadiums with rest between rounds, lower level only, alternating singles/doubles by staircase

Hit Rate: 90/98 (91.8%)

Friday's Workout: Indoor biking at the hotel gym

Summary: 17.68 mi, 1:01:03

• All at 90-95+ rpm
• WU: 10 mins @ 6-8
• Main Set: 9 x 5 mins @ 9/10/11/12/13/12/11/11/10
• WD: 5 mins working down from 10 to 6

Things worth noting: Henry had to kick me out of bed so I would do this. I really didn't wanna do it, but I'm glad I did. Stadiums were really bad to my ankles so I stuck with non-impact work.

Hit Rate: 91/99 (91.9%)

Saturday's Workout: Gym sesh w/ Henry, upper body only

Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 12/8/8 @ 85#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12/12/12/10-2 @ 90#
• Incline bench: 3 x 12 @ 65#
• Single arm DB rows: 3 x 12 @ 40#
• Shoulder press: 3 x 8-12 @ 25#-15#
• Bicep curls: 3 x 12 @ 20#
• Dips: 3 x 12/12/10 @ 40# of assist
• Superset: 3 x
• 12 lateral raises @ 12.5#
• 12 front plate raises @ 25#
• Leaning lateral raises, one set of 12/side @ 7.5#
• Skull crushers: 3 x 12/12/6-4 @ 15#/15#/15#-10#
• Machine flyes and reverse flyes: 3 sets of each, 12 reps, the weight was whatever Henry set the machine to (I think I did the same for normal and reverse flyes, which I guess says something ridiculous about my front/back strength ratios), alternating exercises

Hit Rate: 92/100 (92%)

Sunday: Rest day! Ah glorious rest days.

Today's AM Workout: Base run, 5 mi

Summary: 5.04 mi, 46:20, 9:12 pace, 175 spm

Pace splits by mile: 9:09, 9:18, 9:18, 9:09, 9:06

Notes: Felt sluggish, but got through it. Probs b/c I hadn't run fasted in a while and last week is catching up to me fatigue wise, but it's fine. I'm happy with this for a normal run of the mill run.

Hit Rate: 93/101 (92%)

Today's PM Workout: Outdoor ride w/ Hoang (who puuuuuushed me, it was awesome)

Summary: 28.87 mi, 1:43:33, 16.7 mph

Speed splits by mile: 16.2, 16.9, 16.3, 20.9, 16.5, 14.2

Notes: New 40k PR today, 1:25:44, kinda cool.

Hit Rate: 94/102 (92.1%)

Yayyyyyy. Swim tomorrow. Sleep now.

Much love,

Jess

"When it's dark you cannot be afraid"

[Day 76A]

Okay so expect posts for the next two weeks to be short and to the point. Part of it is because of time crunch related to upcoming exams and part of it is because honestly I've been feeling really unmotivated and unsatisfied and I want to prioritize directing my energy at getting things (like schoolwork and workouts) done rather than overthinking how crappy I feel right now. It's okay, we'll get through. (Shout-out to Henry for keeping my sorry ass on track even though I've literally wanted to skip every workout so far this week.)

Today's AM Workout: Gym, ~1:15
Summary:

• Squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 4 x 8/8/8/6 @ 115#
• Wasn't gonna go for set 4, I don't really know what made me do it anyways lol
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 4 x 12/10/6/6 @ 85# 
• These felt weak today, wasn't happy about that but whatever, just keeping grinding it'll come around eventually
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8/8/6/6 @ 155# 
• Not the cleanest lifting in terms of back involvement and grip strength is definitely an issue, will just take time/repetition to get better, I'm okay with that
• Pulldowns: 4 x 10-2/8-4/6-2/8-4 @ 7.5 plates alternating wide/narrow grip 
• I added the half plate today, the grip strength definitely cut into what I could do, as you can see I literally couldn't hold onto the bar...worse on the right side wide-gripping especially
• Lunges (DB weighted): 4 x 12/side @ 20#/side alternating forward/reverse by set 
• Had a knee kink on the L side in the middle of these because I was going pretty quick through them, probably worthwhile to slow down and take stock of form and all...
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12 @ 25#/side 
• Okay we're gonna bring these up to 30 lbs and see what rep scheme I can do with that kind of weight and go from there next time...or I might do some barbell work because it's been a while since I've push pressed, etc. etc. TBD
• Wanted to do DB rows, couldn't because I literally couldn't hold onto the weight so I opted out of those today. I guess it's going to take some time for the grip strength to adjust to my back being stronger...
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/12/10 @ 75# 
• Pretty happy w/ the rep counts, had some R elbow pain during the set probably relating to my forearms being pretty weak and having a hard time with stabilization, which is funny because my L elbow has been bothering me the past few days and that was the one I was expecting to give me problems. Unpredictable at times.

Hit Rate: 80/88 (90.9%)

Back to that med school grind now. 12 miler tonight. Stay tuned.

Much love,

Jess

The redemption workout

[Day 70]

It was raining in the morning so I opted for the gym instead of trying to ride in the cold/wet/slippery. Got a chance to get redemption for that pretty poor showing at the gym on Monday. Here's the rundown!

Today's Workout: AM Gym Sesh, ~1:40
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 4 x 8/8/5/5 @ 115# (failed out on rep 6 of set 3, so I didn’t go for more than that on set 4)
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 12/10/8 @ 85# (still working towards that 3 x 12...)
• Deadlifts: 4 x 6 @ 155# (YAAAAAAAAAS; lift felt good, grip needs work and/or straps)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates (need to go up on weight on this)
• Lunges (DB weighted): 3 x 12/side @ 15#/side, set 1 alternating forward/reverse, set 2 all forward, set 3 all reverse
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12/10/10 @ 25#/side (how is it that I can do 3 sets of 8-8 drops at 25#-15# but I can't get 3 normal sets of 12??? More work to be done...)
• DB row: 3 x 12 @ 40# (up weight?)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65# (I've been making some pretty great strides on these, pretty happy with how stable this lift feels now)
• Split squats (DB weighted): 3 x 12/side @ 15#/side
• Superset: 3 x 
• Bicep curls: 12 @ 20#/side
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 15#/side
• Superset: 3 x 
• DB lateral raises: 12 @ 12#/side
• Front plate raises: 12 @ 25# plate
• Band squats (bodyweight only): 20 

Hit Rate: 74/82 (90.2%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Lol I was there for a long time...I let myself take long rests and went for mostly straight normal sets. I had a really great time actually, I just happened to be there for a while. 
• Everything felt pretty solid today. Failing out a rep back squatting was kind of scary, but I just popped the bar back onto the guard rails and it was chill. I'm really enjoying finally having full depth instead of just hitting parallel and going back up. It's also convenient because stability at the bottom means if I do fail a rep it's not likely to hurt my back lol. We'll get back at it next week and try and work up to making the full sets of 8.
• I deadlifted all the weight. Am super happy about that. Gonna figure out what to do about the grip thing too...My grip was shot the rest of the workout so I kept the gloves off, which sorta sucks because my hands are still just like ew this is horrible. 
• I'm always reluctant to go up in weight on pulldowns but I really should...

Don't really have much else to report on. Morning swim and afternoon long run planned for tomorrow. Gonna prep for that standardized patient sesh now!

Much love,

Jess

When the weight on your shoulders doesn't make you feel any stronger

[Day 67A]

Days like today happen. Sometimes I get through them, sometimes I don't. All I could do was give it a swing today and if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. I got through 3.5 things in my workout and called it a day. Story later, summary first.

Today's AM Workout: Gym sesh, ~40 mins
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 3 x 12/10/8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 145#
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12/8-4/12 @ 7 plates alt. wide/narrow grip

Hit Rate: 70/77 (90.9%)

I had a late night last night. Anxiety/stress has been getting to me lately. I think I still have a really hard time justifying why I do this. I'm like literally one of the least athletic people I know, I just happened to have been involved in an endurance sport my entire life so it seems like I could pass for someone who is actually athletic but I'm really really not. Most people with a little bit of talent and some amount of training would fly by me when it comes to this stuff so I always find myself asking exactly why it is that I even bother funneling all this time and energy into something I'm just not very good at. And that's really discouraging. I'm still sorting those feelings out I guess.

But the point is, I was up late and I was thinking I would likely just have to pass on the gym this morning to make sure I got enough sleep but I ended up waking up at 5 am and thought about going back to bed but decided I should just suck it up and go to the gym. So I did. And I really wasn't into it. I got through the squats and bench and deadlifts alright but after that I just wanted to go home so badly. I sat around for a bit and eventually talked myself into hitting the pulldowns, but I didn't even finish all four sets of those. I just wanted to go home. So I did. Even though I did pretty well in terms of what I did do weight wise and rep scheme wise, I'm just really unhappy about quitting like that. I hate feeling like a quitter. I hate not enjoying what it is that I'm doing. I hate feeling like all of this is such a slog and I'm not getting anywhere and I need to work harder but my mind is so resistant to it right now. I'm giving it my best but my best is just a poor showing and I don't really know what to take from this other than that.

Henry's been trying to help me sort it out. He just wants me to be happy but I honestly don't know how to be happy with anything short of accomplishing exactly what I set out to accomplish. And right now that's not what's happening, so of course I'm not happy. Some people think the answer to that is to lower the bar, but honestly how is that any different from just falling short? It's like falling short but without even trying. That's gotta be worse. I dunno. Working through it. Easy run in the afternoon. We'll see where the day takes us.

Much love,
Jess

I am unstoppable (but also very tired)

[Day 61]

Double day report! So I was pretty ambitious with the gym plan as always. Didn't quite get all of it done, but had a solid 1.5 hr lift followed by some rowing so I'm not complaining at all. I was actually a little freaked out going into the workout because I knew it was gonna be a big day, but I really tried to be positive about it right from the get go (like literally from the moment my alarm went off) and I tried really hard to focus and talk myself up instead of down and it paid off so much. I felt like this was one of those days when taking myself seriously helped me instead of hurt me and I was able to accomplish so much by just telling myself that I could over and over again. I'm really proud of how this morning went down.

Today's AM Workout: Lift + rowing, 1.5 hrs + some
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 3 x 12 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 3 x 8 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 4 x 8 @ 135#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates, alt. wide/narrow grip
• Giant set: 3 rounds at 55#
• 8 clean and presses
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded forward lunges
• 12 bent over BB rows
• 6/side (12 total) back loaded reverse lunges
• Tried to do these no rest within rounds, rest between rounds. I didn't ever put the bar down within an exercise but I did put the bar down between exercises to reset/reload.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 65#
• Accessory work: 2 rounds of
• 12/side single leg bridges
• 12/side single leg Romanian deadlifts @ 25# (better on the R than on the L)
• 15 band squats
• Shoulder press: 3 x 12/7/5 @ 25#/side
• Rowing: 
• Set: 1000 m warm up, 1000 m hard, 500 m easy, 500 m hard, 500 m easy
• Numbers: 3521 m, 17:06 total time, 22 strokes/min average, 2:25.6 average per 500 m

Hit Rate: 65/71 (91.5%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Back squats: These were interesting...harder than I thought they would be. Or maybe just as hard as I should've been expecting. First round was rough, 6 straight and then 6 singles basically, I needed to stop at the top every time to breathe. On the second round I did a little bit better, found the pop in my legs towards the end when the reps were feeling a little desperate and all of a sudden everything got better. Felt like I was launching out of the bottom of my reps instead of squeezing them out, which was pretty cool. The third set was pretty bleh. Right knee spent almost all of the reps trying to cave inwards, so it was a good thing I did some stability work later in the day to try and get at that particular weakness. Next week I'm probably gonna go same weight same rep scheme, hopefully it'll feel a little more comfortable, I might throw in a drop set at the end if things are looking good. If that goes well, I'll try and push up to sets of 8 at 115#.
• Flat bench: felt strong, gonna try and work up to 12 rep sets.
• Deadlifts: THESE WERE SO SATISFYING. I was expecting them to be hard because they were hard last week (and I was only expecting to do 3 sets, not 4), but I think the pop I found with the squats really came out in the deadlifts too. I think getting my legs involved today was just easier than it typically is and I tried to focus more on driving the whole way into the lock out and they just came so easy. But then this happened...
  
  ...Which was pretty traumatizing. Um I'm super embarrassing. Don't know what I'm gonna do with this particular tidbit of information now. :\
• Giant set: More cardiovascularly taxing than I was expecting. I have to be better about not breaking between movements. Also on round 2 when I was getting tired I definitely unloaded the bar sort of unsafely a few times and caught myself and focused more and was better about it on round 3, but just for future sets like this I need to remember to be safe when I'm putting weight down. Probably going to try and up some reps on this the next time I do it. I wanted to play it safe with the lunging because I don't normally lunge with this much weight and I wanted alignment and form to be good, but I think I can go for more. 
• Incline bench: Super proud of this! Feels like I'm getting stronger every day or something. Gonna work my way up to 3 x 12. (:
• Accessory work: Should have probably done three rounds, but my brain was really going at this point...Sometimes when I don't control my core correctly, there's some back pain with the bridges, which can get exaggerated by the Romanian deadlifts. Gotta focus on that more so it's all done perfectly. 
• Shoulder press: Sadface this was so bad lol. First round was pretty solid and then I just had no push. Could've probably squeezed out more reps but my brain and my arms were just totally gone by this point. 
• Rowing: Couldn't decide if I wanted to go steady state or a few efforts so I threw some short efforts in there. My butt and hamstrings were really feeling this. 
• All in all it was a great morning workout. Also apparently I had A LOT of comments to make about this.

Between workout one and workout two was a looooooong med school day. I was pretty exhausted honestly by the time I got home and I vegged out for a bit but eventually convinced myself to take this run. I decided that because I wasn't feeling too hot, instead of running by time goal, I would run by effort. The original plan was to go 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard at under 8:45 pace (I think ideally the goal would have been to average around 8:30), 1 mi easy. I ended up playing it by feel and the numbers will speak for themselves.

Today's PM Workout: Tempo run as 2 mi easy, 4 mi hard, 1 mi easy by effort (no watch checking today)

Summary: 7.02 mi, 1:04:53, 9:14 average pace.

Pace splits by mile: 9:46, 10:02, 8:46, 8:50, 8:43, 8:38, 9:56

Hit Rate: 66/72 (91.6%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I was really hoping for faster splits in the tempo effort but it was the right effort so what am I gonna do about that right? Keep working, get faster, you can't force that kind of thing. 
• It felt really surge-y today, which isn't how I like my running to feel. My best running days tend to come with this kind of momentum that doesn't necessarily make the effort easier but does make maintaining a nice consistent pace easier. Today though, it felt like every time I stopped actively monitoring my pace, it fell off and I'd have to catch up again, which sort of sucked honestly. It was a tough 4 miles and I knew I wasn't going as fast as I wanted because I could sort of feel that just in terms of my stride length and ground contact time, so it was hard to feel slow and know that this was probably the limit to what effort I had to give.
• I was pretty wrecked after this workout. I came home and had a post-workout snack and showered but then pretty much like couldn't convince myself to move for another hour or so and eventually managed to do enough to make/eat dinner but it was a rough evening all told. The soreness is starting to set in from the morning too, so I stretched but we'll see how that changes overnight into tomorrow.

So I'm pretty tired now. It's a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm so behind on work though, which is a bit rough. Feel like I want to sleep in but also feel like an early start could help me a lot with how behind I am. Conflicted. Will work it out somehow. Trainer brick in the books for tomorrow in the afternoon. Freaked out but also a little excited. As hard as those days are, I get a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction out of running off the bike. Hopefully my legs will recover a bit overnight and cooperate with me tomorrow. Happy Super Tuesday! (:

Much love,

Jess

The comeback trail?

[Day 55]

Lol I love how I have basically made a saga of my trainer struggles at this point. Well today is the first high point in the adventure, so I guess I don't mind too much. Taking steps in the right direction! But let's start with where the day started.

Today's AM Workout: Gym sesh! (~1:25)
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 75#, 8 @ 105#, 2 x 6 @ 115#, 2 x 8 @ 105#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, 4 x 8/8/6/6 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 135# (I only did this weight because it was already on the bar and I was too lazy to change it)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 7 plates, alternating wide/narrow grip
• Superset: 4 rounds of
• Lunge hops: 20 total alternating 5/side, focusing on HEIGHT (and stability on the landing, which still needs some amount of work)
• Band squats (bodyweight): 15 (20 on the last round)
• Superset: 3 x 
• Seated DB shoulder press: 7 @ 30#/side, 12 @ 25#/side, 10 @ 25#/side
• Single arm DB row: 12/side @ 40#
• Incline bench: 3 x 12 @ 55#

Hit Rate: 59/64 (92.1%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Squats: I wanted to play with the big weight because now that I'm above 100 lbs I'm constantly like, AHHH IF I GET A BIT STRONGER I'LL BE WORKING WITH BODYWEIGHT, which strictly speaking is not even that true because 25 lbs is a long ways to go, but you know. Psychological heuristics don't always speak reason. Anyways, in reality, I need to get back to sets of 12 instead of sets of 8. I was doing the 8 getting back into the gym to try and protect my back. I've done a good job of it, I'm stronger now, I need to get back to doing sets of 12. That having been said, 8 is so much easier than 12 so I've been real lazy about trying to do this. No 115 next time, just straight 105 sets and the goal is more reps!
• Bench: Didn't feel as strong as I did last time I was at the gym. Probably because this was thing number 2 instead of thing number 1? I know some people think it doesn't make a difference because thing number 1 was a leg thing and there are no shared muscles but uh, you would be wrong. I'm always strongest at what I do first. In any case, went for an extra set today because why not. I kind of like doing more than 3 sets of things, maybe this will be something I do more often.
• Deads: Weight wasn't that bad, definitely came down with less control but the reps were mostly pretty solid. Last two-ish on each set tended to be a bit sketchy. No pain though so I think we're all clear. Also, BIG PLATES. 
• Pulldowns: Took probs more rest than I needed to between sets but I hit them all today without having to let go which was new. I was counting in sets of four, so I was trying to trick my mind into thinking it was doing 3 reps instead of 12, and weirdly enough I think it kinda worked. 
• Leg superset: Didn't want to blow my legs out too much before the ride today so did some more accessory work. Lunge hops are surprisingly hard to do right. Especially towards the end. 
• Push/pull superset: Lol um so tried the 30s for shoulder press, it was okay but not great, probably better off doing straight sets of 12s @ 25 for now until I get a bit stronger (in place of the 8/8 drop sets) so I can work up to being able to hit entire sets of 8 @ 30. Single arm rows felt great today, didn't have any of the issues I had last time I went for the 40 so I'm real happy about that. 
• Incline bench: Opted for less weight and more reps on this compared to last week because I didn't take any time after the other arm things so I didn't know where my shoulders were gonna be. Felt strong, would be happy going back up to 65 next time. 
• Wow I had a lot of thoughts today. Weird.

Today's PM Workout: Trainer ride, 115 mins (yeah, I know, I opted not to go for the 5 bs minutes to get me to 2 hours, whatever)

Summary:

• WU: 
• 10 mins easy 
• 8 x :30/:30 spin ups 
• 2 mins easy 
• Main Set: 
• 5/5/5 @ 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm 
• 2 mins easy 
• 3/3/3 same pattern 
• 2 mins easy 
• 2/2/2 same pattern 
• 2 mins easy 
• 1/1/1 same pattern 
• 4 mins easy 
• 3 x 5/2 @ 80-85/85-90/90-95 rpm by set 
• 2 extra minutes easy 
• Sprints: 2 x (6 x :45/:45 MAX sprints at base +1 over 100 rpm, 2 mins recovery) 
• WD: ~10 mins easy for a total of 115 mins 
• Totals: 27.63 mi, 1:56:47, 14.2 mph average

Hit Rate: 60/65 (92.3%)

Notes/thoughts:

• I was actually super freaked out about doing this but it went great. The 5/5/5 was tough towards the end but nowhere near as hard as it felt last week (I think I'm more rested) and neither was the split 3 x 5/2 at the end so either progress is being made or I'm feeling more rested. 
• I really liked getting to work with the pattern but in shorter intervals, I think I got a good workout and a confidence boost with regards to handling the workout intensity. I'm still trying to work through being really intimidated by this particular set and I think every time I take a step in the right direction it gives me a little more confidence in myself. 
• I killed the sprints today. The pace was so on point (see the Garmin file if you care), I was really happy with that. 
• It's worth noting I took about an hour nap before I did this workout, so maybe that played a role too? Idk. 
• I haven't decided what the progression is going to look like for next week...I will figure it out eventually lol.

AM swim tomorrow and that's it! It snowed today so I'm a little bit worried about ice on the trip out to the pool, but hopefully things will be okay (I have to bike out there tomorrow). Gotta study for that microbiology quiz now. Happy Wednesday! (:

Much love,

Jess

Jess doing stability/accessory work? What?

[Day 51]

Today's Workout: Gym sesh! 90 mins (:
Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 3 x 8/8/7 @ 85# + 12 push ups to finish (I probably should've kept going but uh they didn't feel too hot and this was an impromptu decision so I just let it go lol)
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12/10-2/8-4/8-4 @ 7 plates
• Leg superset: 3 rounds, no rest
• 15/side steps ups (no weight, just focusing on hip stability; my L is better at this than my R)
• 15 band squats (20 on the last round)
• Shoulder press: 3 x 8/8 @ 25#/15# (the next time you do this, go for 30# no drop, I wanna know if you can do the extra weight, take extra sets if you really feel like getting all the reps in)
• Back superset: 3 x
• Straight arm cable pulldowns: 12 @ 6 plates
• Low cable rows: 12 @ 7 plates
• Leg superset: 3 x
• 10/side alternating single leg bridges (from the bench, again focusing on hip stability)
• 10/side lunge & hops (you need to GET HIGHER and work on single-leg explosive movements more in general)
• Incline bench: 3 x 8 @ 65# (okay this increase in weight came outta nowhere and felt so good it blew my mind, maybe it's just the extra rest between the upper body things and this lift but it was awesome)
• Lateral/front raise superset: 12/12 @ 12#/side and 25# plate
• Single leg Romanian deadlifts: 10/side @ 20# (single DB; you can probably go up to 12 with a little more weight)
• Arms superset: 3 x
• DB bicep curls: 8 @ 20# (well good to know I can do more weight than I've been doing...)
• Overhead DB tricep extensions: 12 (mostly broken somewhere though) @ 25# (Okay what exactly do people do with failing reps on this exercise? Do you just get stuck at the bottom and die? #confused)

Hit Rate: 56/60 (93.3%)

I think the notes say most of what I wanted to say. I did stability/accessory work today! Because I wanted to save my legs for tomorrow. I was actually super surprised by how challenging the stability work is. I usually don't wanna do it because I would rather feel like a badass and move lots of weight around, but I'm realizing that not only is it really valuable but it's really challenging, and that makes me want to do more. Will maybe try and find a way to more regularly integrate this into my schedule. Although my schedule is so packed I have no idea how I could actually possibly do that. We'll see.

The weekly recap!

• 1 swim, 1 swim time trial, 2 gym sessions, 1 run, 1 trainer ride, 1 outdoor ride, and 1 trainer brick for a total of ~10:45 in 8 sessions. 
• Um this was sort of a strange week, because my plans got wonky on Thursday and then everything just sort of shifted around strangely. I've stayed pretty on track though and I'm happy with how the adjustments turned out in the end. It's been good work, nothing to complain about here.

Morning long run with friends in the morning, gonna hit my first 10 miler of 2016. Then just lots and lots of studying and more meal prep so I have loads of food to get me through the week. Happy Saturday!

Much love,

Jess

I have a lot of feelings.

[Day 46]

Fun facts: I don't handle myself very well. It takes a lot for me to be satisfied with myself and okay days or even good days generally don't make that mark. I had a rough time this morning at the gym and I'm still figuring out where I am given that. I wasn't as mentally present as I like to be, but sometimes it's just hard to be fully mentally present at 5 am and I'm willing to cut myself some degree of slack for that. The problem though is that I think honestly I've been falling back on Henry a lot these past couple days, I've really let him take the mental burdens for me because it's so much easier than stepping up and taking responsibility for my own efforts. As much as I know that having him around makes me better in a lot of ways, I also know I'm doing myself a disservice if I let that become an excuse for me to be less tough on myself because I know he'll pick up the slack. I wasn't 100% there and 100% committed this morning and I don't like that.

I definitely also totally psyched myself out this morning. I had such a mind-blowingly great lift on Thursday and to me all of that was from the kick I got from getting to take that lift fed and in the evening when my body was warm and ready to go. It scared me so hard to be getting back into the gym this morning because I felt the weight of wanting to hit those numbers again but knowing that I was going back to being fasted and cold. I was telling Henry about this on the way out there, some people feel a lot of pressure going into races/events, but I typically don't. I mean don't get me wrong, I get nervous and I'm hungry to do well but I think everything that I can possibly control about the race is already out of my hands. I build those races in the months that lead up to it and the day of is just a matter of execution and the right kind of luck because there are always race circumstances that are out of your control. But I feel pressure every day that I'm training, every time I lace up to run and every time I clip in on the trainer and every time I dive in the pool and every time I get under a bar at the gym, I feel so much pressure because those moments are what are going to make or break my races and every single workout feels so valuable and so important and so heavy sometimes. It sucks to fall short in those contexts, it really does, and that's where I feel the nerves and the pressure the most.

One of the things I've noticed about my benching especially is that what's going through my head on my first rep normally has a way of determining how the rest of the set goes. I've been trying really hard to tell myself that it's easy weight on that first rep, I just repeat that to myself over and over no matter how that first rep actually feels because I know it makes a difference in how many I end up being able to hit. I think today I was expecting everything to be harder because of the whole being fasted/cold thing and I think it definitely played into me not performing quite like I wanted to be. I'm bad at the mental game and I hate that because it seems like such a simple thing to fix. Just don't think like this. It's frustrating today.

The other things worth noting today are that I had a pretty rough morning post-workout. I felt fine immediately afterwards but after about an hour and getting some food into my system, I felt genuinely awful. I ended up taking about an hour nap just in Henry's lap on the couch trying to get put back together and I've been doing much better since, especially after lunch. It was not the start to my day I wanted though. I also sort of felt shitty because Henry was obviously going about his life being a perfectly functional normal human being but I was such a mess. It was just one of those situations where I felt awful for not being able to pull it together and just suck it up and be normal because someone who literally did the exact same workout as I did this morning happened to be sitting next to me and was perfectly fine. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel weak in an extra special way. -Sigh-

I should also comment on the swim meet yesterday. It was meant to be a dual meet with the SLU club team, but they dropped out due to weather (it was snowing yesterday) so we ended up holding a time trial instead. My swims were super slow, but also I was getting like a couple minutes between each swim so what was I expecting really. Regardless, it was a blast. I love racing, like deep down at the core of who I am I love racing. It didn't matter that the context was a casual time trial, my body goes places it would never go in practice when I'm racing and I love that feeling so much. There was a distinct point in the third 50 of my 200 free when literally everything in my body hurt and I was just like, awwwwwwww yes this is what I live for and I dug a bit deeper. Which made me feel sort of like a total weirdo, but hey, it's what I love to do. So I'm going to summarize yesterday and today!

Yesterday's Workout: WUSTL Swim Club Time Trial
Summary:

• Meet Warm Up:
• 200 free, 200 kick
• 8 x 50 sprint down/easy back 
• 8 x 25 IMO
• 2 x 25 breakouts off the blocks
• Swims: we were hand timing, so I don't have exact numbers
• 200 free: 2:20 low
• 100 back: 1:17 high
• 100 IM: 1:16 high
• 50 back: 35 mid
• WU/WD yardage: 350
• Total Distance: 1850 SCY (I counted this as 30 mins on my Garmin)

Hit Rate: 49/52 (94.2%)

Today's Workout: AM Lift w/ Henry

Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65#, working 5 x 8/8/8/6-2 @ 105#, 1 x 8 @ 95#
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 55#, working 3 x 8/8/6-2 @ 85#
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 125#
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12/12/9-3/12 @ 7 plates alt. wide/narrow grip
• Legs giant set: 3 x 
• Goblet squats: 15 @ 45#
• Weighted split squats: 15/side @ 15# DBs/side (these got split pretty heavily, they were real rough)
• Reverse lunges: 15/side @ 15# DBs/side
• Superset: 3 x
• BB push press: 12 @ 45#
• BB row: 12 @ 45#
• Superset: 3 x 
• Bicep curls: 12/side @ 15# (I should like probably be doing more weight but I'm always afraid I'm going to destroy my wrists or something...)
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 15# (I think I normally do these a bit lighter but it was fun to try and get through these at this weight. It was hard, I didn't do a great job, had to break them up a lot and had Henry spot quite a few of them, but it was fun to try.)

Hit Rate: 50/53 (94.3%)

The only note I have to say about this is that I repeated the set I did with Fay that one time, but after having back squatted already and subbing normal squats in for goblet squats and I would like to say that this set will f*ck you up. I honestly didn't even push super hard today because my brain was just not in it, but I can almost guarantee you that if you do this right and really fight to get the reps in consecutively it's the kind of metabolic work that would make you vomit. I'm gonna keep working at this, I wanna be fit enough that this set at this weight gets easy.

Okay end long post/rant. Need to get back to studying for physio. Happy Monday! (:

Much love,

Jess

"The tension is here..."

[Day 26]

"The tension is here between who you are and who you could be."

Google that if you don't know where it comes from, but I figure a lot of you will know what song that's from. Shuffle gifted me with this on the walk to school this morning. It was a nice morning pump up song. Thank you shuffle. (:

Today's Workout: Gym sesh! Upper body stuff.
Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45#, 3 x 10 @ 75#, 15 @ 55 (bonus round! lol)
• The bonus round burned my shoulders sooooooo hard
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 alternating wide/narrow @ 6 plates (need to go up in this next time...)
• Shoulder press: 3 drop sets with 25#/15#, rep counts of 8-8, 8-8, 5-8/5/2 (going for 15 lol)
• Effort on the last round of this wasn't where I wanted to be...Gotta stay in it more.
• Single arm DB row: 3 x 12 @ 40# 
• Opted for DBs instead of BB today because my back's not feeling super hot today.
• Wasn't getting full range of motion on a few reps on the left side, just something to think about more.
• Incline bench: 3 x 12 @ 55#
• Half of me wants to be like, this is literally no weight I don't know why this has been giving me so much trouble, but it had. I think this is the first time I've hit all 3 sets this year.
• Cable pulldowns: 3 x 15 @ 5 plates (up the weight next week)
• Superset: 3 x
• Bicep curls: 12 @ 15#/side
• Skull crushers: 12 @ 10#/side
• What is accessory/isolation work. Minimal rest between sets. Weight needs to be going up next time (lol if that ever happens again).
• Superset: 3 x 
• 12 lateral raises @ 10#/side
• 12 front raises w/ 25# plate

Hit Rate: 26/27 (96.2%)

I woke up with like a negative amount of motivation this morning, but I did get myself to the gym and do some number of the things, so I'll take it. Need to go heavier in a lot of things, need to not just quit on the terrible volume sets, pretty typical day outside of that. 

Body updates: My knee hurt when I woke up this morning so I axed the rowing I had planned for after the lift, hoping that just babying it today will help it feel better so I can try and run on it tomorrow. It's sort of discouraging that that's going on though. This is my problem with high effort trainer rides: Sometimes your form falls apart and it definitely shows in your body the next day (my knee, my back). My wrists were giving me the business yesterday and in the past week in general. They've just felt real loose and achy, so I was worried about how the lifting would treat them, but for the most part they felt fine during the workout and have continued to feel fine as the day goes on, so hopefully that's not an issue. If the joint issue thing continues to be a problem in the next few weeks I might seriously consider finding a joint supplement somewhere. I have terrible joints. They need all the help they can get.

That's all for today! Test run in the morning tomorrow (top out at 20 minutes easy on the treadmill) and a trainer ride in the PM on the books for tomorrow. Have a lovely Tuesday!

Much love,

Jess

Mixing it up with friends! (And the weekly recap!)

[Day 23]

I didn't go swimming in the morning. I woke up around 5 am and realized I didn't get nearly enough work done yesterday to be able to spend my extra time in the pool, so I used the time to get some work done instead (and was actually fairly productive, so it was time well spent). Just stuck to the original plan of hitting the gym w/ Fay and doing a leg day. I tried things out her way today, which was a lot more volume than I'm used to (even though she typically goes even more volume heavy than this - I now totally understand why Henry gets disgruntled about volume when he's working out with me). I had a ton of fun though, even though that first giant set was killer tough. It was nice just to like go to the gym and mix it up and do something new for a change. Everyone can use a change of pace every once in a while. (Isolation work? What even is isolation work?) We also met a dude at the gym who talked to me about music briefly and let me put on a playlist based around the latest Bring Me The Horizon album off of some cool app he had on his phone and I got to rock out while working out which was pretty awesome. (Also meeting new people was pretty cool. All in all, was a pretty cool morning.)

Today's Workout: AM Gym Sesh w/ Fay! (Yay workout buddies!)
Summary:

• Giant set: 3 x 
• 15 back squats @ 75#
• 15/side split squats @ 30# (DB)
• 15/side reverse lunges @ 30# (DB)
• Leg extensions: 3 x 12/12 drop sets of 90/50#
• Seated hamstring curls: 3 x 15 @ 70#
• Leg press: 3 x 15 @ 130/150/150#
• Not super strict about rests/pauses/etc.

Hit Rate: 23/24 (95.8%)

I have no important notes or thoughts lol. I think I was having too much fun maybe. xD I just kept wanting to like jump up and grab pull up bars and just hang off of things and do handstands. It was silly. It wasn't like my legs weren't hurting or I wasn't actually working or whatever, I just had a lot of energy and was having a really good time. (Maybe it was because it was a 9 am workout so I got to eat breakfast a couple hours before and energy stores were looking good? Hmmmmm...I wonder. But also maybe because friends make everything happier? Hmmmmmmmm...more wondering.) Things feel good now, legs are a bit tired but definitely doing okay. Will try to maybe do some core work tonight and will definitely be stretching. 

The week in review!

• 1 run, 2 lifts, 2 dryland sessions (circuit + rowing, just rowing), 2 trainer rides, and 1 swim for a total of ~9:15 (8 sessions total)
• It's been a weird week. I guess that's what happens when you get injured. I sort of thought I would end up upping the swims and bikes more to compensate for running less but I guess I just went the "go to the gym more" route. Which is fun, and this wasn't yet a serious week, so I have no qualms about it being just fun.
• Next week gets more serious though, that's sort of what I consider my first week into a real block of training. The block will be focused on quality riding and swimming but the first week will really just be an ease into it kind of week. I'm going to take tomorrow (Sunday) off and the Saturday at the end of the week off to get back on my Saturdays off schedule, so it'll only be a five day training week (yaaaaas) but I'm still going to try and get 8 workouts in so we'll see how that goes. The breakdown as of right now is 3 swims (praying for not super freezing weather so I can bike out to practices), 2 trainer rides, 1 gym sesh, and hopefully 2 short runs to get back to running (first one on Wednesday, fingers crossed that the IT band holds out!). I think the overall breakdown of number of workouts will be comparable in the next few weeks as they had been in the past two weeks, I'll just shift my focus a little bit to cater more to the "important" days (and of course many of those workouts will be seeing increases in length...yay...).

In completely unrelated news, I bought myself two massive tubs of ice cream after the health screening today, so I should have enough ice cream to last me the remainder of my lifetime. Awwwwwww yeah.

More med school learnings time now!

Much love,

Jess

Oops...missed a day! D:

[Day 18]

Lol whoops, I guess I forgot about day 17 didn't I? The funny thing is, I keep this tab open on my browser with a draft for each day so that I don't forget to write a post. Amazingly enough, I did not open my computer all of yesterday, so I totally forgot that I had to do this. I guess my New Years Resolutions last just about as long as everyone else's. But one slip up is not the end of the world, we'll try not to do that again moving forward.

Updates from yesterday: We skied, it was awesome, I'm not really sure there's much more to say than that. I hit a few harder runs, got to be a little more aggressive with the skiing and the speed, it was a blast. There were some nasty ice patches, as to be expected from a mild day followed by a colder day, but it was blue skies and good visibility so honestly I'm not going to complain. Conditions were good by east coast standards. My right knee got a little sore by the end of the day and my left calf was tight basically the whole day, but other than that the body held up pretty well overall as well so I was happy about that. We got home not too late, ate out, generally had a blast, I forgot to blog, and that's about it!

We decided to go to the gym this morning because I had an afternoon flight out so we figured we'd have time. It was a bit of an early morning, but it was totally worth it. I really enjoy lifting with my other half, who humoured me today and let me call the shots about what we did. I mean there was some amount of negotiation about the details, but he definitely let me have my way for the most part. Having a spotter is so key. Also having rest intervals somewhat concretely dictated by my partner finishing his set also kept me honest. It was a long session but I had a blast and I'm glad I got a workout in on a day when I wasn't expecting to!

(Also as an aside: It's an amazing thing to have my goals supported by someone this way. I think it's really hard to try and be successful at anything all by yourself. It's definitely possible, but it's insanely hard and mad props to anyone who manages to make that happen. I for one know I wouldn't be where I am today without all the people who have supported me my entire life. And right now, it's really all Henry, who is willing to be the bad guy who kicks me out of the warmth of my bed in the morning on my lazy days and is willing to give up cozy long weekend Monday mornings in bed to go lift with me and is willing to run with me on the back half of my bricks because he knows that he's motivating. He is literally the definition of surrounding yourself with people who make you better. It's crazy to have someone lend so much of their strength and energy to help you achieve what you want to achieve. I have the best one-man support team in the world and he really does put this entire operation on his back. Okay end sappy #blessed moment.)

Today's Workout: Gym session, ~90 mins
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65 lbs, 5 x 8 @ 95 lbs
• Pulldowns: 3 x 12 @ 80 lbs
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45, 3 x 8 @ 75 lbs 
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 115 lbs
• Seated DB shoulder press: 12 @ 20 lbs/side, 8-12 @ 25-15 lbs/side, 5-8 @ 20-15 lbs/side
• Single-arm DB rows: 3 x 12 @ 35 lbs
• Walking lunges: 3 x 12/side @ 40 lbs (BB)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12 @ 55 lbs, last set split 6-6 because I never hit all the reps on this for some reason...
• Superset: 3 x 12/12
• Front raises w/ a 25 plate
• Lateral raises, 10 lbs/side (did the last set single arm leaning against a wall 12 @ 7.5 lbs)

Hit Rate: 16/17 (94.1%)

Notes/thoughts:

• Either reps are going up next week or weight is going up next week on those back squats...we shall see...
• I definitely took a shot at 85 lbs on the bench today b/c someone was there to spot me. Yeah no, not happening, that's basically 2RM weight for me. It's amazing the difference 10 lbs makes.
• The weight got real arbitrary on the shoulder press. Was just trying to see what I could do since it's been a while. I think the realistic goal going forward is 3 x 6/8-8 @ 25-15?
• Henry called out my momentum shit on the rows, which I have a reasonable defending argument for, but just to prove a point I did the last set of them strict and was reasonably surprised to find that I can in fact still hit all the reps that way. 
• I wish I was strong. But wishing that I was strong really doesn't get me anywhere, I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing and trusting in the process. I'll get better, I just need to give it time.
• I am tired and definitely feel a bit weak, but I don't feel terrible today. I have a reasonable amount of hope that I'll feel fine tomorrow morning, fingers crossed!

The plan for tomorrow is a treadmill run (and some core stuff...?) in the morning and a trainer ride in the afternoon. The run will be of 800 repeats at not very aggressive paces, just trying to ease back into running fast and working hard and all that jazz. The trainer ride will be a grab bag of random things, just trying to build fitness and keep it interesting all at the same time. The real problem in my life right now is that I took an awesome vacation and am now behind on literally everything else going on in my life. It'll take me a while to sort that out...Trying to hold onto the schedule while making the rest of my life happen this week will probably be tough. Some things might get dropped, some plans might get changed. We'll see though, I'm gonna do my best with this. Back to real life now! (:

Much love,

Jess

Check your ego at the door

[Day 4]

Aw yeah getting back in the gym. Feeling super weak, even by my standards (not that I was ever strong to start with). Definitely just sort of gave up on my last real lifting exercise because my arms were failing me and I can only drop weight on myself so many times while my fellow early morning gym-goers look on before I tell myself that it's probably just time to move on with my life. xD Anyways, here's the update:

Today's Workout: Gym + short treadmill run
Summary:

• Back squats: WU 12 @ 65 lbs, 5 x 8 @ 85 lbs
• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, 3 x 10/8/6 @ 75 lbs + drop set of 10 @ 55 lbs (last set)
• Deadlifts: 3 x 8 @ 95 lbs
• Pulldowns: alt. wide/narrow grip, 4 x 12 @ 6 plates
• Giant set: 3 rounds, full rest between rounds
• 12 box jumps
• 12 single arm DB shoulder press (seated today because my legs were blown) @ 15 lbs
• 12 single arm DB rows @ 35 lbs
• Incline bench: 1 complete set of 10 at 55 lbs, 1 broken set of 10 because I dropped the bar twice, then I decided to just call that a day.
• Treadmill run: easy 20 minute run (6.0-6.5 speed)
• Treadmill stats: 2.15 mi, 21:20
• Garmin stats: 2.03 mi, 21:08, 10:23 pace
• Core/mobility superset: 3 rounds
• 12/side of cable low to high core pulls @ 2 plates
• 20 bodyweight band squats
• Total Time: ~ 1:45

Hit Rate: 2/2 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• My legs were getting wrecked by the squats. They just wanted to keep seizing between sets so I had to stretch a lot. Protecting my back during that lift actually loads my legs a lot more, which I guess is the idea, but it's sad that it makes me functionally weaker. Probably going to up reps before I try to up weight, I want to make sure that I'm lifting right and I won't throw out my back again.
• Deadlifting today was the first time I'd done that since I injured myself way back in May or whenever it was. I went real light, not very many reps or sets, just want to get back into the swing of it and make sure I'm teaching myself how to protect my back through the lift. We'll see how my back feels the rest of the day and tomorrow, but as of right now, it's perfectly normal so hopefully things stay that way.
• I was pretty much ready to go home by the time I was doing pulldowns. Maybe it was because my forearms were feeling really destroyed and that always makes me just grouchy, but I'm amazed I then got through the rest of the workout somehow. There were a couple roadblocks today, including how I felt during the pulldowns and dropping weight on myself during incline bench, and yet somehow I stuck it out and finished which really amazes me. It was like one of the bad long runs, I just kept telling myself to do one more set or to run for one more song and eventually I was at the end. Good job Jess. (:
• Running after lifting sucks. As does lifting after running. Which I guess is why it's important to do both things separately and together. Separately so neither thing gets compromised, together to get better at running on tired legs and maintaining strength even when you're aerobically drained. 
• I'm really not happy with where I'm at in terms of fitness (probably because it's day 2 of real training) but I was very happy with the effort today. I could have probably totally justified doing less and just going home early, but I didn't, and I'm glad I got through it. 

In other news, my sleep schedule is so wonky. I slept from 3 pm to 9:30 pm yesterday, ended up doing some work with emails and then tried to go back to sleep but couldn't because I was hungry, so I got up and made myself noodles and went back to sleep for a few hours at around 12:30 am. I'm really not sure how this day is going to play out but uh...wish me luck...

Food/shower/school time! (:

Much love,
Jess

The rain can't stop us!

I woke up to a soft drizzle this morning. I didn't want to run the risk of getting caught in a bigger storm on my bike so I opted out of swim practice and decided to go to the gym instead. Since I woke up so ridiculously early, it meant I had loads of time this morning after I got home to Skype my family and eat breakfast and generally chill before the day really got started. The gym session was pretty chill. I wasn't very strong today, which was a bummer, but it was nice just to get in there and move some weight around. I also tried to focus on some of those pre-hab/re-hab things and did some stability work which was much needed and will hopefully be appreciated by my body. Here's the rundown!

Today's Workout: AM Gym, ~1 hr.
Summary:

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, working 3 x 10/8/7 @ 75 lbs, burn out 12 @ 55 lbs 
• Pull downs: 4 x 12 alt. wide/narrow grip @ 6 plates 
• Squats: 4 x 20/12/20/12 alt. bodyweight w/ band and goblet @ 35 lbs
• Superset: 3 x
• DB row: 12/side @ 35 lbs
• Single arm standing shoulder press: 12/side @ 15 lbs (that core work though)
• Step ups: 3 x 12/side @ 15/10/10 lbs/side (dropped the weight down because of hip sway, still focusing on that glute engagement)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 55 lbs
• Superset: 3 x
• DB curl: 12/side @ 15 lbs
• DB skull crushers: 12 @ 10 lbs/side
• No rest: 3 x
• 20 bridge w/ leg extensions
• 20 bodyweight forward lunges

Hit Rate: 7/8 (87.5%)

I guess I'm gonna try and hit the pool on Thursday or Friday (probably Thursday, because Thursday night is the Pats game and I will probably want to watch that and sleep in on Friday). First up is tomorrow's treadmill workout though! That's all for today. (:

Much love,

Jess

No room for ego

I forgot where I had first heard that, but somewhere along the line I had picked up the phrase, "There's no space for your ego at the gym". It's a crazy true statement, especially given where I'm at right now. Having not seriously or consistently been in the gym for almost half a year now and nursing this back injury meant that I had to be okay with what almost felt like going through the motions at the gym. Wanting to do everything the right way and the safe way meant there wasn't much pushing (and to be honest, the combination of it being early and me being not super pain adapted right now meant I didn't really want to push that hard anyways) and a lot of generally being weaker than I want to be. Had to check my ego at the door and just work smart today, gotta trust in the long-term plan and be patient. Despite not being as strong or as healthy as I want to be, it was a good way to start the day and I know it's just another starting point. I'm going to try and get back into the gym more regularly, at least once a week, so I can start building back some strength and so I have an opportunity to do more work on stability and movement efficiency. Here's the run down of my hour.

Today's Workout: Gym, full body, compound focused, stability-focused lower body work

• Flat bench: WU 12 @ 45 lbs, working 3 x 8 @ 75 lbs, burnout 12 @ 55 lbs
• Pulldowns: 4 x 12 @ 6 plates (I don't know these weights...) alternating wide/narrow grip by set
• Squats w/ band around knees: 20 bodyweight, 12 overhead w/ small bar (25 lbs?), 20 bodyweight
• DB shoulder press: 3 x 12/12/8-3 @ 20 lbs/side
• DB row: 3 x 12/side @ 35 lbs
• Step ups: 3 x 12/side @ 15/side (DBs) - focus was on keeping hips even throughout movement (stable lower spine)
• Incline bench: 3 x 12/10/8 @ 55 lbs
• Stretch cord butterfly: 3 x 20
• Back extensions: 12 w/ 10 lbs, 12 bodyweight

Hit Rate: 3/3 (100%)

In other news, today I changed my first flat! Which was an adventure and harder than I thought it would be, but I did it, and I'm immensely proud. I then took my bike to the post office so I could mail something and made sure that it was in fact functional, and it is! So I will be taking it out tomorrow morning to swim practice very early in the morning. Time for me to clean up the cookware from dinner and hit the sack super early so I can be up super early! Yay!

Much love,

Jess