Being "Fit"—Updating my fitness routine and goals
Summer 2019 was the summer of fitness for me. Not to imply that I’m not normally doing anything to stay fit. I’m all about my health and fitness. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll already know I love to run. I run five to seven days a week and use to be pretty active when it comes to racing (check out my post all about marathon running or my YouTube series: The Running Diaries). Running has been one of my passion since I was 18. It’s my go-to exercise for keeping my mental health, you know, healthy. And as a naturally anxious person, I find a lot of comfort in knowing that at any point in time I could run at least 10 miles at a pretty fast pace—just in case disaster strikes. Who needs a go-bag when you can run 3 miles at a 7-minute mile pace in high heels?*
So what do I mean by my “summer of fitness”? Over the summer, I ended up working on a contract freelance gig with Nike Training. As I mentioned briefly in my last post, this led to me testing out Nike Training workouts on top of my normal running. So many workouts! From an “easy summer” and “free time” standpoint, this was not ideal. I was suddenly doing my normal five runs a week and 3 to 4 training sessions. It took up a lot of my non-working time. But from an overall fitness standpoint, it was fantastic.
My past Fitness
So before I get too ahead of myself, I thought it is worth doing a little catchup for anyone who’s newer to my blog. My personal fitness level took a bit of a dive about three years ago when I moved to China. Prior to moving, I was racing and boxing (like a lot) and I was probably the most fit I’ve ever been. My core strength was the best I’ve gotten it to (so far), my running pace and stamina were on point for my goals, and I just felt really good in my body. Then I got sick. Over the course of about 6 months, I endured hospital stays, high pollution levels, and reoccurring illnesses—a big knock to my overall fitness. I returned stateside with a goal to build back up my strength training and cardiovascular fitness to my pre-China levels.
Three Years Later
It’s been three years since I’ve come back to the states and made myself the promise to “get fit” again. So how am I doing on my goals? I started off really strong. I started with running because it’s my favorite sport. I set my goals—to run a marathon—signed up, trained, and did it! (Yay me!) But then what? If you followed the running diaries you’ll notice I stopped posting since I completed my marathon. I haven’t stopped running, but I did stop focusing on racing and distance. This is when things got a bit… stagnate.
I knew that if I wanted to make real progress, I needed to bring in something at would really work on my strength (like the boxing had all those years ago). Despite knowing this, it took me probably a solid year before I got serious about it and upped my routine to encompass cardio and strength training. My summer routine went a little something like this:
Monday — 3-5 mile run + 20-30 minutes NTC workout
Tuesday — 6 mile run + 11-20 minutes of Kait Hurly Move+Mediate
Wednesday — 3-5 mile run + 20-30 minutes NTC workout
Thursday — 6 mile run + 11-20 minutes of Kait Hurly Move+Mediate
Friday — 3-5 mile run + 20-30 minutes NTC workout
Saturday & Sunday — Rest days w/optional yoga
I started this summer routine with a focus on foundational strength training (Betina Gozo’s workouts in the NTC app). I stuck with these style of workouts for about six weeks before swapping things up for the next six weeks with HIT, high-intensity training, workouts through NTC (Kristy Godso’s workouts). I found this to be an incredibly effective way to “kick my butt” into gear. I could feel (and see) real progress and for the first time in years, I started to feel really good in my body again. So now what? With summer ended, how will I maintain my progress?
Looking forward
Throughout the summer, I was fortunate enough to have free access to all the NTC premium workouts, a nice little work perk. Access normally runs $14.99 a month. Unfortunately, this meant that when I was finished working at Nike, I had to make a choice: Stick with my NTC routine and pay for the membership or switch things up again. While I enjoyed the workout over the summer and they for sure helped improve my overall strength, my honest assessment is that I don’t enjoy them enough to stick to it long term. So I decided to spend the first part of September trying out a few other workouts that had been on my bucket list: Barre and aerial yoga. Barre has interested me for a long time. It’s a fantastic strength training workout that also combines elements of dance (as a former ballet dancer, that was really appealing to me). I’m a big fan of quality workouts combined with enjoyable sports. After a couple of weeks of taking free trial classes, I’m definitely hooked.
My routine for fall will look a bit like this:
Monday — 3-5 mile run + 60 minute Barre
Tuesday — 6 mile run + 11-20 minutes of Kait Hurly Move+Mediate
Wednesday — 3-5 mile run + Barre or yoga
Thursday — 6 mile run + 11-20 minutes of Kait Hurly Move+Mediate
Friday — 3-5 mile run + Barre or yoga
Saturday & Sunday — Rest days w/optional yoga (+ a morning Barre class if I missed a workweek workout).
In the end, it’s a little more relaxed then what I did over the summer (and likely more sustainable and fun over time).