200-06-24 Dirty Thirty

WOD:
For time:
50 Box jump, 24"/20"
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1.0P/.75P (25# Dumbell)
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45/30
50 Good Mornings 45/30
50 Wall ball shots, 20/14
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

Scaling:
Did 30 reps of every exercise instead of 50. Box jumps were about 12" (1 45#, 2 25# and 1 15#) K-t-E were more Knees to chest and used the 10# wall ball.

33:22

2:55.87; 2:30.92; 1:51.28; 2:22.23; 5:57.86; 1:59.13; 2:02.94; 5:48.51; 3:35.56; 4:18.59

I apparently scaled this way more than necessary. I expected to be lagging way behind even at 30 reps to everyone else's 50. Instead I was consistently one of the first 2 or 3 people to any given exercise.

This is a 13 minute PR over the last time I did the dirty 30 in July of 2008, and I remember it as being very hard. And this time it never really felt THAT hard - particularly not for the first four exercises or so. I should have done the full volume.

So much more energy!

Warmup:

• ME
• 8 or 9 kipping pullup attempts(was supposed to be 20 pullups) - I actually made the first 2 - consecutively! - though they still weren't pure kip - i still had to pull the last few inches on both reps,but I wasn't getting even close by rep 8 or 9.
  
• 30 pushups
• 30 air-squats(was supposed to be 40) - i was having a terrible time with form on these - i kept falling backwards,
• 50 partner situps. i was partnered with Suen - we weren't the first to start because i insited on grabbing a mat - but we finished before several other pairs
• timed 400m run either 1:58 or 1:59 - which either meets or beats my prior 400m pr! AND the first part of it was kind of ginger and slow because my ankles really don't like running when i first start - and frequently threaten to send me sprawling but after the 200m turn around (when my ankles were warm and the sun was no longer in my eyes) I managed to pass one girl and nearly pass a second.

WOD:
Four rounds for time of:
Walking lunge 50 meters
Sit-ups, 50 reps

Finisher:
Run 800m

Results:

Round	Lunges	Situps	Round	Elapsed
1	3:20	2:10	5:30	5:30
2	3:58	2:01	5:59	11:29
3	4:00	2:07	6:07	17:36
4	3:38	1:44	5:22	22:58

Comments:
I am very pleased with how this went. I mean - I still hate walking lunges - but now it is far more about balance than strength. My lame-brain balance slowed me down so much today that I still had lots of gas left in the tank at the end of the workout (hence the untimed 800m finisher). The other thing I am extremely pleased about is despite the fact that i was by FAR the slowest walking lunger, I always made up time on the situps, and I actually finished ahead of three other people.

I don't actually remember the last time my energy was this good. After a pretty rocky start, i really feel like the Zone is finally starting to work for me, particularly now that I have pushed my daily block count up to 12. At 11 I was hungry all the time, and consequently, angry and irritable all the time, too.

I've really been working my dead-hang pullups on the bar in our kitchen doorway the past few days. I've never been as close as I am now. I can regularly and repeatedly get my arms past a 90 degree angle from full lockout at the bottom - it's just the last few inches that seem to be eluding me. Daniel suggested that i try jumping to the top, lowering just a little and then pulling back up to the top. That sounds hard - and totally useful - so that is what I will work on for the next few days and see if that helps. I was pretty excited about my two pullups in class today - they were the closest I've come to a real kip yet. and they were consecutive. ha!

Nightmare WOD

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

25 Thruster 135/75
50 Double-Squat Wall-Ball 20/14
75 C2B Pull-Ups

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

Partition the Thruster, Double-Squat Wall-Ball, C2B Pull-Ups, as needed. Start and finish with a 400 Meter Lunge. If you've got a ten pound vest, wear it.

Scaled to:
200m walking lunge

25 50# thrusters
50 14# single squat wallball
75 jumping c2b pullups

200m walking lunge

1:25:24

First Set of walking Lunges: 17:54
3 rounds of 15 pullups and 10 wall ball: 5:38, 4:49, 4:39
15 thrusters: 15:06
2 rounds of 15 pullups and 10 wallball: 4:25, 4:47
10 thrusters: approx 7 minutes
Second set of walking lunges: approx 21 minutes
(10 thrusters + walking lunges = 28:02)

OOOWWWWWWW

My knees were shaking like jack hammers by the time I finished my fist set of lunges. It made everything else very hard - particularly the thrusters. Ironically, I did the best wall ball I've done in months. The last round or so was pretty week, and probably not quite high enough, but the first three rounds were all very strong, and I was able to catch the ball on a lot of them, too. My knees were shaking so bad, I really don't know how I accomplished this.

My thrusters went exactly how I expected they would - poorly. Pretty much everyone just stood there looking at the bar wondering how they were going to manage to pick that thing up and squat down with it with barely functional knees. We all managed to struggle through them - though there were plenty of failed attempts, too.

My original plan was only to do 60% or 3 rounds worth of 5,10,15 breakdown. I'm not sure why I decided to finish out the bulk of the workout - maybe I just wanted to put off those last walking lunges a bit longer - but I figured I was already more than half way there - might as well finish it off.

I'll be shocked if I'm not viciously sore tomorrow.

The most crippling WOD ever

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

25 Thruster 135/75
50 Double-Squat Wall-Ball 20/14
75 C2B Pull-Ups

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

Partition the Thruster, Double-Squat Wall-Ball, C2B Pull-Ups, as needed. Start and finish with a 400 Meter Lunge. If you've got a ten pound vest, wear it.

DNF after one hour - did not do 20 thrusters and the last 400m

This workout had people laughing, it was so ridiculously difficult. The walking lunges completely killed hip function, such that everyone wanted to do nothing but pullups because they weren't as hard on the hips. Very painful.

Happy Birthday to Andy

CFEB Athlete Andy, that gorgeous hunk of manflesh you see over to the right, turned 23 this week, and in honor of his birth Ynez concocted this little piece o' pain:

For Time
23 1/1.5P goblet squats
23 HSPU
23 Superpeople
23 1/1.5P weighted Walking Lunges
23 1/1.5P weighted sit-ups

8:34RX

It was a fun WOD, but pretty brief for a Birthday Blazer, which I feel should be particularly painful. Three rounds would've been better, I think. I did all sets unbroken except the HSPU's, which were my FIRST time doing them in a WOD. My ROM sucks (I use one of the yoga blocks as a target), but at least I'm not piking or doing them off a box anymore. They felt good, actually - I just wish I were strong enough to knock them out full-ROM. The weighted squats, lunges and sit-ups were all fine, with a pleasantly uncomfortable burning sensation setting in about halfway through the set.

We're leaving soon for a weekend in San Diego, which should be a fun time, but will interrupt our regularly-scheduled workouts. Hopefully we'll find a gym down there with a decent free weight setup so we can continue our strength routine, and I'm thinking a beach 5K might be fun. We shall see.

Messing about with half volume

I am intentionally trying to keep my firebreather aspirations in check this week and approach gymtime with a more casual attitude. Half-volume weeks are tricky. The workouts are much shorter and less satisfying, and you feel like a putz watching everyone else bust their ass while you traipse around doing the CrossFit equivalent of tricep kickbacks (at least I'm not ACTUALLY doing tricep kickbacks). But it's all in the head. I CAN slack off for a week. I can do this.

Walking lunge 100 ft.
21 Pull-ups (men C2B)
21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Pull-ups
18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Pull-ups
15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Pull-ups
12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Pull-ups
9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Pull-ups
6 Sit-ups

~7:30, half-volume, did clap pushups instead of pullups

Class was really crowded last night, and it was nice outside. Rather than compete for space on all these movements, I went outside with Jim and Aaron to do a pushup version of the WOD. Since I was only doing half volume and pushups are so much easier than pullups, I decided it was a good opportunity to practice my clapping pushups. It felt like a hard warmup, which is about what it should feel like.

I made some attempts at flipping the big tire afterwards. I could get it halfway up, and then (for some reason) my right calf cramped up badly every time. So I'm doing something a bit wrong with the technique, but I'm pretty close. Have some nice cherries on my knees and shoulders from the attempts, though. Then I did some skin-the-cats with Jim and James afterwards, and managed to struggle my way back over from full extension, which was a first. That was fun.

Freedom

Tuesday:
Sleep:
12:15 - 6:50 - restless. Too much going on in my head.

Food:
7:15 - 5 oz black coffee w/sprinkle of cinnamon
1:15 - cottage cheese, etc.
Ate more stuff - studied a lot.

Wednesday:
Sleep:
1am - 6:25 OW OW OW yuck! Slept ok while i was asleep - 5.5 hours DEFINTELY not enough - i can't believe i used to do this ona regular basis. I went to bed when I was falling asleep over my book, figuring I could get up early and try to finish what i could with the aid of some coffee.

Took my test, and for good or ill I am done with that class (Intermediate Accounting II). For the record - I am never taking another online course again if I can avoid it. I actually get quite a lot of being in the classroom, and I really missed it.

It's good to have my life back - we watched 2 hours of TV tonight with out pizza, and then spent the rest of the evening watching movie trailers - it was heavenly.

Warmup: almost non existent - a little jump rope - about 250 m rowing.

WOD:
50% volume of
21 Pull-ups (men C2B)
21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Pull-ups
18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Pull-ups
15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Pull-ups
12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Pull-ups
9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Pull-ups
6 Sit-ups

Results:
19:10. For 50%.

Comments:
Ridiculous and embarrassing. The walking lunges are hard for me - and by the end my legs had basically decided to stop cooperating altogether. But the real time killer was the pullups. Since I was only doing 50% I decided to make every pullup as legitimate as I could manage - which meant lengthy rests between attempts.

Food:
12:30 - cottage cheese,etc.
1:10 - 2 oz spiced cashews
3:30 - 4oz chicken 1/2 a little yam, some roasted cauliflower and protein powder gravy.
7:00 - 16 oz milk
8:15 - 2 slices Zachary's pizza (end of class, I worked my butt off, yay I'm free, indulgence), 1 cup spinach salad w/ walnuts, cranberries, and feta, 16 oz milk
11:30 - 2 zma

Strength and Filthy 50 Gone Bad

My ass was SORE this morning, from yesterday's deadlifts. And my calves from POSE practice. And my abs from Friday's little ab-blaster warmup. I was not in terribly great shape. But we hauled ourselves down anyway, because it's Sunday and that's what we do on Sundays.

Workout 1: Strength Cycle - Week 4, part 2

Deadlift x 5: 225- 245 - 270 (PR)
Deadlift x 21: 200 (unbroken)
Press x 5: 65- 75- 95
Press x 21: 65 (20-1)

Whoa, Nelly, those deadlifts were not fun. I'm glad that the deadlift is no longer a back exercise, but rather a butt one - this is as it should be. But my butt was not in the mood to be lifting any more heavy shit. I took a thirty-minute long, comprehensive warmup (2k on rower, squats, hip openers, pushups, situps, etc), and warmed up in 50# increments all the way up to 225. Tedious. The 270 was not as bad as I feared it would be, but according to Rebecca my lower back popped up on a couple reps, so I've got to work on keeping it tight and firing from the legs.

The presses went better - the 95 weren't actually that bad, but I think I'm going to go up to 97 next week - five pounds is just too big now. I was PISSED to fail on the last rep of the superset, after so many weeks of trying to get 21 at 65. Next week!

Next Week: DL 275/205, SP 97/65

Workout 2: Filthy Fifty Gone Bad

As wrecked as I was feeling, I expected to completely fail this one. Turned out to be not THAT bad, which I guess means I wasn't working hard enough. I basically went for five reps on each exercise, at the end of which I'd have an idea of a goal to reach by the 90 second mark. I'd get to the goal, and then try to crank out a couple more. I didn't get the 300 I hoped for, but 270 isn't too shabby - Matthew got 274, and doing as well as him is nice.

AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Box Jump 24"/20"
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Jumping C2B Pull-Up
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Kettlebell Swing 1.0P
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Walking Lunge Steps
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: KTE (Knees-To-Elbows)
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: 45# Good Mornings
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Push-Press 45#
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Wall-Ball 20#/14# 10" Target
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Burpees
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Double-Unders

In this workout you move immediately from station to station for good score upon a call of "rotate" from the coach. There is no rest between movements. You may start at any station.

270RX

I started at Wall-ball, figuring to get the hardest stuff over with first. This worked pretty well.

WB: 32
Burp: 15
DU: 32
Box: 17
JPU: 26
KB: 38
Lunge: 27
KTE: 15
GM: 24
PP: 44

Double Unders!

Sleep:
11:45-9:00 ... MMMm sleep :-) Had some trouble getting comfy with DOMS settling in, but generally slept very well.

WOD 1: Strength week 4 part 2
Warmup: Hip openers, air squats, adductor stretches, situps

Deadlift:
10 x 45#

5-5-5
100-125-135(PR)

21 x 100# (f@ rep 18)

Shoulder Press
10 x 25#

5-5-5
35-45-55 (f@ rep4)

21 x 32# (f@ rep 7, 12, 15,18 - this was just UGLY)

Comments:
The new DL x 5 PR was nice - but this session was just HARD after yesterdays ass kicking. DL actually went surprisingly well - on the set of 21, I was ddoing great until about rep 14, and then my muscles just stopped firing and quit @ rep 18.

The shoulder presses were bad. I lost my good form on these. I ALMOST got that 5th rep on 55, but the set of 21 was just so so so bad. I don't know why they felt so heavy and awful. I think my core was just too tired to support the weight. Better luck next time.

WOD #2 Filthy Fifty Gone Bad
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: KTE (Knees-To-Elbows)
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Back Extensions
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Push-Press 45#
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Wall-Ball 20#/14# 10" Target
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Burpees
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Double-Unders
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Box Jump 24"/20"
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Jumping C2B Pull-Up
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Kettlebell Swing 1.0P
AMRAP* in 90 seconds: Walking Lunge Steps

Results:
13-13-14-2-11-3(!!!)-0-29-17-28

Comments:
Max let us kip the KtE so I actually managed to get a fair number of them. Wall ball SUCKED - i tried several more reps than this but just could not get that sucker high enough. My poor tired arms were fried from the earlier presses and the push-presses I'd just done. Probably just should have taken it as a rest round. I did pretty well on the burpees - I tried to do as many as I could as quickly as I could because I thought the DU round was going to be a rest round.

And then .. the DU ... I knew the Box Jump was for sure going to be a rest round, so I decided to just go ahead and TRY the DU - the worst that would happen is that I wouldn't get any. First i tried straight from standing and that didn't work, and then I tried it after a couple single skips and damn if that rope didn't go all the way around twice!! Shocked the hell out of me. So I tried it again, and it worked, again! I got one more before the end of the round, and it was AWESOME! They just worked!

The rest of the exercises were pretty standard, they went fine.

After the WOD I continued to work my DU - and they still worked. The first couple times, I kept stopping after I got it - just I don't know - because I couldn't believe it actually worked. But after a few more practice tries I even managed to do DU-skip-skip-DU a couple times. I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to start stringing them together pretty quickly (either that or they'll dissapear completely - and that would be sad). But it felt really natural. SO EXCITED! It completely made up for my crappy crappy presses and made my entire day.

Food:
10am 3 egg cheesy scramble with veggie sausage, coffee w/ milk, 1 multiv, 2 glucosamine, 4 omega-3
3:30 - bacheeso's smorgasbord. - lots of beef kabobs, lots of eggs w/ chese and spincha, some turkey, some tomatoes, 1 glass tasty iced tea
4:30 - iced coffee (11 oz milk w/ 5 oz coffee)
8:00 - Indian food - daal, paneer tikka masala, chicken palak, more chicken, 16 oz milk.

Dismal failure

Man, I don't know WHAT went wrong this morning, but it was a train wreck. We had plans for the evening (more on that later), so I decided to try and knock out the WOD in the morning before work at home.

Complete as many rounds as you can in twenty minutes of:
5 Handstand Push-ups
10 L Pull-ups
15 Steps, Walking Lunge

THREE FUCKING ROUNDS

It was bad from the get-go. While warming up, I couldn't even squat without falling over. Everything was tight and sore, and I had a nasty headache every time I bent over (the HSPU's were a joy). Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was too early in the morning and my body was just too tight, I don't know. But nothing was working, and when the phone rang 16 minutes in, I basically said "fuck it" and picked up the phone. Chalk this one up as one that got away.

It's all Evelyn's fault

Apparently, Evelyn saw this WOD on the CF national site and went "ooh! , ooh!" and asked Max if we could do it. So, Ev, when and if you read this:


Not knoeing dat many numbrz, this shit was hard:

Three rounds for time of:
21 Knees to elbows
21 Kettlebell swing, 1.5 pood
21 Push-ups
18 Towel Pull-Ups
15 Box jumps, 24"
42 Supermans
Walking lunge, 150 ft

44:04, non-RX (I only did 10 towel pullups per round)
Splits were 13:34 | 15:59 | 14:36

Actually, it wasn't all THAT bad. It was just long, and a lot of volume. The only things that really killed my time were the KTE's, which I basically did in sets of 5, and the towel pull-ups, which I did in sets of...2. (This is why I only did 10 per round. 18 and my time would've been an hour.) Everything else was in large chunks, if not unbroken.

Chipper WOD hell

Warm up: ME, run 200m, 5 KTE, 10 KB swings, 10 pushups, 10 box jymps, 10 walking lunges.

WOD:

Three rounds for time of:
21 Knees to elbows
21 Kettlebell swing, 1.5 pood
21 Push-ups
18 Towel Pull-Ups
15 Box jumps, 24"
42 Supermans
Walking lunge, 150 ft

Results:
38:12 - 2 Rounds

Exercise	Round 1	Round 2
Knees-to-Chest	2:07	1:44
KB Swing 1P	2:09	2:43
Pushups	3:26	2:22
Kip attempts	2:42	3:20
Box Jump 10"	2:05	1:39
Superman	2:10	2:22
Walking Lunge	4:42 - 50	4:32 - 47
Total	19:21	17:02

Comments:
This workout was hard. And I really didn't have a lot in the tank to start with. I very nearly stopped after the first round, but I'm glad I forged ahead and completed round 2. At one point, Max made some comment about how there was a "sneaky" amount of volume in this workout, and just about everybody who heard him yelled back "There's nothing sneaky about it! it's all right there!" When I saw this workout I thought Max might be trying to kill us. Apparently it was Evelyn all along ... thanks Ev! :-p But it definitely wasn't one of those workouts that seems easy on paper. I knew this was going to be beast.

Since I knew I wasn't going to complete the workout, it allowed me to go a little slower, and try to get better form on each exercise. A couple of my KTC actually approached much closer to KTE range. Most of my KB swings were actually overhead. I tried to make sure each pushup was full ROM. Rope climbing and towel pullups were WAY out of the question, so I decided to do Kip attempts instead. These are WAY harder than jumping pullups (duh). Box jumps were real jumps to the 10" box with some girder support - these still scare the *** out of me. But most importantly, the walking lunges felt better than they ever have before. There were plenty of strides that were wobbly and off balance, but there were many that weren't, and I even managed to cut three strides off the total in the second round by taking longer strides (47 strides instead of 50).

Pushup Nicole

Warm up: Mobility Exercises, KB drills: snatch, front squat, OHS, 25m walking lunges, run/walk 400m, all while holding a KB (8kg)

WOD:
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Run 400 meters
Max Rep Push-Ups

Results:
4 rounds, 59 pushups

Round	400m	Pushup
1	2:12	18 (2:07)
2	2:31	13 (1:42)
3	2:37	14 (2:30)
4	2:43	14 (2:51)

Comments:
This workout was 100% Rx. All pushups were full ROM, and I ran all of every run - so technically I managed to run a whole mile without stopping ;-)

I think I probably could have gone faster on my runs, but i really wanted to give my arms as much of a chance to recover as I could, so I didn't push as hard as I could have. The first time was not my best 400 time, but it was among probably the top 5 or so, and they all felt pretty strong actually. I was a lot more concerned with trying to figure out a way of running that would let my arms recover as much as possible.

I could not find an effective pushup stance that would let me rest after getting started, which is why my pushup count is low. I could pretty consistently get to about 11 or 12 pushups, and then I could 'rest' in downward dog (DD) exactly once and not for very long before my shoulders started screaming at me, and maybe push out 1-3 more, and that was it. Daniel said that he was able to rest in DD easily and at length. I am sure that if i could have found a 'rest' position that actually allowed me to rest, i could have done more. Maybe I need to practice holding DD.

That said, however, i still feel really good about my performance on this WOD.

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.

OH Squats and Tea and cookies ;-)

WOD #1 OH Squats
Warm up: Mobility Exercises, Burgener Warm Up ... don't remember what else - I'm sure there was something

WOD: OH Squats
30-15-5-5-5

Results:
dowel-dowel-9#-15#-15# .... give or take - I wasn't paying particularly close attention to the rep scheme - and just did a set whenever I felt well rested.

Wod#2 Tea & Cookies
Warm up: Mobility Exercises, 10 Rock'n Rolls, Jump Rope Drills, run 900m

WOD:
"Tea & Cookies"

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

Results:
19:18

Exercise	Time	HR
100m walking lunge	5:59	145
42 sit-ups	2:13	134
run 200m backwards	3:02	151
30 V-ups	2:15	141
run 400m	2:21	156
18 knees-to-elbows*	3:26	121

Comments:
With the OH squats today, my main focus was on form - which has gotten quite a bit stronger. Those who were watching me said that my depth was really good and that my form looked pretty solid. I do still tend to corkscrew a little bit to the left - but significantly less than I used to. I did not get brave enough to try these with an empty oly bar. I stuck to the dowel and some relatively light body bars. 9# & 15# I made one feeble attempt with the 30# body bar - but it is think and ungainly, and i did not make it down very far before I decided not to proceed with that bar. My wrists and shoulders got tired pretty quickly even with the light weight.

The second WOD today had several exercises I strongly dislike because they really push my issues to the fore-front. I'm going to steal Melissa Byers name for these exercises and create a "goat list". The first three items on this list:

Jump rope drills. I do ok on the regular two footed jumps and cross overs, but the moment i have to alternate feet, or change rope rhythm (doubleunders) everything goes to hell. My right leg/foot can't navigate on it's own.

Walking lunges - also on the list - they really emphasize how off balance I am.

Running backwards - um yeah - just hard.

I think I got closer than I've ever gotten before to getting the knees to elbows, but they're still not quite there.

Needless to say, if it weren't for the walking lunges this workout would have been much much faster. there was also a lot of transition time in between exercises. But Nick was doing them with a 70# kettlebell, so he was slowed down to my pace and kept me company and motivated. I'm glad he made it to class today :)

Everything else was essentially fine. And my strained muscle didn't give me any trouble.

Filthy Fifty

I was nervous about this one - my shoulder and ankle are both feeling much better, but they're still not 100%, and this is a shitload of volume, many of the movements are somewhat iffy. But it all came out OK.

For time:
50 Box jump, 24 inch box
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Back extensions (superman)
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball (45# thruster)
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

40:14 - subbed tuck jumps

This is a whopping 16 minutes faster than last time (!!), and I suspect that's nearly entirely due to better burpees. In fact, some things were a little slower than they could have been, because I was protecting my injuries (specifically box/tuck jumps and KTEs). As for how the injured joints fared - well, there was some protest, particularly from jumping around on my ankle, but it was manageable.

Here are the splits, which I find very interesting:

Box jumps: 2:15
Jumping PU's: 2:06
KB Swing: 2:29
Walking Lunge: 1:43
KTEs: 8:37
Push-press: 3:05
Superman: 2:37
Thruster: 6:22
Burpees: 7:22 (!!!!)
Tuck Jumps: 3:38

Last time, I remember the burpees alone taking me over 20 minutes, done in excruciating sets of 5. Tonight's were sets of 10, and yes, they sucked, but by now burpees are like old, really shitty friends, and not sworn enemies. The KTEs were very hard, as were the thrusters. Max insists they're the same as wall-ball, but I disagree. It's true that because of my height I do not have to throw the ball as far, but I also have a physiological theory that wall-ball includes a brief moment when the muscles are not bearing ANY weight, and in this moment fresh, oxygenated blood can wash through the muscles. This is also why I still find kipping ring pullups to be easier than kipping bar pullups - there is a moment of letting go that refreshes the muscles.

Tonight felt good. I felt like I was pushing at the right rate to be very hard, but not so much to flame out or feel like puking. Consistent. I don't know the times of the second group, but I came in third in the first group behind James and Matthew, and I'm very pleased with that placement.

Filthy 50 -> Funky 40

Warmup: Mobility Exercises, run 160m

WOD:

Filthy Fifty (Funky 40)
For time:
50 Box jump, 24 inch box *step-up to 24"
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Dumbell or Plate Swings, 35 pounds *25# plate
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows *knees to chest
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Supermans
50 Thrusters, 45 pounds *25# plate
50 Burpees
50 Double unders *tuck jumps

Results:
50:30

Splits:
5:49 - Box step-ups & jumping pullups
3:43 - Plate Swings
3:14 - Walking Lunges
4:43 - Knees to chest
10:46 - Push Press
1:59 - Supermen
8:22 - Thrusters
8:12 - Burpees
3:42 - Tuck Jumps

Comments:
As Daniel points out, I did 30% more work in 10% more time, so I guess I did better than last time, but looking at my splits ... most of the "improvement" appears to have come from doing a 1-for-1 replacement of my step ups to a 24" box instead of a 3-for-1 replacement of doing step-ups to a 10" box.

My Back extensions and Knees-to-chest were better - but they might be just because i didn't have to go down a flight of stairs to do them.

The push-presses were much longer - a little more than twice! - but they were 15# heavier this time, so I don't feel bad about that.

The thrusters ... I dunno the weight was about the same - but I am inclined to believe that doing them with a plate is somehwat harder than doing them with a comparably weighted bar. Maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I'm relatively happy with the burpees - it only took me 14 more seconds to do 10 more burpees. Unfortunately, the pushup movement really started to hurt the tweaked spot in my back, so I had to start using my knees around rep 15 or 20.

Meh. I had hoped for better improvement.

Filthy Fifty

Ow.

For time:
50 Box jump, 24 inch box
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Back extensions
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

56:19, nearly RX (subbed tuck jumps for double unders)

Wow... this was a burner. I can't recall another workout where I've consistently felt so close to puking for so long - I was just redlined for just about everything from the KTE's on.

I'm really bummed because I set my splits on my watch, but must have hit the reset button in my backpack so I lost them. I can kind of recall my sets, though, so I'll try and outline them...

Box Jump: used the green girder. 50 unbroken. fast.
Jumping pullups: two sets of 10, then fives, then fours... fairly fast.
KB swings: two sets of 25. fairly fast.
Lunges: unbroken. fast.
KTE's: something like 10, 10, 8, 7, 5... fives from then on. These were hard. not fast.
Push press: 20, 15, 15. fairly fast.
Back Extensions: 25, 15, 10. fairly fast.
Wall-ball: five of 10 with long rests. not fast.
Burpees: 10 of 5 with LONG, LONG rests - this took over 20 minutes alone
Tuck Jumps: 10, 10, 10, 20. fairly fast.

I'm glad we're doing the Burpee Challenge...it's my hope that next time this rolls around, my work there will pay dividends in a faster time. These burpees were SO much harder than regular ones, though, just from being so gassed.

Dirty 30

WOD

For time:
30 Box jump, 24 inch box *90 step-ups to a 10" Box
30 Jumping pull-ups
30 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood * 12kg
Walking Lunge, 30 steps
30 Knees to elbows *knees to chest
30 Push press, 45 pounds *30#
30 Back extensions
30 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball *24# thrusters
30 Burpees
50 Double unders *tuck jumps

Results
46:35

Splits:
5:18 - stepups
3:05 - jumping pull-ups
2:07 - KB swings
2:33 - lunges
5:48 - kte
3:44 - back extensions
4:41 - push-press
9:07 - thrusters - started w/ wall ball, switched to thrusters - had to find a bar, had to move outside - most of this is transition time.
7:58 - burpees
2:12 - tuck jumps

Max had the exercises listed on a white board - in the wrong order - which is why the push-press and back extensions are reversed. Push press into thrusters was no fun :(

I actually feel pretty good about this workout over-all. There are clearly a few areas that need some work, though: Box jumps, KTE, push press, thrusters/wallball and burpees all have plenty of room for improvement. I wish i had taken a second to look at how much time had elapsed before i actually started doing the thrusters for real. I'd say that a good 3-4 minutes of that (at least) is transition time.

The burpees were slow, but I was trying to put a lot of focus on form. I'm not sure how, but my first 10 took 3 minutes. I guess my transition time was longer than I thought. I'm still having trouble jumping into the pushup position ... my feet don't really know how to catch me, yet, but I am pretty reliably able to jump my feet from the pushup position to between my hands now, which has been a goal of mine.

I'm a little ambivalent about only having done 30 instead of 50 of each exercise. A lot like the ride from this past weekend. The main reason i chose to do 30 instead of 50 was to try to keep my complete workout time under an hour. I feel like i could have made it through 50 of each exercise, but it would have been much less of a metcon and much more of a slog, and it would have taken a lot longer than 46:35. I certainly still got plenty of work done, and I am sure i will be feeling it all tomorrow.

Wod & ride

Today's WOD:

Complete as many rounds in 30 minutes as you can of:
Walking Lunge, 12 steps
8 Clean & Push-Press Right 55#/35# *sub 15# dumbell
8 Clean & Push-Press Left 55#/35# *sub 12kg KB
10 Push-Ups *knees to get up
21 Kettlebell Swing 55#/35# *sub 12kg KB

Results:
4 complete rounds + up through C&PP # 4 on 2nd side.
Splits: 6:05 | 6:32 | 6:58 | 7:28 | 2:57

Comments:
ow. This workout was kind of surprisingly hard. The most exciting part about it was that I actually managed to get through my first round on KB swings unbroken, which is a first for me with 21 reps. There were several swings with less than perfect form, but I never had to put the KB down or even stop and restart. The rest was just getting through it to the best of my ability

My first 3-4 C & PP on my right side were done with a 20# dumbell, since i remember thinking that the yellow 8kb kettlebell felt a little too easy the last time I did this exercise, but it was just a little bit too heavy so I had to switch back down to a 15# dumbell (the 8kg KB's were taken). 17.5 probably would have been a better alternative, but the heavier dumbells are kept in a separate part of the gym, and i didn't want to waste the time it would take to go find one.

The strength in my right side and my left side are so different that I have a very hard time using the same weight for both arms - it's either too light for one, or too heavy for the other. I was able to do the C&PP with the 12 kg KB on left side, and Max said that this was a sub for a hard workout so we should be working as hard as we could manage - so I tried to work with the heaviest weights I could manage on either side. I spoke to Max a little bit about this after class, and I think in the future I will try to do these exercises with a single, heavier bar and make both arms work together so that I don't end up training lopsidedly.

I was definitely worn out after this workout, but we're going to be riding a metric century next weekend, and this afternoon was going to be the only time I could find to get some time in on my bike. It was especially important because I just had it tuned up, and i wanted to make sure that everything was working properly before expecting to ride it for 60 miles.

I should preface this by stating that I have a very uneasy relationship with my bike. We were just starting to get into doing more organized endurance rides last year, and had signed up to do the same metric century that we're going to do this year. We had a couple of hybrid bikes we'd been riding for several years, and that's what we had been training on. Two weeks before the century, our bikes were stolen. Our home owners insurance paid us basically the full replacement cost for our admittedly less-than-high-end bikes, and we had been talking about trading in for road bikes, so it seemed to be a good time to just dive in and do it.

What with one thing and another, trying to make the best possible decision in a very short amount of time, we basically picked up our bikes the day before the century, so the first time I rode my bike i was on it for a very long time. It was not a pretty experience. The longest I had ever ridden up to that point was 40 miles, and I was dealing with an entirely new body geometry for the first time, and due to my physical limitations I do not adapt quickly to new physical activities. I finished the ride, but I was in quite a lot of pain for the last 20 miles or so, and my left leg wouldn't support my weight when I was done.

Needless to say, I wasn't real excited about getting back on my bike again any time soon. The biggest problem is that all the rides around our house involve a great deal of up, and a great deal of down, and are very intimidating for someone just (re) learning to ride a bike, so in order to get to a 'beginner' ride we had to put our bikes in the car and go somewhere else, and that just didn't happen very often.

People suggested that I should think about exchanging my bike for a flat handle road so that I'd be in a more upright position, or maybe even go back to a hybrid, but I just find the idea of that a little galling - i refuse to be beaten by a bike - and besides, (It's sort of a stupid reason to not give it up, but ... ) my bike is really pretty. It's black with little pink accents, and I love how sleek and elegant she looks.



So over the course of the last year we've gone on a handful of rides, and I am definitely more comfortable on her than I was but I am still terrified of descending. All the things i love about the bike make it go a LOT faster down hills, and that's not at all something I am comfortable with. Descents that merely made me anxious on my hybrid bike now scare me silly.

Anyway, so. I rested until about 5 pm and then set off. My original intention was just a shortish ride (a little less than 7 miles - 3.3 miles there and then back) up to the top of a local hill (Euclid & Grizzly Peak) and back - about 600' of climbing to an elevation of about 900' with most of it in two steep sections, just to make sure everything - gears, brakes, etc. was in working order.

However, the weather was relatively nice, and once I got up there, I decided that I better try something just a little bit longer since I hadn't been on my bike in over a month.

Once you get to the top of Euclid, you can ride along grizzly peak to 4 or 5 different routes back down to the Berkeley foothills. I opted to go for Tunnel Rd. which was the one the furthest from me. This added an additional climb up to about '1600 ft, a decent back down to about 1300' and then another climb to 1400' and then a long descent back down bringing the total to about 15 miles.

The climbing was good and the bike didn't have any troubles shifting or anything. I felt strong and pretty comfortable as long as I was not going down any major hills.

I had a couple fun interactions with other people while i was out:

Another cyclist who said his name was Todd caught up to me on the road, and decided to keep me company for a little ways until we got to Centennial which is an INCREDIBLY steep road - i don't even like driving up or down it - but that's where he was heading down. He was a self professed speed demon. I think you have to be a little crazy to want to ride down Centennial. Even Daniel thinks that's insane.

Later, on a particularly steep part of the climb, a lost motorist pulled up and drove next to me asking for directions. - LOL. The car behind him didn't like being stuck at my slow pace, so he pulled ahead to a turnout where I obligingly stopped and gave him directions to the wedding he was trying to get to.

Usually you get some pretty astonishing views of the bay from up there - but because of all the smoke in the air, it wasn't as pretty as it usually is.

The several hundred feet of climbing were ultimately no problem - the two significant descents scared the living daylights out of me. One of the reasons I chose the route i did is that tunnel road has a pretty friendly grade, but it is curvy as all get-out and very very long. And when i say i was scared, I don't think terror would be too strong a word for it. My balance is not that great, and I am just terrified of falling.

I made it down most of the last hill. I stopped several times to let my heart rate settle into something manageable and to give my forearms a rest - breaking is hard work! I got to within about two miles of home. The very last part of the ride is along a very busy stretch of road and is also a steepish descent. The fog was coming in and I was quite chilled, my nerves and my forearms were fried and I just couldn't bring myself to brave it. I called Daniel and asked him to come pick me up.

He is such a sweetheart. Not only did he come to my rescue and bring the car to come get me, but he also brought my fleece robe so that i could wrap up in it and get warm. He's the best!

I was such a zombie when i got home. Between the tough CF workout earlier in the day and the emotionally taxing bike ride in the afternoon I was toast, particularly my shoulders (which didn't bode so well for Sunday's climbing ). But I'm glad I did it. Fortunately there's very little climbing or descending on our ride this weekend, so it will really just be a matter of staying on the bike for a long long time. Hopefully the strength gains I've made with CF will just help me get through the miles more quickly so that I don't have to spend quite so long on the bike.