This past week of workouts were intense! First of all, I was putting a lot of focus into my nutrition and I learned how my body reacts with different foods during different times of the day. I never worried too much about what I ate for lunch, but this past week I discovered that my workouts are much better when I pretty much eat only protein for lunch with a banana as a pre-workout snack (this might shift a little, but for now this is working for me).
The second reason this week was crazy was it was not only a 4 workout week, I had 3 days of workouts in a row! I’ve never done more than 2 in a row, but in order for me to have enough workouts for the Nike ID Challenge I had to do 4 workouts this week. And there was not a chance for me to go on the weekend. So I did Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Monday was an unusual day. First, I had another guest come with me to class (now I have all 3 I need for the challenge!). She is a new friend of mine through Tone It Up. It was awesome getting to meet someone new, but as we were chatting before class, our coach Bruce told us that it was going to be an interesting workout.
It ended up being a partner workout. This was the first time I had experienced this at Orangetheory. Basically, you partner up with another person and one of you does the cardio portion while the other does the strength portion. The person on cardio keeps going until the strength person is done and tags you. Then you switch.
This was pretty awesome. It motivated me to keep doing my reps because the longer I took on my strength workout the longer my partner had to do the cardio. I think my friend enjoyed it too, but she was a bit overwhelmed with it all (a common feeling for first-timers).
Also on Monday, I did my last photo for the Nike ID Challenge. I’ve been having fun with my photos, but the last one had stumped me as to what I should do. I had to take a photo with a Orangetheory pen or water bottle. That didn’t seem too exciting, so I kept putting it off until I thought of the perfect idea.
I did my best to spell out OTFLA with them! My friend Sarah stood on a bench to take this photo while I laid on the ground with the pens and water bottles. I think all the staff at Orangetheory enjoyed watching me attempt this photo.
Wednesday’s workout was a normal one (as in not a partner workout), but I was starting to get hip pain from the weather. And since that was the start of my 3 days in a row, I was being careful with medicating myself.
Thursday was another partner workout and I think it was even tougher than the one we did on Monday! I had to do so much rowing that day (which I do enjoy more than the treadmill but is much tougher to do) and I was using some pretty heavy weights. After that class, I questioned how well I could do on Friday.
Friday morning I was actually pretty scared about how I would feel in the workout. My 4th workout in the week is always a tough one and my body never feels rested enough. But even if I couldn’t give what I can give every other day, I knew I was going to give as much as I possibly could.
It was a class with short blocks for the workout. Every block was only 5 minutes long and there were 8 blocks total. So we weren’t doing anything for more than 5 minutes (with the exception of the treadmill where we had 2 blocks back to back). I was definitely sore, but I wasn’t feeling that much worse than a typical 4th workout.
My calorie burn was much lower than usual, but some calorie burn is better than none. And the proof that the entire class worked hard was on the window.
We fogged it up so much that it was easy for us to all sign our names as people who spent their Friday kicking butt!
This week brings the end of the Nike ID Challenge. I will have done everything asked of me (the last required workout for me will be today). I’m sure you all can guess that just because the challenge is ending doesn’t mean that I’ll be stopping at Orangetheory. I’m going to go back to 3 days a week for this week, but I’m toying with the idea of doing 4 days a week every other week until it’s not hurting me too much to have the 4th day.
But for now, I’m happy to focus on pushing myself a bit more each and every week.
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Final Days Of The Nike Challenge (or How To Work Out When You Can’t Breathe Through Your Nose)
Doing Some Challenges (or Mondays Are Going To Be Tough)
A New Challenge (or Who Wants To Come Workout With Me?)
Checking Things Off The List (or 4 Workouts In 1 Week)
