This past week of workouts weren’t the best for me. I was so hopeful with feeling ok when I thought I wouldn’t, but that decided to come at me this past week. It’s not easy working out when you don’t feel great, but if I let that stop me I would only be working out half of the month. And I just can’t do that to myself. It’s not fun when I don’t feel 100%, but I think I made the most of it this past week.
Monday’s workout I went into feeling pretty confident. I hadn’t been dealing with the nausea I was expecting the week before and I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with any nausea this month. Of course, being that confident about things meant that they were going to get crazy. The workout was an endurance workout and we had 3 groups, so I knew I’d only be on the treadmill for about 15 minutes. But I only lasted on there for the warm up and then maybe 4 more minutes.
The treadmill workout was based on doing 2 minute push paces and then base paces in-between. And during the first 2 minute push pace, my nausea came at me with full force. I left the workout to take my anti-nausea medication, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay on the treadmill and do much. So I grabbed my things and went over to the bike to finish the cardio part of the workout. I honestly wasn’t focused too much on when we had a push pace versus a base pace. I was just trying to get through the workout and hope that my medication would kick in soon. For my mileage challenge this was easily the worst workout I have had, but I also knew that there would be at least a few workouts that would be like this when I felt horrible. So I just had to push through and try to keep pedaling when I could.
Next I was on the rower where we had 2 different attempts at a 500 meter row. My medications were finally starting to kick in, but I was still feeling off so my first attempt was pretty slow. By the time I had the second attempt I was doing a little better and was able to do my row about 20 seconds faster. We also had pull challenges where we tried to see how far we could get in 20 pulls on the rower. Feeling off worked to my advantage since I was super slow and I got much further in 20 pulls than I expected I could do. And on the floor, we started with mini-band work with suitcase squats with weights, lateral walks, and upright rows with weights. I finally found a good spot to put the mini-band so it wasn’t twisting up my leg and I went heavy with the weights to make up for my lack of cardio work. We were supposed to do plank work, but I knew that if I did plank work that I would feel every more nauseous, so my coach had me use the straps to do tricep work to work the same muscle groups. I left the workout feeling a little disappointed because I know I wanted to do better, but I also know that my struggles were due to things out of my control which does help a bit.
I was worried about how I’d feel on Wednesday for the workout, but I was doing a bit better. And because the workout was a power day with lots of switches, I decided to go for the treadmill instead of using the bike. I also may have been a bit stubborn because I wanted to get the mileage for my challenge. The workout was kind of a run/row format, but it was pretty unique with the blocks being 3 or 4 minutes long.
I started on the treadmill where the first block was a run/row with a .1 mile power walk and then a 200 meter row. I was doing my normal speed and incline even though I wasn’t feeling totally great. It was a bit tough, but I managed to do it. After that block, we went to the rowers where we had rounds of 100 meter rows and squats. Then it was back to the treadmill for another run/row that was .08 mile power walks and a 150 meter row. Then back to the rower for rounds of 100 meter rows and squats. And the last block was a run/row of .05 mile power walks and 100 meter rows. Then it was time to switch to the floor.
But even though I was on the floor, we still had treadmill blocks. First we had a block that was all timed exercises. The exercises were supposed to be pop jacks, pull ups on the straps, sit-ups with rotation, and burpees to step ups. But because of how I was feeling, I couldn’t do a lot of the exercises. Instead of pop jacks I did squats, I did crunches instead of sit-ups, and instead of the burpees to step ups I did lunges. It still wasn’t easy with no breaks between things. After the exercises, we had a 3 minute block on the treadmill. Then 2 more rounds of exercises with a block on the treadmill in-between. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get it done and be on the treadmill when in the recent past I would have been on the bike.
After feeling better on Wednesday, I was hoping that trend would continue and I’d be ok on Friday. But that wasn’t the case and I went to my workout with horrendous nausea. I really wanted to use the treadmill, but there was no way for me to do that without feeling sick so I used the bike. The workout format was similar to Wednesday with it being unique and different. While it was a run/row day, it wasn’t the normal run/row format.
I started on the bike to warm-up and normally if it’s a run/row day that means I do the run/row work first. But this time, we had a 1 minute all out pace and then headed to the floor while the people who warmed up on the rower did their row and then went to the treadmill. All 3 blocks I had where I started on the treadmill/bike side started that way with the 1 minute all out pace and then going to the floor. When we were on the floor it was mainly work using the Bosu. We had kneeling tricep extensions, crunches, hip bridges, and pullovers with weights. There was also some work that we had in plank positions that I knew I couldn’t do because of how I was feeling so I did squats or extra core work in place of the things I couldn’t do.
When we switched, I had the run/row (although I guess technically it was row/bike for me). Each block started with a longish row. The first block was 500 meters, the second was 600 meters, and the last was 700 meters. The 500 meter row was tough for me and I took longer than I should have. But for the 600 and 700 meter row I was within the goal times we had for the rows. And after each of the rows, there was a run for distance which was a bike for distance in my case. I tried to just keep pedaling until the block ended but there were a few times where the nausea got really bad and I just had to take a quick break on the bike before continuing. Even with how badly I was feeling, the workout seemed to go by pretty quickly which helped.
Saturday’s workout was another one where I thought I was feeling ok at first but before getting to the workout I knew I wasn’t going to be able to use the treadmill. I ended up using the bike again, but that was a good thing because one of my friends from the Brentwood studio was in that class and on the bike next to me! We tried not to turn the cardio time into social hour, but we did spend a bit of time catching up. That helped to pass the time and to distract me from feeling as queasy as I was feeling.
The cardio blocks all had the same format with the people on the treadmill starting with doing .1 miles on a high incline and then we had regular push pace intervals. For the bike, I did .4 miles with a very high resistance and then did the resistance I usually do to replicate my push and all out paces. I did have moments where I needed to stop pedaling because the nausea took over and I needed to let it pass, but they were much less frequent than they had been earlier in the week. That was good and I felt much better about my cardio on the bike than I had in the other workouts.
On the floor we also had 3 blocks. The first block started with ab dolly rollouts. I knew I must be feeling better because when I’m really feeling nauseous I can’t do anything in a plank position. But I was able to do these with very minimal nausea so that felt like a victory to me. In that first block was also had squats with leg lifts using the bands which normally would be tough on my hip but I was able to do. So that was another victory. In the other blocks we had sprint rows, lunges with shoulder presses, pull-ups on the straps, hip bridges, and knee tucks. While I still had some nausea from time to time, it was decreasing as the workout went on so I was just so happy about that.
I’m really hopeful that this week of workouts the nausea will either be super limited or gone. I know the timing of my body and it should be over in a few more days. Then I have 2 weeks of freedom before I feel it again. So many people tell me that they couldn’t do a workout when they felt the way I feel, but for me it’s becoming a normal part of life. And each month that I have to go through this I keep proving to myself that I don’t let feeling nauseous stop me from trying my best during a workout. And while my best during these weeks isn’t usually close to my normal best, I’m really trying hard and hopefully I will start judging my nauseous workouts against the other nauseous ones and not against the ones that happen when I feel fine.
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