Squat cleans

Got to practice squat cleans in a WOD this morning.

5 rounds:
5 squat cleans (185/135)
100m sprint
10 AbMat butterfly situps

Results: 11:03 @ 95

I had a hope of using 115 in this WOD, thinking that maybe my squat clean capacity would be higher since my power clean PR went up by 10#. However, I quickly realized that until I do a ton of heavy front squat training, I won't squat cleaning more than 95 or 100 in a WOD. Stripped weight from 115 to 95 after my first 2 reps, boo.

Also had my first experience with blocking my airway with the bar on a squat clean. Woo, that was crazy! I think it's because I was using a men's bar -- that little bit of extra thickness probably threw off that delicate balance of keeping the bar on my shoulders without chocking myself.

Many of the clean felt like the flew up off the ground, and then the trouble was standing up with the bar. Again, the answer to this is heavy front squats. They are in my post-marathon strength training plan for sure.

Fresh start

Today was my first day at the CrossFit gym in my new city -- see linky love in the sidebar.

I scaled the WOD and I am totally OK with that.

I'm sure it's been apparent due to my lack of posting that my CrossFit workouts have been minimal to nonexistent the last few months. I really lost my fire and my purpose for doing CrossFit -- I didn't really know why I did it anymore. After I reached the point where I was Rx-ing 90% of movements in WODs, I didn't really progress much farther, and I also lost that excitement of doing new things that I didn't think I could do.

I recaptured that feeling with my marathon training, and with a totally new activity I had never done before -- yoga.

Today I decided that the next 3 months I'm living here, I'm just doing CrossFit because it's fun and I like it. I'm rebooting, restarting, resetting myself. There are a lot of stories that I have in my head about myself as a CrossFitter. I'm throwing those away. I will be whatever I want to be, and achieve whatever I want to. And if I don't *want* to do something, I don't have to beat myself up over not trying.

These next 3 months are my time to start fresh, and rebuild from the ground up. Time to get this foundation solid.

--
"Bradley"

10 rounds for time of:
Sprint 100 meters
10 Pull-ups
Sprint 100 meters
10 Burpees
Rest 30 seconds

Results: Scaled to 5 rounds, 20:40-ish (bad memory)

My blood blister / giant callous from Nicole on Monday ripped open in round 2, so the right grip went on. The left hand ripped open in round 5. I think this was caused by a combination of two things: I haven't shaved down my callouses in a week or so, and I should have after pullups on Monday.  And the pullups bars are pretty rough -- good for hanging onto, bad for poor hand care.

First day out at the track

I'm behind on posting, so I'm "back dating" this and a few others this morning. :)

--
Thursday mornings from here on out will be spent at the track on base getting FASTER. I'm so lucky to have two wonderful friends who are willing to meet up with me and keep me accountable.

Often I let myself get into the mindset that I'm strong and slow, and that I'm OK with that. But that's not true.
I know I have the genetic ability to be fast, because I trained my way to a sub-6 minute mile while running high school track. And my 800m was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:40. Does that sound slow to you? Or sound like I'm an athlete that just doesn't have the genetic gift of enough fast twitch fiber? Yeah -- that would be a no.

And I know I'm not OK with being slow. It drives me crazy!

So it's time to buckle down, and get fast again.

--
WOD:
10 rounds
100m sprint
10 burpees

Results: ~17 minutes

I'm not sure that I managed to sprint on each run, but I did maintain good POSE form to try to foster some speed in my feet, and also continue to build up my calves.

100 burpees sucks. 100 burpees amidst sprints *really* sucks.

But we felt awesome once we got it done. :)