Remember how last week I said that I knew I’d only get 3 workouts in for the week because of my schedule?
I totally lied.
I went into Hell Week with the intention of only doing 3 workouts until on Monday I found out that it was 4 Hell Week Workouts to earn the shirt (I thought it was 4). So I decided to suck it up and do 4 workouts to get my shirt.
Monday’s workout was Dead Man’s Row. I knew this would be the 23 minute row day, and I was terrified. I made sure that my rowing segment was first so I could get it done with, and then I’ll do my best with the floor work.
I’m still getting used to the 7:30am workouts so I was pretty exhausted going in. And doing that long row didn’t perk me up. But there was a plan with push rows and recovery rows, and I did my best to follow along with that.
I didn’t have much of a goal for my row. I just wanted to beat my row of about 3300 meters from last year. And when my 23 minutes were up, I was pretty darn excited to see that I did 4142 meters!
I don’t remember much about the floor workout after that except that one of the floor moves was a low row on the straps and I felt that that was extremely mean to do when we had a 23 minute row.
Tuesday (the extra day I added) was The Hills Run Red. I thought it was be a really tough hill day for me, but it ended up not being too bad. All the treadmill segments were on inclines, but they were all sprints that were about a minute or less. Between sprints we had to go on the rower (I wasn’t happy about 2 rowing days in a row), and I managed to do 3000 meters on the rower then! While I was happy that I’m getting better and better at the rower, I was ready for a few rower-free days.
Wednesday was The Silence of the Lambs (or Legs depending on where you read it). Yes, this was a leg day and there were a bunch of squats and lunges to do. And yes, there was more rowing!
After 3 workouts in a row, I was ready for a rest day so I was happy taking Thursday off. But I was back on Friday for day 4 (my first 4 workout week since my calf injury!). That day was The Final Destination and again it involved the rower! There were 2 rowing segments (400 and 800 meters) so those felt almost like sprints. And the treadmill had 4 segments at either .13 miles or .25 miles so that wasn’t too bad.
The floor that day was crazy. It was a single 23 minute floor block and it was so tough! There were lunges, squats, burpees, full body pull ups, and speed skaters. I had to take several breaks in those 23 minutes, but I got the entire routine done so that was good enough for me.
Doing 4 days of Hell Week exhausted me, but I proved to myself that while my calf might not be totally healed, I can get back to 4 workouts in a week if I have the time. I won’t be doing that this week because of my race, but I’m going to try to do that again soon so I can get as many workouts in this year as possible!
I seriously had the best time with Hell Week this year. Last year it terrified me for a couple of reasons. First, I was still pretty new to Orangetheory so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the workouts. I proved that I can totally do it. And last year Hell Week was the first time I did 3 workouts in a row. Again, I can totally do it. While I was worried about how I would do in the workouts this year, I got to have more fun than stress. I loved pushing myself to new limits and seeing the awesome costumes that the coaches wore.
Yes, in that second picture I’m standing on top of a rower to be almost as tall as Coach Bruce.
I’m actually excited for Hell Week for next year. I know that there will be more challenges before next Hell Week, but I like having that as a standard thing to hold myself to. If there is another 23 minute row, I know what distance I want to beat. I know how I felt in the workouts this year and I want to push myself more next year. I’ve got a year to train for Hell Week 2016, and I’m already starting to get ready!
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