Author Archives: Theodora Blanchfield

Weekly Workouts: March 30 – April 5

Back on the weekly workout log bandwagon. I like these to hold myself accountable, and I like reading others’ logs, so maybe one or two of you also like these.

March 30 – April 5

Monday: Rest day. One of our DailyBurn trainers, Anja‘s favorite lines is “don’t miss a Monday.” Welp, after a long wedding weekend, I was exhausted and decided to miss a Monday. I regret nothing.

Tuesday: 6-mile run date with my friend Alyssa. She had to be at Uplift to teach at 8:30, so we met at 6:45. I don’t have to be at work until 10, but I rarely never mind meeting a friend for some miles.

Wednesday: 30 minute swim. I wanted to mix things up a little bit, and I’ll be canceling my NYHRC membership for the time being, so I wanted to take advantage of the super-convenient pool.

Thursday: I was SUPPOSED to take Hallie’s Soul Cycle class but I had an incident with a latte and was sick all day.

StitchFix Photo Shoot

^ Theodora runs on Dunkin’.

Friday: NBD, I taped a segment for StitchFix on Friday morning. Before I got to work, I had GlamSquad (if you use that link, we BOTH get a $20 credit) come (with a credit I had) come to give me a blowout before the segment, THEN brought Bailey to doggie day care so he wouldn’t try to steal the show, then went into work for a half day. (Yay good Friday.) With all that morning excitement, I was happy for a calming run in the afternoon, even if it ruined my blowout. FYI, the segment is supposed to be Wednesday morning at 10am on local NYC CBS.

West Side Highway Running Path

Saturday: I was determined to get my “long” run (6 miles) in before brunch with my college roomie, Jen, and so I cut my Friday night short…but not before having a tequila shot the bartender sent over and some late-night pizza. Which are clearly A+ fueling sources for a long run. The temperature and the sun were nice, but it was REALLY windy out. Whatever, got it done.

Sunday: Sometimes it’s hard for me to motivate to work out when I’m at my parents’ house (which I was, for Easter.) It’s so nice to loll around in my jammies and drink coffee…but we had brunch reservations at 11, and I knew a workout wasn’t happening post-brunch, so I fired up one of our DailyBurn workouts, Triplet Ladder. The workout is just three moves: a dumbbell snatch, hand-release push-up, and tuck jump. You start with one rep of each exercise and then build up to as many reps as you can; I got to 10 within the 15 minutes of the workout. (The entire workout is 29 minutes, but the meat of the workout is just 15.)

Decent week for my last pre-training week before Brooklyn. Let’s do this.

How was your week of workouts last week? Favorite workout?

Gym-Timidation

You read this blog now, and you see me as the girl who will try anything from barre to CrossFit to aerial yoga.

Aerial Yoga

Must. do. again.

What you probably wouldn’t realize is that I used to have a SERIOUS case of gym-timidation. We wrote a great article about this at work recently, but I wanted to share my own experience.

I was a member of NYSC for the longest time, and I had an all-access membership, but I was terrified to go to any other location other than the one closest to my apartment or my office. But…what if I looked like a total tool getting lost on my way to the locker room/studio/treadmill/weights? When I was in the process of losing 50 pounds, at the beginning, I had a really hard time with being intimidated. There I was, running at a painfully slow pace, turning beet-red and panting and sweating like a pig, while the skinny girls and buff dudes blithely floated along on the treadmill at an 8.0. 

Honestly, fear held me back for a really long time at the gym. After I lost the 50 pounds, I became intimately familiar with the Wall Street NYSC, and then the Wall Street Equinox (and 50th, since that’s where I worked at the time) when I decided to upgrade myself. I was still really nervous to go to any other locations. 

And then I started falling in love with group fitness (the gateway drug to boutique fitness!) and wanting to follow my favorite instructors around the city, or even just take the exact class I wanted to take at that exact time at a random location. (This somehow usually ended up being noonish yoga at the 17th Street location.)

And I realized that I’d just have to get over my (dumb?) fear. You don’t know where the locker room is? You ask. You don’t know where the class is? You ask. You’ve never been there, it’s fine. And even if you have been there, and you just happen to forget or get a little turned around, that’s okay too. 

I think it’s partially age (I don’t really care if people are looking at me, and they’re actually probably not) and partially not wanting to let a fear stop me, but most of that gym-timidation is gone, even when I try new boutique classes. I ask where I’m going or what equipment I need, and 99% of the time, people are nice. If they’re not, then I probably just don’t go back to that studio, unless the workout was the best ever. 

I have also accepted that, yes, I will always get turned around in gym locker rooms, no matter what, and if I take a class with coworkers and they have the electronic locks, I will somehow break my lock and need to get assistance. I have found in life that if you can laugh at yourself first, it generally makes things way easier. 

Have you ever been intimidated by a gym/the gym? How did you get over it?