A Week Of Walking and Biking (or Getting Through Some Low-Key Workouts)

It seems that whenever I have a really great plan to try to get my workouts back to the progress I am trying to make, something happens that stops me. But at least now, even when things stop me from making progress it doesn’t stop me from doing my workouts. So this past week of workouts ended up being much more low-key and low-impact than I wanted them to be, but I was still there.

Monday’s workout could have potentially been a day I worked on running, but it was a day that had endurance, strength, and power in it and I knew I couldn’t do the endurance or strength portions as a run. The endurance block on the treadmill had a 3 minute push and the strength part was all running on inclines. Between the incline runs, we also had frogger squats which were a nice break after incline work. The floor work was one long block that had low rows on the straps, front raises, squats, hip bridges, and plank work.

And when I got to the rower I finally felt like I could do better than I had in the rest of the workout. We had 2 blocks on the rower and in the first block we had 400 meter rows with squats using weights between each row. But where I really did my best was in the second block where we had timed rows. We started with a 3 minute row and then had a 90 second and 45 second row. The goal was to do more than half of the distance we had done in the row prior. And each of the times I was supposed to do that, I was able to go much further than half of the previous distance.

Wednesday’s workout was an interesting one. On Monday, after I got home from Universal Studios, it seems like I might have broken my toe. I was taking off my shoes and jammed my toe into the leg of my couch. As soon as it happened, I knew it was bad. My vision went white, I was in horrible pain, and my toe was not looking normal. Tuesday I was starting to be able to walk a little bit more on it (I think the damage was to the top of my toe and not the side or bottom), so I decided to try to walk slowly in my workout. It was another endurance, strength, and power workout and I just tried to take it easy. By the end of the treadmill time, I realized that I probably would have been better off using the bike but it was too late.

When I got to the floor, I had to focus on taking some of the pressure off of my toe. The first block on the floor had 400 meter rows with strap reaches and plank rows. I adjusted where the rower strap went on my foot to keep me from pressing off the foot plates with my toe. The second block was squats, shoulder presses, lunges with rowing, and ab work. It was tough to stay on my heels and not my toes, but I did my best. And the last block was squats with 150 meter sprints. By the end of my workout I was feeling a bit more pain in my toe, but it was still feeling better than it did when I hurt it on Monday.

When I got to Friday’s workout, I knew I needed a break from the treadmill. I went on the bike for our endurance day. This workout would have been a good one to work on my running, but it wasn’t meant to be. It was a single block where we had different distances to go with walking recovery. We did everything at our own pace and I tried to stick with the plan for the bike. When I started I thought it would be nice if I could make it to 10 miles on the bike, and that’s exactly what I got to when it was time to switch to the floor.

The floor work was another interesting set up. Everything was timed so we didn’t have to count reps or worry about it. It was 3 rounds of deadlifts, squats to walk out push ups, shoulder raise to lateral raise, side plank rotations, and 2 minute rows. It was nice having it all timed so I could focus on the work, but it was tough. It’s sometimes easier when I know how many more reps I have before changing moves, but this time I just had to try to get through the time and knew that it would be done before I knew it. My rowing wasn’t anything spectacular, but I did row the entire time without stopping each round.

And when I worked out on Saturday, I stuck with the bike again. It was a 3 group workout, but I figured that my toe needed the rest (I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be on the bike, but I’m going to try to go easy on myself). It was an endurance, strength, power day again; but I really didn’t pay too much attention to the workout when I was on the bike. I was dealing with my toe plus some bad nausea so my goal was mainly just to keep moving and not stress about much else. I had to take breaks while on the bike, but for most of the time I was able to go at a slowish pace and just move.

On the floor, we had a progressive workout. Each round started with chest presses and then we added on moves from there. We also had triceps on the straps, low rows with weights, lunges, and abs. I was just getting toward the end of the plan when time was called to switch. I had to take breaks to not feel nauseous which did slow me down a lot. But I got through almost everything so I was proud of myself. And on the rower was where I struggled the most. We started with 3 rounds of 90 seconds for distance. I did ok, but it was not easy to keep rowing for 90 seconds based on how I was feeling. And after that, we had rounds of 200 meter rows with squat work between. I was feeling pretty relieved when the workout ended because I was feeling done.

Obviously I couldn’t predict that I was going to break my toe, but my nausea is something I can plan for. I never know how bad it will be each month, but it comes without fail every month. I need to keep working on how to workout and not let it get to me since I can’t take a week off every month. But having a tough week like this past one was a great training week for pushing through whatever my health circumstances may be.

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