Shout out to my parents for giving me a name that I was able to portmanteau into a relevant blog name, and subsequently turn into a verb. Athletikating. That’s what I’m going to call working out from now on. Going to get athletikated.
It’s been 3 months since Seawheeze, and I’m starting to get an itch to get me out of the valley o’ fitness that I’m currently in. I peaked, and now I’m valley-ing. Both Joanna (my super aweseom running coach) and the anticipation of publishing a weekly #SeaKatyWheeze post this summer really kept me engaged with my training, and it felt good to have a big ol’ something to chip away at.
Hotel gyms aren’t my favorite, but it’s probably time we get reacquainted. I’ve been doing CrossFit when I can, but as the days shorten and temperatures drop, I’ve hardly done much running lately. I’m not very swole, and I’m not very flexy, except for when I let my schedule flex to miss (yet another) workout.
So, just like #SeaKatyWheeze, I’m selfishly starting the weekly gym ramblings up again. I need to. Kudos to everyone out there with all the intrinsic motivation in the world to keep on their meal prep, to make it to that 5am class daily. I am not that person. I need accountability, I need an event on the calendar, I need the fear that the internet is judging me for being a lazy bum in order to not actually be a lazy bum.
If these posts bore you… oh well. Time to start sweating with purpose again!
My Week in Workouts – 11/5/17
Sunday 11/5/17
Rest Day
This Work/Travel day got me GOOD. Leave the hotel at 6am, work until 8:30p then train/drive home and walk in the door just short of midnight? Fun stuff. I’d call that kind of schedule one of the rare days where “I just didn’t have time” was a legitimate excuse.
Monday 11/6/17
20min AMRAP
5 Push-ups (no knees allowed!)
10 Burpees
15 Air Squats
20 Situps
They had these superfood bowls in the work cafe on Monday, and it made me super full. Cauli rice, black beans, sweet potato, grilled chicken, kale, red onion, avocado & a squidge of cilantro lime drizzle. Yeah, it was amazeballs. It was also 2-3x the size of a normal lunch portion for me. I still hadn’t digested by the time CrossFit came around, and the thought of putting on a lifting belt for 10×1 at 95% back squats made me want to toss my cookies.
Having been so terrible at making workouts happen lately, I dug up an old instagram post from 4 years ago. I remember it featured a post-it note WOD that had unexpectedly kicked my rear end in a random hotel room in Charlotte, and it went something like this. I added the push-ups on top of the OG Post It and did my best not to sandbag.
Tuesday 11/7/17
Rest Day
I flew to Boston. By way of Detroit. I ended up delayed an extra 2 hours in the process.
Anyhow, the only thing I exercised was my bacon guacamole eating skills at this amazeballs Mexican place in Boston called Lolita. If you live in the area, go.
Wednesday 11/8/17
Rest Day
…because 15-hour work day. While I again didn’t fit in any exercise, at least I was in the zone and had a super productive day at work. I was at the Celtics game. Being in proximity of professional sports, does that count as a workout by osmosis?
Thursday 11/9/17
Rest Day
Travel day again. I *could* have worked out, but Wednesday took a lot out of me. by 4pm I was jonesing for dinner, and by 6pm I found a nail salon and did that instead. Sometimes you just need a brain break.
Friday 11/10/17
Rest Day
At this point, you’re likely wondering where the f*ck I get off calling this post a ‘week in workouts’ when by Friday I only sweat once. It was another long one at work. Could I have dragged myself out of bed earlier and done something like 100 burpees? I could have, but my hotel room was super small.
When you’re not in the mood, no matter how shitty of an excuse it is, you will use it to sit there and justify watching the TODAY show and googling the nearest Starbucks before going to work.
Saturday 11/11/17
Run 6mi
I could NOT let myself got a fifth day in a row without doing *something*. It was refrigerator temps yet sunny outside, so as soon as I got home from the airport, I dug up a turtleneck and some gloves and went on my merry way.
My whole mission was just to run for the sake of running. No paces, no walking, just get outside and go. With how inconsistent I’ve been with fitness lately, I was happy to finish the 6 miles in slightly under an hour.
With how much I travel, I should have more tricks up my sleeve for working out than I do excuses, but that’s obviously not how it’s been going lately.
Anyone out there have any words of advice or strategies you use to re-light that fire under your ass when you’re in a slump? Something tells me I already know the answer, and it’s “Sign up for another race already!”
Yep, my only advice is to sign up for a spring or late winter race! I’m still recovering from my fall marathon but having a January Half in a warm climate is giving me some inspiration to train through winter, then hopefully keep it up for spring halfs.
I think you’re on to something with a warm race-cation! I’ve been toying around with the idea of Disney’s Dark Side Star Wars Half Marathon in April, but I also know I’m going to want to stop and take a photo with every droid and storm trooper I see along the way, which kind of undermines the whole “I wanna PR” thing 🙂
Neghar Fonooni has a few hotel gym workouts on her site that use dumbbells and treadmills and the like–I would definitely check those out as I will even incorporate them into my normal training with heavier weight. They usually are quick, 20-minute sessions which makes them ideal for a quick morning workout before I start my day.
The other thing I’ll do is go swimming at the hotel pool–it’s a nice way to mix things up and seldom do you see people there in the early morning.
Thanks for the tip! Maybe wouldn’t be a half bad idea to grab a set of 15’s for home too.
Wherever you go that has a pool long enough for a swimmable lap, I envy you! Often the places I go are for work, and as soon as you push off the wall of those tiny hotel pools you find yourself 2 strokes from the other side.