RACE WEEK!!!! Everyone treats race week differently. For me, I spent a lot of the week recovering mentally and physically from over training the week before. I learned in track that it's good to relax your training right before a race. While this could have been limited to a day or two, I decided it was better to take it easy all of week 3 than risk injury or burn out from pushing harder than I should.
Sunday
Sunday Funday! Since I went a whole week without any rests or light days, Sunday was the perfect time for it. I was going on a boat ride around the bay all day with my brother so I also had to think about what my workout would be. I figured just a dog walk would be great - I'd do my 20 burpees and take Harley for a stroll and then go on the boat ride. I knew doing it in the morning was key because I'd be tired from being in the sun all day....the morning got away from me. I got home and was tired as expected. I showered and ate and then it was almost time to pick up Dan from the airport. I decided I'd grab the dog and we could walk along the bay while we waited for him. It was a short walk, but at least we did it. I had to bail on my burpees though. By the time I got home, I was just beat. Double burpees Monday!
Monday
Ready for excuses? Great! I was totally thinking I'd wake up and be ready to go. NOPE! I slept horribly. Our smoke detector beeped randomly at 1 am and I could not fall back asleep after. I don't know what I thought it was but I started getting the crazy dreams and I had such terrible sleep.Despite that, I had big plans for the day. I was going to buckle down on work, take care of some other errrands, get an early start on dinner, and go climbing. Well, around 2pm I realized I didn't get that start on dinner which meant I wouldn't finish it before gym time. I could have put it off but I'd bought the ingredients Friday and wasn't sure it should wait another day. My climbing partner was cool with pushing it back a day and I decided I could just do a workout video at home.
I put that off too and when I finally went to do it, I realized I still needed to do Sunday and Monday's burpees. I got to 50 and I just felt terrible. My muscles were tired, I felt out of it, and frankly I just didn't want to do it anymore. I decided to bank the last ten and give myself a day off. Maybe I needed more rest days the week before? Maybe it was the crappy sleep? Maybe I'm dehydrated from all the sun? I don't know. The point is, I listen to my body and it wasn't feeling it today. My plan is an earlier night tonight and getting back in the saddle tomorrow.
Tuesday
After the last couple of days, I was in a rut. I was going to go to bootcamp for lunch but didn't get my work finished in time. Luckily, I had my make up climbing that afternoon but man, I just wasn't excited about exercising.
I tried to figure it out - was it from two days off? did I overdo the week before? was I distracted? burnt out?I don't know - but I felt much better after climbing so probably option 1. We didn't climb a ton but we did a lot of routes that were more technical and logical so it was a really fulfilling day at the gym. We didn't stay long because we had plans later but something is better than nothing.
AND I came home and did my 40 burpees so I'm all caught up. Doing more than 30 really sucks so I hope I don't do anymore make up days. I also felt really good about just doing it. I need to remember that even if I'm in a rut or distracted or want to take the lazy option, I feel much better and more productive after exercising.
Wednesday
At some point today I was like "Yay Thursday, week is almost CRAP IT'S WEDNESDAY." That's where I am this week. After crushing it last week and being in a lull this week, I think I've found that I have more energy the more I work out. I was crashing hard by the end of the work day which hadn't happened at all the week before.I hustled though and made it to the climbing gym. As soon as we were strapped in, I saw a pretty hard climb and decided we should just go for it. It was tough and our forearms were aching by the end but it got me warmed up fast. For some reason, many of our climbs felt really challenging today and it felt great to push the envelope and come in fresh.
We had a friend over for dinner and traffic had me running late so I had to put off my burpees until he left but the endorphins from a great workout and catching up with an amazing friend made them no problem for me.
So I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my rut. I feel better the more I workout for sure. I can get exercise before the afternoon, I get an energy rush that gets me through the day and it's incredible. On the flip side, my upper back is starting to pinch during my burpees. My climbs have been better this week when that's been my only workout (instead of coming second to a lunchtime bootcamp) but still have felt strained (probably due to that pinch). I'm not sure if pushing hard is helping or hurting more.
Thursday
Two days before race day, I definitely did not want to push too hard. Dan thought I could still make it to boot camp but luckily he took my car to work so OH WELL WON'T MAKE IT.BUT - he took my car to work so that I would be forced to ride my bike down to the beach to meet up with him later. This is one of my favorite workouts and I love when we can coordinate to make it happen. The path from our house to Dan's work near the beach is mostly flat and downhill. It's almost completely bike path and about half of is through parks and adjacent to the San Diego river. It's incredibly pleasant, but at 9-10 miles, it's still a considerable workout. I love it.
The point of riding to the beach, was so that we wouldn't have to get too vehicles home after drinking. Responsibility first! However, in all of my fun, I forgot to do my burpees.
Friday
Kickball day! I was excited to have a really easy going workout the night before race day and kickball was perfect. The game was cancelled but a handful of us decided to stay around and practice. Normally I play catcher but I went into the outfield to help out since we had so few people. I actually ended up catching the ball a few times which is something I though I wasn't able to do. I'm not sure if it's related to fitness or confidence or the rum drink I had before but I was really happy about it.Afterwards, we met up with some friends but I made sure to do all 60 of my burpees before going to bed.
Saturday
So this race was a stadium sprint - that means the course wraps around the stands of a professional sports stadium. This one was at Dodger Stadium and FUN FACT my first Spartan race was also a stadium sprint, but at SF Giants AT&T Park. While the stadium of the first was much nicer, my athletic performance was much better this time around.
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| 2014 AT&T Sprint |
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| 2017 Dodgers Sprint |
I love looking at side by side results like this. It's clear that everything was better - my pace and my rankings in all categories. I also like that it has some other statistics though. It was 10 degrees hotter in the middle of the day during today's race. Racing with hot sun overhead is hard. All of my running races are in the morning and the majority of my obstacle races are before noon as well so this was a real challenge. Despite that - I improved.However, that heat and sun were my biggest obstacles for sure. I was definitely feeling physically ill from it by the end of the race and it was a real struggle to get through the last bit of it. I avoid training in conditions I don't find ideal and it really showed during the race. It's a good lesson that I need to push myself to run even if it's hot and gross and I hate running.
On the plus side though, many of the obstacles were the same as they were 3 years ago. I remember some of them being impossible for me to do without help or a lot of struggle. Many of those like the wall climbs, Hercules hoist, and giant jump rope - were much easier. I still had trouble with the rope climb, monkey rings, and spear throw - but I'm happy to have at least mastered some of the things I struggled with before.
Oh and the burpees... well, I definitely got at least 30 in yesterday! I think it's time to retire that goal though. It's purpose was to prepare for this race and that's done now. I do think I'll pick it up leading up to other obstacle races though because I hate them but they're so helpful.
This week was so different from last week. I spent a lot of it really feeling unmotivated to exercise. I'm not sure if it was over-working the week before, stress, muscle tweaks, or the solar eclipse but something was off. Despite that - I had some good progress in climbing and my race was a huge improvement. Fitness can be such a slow progess and that comes with the occasional setbacks or bad days. It's important to do things that will allow you to see marked improvement because seeing how far you've come is the best way to get out of a slump.
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