Welcome to my Obstacle course training – week 2 post!

Hey everyone!

So, ah, crazy week….

This is what I woke up to on Monday morning.

This is the only time in the weather records for this area that there has been snow in April… but those records only go back to the 1940s… still, ah, totally caught me by surprise.

I had a super busy day at work and no power… so after the sheep were fed I had to go for a snowy walk to see if I’d be able to get through our foresty roads. Luckily my neighbours had already cleared the road of trees that had fallen over night. I had to dig our car out of our driveway, there was ice under the snow and it was struggling to get up the driveway. It was stressful… but I got to the office in time… first time in a long time.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to go running on Monday…. or hill sprints.

I got back to the Physical Therapist on Friday which was great. It was a month since my last visit and while my golfer’s elbow has been less worse than usual…. my lower back has been weird and with my modified pull ups and tricep dips my neck hasn’t been great, which has caused headaches this past week.

The PT worked on my neck… and hit a spot where I immediately felt nauseous. It was so weird… I have never had such an immediate reaction like that. The same kind of nauseous I have with headaches that I assume is a little migrainey.

So, ah, I’ve got some neck exercises to add into my rehab… fun.

Overall… my injuries are better than they’ve been in a long time… and I definitely feel stronger.

On Wednesday I ran 4.54kms in 33:37 with 137m elevation gain and burnt 308 calories.

On Friday I ran 4.59kms in 31:27 with 135m elevation gain and burnt 317 calories.

I was really happy with Friday’s run. I was working really hard to improve my pace… but without burning myself out. I jogged the entire distance both times (I’m hoping to never walk this route again) and so now I’m starting the process of feeling out the runs to speed up without going too fast (causing me to walk). I’m really hoping to gradually improve these times which should dramatically improve my endurance.

If this week isn’t bonkers I’d like to fit a hill sprints session or two in there… hill sprints really work the lungs hard.

On Tuesday I tried a Grip Strength specific workout.

It was still super snowy and cold, so it was not exactly what I intended… but I did:

3 sets of:

10 reps of wrist raises on each wrist.

3 reps of the forearm exerciser… which looks like this:

Except I didn’t put anywhere near that weight on it.

I have to be super careful with these ones to not flare the golfer’s elbow… but I didn’t feel anything bad during or in the days after… so really happy with that.

On Thursday and Sunday I did 3 sets of:

• 10 hammer curls with 15kg weight
• 10 bicep curls (right only) with 22kg weight
• 10 shoulder presses with 15kg weight
• 20 second dead hang
• 6 pull ups with band
• 6 modified pull ups
• 40 second farmers carry with 50 pound kettlebell (right only)
• 40 second farmers carry with 10 kg weights and pipe grip
• 6 push ups
• 6 tricep dips
• 10 cable machine single arm cable row (both arms)
• 10 cable machine single arm inward flys (right only)
• 10 cable machine single arm outward flys (right only)

I added in the 6 pull ups with the band in. This is where I stand on a rubber band and do a proper pull up (palms facing away from me). A tiny little bit of pain in my elbow but generally these were okay. It’s easy with the band… but I still feel like I’m working… and hopefully it’s helping my elbow get stronger.

I also added in a pipe grip farmers carry… basically I’m holding onto a fat pipe with weights attached to it. I really should move the farmer’s carry exercises to the grip strength day.

5 times this week (not crazy Monday or Feelin’ Lazy Friday) I did ab exercises:

• 25 sit ups
• 12 leg raises
• 40 crunches
• 40 leg stick out thingies

I tried one set on Tuesday to see if I’d be sore… I was okay so I increased it to 2 sets and have been okay so the last couple of days I’ve done 3 sets and we’ll see how that goes. I think these exercises are okay to do every day, they’re not too intense.

On Tuesday and Saturday this week I did the 4 and 3 sets of:

• 10 24-inch box steps each leg
• 10 30-inch box jumps
• 15 calf raises
• 10 deep squats

The 30-inch box jump just kills me. I had to decrease from 5 sets to 4 and 3 because it’s so brutal. I wasn’t too sore after either session… I’m just not quite fit enough to do 5 sets of this exercise yet. I’ll work up to it.

I figure I’ll weigh myself and get all the stats once a month. I think that’ll be regular enough to be interesting… weekly will get boring I think.

My last weekend and Monday were chaos food-wise. There was a lot of junk food… I essentially had the house to myself and used that as an excuse to get a little wild. I actually had a couple of sharp stomach aches, so, ah, that’ll teach me.

Tuesday to Sunday this week were pretty good. No sugar except for what’s in Granny Smith apples.

I’m trying to not eat after lunchtime. It takes a couple of days for the body to get used to and I’m not there yet… but I hope this week coming is easier.

Hope you all have a good week! Thanks so much for reading my obstacle course training – week 2 post. My post for last week is here:

Obstacle course training – week 1