Welcome to my Obstacle course training – week 5 post!

Hi everyone!

It was a weird week for sure.

We all went back into the office for the first time since March 2020 and it was good and fun and weird and stressful and full of cakes and donuts and all the things.

I also got a chance to go to the gym nearby to use the normal gym facilities and the rock climbing wall and neither were quite the experience I had been hoping for.

I’ll get into the detail of each in the approps sections… let’s go!

After doing really well for most of the past 4 weeks or so, it came crashing down at the start of the week since there were so many ‘back into the office’ celebrations. It was super fun and I had so many donuts and cakes and all sorts of good/bad stuff… and weirdly it kinda messed me up for a few days.

We also started having half day Fridays for the summertime, which is incredible… except it’s still super, super rainy… so instead of doing any exercises on Friday I just grabbed a couple of pizzas and totally chilled and watched movies I’ve already seen. I was exhausted, it was a stressful week for a few reasons and I very much needed that downtime.

The thing with your eating is that when I don’t have a competition looming down on me, I don’t stress about it too much. I just try and eat mostly right. I can feel the difference in general athleticness when I eat terribly, but sometimes I’m just too tired to care. That’s fine…. I just slouch into it and know I’ll feel better after a ton of couching, ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Today was an excellent eating day and I’m ready to eat well this week.

I didn’t run on Friday because I was bunkered down with pizzas and couches… so Saturday was a double workout day.

I ran 4.55kms 3 times this week. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, with my best time of 30:26 on Saturday. I still haven’t stopped to walk at all during my runs so I’m really happy with my progress.

I think I’m even feeling pretty strong towards the home stretch which allows me to push a tiny bit faster once I’m sure I’m going to make it back without walking. I love that feeling of getting stronger and therefore faster and of having a little more in the tank.

I did do Hill Sprints on Monday but should have done them again on Friday. Even just the one set makes a big difference I think. I think I got 3.5 hill sprints in. I was going for 4 but just died halfway through the last one. Still, incremental progress is the name of the game!

On Tuesday instead of my usual lower body workout, I went to the gym near work… I was excited because they’ve got the foam pylo boxes…

I’ve just got my one wooden box. For my box jumps I’ve been jumping 30 inches… which is the maximum height my box has. These foam pylo boxes can be velcro’d together so you can make all sorts of heights… and because they’re foam you can push yourself a lot heigher.

If I can’t make a jump (like on my 8th rep when I’m tired) and hit the foam with my shins… no worries. If I hit a wooden box with my shins… so many worries. I know people who have been taken out of action for months from a single bad jump.

Anyway, I was excited… and then the gym was absolutely packed and I couldn’t get anywhere near them… a group was using them the whole time I was there. I forgot how fun sharing is.

Instead I just did some box steps on something else and some jump squats and calf raises… and I was absolutely toast.

One thing I didn’t realise was that the gym was heated. Even in shorts and a t-shirt I was sweating so hard… and I honestly don’t sweat often. It was brutal. I honestly don’t remember that being a thing at all. When I train at home my stuff is out in the ninja shed so the temperature is just the outside temp.

On Saturday I did my normal lower body workout in the ninja shed and it was bliss.

Two sessions this week of my usual exercises with only a small change.

My golfer’s elbow is becoming less and less of an issue… but it is still there. I’ve been doing 6 pull ups with a band so I’m not straining my elbow… and I swapped it out for a much thinner band. It was good. There was more pressure on my elbow but I think once I adjusted the angle I was good. Again, incremental steps until I can do pull ups without any assistance.

At the moment I’ve only got grip strength scheduled once a week. I didn’t want to injure anything so I’m being super cautious.

This week however, since the gym has a rock climbing wall, I swapped out my grip strength workout with a bouldering session and Oh My God. Brutal.

I barely lasted 10 minutes. My partner was going to walk down to meet me so we could drive home… and I initially said an hour… and then very quickly revised that.

My strength and technique seemed pretty good to me… but my conditioning was terrible. I haven’t done it since the start of the pandemic so no real surprise here.

On my left hand, my trigger finger developed an almost blister really quickly, that is still tender 5 days later, and my right wrist felt pretty strained within 10 minutes.

Um, the above photo isn’t me obviously… I just chucked it in just in case you weren’t sure what bouldering was.

Anyway, it was super fun to be back on the wall and I’ve got a lot of work to do to get my conditioning back. Slowly but surely….

I haven’t been to the physical therapist in 3 or 4 weeks… but I’ve got another session coming. My golfer’s elbow has been progressing really well… but the headaches I’ve been getting after my upper body workouts are still persisting. I get them around the left temple a few hours or a day after my workout.

I’ve also been getting some soreness where my neck meets my skull… although I’m not sure if that’s related to workouts, or computering or other. I’m keen to get that checked out too.

I think my lower back has been getting worse. It was totally under control for a moment but looks like I’ve (pun intended) slid backwards. Basically the area between my hip bones in my lower back feels uncomfortable or painful or just like it really needs to crack. It’s weird and I’ve been working on it for over a year. It’s definitely better than it was, but man, talk about a slow recovery. Hopefully the PT can look at it again.

Anyway, overall a weird but good week.

Thanks for reading my Obstacle course training – week 5 post and I hope your own training is going really well…