XTrain by Cathe: All Out Low Impact HiiT

I'd like to start off with a small aside about yesterday's XTrain workout, Supercuts:

My entire body is beset with soreness.

Supercuts has parts of my body sore that are never sore, like regions of my core that never feel like they get worked (namely my lower back muscles, my upper back, and my armpits, for Christ's sake).  Even though the moves are super-easy, they will super cut you the next day like a knife through butter.  Whatever that means.

Anyhoo, on to today's workout.  Because I have a 5-mile race tomorrow that has some serious hillage at the end, I decided to take another cross-training day today.  I also needed a flimsy excuse to bust out another one of Cathe's XTrain videos again, so this fit the bill perfectly.  On today's workout menu was her All Out Low Impact HiiT workout, because I wanted to get some cardio in before tomorrow's hill assault.

First, let's talk about the positives:

• The workout is short (38:53 total) but long enough to make you wonder when it will be over when you're in the middle of some of the moves.
• Again, variety is a central theme in this workout.  You start off doing cardio with weights, then move to the step, and then move to using the gliding discs.
• I liked the color of their shoes.  
• It isn't all squatting and lunging and squatting and lunging and oh yeah let's not lunge or squat for a second oh wait back to the squatting and lunging now.

Now let's talk about the not so positives:

• Honestly, I was a bit disappointed in this workout.  My heart rate wasn't exactly where it needed to be, and I was pushing on each exercise, and I found myself actually wishing for the abuse she dishes out in her Afterburn workout from her Low Impact Series.  This might not have been the right workout for my fitness level; maybe it's time to try her Tabatacise workout in this series.
• I found myself playing a little game with the music--trying to guess what song they were trying to copy without violating copyright laws.  When I start paying attention to the music (something I never do if the moves are tough enough) that's a bad sign.
• I didn't really feel the gliding disc portion of the workout was as effective as it could have been.  The previous step portion could have been extended or ramped up in place of that, in my opinion.  Of course, you must know that most of the time I *bleep*ing hate using those damn discs anyway; I always feel as if I'm totally focused on keeping my feet on the stupid things rather than on the exercise itself.
• In the first portion using light weights, I felt like there was way too much time between exercises; Cathe kept letting us take breaks.  That may be why I felt like the cardio wasn't as effective for me.

One thing I noticed in both of the workouts I've tried from the XTrain series so far is this: Cathe keeps looking off to her right at someone or something.  It's driving me a little bonkers.  Who and/or what are you looking at, Cathe?!?

Ahem.  Anyway, I am thinking that this could be used on one of my easier cross-training days when I start my marathon training next week.  It's certainly not a horrible workout by any means; I'm thinking that it just wasn't right for me at my current level. I am hoping the next workout I plan to do from this series, Burn Sets, promises to bring on the pain like I know Cathe can.