This past week of workouts was a normal workout week for me. The week before was a bit different because of my family workout. Next week will be almost a normal workout week but slightly different because of the holiday. So having a regular workout week was a nice break, especially since I know I’ll also have a few odd weeks in December.
And not only was it a normal workout week, but I was feeling pretty good throughout the week. I did have some issues with being lightheaded a few times, which is something I experience from time to time and usually is because I don’t eat enough the day before or I eat my dinner too early. But because I’m used to it, I know that I just need to sit down and catch my breath. It’s the same thing I do when I get lightheaded at any other time of day (sometimes I experience that when I’m just sitting and working).
I really have been trying to increase the weights that I use on the floor, but I’m still struggling with it. I did have a bit of success, but most of the time I couldn’t use the heavier weights. I know that just trying to use something heavier and then going back to what I normally use is still a bit of a success, but I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to be able to use the heavier weights for all my reps. Maybe it’s just continuing to do trial and error with the heavier ones? I was able to use slightly heavier weights once for an upper body exercise, which made me really happy. And having that feeling when using the heavier weights just convinced me more that this is the right thing to focus on. I think I felt almost more accomplished by using those heavier weights than I do when I get most of my PRs.
But speaking of PRs, I got a new one this past week! We had the 12-minute distance challenge on Thursday. This benchmark is tough because it will always last 12 minutes no matter how fast or slow you go. When it’s a distance challenge, you can be done sooner if you go faster. But you have to pace yourself for 12 minutes for this one and that’s not a short time. I have had attempts in the past where I went too hard at first and burned out and really couldn’t do much for the second half. But I’ve been doing better at pacing myself and making sure I don’t go too hard in the beginning.
I knew that I PRed the last time I did this and that was hard enough to do. And it can be harder to PR on the bike than on the treadmill because the treadmill tracks smaller distances than the bike. So while on the treadmill you can see a new distance every few seconds or less, on the bike I see a new distance every 15 seconds or so. So that means I might have gone just a tiny bit further, but the distance on the bike computer would be the same as the last time. I am crazy competitive with myself, but I also know that when I’m doing bike challenges and tying my PR, sometimes it doesn’t mean that. It’s not an excuse, but something to help me not be too frustrated.
My plan this time for the challenge was to keep the resistance level at my normal base pace level so it wouldn’t be too heavy. I wanted to pedal really fast, but not so fast that I would feel out of control. And I wanted to maintain about the same speed for at least the first half. Then, after the 6-minute mark, my plan was to do little sprints every minute. I alternated between a 20-second and 30-second sprint every minute and when I wasn’t sprinting, I was trying to keep my speed the same as I did for the first half. And I was able to pretty much do my exact plan.
At the last minute, I knew that I was going to at least tie my last PR. It just came down to whether I could get the computer distance to change in time or if I would just appear to be at the same distance as the last time. And by some miracle, at 11:59, the distance went up by .1 and I was able to get a new PR!
The rest of my workout on Thursday suffered a bit from how exhausted I was from the challenge, but it was worth it to get the new PR!
I know not every week can be a winning week like this past one was, but I am so happy I had such an incredible week. I know it’s just a matter of time before I have another tough workout week, but I feel like those weeks aren’t getting that much worse than they normally are but my good weeks are getting better than they have been! So things are balancing out more in my favor than they have done before and that’s something to celebrate!
You Might Also Like
Keeping Things Normal For A Holiday Week (or Steady With My Workouts)
Some Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week)
Back To My Normal Workouts (or Another Challenge Switch)
Working Hard (or Some Normal But Tough Workouts)
Just A Normal And Good Workout Week (or Using My Workouts To Get Out My Stress)
A Very Weird Workout Week (or Food Poisoning And Holiday Workouts)
