Fitness on the Rocks 2017

Red Rocks Amphitheater is an incredible venue for concerts, which is why I have it on my summer bucket list to be sure that I see a show there. But it’s also a popular destination for workouts, with many people going in the early morning to run the stairs or do a bootcamp class. It’s normally open to everyone during the day, but on Saturday, it was closed except for ticketholders to one of my absolute favorite Colorado events: Fitness on the Rocks.

I wasn’t able to attend Fitness on the Rocks last year, but I was incredibly impressed (and exhausted) by the array of activities when I went two years ago with a Meetup group. This year, I thought I knew what to expect, and I tried to rest up the day before in preparation. I arrived pretty close to 8am and found the place already mobbed – little did I know that it was only going to get more crowded from there! Fortunately, my friend Sarah had given me an insider tip on driving to the venue a different way to avoid the crowds, and I scored the last parking spot in the upper south lot, right next to the amphitheater. I was able to find Sarah pretty easily, and we headed to the upper plaza to check out the various booths and giveaways.

It seemed like every single booth had some sort of a workout or challenge being offered, and my competitive spirit meant that I got really tired really fast. Sarah and I kicked off our day with a pushup challenge, where you got a prize based on how many pushups you could do in a row. We checked out the prize list and set our sights on earning towels, which neither of us had brought but thought would be a good idea to have. I pumped out my first 20 pushups pretty easily, but then my arms suddenly hit a wall, and I could feel a twinge in my left shoulder, so I switched to doing them on my knees in order to get the last 15 we needed for our towel. (I should note that a lot of people were doing all the pushups from their knees, so this wasn’t cheating.) But wow – only five minutes into the morning and I was already tired!

From there, we headed to the Orangetheory area, where they were offering six minute workouts every ten minutes. Two minutes on the TRX doing low rows and chest presses, two minutes of bodyweight exercises (pop squats and jumping lunges), and two minutes all-out on the rower. I know this was much shorter than a regular Orangetheory workout, but I really liked changing things up every minute on the minute – it definitely made it feel like it was much faster! (Well, maybe except for the jumping lunges, which seemed long even at sixty seconds, haha.)

After that, we each saw some coaches we knew, and they convinced us to do the one minute rowing challenge for a chance to win free classes. Sarah is an incredible rower and I knew I’d never beat her, but I surprised myself by keeping my 500m splits under 1:40 the entire time (where usually I think of 1:45 as a really great effort), and managing to row 315 meters in a minute!! I was really proud of that, especially since I didn’t feel like I did a great job at the 2000m row during Peak Performance Week.

We browsed a few booths before heading over to the upper plaza – a new expo area from when I had come to FOTR two years ago. One of my Instagram buddies, Tara Laferrara, was doing a full length 40 minute glutes and abs class, and Sarah and I were eager to try it. Within a few minutes, though, I was kind of wishing I hadn’t! Although it was a low-equipment workout using simple resistance bands, the workout totally kicked our butts, and Sarah and I found ourselves switching from the hard band to the easy band almost immediately. (Check out Tara killing it with an upper body workout with the “easy” blue band here – still not easy!)

That class, tough as it was, reminded me of one of the (many) reasons why I love Colorado. The fact that Tara’s class wasn’t supposed to be an advanced class but for all levels, and yet it was that hard, just inspires me. I love how fit everyone in Colorado is. Just when I start to think I’m doing well, I go to a class where I can’t do half the moves – and I think that’s awesome! Rather than discourage me, it inspires me to work harder and try to become my very best self. I definitely need to go to more classes with Tara at Fitness in the City.

In the meantime, though, Sarah and I headed over to another challenge. Fitwall is one of my favorite studios in Denver (discovered through Classpass), and they had a circuit that used a lot of different equipment. It wasn’t quite as fun as actually having the wall with the neat iPad countdowns, but it was still fun to see a lot of my favorite coaches from there. I haven’t been to Fitwall in a while, since dropping my Classpass membership down to one class a month once they got rid of unlimited and I got addicted to Orangetheory! The energy from the instructors made me want to go back to Fitwall soon though. I love studios where the trainers get to know you and make you feel awesome 🙂

Sarah and I rounded out the morning by trying the obstacle course challenge (LOL at my epic fail whenever I had to climb over a fence or up/down a rope net) and eating a ton of yummy samples from Honey Stinger. I was trying to fuel up to do more working out, but the combo of all the exercise I had done so far plus the heat of the Colorado sun that was now out from behind the clouds was too much for me! I ended up heading home three hours in – so nowhere near the end, but still a pretty good showing in my opinion.

And then I spent most of the rest of the day flopping on the couch. Workout complete!