Table For One in the "Smoked" Section

Holy shnikes, Batman. I am smoked this week. I participated in Warrior Dash in Forney, Texas, on Saturday. It was more of a fun run that anything, but I've never done a race or event at all, so I was super nervous. My cousin graciously ran with me and agreed before the race that she wouldn't leave me behind, so I did have a battle buddy to go through it with me. Come to find out the obstacles really weren't all that challenging, and the running part of it was broken down into manageable chunks. The hardest part was how uneven the "track" was since we were running through a pasture. I was experiencing a little pain in my legs by the end. It's kind of hard to pinpoint it. I couldn't really tell if it was my shins or my muscles along and behind them that were hurting. Either way, the running was the equivalent of a 5K, so it was a decent stretch of running -- think trail running here with tons of mud.



On Monday I pogued out and stayed in Dallas with my sister, so no workout that day. I was still tired from the hustle bustle from the weekend anyhow. But trust me, we made up for it for the rest of the week.

Tuesday, 04 MAY 10

WOD: 10 minutes of work at each station. Stations consist of 15 lb. ball slammers on your knees, prowler sprints, 10 lb. sledgehammers against a tractor tire, and tire flipping.

The key to doing the sledgehammers right was putting your hand up near the top of the tool and sliding it down to the bottom hand as you came over and down, planting your feet firmly and moving at the waist. Other than that, this was pretty easy. Just amazing how tired you can get after 10 minutes, though.

Wednesday, 05 MAY 10

WOD: 10-1 clean and jerks and 1-10 100m run for time

HA! This one kicked my butt in ways it has not been kicked since we did "Murph" back last fall. When I read this WOD, I wondered just how this was supposed to work. Let me break it down for you:

Round 1: 10 clean and jerks, run 100m
Round 2: 9 clean and jerks, run 200m
...
Round 10: 1 clean and jerk, run 1000m

As you decrease reps of C&J, you increase reps of running.

Rx for women was 95#. Personally, my clean max is 100# or so. My jerk max is somewhere around 85# or 90#. I ended up doing this, ambitiously, with 85#. What's funny is -- I DID IT! It took me a full round or so to get in my groove and work my form better but it got there. At first the feel of the weight trying to get it overhead was a little overwhelming, but I just kept getting one more and miraculously got it done. My right wrist was really giving me fits, though. This has been going on quite a little bit lately. I don't think I've hurt it, thankfully. I think it is just really weak and I've got to really watch my form so that the weakness doesn't set me up for injury. Taping it may have helped a little, but I have never messed with that before and don't know how to do that properly. One thing I know I need to work on is transitioning the grip b/w doing the cleans and the jerk portion of the movement. I know going into the jerk with my grip still poised from the clean is incorrect but due to the wrist stuff, I don't trust my wrist under the bar to bear that weight. Two days later, as I'm writing this, I can still feel where it was hurting and I could feel it during today's WOD, but we'll get to that in a minute.

By the end of this workout, we calculated that the running portion was roughly a 5K -- 3.44 miles -- and there were 55 reps of C&J. I ran another 200m with the girl who was finishing last due to some muscle issues, so I guess I went about 3.5 miles or so. Also, doing 55 reps of 85# means I lifted over 4600 total lbs of weight -- woo hoo!! I was feeling that leg crampy stuff like I had after WD, though... grrr...

The bottom line on this workout is that I pushed through uncomfortability and doubt about whether or not I could get that weight up. I don't think many women went very heavy on this workout, and but I wanted to do it as close to Rx'ed as possible and I still posted a good time. Then I proceeded to come home and sleep for two hours. :)

Posted time: 59:49

Friday, 07 MAY 10

WOD: 10 min. of kettlebell swings. Every minute on the minute, stop and do 10 push ups. Quit at the end of 10 min. or 150 reps, whichever comes first.

At first the word was that we were doing "Fran" today, which both scared and excited me at the same time. I haven't done "Fran" since last October, and I would like to see how much I have improved. Alas, they changed it up, but I know we'll be doing it again in the next week or so.

I'll be honest. I'm not a fan of the kettlebell. To me it seems like goofing off when you could be doing real work. This WOD didn't look very hard, and it wasn't until the last 90 seconds of it that I realized I may not actually get 150 reps. I used 1 pood and knocked out at least 25 swings before the first set of push ups. Then it got hard. It felt like I had just barely gotten back up and swinging before I had to stop again and do more stinkin' push ups! I did the first set of push ups on my toes but went to knees after that. Still, this one was just as hard for me mentally as Wednesday's WOD. I remember thinking, 'I hate this! Man, if I was doing this WOD at home, I would stop! This is BS!' And the sad fact is that, had I not been in a class with others to holler at me to keep moving or fellow athletes motivating me to keep pushing, I would've wimped out and been less of a competitor in my mind. This is a very real scenario for me, as I am moving in a month's time to a town where there is no CrossFit within a 45 minute drive of where I will live. It will be up to me to self-motivate, and quite frankly it scares me that I won't be able or willing to do it. But that's a sob story for a different day...

Thank God it's the weekend!

Posted reps: 132 with 1 pood

This-N-That

Obviously I've neglected my blog as of late! I don't know if there's a soul left that reads this, but that's OK. This is mainly for my accountability and to shed some light for anyone out there who is CrossFittting as well or considering it.

Since I last posted, I have had tons of life going on outside of the box. My family went out of state for two weeks over the holidays (didn't work out then), I had various out of state visitors (didn't work out then), GOT MARRIED (surely didn't work out then!), and have been sick here and there. Needless to say, I have really struggled to get back into the groove and push for more improvements. Nothing is more frustrating to me that seeing myself make such great gains and backslide so quickly. Mentally it is quite defeating to realize that your max one day is a good ten pounds lighter that your personal best several months ago. I've been back at it regularly now for two or three weeks, and as Celine says, it's all coming back to me now.

Before I launch into the WODs I've been doing lately, I thought I would make public the crazy committments I have recently made. In May I will be participating in the Warrior Dash at their Texas location. I have to admit a few things:

1) I'm totally in it for the awesome viking hat.
2) I'm scared to death about being able to do some of the obstacles, and I don't know if any of my friends are in the same heat as me.
3) I've never been in any kind of race or fun run before, so the fear of the unknown is killing me!

As if that wasn't enough, I have also registered to run the Army Ten Miler in October in Washington, D.C. My husband will be running as well, albeit he will finish hours before I do! He's a great runner, despite what he may tell you. I run around an 8:50 mile or so, and you have to keep at least a 15:00 mile pace, so I think time is on my side. I have never run further than two miles at once, so I have some serious training for endurance to work on. Thankfully I have a friend who is a triathlete who said she would develop a running program for me. Now I just have to convince myself to get out there and run.

Back to CrossFit. I have made a point this week to push myself and do all the WODs as Rx'ed. Somehow I have been able to do this and survive with relatively little damage or soreness!

MONDAY, 05 APR 10

WOD: 3 rounds for time of 30 wall balls (14#) and 30 SDHPs (65#)

Posted time: 17:39

TUESDAY, 06 APR 10

WOD: 1RM (rep max) front squats, 4x10 deadhang pull-ups, 3xL-holds for max time w/ 1 min. rest between attempts.

Posted results: New PR for front squats of 120#. Back to using colored bands for pull ups -- GRRR! Best time for L-holds was 0:40. This last exercise is harder than you think!

WEDNESDAY, 07 APR 10

"SUCKFIT"

2 rounds for points, 1 min. at each station, 1 min. rest b/w each round of:

Double unders
Lateral jumps (over bars w/ weights on them)
Push press (65#)
Kettlebell swings (1 pood or 35#)
Rowing for calories

I think I ended up w/ a 30# kettlebell b/c that was all I could find. Otherwise, done as Rx'ed.

Posted points: Round 1 -- 101; Round 2 -- 94

FRIDAY, 09 APR 10

WOD: 3x400m run for time, 3xheavy prowler pushes for length of building and back

Posted time for runs: 1:43, 1:45, 1:46. This was five to ten seconds slower than my last time; however, last time we were running on a slight downhill grade the entire way. This time was partially up and downhill at times. And the last time I even had to stop so some lady in a minivan could go get her glut on at the local donut shop. Ick. :)

We did a WOD last week that LAID.ME.OUT. It was 4 rounds for time of 10 box jump burpees, 20 air squats, 50 yd. broad jumps. It was probably all the broad jumps that did me in. I could hardly walk all week. Lastly, on Friday, we had to run a mile for time. I posted 8:50, but was really hurting most of the time in my quads. I suspect that: a) had I not been sore and had lactic acid already built up in my muscles, and b) had I been drinking more water all week, I would've been closer to 8:30, but it's still a decent time to post for me.

There we go -- all caught up! We'll see how long this lasts...!

Hamburger Buns (Again)

Warm up: 400m jog, various calisthenics
WOD: 5 rounds for time of sprints, prowler pushes, walking weighted lunges, 25 squats, 10 box jumps

First of all, I just want to vent. I had a great post written and tried to post it from my iPhone app, and it kept posting to my other blog, One More Thing. After deleting and retrying several times, it became my latest victim to the hungry internet monster. Damn you, Cyberspace!!!

I'll do my best to try and remember all the points I made in the original post. The BLUF (bottom line up front) was that it was hard and mentally had me hurting. It is amazing how much the mind can play tricks on us, and I can definitely see how overcoming mind blocks in the gym can help us to overcoming them in the rest of our daily lives.

Warm up was pretty uneventful. I only wish I could say that for the rest of the morning! The sprints, back and forth the length of the building, weren't the worst, but pushing the prowler was definitely no fun. Pushing this big metal monster across the pavement was about like trying to push a car across the parking lot that has no wheels, just metal grating on cement. I felt like Samson after Delilah had cut his hair -- powerless to move this heavy thing in front of me.

The walking weighted lunges were by far the most painful part. Lunges hurt my knees worse than almost anything I've ever done. I had to walk the length of the building like this, holding a 25# bumper weight over my head, stop at the end of the 18-step stretchg (not that I was counting, right?!?), do 25 squats holding the weight, and then come back to the starting point. Pure torture, plain and simple.

The last part was the box jumps. This was easy work for me, so I tried desperately to make up time here. I was using the tallest box this time, and I really want to add a bumper to the box next time for a bit of a challenge.

I mentioned earlier about how this WOD blew my mind. The physical pain brought on by today's WOD was nothing compared to the defeat my psyche was cooking up in my little blonde head. I've been having quite a few issues with joints as of late, and nothing puts me into self-defeat mode faster than joint pain. Halfway through the first round, I was already telling myself there was no way I'd make it through this one. My quads were already burning, and my knees were screaming, too. Somehow, about halfway through round three, I could see the end of the tunnel and knew I would finish. By the end of the last round, I was trying to go as fast as I safely could in order to finish under 30:00, which I did by a hair.

After working strength and doing heavy lifts so much recently, we really did need to work on some other things, things at which I really do suck and need to challenge myself. My coach is great to keep us moving and motivated. She's always reminding us that WOD like this one will yield growth, strength, and change for us. I know she's right. I look over at the other girls, fighting for it, too, and they keep me going.

Posted time: 28:44