Working With Friends (or Having Someone To Push Me)

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!

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.

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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