2010-05-05 - certainly intense - not as short as expected.

Warmup: run 1 mile, ME

Original WOD:
3 Rounds

Run 800 Meters
30 Kettlebell Swings 1.5P/1.0P
50 Double-Unders

Modified WOD:
3 Rounds

Run 400 Meters
15 (Russian) Kettlebell Swings 1.25P
25 Double-Unders

26:02
Round 1: 2:04, 5:08
Round 2: 2:49; 1:51; 4:45
Round 3: 2:57; 2:09; 4:15

The reason I cut the volume in half and increased the weight of the KB is that I wanted to make this a quicker, more intense workout, and to really try to keep the effort/intensity high the whole time. It was certainly intense, but it wasn't exactly quick. I underestimated (ie didn't even consider) how hard DU would be after heavy KB swings. That's definitely what ate up most of the time.

I didn't completely succeed at keeping the intensity up the full time. I actually had to walk part of both the second and third runs because i couldn't get my breathing under control and it felt like i was about to start hyperventilating. And all the time with the double-unders - it's a really fine line between resting long enough that you won't fail the next rep, and resting longer than necessary. It's such a waste of energy to fail a rep. Most of my reps were singles - i did get a couple strings of more than 1 - a very few times i got as many as 4 or 5.

Gratifyingly, Max said my KB swings were looking really solid. I got several of them as high as my forehead - they were all at least chin level, though, and I was able to do the first set straight through, and rounds 2 and 3 were done in a set of 8 and a set of 7.

But the real victory of the day was my running (which might also have been my downfall). I didn't realize when I set out that the warmup run was supposed to be a mile. it's usually just 800m. A class mate passed me by and asked whether i was on lap 1 or 2 and helpfully told me that the warmup was supposed to be a mile when I looked confused. Yay. I knew I was going to cut the running in half for the workout, so i decided to go ahead and run the whole mile. It's been a while since I've run one. I managed to time the second lap, and I came in at 5:11 - which is actually quicker than I've been running lately, and - assuming that my second lap was not faster than my first, would put it in PR range since my best full mile time on record is 10:34. I really wish I had gotten the time for the full thing.

I also managed to get 2:04 on my first 400 - which is only 5 seconds off my PR for the 400. I was definitely booking it, but that good a result was unexpected. I've been working on lengthening my stride and running slightly less on the balls of my toes (someone told me it looked more like i was leaping than running). I guess maybe it's working? :-)