Baby Steps Of Improvements (or Getting Ready For The Dri-Tri)

First, I will share that I did do the dri-tri at Orangetheory this past weekend. That is going to be tomorrow’s post (I think that event deserves its own post), but my workout week this past week was all about getting ready to do it. I decided on Monday morning that I was going to go for it, so I focused my workouts on how each thing was going to get me ready for it.

Monday’s workout was a switch day that had endurance, strength, and power. I signed up for the dri-tri just before taking Monday’s class, so I went into class feeling a bit nervous about if I did the right thing signing up for it. So I was not only grateful that we had a switch day, all of the blocks were on the shorter side. The treadmill portion of class went ok for me. The improvements in my speed that I had made recently were short lasting so I was back to my usual speeds on the treadmill. It’s frustrating when I was doing really well for a while to be back at my old speeds, but I just have to focus on what improvements I can make. On Monday we also had 600 meter rows, which aren’t sprints but I was grateful for them because I knew I’d have a long row during the dri-tri. The floor work was a lot of arms, shoulders, squats, and abs.

But at the very end of class, we had a little bit of time left so we all partnered up for a quick challenge. One person was holding a squat with their hands out while the other partner did high knees to hit their hands. I was able to keep a pretty low squat so my partner didn’t have to do too high of knees, but when it was my turn I knew I couldn’t do the running style of high knees. So I just pretty much marched in place and tried to get my knees up as much as possible.

Wednesday was a strength day, so that means hills on the treadmill. Hills are not my favorite thing to do, but I’m really trying to be better at them. This time, I’m pretty happy with how I did. My incline was between 4-10% for the entire time (10% isn’t that easy for me), and even though I was supposed to be at a higher incline at times I think I did a pretty good job. I was also able to do some speed increases on the hills which made me happy. After the treadmill work was done, we had a lot of heavy weight stuff to do on the floor. For my arm work and my lunges, I was holding 20 pound weights. For some arm things, I’m getting close to being able to use 25 pound weights, but I’m not quite there yet. But to do lunges with heavy weights makes me happy because for a long time I wasn’t able to use the weights while doing lunges. It’s still tough for me because of balance issues, but I’m starting to build my core up enough so that it is helping me build better balance. We also had a 500 meter row that day. 500 meters isn’t a long distance, but I was still feeling a bit tired at the end of it. And in my head, I just kept thinking that 500 meters is only 1/4 of what I have to do during the dri-tri, so that got to me a bit. But I just tried to focus on getting the row done and figured that since the row is at the beginning of the dri-tri I would feel different then.

Friday was another switch day with endurance, strength, and power. Again, the blocks were relatively short (I think the longest one was 8 minutes) so things were a bit easier for me. I actually ended up doing really great on the hills (still not going higher than 10% incline but the speeds were better). Since it was a switch day, I never spent that long on the treadmill and I started to worry about the dri-tri again (where I would need to do a half 5K on the treadmill), but I just looked at how far I got each block and tried to think about how that is a chunk of what I would do the next day. After the treadmill blocks were all done, I realized that maybe I should have done the bike instead since I was going to do treadmill the next day, but by then it was too late.

On the floor we had sprint rows (250 meters and under) that went pretty well for me. My biggest problem on rowing is that when I’m doing them my legs don’t always bend straight (they kind of butterfly out sometimes). And since I’m not bending straight, I’m not able to get as much power in my rows and I know I can. But for these sprint rows, I was bending much better than I think I ever have and the sprints went by really quickly. For the chest presses I was using 20 pounds weights and for my front raises (shoulder work) I was doing 15 pounds instead of 12 pounds. And we had a new move on the floor as well. It was a 4 point plank. Pretty much it was a plank with shoulder touches and then toe touches. I usually don’t do plank work on my toes because of my calf, but this time it ended up being easier to do the work on my toes than on my knees. They are pretty hard to do, but I managed my best and I don’t think I looked too awkward.

After my Friday workout, my nerves for the dri-tri were pretty high. I was thinking back what I had done this past week and tried to relate it to what I knew I would have to do on Saturday. But of course thinking like that stressed me out even more, so I tried to forget it all and just get a decent night sleep since I had to work in the morning before the dri-tri.

And that recap will be coming tomorrow!

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Dri-Tri Prep Workouts (or The Beginning Of My Workout Week) Almost Normal (or Guess I’m Definitely Missing The Dri-Tri) Back To Regular Workouts (or Making Improvements On My Dri-Tri) Getting Ready For The Dri-Tri (or Working My Way Through The Workouts) Third Time’s Not The Charm (or Being Ok With An Ok Dri-Tri) My First Dri-Tri Relay (or Trying To Not Be Disappointed In Myself)