In Workout Week posts I will tell you everything about my last week’s workouts.

Monday was the day when the heatwave hit Estonia and there was well over 30 degrees Celsius outside. But we had an interval training planned and it was not going to be cancelled, especially since the weather for my Satuday’s 10K race was supposed to be just as hot.

First we ran for about 20 minutes which already got me super sweaty. Then we ran to the stadium, did some stretches and running exercises and then it was time for 3×1000 metres in race pace with 800 m of slow running and even walking (to get my heart rate down a little) in between. The heat made the task even harder, I drank a ton of water and was exhausted after the workout. My 1K times were 5:15, 5:40 and 5:27. I can be pleased with that. But what is the most important: my ankle didn’t have any pain or tension!!!

Am I really… recovered? Keep reading…

I thought I would never say this but I really didn’t enjoy Tuesday‘s BodyPump. 😦 It was just bad. I was in desperate need for new summer clothes (old clothes are either too big or well… too old) and was out shopping for 6 hours. I was exhausted from the heat and trying stuff on when I got back home and I had no time to rest. Had a quick dinner and rushed out the door again. I didn’t even have time to cycle/run to warm up before the class. Bad. And then in squats I felt like I had added +5 kg on both sides when I actually had my normal weight. I hoped that maybe it was just my legs that were tired but no: I stripped that bar down in almost every track. My heart rate was through the roof, I was feeling weak and weird. I was so disappointed. Well, every workout can’t be golden…

Wednesday‘s Jooks Jõud Venitus was easier as it always is before most of are racing on the weekend. All in total nearly 40 minutes of running (average pace: 6:10 min per km), 15 minutes of running exercises and then some stretches. Luckily it was a little cooler outside that day. And as always, I foam rolled in the evening. It has become a nice routine for me. 🙂

Oh, and that evening when looking at my fitness club workouts history, I found out it had been exactly 1 year (21.05.2013) since I first took my favourite coach Maris’s class. One year anniversary and I forgot, oh damn it. 😀

I actually shouldn’t even have been in BodyPump on Thursday but I already know that if I take easier weights and don’t push myself to the edge, I’ll be fine for weekend’s races. So it was a nice chance to really work on enhancing my technique. Literally stripped the bar down by 30–50% in every track to save my muscles. But since we did program 88 instead of 89, it still was a little harder and worked better for the body. 

Friday: rest day. Only did an hour of foam rolling.

Saturday: 10K race. Summary coming in a few days.

Sunday: post-race rest day. Well needed! Spent the day walking around in parks and sunbathing on the beach. I also swam breaststroke in the river for about 15 minutes. In the evening did an hour of foam rolling again. But my injured ankle started to let me know it’s there…

 

In total:

2 hours of BodyPump

3 hours 15 minutes of running

4 hours 45 minutes of foam rolling / stretching (taking it seriously obviously :D)

30 minutes of cycling

15 minutes of swimming

A far less impressive week than last week. 11 hours of physical activity (last week: 15 hours) and a lot of it was foam rolling or stretching. But I did have 4 (really) intense workouts: intervals, 2 BP-s and a race. And I also didn’t mark down any walking that I did this week, there was quite a lot of it.

This hot weather is just not for me. My heart rate has been abnormally high all week long and my workouts haven’t been great. It will cool down next week but I can imagine going from +30 degrees to +10 will be rough as well. I also have 70K of cycling coming at me on Sunday. I’m sure about the weather for that day yet but if it’s under +16, I might have to buy some more cycling clothing. Sports gets pretty expensive.

Ankle report: fine up until today, Sunday. Today I felt discomfort, tension and a little bit of pain in the lower inside part of my calf when I was walking around. I’m a bit worried. 😦

I won’t be doing any long runs before my 21,1K. Hopefully the long cycling race will be a good enough workout to substitute one 15+ km run. Hadn’t I gotten injured, I would have done a few long runs according to my training plan by now… But you gotta work with what you’ve got.

Narva Energy Run 21,1K: in less than 3 weeks.