Orange Everest. This is an Orangetheory Signature challenge. It’s a combination of strength and endurance and you have to pace yourself because this challenge is 23 minutes long! In this challenge, you “climb Orange Everest” with increasing inclines (1% every minute until you reach 15%) and then you come back down the mountain with decreasing inclines. To finish the workout you end with a 60 second ALL OUT run.
Where to even begin….
Today I was off work because of the MLK holiday so I worked out at noon instead of my regular 5:30pm workout. I chose this time because my friend Michele works out during the day and just recently joined OTF so I wanted to take the same class as her. Before leaving the house I checked the OTF Greenville Members Facebook page just to see if anything had been added to the page since it is pretty new. I wondered if they might post a motivational quote or tip of the day. Monday is going to be reserved for “Monday Miles” and I clicked on it to see what mileage was posted by other members. Instead, I saw, “Can’t remember the mileage, but I conquered the mountain!”
“Oh no…” I thought to myself. Remember I said some time ago that I am a HUGE Orangetheory nerd and I know the company inside and out it seems. I knew exactly what she was talking about: Orange Everest.
We are still about a week out from starting the national template, so right now members are basically getting preconditioned for the workouts to come later! Orange Everest? I knew this was going to be tough. I started on the rower like I usually do, and thank goodness because I would not have stayed strong as long as I did if I had run first. The floor workout had a heavy focus on arms which was good because we would need our legs for the treadmill. I kept hearing all the calls on the other side of the room, “Treads, take that incline up another percent in 3, 2, 1, let’s go!!!!” I stayed focused on what I was doing, but a little part of me was feeling anxious for our turn.
Soon it was time for us to climb Orange Everest. After a couple minutes of warming up, we stopped our treadmills and listened to the first instruction. We were to try to try to maintain a pace that we could keep for as long as possible, starting at 2% incline and increasing by 1% every minute until we reached 15%. After that we would start going down 1% until we reached the bottom and we would finish with an ALL OUT. “Okay, I got this.” I started out at a 4.3 mph pace, knowing that I could hold that for a while uphill. For how long, I didn’t know, but I wanted to try to run until at least 10%. Every minute passed and I felt strong, “Keep going, just keep going!!” I told myself. I watched the monitor and saw my heart rate was in the orange zone and staying at about 88%. I was still feeling good. Then we hit 8% and I was trying to maintain speed. I said to myself, “Get up to 10% and then you can bring down the pace a little bit.” At 10% I needed a walk break! I thought that surely I would throw up those egg cups I had for breakfast! If it wasn’t for having people around me, I surely would have quit this workout!!
At 12% everyone was walking. I waited until there was about 3o seconds left at 12% and I bumped up to a run, just to see if I could. Once we hit 13% I brought it back down to a power walk. Once we hit 15% and stayed there for a minute we started to decrease by 1% each minute. At one point, if you were a jogger or runner you could bring it down 2% each minute. I think I waited until joggers and runners were at 4% before I joined them for the final couple minutes. As if this wasn’t all hard enough, we finished the workout with a one minute ALL OUT. At the very end I was running 8 mph (dying inside) and saw for a few seconds I made it into the red zone.
I felt like such a bad ass after that workout. It took me a little bit to come down off that last effort and I still wasn’t quite sure if I would be seeing breakfast again! Check out my stats for this workout though! (Even my Workout summary looks like a mountain!) It’s a great start to the OTF Transformation Challenge. I got this!!
Overall Stats
Calories Burned 455
Splat Points 22
Average Heart Rate 140
Where to even begin….
Today I was off work because of the MLK holiday so I worked out at noon instead of my regular 5:30pm workout. I chose this time because my friend Michele works out during the day and just recently joined OTF so I wanted to take the same class as her. Before leaving the house I checked the OTF Greenville Members Facebook page just to see if anything had been added to the page since it is pretty new. I wondered if they might post a motivational quote or tip of the day. Monday is going to be reserved for “Monday Miles” and I clicked on it to see what mileage was posted by other members. Instead, I saw, “Can’t remember the mileage, but I conquered the mountain!”
“Oh no…” I thought to myself. Remember I said some time ago that I am a HUGE Orangetheory nerd and I know the company inside and out it seems. I knew exactly what she was talking about: Orange Everest.
We are still about a week out from starting the national template, so right now members are basically getting preconditioned for the workouts to come later! Orange Everest? I knew this was going to be tough. I started on the rower like I usually do, and thank goodness because I would not have stayed strong as long as I did if I had run first. The floor workout had a heavy focus on arms which was good because we would need our legs for the treadmill. I kept hearing all the calls on the other side of the room, “Treads, take that incline up another percent in 3, 2, 1, let’s go!!!!” I stayed focused on what I was doing, but a little part of me was feeling anxious for our turn.
Soon it was time for us to climb Orange Everest. After a couple minutes of warming up, we stopped our treadmills and listened to the first instruction. We were to try to try to maintain a pace that we could keep for as long as possible, starting at 2% incline and increasing by 1% every minute until we reached 15%. After that we would start going down 1% until we reached the bottom and we would finish with an ALL OUT. “Okay, I got this.” I started out at a 4.3 mph pace, knowing that I could hold that for a while uphill. For how long, I didn’t know, but I wanted to try to run until at least 10%. Every minute passed and I felt strong, “Keep going, just keep going!!” I told myself. I watched the monitor and saw my heart rate was in the orange zone and staying at about 88%. I was still feeling good. Then we hit 8% and I was trying to maintain speed. I said to myself, “Get up to 10% and then you can bring down the pace a little bit.” At 10% I needed a walk break! I thought that surely I would throw up those egg cups I had for breakfast! If it wasn’t for having people around me, I surely would have quit this workout!!
At 12% everyone was walking. I waited until there was about 3o seconds left at 12% and I bumped up to a run, just to see if I could. Once we hit 13% I brought it back down to a power walk. Once we hit 15% and stayed there for a minute we started to decrease by 1% each minute. At one point, if you were a jogger or runner you could bring it down 2% each minute. I think I waited until joggers and runners were at 4% before I joined them for the final couple minutes. As if this wasn’t all hard enough, we finished the workout with a one minute ALL OUT. At the very end I was running 8 mph (dying inside) and saw for a few seconds I made it into the red zone.
I felt like such a bad ass after that workout. It took me a little bit to come down off that last effort and I still wasn’t quite sure if I would be seeing breakfast again! Check out my stats for this workout though! (Even my Workout summary looks like a mountain!) It’s a great start to the OTF Transformation Challenge. I got this!!
Overall Stats
Calories Burned 455
Splat Points 22
Average Heart Rate 140
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