2011-10-10

3 rounds
400m row
21 kb swings (12 kg - Russian)
15 burpees (CFSBK style)

16:23 (I think)

This was a lot harder than I thought it would be. CFSBK burpees are a LOT harder than CFEB. They require strict pushup form on the way down and the way up.

David made us run around the block afterwards. brutal.

The warmups are getting easier - I still have a lot of remedial form issues to work out.

Terrible Team WOD

WOD:
In two teams:

Break up into squads of 3 people.

Each squad must perform the following as a relay:

Row 1500 Meters #4 - 500m
Run 1200 Meters #2-400
105 Pull-Ups #5 - 35 green band assisted
150 Push-Ups #7 - 55
150 Box Jumps #9 - 60 (step ups)
105 Burpees #10 - 30?
75 KB swing 2.0/1.5P #8 - 25 (1P)
105 Wall-Ball 20/14 Pounds #3 - 20
75 Ground-To-Overhead 75/55 #1 - 15
75 Front Squat 75/55 #6 - 12

- Each athlete may only perform each movement once.
- Only one squad may do an event at one time: another squad cannot start the event before the currently performing squad is finished.
- There are no additional rules.
-The winning team is the team with the lowest cumulative time across all squads.

Results:
78 minutes - or so. Would have been a great deal longer except that for the last 4 exercises we all worked in tandem. we just wanted to be done.

Comments:
I knew I would hate this WOD as soon as I heard about it. I REALLY resent workouts where the structure is such that it becomes necessary for other athletes to do more work to make up for my inability to keep up. REALLY. I appreciate the theory - I'll work my ass off to try to make my weakness as little of an impact on the team as possible - but in practice it just makes me feel shitty and inadequate.

I was paired - based on the rankings of a pre-WOD warmup - with two very strong, but not super fast people. For every exercise, I went first and did as many reps as i could, and then the rest was up to them. I'm afraid I made our time even slower, because the few reps I could do for the strength based exercises - like front squats and ground to overhead, were done quite slowly, and since I couldn't go back to an exercise after resting they had to wait for me to rest in order to be able to do more reps before giving my turn over to them - and even with the extra effort, my total reps were usually well short of a third of the total reps. They were extremely nice and very supportive, but even with 'cheating' for the last 4 exercises, we were still the last squad to finish.

Yuck.

Into the unknown

Something new today: Max lined us up on the start line, told us we would start running 800m laps, and he would tell us when to stop. Experiment in pacing for an unknown duration. I held pace with Matthew throughout, and gambled that the distance would be 5k and made a big push to pull ahead for that - I managed to pull ahead, but that wasn't the final distance: two more laps to go. Matthew did the same to me at the end of the eighth lap, and I didn't have anything left in the tank to fend him off.

Final distance: 4 miles, in (I think) 29:53. 5k was 22:02 (PR)

After that was, immediately:

100 sit-ups
50 burpees
25 pullups

Final time: 48:35ish RX

The situps and pullups weren't bad, but I had huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet that made the burpees pretty agonizing. Those went very slowly, and I lost what lead I had on the rest of the class.

CF NorCal Qualifier: Sunday

From a judge's perspective, Sunday was much more low-key than Saturday. We got to show up a little bit later, there were not as many setup hiccups, and everyone had a better idea of what needed to happen. The workout was going to require a LOT of judges, so they press-ganged all the logistics volunteers to become judges. Rebecca and I got to be thruster judges, which (in my opinion) was the best slot. We didn't have to switch out weights in the mud like the deadlift team, and we weren't out in Siberia like the OHS judges. We got a great view of the field, and an easy movement to judge - just make sure they break parallel and reach full extension.



The organizers had the great idea to allow the general public to signup for practice runs at the workout before the official heats, which quite a few people did. This allowed us some trial runs in a low-stakes setting, which really helped work out any kinks in our setup. There weren't many, though - it's a straightforward job. There were six official heats total, spaced about 40 minutes apart. It was fun to watch from our spot up on the hill, though unfortunately it rained nearly all morning. The dirt there is really great, though - nice and sandy, so the mud wasn't slippery or dangerous.



Polly's heat was very exciting. After she went through our station, Rebecca and I ran up the other side to watch her at the OHS (damn that hill is steep!), and as she staggered away from the OHS I ran back down to watch her hit the finish line. It was a thrilling ending. When they came out of the trees, Candace was about 100 feet in front of Polly, and they were racing pell-mell down that incredibly steep slope. Polly - who is fearless at downhill - turned that 100 foot lead into about 10 feet by the time they hit bottom. Candace wasn't going to let her win, though, and they crossed the finish line a second apart. Polly squeaked into the top five, guaranteeing her a spot at the Games in June! Very exciting.

I got to try my own hand at the workout afterwards - though I scaled it down considerably.

"Catch 22"
22 deadlifts @ 225#
Farmers walk with 25# dumbbells to top of inner loop (hill)
22 thrusters with 25# dumbbells
Farmers walk with 25# dumbbells to bottom of inner loop (hill)
Run to pull-up bar and do 22 chest-to-bar pull-ups
Run to top of outer loop (hill)
22 overhead squats @ 65#
Run to bottom of inner loop (hill)

22:16

It was a fun workout. I had some trouble with the C2B pullups (really need to work on those more), but the killer was the OHS. When I came into the station, I was first in my heat and on the heels of the heat ahead of me. When I left, I was one of the last in my heat. And most of my OHS weren't even to true full depth! It was embarassing. Yet another thing to add to the list of shit I need to be better at.

It was a great weekend - a lot more work than I was anticipating, but definitely worth it. Met a lot of really cool folks and got to hang out with friends in a beautiful (albeit a bit soggy) location. And everyone was passionate about CrossFit, so I felt right at home. Can't wait until June! I will be an observer at the games. CFEB will be sending a team to the affiliate cup, and I'll be happy to cheer them on - I'm not quite strong enough yet to be on the team myself. Maybe next year.

Stir Crazy 4k

I don't want to whine too much, but I am having a difficult time here in Oceanside. I did go for a run this morning on the beach, and that was nice. Turns out it was only 4k (it didn't feel very long), but I was more interested in running sprints than in keeping a steady pace. I didn't have the means to run a proper Sprint-8, so I guessed...I'm sure my sprints were more like 20 seconds and my rests were all over the place, but whatever - it was hard. I like running on the beach when there's a nice stretch of flat firm-packed sand, but unfortunately most of this beach is not like that, so there was much rock-hopping and running in bulldozer treads.

I would dearly love to work out some of my frustration with some CrossFit. Turns out there is an affiliate in town, but it isn't walking distance. Maybe we can finagle a ride. Rebecca has gotten trapped in the pages of a Dan Brown novel, though, so I probably won't see much of her until she makes it out the other side.

A very full Friday, and not much on Saturday

Got in late last night (dinner with the CFEB crew at the warehome), so didn't get to blog Friday's workouts. It was a full day.

Morning:

• Sprint-8 on rower - 2,450m
  
• 20 minutes POSE practice on treadmill - 6MPH/1% grade
• Climbing: 10c(o), 10d(f), 10d(F+++), 11a(f+)

I held all my sprints below 1:32 pace on the rower, which is a first for me. I found that focusing on speeding up the return stroke as much as possible shaved a few seconds off my pace (but, of course, made it harder). The climbing was going well until I tried that 10d on the first pillar. 10d, my ass. That climb was at least an 11a. Super long, super pumpy, with nothing but tiny pinchers and a small, very awkward traverse over a roof. Hated that sonuvabitch. The 11a was slab and went pretty well until a move about 3/4 of the way up that I just could not figure out. Tor did it afterwards and I think maybe the problem was that my hips were too high (from the rope) to really make the move, so I need to try that again.

Evening:

Warmup: 3.5mile run halfway around Lake Merritt and back at medium/slow pace
"Danny"
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
24 inch Box Jump, 30 reps
115/80 pound Push Press, 20 reps
30 Pull-ups (C2B)

2 rounds + 20 box jumps, 95# PP

There were 18 people in class, so Max divided it into 6-person heats and several of the regular members of what he calls "Team CFEB" were put in the last group. So, with 40 minutes to kill until our turn, Alex suggested a run around the lake, which five of us ended up doing. I was wearing my Pumas, which are historically not good for my ankle with running, but I resolved to keep a medium pace and really focus on my footwork to avoid heel-striking. It was moderately successful. We made it halfway around the lake and decided to come back the same way, since the other half of the lake is just kinda shitty. My calves and ankles are definitely feeling all the running today.

The workout itself was a good one. I lucked out and was able to do ring pullups for 52 of my 60 pullups, which meant MUCH happier shoulders and calluses. I touch the rings below my clavicle now, so I'm calling that chest-to-bar, but for whatever physiological reason they are much easier/more consistent for me on rings than they are on the bar.

Worried about my shoulder, I scaled the weight (again), and it was probably the right call - I was doing the push-presses in sets of 5-7, and my shoulder was definitely not happy about it. It's not as painful as it was at its height last week, but it's definitely the press motion that agitates it the most. I hope I'm able to do my presses tomorrow.

Today:
I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and by the tenth step away from the bed I had decided today would be a rest day. Really sore. This morning's class was supposed to be 3RM snatches, but I didn't do that. I just practiced form, mainly with the empty bar, trying to figure out how to receive the bar, and hung out in the sunshine on a beautiful day. Afterwards several of the harder core class members did the Ecuadorean Destroyer WOD, which simply never looked like a good idea to me. I'm not a fan of gratuitous high-volume painstorms. We watched them hack away at it for a while, then cut out for a delicious lunch at Picante with Alex & Rebecca.

HIIT and ME

Morning:
Sprint-8 on rower - 3,375m
30 minutes POSE practice on treadmill, 6MPH
20 minutes excruciating stretches in sauna

Evening:

Five rounds for max reps of:
Ring Dips
C2B Pull-ups

3/10 - 3/10 - 2/10 - 2/7 - 2/6 = 12/43 RX

Yep. Ring dips still suck. However the handstand/HSPU practice afterwards went well. Kicking up to the wall is easy and reliable now, and I've started playing with targets to find the right depth for HSPUs - I can't go all the way down yet.

Overhead Squats and Cookies

We went to both classes today, since neither one looked to be a killer and we were (surprisingly) not feeling particularly beat up from our Half-Murph.

The first class was Overhead Squats, a definite goat of mine. The prescribed workout was 15-10-5-5-5, but I just played around with the empty bar, working form. It took a little while, but I started to get the hang of it, even earning some compliments from Max and others. I went up to 55# x 5, but that was about as brave as I got. That shit HURTS, especially the wrists. But if I ever want to do real snatches, I've got to get a proper OHS. One more thing for the list.

Then it was on to the goofball workout Max concocted to reward us for a very difficult work week:

100 Meter walking lunge
42 Sit-Ups
Run 200 Meters backwards
30 V-Ups
Run 400 Meters
18 Knees-To-Elbows

12:01, not quite RX (my KTE's were not all kosher)

Actually this was surprisingly tough. The 100 walking lunges were really painful, the situps were fine, the running backwards was metabolically fine (if psychically a bit nervous), the V-Ups were less fine, the running felt downright luxurious after the previous freaky stuff, and the KTEs were just killer.

I have an easier time with the KTEs when I can hyperextend a little at the start, allowing a more vigorous abdominal contraction to pull my hips up. This isn't really doable on a bar that forces me to bend my knees to hang from, which made these KTEs harder than the ones I've done on the rings or the bar at GWPC. Or it could just be the previous ab work made me tired.

Running Ladder - DNF

Warmup: Mobility Exercises, 10 Rock n roll, 10 CFEB sun salutations, 10 situps, 10 pushups, run prep

WOD

Run 1000 meters in 10 minutes
Run 900 meters in 9 minutes
Run 800 meters in 8 minutes
Run 700 meters in 7 minutes
Run 600 meters in 6 minutes
Run 500 meters in 5 minutes
Run 400 meters in 4 minutes
Run 300 meters in 3 minutes
Run 200 meters in 2 minutes
Run 100 meters

Results:
1000: 6:14
900: 5:50
800: 5:49
700: 5:56
600: 4:39
500: 3:46
DNF

Comments:
Yuck. This workout sucked. It sucked for a lot of reasons, but it was a struggle right from the get go. I'm trying to retain the fact that I have never run more than a mile, consecutively, ever. And that the most I've run in a single workout, is 1.75 miles in the before and after runs for Murph. So by those standards, running (and walking) the 4500m I got through is a pretty significant achievement.

Still, it does not stop me from feeling that, on a better day, i could have completed this workout, or at least performed better on the parts i did complete.

In hindsight - i was probably doomed to poor performance (i won't say failure) on anything I was going to try to do yesterday - it was the first day of my period, my work situation is looking more and more precarious so my stress levels are high, and I was also apparently fighting a bug since I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I should have known that something was not right when I felt tears of frustration forming just a few meters into round 900. I tend to get excessively emotional when I'm getting sick - it should be an immediate red flag for me - but i frequently don't recognize the signs until after i get sick. I thought it was just stress and hormones. So, I tried to power through it. Dumb.

I was fighting a side-stitch from step one. I had to stop and walk for increasingly long intervals starting in round 800. it was only a little walking at first - my 800 time is nearly identical to my 900 time. Things really started to go downhill in round 700 - my time was even longer than for 800. I don't think i actually ran the full 600m for round 600 - I wasn't quite able to make it all the way to the starting line by the starting time (a minute to stumble 200m is not quite long enough), so i just started where i was and guestimated the 'right' distance.

By round 700-600, in addition to continually being right on the edge of a horrible side-stitch, my right hip flexor was really beginning to hurt. That's usually the first thing to give out on long hikes or when we're snowshoeing. By round 500 my feet were really hurting, too. I started round 400, but about 10 strides in - as badly as i wanted to- I decided it just wasn't worth possibly doing real injury to myself to try to finish ( i was also a weepy mess at this point).

I know I've come a really long way since I started this in May. And I know that the stars were very badly aligned, and I should not be discouraged. But workout's like this one make me feel like I haven't progressed at all. Fortunately, it just makes me want to work harder.