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.

WIdow Maker

Pulled this WOD from CrossFit King of Prussia.

"Widow Maker"
AMRAP in 15 minutes
5 burpees
10 box jumps (20'')
15 double unders

Results: 8 rounds

Was very happy with my result. I was absolutely miserable pretty much the entire time, and had the lung burn too. Hopefully this is helping get my cardio conditioning back where it needs to be!

And this was another day where I was very happy I spent the time learning double unders, so I'd have them when I needed them. I think I only got 2 or maybe 3 rounds with unbroken DUs, though -- I was just so damn winded and my legs were tired!

Allie

Pulled this WOD from CrossFit Camden. It's a great test of stamina and endurance.

"Allie"
400m run
20 pullups
400m run
15 wall ball shots (14#)
400m run
10 burpees
400m run
5 tire flips

Results: 11:50-ish

Felt the lung burn, so I know I pushed myself -- that was my main goal.

My previous time for this was around 14 minutes, but I think the 400m run at C2 is a bit short.

Filthy Fifty

Hit this WOD on a whim Sunday night. Husband has a weird issue going on with his shin, so I took him over to the "satellite" gym to use the rower for his running substitute. He's addicted to running, so complete rest is not an option for him.

Filthy Fifty was on the board for Friday, and some other peeps had come in and done it on Sunday. So we modified it for him, and I did it "regular".

Filthy Fifty
50 box jumps (20'')
50 jumping pullups
50 kettlebell swings (1/2 pood - 16kg)
50 walking lunge steps
50 knees to elbows
50 push press (35#)
50 back extensions (did supermans, no GHD for me yet)
50 wall ball shots (14#)
50 burpees
50 double unders

Results: 45:29 (includes a potty break during DUs :-p)

This WOD and I just do not get along. Especially the part where I'm supposed to do 50 K2Es. I think I spent about 15 minutes doing K2Es, and 30 minutes doing everything else. Seriously.

Low points:
 - K2Es were not only agonizingly slow with small sets of 2s, 3s and 4s, but there weren't even close to Rx with my knees touching triceps most of the time; I have a lot practice to get "Rx" on this WOD...
 - Back extensions -- still afraid of getting on the GHD for fear of triggering renewed back/hip pain...

High points:
 - 50 unbroken kb swings
 - 25-15-10 wall balls; this is an epic improvement for me on those
 - push press felt light, wish I had gone for unbroken
 - double unders -- every minute of practice I did to get these is worth it when I breeze through them in a wod

First day out at the track

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

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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. :)

Back from vacation

Well, I never told you guys, but I went on vacation last week! I went to St. Thomas with my husband's family. We had a great time, and we even got some good workouts in.

Monday we went to Magen's Bay, which was GORGEOUS. In the afternoon I talked husband into doing a little beach workout with me.

6 rounds:
Run to lifeguard chair and back (150m?)
10 burpees

We got a 1 week pass to the little gym at the resort near our condo, and used that for the first time Tuesday night. I did day B of my Get Strict program -- basically 20 minutes of 10 second negatives and holds at the top and middle of the pullup. "Middle" means arms at 90 degrees. I used a 5# dumbbell to weight the negatives. Eventually I'll do the whole workout with extra weight.


As for the rest of the days, I honestly can't remember which day of the week we did what! Kinda the point of vacation, though. :)

One morning I did a workout that my friends at home did at the base gym.

5 rounds:
5 dumbbell man-makers
30 DU's

Results: 17:08

Got many strange looks for the double unders, which I did outside. This gym was TINY. Hardly had enough floor space to do my manmakers, and the largest hex-ended dumbbells they had were 15#.

In the end, I liked that weight. Rather than using super-heavy DB's that slow me down because my arms wear out, it was interesting to do manmakers at a lighter weight so that it was my lack of conditioning that forced me to slow down. Exactly right for my current focus to improve my conditioning.

Other than that, it was just lots of messing around with freestanding handstands on the beach. I got a couple seconds a few times, which was exciting. I also wiped out on my hip and knee a few times, but it was all good. :-D

And of course swimming! And does shopping count? :)

Magen's Bay

Friday AM AMRAP

Saw this WOD last week sometime, and knew I wanted to put it into our morning rotation at the base gym.

We had to substitute hang squat cleans for squat cleans, due to lack of bumpers. We scaled down the weight of the cleans and push press. We did AbMat situps instead of toes to bar, because there just aren't enough appropriate pullup bars to do pullups and T2B with 4 people. And we each started at a different point in the rotation to help with crowd control.

"Christina"
AMRAP in 20 minutes:
9 pullups
9 hang squat cleans (65#)
9 kettlebell swings (35# / 16kg)
9 AbMat situps (I added a 12# med ball)
9 push press (65#)
9 burpees

Results: Started at KB swings; finished 3 full rounds plus KB swings and AbMats of round 4

The weight on the hang squat cleans felt heavy to me at first, but I think I was using too much arm. Once I got more tired and started "popping and dropping" things felt a lot better.

Got 5 pullups in a row on each of my 3 sets of kipping pullups. Booyeah! It's all mental for me, not physical -- I'm getting myself back on the "no less than 5 to start" train, and it feels good.

Again today it wasn't strength, but just cardio/endurance that really held me back. 

--
Had originally planned on doing another "A" day for my pullup program today, but I'm hurting. I will get it in after weightlifting practice tomorrow morning.

12 Days of Christmas

Hit this one up with my CF KoP peeps while visiting husband's family. (Check the link for a hilarious picture of me doing DB snatches)

12 Days of Christmas at CrossFit KoP
1 Deadlift (185/275)
2 Wall Ascents (6ft/8ft)
3 Ring Dips
4 Box Jumps (21"/25")
5 Med Ball Clean (14/20)
6 Clean and Jerk (75/115)
7 Toes to Bar
8 Burpees
9 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (55/75)
10 Wall Balls (14/20) to (9ft/10ft)
11 Thrusters (75/115)
12 DB Snatch 12L/12R 25/40

Results: 70:28

Deadlifts, clean and jerk, burpees and thrusters were all scaled due to my continuing (nagging) back injury. Everything else was Rx'd.

Weird about the burpees, right? Something about the part where you jump your feet back aggravates my QL muscle, so for many of them I stepped my feet back. Once I was nice and warm, in the middle and later days, I did jump my feet back on some of them.

I felt like I got hit by a truck after this. My core was wrecked, I think from the wall climbs and toes to bar -- don't do either of those with any regularity.

Best part of the WOD - watching a CF KoP superstar female athlete scaling the 8 foot wall. BAD. ASS. And her nickname is "Grans" -- love it.

Workin' on my (front) rack

Forgot my damn lifting shoes, which pissed me off! But still managed to do decent on the WOD in the flat Nike's. :)

5 rounds for time:
10 front squats* (135/85)
10 lateral burpees (jump over barbell)
*from the ground

Results: 13:48, Rx

Positive: All 5 sets of 10 front squats were unbroken. The 9th and 10th reps were kinda ugly near the end, but it's cool. I think I did well with maintaining a strong back, and pushing my knees out. Yay my Oly lifting stuff is working!

Negative: I still have that weird twinge over/in my right hip bone/oblique, so the burpees were very slow. As soon as I would lean down to start the first burpee after the front squats, I would get a *huge* twinge and nearly fall over. But if I kept moving slowly, it would ease up. So I was basically leaning over in a lunge type position, stepping both feet back one at a time, doing a strict pushup, and stepping the feet back in. No jumping out of the feet for me today. Jumping up and over the bar was no problem. Honestly I think moving so slowly on the burpees is what made me able to do all 10 front squats -- I have a real problem with squatting when I'm out of breath, because I can't hold my breath both down and up.

All in all, a nice little workout to keep me limbered up for my Oly session tomorrow with Coach H. :)

PS - After trying to PR on the 5k Saturday morning, and doing Jerry yesterday night, my ass hurts!! heh

Finally Friday

I can't remember the last time I did CrossFit for five days in a row -- fulfilling my promise to complete all of my WODs during my week of programming was tough! Most folks at our box get a rest day on Wednesday, as there's no evening class, but I think my bud Melissa joined me for the 5 day WOD fest. :-D

Would any bodyweight-focused week of programming be complete without some kind of tabata? I think not!

"Tabata Something Else"
Complete 32 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest where the first 8 intervals are pull-ups, the second 8 are push-ups, the third 8 intervals are sit-ups, and finally, the last 8 intervals are squats. There is no rest between exercises.

Score is total reps from all 32 intervals.

Results: 270

Pullups - Started out with the goal of doing 5 per round. Did 5 on the first round, dropped down, and sadly waited until time ran out and didn't do anymore. I felt bad that I didn't jump up for another couple. So I did my 5 and then 1 or 2 the next round. :) I started crapping out after 4, then 3, then 2. My lowest score was 3 or 4 on the last round -- mostly because my right hand ripped open on round 7. I'm happy to report my kip was pretty good -- in terms of using hip power, and not just shoulder power. Yay! :) I think my total for pullups was in the high 30's.

Pushups -- Dropped down to 5 pretty quickly, but hung in there for the duration. I'm happy with that, because I know 95% of the pushups I did were full ROM.

Situps -- Stuck with 10 or 11 the whole way through, which is pretty standard for me on tabata ab mat butterfly situps. Like I said after my last crack at "Annie", I think I just need to find a way to do situps fasters. But that is pretty much at the very bottom of any CrossFit priority list I have. :-D hehe

Squats -- Holy shit were my legs beat down from the rest of the week! I was barely cranking out 10 or 11 by the last round. Crap! Usually I'm good to stick at 14 towards the end of tabata squats, but not on this day. My legs were cramping up and really hurting badly by the end, but I was trying to push through the pain as much as possible. I think I did manage to get over 100 on squats, though, so that was good. :)

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Later Friday night I did a "make up" WOD with a friend who'd had to miss class on Wednesday and Friday. Here's what we made up for ourselves.

21-15-9
burpees
situps
double unders (x3 singles)

Finished up with a sprint down and back on her cul-de-sac. During which we were followed by her husband driving the neighborhood kids around on a golf cart. Good times. :-D

Worst WOD in a looooooooong time

Doing some catch-up posting, and back dating the next couple posts. Apologizes for the feed reader overload!

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Sooooo, remember that Monday morning session with Aimee that I blogged about? I was pretty beat down from that, but had a date with Dorothy to head back to KoP for the 4:30 workout. As a bonus, my husband even wanted to go, and finally got to meet Aimee and Jason, who had been on vacation when he came in over Christmas.

OK, so here's the WOD.

4 rounds:
500m Row
15 Pull-ups
15 Sandbag Burpees (lateral jump over sandbag)

Results: 32:27

Shit. You. Not. That was my finish time. Over 30 minutes.  Holy fucking hell.

At CF KoP, the pullup bar are next to a wall. And I swear if there had been a couple more pullups in this workout, I would've punched the wall. Seriously. I thought about doing a million times during the WOD. I was doing pullups 1 at a time, I was doing them with 2/3 kip and 1/3 deadhang in many cases, and it was awful.

As for the row, after round 1 I just started shutting my eyes so I couldn't even see how slow I was rowing. Boo.

But really it was the pullups that killed my spirit on this one. I guess I didn't enter the WOD with a confident spirit, so I beat myself before I even started. Yeah it was hot and I couldn't get a good grip on the bar even with tape and chalk, but so what? Everybody else was operating under those same conditions, and Aimee was even 5 months or so pregnant!

This was one WOD I really didn't want to finish. With all the fibers of my being, I did NOT want to finish. But I did.

I just hope it taught me something? Sometimes I feel like other people have these great experiences with just finishing horrible WODs, but when I do awful, I never get that sense of pride just for finishing. I did feel very proud for finishing Murph, despite it taking 90 minutes... I dunno. I guess this is just another area of the mental game where I need to keep observing myself and my reactions and hopefully learn something I can apply to future WODs...

Allie

I'm supposed to be doing the dishes while husband mows, but you know I had to get on here and post my WOD first, right? :)

This morning we did "Allie" -- yep, named after one of my friends from the gym. She won the honor of creating a workout to torture us all after her slam-dunk victory on the Paleo challenge during April and March. My goal was to be my time from my first attempt on this WOD.

"Allie"
Run 400m
20 pullups
Run 400m
15 wall ball shots (20#)
Run 400m
10 burpees
Run 400m
5 tire flips

Results: 14:10 -- took 37 seconds off my old time, woot!

This WOD is deceiving -- it looks simple, just run a mile with some other stuff thrown in. But if you go all out, it really gasses you! Plus the humidity was horrible this morning, though thankfully there was cloud cover to keep the sun from totally scorching us on the runs.

Pullups were accomplished as follows: 5-5-5-4-1. My goal was sets of 5, but in hindsight, that isn't enough of a challenge for me. I regularly do sets of 5 deadhangs at the pool -- with kipping in play, I should be able to bust out more like 7 or 8 in a row. But then again, at least I didn't forget how to kip like I did on Wednesday's deadlift-pullup WOD. I'll be happy with 5's for today, and go for more next time. :)

Wall balls were to the 10' mark with the 14# ball. Forgot that Allie was using the 20# ball, and that I meant to use that one too. I think I'd be OK with throwing that to the 8' line. :)

OMG, runs must've been sooooooo slow. Like I've been saying for a bazillion years, I need to hit the track and do several 400m sprints to assess where I'm at. Did you guys know that in high school I ran a sub-6-minute mile, and a 400m in the 1:40s? I was fast as shit. Right now my weight is about 15 pounds heavier, mostly due to musculature I've built in my core, back, chest, shoulders and arms, so it's gonna be a lot harder to move my mass that fast. I'd like to bring my 400's down to the 2 minute mark. Should be doable -- my most recent timed mile was around 8:30.

OK, now I will go work on the kitchen. We have been ignoring it all week and it's a total disaster. I'm going to put on my fav NPR show ever, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and hopefully that will help pass the time. :)

Ooops, I did it again

Couldn't resist the Britney lyrics for a blog title, since yet again I have slacked on posting my WODs the day I do them. :-p

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Tuesday's WOD was honestly just sad. I thought my head was in the game starting out, but then my focus just kind of whithered away, and I ended up performing really poorly. Well, you win some, you lose some. At least I had two very fast people to chase on the runs, reminding me I really need to work on my SPEED.

In 7 min: Run 800m then AMRAP deadlifts (315lbs/205)
Rest 1 min.
In 4 min: Run 400m then AMRAP thrusters (45lbs/25)
Rest 1 min.
In 2 min: Run 150m then AMRAP toes to bar

Results: 18 deadlifts (@ 135#), 23 thrusters, 6 toes to bar

See? Sad.

Deadlifts I pushed it -- probably should've made it to 20, but I am a form nazi on those and take my time on getting set up. Thrusters I just went into la-la land. I came in from the 400m run, and just dicked around instead of jumping on the bar. Booo to that. That's just a symptom that my head is not in the game. For toes to bar, I only did 3 before coming off the bar. My grip is stronger than that, I need to do at least 5 (minimum) before coming off.

All in all, I came to the box, did some running, got a good sweat, and left determined to do better the next day.

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The best part of Tuesday is what happened after the WOD. One of our newer members, Kamie, said she'd like to try the Rx weight of 205 at least once, just to see if she could do it. So I was like, hell yes, let's do it!

There ended up being 4 of us who stuck around for about 20 minutes taking turns on the bar. We started at 155 and worked our way up from there. I was able to share some of my knowledge about deadlift form -- including my absolute favorite setup technique from Rippetoe. Helped Jess with her "shoot up butt", Kamie with pulling the bar along her shins, and Melissa with her form on return (I feel her pain on that one, I still struggle on my return).

In the end Kamie was able to pull 195, and after she did, she did an awesome happy dance and took a little victory lap around the box. She is my kind of chick, I love her energy. :-D

Typing up this story, it sounds so mundane. Four chicks in a gym just screwing around with deadlifts. But what made me so excited about it was that there were 4 of us bad ass CrossFit ladies hanging out, getting our strong on.

So many days I've seen the guys hang around to play with the barbells after the WOD. When the ladies stick around, they are usually chatting or maybe working on their kipping swing. Both of which are great -- I love days when people hang out to talk, and I love seeing everybody working towards getting their pullups.

Those 20 minutes yesterday morning were special because the universe was telling me, yes, you DO have a tribe here. Yes, there are other chicks who get excited about testing the limits of their strength and learning how to get even stronger. It's something I've experienced in other places, but it hadn't really happened here. I can't wait to see what happens next. :)

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This morning I dialed in my focus and pushed myself, so I was happy about that.

2 rounds:
Row 500m
21 burpees

Results:  9:20-ish

 My girl Melissa rolled in at just over 7 minutes, she freakin' rocks my socks!

My first row was 2:01, the second row was approaching 2:20 -- I was too gassed to even look at the final time, but my pace on the rower display was up in the 2:20's for more pulls than I was happy with.

The burpees were just S-L-O-W. Holy cow. I was crawling up and down for some of them. But I didn't take any extended breaks, just slowed down the pace here and there to quasi-rest, so I'm happy with my effort overall.

After class I got a few of the ladies (all chicks today, woot!) to try the single-band muscle up progression setup. It really helped them to be able to focus on the skill of the transition -- both up and down -- by eliminating some of the weight in the movement. Even using a band to assist, the muscle up is still a really challenging movement, especially in terms of learning to support yourself up on the rings, and keeping the rings close to the body. Good stuff! Next time we'll set up the squat rack progression and see how people like that.

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Time to get back to an attempt to be productive on my day off. I am super sleepy so I'm not sure how that's going to turn out. :)

Running, swimming, burpees and double unders

Dammit, I hate "catch up" posts, I really need to get myself back into the habit of posting WODs and workouts here the same day I complete them.

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Today we hit the pool for a little bit, and I did 4 rounds of this WOD that was posted there.

10 rounds:
10 pullups
10 pushups
10 4-count flutter kicks
10 squats

I made some modifications to this. When I can't kip, 10 pullups tends to look like 3-2-2-1-1-1 at the satart, and then get worse from there. Doing 5 at a time keeps things moving. Also, I try to do no fewer than 15 squats, so I upped this to 15 squats.

Honestly, there was no intensity on this, I was just trying to bust myself out of a crappy food coma. Saturday was a total waste in terms of food and activity, and Sunday hadn't been going so well either.

When I got home, I headed out to the garage to finally try out some of the muscle up progressions that I was all fired up about last week. I took some videos, which I'll put together for you guys to check out. I mainly did the video so I could compare what I did to what is shown in the "how to" video, and make sure I'm on the right track. Once I have the video, I'll post some thoughts to go along with it.

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Friday I coached the morning classes, and my buds Allie and Kirk stuck around to encourage me through the WOD which I did on my own after the 0830 class was finished. They rock. :)

2 rounds for time:
20 double unders
21 burpees
30 double unders
15 burpees
40 double unders
9 burpees

Results:  19:05

I don't know if it was the sickness still hanging on, or what, but damn those burpees felt like they took *forever*. But that was 90 burpees per round, and my time on 100 burpees was 10:43 -- so I don't know if I could get much faster on this WOD. My calves are still sore from it 2 days later, definitely lots of jumping to kill your legs!

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Thursday was a REST day. Yay! :)

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Wednesday I was feeling the impact of my first 2 WODs after a week off, and I wasn't sure I should do another WOD -- kind of that moment where you're not sure if more exercise will be best, or if what you really need is rest. Since I worked at the pool that day, I decided I would swim and run just to get the body moving, but keep the intensity to a minimum.

During one of my breaks at the pool I did 50 yards of each of the 6 strokes we covered in my Water Safety Instructor course -- front crawl, back crawl (backstroke), breaststroke, elementary backstroke, sidestroke and butterfly. Well, for the last one, we'll just say that I did the closest approximation to butterfly that I am capable of. :-p

After work I headed to a trail on base that's 90% shaded -- while I've acclimated to the heat here, exercising in the sun is still something that I can't quite handle. That's a lot of what slowed me down when we did Murph the other day. Anyway, I did about 35 minutes of running -- I'm not sure the exact distance, but it's probably somewhere between 3 and 4 miles. Good times.

Worked all the kinks out, and didn't make me feel worse, so mission accomplished. :)

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Coming soon, a compilation of all the Level 1 certification experiences that I've seen in blogs for kelsalynn, who has just signed up for her L1. Woot! :-D

100 burpees

Well, I finally did this one! Last time I went on an extended trip I kept telling myself the next workout would be 100 burpees. Today was finally the day!

Results: 10:43

That's basically a 10 burpee/minute pace, right? I'm OK with that. :-p

Immediately after finished the burpees, I did a set of 50 situps, rested a bit and did 50 more. Then 50 squats, and 10 walkout pushups. I need to incorporate those into my warmups more, they really get the shoulders going.

And now I am very late for showering to have lunch with my parents and their friend, so I'm off. But hopefully I'll report back tomorrow about a WOD at CF Pittsburgh. :)

Partnering-up on Saturday morning

We did a little partner workout this morning, and it was just what I needed. My butt and hamstrings are seriously blasted from all those deadlifts and waiter walks on Thursday, plus scrubbing all the floors in my house on Friday. Husband's sister and her boyfriend arrived last night, so the rest of today will be a beach day - yay!

WOD:
One partner works at a time. Both run the 400 together.
200 air squats
80 push press (95/65)
400m run
100 box jumps (24/20)
50 burpees

Results: Allie and I finished in about 22 minutes

Didn't even do any pullups afterwards -- not even 1. LAME. I really need to get a solid goal list written, and a game plan for post-WOD skill work. TBD...

2-a-days

It wasn't my original intention to do two WODs today, but what the hell, I did anyway. :-D

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AM WOD
 
This morning I did a makeup of yesterday's WOD between coaching the 0630 and 0830 classes. My back was just so tight yesterday, I couldn't get myself to the box to get the WOD done.

WOD: 150 kettlebell swing (32k/24) Every time you drop the kb, run 150m.

Results: 23:59 (sets of: 20-20-14-16-20-15-15-15-15)

I have to admit this one intimidated me. I feel pretty confident with the 45#/20kg bell, but the 53#/24kg bell is just BIG. After the 3rd set of swings, when I only got 14, I wanted to just cry and give up. I'm proud of myself for finishing.

And I also must admit to resting a bit too much, and wearing gloves. I had wussy grip today, ew.

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PM WOD

This WOD was created by one of my best buds at our box, Allie. She is amazing and inspires me every day. She was the winner of our Paleo challenge, and in addition to some other not-so-great prizes, she got to make up her own WOD! I think she did a great job coming up with something challenging but fun. :)

"Allie"
For time:
400m run
20 pullups
400m run
15 wall balls (20/14)
400m run
10 burpees
400m run
5 tire flips

Results: 14:49

Um... in a word -- SLOW. I came out of the gate pretty fast, but my runs were just sucking by the 3rd and 4th 400's.

And can I just say the wussy hands factor came into play majorly in how long it took me to do my pullups. I was back down to sets of 2 and 3. BOOOOOOOOO. I know it was my 2nd WOD, but seriously! I need to be doing a minimum of 3 pullups every time I get on the bar.

Coming soon -- tire flips video. Our tire is only ~100#'s, so it's not that hard to flip, but it still *looks* badass. :-D

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With WODs covered, here are some links I've seen the last day or two. The first one I'd really like your comments on.

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Lisbeth yet again provides some very meaty food for thought, this time the subject is females scaling pushups, a topic that I have actually spent a lot of time thinking about and researching. This, to me, is a breath of fresh air. I have a hatred of knee-pushups.

Get Off Your Knees

"Do tire push-ups, bench push-ups, ring push-ups, wall push-ups. If you don’t have real honest-to-God, chest-to-deck push-ups, then do whatever you have to do in order to get the push-ups done. Tire, rings, wall. But NEVER knee push-ups. 

Seriously. Simply decide that you would rather eat glass than ever go to your knees again."

Post thoughts to comments. How did your own pushups progress? Do you think putting down your knees to scale, rather than changing the angle, hampered your progress to "the real deal"?

--
Stop Being Content and Become Great

"No matter what happens in life or in your training, if you live outside your comfort zone then nothing can knock you off your game.  Sure things might knock you back a step or two, but you are the type of person in which problems and other negative things just bounce right off of because you are used to being outside your comfort level."

I really need to cultivate this type of thing in my life, because I definitely get too set in my ways, and too upset when things suddenly change.

--
I haven't been gainfully employed in over 1 year now, and that still feels really... strange. Reading this article about what "work" really means was good for me. It's hard to uncouple your self-esteem from job performance and salary, and instead derive self-worth from things you accomplish on your own.

Some quotes:

"My definition of work now is that it’s an activity which is undertaken for a productive outcome."

"This turns work into something more like a state of mind than a set of particular activities."

"Work isn’t a place which I go to, or a certain portion of the day; it’s the meaningful stuff which I do, the contributions which I make in the world."

Saturday at the track

Friday was just a blah day, no WOD. Consider that my rest day after all the swimming stuff I've been doing.

Saturday our freaking cable was broken, so instead of watching awesome college basketball games (Go Butler!), we hit the track and gym on base for a workout.

Originally we were going to repeat Dyer, but decided to do a vacation WOD we originally did at my old house in Pennsylvania. 

"Hannah"
4 rounds for time:
400m run
20 burpees

Results:  15:23

My last 2 runs were getting slow, but I felt good because I hardly rested at all before or during burpees, and my lungs were burning.

After that we headed into the base gym and husband talked me into doing 10-9-8... of pullups and situps. So did that, but not for time.

Then he did some squats and pushups while I did about 2:30 total time in handstand hold. I need to keep kicking up against the wall every day now that I can do it, so I can get really comfortable. I did a negative handstand pushup at the end of each 30-45 second hold. I spotted husband on doing some HSPUs after that, he's gonna start working on them as well.

Friday & Saturday

Short and sweet WOD on Friday morning, between coaching 0630 and 0830.

6 rounds for time:
5 handstand pushups
10 burpees
15 abmat situps
150m sprint

Results:  17:39

Biggest news here -- I finally kicked up into a handstand against the wall! I started out with my head on top of 3 abmats, and did a frogstand to a headstand, and then pressed up. A little bit of messing around with that, and I decided it was time to kick up. I took some video with the iPod, but that corner of the gym has a lightbulb out, so it turned out really dark. In any case, I did the WOD by kicking up into a handstand and lowering to 2 abmats. Not the most stellar attempt at HSPU, but still an improvement for me, so I'm happy.

Next I need to find out what's better -- continuing to practice full ROM with the harness, or doing negatives while in the wall-supported handstand.

--
Saturday I coached the 0930 WOD -- we did the same group WOD I went through on the 2nd day of my certification seminar.

Here's the writeup we put on the website:

In 12 minutes your team of 5 will perform as many reps as possible of SDHPs, pushups and box jumps. The time it takes to complete one 50m waiter's walk will determine the rotation intervals for your team. There's a rest station, so go hard!

5 stations

1. Rest
2. Kettlebell Sumo deadlift high pull (24kg/16)
3. Pushups
4. Box jumps (20'')
5. 50m waiter's walk (45#/25 plate)

Final team score is total # of reps completed.

Basically the team members rotate from station to station. During the hand off, the person who was just performing the movement tells the person who is arriving to "relieve" them what the current rep count is for that movement. At the end you add them up for the total. The faster you do the waiter's walk (it was a sandbag carry at my cert) the faster your team members rotate through.

We only had 3 ladies come in this morning, so I did the WOD with them. We took out the SDHPs since we still didn't have 5. I had fun, and I think they did too. :)

Afterwards I took them through the core stabilization work that I did with Jenn at CrossFit Pittsburgh. With the 3 following exercises: round 1, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off; round 2, 45 seconds on, 45 seconds off; round 3, 30 secs on and off.

• handstand holds
• plank
• wall sit

I was glad the group was small at this point, because none of my 3 chicas had ever done handstand holds before. I showed them how to "walk up the wall" while facing away from it to get into handstand position. They all did great! I just watched the handstands, but joined them on the other 2 movements.

All in all, a fun morning. :)

My sister just left yesterday, and my parents are arriving this afternoon for a visit, so I'm off to clean and put lots of bedding and towels through the wash. :)

Filthy Fifty - the rematch

So, back in October, during a trip up north to visit family, I DNF'd on Filthy Fifty at CrossFit KoP.

The posted WOD for 3/14 is again Filthy Fifty, with a reminder link to compare back to October.

In a wonderful turn of events, the WOD my box schedule for today was Filthy Fifty, so I was able to finally make an attempt to finish this WOD and get a baseline time.

It turned out pretty ugly. But I got it done.

I probably wouldn't have felt so beat down if I hadn't attended a 1 hour swimming class just prior to doing this WOD. And also if it wasn't my first time back in the pool in about 6-7 months.

Oh well, that's definitely a "varied stimulus" that should produce some bad ass adaptations! :-D (Yes, I have been studying my CrossFit manual for the cert this weekend.)

"Filthy Fifty"

50 reps of each movement, for time:
Box jump, 24 inch box
Jumping pull-ups
Kettlebell swings (24kg/16)
Walking Lunges (50 total steps)
Knees to elbows
Push press, (45lbs/25)
GHD Back extensions
Wall ball shots (20/14)
Burpees
Double unders

Results:  41:25, Rx'd

I definitely dawdled a good bit during this WOD. Probably enough to take off 5 minutes. I was feeling decidedly beat down and wussy.

In bullets:

• Box jumps: It felt good to jump the 24'' box -- seems like all I've been doing lately is the 20''. I like the big one better. 
• Jumping pullups: felt weird! I haven't done one of those in a very long time. 
• KB swings: 2 sets of 25. Cake.
• Lunges: Could've been a lot faster, and in larger sets. 
• Knees to elbows: Done in sets of 5. I'm still using a good bit of kipping at the bottom to get my knees up. But I do try to engage the shoulders and get my back parallel to the ground when I get to the top. These really hurt my hands!
• Push press: Sets of 25, 15, 10. 25# felt super light after the 55# for Fight Gone Bad.
• Back ext: Started with 25 straight, not sure of the rest of the breakdown. Felt fine doing them, but OWWWWWW, my back was one big ass spasm when I was finished. I could barely climb off the GHD.
• Burpees: When I got in my groove, I was pumping these out. Tried to do sets of 10. The last 10 were really brutal... I actually took some pointers from that video of the Guvernator at the CF Games Ohio Sectionals, where he's watching a deadlift-burpee WOD. The girl doing burpees in that video had a great technique.
• Double unders: THANK GOD I can do these now. Got the first 40 in sets of 10-ish. Last 10 were ridiculous. My shoe came untied and that laces were getting caught in my jump rope, so I just ripped it off so I could do the last one. That got a laugh out of my spectators. My anger amuses them. :-p

Final thought of the recap -- tired. I am beat. Gotta hit the rack early tonight, because tomorrow at 8:30am we're doing the main site WOD from a few days ago. Gotta love 10 rounds of anything. :-p