Hell Week Part 1 (or Not Pushing It Too Much)

Last week was the first part of Hell Week at Orangetheory. Technically part 2 of Hell Week is only today, but it’s still covering more than one week. This year, to earn the Hell Week shirt, you have to complete 5 out of the 8 days. Before I got sick, there was no question that I was going to do this. I signed up for all my classes and got super excited about it!

After getting sick, while I still knew I’d do my 5 Hell Week classes, there was a bit of hesitation. I didn’t want to push myself so much that I got worse but I didn’t want to not try either. So I tried to take it day by day and figured out what the best plan for each day would be for me. And last week, as planned I got 4 of my Hell Week workouts done! And each of those days ended up being a 3G workout, which I actually think helped me survive it despite the pain in my stomach!

Monday’s workout was a hill based one, but I knew that I would be on the bike for it. I was able to increase my resistance on the bike a bit more than I had done the past few workouts. Plus, I was able to increase the resistance for the hills as well. It was still a bit of a struggle on the bike and I had to take some breaks while riding it, but it was much better than the week before. When we were on the rower, we had to row and then do squat arm work with weights. The rower was still tough because of my stomach so I was rowing pretty slowly. And the weight work was also tough because my body didn’t want to bend like normal. But I took breaks when I needed to and even though I didn’t do as much work as I would have liked to, I still did something. And finally, I was on the floor doing lunges, planks, and mountain climbers which surprisingly didn’t bother me too much!

By Wednesday, I was feeling so much better. I thought about going on the treadmill that day, but I knew that I would want to push myself more than I should so I stuck with the bike. And it’s a good thing that I did that because the workout had a distance challenge element to it. We had 2 segments that were 6 minutes each on cardio. The first time, we were given guidance on when we should be in base, push, and all out paces. The second time we were just supposed to beat that original distance. I really went crazy on the bike and I think I was working harder on it than I normally do on the bike! And I was very happy to see that I was able to beat my first distance when I had my second attempt.

Next we had a rowing challenge that was set up the same was as the cardio challenge. 6 minutes to do our best, and then we did it again to try to beat the first time. The rower was still a bit tougher for me than it normally is, but I was very happy to see that I was able to row for the entire 6 minutes both times without stopping! And again, I beat my distance the second time (which I was not expecting at all)!

Finally on Wednesday, we had our floor work which had some lunges and mountain climbers (again those weren’t bugging me so I was able to work hard on them). We also had some arm work and I really wanted to use 12 pound weights again. I didn’t feel ready to use my normal 15 pound weights, but when I looked around all the 12 pound weights were being used by other people. So I was forced to use the 15 pound ones (I wasn’t going to use the 10 pound ones) and while it was a bit of a struggle I managed to get through and felt very accomplished!

Friday was the first day that I went back to using the treadmill. I knew my next 5K was coming up, and I wanted to see how I was doing after taking time off and feeling sick. I know that my expectations for what I would be able to do at my race need to be reevaluated because I’ve had those set-backs, but I still want to train as much as I can. For this workout, we started with a round of 3 minutes at each station. For the treadmill and rower, the plan was a 2 minute push and a 1 minute all out pace. I was able to do that for the rower, but for the treadmill I did a 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, and 1 minute run. The running felt different to me, but it wasn’t impossible. And on the floor for those 3 minutes, we had squats.

For the rest of the workout, we had a 3 partner workout. It was a rotation between the rower, treadmill, and floor and the person on the floor controlled the pace (the floor work was squats, lunges, and ab work). On the treadmill, we were supposed to run for the time it took for the partner from the floor to tag us out. And on the rower we were working toward how far we could row as a group for the workout (so we didn’t reset it between people). For the treadmill, I tried to stick with a 1 minute run/1 minute walk pace. I was able to do that for most of the time, but I did do one round where I just walked for the entire thing. But considering how awful I had felt a week prior, I’m very happy that I can still run and I have hopes that I can do a run/walk pace for at least part of my upcoming race.

And I have to say, as a team we did a lot of rowing for that workout! We didn’t place in the top 3, but the fact that our total was 6666 during Hell Week was pretty funny and I enjoyed that.

By Saturday, I was feeling a bit tired from all the work I had put in. Even though I was taking it a bit easier than normal during Hell Week, the workouts are very intense and tough. And of course, I’m very competitive with myself and try to see how far I can push myself. It’s not the best trait I have, but it really did push me hard when I planned on going easy on myself.

Saturday was a tornado style workout. We were never on one thing for that long and kept moving around a lot. We started and ended the workout with the same thing: 3 minutes on each section. For the treadmill both times, I did the 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, 1 minute run plan. And on the floor we had to do ultimate burpees and hop overs. But in the middle of the workout, everything was a 1 minute section. That’s very short so we were moving before you knew it! I stuck with running for the 1 minute I was on the treadmill. On the rower, I had to take it a bit easy because that was the only time I felt I had to rest. And on the floor, we pretty much always had to do burpees (that was the theme for the day). By the end of class, I was ready for a nap and to relax!

Today will be my last Hell Week workout (so I can earn my free shirt!) and then I’ll have 2 more workouts in the week before my 5K race. It’s so soon and I’m trying not to be nervous about race day. If I can’t run at all, I’m still going to do it and finish and that’s what is important. But hopefully the 3 workouts I have this week will prep me for the race as much as possible!

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Getting Back To Normal (or Finishing Hell Week and Race Prep) Hell Week To Orange Voyage (or One Challenge To Another) Welcome To Hell (or Pushing Myself Even More) Feeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep) This Felt Like Hell Week (or An Unexpected But Fun Workout Week) 12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week)