Going into this past week of workouts, I knew it would likely be a tough week for me. I’m grateful that I can plan for pain and nausea, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easier for me to tolerate. And even though I can anticipate when it’s likely to happen, I never know exactly when it might kick in and how bad it will be. And the intensity can vary so much not only from day to day but from hour to hour. I can leave my house in the morning for my workout feeling okay, but a few minutes later, I feel like I’m being ripped apart from the inside.
I’ve been dealing with this for a while, but it’s always a struggle for me. And I just have to suck it up and deal with it at times. That’s what I try to do during my workout, but I know that sometimes I’m barely able to do anything. I always try to remind myself that doing something is better than staying home and doing nothing, but even though I know that’s the truth it’s not always easy to remember that.
I was worried about how I would do this past week since I’ve been doing pretty good at increasing my efforts during my workouts. I didn’t want my pain and nausea to make me feel like I hadn’t made any improvements. I tried to remind myself every morning that at least I was going in, and I really needed to think about that a lot this past week. I was aware that I would likely have a hard week all week because my pain and nausea kicked in over the weekend, so I was expecting every day to be hard. Some days were a little better or worse than others, but they all were difficult for me to get through at times.
On the bike, I’m glad I spent some time working on longer push paces because that little extra endurance helped me a lot this past week. There were a few days I was able to push myself a bit more than normal for some of the push paces, but those usually were the short ones. For the longer push paces, I was still using my normal resistance levels, but I was pedaling very slowly. I had a really tough time on Thursday when I felt like I was taking a break to let the nausea pass every minute or two. I also had a moment when I thought I was going to get sick in the middle of the class, so I was prepared to get off the bike quickly. I’m glad that didn’t happen, but the fear of getting sick in class affected things too.
The rower is also usually really hard for me when I’m dealing with pain and nausea. I don’t know if it’s the rowing motion or the way I’m seated, but I usually feel like things intensify for me when I sit on the rower. There are also times when I feel fine on the bike and everything hits me on the rower. This time, I was already feeling awful when I was getting to the rower, so I just dealt with things getting a bit worse. I didn’t want to modify things too much, but there were some rowing blocks that had us getting on and off the rower to do exercises between each row, and for 2 of the 4 workouts this past week, I made the decision to not do that and to just row for the entire block as much as I could. I don’t love having to modify things that much, but I also knew it was for the best for me. For most of the week, I just rowed at something similar to a base row as long as I could and then rested when I needed to. It wasn’t my best week of rowing, but it’s something.
Unfortunately, things were hard for me on the floor too. It wasn’t exactly due to the pain and nausea, but I was experiencing a lot of weakness. This is something I know I’ve had some months, but I never know how much weaker I’ll feel. I tried to not go lighter with the weights if possible, and I managed to almost always use my normal weights for exercises. There are a few weighted exercises that I know I always have to go lighter when I’m weak, such as hip bridges, but I at least tried to use my normal weights first and then went lighter only if necessary. It was a similar idea to what I’ve been doing with trying to use heavier weights first and then going back to my normal ones if necessary.
Even though this past week was really hard for me and I don’t feel like I did a great job, I know that it went better than most of my bad weeks. I think that I was a lot more prepared for things because I had been doing better recently. My decrease in my workouts was much closer to my normal since my new normal is a bit more powerful. I know that might not always be the case and this past week might have been a bit of a lucky week that way, but I’m so glad it worked out for me the way it did. I still don’t feel like I worked that hard, but I don’t feel as disappointed as I know I have in the past.
I’m hoping feeling like I’ve been doing better than my past bad weeks continues through this week because it’s very possible that this week will be another tough week for me. I’m not expecting my pain and nausea to go away before the end of the week, but maybe it will surprise me and the entire week won’t be as bad. I’m also grateful that it’s happening now because in a few weeks, we have Hell Week again! I should be feeling like myself for at least most of Hell Week, and I’d rather be feeling good that week versus a normal week. And feeling like the workouts are extra tough right now due to my physical issues is just another way to prepare for how hard the Hell Week classes are going to be!
You Might Also Like
Mixing Things Up A Bit In My Workouts (or Mentally Getting Prepared For A Tough Week)
My Own Type Of Hell Week (or Working Through Some Tough Workouts)
At Least I Was Prepared For A Bad Week (or Something Is Better Than Nothing)
Another Week Of Some Struggles In My Workouts (or I Probably Should Have Been More Prepared)
It’s Almost Dri-Tri Time (or I Was Prepared For This To Be A Hard Week)
Getting Through A Tough Week (or Rain And Pain)
