I had a pretty great week at Orangetheory, even though I was worried it would be tough. I’m still adjusting to my new medication levels (it’s affecting my heart rate more than I expected). But I also hurt my toe over the weekend. I’m not sure what happen, but I looked down and my big toe was black and blue and a chunk of my toenail is missing. I don’t remember hurting it, but obviously I did. I was still able to walk with the injured toe, but it was pretty painful so I knew that I would have to take it a bit easy.
But the problem is, I don’t want to take it easy. I’m finally feeling like I’m making regular progress in my workouts and not trying to stay comfortable at the levels I’m working out at for a long time. I don’t want to go backwards in my progress, but I also know that if I go too hard, it can make an injury worse.
So this week, I tried to focus on making my form as good as I could and not focus on doing things heavier, stronger, faster.
On our Wednesday workout, we had distance rowing to do. One was 500 meters and the other was 1000 meters. I hate long rows. I think that 200 or maybe 250 meters is the most idea distance for me to do. Whenever we have rowing for distance, there is always a guideline for how long it take you to complete it. I can’t remember what the speed is for intermediate or advanced rowers, but I know that for beginner rowers you are supposed to do 100 meters every 30 seconds. I still consider myself a beginning rower because I’m not able to push back with my legs as much as I’d like because of my hip issues. So while I may be fast, my force when I push back on the rower isn’t as much as I’d like.
So for the 1000 meter row, the goal was to do it in under 5 minutes (I think the range was 2:30-5:00, but I can’t be too sure of the lower number). When the distance is shorter, I never really have an issue maintaining an average of 100 meters every 30 seconds. But for the long rows, I always overdo it in the beginning and then tire out and have to take a break at some point. So that screws up my timing. But this time, I decided to focus on maintaining a good speed and not rush and see what I’m able to do.
Those 1000 meters seemed to take forever. It wasn’t fun. I’ll admit that I really didn’t want to finish them. But I really want to do one of the Dri-Tris in the future and those have an even longer rowing distance. So I pushed myself and just told myself to keep going even if I felt like I was going at a snail’s pace.
Finally, I finished and I looked at my time. I managed to finish in 4:54.9! I was the last person in the group to finish the row, but I don’t care at all. I managed to do 1000 meters averaging a speed a bit faster than 100 meters every 30 seconds! That really was a nice positive boost for me.
On Friday, one of my friends came for her first class (she ended up getting a membership so I’m going to get to work out with her on a pretty regular basis!). I do act like a bit of a show-off around new friends coming to class, but since I was hurting I didn’t feel like doing that as much. I just made sure that my friend knew what was going on in the class (it can be a bit overwhelming when it’s your first class) and tried to encourage her as much as possible. She was much better than I am at many of the elements of the workout, but that’s ok. Everyone has their own beginning point and hers is a bit more advanced than mine is.
Instead of trying to be a show-off, I worked on my rowing (it was a run/row day) and seeing if I can keep getting my push pace on the treadmill to be faster. Our rowing distance was based on how long it took us to complete the treadmill segment, so I had extra motivation to go faster on the treadmill.
I usually do about 3.7 miles an hour on the treadmill for push and all out paces. I’ve been experimenting a little with 3.8 miles an hour. On Friday, I also tried doing 3.9 miles an hour. I’m able to do it for about a minute, but I don’t know if I can do it as a push pace for an entire workout (I’m thinking I can do 3.8 miles an hour for an entire workout’s push paces and plan on trying that when my toe is healed).
That workout on Friday was one of the toughest ones that I’ve experienced at Orangetheory. I’m so proud of my friend for kicking butt at it. Another friend who was there joked that my friend wouldn’t get a membership now because of how tough the workout was, but she did get one and is planning on coming with me this Friday for another workout!
I love having friends at my workouts. Some of my usual crew hasn’t been in a workout with me for a while because there are other locations that are closer to their homes (when the West LA location opens I’ll probably switch to there since that’s closer to where I live). But until I change locations, I’m going to keep trying to bring more and more people with me to keep pushing me and to help make my workout hour a friend hour too.
