Category Archives: Tough Stuff

I wrote about how recently I likely broke my toe. It’s unfortunate that it happened, but there’s nothing I can do to change that. And I probably pushed myself a bit too much in the beginning of that week of workouts and I’m paying for it now. My toe is getting better, but I realized that I needed to be easier on myself in my workouts. I am back on the treadmill, but I’ve had to decrease my speed (and there is no running happening). And while that it’s ideal for me, at least it’s more than doing nothing.

Monday’s workout was a 3 partner 3 group workout. A lot of times with a partner workout there is just a long block for the entire class. This time, there were 4 blocks that were 10 minutes each. And each of those blocks had a bit of a different format. For the first block, the floor person set the pace by doing squat flys and running man. While the floor person was working the treadmill ran for distance and the rower rowed for distance. In the second block, the treadmill set the pace. I did it as a power walk so I went .1 miles at 6% incline. And while I was doing that the rower rowed for distance and the floor person had a series of things to do. The floor included dumbbell swings, uppercut lunges, strap roll outs, and strap low rows.

The third block was paced by the rower who rowed 400 meters before switching. The treadmill person ran for distance and the floor person continued working on the same moves as the previous block. And for the last block the floor person set the pace with plank reaches and toe touches while the treadmill ran for distance and the rower rowed for distance. For each of the 10 minute blocks, we didn’t reset the rower and the idea was to see how far we could go as a group in 10 minutes. Some groups did well over 2000 meters, but my group averaged about 1800 meters each time. I felt a bit bad that I wasn’t pulling my weight in the group, but I think we were all pretty equal in ability so I tried to feel better about that.

Wednesday’s workout was one that I wasn’t sure would happen. The fires were really bad that day and I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it to Orangetheory. But I decided to try seeing if I could get there (I knew they were still open) and it ended up being the fastest I’ve ever gotten there. I guess most people were staying home and only the crazies like me were on the freeway.

It was a run/row workout with endurance, strength, and power elements. There were 2 blocks in the run/row. The first block was a 600 meter row, a 6 minute run for distance with increasing the inclines every minute, and then another 600 meter row. My row wasn’t too slow but on the treadmill I did have to lower things. I was able to do my normal speed for the first 2 minutes but then I had to lower it and stop increasing the inclines. The second block was a 300 meter row, a 6 minute run for distance with increasing inclines, and another 300 meter row. Again, I started at my normal speed but lowered it after a bit. I also was only increasing the inclines every other minute instead of every minute.

The floor also had 2 blocks. The first block was shoulder work, high row lunges with weights, bicep curls on the straps, and knee tucks. The second block was chest flys, more shoulder work, pop jacks and pikes on the ab dolly. I wasn’t able to do the pop jacks because of my toe so I did weighted goblet squats instead. And I couldn’t do the pikes (my hip and the broken toe prevented those) so I did more knee tucks. I was feeling a bit better about my workout that day and while my toe was still hurting it was less than it had been before so it seemed like progress.

Friday’s workout was an interesting one. I almost always start on the treadmills but there is currently holiday bingo at my studio and one of the squares of bingo is to play equipment card roulette. That means you don’t get to pick where you start and you don’t get to pick the number you start on. My friend Dani had already done it for that class so I did it too and we both started on the rowers. But for some weird reason, everyone in class started on the rowers! It’s usually that everyone wants to start on the treadmills so to have nobody starting there was something I had never seen before. Also, we only had 12 people in class so we ended up being a 1 group class which is also rare.

So I started on the rower for my warmup and then the floor for the first half of class. There were 3 blocks on the floor. The first block was single arm snatches, a lunge low row with weights, and release pull ups. The second block was single arm snatches, swing lunges (which I held on to the straps for support), and ab work. And the last block was 10 strokes on the rower for distance, single arm snatches, 20 strokes on the rower for distance, and push ups. For the distance rows, I was able to do about 115 meters in 10 strokes and 220 meters in 20 strokes so I was pretty happy about that. I know my personal goal is always at least 10 meters a stroke so to do better than that is always good.

Then we went to the treadmills and we worked on inclines. I knew that it was going to be very difficult for me to do all the inclines and my toe was already a bit sore so I took it easy. I did a much lower speed than normal and didn’t do the inclines as high as we were supposed to. I also had to keep taking breaks. My hip doesn’t like doing treadmill work after weights and I also know that my stride is off right now because I’m being careful with my toe. Those combined make treadmill time difficult, but I was just trying to keep reminding myself that I have to start easy again to get back to where I was.

Saturday’s workout was another 3 group one and it was a day full of squats! I started on the treadmill where there weren’t any squats but the entire time we were on the treadmill was one long block! Again, I had to be slow but fortunately I didn’t have to go too high with my inclines. We did have some 3 minute push paces that I did at 6% incline and had to take some breaks. But I was a bit faster than the day before and I think I took fewer breaks than before as well. It’s all progress even if it is slow.

Next I was on the floor where we had lateral raises, Y-raises on the strap, triceps on the strap, and hip work. But between each move we had to do squats. The first time we went through it we had 9 squats in-between everything. The second time we had 12 squats between everything. I was just starting the round where we had 15 squats between everything when time was called for us to move to the rower. And the rower had more squats. We had timed rows with squats in-between. The first round was a 45 second row with 9 squats. Next was a 90 second row with 18 squats. Then it was a 3 minute row with 27 squats. And the last round I did was a 90 second row with 36 squats. The goal was if you got to where you repeated timed rows to do better the second time. I managed to get about 10 meters further the second time so I felt like I ended my workout on a really high note.

I don’t know how much longer my toe is going to be an issue, but I’ve learned from past experience that I need to be patient with myself. If I’m not, I’m at risk for making the injury last longer and I don’t want that. I hate that I set a goal to get back into running and to do better than I had before and then I had this setback. But maybe this is just setting me up for some amazing workouts in 2018!

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