I thought that this past week of workouts were pretty successful at first. While I only did 3 workouts, I worked really hard at them and even though I wasn’t able to increase my weights or my treadmill speeds yet, I’m feeling like I’m getting close.
Again, this week was a lot of rowing, but I’m happy with that because I feel like I’m making significant progress in my rowing. We had 100 meter sprints this week on Friday. I was able to do them in 22 seconds. I was super proud of myself until I looked at my list of workout records I saved on my phone.
While I thought that 22 seconds was fast, my record is 19 seconds. Those 3 seconds aren’t much of a difference, but that record was set several months ago. I’m disappointed in myself that I haven’t improved my rowing speed at all. My form is getting a bit better, but with that I would have expected that speed would follow.
I’m really trying not to get too down about this. That record was set when we had the Monday Challenges. So I had already cooled down before doing my row. This time, my row was in the middle of the workout and my heart rate was already pretty high before doing the sprint. So comparing a middle of the workout record against a post-cool down record might not be too fair for me.
I’m really trying to make as much progress as I can each week. It’s tough not to feel like I’ve plateaued when I haven’t been able to increase my weights or treadmill speed lately. But I know that the progress will come eventually and it’s just a matter of time before I’m ready to move to the next level. And while my rowing progress has been backwards lately, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be progressing the correct way again soon.
Beyond my disappointment with my rowing speeds, this week was very successful for me. Monday’s workout was a 3G workout because of the holiday. That means that there were 3 groups in the class instead of 2 and we rotated around the room more often than usual. Personally, I like the 3G classes, but since I don’t work out doing peak times I rarely get to take them. I like switching things up more often in the class because I can’t focus on how tired I am.
The other thing that was really cool on Monday was that my coach, Brendon, was on American Ninja Warrior that night.
I had wanted to go and watch it live when it recorded a few months ago, but it was on a Friday evening and I had to work early on Saturday morning. But it was great to get to see what he was able to get done!
It really inspires me that Brendon decided to challenge himself and do the show. I’ve always thought of the coaches as people who are what I hope to be as an “after”. But Brendon proved that no matter what, you can always find something else to challenge yourself and try to better yourself with.
My other two workouts were on Wednesday and Friday (no 4 workout week this week for me). Friday was my first day with a new batch of painkillers and I’m not sure if the workout or the new painkillers made me hurt more than usual, but either way I was in a lot of pain on Friday evening. I took it easy and continued to take some painkillers on Saturday as well.
I’m not sure why I’m so focused on the setbacks this week. Maybe it’s because the challenge of working out regularly is no longer a challenge for me. This is a habit now and I’m able to focus more on the little things that annoy me versus struggling to work out enough times in the week.
But as always, I’m trying to focus on the positive and know that even if I’m progressed backwards I’m still doing better than I would be doing if I wasn’t working out at all.