Holy Ow.

Warm up: ME, hands over head squat, wheelbarrow, piggyback rides.

WOD:
Run 800 Meters
25 Push-Ups
Run 600 Meters
50 Burpees
Run 400 Meters
75 Kettlebell swings 1.5P/1.0P
Run 200 Meters
100 Jump Squats
Run 100 Meters
125 Double-Unders

*subbed a 12kg KB for swings, and did 500 single skips in lieu of 125 double-unders.

Results:
56:55

Exercise	Time	Trans.	ET
800m	4:58		4:59
Pushups	2:43	0:39	8:21
600m	3:48		12:09
Burpees	11:29	0:26	24:04
400m	2:38	2:21	29:03
Swings	5:49	0:29	35:21
200m	1:19		36:40
Jump Squats	8:42		45:22
100m	0:40		46:02
Jump Rope	10:53		56:55
Total	52:59	3:56

Comments:
Um, OW!!!

Fortunately my headache disappeared late yesterday afternoon. However, my shoulders were quite sore this morning when I woke up - I'm guessing it's mostly from yesterday's Push-presses - a lot of reps with a weight that was just barely manageable - but I' m guessing Friday's presses, and yesterday's pullups also did not help. Since I was feeling beat up before the workout even started, I kept telling myself I was going to cut some part of this in half, - the exercises, the running , something, but I'd get to half, and decide that, "what the hell, I'm half way there." My shoulders might not forgive me for my stubbornness. Probably not for a couple days, anyway.

I'm glad I did my six pull-ups for the day this morning before this WOD. None of them were as good as yesterday - i think the best of them was probably nose to bar - the worst, forehead to bar.

I didn't actually mean to record my transition time, and I wasn't consistent about it after I started, but I wanted an accurate time for my runs, and I hit my lap timer right after the pushups were done. In hindsight, this is probably a pretty useful metric to track, since the goal is to get transitions down to a minimum, and since my new watch has so many laps, I might start trying to record transitions, too.

I was pretty happy to get my 800m under 5 minutes. Since there was a lot of volume and a lot of jumping, I decided to wear my trail running shoes to give me as much cushioning as possible, despite the fact that they have made me feel a bit clumsy in the past. They didn't bother me at all today, and I'm glad i decided to wear them. This workout would REALLY have sucked in my little brown shoes.

The pushups were a lot harder than they've been in a long time. I think my first set was 7 or 8, the second set might have been 4 or 5, and all the rest of them were 1's 2's or 3's - mostly 2's.

The only other 600m time I have on record is from the running ladder we did on Oct. 11th, and I did nearly a whole minute better today than I did then, but I'd also run a heck of a lot farther before I got to the 600m run in that workout. Still, overall, I feel pretty good about my runs, today. They weren't super fast, but they were solid - and probably the least tortuous part of this WOD.

The burpees, on the other hand, were far and away the MOST torturous part of today's WOD. I swear they almost killed me. They did reduce me to tears. But I got the fuckers done - about 1 burpee at a time ... in 11.5 minutes. >.< Burpees with burnt shoulders SUCK. I nearly quit on this one.

The 400m run was fine - the time compares pretty favorably with recent efforts - again not super fast, but right about on par with 400m in other recent metcon workouts.

And then we hit the 2:20 of 'transition time' before the KB swings. This was me trying to figure out a)what KB to use, and b) how many reps to do. It was also at this point (when several other folks were just finishing this workout) that Max came to me and asked if I was going to complete the full volume of the workout. I was still totally strung out from the burpees, and really feeling like i was right at the edge of my capacity. I asked whether he thought I should just do half the reps for the remaining exercises. The answer was a speedy 'Yes!' followed by him saying that whatever the rep scheme, I should set a 1 hour time limit for myself.

I decided I'd try to get through 40 reps with the 1P KB. I picked it up swung it back and forth a couple times experimentally, and realized that that was NEVER going to happen, put it down, picked up the 12kg KB, and basically decided that I'd see how things were going @ 40, but since I was using the lighter weight, I should do the full # of reps. I think that having sore shoulders actually probably helped my form with these a bit since I really wanted to use them as little as possible.

The jump squats were not fast, and they were often ugly, but they were not as brutal as the burpees, and therefore were totally tolerable. One of the reasons I managed to make it to 100 with these is that I felt like my 45-47th jumps were probably the strongest ones I'd done so far, and I continued to get some pretty good ones even in the higher numbers.

The skips were actually kind of fun - even though i was pretty tired by the time I got to them. I was able to find a really good rhythm a couple times. My first set was 55 consecutive jumps, and a couple similarly good runs after that, interspersed with sets of 15-20. I was super excited, though, when I managed to get my last 100 skips all in one shot! :-) That was a great way to end an otherwise brutal, un-fun, workout. I think that if I can get 100 skips unbroken, double-unders shouldn't be too far behind, I just need to actually work on getting them.

A CF friend, Ynez, and I were discussing how everybody has their particular strengths - hers is (literally) that she is just naturally quite strong. We decided that mine was tenacity. I definitely would not have made it through the full volume of this workout without that trait. That said, I'm not sure doing the full volume was an entirely brilliant idea. For whatever reason, I seem to be at less than the top of my game this week. And it was supposed to be an EASY week. I am going to think about making next week a half-intensity week, too.

Fortunately, I'll get two full rest days before the next workout because we won't be able to go climbing tomorrow due to Daniel's office holiday party. So I'll see how I am feeling on Wednesday.