When I have my good workout weeks, I always try to make the most of them because I know I will struggle during my bad workout weeks. I do whatever I can during those workouts so I can feel good about myself. But sometimes, those good weeks match up with when we have fun workout challenges or benchmarks and it makes the week even better than a normal good week.
Monday’s workout wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was still a good workout and I was feeling really good after celebrating my milestone workout the week before.
For cardio, we focused on long push paces followed by walking recoveries. We usually don’t have recoveries after a push pace, but that just allowed us to go harder on those push paces than we normally could. The push paces started at 3 minutes and went down by 30 seconds each time. And the recoveries were always 1 minute long. The block ended with a 30-second all-out, which was a good way to end a long endurance block.
On the rower, we were kind of timed with cardio. When cardio did their push paces, we had 2 rounds of rowing with 30 seconds to rest between them. So when cardio had a 3-minute push pace, we had 2 rounds of a 75-second row. It was a lot of rowing without a lot of rest, but I did pretty well with limiting taking a break in the middle of it.
And on the floor, we had 3 mini-blocks and we did each one twice before moving on to the next one. The first mini-block had lunges and hip bridges. The second mini-block had kneeling shoulder presses, bridge holds with pullovers, and push-ups. And the last mini-block had knee tucks (which I did as sit-ups) and back extensions. I had to make a few modifications to some of the floor exercises because of my hip, but those were just the normal modifications I make and nothing more than that.
Tuesday’s workout was a pretty typical workout, but I was going to do my best since it was just a good morning for me. I don’t know why I was feeling really great, but it worked in my favor and I went with it.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. We had rounds of a base pace with an incline and a base pace without an incline. In the first block, the inclines were a bit lower than in the second block. I use the resistance level between my base and push paces for the first block and between my push and all-out for the second block. It wasn’t easy, but I knew that the struggle I was feeling meant I was working and I was happy with that.
On the rower, both blocks were focused on doing a 150-meter row. In the first block, we had either a front press or a shoulder press between each row. And in the second block, we had calf raises between each row. It was a lot of getting on and off the rower, so that slowed me down a bit. But since I didn’t have to rush anything, that was ok.
And on the floor, each block had 3 exercises. The first block had lunges, single-arm clean to press, and hip hinge swing. And the second block had single-arm reach to rotation, single-arm close grip chest press, and a plank punch. I did struggle a little with the hip hinge swings because I started to feel a bit of a pull in my hip, but considering how much I did before I had gotten to that exercise, that seemed pretty normal for me and I just took my time with making sure I kept good form for all the exercises.
Wednesday was a benchmark day. It was the mile challenge, which is one of the benchmarks I have enjoyed in the past. Even though I’m not using the treadmill anymore, I can be very competitive with myself on the bike and I like to see improvement when I can. I had checked my past benchmark times, and I knew my last one was really fast. I didn’t set a goal to PR, but I wanted to be close to my PR to feel like I could still do that.
Even though it’s the mile challenge, things are a bit different on the bike and it’s actually 4 miles instead. That’s how it always is so it’s nothing new to me. For our cardio block, the only thing we had was our benchmark to do. I reset the bike before we started so I could get the most accurate time and I set the resistance level to be one lower than my current base pace. I like feeling like I’m flying when I do challenges like this. I knew to be close to my benchmark, I had to be as close to 2 minutes per mile as possible. I tried to keep my pedaling really fast and every 90 seconds or so I did a little burst of sprinting for about 15 seconds. I wasn’t being too strict about those intervals, but I kept them in mind to make sure I was still doing them somewhat regularly.
Once I got past the halfway mark, I knew I was currently ahead of what my last PR was. I know that sometimes I slow down a bit in the second half, but I was so happy to see I was making good time. I don’t know how I did this, but once I finished the challenge, I managed to get a new PR!
I actually took 13 seconds off of my last time which is a lot! I probably went a bit too hard because I could feel my hip out of place as soon as I got off the bike. But I think I would have felt that no matter what since I’m pushing myself a lot in that benchmark. So at least I got a PR along with my pain.
On the rower, we had endurance rowing starting with a 600-meter row. We were supposed to do jumping jacks after the row and then take 100 meters off of the row every time we did it. I knew I couldn’t do jumping jacks, so I just focused on trying to row through the entire block. I took plenty of breaks, but I tried to be aware of each distance I was supposed to do and limit the breaks within those. And once I completed a distance, I took a bit more of a break before getting back to rowing.
I was feeling a bit better when I got to the floor, but I still was sore so I had to go easy and slow. And a few exercises did need modifications from me to be able to do them. We started with doing low rows with weights and then step-ups on the bench. As always, I lowered the bench to do them but I also made sure I put both feet down instead of trying to just tap my toe during the steps. Then we had chest flys and single-leg deadlifts. For the single-leg deadlifts, I held onto the wall for balance but I was able to do most of the reps without putting my foot down so that felt like an accomplishment.
I was a little sore from the benchmark on Thursday, but not too bad so I was able to finish out my week with another really good workout.
For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block had rounds of a 1-minute push pace to a 30-second all-out with a 1-minute recovery after. And the second block had rounds of a 30-second push pace to a 30-second all-out with a 1-minute recovery after. Having short cardio bursts was nice after the benchmark the day before and I did try to pedal quickly. But I realized that the soreness I was experiencing was affecting my speed so I was not able to go quite as quickly as I would have liked.
On the rower, we had one long block. We had a 300-meter row with front presses using a medicine ball in between each row. I’m glad we had shorter rows since Wednesday had longer rows. I wasn’t going too crazy with the rows, but I was happy that I was pretty consistent with how long it took me to do each one and I didn’t slow down too much.
And on the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block had a squat to press, lunges, a y-raise on the straps, and crab toe taps. I can’t do the crab toe taps, but we were given bicycle crunches as an option so I went with those instead. The second block also had squat to presses and then we had deadlifts, plank low rows, and double crunches. And I was able to do all those exercises without any modifications so I was happy.
I’m so glad that not only did I have a good workout week, I had a huge win with my new PR. And I’m glad I had that last week because this week is going to be a tough one. It’s Mayhem, which is similar to Hell Week. I’m going to do the 4 workouts required to complete Mayhem, but I didn’t sign up for the shirt so I won’t be earning it. I’m ok with that since the most important thing to me is completing the challenge and not always getting the stuff. But it’s going to be a challenging week and I’m feeling ready to get the hard work done!
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