Monthly Archives: March 2024

This past week of workouts was another one of my good weeks. But just like the week before, I didn’t push myself too much. I wasn’t planning on going easy for both of my good weeks and worry that this will cause me to struggle a bit more with my bad week, but that’s how things turned out this past week. I had to go a little easier due to some hip pain associated with the weather, which is something out of my control. And then I chose to go easier on Thursday for another reason.

Thursday was a benchmark workout, which I usually push myself for. This time, it was the 12-minute run/bike. This is one of the harder benchmarks since it will always take 12 minutes to complete it. With the other benchmarks, you can tell yourself if you go faster it will be done faster. That won’t work for this one. I’ve been very lucky to be able to improve on my distance on the bike the last few times, but this time I knew that pushing myself wasn’t the right choice. I was going to be at a work event that evening and I would be standing around in heels for several hours. So I needed my legs to not be exhausted after my workout. It was a little annoying to not push myself when I would have loved to see if I could beat my past distance, but I didn’t want to be miserable later that day. So I took it easy for those 12 minutes. I set the bike resistance level for between my base and push pace levels and just tried to bike as long as I could without take a break. I did still have to take a few breaks, but they weren’t that frequent. I also tried to ignore the distance I got since I knew it wouldn’t be great, but I did look at the end and it was so much worse than almost all my past benchmarks. But I just reminded myself that I wasn’t trying so I can’t compare my distance from when I was trying.

A lot of the rest of the week had a lot of endurance work, so I spent my workouts being focused on keeping things steady and not having too many hills and valleys with how I was feeling. I’m probably a lot better at power or sprints for cardio than I am for endurance, so it’s not the worst thing for me to slow down a bit more than I would like. It’s not easy for me to do since I do like to push myself, but I’m trying to understand more and more that I can have more well-rounded workouts that aren’t always pushing me to the limit.

I know that my bad week is likely to start this week, but I’m trying to stay hopeful that either it won’t happen or won’t be as bad as it can be. I don’t know if I’ll be able to push myself much this week, but I really want to try as long as other factors allow me to. I do worry that I will feel worse about my bad week, but I also know that if that happens it’s only a minor setback and I’ll be feeling more like myself again soon. But even if I know that, it can still mess with my mind when I feel like I’m not able to do what I know I can do. I hate that I get down on myself like that, but it’s just how my brain works. Maybe having an easier week when I’m feeling good will make an easy week not as emotional and tied to a bad week and that can help me feel better about it. I guess I’ll find out after the next week or two when I’m over my bad week.

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I’m So Glad I Pushed Hard This Past Week (or Having A Good Day In A Bad Week) Not Feeling As Bad About My Bad Week (or I Hope This Week Is About The Same) The Week Before The Dri-Tri (or I Hope I’m Going To Be Ready) A Bit Of A Recovery Week (or Easier Workouts To Deal With Pain) An Up And Down Workout Week (or Still Feeling Ok With How Things Went) PRs and Pain (or A Very Up And Down Week)

I was feeling much more like my normal self this past week. This is always good, but it’s extra nice for my workouts. I will always have the potential to not feel great between the pain I sometimes have with my hip and the nausea I get with my injection, but when I know there’s a chance to have a good week it automatically puts me in a much better mood. I did have a little bit of hip pain this past week, but it wasn’t much worse than what I deal with daily. And I must have gotten my injection in the right spot because I didn’t have much nausea. I did inject myself in a spot that caused the worst bruise I’ve ever gotten from a shot, but that pain is a lot easier to deal with since I only have to be careful about how I bend down so I don’t make it hurt.

Typically, when I have a good week like I had this past week, I use it to push myself really hard. I feel like I need to make up for having to go easy the week or two prior. But this past week, even though the workouts always have a mix of endurance, strength, and power they felt more like they focused on endurance. A lot of the workouts focused on being steady with what you were doing in the block or repeating the same thing several times so you could work on improving what you were doing the time before.

For cardio, we had some workouts that were focused on longer hills that didn’t go as high as some of the inclines/resistance levels normally go. We also had some workouts that were long push paces followed by base paces and that pattern repeated itself for the entire cardio block. It allowed me to not feel like I needed to go too crazy on the bike and by not pushing myself I also didn’t need to take as many breaks to deal with my hip pain.

On the rower, we had a lot of repeating rows. Sometimes it was about repeating a specific distance and sometimes it was about repeating a specific time. But it was a lot of repetition and I used that to play around with different rowing styles to see how I could maximize my speed and wattage but not burn myself out too quickly. I know that whenever I do the Dri-Tri next, I will want to make sure that I get through the row quickly but I also know the risks of burning out and having to go slowly for the last part of the row. I don’t think I’ve found the perfect combination of rowing techniques for me yet, but I was happy with how much better my wattage was during this past week’s workouts compared to what I normally do.

On the floor, I didn’t feel like I had the same type of success as I did on the bike or rower. But I was able to play around with some heavier weights for some of the upper body work, which was fun. I learned pretty quickly that I’m not really ready to increase my weights just yet, but I’m so glad I tried. And I felt like they weren’t as much of a struggle as they have been in the past, so I know I’m getting stronger and closer to being able to go heavier with what I use on the floor. I also allowed myself to take a bit more time on the floor and not feel as rushed about getting in as many rounds done so I could make sure my form was ok and I took the time to stretch when necessary. Because of some of the hip pain I have, stretching can be hit or miss with me. Sometimes it doesn’t help me feel better so I’m careful about stretching during the workout. But this past week, it was the type of pain that got a bit less intense with some stretching so I did that when necessary on the floor.

Overall, this wasn’t my typical good week of workouts, but I think this was exactly the type of week I needed. I felt like I found some new baselines for myself that I could use moving forward. I do still like to push myself in my workouts so I’ll probably try to do that this week, but this past week was a good alternative option for me when I’m feeling good and probably a good idea to do from time to time to check in with myself and how my progress with endurance is going.

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Having My Expected Tough Week (or Feeling A Bit More Prepared For This) Making It Through The Week (or Going From Feeling Horrible To Feeling Normal) Missing My Normal Workouts More Than Ever (or I Needed Someone To Push Me This Week) An Up And Down Workout Week (or Still Feeling Ok With How Things Went) Glad I Was Feeling Better This Week (or Surprising Myself) Not My Normal Workout Recap (or At Least I Was Feeling Ok During The Week)