Footprints: Monday Morning Recap

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Colleen Lerro

So this week’s Monday morning recap is brought to by Monday night. I’m running a bit behind this week! After last weekend’s half marathon I took this week as a recovery week, and I actually – gasp – did not run at all. It felt good to give myself a break and recharge, but now I’m itching to get out and run and am actually excited for my early alarm to go off tomorrow so I can lace up my running shoes and hit the streets.

Here’s the day by day breakdown…

Monday: Spin Class, Upper body strength

Tuesday: Rest Day

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: Spin Class Body Ride and strength

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: Spin Class Endurance Ride

Sunday: I might not have been running this week, but I did man an aid station at the Potomac River Run Marathon – fun way to spend the morning!

On Saturday, Revolve brought in some Cinco de Mayo enterainment to go along with the ride!

Birthday Fun

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Colleen Lerro

Yesterday I wrote about all the things I want to do over the next year before I turn 30, but for today I wanted to take a step back and share how awesome of a day my b-day was! I started celebrating early over the weekend since my parents came into town for the Syracuse game – more on that disappointment later – and despite having my actual birthday fall on a Monday I managed to have a really good day.

I started things off with my favorite food bar for breakfast and a P90X ab ripper session before 5:30 hit.

Discovered these in a prize pack I won at the 2011 MCM Expo

Then I got ready to head up to Revolve for my usual Monday morning spin class. For me this was the perfect way to start off my birthday. How about you? Do you give yourself the day off from working out on special days or seek it out?

Sleepy but ready to sweat!

Ian made the morning even better by cooking up some sausage and cheese omelets for us for breakfast. Delicious. Breakfast is my absolute favorite meal, but most mornings I’m in such a rush to get out I just have my usual Cheerios or piece of toast and a banana, which gets pretty boring day after day.

I was so excited to eat this I got halfway through before taking a pic!

I still had to go to work since I’m already taking Thursday and Friday of this week off, but Ian made it a bit easier and gave me a ride in. Phone calls and Facebook birthday wishes throughout the day kept me smiling. While it beats a new car payment right now, I still get pretty sick of metro so it made my day that it was the first day since winter that it was warm enough and bright enough thanks to daylight savings to bike/walk home after work. Once it gets a touch warmer this becomes a daily activity for me even once the summer heat and humidity hits. It’s just a few miles and it’s a nice change of pace after sitting in an office all day.

BikeShare is the best for days I ride home on a whim

And I get to take in awesome views the whole way like this…

Passing by the Lincoln before leaving D.C. behind to cross the bridge in NoVa

Ian said he’d make anything for dinner that I wanted and I requested chocolate chip waffles. Like I said, breakfast is my favorite meal!

So good!

He even made dessert and sang happy birthday to me. Knowing me as well as he does, he cut out the middle brownie from the batch since I don’t like the end pieces and added a candle.

Birthday Treat

To top things off Ian surprised me with my gift – a wind and rain-resistant Nike running jacket. I was so excited. It looks great and is also the one piece of running gear I don’t have. I usually just wear the big outer shell of my Columbia winter jacket on rainy/windy days which is a bit cumbersome and also too warm for early spring or late fall days.

New Jacket!

Such a great day! Thanks to everyone who made me feel so special on my birthday this year! I have a feeling 29 is going to be pretty good to me.

Barre Ride

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Colleen Lerro

It’s felt great hitting the spin studio a ton this month, and Sunday I finally tried out my first Barre Ride class up at Revolve in Clarendon. What an awesome combination of cardio and strength in an hour workout. I put in a fast-paced 4 miler right before heading up to the studio, so my legs were already feeling it a little, but they were full-on shaking by the end of class.

It started out like one of their usual rides. We did 36 minutes of heart-pumping riding and using the weights for an upper body workout before hopping off the bikes and ditching our bike shoes. We started out with calf raises and then stood in different ballet positions – first and second position – doing squats and pulses while holding onto the bikes for balance. We did more of these going into a plié, while up on the balls of our feet in relevé. (For any ballet dancers out there I’m likely using these terms wrong, but I’m trying!)

The toughest portion for me came when we were up on the balls of our feet, went down to a 90 degree chair position, pulsed further down before coming back to chair position, and stood all the way up before starting again. I was seriously trembling by the end. We wrapped up with a few more exercises before ending class with some stretches. I can’t even remember them all now, but my sore muscles over the past couple days have reminded me what we worked on!

If you’re looking to get in some intense cardio and strength in one workout I highly recommend the barre ride. It was great!

Footprints: Monday Morning Recap

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Colleen Lerro

Going strong! I ran a total of 14.25 miles this week and spent a lot of time at the spin studio.

Here’s the training breakdown by day:

Monday: Spin Class

Tuesday: Track Workout – 2 mile warm-up; 6X400m repeats with a 100m jog recovery; 1.5 mile cool down

Wednesday: Spin Class

Thursday: 4 miles easy – I ran home from work Thursday night completely overdressed since I was expecting freezing temps and snow, but instead it was completely dry and over 40 degrees.

Friday: Spin Class – Body Ride

Saturday: 4 miles easy – Great weather for a Saturday morning run through Georgetown along Rock Creek Parkway and back over the Memorial Bridge past the Iwo Jima Memorial. All was great except for a spill I took near the end ripping up my favorite winter running gloves…better them than my hands though.

Sunday: 1.25 miles easy on the treadmill to warm up for a lower body workout. Spin Class – Body Ride