Hot fun in the summertime

It's summer at long last - months after it started for the rest of the country. Today got into the 90's, and for whatever reason, I was craving a scorcher workout in the sun - like we did last summer in games training. So I took off work a little earlier and headed to GWPC to catch up with this metcon in the blazing sun:

Run 400 Meters
21 Press 95/65
Run 400 Meters
21 Push-Press 95/65
Run 400 Meters
21 Push-Jerk 95/65

14:40 RX

It was HOT, but it felt good. The first round along took nearly 8 minutes, and was a basic strength workout - 95 pounds is a lot for me to press. The next two rounds got more metconny, and my throat and lungs were burning by the end. Max put a 15 minute limit on this one when CFEB did it a few days ago, and it was nice to know that I got in under the wire.

Bodyweight chipper from hell

In any order, partitioned any way:

Run 5x800 meters

45 Handstand Push-Ups
45 C2B Pull-Ups
45 Ring Dips
45 Pistols
45 Toes-To-Bar
45 Burpees

Post time and partitioning scheme to comments.

DNF in 36 minutes

I appear to have messed up one of my abdominals in this workout. I thought it was due to the GHDs I did a week earlier, but now that I've been living with it a few days, my abs never hurt like this after that workout. They were REALLY sore all through camping, granted, and maybe I weakened them in that workout and then actually ripped something with the T2B. My first round went fine, and then something...tore, I guess. It got rapidly worse, and ultimately I just started cutting out the things that hurt. So I did all of the running, burpees, and pistols, and about half of everything else. Some of the HSPUs were kipping from the floor, but I don't like how that makes my neck feel, so I would switch to high-piking off a box. The pistols were band-assisted.

2010-05-20

Warmup: ME, Run Prep

Wod 1: Run 800m x 2 - 2nd one starts on minute 8.
4:51; 4:39

WOD 2:
Blackjack: Pullups & Wall ball one exercise 21 to 1 rep - the other exercise 1 to 21 rep.

DNF: 46:06

I used the green band for band assisted and 8# wall ball (i love that thing).

Things did not go as planned. First - black jack workouts are supposed to be 20 to 1 not 21 to 1. Second - by the time i worked my way down from 21 to 14 reps on the pullups, my hands were torn up enough that continuing to do pullups would have just been stupid. SO - in order to keep things even - i calculated how many pullups i had already done - 140 - and subtracted how many wallball i had already done - 36 - and did a final set of 104 wall balls.

I had blessedly few missed reps on the wall ball. I still couldn't link them together, though. i couldn't figure out how to catch it. I think i move my feet to much when I jump up to sink right down into another squat. Anyway, next time - maybe using 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 21 as a rep scheme - i'll try the 10# ball.

Burner

3 rounds:
800m run
30 kb swing 1.5p
50 double-unders

20:05rx

I can think of a dozen places I could have lost 6 seconds, mostly in double-unders. Goddamnit.

2010-04-30

Warmup: Run 800m

Warmup WOD:
15-12-9
Burpees
V-ups

5:20 (or so). These were the first "full speed" burpees I've done in a while - although i say "full speed" because they still weren't terribly fast. They went ok.

WOD

5x3 hang squat cleans
35#

DNF

I got 3 or 4 sets done, and then I just started just working on getting my chest upright on the squat, and then my right knee started hurting, so I called it a day.

2010-04-17

Warmup: Run 400m, burpees, pushups, piked pushups, jumping C2B pullups

WOD:
Run 800 Meters
100 Double-Unders (only did 50)
Run 600 Meters
50 Kettlebell Swings 1.5/1.0P
Run 400 Meters
25 Burpees (stepping, not jumping - for the record, just as hard.)
Run 200 Meters
13 Thruster 115/75 (45# front squats)

Results:
36:45

800m: 5:13
50 DU: 7:50 (included bathroom break)
600m: 4:04
50 1P KB swings: 6:46
400M: 2:54
25 burpees: 4:07
200m: 1:33
13 45# front squat: 4:15

Comments:
This is the hardest I have worked in months and I am certainly paying for it now - but it's the good kind of "I worked hard" sore, and not the "I think I damaged myself" sore which is pretty awesome.

It's the first time I've run instead of subbing rowing in months, too, and it actually went just fine; not fast, or anything, but not problematic for any of my stupid nagging injuries.

My original goal for the double-unders was only 25 - i was afraid that all that jumping would really aggravate my knees, but they were going so well - I got several consecutive (Jump, skip, jump style)- I decided to go for 50. I think that was the right number - because by the time I was done with them just about everyone else was done with theirs, too. I was pretty pleased with how well these went.

When I got to the KB I didn't know whether i was going to just do 25 and stick to 50% volume for all the exercises, or do the whole thing. I decided to tough it out.

I did not jump my feet back or forward on the burpees - I've found that jumping them forward to that really low squat is one thing that is guaranteed to aggravate my knee. I did do a jump and a clap once i was on my feet. I thought these would be easier than regular burpees. they were not. Because I was not jumping forward, they were a lot more like pushups, and between the pushups from the warmup, and the largish quantity of pushups the day before, my arms were not interested in helping out. I found them to be at least as winding as regular burpees. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

The front squats were also just about as hard as I could manage and still pretend to keep any sort of decent form. I opted for them over thrusters again because of my knees. I probably should have incorporated a push-press component - but just the front squats felt plenty hard enough.

800m intervals

Run 800m every 7 minutes, four times.

2:59 , 2:55 , 3:10 , 2:54

800m x 4

WOD:

Run 800m every eighth minute for 32 minutes.

5:18; 5:24; 5:19; 4:56


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Strength day

Warmup run 400m, ME, Bear crawl, aligator crawl, lunge twists, jump rope drills

100 single skips (subbed for 50 DU) + 25 pushups.

WOD:
Hang Snatch & Overhead Squat 7-7-7

Hang Clean & Push-Press 3-3-3

Results:

Snatch+OHS: 15-20-25
Clean + PP: 55-55-60

Run 800m to try out my new shoes - Thanks Hanna!!

Comments:

I'm pretty pleased with this workout. I kept the OHS light because I was concerned about being able to make it through a full set of 7. I probably could have done my last set at 30, but I wanted to make sure that I was really dialed in with my form - which could certainly use the work. Even at the lighter weights, my form was not great. I asked Polly to watch my last set, and she really got after me to keep my knees out even more.

My first set of cleans and push-presses felt extraordinarily heavy - i wasn't sure if maybe I had counted the weight wrong - but it was 55#. my second set felt better. so I decided to try 60# for my last set. 60# is my standing 3RM for both cleans and push jerks from March, and I got it without too much trouble, although I did have a bit of trouble with my 3rd clean. I had to try it twice to get it up - I was thinking too much. Makes me wonder whether I could have gotten any at 65#. I should have tried it. Alas - the second class was short on bars due to the first class taking forever, so I gave mine over. Besides, I was eager to try out an actual jog with my NEW SHOES!

Hanna - who was in the second class - had a pair of super cute Saucony running shoes pictured here she had bought online that were just a bit too small for her and asked whether, if they fit me, I'd be interested in them. Turns out they fit PERFECTLY, and i LOVE them!! I think part of the reason I did so well with the 60# clean and PP was because I was so jazzed about the shoes.

I originally intended to only run 400m, but by the time i got to the 400m turn around, I wasn't ready to stop, so I did a full 800m - just because I felt like it. That's certainly unusual for me. particularly AFTER a workout.

It was a good day. I had oatmeal with cottage cheese and some milk for breakfast instead of my usual eggs and toast. It definitely lacked in the flavor department. Maybe I'll substitute a block of cottage cheese for a block of bacon next time just to add some flavor - but it did a good job of getting me all the way through the workout and then a little bit extra without feeling hungry or overloaded.

Big Fat DNF

3 Rounds

Run 800 Meters
30 Pull-Ups (C2B)
30 Push-Up

I got 1 round + 1 run and a handful of pushups in 30 minutes. i pretty much just gave up after run #2.

Just awful

3 Rounds

Run 800 Meters
30 Pull-Ups (C2B)
30 Push-Up

DNF in 30 minutes: 2 rounds + 9 pullups

Wow. I can't recall another workout that made me feel simultaneously so horrible and so disappointed. Not that I was so far off the average - only two people finished it RX.

I'm not sure why it wrecked me so much - I was a zombie for the rest of the night, as though I'd pushed extremely hard. But I don't feel like I DID push that hard - I got plenty of rest on the pullups, because I couldn't do them more than 5 at a time and then would need to recharge. Maybe C2B are just much, much harder than I give them credit for.

Unknown and unknowable

WOD:
"Unknown"

Post X, Y, and psychological implications of unknown workout to comments.

Results:
Max deliberately kept us in the dark about this workout. He didn't tell us anything before the workout started - it was just "keep running, until the fastest person(s) have 1 800m lap left, and then I'll tell you how many laps total you have to do, and there may or may not be something to do after the running. When we were finished with the running, he sent us upstairs to find out whether there was more to be done (and of course there was.

The total workout turned out to be:
Run 4 miles
100 Sit-Ups
50 Burpees
25 Pull-Ups

I only ran 1.5 miles because something in the outside of my right hip started feeling decidedly painful, and I decided it wasn't worth it to provoke an injury just to prove a point. It was probably unhappy about the thrusters from the day before. I did the rest - albeit slowly. - actually the whole thing was slow.

Results:
Run 800m splits: 5:53, 5:52, 7:39 Total: 19:26
I had to walk a lot of the last lap because of my hip - but this is still an extraordinarily slow time for me for 800m. It's been a month or more since I did any real running but .... wow that sucks.

100 situps: 6:01

50 burpees: 12:21 - a little of this time was spent taking off my shoes and the putting them back on, but again - HORRIBLE

25 jumping pullups: 7:30

Total: 45:23

Comments: all around - just terrible. several people who ran all 4 miles and a few who ran extra due to some confusion about who was in front of whom finished ahead of me.

I can't believe I have gotten so deconditioned so quickly. It's terribly disheartening. I am hoping that it will come back quickly - more quickly than it did the first time.

What a slog

First workout back after the games, and I was just happy to be working out again - I'd had essentially a week with plenty of activity, but nothing really physically strenuous, and I was feeling antsy.

Run 800 Meters

5 Rounds:
Barbell Hang Squat Snatch 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps
Barbell Thruster 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps

Run 800 Meters

56:29 RX

That happiness didn't last very long into this. I worked in with James (there was a shortage of bars), which made it take a bit longer, but I don't think I would have blazed through this anyway. I started out with sets of 7 on the snatches, but bumped that up to 10/10/8 in the third round. Likewise my thrusters went from 10/10/8 to 14/14, the last four of which typically had horrible, rounded form at the bottom. First run took 3:15, and the second took 4:30 - I could barely walk when I started it. The rounds took between 9 and 11 minutes.

Terrible no good very bad day

Warmup: ME and ... don't remember what else

WOD:
5 Rounds

Barbell Hang Snatch 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps
Barbell Thruster 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps

Run 800 Meters
*Subbed 15# body bar for snatches and thrusters

Results:
33:47 - DNF after 3 rounds.

Round	Run	1	2	3	Run
Run 800m	6:02
18 Hang Squat Snatches		5:06	5:15	5:03
18 Thrusters		1:48	1:54	2:15
Run 800m					6:20

Comments:
Ugh. I thought that after essentially a week off, my first workout back would go pretty well. This workout started terribly and continued terribly. At about the 300m mark I got the worst side stitch I've had in quite a while, and had to walk a great deal of the first 800 - hence the disastrous time. I haven't had to walk an 800 run in months. Particularly not the first run.

The squat snatches were also ridiculously hard. 18 15# squat snatches just should not take 5 minutes - not even when i had to power snatch the bar and then do an OHS - which was what most of them ended up being.

At the end of round 3 I stood around for a few minutes trying to decide whether I was going to continue. A couple other people had dropped out after round 2 or 3, so it was tempting. I was also having a hard time keeping my right knee out, and by the end of the third round it was feeling positively abused. I was afraid there might be injury if I kept going - and, in all honesty, I was extremely glad to have any excuse to stop. I decided I might as well finish out the run - but at about 250m the side stitch returned with a vengeance, so rather than limping through the full 800 I just called it done and staggered back to 'base'.

It was all pretty horrible.

800m x 4

Warm-up: ME, a few pull up attempts, some push ups, some minimally successful clapping push up attempts.

WOD:
Run 800 Meters x 4 every 9 minutes on the ninth minute.

Results:
4:16 | 4:24| 4:38 | 4:24

Comments:
None of these are a PR, but the first one is close. I'm glad I was able to pull that last one in. I had a classmate right behind me the whole way which was a great motivator - but i almost lost it in the end - i got a terrible side stitch about 30m out from the finish line, but managed to run it in anyway. I was having a REALLY hard time breathing today. I thought it was just personal lameness, but Daniel said he was, too.

These scores are quite a bit better than the last time we did this workout. I also spent a lot of time on the ground just trying to breathe between rounds this time that I didn't experience last time. Probably a combination of working harder and whatever was wrong with the air today.

Aromas Bound

CFEB classes are cancelled this week, as we'll be down in Aromas for the games. We may get in some sort of workout down there for noncompetitors, but the focus is going to be on Polly and the Team. Tonight was a simple back-off workout.

Run 800m every 9 minutes, four times

2:40(PR) | 3:04 | 2:59 | 2:54

I didn't realize this was a PR until I got home - I had a time of 2:38 in my head for some reason. Turns out I set my previous PR of 2:47 almost a year ago to the day. So that's pretty cool! It KILLED me for later laps, though - the second lap felt simply awful, and my lungs were burning. I think the air around Ironworks is just bad for running.

Finally getting caught up

Only a few days behind in my posting...since I programmed and led the team WODs, I took the regular class on Sunday so as to still get a workout in.

Run 800 Meters
25 Pull-Ups
50 Burpees
75 Push-Ups
100 KB swings 1.5/1.0P
Run 800 meters

28:50 RX

I came in first, which never happens - I only got it here because the class was mostly full of new athletes, and Jim and James half-assed it and didn't keep time. It still felt good. I must confess, the thing that kept driving me through this workout was "this is so much easier than what I'm about to put the team through, so I can't slack."

Once again, the major limiting factor was the pushups. I did rounds of 5-10-15-20, but wound up mushing together the pushups and burpees to be 5push-5burp-5push-5burp-5push. I don't know if that sped anything up, but it felt like it granted my chest a brief reprieve. It might have been smarter to put the KB swings between the burpees and pushups, but that didn't occur to me until afterwards.

DNF - with a PR

Warmup: ME, ...? Can't remember - something substantial - I definitely felt warmed up. Either saturday or sunday as part of the warmup we did some KB drills. One of the drills was a strict shoulder press, and I managed to Press and push-press the green 12kg KB on both my right and my left side. The press is a new PR for both L & R, the P-P is a PR for the R.

WOD:
Run 800 Meters

25 Pull-Ups *with green assistance band
50 Burpees
75 Push-Ups
100 KB swings 1.5/1.0P

Run 800 meters

Partition the reps in any order.

Results:
I did not originally intend to do this work out at all. I did the warm up with the class, but then I planned to skip the workout in order to set up the 1pm WOD so we could start as close to on-time as possible. It was going to be a long hot day, and I was feeling kinda wrecked, so I didn't mind skipping it. Max convinced me to give it a shot. Every exercise was, for some reason, stupidly difficult, and I only got through 1 round of 5.10.15.20 plus 5 pullups before I realized that I was never going to get done in time for the 1pm workout, so I decided to DNF.The first full round of reps (+ 5 pullups) took me 6:34. My final time for the workout probably would have been in the 50 minute range. However, I DID manage to get a new PR on my 800m time.

4:11.

Getting faster!

Sunday highlight - another running PR - a big one :-)

I ran my fastest 800m ever yesterday. By 27 seconds.

My previous 'urban' PR was here: 4:42.

Fastest time on a track: 4:40.

Yesterday's time: 4:13 !!!

Today was another 'relay' day - so something about being in an actual competition - against more than just myself and where my team is affected by my performance really pushes me to push myself. Most of my 800m runs, even recently, have been 5+ minutes.

Given all the running we've been doing I'd almost be more surprised if my running wasn't improving, but a 27 second jump is pretty exciting.

Friday Fail, part 3

Well, if two points make a line, then three points make...an extra bold line. Or something. Today sucked, just like the last two Fridays.

Climbing was terrible. 10a(o), 10b(f), 10c(f+)

I got the intense pain in my biceps again almost immediately, and the deep cut on my index finger made all the left handholds particularly challenging/painful.

I went home, ate and got a few hours of work in, then went to CrossFit where my goal was simply to NOT DNF this one:

Run 800 Meters
50 Pull-Ups (men C2B)
100 Two-Hand Floor To Overhead 95/65
150 Burpees
Run 800 Meters

DNF. I didn't even complete three rounds (5-10-15 partitioning). Most disastrous DNF yet.

My biceps started screaming at me as soon as I picked up the bar. I don't understand how I can do 150 reps at 95# on Wednesday with no pain, but I can't do 5 reps of the same weight on Friday before the pain sets in. And why always Friday? I can think of three things that set Fridays apart:

1. Climbing in the morning
2. Fasting until 1 or so (but I eat before CF, and I fast other days)
3. It's the day after some heavy bench pressing in the strength routine

Clearly, number one is the most probable cause. Next week I'll beg off climbing, and see how the evening workout fares. It could be I just need a week off for my body to FIX whatever's wrong with my biceps, but there aren't any weeks off on the calendar until after July 12. Maybe a half-volume week would work. I'll know more next week.