Workout Recap and Weekly Goals: Comfy Chairs, Run Parties, and Runner's Boot Camp

Hi guys! 

It's a short work week! YAY! Even BarBri, my bar review company, has seen fit to not schedule any assignments for July 4. Woot! 

I studied all day Friday, so my weekend officially started when I had dinner with Julianne at Peacefood Cafe and then saw The Heat with her. We both enjoyed the movie a lot (go see it!), but the highlight of the night was definitely these chairs:

The AMC movie theater at W 84th Street now has leather reclining seats!!!! To say we were excited is a gross understatement. We could not stop talking about how cool they were and now I basically want to spend every night hanging out in these.

I mean, you can have your legs sticking straight out! I've officially found the perfect post-long run activity. Movie time!!

Saturday was full of an insane amount of working out, as I'll further explain in my workout recap, and of course -- more studying! June is apparently the "easy" month of bar prep. So... July should be fun.

Sunday consisted of brunch with friends at the always delicious Spring Natural Kitchen then my happy place: the farmer's market. I apologize to Erica and Laura for interrupting our conversation to yell "PEACHES!" when I saw them at a stall. But... peaches! The advent of true summer fruit at the farmer's market is cause for celebration.

Did anyone read about the helicopter that had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson yesterday? I ran past the scene as the helicopter was being towed away! I asked a reporter what was going on since there were so many emergency responders and media members at 79th Street (right by Boat Basin, for the New Yorkers reading this).

Thankfully everyone onboard was safe!! The top picture is of reporters circling a car as someone involved in the crash left -- I believe it was the pilot? The lower one is of the tugboat towing the helicopter.


Workout Recap
Here were my planned workouts for this past week:

• 2 yoga classes
• 2 60 min. strength workouts (an Uplift Strength class and my Runner's Boot Camp)
• 2 easy runs (30 minutes and 5 miles)
• 1 long run (10 miles)
• 1 recovery run (3 miles)

Here are the workouts I did -- got in everything except for the 30 minute easy run, which I only did 25 minutes of because I slept in and then ran on a treadmill before class. Mistake noted -- wake up and get runs done first thing!

Monday: 75 min. RELAX yoga class at Strala.

Hot and sweaty on a 99 degree day but a great class, as always. The class is very restorative, so you finish feeling stretched and recharged, but not tired.

Tuesday: (1) 25 min. easy run (~2 miles) on treadmill. (2) 55 min. Uplift - Strength class.

Slept in until 7:45, at which point it was already too hot to run outside. I decided to run on the treadmills at Uplift Studios before class, since my building's gym isn't well air conditioned, but ended up running a bit late and only being able to fit in 25 minutes before class started. Treadmills are really tough at Uplift for some reason, like tougher than outside running, so I felt like I'd basically gotten in the workout!

The Strength class was taught by Liz Barnet and was super tough. I'd heard her recommended before as being a great instructor and I can see why. She wasn't crazy high energy, rather, she just conducted a great class that left me totally worn out. It's rare that I have to pause so many times in a workout! I'll definitely be back for one of her classes.

Wednesday: Rest day. Bought new shoes! Brooks Adrenaline 13's. So far, so good!

Thursday: (1) 5 miles + 4 x 20 sec. strides (51:42) in Central Park.

Hot and sweaty early AM miles with Ashley and Heather. Kept the pace easy although nothing feels totally easy when the humidity is 70%! Finished with strides, which were all over the place because I was on the sidewalk: (1) 8:10, (2) 6:14, (3) 6:48, (4) 7:08. Need to do them in the park next time if I want to maximize their utility.

Friday: Rest day. Was planning on doing my long run but woke up with a nasty headache and pushed it to Saturday. This was not ideal as it meant about 4 hours of working out on Saturday. But running with a splitting headache is also not ideal, so... trade-offs! Spent quality time with this fluffy furball while I studied.

Saturday: (1) 10 mile long run along the East River and West Side Highway. (2) 60 min. Runner's Boot Camp Class. (3) 60 min. yoga class.

I just want to say: DO NOT DO THIS. I only did a long run and strength workout AND yoga class because I had to push back the long run and (1) it would be terrible to do a long run the morning after an intense boot camp, (2) I could not cancel my boot camp (obviously!), and (3) I knew the deep stretching of yoga would do me much more good than harm after a long day as long as I took it easy and concentrated on stretching rather than strengthening.

But for real, guys, this is too much working out in one day and should only occur under very special circumstances.

Long run party!! Me, Theodora, Meghan, and Ashley

Unfortunately I forgot to restart my Garmin, so I don't have splits, but we kept it quite easy with an average of 10:15-10:30 or so. I definitely felt like I could have kept going for a while at that pace. I didn't feel like I had any fuel issues this time around, either -- had a quinoa salad and split an order of Peacefood Cafe's chickpea fries (they are the best, just FYI) the night before then had a Picky Bar for breakfast and 3 sport beans to fuel right before the run.

I am loving training and running right now, despite the heat, and part of the reason why is that I am almost always running with friends. 10 miles on a hot and humid day could be miserable, but between the four of us we always had a conversation going and the miles really flew by until the last .8 or so, when we were all ready to be done! We all ran slightly different distances, with Megan and I running beforehand to get some extra mileage and Theodora running after.

I've also discovered that I am obsessed with frozen banana-based smoothies. Post-run, Meghan, Ashley and I got smoothies from Barry's Bootcamp (yes, we designed our route to end there for smoothies). Then, after getting home, I couldn't think of anything I wanted for lunch more than a cold frozen banana smoothie (this time with chocolate protein powder and peanut butter).

Wow, this event was simply awesome. I will have MUCH more to say about it tomorrow, with tons of pictures, the playlist, and the workout that Amanda put us through! Yes, for those who could not attend, Amanda has generously agreed to share the exact workout that she used on us!! Super excited to share it :)

For now, I'll just say the workout consisted of a dynamic warm-up, two circuits -- one lower body and one core-focused -- that we repeated twice, and a nice stretching session.

And finally, yoga.

I love Amanda's backyard yoga class. So freaking much. There's just no way I can convey the feeling of centeredness you get practicing yoga and looking up at the sky, feeling the breeze, and hearing birds chirp. Somehow, in Amanda's backyard, the sounds of the city fade away and you concentrate on being outside and moving. It's amazing. (If you'd like to learn more about her yoga classes, email her at amandarosewalsh at gmail.com to get on her yoga schedule mailing list!)

Amanda's yoga class is also freaking hard. You hold poses for a while, which is amazing for strength and precision, but tough after a long day of workouts. So I took it veeeeery easy because I'm being smart this training cycle and not trying to overtrain! Also, I did not want to die.

Sunday: 3 mile recovery run (32:12) in Riverside Park.

Took it nice and easy (average was 10:45ish) and chatted on the phone with my mom as I ran along the Hudson. Yes, I was that girl, but it was great to get some time to chat with her!

Total Mileage = 20.25 miles


This Week's Training Schedule:

Ramping up the mileage! This is the last week where my long run is a distance I've done before. I'll be in New Jersey for the July 4 holiday weekend, and will be checking out some new running trails out there, which I'm really excited about. I love NYC, but after a while the same old running haunts get dull. It'll be neat to be in a new place!

• 1 Barry's Bootcamp class
• 1 easy run (50 minutes)
• 1 tempo run
• 2 short strength workouts (30 mins each)
• 1 long run (12 miles)
• 1 recovery run (25 mins)
• 1 yoga class

It's a packed week, and I also have to report for jury duty and take a practice half-day bar exam, but I'm psyched!!


What are your workout goals this week? How was your weekend?