motivation Archives

Fit Plan Foundations – Checklist

March 15, 2023 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Welcome to a BRAND new series to empower and level up your health and well being.

“Fit Plan Foundations”- 10 building blocks for longevity.

Building Block #1 – Stability

Fit Plan Foundations Building Block #1: Stability

When your have a shaky foundation, anything can derail you or send you crashing and burning.

You wouldn’t invest a ton of time, money, and resources to build your house on a weak foundation.

The same must be true for your health and well being.

Building Block #2: Structure

connotations, there’s many positive benefits of embracing a solid structure:

✅ getting it done
✅ sticking with it
✅ remaining motivated
✅ being focused
✅ making progress in your wellness journey

Learn more about the second building block of a sound fitness plan with VFit Studio’s Fit Plan Foundations 10 part series.

Today, trainer Maria breaks down the second building block of Foundations.

Building Block #3: Convenience

Trainer Lindsay popped in from her vacation spot in Florida to share why it’s important for your fitness plan to be convenient:

– commute factor (time to get there, process of getting there, excuse factor)

– kids, family, home – can sometimes not be easy to leave it to make it to the gym

– travel – can take fitness family with you while on the road

– consistency – able to stay with your workouts because you can take them with you through travel and different seasons with life, can easily login no matter what is going on in the day or even how you are feeling, this is important for mental and physical health to have stability and structure

Building Block #4: Effective

Today Lauren pops in after 45 minute barefoot shred and stretch.

Building block today is about the effectiveness of workouts.

👇 What makes a workout EFFECTIVE?

Is the time and effort you are putting into your workout giving you the results you are looking for?

Can you go do the things in life you want to do? Are you feeling good? Feeling good energy? Chase your kids around? Hike a mountain?

✨ We are training for every day life so you can do the things you love for the long term.✨

For VFitters and our members, we have limited time. We want to have the biggest bang for your buck so you can get in a solid workout in 30 minutes, depending on format and its purpose.

Lauren was initially skeptical about how effective our online workouts can be. She turned into an instant believer in the effectiveness of our workouts and hasn’t stepped foot in a gym since she joined us.

Building Block #5: Fun

VFit trainer Janelle sharing from White Mountains of Bishop, California after a 4 mile outdoor run.

Today we are sharing about Fit Plan Foundation Block #5 which is FUN.

There’s SO many ways to bring in fun into your fitness routine and your daily life!

You can take your workouts outside, maybe push yourself to do something a little uncomfortable at first (like take a dance class) and stretch out of your comfort zone.

Think for a moment … who do you have fun with? Who brings more fun to your life?

We find that those who have fitness partners tend to be more consistent and have a whole lot more fun doing the workouts together.

When looking at longevity, you want to be doing things that are fun and that you look forward to doing. This helps you maintain consistency so you don’t cycle through big bursts and then bottom out and get out of shape and lose all your progress.

You can add fun into your fitness through celebrating more. You can celebrate birthdays, personal milestones, hitting goals. You name it.

At VFit we look and look and look for ways to add more fun in! As adults we tend to not celebrate much, but here at VFit we do as much as possible to bring in a bunch of fun into our classes, programs and routines. Every week we have multiple celebration classes to honor our members’ birthdays and milestones and our trainers look forward to specially crafting these workouts for our teammates.

If you aren’t getting the desired results you want in your workout plan, burnt out or injured, maybe something needs to change.

Over the course of 2 weeks, we’re sharing a total of TEN vital building blocks that we believe your fitness foundation should be built on.

You’ll get a checklist to follow along and see where you may need to rebuild some blocks.

We also invite you over onto the VFit team. We have some amazing membership specials and you are never locked in a contract – just ask if you are interested and we’ll personally reach out to get you set up for success!

Stay tuned as we release the remaining items on the checklist over the next two weeks. We have many members of our trainer team chiming in and they are so excited to kick off this series and share some of their expertise with you.

Passion and Purpose Project: Episode 3

February 25, 2023 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Episode #3 of the Purpose & Passion project is one hour of your life that will change your perspective forever about what it means to TRIUMPH.

Rachele sat down with VFitter Sarah Z from Oregon and had a heartfelt, honest, and tear jerking talk about Sarah’s story through health issues and her perseverance and positive perspective.

Even before Sarah was born, the odds were against her. But what her story proves, and continues to prove each day, is that inner strength and a positive attitude trumps over darkness along with a strong community of support and love.

Sarah’s tests in life are now her testament.

She’s taken lessons learned in her life and her wellness journey and supports others as a health coach as she follows her passion for educating and empowering others.

We hope you enjoy tuning in and are able to take away nuggets of hope, inspiration, and strength from Sarah’s journey. Thank you for continuing to support the Passion and Purpose Project.

7 Steps Up Personal Development Tips from Rachele

February 5, 2023 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Rachele has put together a special series of tips on personal development called 7 Steps Up to share and we’re putting all the lessons here in this blog post for you to easily take in.

Step 1: CHANGE

The first level is CHANGE and Rachele shares some great tips and dispells some myths about this topic in the clip up above. How do you handle change? Are you armed with the right support system to help you get through and thrive through this season of life? How do you handle set backs when you fall off track?

Step 2: FAITH

Today I’m pushing the comfort zone for many and sharing my personal take on the importance of FAITH.

It’s a topic that a lot of people shy away from or get uncomfortable around, but I truly believe that faith gives us the comfort, guidance and security we are all truly craving.

That doesn’t mean we all need to believe the exact same or we can’t have differences.

It’s about tapping into a deeper part of yourself and knowing you are here on purpose, for a purpose

Step 3: FOUNDATIONS

What are those small, daily habits you do that incrementally improve your wellbeing? A lot of focus here is on the morning routine. Right when you get up, each day, you get to to choose where and how you spend your energy.

Are you jumping immediately onto your phone and checking emails?

Or are you tuning in first thing and sitting quietly, journaling, reading, listening to a special podcast?
Having solid foundations are essential for you on your path of personal growth and reaching a higher potential. The more you are able to dial these in, so much so that you aren’t even thinking about them and they become as automatic as brushing your teeth, the better off you’ll be and have more mental and physical space to focus more on what’s important to you.

The importance of foundations cannot be stressed enough. Incorporating more positive habits into your life, over time, will set you on a higher trajectory and you ever believed possible.
The principle of 1% improvement each day is great to think about when it comes to foundations, too!

You don’t want to try and change too much too fast, but what you can slowly improve upon each day so that you are making those micro-adjustments to your thoughts and actions that help you better align with your passion and purpose?

STEP 4: FELLOWSHIP

It can be so easy in this day and age to not have true connections to others. You can work remotely, have groceries delivered, you name it, there’s been a way to use tech in a way that has removed some social interaction that’s been a part of our evolution.

But guess what, as humans, we are built to be part of community! It is vital to your mental well being.

What kind of groups and communities are you putting your energy into? Have you felt disconnected lately?

It’s been said and studied often in social sciences and pyschology, who you are surrounded by has a direct effect on how you show up in this world, it’s so important that you choose wisely.

The law of averages is the theory that the result of any given situation will be the average of all possible outcomes. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn takes this theory and relates it to human connection and says that we become the average of the five people we spend the most time with. What’s your top 5 right now?

Fellowship is so deeply interwined as part of my self development and why it’s part of this 7 steps up series. Without fellowship and connection, we are missing an essential part of the human experience.

STEP 5: PLAY OFFENSE

You don’t need to be at rock bottom to get help or wait for something really serious to happen with your health to make a change.

When hit with a challenge, I want to come in on offense. What that means is that I have the tools, training, and coaches in place that willl help me overcome obstacles.

Having that offense in place arms you to sprial UP rather than down when things get shaky.

Self work is all about being able to go through the seasons of life. When I first started with a life coach it was uncomfortable at first. You get to learn a deeper side of yourself when you go through this kind of journey.

The uncomforableness is GOOD for you. You have to put in the work, even when you don’t feel like it, to get the benefits but it’s oh so worth it!

I empower you today to take an offensive approach to your mental, physical, and spiritually. Have coaches and people you look up to in the fields you are looking for growth in – for all of these parts of your life.

It’s never too late to start playing offense, just like in sports, it happens one play, one action at a time so you can walk through the storms as they come.

I’d love to be part of your OFFENSE in this season.

LEVEL 6: THE PROCESS

This afternoon we take in level 6: What the Health Industry Does Not Want You to Understand with Rachele for her 7 Steps Up series.

So far our levels have been: CHANGE, FAITH, FOUNDATIONS, FELLOWSHIP, and PLAY OFFENSE.

Level 6 is The Process

Wake up every day and know that the work is in the process.

The end goal is often not your end goal, often it’s still not enough or where you want to be. Why is this the case? Because we aren’t enjoying and being present in the journey.

You need to connect with the process and bring awareness into your life. Quiet the voices – outside and in your head – that are holding you up.

The process is 99% of your life. Your morning habits, what you do during each day. This is all the process and foundation you are setting in your life.

Tune in to learn more about the significance of focusing on the process.

This week we will be wrapping up this special mini series with the final level of the 7 Steps Up series here in our newsletter and on all of our social channels: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.

For more information and to claim a space in the mentorship:
https://thevfitstudio.com/light/

LEVEL 7: YOU

Level 7 is YOU. If it’s going to be, it’s up to me. You are the one that needs to put in the work. You have to have that iron will, grit, tenacity and know the habits and choices you make today are creating your future self. Only you can do the work that positively will impact your mind, body, and spirit.

THANK YOU 🙏 so much for all the input and for supporting this series. We’d love to hear from you about how these tips work for you!

Passion and Purpose Project: Episode 2

February 2, 2023 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Welcome to The Purpose & Passion Project. Enjoy Episode 2 in this series as we embrace this new chapter of spreading light and inspiration with this special heartfelt interview with trainer Lindsay M.

For Episode 2, I interviewed trainer Lindsay M who opened up and shared with us about her journey from sobriety to breast cancer to becoming a wife, mom and fitness trainer. Lindsay and Rachele’s conversation on this journey touched so many already and we hope that as you take time to listen, you too find nuggets that you can relate to and use to empower your own path.

Opening up and sharing our stories is what shining your light means – to share your gifts, your strengths, your struggles……to Live ON Purpose.

While this isn’t a “traditional” podcast, we are using the infrastructure we have in place at VFit, and have opened these up for all to join.

I know deep in my heart that the people who need to hear these stories, will find them and my purpose is to get them out through all the channels we have built over the years.

Enjoy this vulnerable share on Lindsay’s journey of .

Birthday Reflections & Gratitude

December 6, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Rachele here, to say THANK YOU you all for joining me on Super Saturday, 12/3 as I celebrated my birthday. To be able to share willPower on my birthday was TRULY special.

The great thing about getting older, is getting wiser and more in tune with the important things in life.

Click here to access the full replay of class.

Sweaty selfie shot during Super Saturday’s birthday class

I chose the opportunity of my birthday willPower class to weave in life lessons learned this past year into class, broken into five different themes and songs that have touched my heart.

Birthdays are a powerful time to reflect on a year of personal growth and take into account all the experiences of the previous 12 months.

Below I recap these top 5 lessons and songs I shared of this past year. I hope that by sharing, it helps you see lessons in your own life and opportunities to grow and reflect.

1. Honor and see the strengths in yourself and others.

We all are born with special gifts and strengths. Look for that within yourself and see that specialness in others. It is a good thing that we are all unique.

We are so quick to see where we are lacking or comparing ourselves to others. The truth is we are ALL unique, amazing and have a special gift to share with the world.

Seek the gold God put in you to align closer with living out your purpose.

Song: “This is Me” by Keala Settle, The Greatest Showman Ensemble, Dave Aude

2. Be proud to be “a work in progress”.

Deep self work, having coaches/mentors, prayer, meditation, listening to the whispers – it is all such important work. Being a work in progress can be HARD, it gets uncomfortable and tough at times, but it is some of the most important work we can do.

Apologize if you aren’t working on your progress!

I invested more time and money in my personal and professional growth than ever over the last year and it transpired into my biggest year of growth in so many areas. What you plant and water, will grow, choose wisely those seeds you are planting.

Song: “Priceless” by KING & COUNTRY

3. Protect and celebrate your energy/spirit.

It is vitally important who you are around and what energy/influence you let into your life. The last few years have gifted us a beautiful and once in a lifetime opportunity to really uncover the essence of who and what matters most in your life.

Guard yourself to the negative influences out there, but don’t stay so guarded that you dim your own light from shining to others.

Song: “Joy” by KING & COUNTRY

4. FAITH over fear!

I have never felt so connected to God and it feels SO good.

Pray hard and listen even harder. The whispers are quiet, but so much more powerful than fear, doubt and ego can ever be.

This year I prayed, journaled, and read a devotional every single day. That stuff is life changing. Handing over any fear, anxiety, control and surrendering to a higher power is magical.

Song: “Reason” by Unspoken

5. Live ON Purpose!!

This mantra hit me like a ton of bricks in October and will serve as our VFit Mantra for 2023. Wake up each day and live your life ON purpose.

What are your core values, your non-negotiables, your to-be list that you want to show up and serve this world as!!

Song – “This Could Change Everything” by Francesca Battistelli

Thank you again for helping me celebrate another trip around the sun, and for our VFit community which has helped me live out my passion for self care through our platform.

It’s truly an honor and one I hold dearly each and every day. I’m so thankful to get to live our my purpose, to spread light and optimism and to share this legacy with my family through the years.

Here is to another bright and powerful trip around the sun!

Screen shot shared from the live willPower birthday workout class that has my whole family there!

Love Your Heart

October 13, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Cardio is Hardio But Here’s Why it’s Important to Not Skip

This morning I delivered a VFitFest #7 special event class, 6AM PST, called Love Your Heart Cardio Blast.

The idea with Love Your Heart was to serve double duty during our live session, by delivering an epic 30 minute cardio workout, and also educate everyone on the importance of cardio and the different training zones.

(YOU can do the full workout replay here)

The Four Cardio Training Zones Broken Down

Training Zone	Metabolic Marker	RPE Rate of Perceived Effort (1-10)	Description	Myzone Range
1	Below VT1	3-4	Light to moderate movement Can easily carry on a conversation	Light Grey/Medium Grey
2	VT1 to Midpoint	5-6	Challenging to hard movement Difficult to carry on conversation	Blue/Low Greens
3	Midpoint to VT2	7-8	Vigorous to really hard movement Can only get out short phrases	High Greens/Yellow
4	Above VT2	9-10	Super hard to maximal effort Basically just grunts or single words	Red

An overview of heart rate training zones and corresponding RPE (rate of perceived effort) and Myzone training zones

Your Ventilatory Threshold

This biomarker, VT for short, is your ventilatory threshold. This helps measure is your intensity in terms of your breathing during a workout, and denotes when lactate starts building up in your bloodstream.

VT1 is when your body is burning equal parts fats and carbs as fuel. This is also when your aerobic system is working for you.

VT2 is that point in your workout when glucose becomes the main source of energy for your body. This also is the phase where you enter anaerobic training.

Workout like your life depends on it, because it does.
Maria Sogard

By using wearables, Myzone on left and WHOOP on right, heart rate data displayed shows the impact of the Love Your Heart Edition of Cardio Blast held in VFit Studio on October 13th in honor of our 7th birthday week led by me earlier today.

Benefits of Getting Your Cardio On

While prepping for the Love Your Heart edition of my Cardio Blast class, I went through several studies, course documents from my NASM personal training course, and blogs on the myriad benefits of cardiovascular training.

Some of the TOP benefits of Cardio:

❤️ Increase blood flow and lowers blood pressure by helping increase good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol
❤️ Helps regular blood sugar and reduce risk of diabetes
❤️ Improve circadium rhythm, sleep patterns, lung capacity, energy levels
❤️ Boost brain health by slowing tissue loss, improving memory, and increasing executive function which helps us organize, interpret, and take action
❤️ Aid in lowering RHR (resting heart rate) which in turn improves efficiency of the heart in pumping blood through the body
❤️ Decrease the following: risk of stroke and heart disease, depression symptoms, and stress

While this list is not exhaustive, it likely may shed some light on some areas you may be surprised to see.

What I hope is that this post and workout helps you rethink wanting to skip on your cardio each week.

VFit 7th Birthday Preview Week

October 3, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

VFit 7th Birthday VFitFest — Come join us as we celebrate 7 years of VFit’s Community, Connection & Convenience

Day One

Next week, VFit’s turning 7 and we are throwing an epic 7 day fit fest with open doors to all to come join.

7 days, 7 years of evolution of our passion for wellness for the whole self.

Check in here each day as we add on to our roundup of our top fit tools we’ve used as we have grown to where we are today.

First up, Rachele is up sharing the story of VFit … tune in to learn more of the story about how the studio started.

Through the past 7 years, VFit is there for our community – no matter what. Your health and wellbeing matters through every season of life.

Next up, our Wellness Wheel for Day 2. Stay tuned.

Day Two

Today we are starting to roll out some of the wellness tools we’ve created to help our VFit community members live fuller lives. The Wellness Wheel brings together our entire concept of total mind, body, and spirit health and provides a realtime snap shot as needed when you go through this activity.

VFit Studio Wellness Wheel Update 2022 — VFit Studio Wellness Wheel click here to download the worksheet to complete this activity.

How well can your “Wellness Wheel” spin in your current state of life? At VFit, it is a core value that to live a life of quality, you need a well balanced “Wellness Wheel” that can rotate evenly and propel you forward.

Our VFit “Wellness Wheel” addresses 8 specific areas of health and well being that we believe are imperative to have in balance. The good news is that many can be filled at the same time, through small daily habits and awareness of your actions.

If you’re feeling off balance in life, overwhelmed, anxious, in a funk, or like you are literally spinning in place, more than likely one or more of the “Pillars” are running on empty – or maybe even empty.
We’ve designed this powerful, yet simple exercise below. It’s meant to examine where you are at RIGHT NOW in your life when it comes to each Pillar. This is a great place to come back to on a weekly or monthly basis. Just as the seasons of life change, so will the balance of your Wellness Wheel.

Click here to download your free copy of our Wellness Wheel Worksheet

Day Three

Today is hump day, which is called so because it’s midweek and the day of the workweek that seems to drag … on … forever.

Why so?

Because of the monotony of most peoples’ lives. NOT the case with VFitters!

We follow a functional approach to fitness, with over 30 class formats and emphasize our tool called the FUNctional Fitness Plan for members to ensure they are getting in all four major categories of fitness each week:

Cardio/HIIT
Strength
Mobility/Balance
Stretching Recovery

We have as a free download our FUNctional Fitness Plan you can use as a VFitter, or general public, and throw in the workouts you are doing each week and see how your current plan ‘fits in.’ If you find you are missing out on any particular category, see what you can do to add it in. You can always join us for that format, too!

Click here to download your free copy of our FUNctional Fitness Plan

Day Four

Day 4 with sharing as part of our preparty week for our 7th birthday and this ONE exercise (that’s not gonna make you sweat at all!) is the bees knees if you ask us.

You know those rare moments in life that you can look back and pinpoint a certain decision, action, or realization that absolutely rocked you and change the course of your life, for better or worse?

Well this right here is one that personally affected trainer Maria – who has shared her VFit swag collection up above as part of International VFit Swag Day – for the way better.

Here it is, and we have to give a shoutout to trainer Kristyna for bringing up this exercise recently to our community. It’s not done enough if you ask us, personally or worldwide, but should be requisite for all.

What is your WHY?

You can start by asking yourself a general why question that relates to you.

For example,

Why am I not exercising?

Once you answer your first why…you ask why again, and again, and again.

For each ‘why answer’ you ask again until you hit 7.

7 is the magic number and 7 really does uncover some deep hidden truths that you may have not realized were sitting there in plain site.

For Maria, her first time doing this Why Exercise was with the very first VFit Squad Reset. That’s not a typo, before there was VFit Studio, there was VFit Squad. The resets all began before VFit Studio and are actually why VFit Studio exists. It’s all about the pillars of wellness and adapting an additive holistic approach to your self care. (We’re actually running an epic version of the Resets soon, we’ll share details once we are all done partying for our birthday week but stay tuned!).

The question was simple, why did you sign up for this reset?
First answer, to get healthy. Then why, why, why, why, why, why, and the final why…

Maria realized she grew up with so much anxiety for the health of her family that she didn’t want to raise her own young kids to have that same inner turmoil. She wanted to take charge of her health and do all that she could, and then some, to ensure that she was being healthy for herself so she could live a happy, long life with her kids where they didn’t worry about her health.

Maria continues on with this memory of her inner why exericse over 8 years later and we hope this one if you choose to do it today helps you also uncover something special in you to help take some action.

Day Five

Day 5 here with our preparty and we figure it was ’bout time we got to the deets of what VFit Studio is up to each day.

Next week is gonna be bonkers with over 20 special events and classes to celebrate our birthday.

If you haven’t claimed your complimentary class pass yet for the week, do so now here.

But the week AFTER the major festivities, we’ll be back to ‘VFit normal’ and we’ve loaded up each day’s schedule for you Monday through Friday up above. Tomorrow we’ll share more on each format but for today, we wanted to give the big visual.

What happens on the weekend?

Well more VFit, of course!

We have a lighter schedule on the weekends but many members are able to get in a workout, or two, or three each weekend too.

Click here to view full schedule & book live VFit Studio online fitness classes

Day 6

The Core Values of VFit Studio have stood the test of time, 7 years strong!

Down to the core, VFit is the above. It’s roots run deep and have not waivered, only strengthened, these last seven years. We’ve never been here to chase fads, drop pounds, or make millions. We’re here to honor the above, still taped on Rachele’s computer with the same ol’ tape she used right at the very beginning, 7 years later.

7 years and it’s the same core values we honor with each live class, each program, each challenge, and each post.

“Years ago I wrote out these core values for VFit.

They sit on my desk for me to look at each day.

Core values are your GPS system, your North Star, a check list against which you should make important and tough decisions.

I choked up in class this morning sharing this list.

I’m proud that through the last 7 years, my team has not wavered from this list!

Serving our community from our hearts always will be our top value.

It often times means we do things the longer and harder way, but nothing can replace true human connection and doing the hard work.”
Shares Rachele from earlier today right after leading willPower Method in Super Saturday

Tomorrow is our FINAL DAY of our preparty … then the real fun begins, with each live class all week long! If you haven’t claimed your complimentary pass to VFitFest7, please click here to claim yours.

First Friday’s Wellness Cafe: You are strong than you think & an overview of the macro fat

September 26, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

This month for the First Friday’s Wellness cafe Maria covered the topic of strength training and exploring your current home inventory of dumbells and Lauren covered the macronutrient fat.

Maria’s talk was geared towards helping our community members understand that different exercises can benefit from having different sets of weights such as: light, medium, and heavy. Modifcation options were also talked about during this discussion.

Next up, Lauren continued from last month’s session on the macronutrient of protein and covered fat. She provided resources and ideas of how to better understand fat and how it is used by your body.

Next month for the Wellness Cafe we’ll have the live session open to all that are joining us for VFit’s 7th birthday celebration week. Lauren will close out her macro talk and cover carbohydrates and Maria is set go over heart rate training zones and cardio tips and tricks as part of the FUNctional Fitness Plan and a well balanced routine.

Full slides available here.

If you have any questions on either topic, you can learn more about Maria and Lauren’s Signature Series coaching options here.

First Friday’s Wellness Cafe: Posture Clinic & Protein Overview

August 31, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

For our August First Friday’s Wellness Cafe with Lauren and Maria there was a posture clinic to start then an informative overview of one of the three macros: protein.

Maria begin the Wellness Cafe demonstration 3 ways to use an everyday object, in this case a broom, to help improve posture and mobility in three activities: holding a standard plank, during a hip hinge movement, and using the broom handle to help open up and increas mobility in the shoulders.

Next, Lauren led an overview on protein and provided the group with an explanation of what this important macro does for your body, what foods you can find it in, and recommendations for how much protein you should incorporate into your diet.

Here are slides of Lauren’s presentation, for our September 9th Wellness Cafe session, Lauren will build off this with another macro. Maria will lead another demonstration, this time helping educate on strength training from home with tips on what kinds of weights to use, grips, and recovery time.

The VFit Mountain Goats Take on the June Lake Tri – and the lessons it instilled in us all.

July 13, 2022 by Maria Sogard Leave a Comment

Kathy, Rachele, Meghan and Becky before the race began

The past six weeks I’ve spent extra time training for the June Lake Triathlon, with three fellow VFitters as part of a relay team. The journey took me from the sidelines of the pool as my kids “swim team mom” to in the pool/lake, training hard for the 1 mile open water swim.

And I have to say, this whole journey has been life changing.

Thanks to social media and live interaction with the VFit team, we have been able to share the training journey with my community and am here to close out this chapter, summing up the weekly recaps and story.

I also came up with 5 TOP takeaways to share, in the hopes that there’s pieces in our journey that help inspire you to expand outside your comfort zone, take bigger chances, and enjoy your own personal journey more.

“On July 9th, 2022 the VFit Mountain Goats did it! As a relay team with Rachele on the 1 mile swim, Meghan on the 25 mile bike ride, Kathy on an epic 6.2 mile trail run, and Becky cheering them all on – they completed the race together.

It was a tough course, with variable weather, at an elevation of 8,000 feet, lots of grit and hard work but the team pushed through and came out all smiles and shine on the finish line.”

2 weeks before the race, our running teammate Becky found herself with a major knee injury and had to bow out of the race, leaving us heartbroken to lose her, and scrambling to figure out what to do.

But in true VFit fashion, where there is a will, there is a way – and local teammate Kathy stepped up to the plate to hop in.

A triathlon relay consists of 3 teammates, but in this case, we became 4! Becky came to cheer us on, hold our bags, and give us all the support in the world. The dream is in the team!

My Top 5 Takeaways from the journey, followed by a weekly recap of training:

🌟 Don’t take yourself so serious in life that you stop trying new things and letting yourself get uncomfortable. The biggest growth and reward is when we journey and push through our comfort zone.

🌟 On the flip side, please DO take yourself serious enough to put in the work and effort to chase your goals. Chasing and reaching goals takes training and hard work, I’m most proud of myself for sticking to what I committed to and not letting excuses derail me. I made it work, even on the busiest of weeks, to get my training swims in and it paid off.

🌟Being uncomfortable is ok – in fact, you grow the most from those moments. If you are scared to do something, it’s because you care about the outcome and it’s something you should reach for. There’s plenty of times I felt like the literal fish out of water, but I knew those athletes around me in the pool and lake, were all there chasing the same goal and we all wanted to the best for one another.

🌟 Having a team to do life with makes everything more fun. Your team will help support you, check in on you, and help hold you accountable. The dream really is in the team and you become the sum of who you choose to surround yourself by.

🌟 Most importantly, enjoy the journey!! May we all embrace being “works in progress” in this life! While the race was the end goal, it was that six week journey and all the steps that it took to get there that really made up my journey and what I’m most thankful for. Make sure to enjoy every success, embrace and learn from each stumble or failure, and remember that we all only get one life to live and work to celebrate your wins each day.

Join Rachele from Mom Hill as she gives a recap on her 6 weeks of training and her 5 top takeaways on training and completing the June Lake Triathlon

6 Weeks of Training Recap:

Week 1

I said yes.

I committed to be on a relay team for the June Lake Tri and I’m the swimming leg – Olympic distance. Funniest part is, 2 local VFitters asked me to be on their team and I thought “say yes more!”

And I did just that.

Between running VFit, teaching classes, taking the dog out and living a pretty active lifestyle, I haven’t trained for anything specific for a long time. But I felt the desire to push myself out of my comfort zone, focus on something with a tangible goal and to use the years of FUNctionsl fitness I’ve gained through VFit to train for this upcoming event.

I hired the best coach around. My 9 year old daughter who is passionate about swimming.

Off we go at 6:45am on day 1 of training! 💦 Bonus – 1:1 time with her, which is hard to come by these days ❤️ Let’s go Mountain Goats!”

Me and “Coach Emmy” my daughter in the pool for our first training swim together in Week 1.

Week 2

I know we talk about it in classes all the time.

The importance of accountability and making connections with accountability partners or buddies.

We’ve found at VFit that linking up with a partner for accountability has been proven time and time again to improve our members’ check in totals and overall morale with getting in their workouts.

Accountability goes much farther than just for classes I learned this week!

The biggest thing with finding an accountability partner is that it makes a huge difference on those days when you just don’t feel like it. We all have those days, even us Trainers.

You may not *feel like it*, but if you skip out, you know you are letting someone else down who is supporting you and expecting you to show up, to honor your commitment.

Here’s a huge shoutout to my accountability partner Kathy.

This week was INTENSE in so many ways at home, with it being the first week of summer and all 3 kids home full time. There was also work to get done and the never ended catching up with loose ends, all of which could have taken over my mornings this week, but since I knew you were there to train with me, I showed up.

I showed up for you. I showed up for me. For our triathlon training team, for my family, and our entire VFit community.

Me and my accountability buddy Kathy in the pool togethe on Week 2.

Week 3

I’ve found my VFit community is there with me, even when I’m swimming alone in the pool.

First, with all the cross training we do together in our classes together.

Each time my legs burn I think about all the work we do together in classes like Barre and willPower to build muscle endurance.

Or when I start going for speed and my heart starts racing, I think of our Never Miss a Monday Met Mash and Tabata training – together and smiling through it.

Second, all the messages on these posts and also private DMs of support as I push myself to do something I’ve never done before!

The outpouring has been so heartfelt and many have shared that they’ve been inspired to go after a goal they’ve had in the back of their mind’s as well, because these weekly posts have them inspired.

That as you know, means the world to me and is a lot of why I’m sharing my journey with you all.

And third, my VFitter community is literally there with me with each heartbeat as I use my My Zone heart rate monitor and check myself into active class times when other VFitters are taking clasees or working out on their own too.

The second pic shows all of our My Zone tiles as I was swimming, trainer Maria was landscaping, and the other VFitters were all in a live class together.

This added level of connection is just awesome and I felt like we were all together in the pool.
I’m feeling strong and already can see progress with my swim times and stamina in the pool here on week 3.

I look forward to continuing to sharing my weekly accountability posts up until race day!

Thankful to get to be ‘live’ with team and connected with our My Zones for training swims. It really feels like they are there with me when I do this and helps push me to keep going. I feel their energy in the pool and cheers!

Week 4

“Swim training week 4 and it’s not getting easier.”

“But I can for sure tell I’m getting stronger!

My My Zone perfectly sums up how I felt this morning, slow to start!

I wanted to quit! Wasn’t feeling it! But I kept going and somewhere in there, my energy and drive kicked in.

Some days you just need to start! Abd like dory says ”just keep swimming.”

I always say in classes, “often times your best workouts come when you really don’t want to show up!”

Challenge yourself fo get through 5 minutes and see where it leads.

Today I ended with my longest swim yet, 50 laps.

A little progress each week adds up to a lot over time.

Week 5

So grateful for my VFit community. I told them about my tri swim training weeks ago and have been openly sharing the journey.

They are truly the best cheer team around!

This may seem like no big deal to many, but it is for me.

Im not a swimmer, I don’t love being cold and I don’t have a ton of extra time to train for a mile open water swim.

But I’m making it happen thanks to a TEAM!

From my 2 vfitters Meghan and Becky who asked me to be on their team. We text each other daily, we cheer each other on, we tease each other – we are team Sierra Mountain Goats.

Becky was even so kind to let me know I wore the wetsuit inside out yesterday 🙌

And here at retreat, each morning I’ve had a group of the most supportive, authentic and genuine cheerleaders along my side.

Today they even encouraged me to do double what we did yesterday, racking in .92 miles total!!

The event is in 2 less than weeks and this whole experience has nothing to do with the results, it’s all in this fun, uncomfortable and out of my comfort zone journey.

My wet suit may have been inside out, but either way, I got that first lake swim training done during retreat with the support of the my team paddling by my side.

Week 6

This swim mom has turned into a passionate swimmer this summer and I couldn’t be more proud of myself.

I’ve never considered myself a swimmer or signed up for a big race like this, but when the opportunity to join in a team being formed by 2 VFitters in my local community for the June Lake Triathlon – with them swim being in my fav lake on earth – I knew the universe was telling me this was my time to rise up and accept the challenge.

Being successful means you need to adapt and embrace change.

When your schedule changes, you have to change your schedule and stick to getting in the activities you’ve chosen to make a priority in your life.

You’ll never have a bunch of extra time to pour into your health, you have to create those windows and make it work because you understand how important it is.

Three ways to do this are: 1) set weekly goals 2) have accountability buddies and 3) show up even when you don’t feel like it.

The kids are home from school for the summer and fitting in triathlon training has gotten admittedly more challenging.

I’ve had to readjust the time of day I do my training, even if my body wants to do it in the morning, it’s not realistic, so I’ve had to will myself to commit to train at different times based on the days’ commitments. This means I’ve even had to do my training swims at night or bring the kids, but I’ve committed to stick to my plan and that means I have to adapt.

I started training 6 weeks ago with 30 laps in the pool which sounded like a ton of swimming, way more than I was used to. Each week, I’ve added 5-10 more and lo and behold, I made it to my end goal!!!

Sometimes progress feels slow, but small increments forward on a consistent basis really add up huge. Our mind and will is oh so powerful, use it wisely in your favor and you too can conquer your own big goals you’ve set for yourself this summer.

Race day is this weekend, look for a few more posts as I close out my training and sharing my accountability posts. Thank you so much for your support throughout this journey.