After a week of skiing and running I wanted to make sure to rest before the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. I try not to work out too much before a race and that makes this week’s recap a little light. Here is what I think about that:
Last week’s workouts:
Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: I signed up for an arms and abs workout at Plush Fitness via ClassPass. I’ve never been to this studio before, and it wasn’t what I expected. In one mid-sized room, Plush organizes two different classes: the arms and abs class I signed up for and a totally unrelated boxing class. That meant inches from where I was doing a sit up, someone was swinging a gloved hand. I startle easily and the shouting from the boxing class was a bit of a surprise. The abs and arms class was more of an independent study than a class. We were given a series of exercises to do, and then we were to stop when we reached four reps on our own time. This isn’t a bad workout, per se. It’s worth noting the instructor, Xavier, gave everyone personal attention. My arms and pecs (I didn’t even know I had pecs) were very sore after, but this just isn’t my scene and with so many great options in the NYC scene, to be honest, I am not sure I’ll return. There was too much going on at one time in the studio and not enough locker/staging space for my pre-/post-work needs.
Wednesday: I ran four miles on the bottom of the West Side High. I am proud of myself for this little maneuver. I had an 8pm reservation at Otto in Greenwich Village and I work in Gramercy. I wanted to go for a run but it made zero sense to go all the way home to the Upper West Side to do so. (Non-New Yorkers, I hope I haven’t lost you!) So I left work and headed to the Gold’s Gym on Varick (booked via ClassPass). I looked for the closest gym on ClassPass to the West Side Highway and booked “GYM TIME.” I dropped my stuff in the locker room, went for one of the most windy runs of all time along the WSH, then showered in the Gold’s locker room and went to dinner. Boom.
Thursday: Nothing
Friday: Nothing
Saturday: Nothing
Sunday: Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Race (<– recap!) in Washington DC!
In the time I’ve saved you by working out less (and thus giving you less to read 🙂 ) wanted to share a few great and thought provoking articles I read this week.
Recommending reading
- This post by Derek Sivers on the “bronze medal mindset.” The basic idea is that a bronze medalist is just happy to be on the podium at all. A silver medalist is likely wishing she was a few seconds faster since they fell one place short of winning a gold medal. But the bronze medalist is focused on something that just went “surprisingly well,” or so the article posits.
- What if a “mediocre life” leaves you happy and satisfied?
- The NYT has a lot to say about optimism this week including this piece on how a positive outlook could extend your life.
- Runners World has a fun post about 5 mistakes social media encourages us to make and how it’s hurting our runs.
- This piece made me check my privilege. The author proposes, among other things, that people who wear standard-sized clothing take a stand and refuse to shop at stores that don’t carry plus-sized clothing. Plus-sized folks aren’t given a chance to use consumerism to make that kind of choice themselves, since, you know, those stores aren’t selling anything they can use. What do you think?
- I loved this article from a Dartmouth College admissions officer on how kindness can factor in to an application.
Read anything interesting this week? Share it in the comments!
