I’ve been trying to focus my running at Orangetheory a bit more than I have before. When I started to run, I was just so excited that I could do it that I was going crazy with everything! I wanted to be able to run 5 minutes and I wanted to get faster and faster. I haven’t experienced burnout (thank goodness!), but I’ve been noticing my progress has been stagnant and I realized that my scattered focus could be part of the problem.
So for this past week of workouts, I really wanted to focus on my endurance. I know I need to build endurance in order to do my next 5K as a run/walk. I don’t necessarily need to be able to run for a long time in a single stretch, but doing longer stretches means the shorter ones I’ll be doing during the race will be easer. Building endurance isn’t easy, but I think I did a pretty great job this week working on it!
Monday’s workout was an endurance one that switched between blocks so I could push a bit harder with my running. We had some pretty long push paces and I decided to run a bit longer with them. When the push paces were 2 minutes or more, I ran for 2 minutes (double my usual 1 minute run time). It wasn’t easy to run for 2 minutes at a time a few times, but I’m glad I did it to prove that I could. The second treadmill block had shorter push paces, but since I had come from the floor I was a bit tired and I went with my usual 1 minute run time.
Usually switch days are easier on me since I get a break from the treadmill, but Monday wasn’t like that. The floor work was pretty tough on me and we had endurance rows to do. Both blocks had 800 meter rows and I’m happy that I could do them without stopping. But I know that pushing myself that much did affect how my second treadmill block and second floor block went. I wasn’t going as hard after the halfway mark, but since I was pushing myself in the beginning my second half was really just like a normal workout for me.
Wednesday was a strength day, so I wasn’t able to do as much running. I really am not really to work on hill running, and I have to be ok with that for now. Whenever we had flat road work, I did run to make up for it. We had a 1 minute push and a 2 minute push on a flat treadmill so I ran for those. And I decided to do the all out at 3% as a run which confirmed it for me that I’m not ready for hills as a runner yet. The floor work was a bit easier for me (I love strength days on the floor) and I was able to do some nice heavy weights. We also had a 2 minute sprint row which was nice compared to the endurance row from Monday.
Friday was a run/row day that had some hill work, but I decided to just go for the regular run/row format using my run/walk work. The run parts were a bit long, but I decided to go for 90 second runs and 1 minute walks which is a bit different compared to normal. It wasn’t easy to do it for the distances we had to go, but it proved to me that I could do it and I know that this will be helping my endurance so much. Because I was focused so much on the treadmill work and doing my distances, I didn’t make it that far down the run/row plan. But it felt so good doing a longer run segment that it didn’t bother me at all.
The big thing that bugged me on Friday (and I’m aware this is stupid) is that I wore new pants to the workout. They are the same pants that I usually buy, but I think they changed how they are stitched or the fabric because they felt way too tight. A lot of the work on the floor was abs that day, and wearing tight pants didn’t help at all. I was struggling and my form was looking sloppy. I hate to blame the pants, but I know that they caused that problem.
And I finally did a 4th workout in the week! I made it to a Saturday workout for the first time in a while! I knew I needed to do this and I’m so glad that I did. And this workout ended up being the perfect way for me to end my workout week. It was another endurance day, and this time we had distance challenges in it. All of the blocks were 10.5 minutes long and we had 2 treadmill blocks back to back (so no switching).
The first treadmill block was supposed to be 3 minutes at a push pace followed by 1 minute of walking. I didn’t want to run for 3 minutes (nor do I think I can do that more than once or twice), so I did the 90 seconds of running followed by 1 minute of walking for the entire block. In the end, I did a little less running so I could end with the all out as a run (I needed a walking break before the all out). At the end of the block, I noticed I was close to .75 miles and I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t get to it.
Fortunately, the second treadmill block was a distance challenge for 10.5 minutes! So I did the same pattern as I did before, but I bumped up my speed for my running segments. Going faster was pretty tough since I was tired and I’ve been doing almost all my running lately at 4.5 miles an hour, but in the end it totally paid off.
I’m pretty proud of myself for what I was able to do and I felt amazing after not only reaching a goal that I set for myself but passed it!
After all that awesome running, I wasn’t going to let the floor work get me down. We had endurance rows (1,000 and 500 meters) and I managed to do both of them without stopping and being under the time that I wanted to be done in. Most of the rest of the work that day was lower body stuff like squats and calf raises, but there was also some ab work so I got a bit of a rest on the floor.
Considering it’s been a while since I’ve had a 4 workout week, I’m so happy with how well this past week went for me. It wasn’t easy, but I made it through. My race is coming up soon and I’ve been a bit concerned on how my progress has been going. But this past week proved to me that I’m doing better than I believed I was doing!
Pingback: Extra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) - Finding My Inner Bombshell