Tag Archives: rowing

12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week)

Posted on December 12, 2016 | Comments Off on 12 Days Of Christmas Workouts (or This Feels A Lot Like Hell Week)

This past week of Orangetheory was the main part of the 12 Days of Workouts that they have going on. Technically last week had the beginning of it and next week will be the end of it, but the bulk of the workouts were during this past week. I managed to do 4 workouts in the week, which I thought would be fine. But I had no idea that these workouts would resemble Hell Week as much as they did!

Monday’s workout was not only super rowing focused, it was a back to back partner challenge class! I love partner classes because there is no way you can slack off in them. Your partner is waiting on you so you can switch, and I never want to let them down. I had no idea that the rest of the week was going to be as tough as it was, so I was pretty happy to go for it on Monday! I would regret that a bit later as I was exhausted at Disneyland later that day, but at the time it was awesome!

The first half of class was a challenge where the person on the rower determined the pace. I got to partner up with my friend Terry (he is one of my Monday workout friends who is pretty competitive). For this challenge, one of us was on the treadmill while the other was on the rower. The rowing segments were 1,000 meters, 750 meters, 500 meters, and 250 meters. When you were done, you switched spots (so we each had to do each of the rowing segments). I know I was slower than Terry, but he didn’t make me feel badly about it. And we actually were able to get through all of the segments before the challenge was done!

For the second half of class, it was a competitive challenge so I ended up with a different partner. I actually ended up in the only 3 partner group so things were a bit easier on us. With everyone else, there was one person on the floor (who determined the pace) and the other person was on the rower. And the challenge was to see how many meters you and your partner could get in the rest of class. With my group, we had one person on the floor, one on the treadmill, and one on the rower. And not everyone was rowing (they used the bike instead) so we didn’t get to track our distance. It was a tough challenge even with the breaks my group got on the treadmill. The floor was squats, push-ups, and ab work and it seemed like we were going at a crazy pace! But I’m proud of the work that I got done that day and that I didn’t let any of my partners down.

Wednesday’s workout was endurance focused and we had a 700 meter row challenge. Normally, I can do 700 meters on the rower in about 3:30 (sometimes 3:15). It’s a longer row challenge and sometimes I push too hard in the beginning and get burnt out before I’m done. This time, I was hoping I could do under 3 minutes and decided to try to focus on pacing myself in the beginning and then increasing my speed and power as the time went on. My focus paid off because I got an awesome row time!

That was below the time I was hoping for! For the rest of the workout, I did my usual stuff. For the 3 minute push paces I did my 1 minute intervals and for all the shorter push paces I ran for the entire time. That’s starting to become more comfortable so I’m happy with that progress. And when we got to the floor, we had a couple of types of squats and arm work.

Friday’s workout was endurance, strength, and power and it was a good one! For the endurance block on the treadmill, I had my usual intervals for the 3 minute pushes and running for the shorter ones. And during the power block, we all 90 second intervals so I could run the entire time. But where I had some great progress was during the strength block. I’ve said I needed to work on my running at inclines and this was a great workout to test it with. We had 2 different hill challenges, the first one where the incline increased and the second where it decreased. For the increasing one, I was able to run at 3% and 5% and then for the higher inclines I was walking at 10% and 12%. We had some flat road recovery between the hill challenges and when we started the declining hill challenge I was actually able to run for 30 seconds at 9% incline! It was really hard, but I made it through. I walked after that and then did the 5% incline at a run again! I’m curious with my next 5K how long I would have to run up the bigger hills. I think it might be more than 30 seconds, but it can’t be that much longer!

After the running on the inclines, I was happy that the floor work was a bit easier that day. We had rowing on each floor block (between 150-600 meters) and mainly ab work to do that day. We didn’t have to use that weights that much and being able to do ab work was a nice rest after the running. It wasn’t easy, but it was easier than having to stand and try to lift weights.

And Saturday’s workout may have been one of my favorite workouts we’ve ever had at Orangetheory! This workout was a power workout and it seemed to be custom-made for me! For the treadmill, with the exception of a 2 minute push in the beginning of the workout, it was completely 1 minute all outs with 1 minute walking recovery in between! This is exactly the intervals I’m used to doing and I took advantage of that.

I started my all outs at 5 mph and was increasing by .2 mph for the first few intervals. Then it was starting to get a bit tough running that fast and being able to recover so I was only increasing it by .1 mph. I was going a lot faster than I’m used to doing especially since when I usually do my super fast speeds it’s the very end of the treadmill time. But when we were down to the last 3 intervals I decided it was now or never to push myself. I had pushed myself the entire week with the workouts and I didn’t want to skip doing that on Saturday. So I did 6 mph for one, 6,5 mph for the second to last interval, and for the last minute on the treadmill I ran at 7 mph. I don’t know if I’ve ever run that fast in my entire life. It was incredibly difficult and I was thinking of slowing the speed down a few times during that minute, but I made it through! And even though this wasn’t the farthest I’ve done on the treadmill in class, it is the farthest I’ve gone in under 30 minutes in class. And technically this distance within this time is faster than what I was doing my last 5K at.

After that running, I wasn’t ready for the floor work that day and it wasn’t an easy one either. There was only 1 long block for the entire time. We had rowing and then we were doing various exercises in between. I’ll admit that I was taking more breaks during the floor work that I probably should have, but it was a tough day and I was having a lot of trouble catching my breath. There were a few times I was starting to feel a bit light-headed (the problem with Saturday workouts is that I usually don’t eat lunch right before going) and I wanted to take it easy on myself. But I still got a good chunk of the floor work done before time was up.

This was a pretty incredible week of workouts for me. I got to work on a lot of my rowing skills including working on my rowing endurance. And I made some amazing progress with my running in my speed and with the inclines. I said that since I wasn’t going to hit my workout goal for 2016 that I was going to focus on making each of my workouts the best one it can be. And I think I really did get that done with these 4 workouts.

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Making Progress (or Preparing For My Thanksgiving Workout)

Posted on November 21, 2016 | 2 comments

This past week of workouts were really great! I’m not sure what happened, but I was able to do things better/faster/stronger and I wasn’t necessarily trying for that. I know that part of it might be that I’m getting ready for my workout with my family on Thanksgiving. My dad and I are pretty competitive with that. I know he will always do better than me on the treadmill (although he hasn’t seen me run yet), but I want to do better on the rower and lift heavier weights. And I think this week really got me ready for that.

Monday was a strength day. I was able to run during the flat road push pace during the treadmill time (it was for a minute). But since the treadmill time was very focused on hills (as strength days are), I mainly power walked. I did try to do my inclines at the recommended incline or higher. We had a lot of 2 minute hill segments and I was usually keeping the treadmill at 8-12% incline. The inclines are finally getting easier for me (they got really tough after I tore my calf and I don’t know why it took so long to get easier) so I’m testing the higher inclines again during strength days. I’m glad that things seem to be getting better and I think I can start to challenge myself on strength days again.

For the floor on Monday, it was mainly arm work. But we had rowing to do for each of the 3 blocks. The first block was 600 meters, the second block was 500 meters, and the last block was 400 meters. The average time I seem to get is about 30 seconds for every 100 meters (which is what beginners are supposed to do). When I tore my calf, rowing got tough but that didn’t last too long. But then when I got my stomach bug/gallbladder issue, it got tough again to row. My stomach didn’t like being compressed like that. It hasn’t been easy rowing lately, but I figured this was a good day as any to challenge myself. And I really went hard. I managed to do my 600 meters in 2:35 (instead of my usual 3 minutes), the 500 meters in 2:03 (instead of 2:30) and 400 meters in 1:31 (instead of 2 minutes). Some of those are the best rowing times I’ve done for those distances and it was at the end of the workout so I felt really great that I could still accomplish something that awesome when I was that tired.

I had to skip my Wednesday workout (more on that tomorrow), so I went on Thursday instead. And I honestly think that Thursday was one of the toughest days I’ve had ever at Orangetheory (several other people I know agreed with me on that). It was worse than the Hell Week workouts! It was an endurance day, but it wasn’t a normal workout day. All of the blocks were 6.5 minutes long. We started with the treadmill for a block. I was able to run the 90 second and under push and all out paces completely. For the 2 or 3 minute pushes, I ran for 1 minute and walked for a minute.

After that block, the treadmills headed over to the rower. We had 2 different 3 minute distance sprints. Inspired by my awesome rowing on Monday, I decided to see what I could really do with these sprints. Normally for 3 minutes, I would get just about 600 meters done. And rowing for 3 minutes straight isn’t easy, so I can’t push myself as much as I can with the sprints. But after completing the 2 distance challenges, I was pretty darn impressed with myself!

rowing-challenge

I’m very happy that I was close to 700 meters both times! And I got my further distance on the second sprint, which most people couldn’t do. That was nice. After the rowing, we headed back to the treadmill for another block of work.

When we got to the floor, it was a lot of hamstring work which is always tough for me. Most of that work is too tough on my hips, so I have to do modifications. It’s not bad, but it does sometimes frustrate me because I really do want to do what everyone else is doing. After one block on the floor, we headed up to the treadmill and had a treadmill block in the middle of our floor work. That treadmill block included a 3 minute push, so I did my 1 minute intervals with it. And we finished up with another floor block. I was so exhausted after that workout, but it was a good exhaustion.

Going back on Friday after that tough Thursday workout wasn’t fun. But fortunately for me, it was another strength day so I mainly was walking on the treadmill. Again, I ran the push and all out paces that were on flat inclines (30 seconds to 1 minute), but everything else was walking on inclines. This time, the inclines were a little bit lower (usually between 6-12%) but I was increasing my speed a bit more to compensate for the lower incline.

The floor work was a lot of focus on shoulders. I was doing my shoulder press at squat fly with 15 pound weights. I know that in the past I’ve done shoulder presses with 20 pounds, but I must have slept funny the night before because my right shoulder was bugging me. I didn’t want to push it too much and risk an injury, so I went a bit easier. But I was able to use the 20 pound weight for my triceps work (one day, I know I’ll have buff arms!). We also had some rowing to do while on the floor. During the first floor block, we had a 500 meter row. And with the second block we had a 350 and 300 meter row. I didn’t do any super spectacular row work that day, but considering what I had done earlier in the week, I was just happy to be able to do what I normally do.

And I managed to do a 4th workout this past week too! I’ve realized that there’s a good chance I won’t make it to my workout goal this year (at my last count, I’ll be 4 workouts short and I’m seeing if I can add them in somewhere). So I’m trying to get in as many workouts as I can to be as close as I can get to the goal. I worked out on Sunday (which is something I rarely do) and it was a pretty great workout. It was an endurance, strength, and power workout; but it wasn’t done in the normal order that I’m used to. It’s normally in the order it’s is described, but this time it was strength, power, and endurance.

For the strength block, we started with a 2 minute push pace on a flat incline, so I did that and ran for the entire thing. Running for 2 minutes isn’t easy, but I’m glad I did it. For all the incline work, I was at 8% incline and bumped up my speed a bit more with my power walking, But the final part of the strength block was a 1 minute all out pace at 4% incline. Since 4% is considered “flat road incline” for power walking, I’m pretty comfortable at that incline. So I decided to do my all out as a run with the incline. I really felt the incline in my legs, but it wasn’t unbearable.

The power block was pretty short with push paces to all out paces that were less than 2 minutes total. So I was able to run all of that and I even bumped up my all out pace a bit and finished that block running at 6mph. And the endurance block was tough as always. For the 3 minute push pace, I did my usual 1 minute intervals. But we had a 2 minute push toward the end of the workout and I figured since I ran a 2 minute push at the beginning I’d like to try to bookend the treadmill time with another 2 minute run. This was a bit harder than the first 2 minute push (I was tired by this point), but I’m really glad I did it.

For the floor work, we had a pretty good mix of things. We had some hip/leg work, some back work, some core, and some rowing. The blocks were going much faster than they normally feel and I was pretty happy with all my work on the floor. I did struggle with one of the ab things because my hips weren’t feeling up to it, so I just did regular full sit ups instead and that seemed like a good substitute to me.

I’ve got one more workout (this morning) before I head to Thanksgiving and have my family workout. But I think I’m in significantly better shape this year than I was last year and I’m in a great spot to be able to battle with my dad during the workout.

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Guess I Motivated Myself (or No More Feeling Stuck)

Posted on August 22, 2016 | 2 comments

Last week I posted about feeling a bit stuck with my progress in running. It’s hard not to be frustrated with a plateau, and that’s exactly what I was feeling. I didn’t like feeling that way, so I guess putting it out there in my blog post motivated me to do something about it. This week I had some really great progress and I was able to continue to feel motivated and to do more than I really thought I could.

Monday’s workout was a run/row, but some of the run segments were a bit longer than I can do. When we were supposed to run .3 miles, I ran for 90 seconds (instead of the 60 seconds I usually do) and then walked until I got to .2 miles (I did in between what we were supposed to do as a runner and as a walker). Those 90 seconds weren’t easy, but I got through them and I felt so accomplished after that. The next run segment was .25 miles, which I know I can do. Again, this wasn’t easy, but it helped me remember that I’ve done this before and I could do it again. I did this .25 miles a bit slower than I have in the past, so that meant that this was the longest time I’ve run yet!

1:4 Mile

After doing that long run, I wasn’t able to fully run the last segments which were .2 and .15 miles. I was able to run a majority of those, but I know if I hadn’t pushed myself to do the .25 miles as a run I could have run those as well. Our rowing was between 150-300 meters, and since they were fast I did take some time between the treadmill and rower to catch my breath and prepare myself for the next thing I had to do. Overall, this was one of my best running days yet!

Once I got to the floor, I felt like I had already done a full workout, but I tried my best to continue to motivate myself to do more. We had a lot of upper body work with the straps and push-ups and we finished with abs (after which I was barely able to sit up). I surprised myself by how much I was able to do as well as how little pain I was in after class. Not hurting is a good sign and I know I was doing the right thing that day.

Wednesday was an endurance day, and we didn’t get to switch between blocks. I knew the treadmill work would be a tough day, but I was trying to focus on how far I could get the distance to be on the treadmill. My dream is to eventually get the treadmill to make it to 2 miles in class when we don’t switch, but I’m not quite there yet.

The endurance work has been the hardest for me to do with my running, but I was not going to make excuses for myself. When we had 3 minute push paces, instead of walking the entire thing since I know I can’t run the entire thing, I ran half of it and walked the second half. So for every 3 minute push, I ran for 90 seconds. I did the same thing for the 2 minute push paces. I can run for 2 minutes, but I was feeling really tired so I wanted to pace myself. I’m happy with how much running I did in those long pushes instead of just walking. And of course, as I’ve been doing for a while, I ran all of the all outs.

When the treadmill block was done, I shut down my treadmill and was pretty impressed with what my distance had been in class.

Endurance Day

I wish I had noticed when I reached 1.55 miles because that is half of a 5K, but I missed seeing that. But I know that my speed is up so my times are getting better and better.

For the second half of class, we had some sprint rows of 300 meters, arm work on the straps, squats using the Bosu, and ab work. Again, it was another workout that I was exhausted at the end of, but there was very little pain so I considered it a big success.

Friday was another run/row day, and this time I was able to run all of the distances we had to do! We had to do .2 and .15 miles each time (there was also a .1 segment but I didn’t make it down the list that far in the time we had). I ran every single time and didn’t do any walking except to cool down a bit after the run. When I added up everything that I ran, I did .85 miles of running. Of course, this wasn’t non-stop, but I still think that that’s pretty amazing!

The rows between the treadmill time were between 100-200 meters so they were pretty fast, but I was taking a lot of time in between to catch my breath and to let my heart rate get down a bit (it was super high all during class). I didn’t take it easy during the floor work where we had to do lots of arm work (I worked with 25 pound weights), burpees, plank jacks, and hop overs. It was another exhausting but worth it workout.

I think I got myself out of my slump. I just needed to put it out there how I was feeling to realize that I was in control of my progress and I could take it to the next level. I wrote about 3 workouts last week, but technically last week was a 4 workout week. But the 4th workout is going to be its own post, because I attended the 1 hour run class at Orangetheory for the first time! And trust me, that is worthy of being its own post!

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Working With Friends (or Having Someone To Push Me)

Posted on August 8, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts was a nice change-up from the past few weeks. 2 of the workouts had partner elements which we haven’t had in a while. I really love the partner workouts because it pushes me so much harder when I know that someone is counting on me to finish so they can finish. So I think this past week was really great for me (especially since I had a pretty bad food week).

Monday was mainly a run/row day for us. It was an endurance day so I wasn’t able to run as much as I can, but I did run for all the 1 minute segments that I had. This part of the workout wasn’t partnered, so I was just doing the run/row on my own. Once I got to the floor, the focus was on arms and after rowing during the run/row my arms were feeling a bit dead. We ended those blocks with about 15 minutes left to go in the workout. So that’s when the partner stuff started.

We all partnered with one other person and one of us went to the rower and the other was on the floor. The person on the floor controlled the pace of things, so the person on the rower just rowed until they were tagged by their partner. While on the floor, we had to do push ups, pop jacks, and squats. Pop jacks aren’t that fun for me (it isn’t easy to do with my hips) but I was really motivated to get them done so I could get my partner off of the rower since that was the harder part (at least it was in my mind). We were able to switch back and forth pretty quickly and pretty evenly and at the end of the workout I was exhausted but felt great about what I was able to get done.

Wednesday was a power day where we switched between blocks. But we switched after having 2 blocks together for a very good reason. We did some distance challenges on the treadmill that day. So 2 of the blocks were the same time so we did those back to back to compare what we were able to do. I was pretty excited to see what I’d be able to do and since they were shorter than most treadmill blocks I knew I could push myself a bit more.

For the 5 minute distance challenge, we had a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. It’s a lot to do and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to run for all the push and all out segments. So the first time I did it I walked for the 2 minute push and then ran the 1 minute push and 1 minute all out. I was pretty happy with the distance I got, but I knew I could do better. So right after doing that we did it again and I ran for the first minute of the 2 minute push and then walked for that second minute (and kept the rest of it the same as the first attempt). I did bump my speed up a bit as well, and I had a major improvement from the first to the second attempt!

5 Minute Challenge

I was pretty proud of myself for how much better I was able to do and while it was tough to run for 2 minutes (between the push and all out), but I’m so happy I did it because I need to work on my endurance and I have to make myself uncomfortable to get better.

After those two blocks, I went to the floor. The first block was 5 minutes of rowing and the second block was a lot of arm work but I was able to use some pretty heavy weights. But I was ready to get back on the treadmill to try the next distance challenge.

The last two treadmill blocks were both 4 minute challenges. It was a 1 minute push, 1 minute base, 1 minute push, and 1 minute all out. I knew that I could run all the of the push and all out segments and I would walk for the base to recover. This time I knew it would be much harder to have an improvement between the first and second attempt, but I did my best to bump up the speed the second time around so that I could get at least a little bit more distance. It wasn’t as huge of an improvement as my 5 minute challenge, but I’m still so happy that I got a little bit farther.

4 Minute Challenge

The final work on the floor that day were pretty tough for me. I know I pushed myself a bit too much on the treadmill and my body was feeling it. I wasn’t feeling so great by the end and I didn’t want to do anything that might make things feel worse. We were supposed to do burpees during that floor work, but I knew I couldn’t do that so I did pushups on the TRX straps instead. I hate not being able to do something we are supposed to do, but I also have to do what’s best for my body.

And to wrap up my workout week, Friday was also a partner workout! This time, it was 3 people on each team and my blogger friend Jordan was in class so we partnered up. We also partnered up with another awesome lady, but I never caught her name (sorry!). This time, as a group our goal was to row 6,000 meters. Each of us were responsible for 2,000 meters and we did them 500 meters at a time.

So for this workout one of us was on the rower, one was on the treadmill, and one was on the floor. The person on the rower controlled the pace of things. They would row 500 meters and then tag the person on the treadmill to stop so they could get on the treadmill. The person on the treadmill was doing a push pace for the entire time they were on there. And once the treadmill person was tagged, they went to the floor to tag that person and the floor person went to the rower to do their 500 meters.

It was a lot of switching, but it was great because we were pretty much only doing one thing for 3 minutes at a time. My group didn’t quite make it to 6,000 meters during the workout (it was my last 500 meters that didn’t get done), but that wasn’t because of our speed on the rower. We had some transition issues that I know slowed us down and prevented us from finishing right on time.

Since I was going to the treadmill from the rower (where I was working really hard to row fast), I didn’t do any running during the partner workout. I power walked at 6% incline to try to get my heart rate down a bit but still trying to workout. On the floor, we had some arm and abs work to do and I tried to take that time to catch my breath more and take sips of water to get ready to be back on the rower.

I really enjoyed this workout even though we didn’t complete the challenge. It was a great way to push myself for really quick segments and then move on so I didn’t get too tired from one thing. I was exhausted after it was all done, but it was a good exhaustion and not too overwhelming like it is sometimes when I push myself too hard.

I’m starting to get really excited for when my running watch gets here because I’m thinking I’ll test it out for some OTF stuff too. It will be a great way to test out features and to figure out how I want to use it, plus it might give me more insight into my running at OTF than I get from the treadmill or heart rate monitor. The watch may arrive this week or it might not make it for another 2 weeks, but as soon as it gets here I know it’s going to make my workout recaps even more interesting!

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Wanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing)

Posted on July 25, 2016 | Comments Off on Wanting To Run (or Focusing On Running And Rowing)

My week of workouts last week were a bit interesting. I’m discovering that I need to push myself harder to get my heart rate up, but my endurance isn’t quite there yet. I’m finding the most trouble on the treadmill. I used to be able to get my heart rate into the orange zone while power walking, but now it doesn’t want to get there unless I’m running. I know this is a good sign and I’m getting much stronger with my cardiovascular ability. But I need to work on the endurance to get there too and I’m not finding it as easy as it was when I started running to build endurance now.

I don’t think I’ve necessarily hit a wall, but I’ve hit a small barrier. It’s like weight loss. When you start losing weight, you tend to lose very quickly at first and then it slows down. When I started running I found I could push my time by huge jumps without too much effort. Now, I’m finding it tough to run longer than a minute at times. I’m not giving up or losing hope, but it’s made me realize that I have to focus on training a bit differently now and perhaps I was just staying in my comfort zone before and now I’m truly pushing myself.

On Monday, we had a power day that switched between blocks. All the blocks were pretty short so I was able to do some good treadmill work. I was able to run during all of the all-out segments which were either 30 seconds or 1 minute long. I’m pushing things a bit with my speed on those all-outs, so I’ve been doing more at 5.5 mph when I’m not too tired (when I’m tired I’m scared I’m running sloppily and don’t want to hurt myself).

With the power day, we also had rowing to do. The rows were timed sprints and they weren’t too horrible for me. We had 3 timed sprints (1 minute, 2 minutes, and 4 minutes) and while my wattage on the rower was pretty low for me, I was able to do all of the sprints without taking a break and I hit my goal for the distance each time. There was a rowing workshop this past weekend that I wished I could have gone to (I was out-of-town) but I really want to go to the next one. I know I could be doing better with my rowing and I’d like to work on improving that.

Wednesday was a power day again, but no switching between blocks. It felt more like an endurance day for me because of the long time on the treadmill, but we had several walking recoveries during the 23 minutes on the treadmill so that helped a lot. Some of the push paces were 2 or 2 1/2 minutes long, and for those I had to stick with power walking. I really wanted to run (or run/walk), but I knew I needed to save my strength a bit for the all-outs. I did run during the shorter 1 minute push paces including the time that we had a 1 minute push into a 1 minute all-out (so that was 2 minutes of running). While we had the shorter all-outs, I decided to really push myself (I had barely been in the orange zone at all with my heart rate) so I ran for 30 seconds at 6 mph. That is definitely fast for me and I don’t think I could have done it for more than 30 seconds at a time. But it made me happy and gave me a boost of confidence when I was losing a bit of confidence in my running.

After all that treadmill work, I was exhausted. But I was only half way done with my workout so I tried to catch my breath so I could do my best during the floor work. For the floor, we had 2 long blocks that had a couple of different things to do in each one. But we started each set in each floor block with a sprint row. One block was a decreasing row and the other block was a constant row. But they were always sprint rows. I was starting to feel a bit competitive with one of the people on the rower next to me so we decided to race each other for one of the 150 meter rows. The goal time for 150 meters is under 45 seconds. But in my race I was moving so hard that the rower was starting to move with me and I was able to do it in 29.8 seconds! I lost the race (the other person did it in 28.8 seconds), but I was still pretty happy with what I was able to do. And I did another race (but with myself this time) for one of the 200 meter rows at the end of the workout and was able to do it in 47.9 seconds (goal time is under a minute).

I didn’t work out on Friday (I was on the plane on Friday during my usual workout time) so I did a Thursday workout instead. Thursday was endurance, strength, and power all in one workout. And it was a run/row day so I was really able to work on those workout elements. Because there was endurance, strength, and power for the run/row; each of the segments of the run were different. Some were longer distances, some were at inclines, and some were super short. So I had to work on a plan on how to use running during them all. For the long distance one, I did 1 minute of running and 1 minute of walking. I did the walking distance for it (which is half of the running distance), but my coaches have all been ok with that. They know what I’m doing and they have all been really supportive.

For the strength running, since it was at an incline I had to plan carefully. But I did want to try the running with an incline because it’s a good way to push myself without having to run longer. I still did 1 minute of running and 1 minute of walking for it and I was splitting the difference between the running distance and walking distance. I ran at the running incline and walked at my usual walking inclines for push paces. This was pretty tough (especially running at 5% incline), but I was able to stick with my 1 minute/1 minute plan so I was feeling pretty awesome about that.

The power running were all short bursts of .15 miles. I really planned on just running the entire thing because I know I can do that and have done it plenty before. But this was at the end of the workout and I was pretty exhausted (I was rowing sprints between all of the running segments so that was a lot). I really tried my best to run as long as I could, but I was feeling like walking after 45 seconds. I stuck it out for the minute and then started to walk.

I felt a bit disappointed in myself but as soon as we were switching to the floor my coach told me how impressed she was with my running improvement. While I’ve been so focused on times and distance, I haven’t really thought too much about form. But I guess I no longer look like I’m struggling for each step and things are starting to look really smooth and fluid. That gave me a huge boost of confidence and made my floor work on Thursday a lot happier.

After my Thursday workout, I started asking my running friends about help on building endurance. A couple of them are going to be sending me some notes and advice that they’ve seen online or have heard in running groups. I need to start thinking more seriously about my running training if I want to keep improving. I never realized how hard I could push myself and train like this, but I’m so glad I’m doing it. Since the beginning at Orangetheory I’ve felt like an athlete (not just someone at a gym). But now I feel like not just an athlete, but an athlete in training and I need to take that mindset outside of just my workouts and start researching running and planning things out.

I’ve got a few more months until my next 5K race. I feel pretty good that I can PR on the race (unless I get hurt I will be doing a run/walk race for the first time). But I don’t just want to PR on the race. I want to set a goal for myself that is tough but achievable. Hopefully I can reach that goal and prove to myself that even if my running progress is stuck now that in the long haul I made huge progress.

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Truly My Peak Performance (or Exceeding My Expectations)

Posted on June 27, 2016 | 2 comments

I had been pretty excited going into this past week of workouts. I really do love Peak Performance Week (it’s so much better than Hell Week!). I track a lot of my workout accomplishments on my phone so I do know how I’m doing week to week. But for some reason Peak Performance Week brings out the competitive side of me and I really go for it! I’ve hit some amazing goals and PRs during past Peak Performance Weeks, and I knew that while I wasn’t going to hit that every day I was going to have an awesome week.

I really wanted to go to 4 workouts this past week, but my schedule didn’t allow for me to do that so I only got in 3 workout challenges (the one I was sad to miss was the same day as my therapist appointment). But I think that I really maximized the time that I was at Orangetheory and I really couldn’t be prouder of myself.

Monday was the 500 meter row challenge. We started our workout doing the challenge (so we wouldn’t be tired doing it later) so I was able to get my row done within the first 10 minutes of class. My goal time was to be able to get this done in under 2 minutes, and I really thought I might get there. I was going really fast on the rower and was pushing back really hard with my legs. But even with the effort I was putting in, I came up just a bit short of my goal.

500 Meter Row

I really set the bar high with hoping to be under 2 minutes, so I’m pretty happy with what I was able to get done. Plus, since I know Mondays are usually tough mornings for me, I knew that I might struggle a bit. But I was pretty happy with my endurance during the row and I think my time is a good one that I can work toward beating next time.

After the 500 meter row, our coach split our group up more evenly to do the rest of the workout. I ended up being in the group that had to start on the floor (I really don’t like that). The floor block ended up being very similar to Friday the week before. It was a long block that had a lot of arm and ab work and we also had to do some more rowing during it. For the treadmill, I only ran during the all out segments because I was feeling a bit tired in the second half of class and I didn’t want to overdo things too much (that’s when I hurt more).

Wednesdays class was pretty fun for me. My friend Dani was able to be in class (she’s missed a few weeks because of work) and my friend Amanda surprised me by being there too! That was pretty awesome and made me be in a really great mood for class. The challenge that day was weighted sit to stands on a Bosu ball for 1 minute. Unfortunately for me, I can’t do sit to stands really well. I can do it if I use my hands and flip over to stand up, but my hips don’t really bend that way right now. So I ended up doing weighted squats for that minute and was able to do 32 squats!

The workout was a strength day, so that meant all inclines on the treadmill. I didn’t end up doing any running for the treadmill time. I knew what was coming up on Friday and I wanted to make sure my legs were ready. But I was able to bring my inclines up on the treadmill higher than I have in a while and that’s a pretty great accomplishment for me! My calf hasn’t been hurting at all lately so I’m getting a bit braver with testing my inclines. I’m not ready to try running really at inclines yet, but to know I can walk at them again is pretty nice.

The floor work that day was nice. I was tired after all of the hill work that we had to do, so I was pretty happy to see that there was an entire block of floor work that was on the Bosu! A lot of that was laying on the ground, so my heart rate got to relax for a bit.

Friday was the big day for me! It was the 1 mile challenge and I was feeling super excited and nervous about it. I know that I just had a major PR recently with my mile time, so I wasn’t expecting anything huge to happen this time. But I did know that I was able to run faster and a bit longer than I did when I got that PR, so I figured I would be getting a faster time that day.

My original plan for my mile was to run for 45 seconds and then walk for 1 minute and just keep repeating it. That seems like a good pace idea for me and I was happy with the plan. When I started my mile challenge, I was feeling pretty good with my running so I decided to run for 1 minute and walk for 1 minute until that was tiring me out too much. I figured I could probably do that a couple of times and then I’d go down to running for 45 seconds at a time. But I was actually feeling pretty great. In fact, I was bumping up my speed on both my running and walking segments (running at 4.8 mph and walking at 3.7 mph).

We technically only had 13 minutes to finish the mile, and I knew there was no way I could finish that quickly. So I just figured that I would stay on the treadmill while everyone was walking to recover and hopefully I could keep going into the beginning of the floor block and nobody would need my treadmill (we were switching between blocks this day). At the 12 minute mark, I saw that I was killing it with my time and I decided to just go for it and hope that I could keep going. I started running at 5.0 mph and decided that I wasn’t going to stop until I hit the 1 mile mark. I was bumping my speed up a bit throughout the time and in that last effort I hit 2 big milestones. I ran at my fastest speed yet (5.3 mph) and for the longest time yet (1:50 without stopping). And it totally paid off in my mile time.

1 Mile Challenge

That’s a minute and 40 seconds faster than my mile last month! That’s insane! I pushed myself harder than I ever have and while I know that this speed and intensity could not be done for a 5K race yet, just knowing I can do a mile like this is incredible! I really want to work on my endurance and continuing to run for longer and longer blocks. I had set a goal for June to run for 90 seconds straight, and I ended up beating that by 20 seconds!

After that mile, I was beyond exhausted. I was very out of breath and had to sit down while the rest of the floor work was being explained. I even had to take a bit of time during the floor block to work on getting my heart rate back down and to stop breathing as hard as I was. The first floor block was 13 minutes long (so the other half of class had 13 minutes to do their mile challenges) and it focused a lot on arms and abs. I was really grateful for the ab work because that meant I was laying down on the floor. I’m glad it was a longish block because I was able to take my time and I know I was going pretty slowly.

After the longer floor block, we got back up to the treadmill for the last 2 blocks of cardio. I was walking during all of it and keeping my inclines a bit lower because I really was tired. My legs were a bit sore (not in pain, just sore) and I knew I had pushed myself maybe a bit harder than I should have so I wanted to be easy on myself. And when we were back on the floor, the final block was 2 1/2 minutes of arm work (biceps and triceps) and I was sitting or laying on the weight bench for the entire time.

Overall, I think that this Peak Performance Week went really well. While I didn’t beat old records every time, the records I did beat were pretty amazing. And I was pushing myself harder no matter what I was doing. That competitive feeling was really making me want to do better than ever and I think that I accomplished that.

I’m not sure when the next Peak Performance Week will be, but I know that all this time between now and then will be training to beat these records and to prove that I’m getting stronger, better, and faster every day.

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Another Peak Performance Week (or Working Extra Hard)

Posted on April 11, 2016 | 4 comments

This past week was Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory. I actually have come to love Peak Performance Week. It’s a great way for me to check my how I’m doing compared to how I’ve done in the past. It’s the same way with Hell Week. It’s nice to have workout benchmarks to compare to because I know I make improvements in my workouts even if the scale isn’t going down.

I would have loved to have done 4 workouts during Peak Performance Week this time, but with my 5K race on Saturday I knew I wasn’t going to work out on Friday. I added a Thursday workout in, but since I didn’t want to do 4 days in a row I had to keep it at 3 days.

Since I was pretty stuck with what days I could go, I’m glad that the workouts on the days I went were pretty much the ones I would have wanted to go to anyway.

Peak Performance Week

Monday was the 1 mile challenge. This one is the one I have the most feelings about. I feel like my mile time means so much to me and I know what times I want to get to. So since this is the most important one in my mind, I’m glad it was first so I could get it over with.

Our last Peak Performance Week was about 4 months ago and I was able to do a 16:58 mile then. My PR is 16:30 and as much as I want to get back down to that, I knew my body wasn’t there yet. I really had hope that I could at least do better than what I did 4 months ago. When we started the treadmill, I was at 3.5 miles an hour and 6% incline. I pretty much stayed there until I was 3/4 of the way done. By then, everyone around me was already done with the mile challenge and on to the next cardio block (thankfully my coach let me finish it even though power walkers only have to do a half mile).

I was really hurting toward the end of my mile and I kept bumping up the speed because I could see that I was going to be really close to my last mile time. And when I was done, I was a little bit slower than last time.

1 Mile Challenge

It makes me so mad how close I was because all it would have taken was a little more speed for a such a short amount of time to get to where I was last time. There’s nothing I can do about it now, but it was making me feel a bit off about how my 5K would go on Saturday.

After the mile challenge, we had a run/row to finish out the cardio block. Since I had taken so long, I really only had time for a little bit before we moved onto the floor (where we were doing a ton of lunges and my legs felt like jello).

Wednesday’s challenge was a 1000 meter row. I had looked at my past records and couldn’t find what my PR was when I went to class (I now know that it is 4:58.9). So I just sent my goal time at 4:50 thinking it sounded good to me. I had warmed up on the treadmill first before getting on the rower and then when it was my group’s turn to row I got strapped in. I really didn’t focus on the computer on my rower at all. Since I had set it for distance I knew that the timer would stop when I reached 1000 meters and chances were that I would know when I was close. So I just tried to look straight ahead at the treadmills and not think about the rowing at all.

By the time I was halfway, I was exhausted. I really thought about taking a few second break to stretch and catch my breath, but I decided against it and kept going. Somehow, I did my 1000 meters without taking a break once. Honestly, no matter what my time was, I would have been happy just knowing that. But my time was pretty awesome too.

1000 Meter Row

I made it 1/10 of a second under my goal time! I just barely made it under my goal time, but it still counts! After I got of the rower, I was a bit wobbly. I know I really pushed myself hard on that and my body was feeling it. It ended up being  run/row day on the treadmill so I still had more rowing to do, but they were all pretty short compared to the challenge. On the floor we did a bunch of upper body work, especially on the TRX straps. I know my arms were done because by the end of class my form had gotten really sloppy and I was needing a bunch of corrections.

Thursday was my last day of Peak Performance Week. I knew it was going to be another treadmill challenge involving hills, but before I got to class I didn’t know much more than that. What it ended up being was a 13 minute run for distance. Runners and joggers had to be at 2% incline (normally they are at 1%) and power walkers had to be at 6% incline. So basically for me, this was going to be a 13 minute push pace (normally the longest push pace is 3 minutes).

There was a white board on the side of the room that showed how far you should be able to go in 13 minutes. For power walkers, it was at least .8 miles so I assumed that was based on being at 3.5 miles an hour (the slowest power walkers are supposed to be) for the entire time. So my goal was to beat .8 miles. I did 3.5 miles an hour for the first 10 minutes (that was a challenge in itself!). Then the next minute was at 3.6 and the following minute at 3.7. For the last minute I bumped up the speed every 20 seconds (so 3.8, 3.9, and 4.0 miles an hour). Clearly the chart showing how far we should be able to go wasn’t correct for power walkers because for all the extra speed I did at the end I wasn’t able to get to my goal distance.

13 Minute Hill Challenge

I actually don’t know how fast I would have had to go to get to .8 miles, but I only set that as my goal because I assumed that it was based on 3.5 miles an hour. I still did 13 minutes at 6% incline and did the entire thing at 3.5 miles an hour or faster! I think I might need to start playing around with my base pace again because I think I might be ready to be back at 3.5 miles an hour very soon.

For Thursday’s floor work there was some rowing (500 meters) and a lot of heavy weights for me. I was using a lot of 20 pound weights for squats, lunges, and deadlifts. After working so hard on the treadmill the 20 pound weights felt like 50 pound weights, but I stuck with it (and just took breaks to help me catch my breath).

Even though I didn’t always beat my past Peak Performance Week records, I think that this week went really well. I struggled from time to time, but I kept going and I know that whenever the next Peak Performance Week comes up, I’ll be ready to see if I can beat these records or my other ones.

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Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

I really had a great week of workouts this past week. I was very nervous that I’d have a bad week (more on that in a bit), but it ended up pretty good and I think that I could not have improved on it.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday morning. I got home late on Monday night from Sacramento and had my WIF meeting on Tuesday afternoon. So my only workout time option was 7:30am on Tuesday. I’m not the biggest fan of those early mornings, but they’ve become much more tolerable as I’ve done more. Bruce (who is usually my coach on Fridays) was my coach that morning and he saw me in the lobby while he was wrapping up the 6:30am class. I think he was pretty shocked to see me since he usually only sees me in the afternoon.

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

I was super happy to see that Tuesday’s class was a run/row day! That means less time on the treadmill for me so I try to do speed training. Most of my treadmill segments were at 3.5 miles an hour, but I did do some bits at 3.6 miles an hour and it didn’t feel as difficult as it did the week before! So that’s some good improvement for me. And the rowing was 200 meter sprints, so I was able to really push myself on those without getting too tired.

Even though I was pushing myself a lot in class, my heart rate stayed pretty low. I’m thinking it was a false reading because I was really out of breath in class and felt like I was pushing myself as much as I normally do. Maybe it was low because I was tired or something, so I didn’t let the low heart rate affect me too much.

Wednesday was another fun class because it was my Wednesday coach JZ’s birthday class! Technically her birthday was later in the week, but it was the Wednesday class closest to her birthday so that counts too. The treadmill section of class was a solid block (so 30 minutes without the breaks on the floor) and it was full of push paces. It almost felt like almost every part of the treadmill time was a push or all out with very limited base paces between them. Most of the push paces were 1 or 2 minutes so they were a bit long but not too long. I was able to maintain my regular push pace of 3.5 miles an hour (which isn’t easy on the long treadmill days). But with all those push paces (and the incline associated with them), my hips were hurting me pretty badly by the time we got to the floor.

I’m not sure if the treadmill time was too tough on me or I was just having an off day, but I was having some serious issues with my balance on the floor. I was trying to do my best, but I was spending a significant time trying to balance myself and not doing the workout. I was able to do at least one round of everything on the floor, but I can usually do at least 2 rounds.

After the class, of course we had to take a birthday photo with JZ!

Happy Birthday JZ!

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I only did 3 workouts this week). It was a switch day, but the switching between blocks wasn’t the way we usually do them. For me starting on the treadmill my blocks went treadmill, row, treadmill, floor, treadmill, and finishing on the floor. The treadmill rows were pretty tough with long push paces including a 3 minute push pace (which is the longest we do). That 3 minutes seems to take forever, but I was able to get through it and didn’t hurt too much. And for the brief all outs we had to do, I was able to do 3.6 miles an hour even after the really long push pace.

My legs were feeling wobbly after the treadmill blocks, so I was a bit careful on the floor blocks. We were supposed to do running man and plank jacks on the Bosu for one of the blocks, but I knew that it would be too much for me. But I was able to do them without modifications on the floor. There was a time that I couldn’t do either move at full speed, so to know that I’ve improved enough to not need modifications for the basic move made me feel really proud of myself.

This coming week will either be a 3 workout or 4 workout week (I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go on Saturday). But I’m happy that I’ve been pushing myself more and more each week because I’m really starting to see some big improvements in my workouts, strength, and endurance. Even if I’m not losing weight right now, improvements are signs of progress and that’s really what I want!

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Peak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs)

Posted on January 25, 2016 | Comments Off on Peak Performance Week (or Getting Closer To Some PRs)

It was another Peak Performance Week at Orangetheory! The last Peak Performance Week was back in November and it was a bit tough for me. I had really wanted to beat what I had done in the previous Peak Performance Week, but since I had my calf tear I’ve been trying to work my way back to where I had been before. It’s tough to know that I had been doing things better/faster/stronger before, but I’m trying to thing of my pre-injury time and post-injury time as two different things (I also have separated my life into pre-hip surgery and post-hip surgery).

So this time, I wasn’t necessarily trying to beat my best time, but just beat what I had done last time. Also, some of the challenges I would be doing were different from last time, so it made it easier not to compare myself to my former self.

Peak Performance

Monday was the 500 meter row. This was going to be a lot easier than the 2000 meter row I did last time (I was going to be missing the 2000 meter row day this time), but just because it was going to be easier didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to push myself like crazy to do something awesome.

It was a 3G day, so we didn’t really have a lot of time at each station. We rotated around a bunch and when it was time for me to do my 500 meter row, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted my goal time to be. You are supposed to do at least 100 meters every 30 seconds, so if I followed that I would do it in 2:30. As much as I wanted to see if I could do it under 2 minutes, I knew that wasn’t realistic for me right now. So after I had done about 250 meters, I decided I wanted to come in under 2:15.

500 Meters

It was close, but not quite there. I know I could have done it if the straps around my feet hadn’t loosened so much that I had to stop to tighten them, but I can’t let that get to me. It’s still a good time for me and I know that the next time I have to do 500 meters that I’ve got a good benchmark to try to beat.

Wednesday’s class got off to a bit of a tough start for me. There were so many accidents on the road while I was trying to get to class that I ended up being a few minutes late. Normally, I start my workout on the treadmill because that seems to be easier on my hips. But because I was late, I had to start on the rower first. Fortunately, we switched between blocks so I didn’t have to do 30 minutes on the treadmill at the end of class.

This day’s challenge was 1 minute of burpees. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with burpees, but they are getting easier for me to do. In my 1 minute, I was able to do 10 of them (and we had to go all the way down to the ground each time so it was like having to do a pushup with each one). I didn’t have a goal in mind for this challenge, so to me 10 sounds pretty awesome!

Besides the rough start to my Wednesday workout, the rest of the day went pretty well. My treadmill work was feeling easier than it had in a long time and I was using only 15 pound weights for my floor work (I’m working my way to using those 20 pound weights, but it’s a big jump).

Friday was the day that I had been waiting for. The 1 mile challenge. I think those of you who read this blog regularly know that this challenge is a big deal for me. I do use it as a benchmark for my progress. I’ve had mile times in the past that were over 20 minutes. My ultimate goal is to get down to a 15 minute mile. I know that my mile times on the treadmill versus on a race day aren’t always the same, but I still compare them against each other all the time. Sometimes I’m faster on the treadmill because it forces me to walk faster and sometimes I’m faster at a race because it’s a real flat road and I’ve got adrenaline going. So in my mind, they can be interchangeable.

I’ve had one 1 mile challenge since my calf injury. And while it was slower than my past 1 mile challenge, it was progress compared to my 5K mile time. So I was pretty happy. This time, I knew that it would be close to impossible to beat my 1 mile PR so I didn’t go into this with that mindset. I wanted to beat my last 1 mile challenge time (which was 17:08) and ideally be under 17 minutes.

Technically, at Orangetheory power walkers only have to do half the distance for any treadmill things. So I only had to do half a mile. But I wanted to do a mile no matter what, and I’m glad that my coach Bruce put all the treadmill blocks back to back so I would have enough time to complete it (otherwise, there would only be 14 minutes for me to finish).

When I started my mile, I was off to a great start. I was at 3.5 miles an hour for the first minute or so and then bumped it up to 3.6 miles an hour right after that. I hit the .25 mile mark and was going strong. But then, my shin splints came back. I slowed back down to 3.5 miles an hour hoping that maybe that would help make them feel a bit better. They didn’t and I started to hurt quite a bit.

At the half mile mark, I debated ending my treadmill challenge and just being ok with doing that half mile. But I knew that I would be regretting it later so I kept pushing on. It wasn’t an easy mile and I’m sure it didn’t look pretty. But I did it. And in the end I reached my goal.

1 Mile

My official time was 16:57, which is 11 seconds faster than what I did back in November. It’s 27 seconds slower than my PR, so I’m getting closer to being back there.

I’m so glad that I didn’t give up at the half mile. While I wished that the shin splints hadn’t come back during the challenge, they did and I did the best that I could in the circumstances. I’m sure that if my mile was pain free, I would have been maybe 15 seconds faster. But I met my goal and I’m proud of myself for that.

Since all the treadmill blocks were back to back and I took longer than everyone else to finish their mile (I’ve realized that I might have had the slowest mile of everyone at Orangetheory, but I’m ok with that), by the time that I had walked and recovered it was time to move from the treadmill to the floor work. I missed the run/row that everyone else got to do, but I was glad that the treadmill time was done because I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stand the shin splint pain. I know that pushing through the pain isn’t always the right choice, but I knew it was right for me then.

Overall, I’m very happy with how I did during Peak Performance Week. I always tried my best no matter how I felt and I think that the results show that. I’m happy with all 3 of my challenges and I love that I have new challenges that I can track in the future.

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Peak Performance Week (or Pushing Myself To The Max)

Posted on November 16, 2015 | 1 comment

It’s been a crazy few weeks at Orangetheory lately! First there was Hell Week. Then there was Recovery Week (which didn’t feel like a recovery but more like a normal week). And this past week was Peak Performance Week.

We had a Peak Performance Week back at the beginning of the summer, and I had a pretty great time with it. I got some PRs, challenged myself, and felt like I had set some good benchmarks to try to beat. Not all of the challenges were the same as the beginning of the summer, but it’s nice to have something to compare to. Especially when that last time it was right before I tore my calf muscle. I was able to see how close to fully recovered I am.

Monday’s challenge was a 10 minute run/walk for distance. The goal for all the runners was to get at least a mile done in 10 minutes. So technically the goal for me as a power walker was to get half a mile done. I know I can do half a mile in 10 minutes, so I set my own goal of trying to get to .6 miles in 10 minutes.

I did most of the work at 6% incline and as much as I wanted to increase my speed, my hips and calf weren’t having it. So while I didn’t get to my personal goal, I think I did pretty great.

10 minute distance

Wednesday’s challenge was something that I was really looking forward to. It was the 1 mile challenge. When I did this over the summer, I had a PR with my mile. While that was amazing, it was very disappointing for me how I wasn’t able to translate that mile time into my 5K (and yes, I know that the PR was pre-injury and the race was post-injury). I knew that my mile time wasn’t going to be a PR. But I really wanted to prove to myself that I could do better than I did at my race.

I spent most of my mile alternating between 3.4 and 3.5 miles and hour. In the last minute, I bumped up the speed as much as I could. And when I was done, I was so happy with myself.

1 mile time

This is about 30 seconds slower than my mile PR (which isn’t that much) and about 50 seconds faster than my mile time from race day. I needed this boost because I had still been feeling a bit low from my race. I know that somehow I could have done better, but I’m not sure what I would have had to do. So showing myself on the treadmill that I’m not as far back from fully recovered as I thought really made me feel great.

Friday was a pretty exciting day for me. First of all, it was my 150th workout of 2015! That’s amazing to me! Also, Friday’s challenge was the 2000 meter row. I’ve had so much rowing lately that I knew I could do some great work on this challenge. My PR for my 1000 meter row is 4:58.9, so my goal for my 2000 meter row was anything under 10 minutes.

Since I knew the row would totally take it out of me, I chose to do that first instead of the treadmill like I usually do. I set my rower to count down from 2000 meters (it would also stop the clock once I reached that distance) and tried to not look at the screen. I counted the strokes in my head as a distraction and once people next to me were finishing I knew I must be getting close. I rowed as hard and fast as I ever had for those last 100 meters and when the clock stopped, I almost couldn’t believe my time.

2000 meter row

I was a little more than 16 seconds faster than my goal time! And since distance rows are a weakness of mine, to be able to do this was amazing! The only downside was that after the row we had to go on the treadmill and my hip gave me one of the electric shocks I get from time to time and my calf muscle was feeling like it was pulling and tearing. So I got off the treadmill and did the rest of my cardio on the bike. I wasn’t happy to be on the bike, but I needed to do that to keep my body from being in pain and damaging itself.

Overall, I would consider this Peak Performance Week a huge victory for me. While not everything was a PR, I proved to myself that while I’m still recovering I’m getting closer and closer to where I was pre-injury.

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