This past week of workouts was just a weird one. I knew it would be a weird schedule due to the holiday, but this was even weirder than that. I already mentioned that I had food poisoning last week, and unfortunately it did affect my workouts.
I don’t know what to say about Monday’s workout. Monday was the day I had food poisoning, but I thought I’d try going to my workout to see how I would do. I know I can work through cramps when I have to, but these cramps were very different. But it was worth trying to see what would happen and I told myself that I could leave if I had to.
And for the first time that I could remember, I actually left a workout. I made it 20 minutes in class before the pain was too much for me and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. All I had done in the workout was be on the bike, but I don’t think I biked for more than 7 or 8 minutes combined because I pedaled for maybe 30 seconds before I had to stop. I hated having to leave, but I knew that there was no way I could make it any longer in class and I was proud of myself for at least trying.
I was still a bit weak feeling on Tuesday, but I was significantly better than I had been doing on Monday (sleeping for about 12 hours during the day helped). I’m glad I was doing better because I really didn’t want to miss Tuesday’s class. I love working out on Christmas Eve and I was excited to take the class! And as an added bonus, we had a sub coach. While I love all the OTF coaches, I’ve had almost all my Christmas Eve workouts with Coach Bruce. And by some miracle, he ended up being the sub coach for this class! It was like it was meant to be!
The Christmas Eve workout is called Presents or Coal. We draw different cards that tell us what to do for our workout assignment. Some of them are easy (the Presents) and some of them are hard (the Coal). I feel like I usually get Coal when I do these, but I was ready for them. And before we got to that part of the workout, we had a quick tornado around the room with 3-minute blocks.
The cardio block was a 90-second push pace, 45-second base pace, and 45-second all out. The rowing block was a 300-meter row, squats, a 150-meter row, and more squats. And on the floor, we had goblet squats and tricep extensions with weights. And then the rest of the class was split into 10-minute blocks with 1 block at each section of the room.
For cardio, I had a mix of Coal and Presents cards. But none of them were that bad. I had 30-second intervals and distance challenges. I don’t remember the specifics of what I had to do (I should have taken notes), but I remember all of the cards being somewhat similar and never taking too long. I think I had 4 different cards for cardio. On the rower, all of the cards I pulled were Presents. I had 300-meter rows as my longest row. I also drew a card with intervals with squats between each row. But just like with cardio, I don’t remember the specifics but I do remember I drew 3 cards and they all took me about 3 minutes to complete.
On the floor, the cards told us how many of the exercises we had to do and how many reps we had. The exercises were hip hinge swings with weights, lunges, rollouts, and knee tucks. And on the floor, I drew the same card both times I had to get one. It was a Coal card and it said to do all the exercises with 12 reps each. I was starting to get a bit tired on the floor (and I think the weakness of recovering from food poisoning was catching up with me), so I was moving a bit slow. But I just focused on doing each rep as I could and taking breaks when necessary. I was just finishing up my second round of 12 reps when class was done.
I think after feeling so horrible about leaving class on Monday, the Tuesday class was exactly what I needed. I was feeling much better about myself and I needed that. Plus, I got to add to my amazing photo collage of taking Christmas Eve classes with Coach Bruce (we only missed doing class together last year).
I was finally feeling like myself again on Friday. Plus, I was craving a workout since I had 2 days off in a row which doesn’t happen that often. Even though I was excited about the workout, it ended up being a tough one and I did have a few struggles.
The workout was a mix of endurance and power. For cardio, we had a run/walk (or bike/bike slower) assignment that we did at our own pace. The longest distance we had to do was done just once and then we had 30 seconds to walk/recover. Then we had a slightly shorter distance that we did twice with the 30 seconds of recovery between each round. The third distance was slightly less and it was done 3 times. I was working on that third distance when the block ended and we switched to the rowers.
The rowers and the floor both had 5 blocks that got longer for each block. For the rower, the first row was a 100-meter row and then we did frogger squats until the block ended. We had to remember how many squats we did because we used that for the rest of the blocks. Each block, the row went up by 50 meters and we did the same number of frogger squats we did in the first block. Once we finished those, we had to hold a squat until the block ended. I always made it to holding a squat at the end, but I usually only had to do it for about 30 seconds. But all those squats were tough on my hips.
The floor was similar to the row. But instead of having longer rows we had add on exercises. The first block had neutral full thrusters and then sit-ups until the block was done. We had to remember how many sit-ups we did to use that for the rest of the blocks. Each block we added on another exercise and then did the sit-ups and held a plank until the block ended. The other exercises were hip hinge low rows, lateral lunges with a goblet hold, pulsing half squats, and tricep extensions. Even though there was a bit more upper body work, it still was a lot of lower body work and my hips were having a rough time.
Saturday’s workout was a strength day and we had some switching between blocks. Every block was about 6 minutes long and we did 2 blocks at each section of the room.
For cardio, we had shorter intervals and alternated doing push paces and base paces with incline work. The goal is to make the incline work feel the same as a push pace. For me on the bike, this is a bit harder to do because I’m not really using the resistance levels for push paces but I do use them for incline work. Also, I think I might have gone a bit too hard with the resistance levels for the inclines because my legs weren’t moving that much. But at least my heart rate got up really high while I was doing it.
On the rower, all the work we had for both blocks were stroke drills. We always had 15 strokes on the rower and the goal was to go slowly and keep the stroke rate down. For these drills, I’m pretty good at keeping the rate really low. I was much lower than the goals we were given. But I think that makes the rowing harder because my core is involved for a much longer time. In the first block between each row, we had squats with overhead presses using a medicine ball. And in the second block, we had squats with front presses using the medicine ball.
And on the floor, both blocks only had 2 exercises. The first block had bicep curls with weights and leg raises. And the second block had tricep extensions with weights and low rows on the straps. The goal with strength days is to go heavy on the weights, and I did just that. For the weight work, we had a range for the reps and we were supposed to do between 6-10 reps. If you can’t do 6 reps the weight is too heavy and if you can easily do 10 reps it is too light. I was doing either 7 or 8 reps each time, so I think I was using the perfect weights.
Even though this past week started with me having to leave a workout in the middle of it, I feel like it ended really well. I feel much better about having to leave the workout now that I’ve had other good workouts this week. But I also know that I hope that I never have to do that again. Only a few more workouts left in 2019 before I start working on my 2020 goals!
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