Last week’s challenge is done and dusted and I managed to get all of my tasks/points for the first round. I limped to the finish line but I did it!
Disclaimer- The next part is going to be something humorous that happened in our home involving covid vaccines. This is in no way meant to pressure anyone to get vaccines, be used as propaganda for vaccines or give any kind of political spin. It’s just a story. Please feel free to skip if anything involving vaccines is triggering; I’m not looking to make any kind of statement here! That being said, please be kind, it’s just a story.
As you’ve probably heard by now, the Covid vaccine has been approved for kids ages 5-11. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go over or what the reaction would be since these vaccines have had their fair share of controversy. To my surprise, the shot was approved mid last week (I think) and my kids already were coming home talking about their friends who ‘already had the shot’.
Y’all you’d think that these shot came with a pot of gold the way my kids, especially my daughter are acting. My son turned 12 over the weekend and the plan was always for him to get his shot after his 12th birthday. We had a conversation about the vaccine and I am surprised every time to see my kids react in horror when I float the possibility of waiting for the shot. I said to my son that maybe we would wait until spring and he went all I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WON’T LET ME GET IT - like he had asked for a beer and I had said no. I hadn’t even said no, I just thought maybe we would be play it by ear. Several of his friends already have had the shot and like needing the elusive PS5, he has his mind made up. Fortunately our middle and high school does vaccine clinics at the school so the kids can get their shot during the school day without interrupting their routine. They are running a vaccine clinic later this week and he will go then to get his shot.
This is a real issue with my daughter, who is only 9 about to turn 10. She’s got issues with FOMO anyway as I’ve described in the past. Now she’s facing the possibility that she will be the only one in our house who hasn’t had the shot. Before last week, when the shot wasn’t approved for 5-11, she was annoyed but understood there was nothing she could do to change things. Now that the shot has been approved for younger kids the switch has been flipped. I honestly couldn’t believe that several of her friends have already gotten the shot the day after the approval. She reported that one of the other 4th grade teachers left school early on Friday to take his daughter to get her shot. We were sitting at dinner over the weekend and my daughter began peppering us with questions.
Can I get my shot? X, Y and Z friends have already gotten their shot. Y got hers on Friday!
Have you made an appointment for me? Why not? I can’t believe you haven’t made an appointment for me yet. I need to get this shot. I hate wearing a mask!
What if the school doesn’t do the vaccine clinic soon? I might be the only one who doesn’t have a shot! I can’t believe you won’t get one for me.
Reading those statements you would think we were talking about a puppy or a phone- she is legitimately annoyed with us for not being “proactive” and getting her a shot ASAP. I honestly didn’t concern myself much with rushing to get one, especially for her as she had Covid last year. The school has plans to do a clinic for the younger students and honestly, it seems like the better course of action. For starters, she’s not the best with shots, my thought is if she gets it while surrounded by her peers she may dial back the drama. I’ve assured her she will get her shot at some point; I’d like to get my older one his before I focus on her. What is truly astounding here is how much these children all want to get these shots. The thing that normally has kids running for the hills is now (to them) the answer to a huge problem. I know I have tried not to think about how this pandemic has affected my kids’ lives because truthfully it makes me sad. They’ve lost close to 2 years of childhood that they will never get back. You blink and childhood is over- we missed a year of sleep away camp, birthday parties, family gatherings, vacations, and friends. My kids went to in person school last year but a lot did not. There were no classroom parties, field trips, or social time in the cafeteria. When you hear the desperation from these kids to get this shot you think maybe this is the generation that will get us all back on track. I find it funny since my daughter is afraid to even flush the toilet when the lid isn’t down but we’ve got to start somewhere, right?!
I’m not sure how to pivot from that to Peloton so I won’t even try! I did, however, manage to get my act together after being all out of sorts last week. My allergies and exhaustion made me rather lazy in picking these workouts (the workouts themselves are far from lazy). There are three cycling classes and one strength workout- hopefully you will find something on here that speaks to you. One of these cycling classes may have cracked my top ten ever (this is the second in 2 weeks) and the playlist is nothing short of epic. You don’t need anymore previews, let’s get to the real deal! Here are the rest of my workouts for last week-
Thursday-
Thursday I driving the struggle bus BIG TIME. My allergies were killing me and I had lost my voice plus my husband traveled for work for the first time in a while. I always have trouble sleeping when I am the only adult in the house and between that and the allergies, I was hurting. I knew the one person who could perk me up was Cody. This 30 minute Pop Ride from Tuesday is trademark Cody- he builds a playlist around the theme ‘dancing divas’ and serves up a moderate/ all level workout with a side of observational humor. He starts with an 8 minute flat road warmup; it starts with pedaling out and moving the legs then moves into some 1:2 speed intervals. The rest of this class plan leans more heavily on resistance work than speed. There are climbs, resistance intervals and the class ends with some speed pushes. There is plenty of wiggle room here for modifications; the rider can dictate how easy or difficult the class should be to meet their own needs. Cody adds a much needed distraction and source of levity and entertainment to the ride; he gives me the boost I need to keep going when I want to just crawl back to bed. If you want a low stress workout that will get you laughing and sweating, jump on the bike with Cody for this latest (at the time) Pop Ride.
I didn’t have it in me to do any other heavy duty cardio but wanted to get in another short workout to boost my challenge points total. This 20 minute Pop Barre with Ally was the perfect solution. Barre, while not doing a ton of large movements, still packs a relatively large punch. Here Ally focuses primarily on core work (in two different segments) and lower body (thigh work). This is a bodyweight workout so no additional weights or equipment are necessary. Ally definitely gets a lot out of the 20 minutes and designs a workout that shows up right away. Some of these movements had me shaking like crazy. She finishes class up with a plank series that is crazy hard! I love adding in these Barre classes; they add a little extra to my workout without jumping around like a HIIT class or having to get into the weights. If you haven’t tried out a Barre class yet, you need to work one of these into your routine. You will be amazed what 20 minutes of tiny movements can do!
Friday-
Last week I posted about Emma Lovewell’s 90’s Rock Ride and the absolutely epic playlist. Start to finish the music made that ride an absolute gem. I saw this 45 minute 80s Ride from Denis on the schedule and bookmarked to take later. Denis’ 45 minute 80s and Classic Rock Rides are some of my favorite classes. The workout is always tough yet balanced and Denis has a way of reaching back into those decades and pulling out some amazing music. While I had bookmarked this 80s Ride, I didn’t take a good look at it until Thursday morning and my brain exploded a little (again). The playlist in this class is just so fantastic- there is no other way to describe the musical masterpiece put together for this ride. He takes tracks from multiple genres, covering the entire decade and meticulously matches the music with the workout efforts. There are songs that you would expect in an 80s Ride but also quite a few pleasant surprises. It wouldn’t be a Denis 80s/Classic Rock Ride without a Heart track woven into the mix. He starts with an 11 minute warmup but only uses the first 3.5 for pedaling while adding small amounts of resistance. This is followed by some spin ups and a 3 minute lower resistance climb. I enjoyed this workout because there was a little bit of everything- jogs, sprints, choreography, resistance work and an arm track. He builds in small recoveries throughout the ride and the five minute arms section can be used for additional recovery. I think the ride could easily be modified with less resistance and more seated efforts; the biggest hurdle here is being able to sustain the effort for 45 minutes. The ride works at a moderate to high intensity for the entire 45 minutes with the exception of the last five minutes- those are a doozy. Make sure to keep something in the tank! I could go on and on about this ride; it was that good. Honestly the music alone should make you want to take this class - you could always turn down Denis (you can still see him after all!), listen to 45 minutes of epic 80s and just ride yer bike.
Saturday-
I love when classes I want to take are live at a time that is convenient for me. There is something so nice about having the workout figured out for you rather than putting something together via the on demand menu. I know this is the first-est of first world problems but I’m at the point right now where anything that can be outsourced (even if it is to the live schedule) is a win. I love these Sweat Steady Rides; they are hard as hell but really good focused endurance work. I hate long stretches of pedaling it out in the saddle but these rides force me to sit in my discomfort and work through it. The playlist in this ride is sort of random but really good- she starts the ride with an absolute college classic and later programs an Ace of Base remix. I didn’t think I’d be praising anything Ace of Base but it 100% works in this context! As in all Sweat Steady Rides, the workout is designed as a pyramid; the bottom tier is moderate, moves to hard, then tops out at @#*$&@!!%, back to hard and finally all the way back to moderate. The pyramid in this workout is 30 minutes long with little to no recovery while in the push. She varies the work within the pyramid to occasionally take the push out of the saddle but most of the effort is seated endurance. After the pyramid there is a full 3 minute recovery; my advice is to take the entire recovery as recovery. Jess follows the recovery with a 7 minute block of fairly intense interval work to finish out class. She lays out the full class plan ahead of time as to completely prepare the rider (at least physically) for what lies ahead. That 3 minute recovery definitely helped propel me across the finish line. While Jess designs the physical workout to be fairly intense, she acknowledges that the real work is mostly mental. She could not be more correct- the workout here is what it is; no one goes into a 45 minute Sweat Steady expecting a low impact workout. This workout requires the rider to plug in mentally and live in that discomfort for the 45 minutes. Working through some of the mental blocks while exercising is not the easiest thing to do; when our body starts throwing up the white flag our brain often follows. Training our brain to live in a moment of discomfort is not easy (discomfort does not mean physical pain or injury, if you are having real pain please do not push through the workout!). I have mentioned in the past that I tend to be wrapped pretty tightly; I joke that, on a scale of 1-10, I exist at an 8 or 9. Anything that pushes me too much tends to send off those warning signs to abandon ship. Endurance work has not only helped my body grow physically but also to not immediately convert discomfort into negativity. Trust me, I still panic but I’d like to say things like this are helping me continue to be a work in progress. If you are concerned about a 45 minute ride, Jess also has plenty of 30 minute SS Rides on demand. These would be a great starting point to see what this type of ride is all about; the workout is not easy and modifying can only do so much. Sweat Steady gives the rider the opportunity to break out of their comfort zone while pushing the mind and body.
That is it for me! I have a new challenge coming up this week and thankfully nothing close to a Death by 15s. I do have to incorporate an hour of yoga (!!) and fit in 2 Bike Bootcamp classes. I’ve been slacking on the Bike Bootcamp big time; I can’t remember the last time I did one of these classes. There has been so much fantastic cycling content that I tend to gravitate to those classes and forget about bootcamp. The hardest for me is going to be the yoga because I am the worst at taking the time to slow down and do anything. The whole time I am doing something like yoga I keep thinking about all the other things on my to do list; yoga doesn’t fire up that heavy adrenaline push in my brain like cycling or HIIT. That adrenaline (for me) that shoves out all non exercise thoughts in our brain to focus just on making it through the workout. When it’s not there my brain wanders a bit too much. It should be interesting!
I am slowly starting to get my voice back and returning to the real world. Hopefully I will be able to stay off the struggle bus this week! I will check back in with you later this week for the midweek update. Enjoy the first part of your week!