Unexpected PR

Run 2 miles.

20 minutes after the beginning of the run, entire group relay deadlifts one rep each, starting at 95 pounds and continuing in 10 pound jumps until failure. After all who are able have lifted a given weight, those remaining add 10 pounds. Deadlift continues until strongest athlete fails. There is no rest between lifts, except as needed, momentarily, to increase the weight.

After the past two days, I am INCREDIBLY sore. Maybe not quite top 5 as Daniel has been saying because it's only localized to my legs, but definitely more sore than I've been in a long time. Walking, standing up and sitting down are all exceedingly uncomfortable.

The only reason I showed up to this workout was because the bouldering comp was being held at the gym, and I really wanted one of the T-shirts - they're super cute this time around, and I knew I wouldn't make it to any of the other comps because I don't actually boulder. at all. (Lame reasoning, I know - but there it is).

I really only planned to walk a mile in the hopes that it would help my legs loosen up a bit, and watch the other folks deadlift while I stretched. But of course, once I'm there, I always get suckered in to trying harder. (not a bad thing! - unless ones goal is actually to recover)

I did stick to only going a mile, but I managed to run the whole thing albeit very slowly but I didn't walk any part of it. It took me just a little over 12 minutes ... 12:15, i think.

Then I decided to participate in the deadlift ladder. They started at 95# which I was totally comfortable with, and I just decided to see how far I could get. I wasn't sure what my PR was - i thought it might be 155 or 160. I knew if I could get to 165, that would be a PR. Now, before I go on, I'd like to preface that, while my PR was up in the 150ish range, I haven't been able to lift even 135 consistently for months. For WOD's I've been stuck down in the 115/125 range.

So. 115# went up, 125# went up, 135 went up :D, 145# went up!, 155# went up!!!, 165# got off the ground!! but my back was in a weird position, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up with it, so I put it down and couldn't break it on a second attempt. I was satisfied that I had probably at least matched my previous PR - especially since I had been stuck so much lower for so long.

And then, when I finally got on this site to check what my previous PR really was, it was only 150#!! so I achieved a 5# PR, and even managed to break 10# more than that off the ground. It's very exciting to finally be performing well again. I'm going to try to write a separate post just about that - I swear it's the milk.

Another note: I actually really liked the DL 'relay'. It was fun :-) and it was really surprising how many people PR'ed (at least 3 or 4) PARTICULARLY because everyone is pretty wrecked from the last 2 days. I wonder if it was a function of just not having time to think about it too much. I hope we do this again in some form or other.

Oh - and I got my T-shirt :-)