Going into this past week of workouts, I knew it would likely be a bad one. I already had some pain and nausea the week before and knew that it usually gets worse before it gets better. I was slightly off with the timing, which can happen since my cycle isn’t exactly the same every month. But somehow, having things off from what I expected made things a little better for me.
Monday’s workout was another signature workout: Catch Me If You Can. I like this one, but I typically don’t have a lot of variety with what I can do. The thing about this workout is that there are different checkpoints you have to get to when you are doing cardio. If you are at or past the checkpoint, you keep going. If you aren’t there, you are caught and you can track how far you got.
I am always caught at the same checkpoint. It’s when the timing of the checkpoints changes from every 2 minutes to every minute. I probably could try to pedal faster at a lower resistance level and maybe that would help, but for this attempt, I knew I couldn’t do that with how I felt. I wasn’t expecting to do anything too great, but I do always try my best no matter how I feel. As expected, I was caught at the same checkpoint as my past attempts. However, I did end up getting a PR and I was really close to making it past that checkpoint. I needed to be at 4 miles on the bike and I was at 3.9. I just got to 3.9 when the checkpoint time was called, so it wasn’t like I missed it by a second or two. But it was still my best attempt and I was so happy about that!
The rest of the workout was designed to be a bit easier since the focus is on cardio. For rowing, we started with a 600-meter row and lunges after. Then the row was split up into 2 300-meter rows and the lunges were split up to be between each row. And then we had 4 rounds of. 150-meter row with the lunges again. I had gotten to the rounds of 150-meter rows, but not that far into it.
And on the floor, we had 2 mini-blocks. The first mini-block had chest presses, single-arm low rows on the straps, and planks. And the second mini-block had single-arm concentration curls, cross-back lunges, and more plank work. I was using the bench for all my plank work because my nausea was really starting to kick in when I was on the floor. But I was so glad that for the first part of the workout, I wasn’t feeling too horrible because it allowed me to get that PR.
Tuesday was my worst day of the week. I don’t know if there was something else wrong with me or if things were just a lot worse than normal, but I was struggling a lot. My nausea wasn’t too horrible compared to some of my bad days, but the pain was so bad it almost scared me. There were times I had to leave the workout and sit near the lockers because I was almost crying in pain. I’ve had pain so badly that my vision is fuzzy and things were getting that way. I debated about leaving the workout, but I knew the workout wasn’t making things worse and I would feel worse mentally if I left. So I just struggled through it and did what I could when I could. But it was probably one of the worst workouts I’ve had.
For cardio, I tried to follow along with the workout but I also just did whatever I could when things were really bad. We had 3 blocks and some of it focused on incline work. In the first block, I really didn’t do the incline work because of how I felt, but I tried to do it in the second block since that was the main focus. For that second block, we had 2 hills and I did use the resistance levels and just pedaled really slowly during some of it. I didn’t leave the workout during any of the cardio blocks, and I didn’t realize at the time that would be the only section of the room where I would be able to do that.
For rowing, the first and last blocks were timed with cardio so we had push and base rows. I was doing ok for that first block, but I could feel my pain ramping up and getting worse. For the second block, it was a strength row. But I didn’t do most of it because I spent almost all that time outside of the room trying to get over the pain of my cramps. I did come back into the room partway through the last block, but I didn’t worry about doing push rows and just tried to row as much as I could as hard as I could (which wasn’t very hard).
On the floor, we had one long block and I did leave a bit during the block so I only got through the exercises one time instead of getting into a second round like I normally would be able to do. We had front squats, single-arm low rows with weights, step-ups (which I did as lunges), chest presses, and push-ups (which I did on the bench). I didn’t do that great since I wasn’t in the room the entire time, but at least I tried.
I was feeling a little better on Wednesday than I did on Tuesday, but I was still pretty miserable. I was so glad that my cramps were a bit better so I didn’t have to leave the room in pain during the workout, but that’s a pretty low bar for me. But I was hopeful that I had gotten past the worst of things for me so I could get a decent workout done for the second half of the week.
For cardio, the first block was all about 1-minute intervals. We worked with push, push to all-out, and all-out paces. We did the intervals twice with a recovery in the middle. In the second block, we did the same but the intervals changed to 45 seconds and the walking recoveries stayed at 1 minute. I was using my normal resistance levels for all of this, but I was just pedaling a little slower than normal. I did also need a few breaks during the cardio blocks to let some pain and nausea pass, but it was closer to what I’m used to.
On the rower, the first block started with rounds of a front press and a halo using a medicine ball and then we got on the rower to do a base row until cardio had all-outs and we had an all-out row. In the first block, we had 12 reps of the exercises before rowing and in the second block, we had 8 reps. I used a light medicine ball for the exercises, but I knew I needed that based on how I was feeling. I would have loved to have done better, but I also knew that if I pushed too hard I could make things a lot worse for me.
And on the floor, we had one block with 3 sets of supersets. Supersets are back-to-back exercises that are similar but not exactly the same. We did each set of superset exercises twice before moving to the next set. The first set was chest presses and chest flys using a Bosu. I used my normal weights for these exercises. The second set was supposed to be squats to reach and lunges using the straps. I did the squats to reach but for the lunges, I did them holding on to the wall instead of the straps for my balance. The last set was supposed to be plank leg lifts and pop squats. I did bird dogs instead of leg lifts for my balance and knew I couldn’t handle pop squats with my nausea so I did double the reps on bird dogs to make up for that.
On Thursday, I was feeling the closest to normal as I did for the entire week. I wasn’t feeling completely normal, but it was a relief to know I was getting back to my normal. For this workout, we had a focus on trying to improve throughout the workout. For cardio and rowing, we repeated what we did so we could try to see some improvement.
For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first block had a 1-minute push pace, 30-second all-out, 45-second recovery, and then we repeated that pattern again. The second block and a hill with 30-second intervals increasing the incline resistance level. Again, we repeated that hill after a 45-second recovery. And in the last block, we had a 30-second push pace, a 30-second push to all-out, and a 30-second all-out. After another 45-second recovery, we repeated that pattern again. I didn’t pay too much attention to see if I got further or had a higher wattage on the bike, but I know I was using the same resistance levels when I compared the first and second attempts.
On the rower, we were timed the same with cardio. The only big difference was the second block had specific stroke rates we were supposed to use since there are no inclines. I was able to get the stroke rates we were supposed to do, but I think that’s mainly because those are designed to be slower than most people row and I am a slow rower. I did have to take some breaks during the rowing blocks, but since we had a lot of recoveries built into the workout, I didn’t have to do as many as I might have had to do if those weren’t there.
On the floor, we had one long block. I did have to make a few modifications to these because of how I was feeling. We started with half-kneeling around the world with weights, which I needed to do as regular kneeling because of my balance issues. Next, we were supposed to do push-ups to dumbbell reaches and I did those as push-ups without the reaches. Then I was able to do the other exercises normally. We had deadlifts, reverse grip low rows with weights, and shoulder presses.
My Thursday workout wasn’t necessarily a great one, but it was a good one with how I was feeling. But even better than that, it was another fun milestone class for me. For the last several years I have had the goal of doing at least 200 workouts a year. This year didn’t start off the best because I had to take a week off when I was sick. But my Thursday workout, which was the last workout of the first half of the year, was also my 100th workout of the year!
So even with the setbacks and issues I’ve experienced, at least I’m on track to hit my goal once again! And hopefully, there will be more good weeks than bad weeks in the second half of the year. But even if I had a lot of bad weeks, I prove to myself every month that I can get through those and do my best.
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