This past week of workouts was a 3 workout week, but I didn’t go easy on myself at all! My week started with the end of Hell Week and then my last 2 workouts were very focused on getting ready for my 5K. I was feeling pretty much completely normal, so I saw no need to try to take it easy and decided to go all out on the 3 workouts that I had.
Monday was the end of Hell Week and it was a Trick or Treat 3G workout. That meant that on each part of the workout (treadmill, floor, rower) we pulled a card from a plastic pumpkin and it told us what to do. There were some good cards (the treats) and some cards that were really tough instructions (the tricks).
I got to start on the treadmill and first pulled a Treat card. I had to do 30 second push paces, 30 second all out paces, and 30 second walking recovery for 3 rounds. I was running for both the push and all out paces, but I was keeping my speed the same since the walking time was less than I’m used to. I got through that card pretty quickly and then went over to pull my next treadmill card. It was another Treat card that said I had to do 1 minute push paces, 1 minute all outs, and 30 second walking recoveries. I did walk the push paces at 8% incline, but ran much faster for my all out pace than I did for the first card. I only made it 2 rounds before the time was done and I headed over to the floor.
My first card on the floor was a Trick card. I had to start with 31 burpees before moving on to the workout plan. Those 31 burpees were not easy at all and I had to take breaks after 4 or 5, but I did manage to get through it and was able to move on to the rest of the floor work. It was a good mix of upper and lower body work and I had to do pushups, ab work, and lunges. Just as I was finishing up all the work, it was time to switch over to the rower for the end of the workout.
On the rower, I pulled another Trick card. It was to for 3100 meters and we only had about 13 minutes left in class for the day. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to get my full 3100 meters in, so I decided to just try for the best and see what I could do. I did have to take breaks every so often because I was so exhausted from all the other hard work that day, but I managed to get just about 2200 meters done before class was done.
And after completing my 5th Hell Week class, I was officially a Hell Week Survivor and earned my shirt!
Wednesday we were back to normal workouts, but they weren’t easy! That day was a strength day so I ended up doing quite a bit of walking. We had a lot of higher hill work and most of my walking was done at 10-14% incline. We did have a few things at a flat incline so I was able to run for those, but a majority of my work was walking at an incline. We also had a mini run/row assignment that day. I ran .15 miles (which took me about 2 minutes) and then rowed 300 meters. I didn’t make it through that many rounds of the run/row, but it felt good to get that running practice in.
When we got to the floor, I was able to work a lot harder than normal and it felt really great! We did have some ab work which wasn’t so great for me (I’m still occasionally feeling weird pressure in my stomach when I do sit-ups or crunches) but the rest of the work was either at the level I was at before or better. I was able to do squats and lunges with better form (and less stability issues) and was doing my arm work at 15 pounds. And when we did pullovers, there were no 20 pound weights for me to use so I had to use the 25 pound ones. It was a struggle to use the heavier weights, but I was able to get through the sets and realized that my strength didn’t get worse with my time taking it easy.
My last workout of the week was on Thursday (I didn’t work out on Friday since I had the race on Saturday morning). It was a power day and that made me so happy. Power days are usually my best days to work on my running and I needed that confidence boost before race day. Most of the time, we had a lot of the same stuff on the treadmill. It was push pace to all outs and usually they were 45 second intervals. So that was 90 seconds of running and then we’d usually have a minute to walk to recover. This was a more intense interval than what I do when I work on my running on my own, so this was a great way to build some extra endurance for the race. And once we were done on the treadmill, I realized that I had reached a workout goal. For a while, I have wanted to get to 2 miles during the treadmill time in a workout. That would mean I was close to 15 minute miles during class. So it was great to see this screen when I was done.
On the floor, we had a bunch of upper body work. I was doing chest presses and we had lunges that had weighted twists (I really felt that in my shoulders). And to finish the workout, we had a short rowing block. It was a similar pattern to the treadmill where we had 45 seconds intense rowing and then 30 seconds to recover. And after that workout, I felt as ready as I could be for my race on Saturday.
This ended up being a great week of workouts for me. I gained a lot of confidence I lost after being sick and finally was feeling more like myself and able to do my best on my race. I’ll write about the race tomorrow, but if you follow me on social media, I think you know how it went!
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