So, if you've been reading my blog for a while, you've probably noticed my CrossFit workouts have been pretty light lately. No, I haven't given up working out. I'm just training for a marathon. :)
On October 30th I will be running the Marine Corps Marathon to raise money for the Semper Fi Fund.
The Semper Fi Fund is a nonprofit set up to provide immediate financial support for injured members of U.S. Armed Forces and their families. We direct urgently needed resources to Marines and Sailors, as well as members of the Army, Air Force or Coast Guard who serve in support of Marine forces. The basic ideal that drives our efforts is simple: as much as these American heroes have sacrificed, they deserve the best care and support available in their hour of need. Injuries are often severe, and the road to recovery or rehabilitation can be long and costly.
My fundraising goal is $2,500, and to get there I'm looking for 125 people to donate $20 each. Please consider making a donation, any amount no matter how small will help make a difference in the life of an injured service member.
To donate, visit my Active Giving page: Team Wissmann
To read more about my training, visit my blog: Team Wissmann
Today
Short beach loop
Distance: 4.61 miles
Time: 53:17
Pace: 11:33/mile
I took 3 fairly long walk breaks. The sun was too hot -- I should've done this run about an hour earlier. Also, this was my first long-ish run in quite a while. Due to wildfires conditions have been really smokey here off and on for the last month. I've really lost a lot of what I built up, but hopefully I can get it back quickly with runs a few times a week.
Not my fastest (9:10 @ Level I Cert), and not my slowest either, but only barely. The issue this time was just conditioning. My heartrate was off the charts, and that's what slowed me down the most -- catching my breath. I probably could've benefitted from someone getting in my face too. :)
Sunday 7/3
I ran for ~37 minutes and I don't the distance of my route. It felt good to be up early and outside.
Friday 7/1
Yoga, good times as always. I realized that doing the 11am class really makes a difference in how hot it feels in the room. I think it must be the sun coming in or hitting the building. I never start to feel like it's too hot to breathe in the 5pm or 6pm classes that I've taken.
Thursday 6/30
~30 minute run in the morning.
WOD @ 5:30 (only had 1 student in class, so we did the WOD together :))
4 rounds
800m run
50 air squats
then
50 hands-off pushups
Ran my long loop out along the beach for the first time since March, and it felt great! I'm so happy to be living on an island where I can see the ocean from my running route. :)
My lack of WODs for the past week is directly due to that MF'er I did on Monday -- 100 back squats at 50% 1RM. Thank god I had subs for most of my classes last week, due to my husband being on leave, because I couldn't walk right, let alone demo any movements until nearly Friday. I was seriously crippled.
And I was pissed because I had planned to take my husband to a power yoga class Wednesday night, but I was too sore to go to it. :( BOOOOO!
Though I think this means 2 things.
1. I need to squat heavy more often
2. I need to seriously consider ice baths after WODs that I know are going to crush my legs
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In an effort to relieve my pain, I did the WOD on Wednesday AM. Also, I only had 1 student come to class, and I thought some "side-by-side" coaching would work well for the WOD. Especially since I really wanted to make some detailed observations of her rowing and running, as those are areas where she struggles. And I'm glad to say we had a great session, and got some ideas for things for her to work on. :)
WOD:
3000m Row
1.5 mi run
Results: ~35:00, row was ~13:00, definitely didn't push very hard on the row or run
I'm visiting family up north, and went running with the husband on my favorite trail at Valley Forge National Park. I used to do it weekly when I lived in the area -- great scenery, and killer hills!
The loop is about 5.5 miles, and I ran it in 51:49.
That's a pace of 9:25 minutes / mile.
Woot! One long run per week is really making a difference. I'm hoping it will get my pace down below 9 minutes per mile.
I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I'm running the Marine Corps Marathon in October. To help me train, I'm doing a Jeff Galloway training program this summer and fall -- one of my new CrossFit athletes is a Galloway coach, and swears by it. I think it's a great plan to go into the marathon feeling confident about finishing, and from what I've read, it's also good at preventing / reducing running injuries.
I seem to be making it a habit of running on Wednesday mornings. I like it. :)
Thought about doing CrossFit today, but with heavy deadlifts and burpees on the menu, I didn't think those were a recipe for success on this week's CF Games Open workout. My shoulders are still sore from Lynne on Monday, and the last thing I need is a sore low back before tackling the ladder Fran from hell...
According to MapMyRun, my route was 3.62 miles -- I did a slightly longer loop than last week. I finished in 35:33, which is a pace of 9:49/mile. Slightly faster than last week, so I'll take it. :)
Neat WOD title, huh? Reminds me of "The Viking" from CrossFit Camden. Which is appropriate since Doug programmed this WOD, and he is, in fact, a descendent of the vikings. Seriously! I prefer being Irish. :-p
Did this one on my own after coaching the AM classes. I was so glad I had my iPod armband in my bag from the race this weekend, that helped me keep my intensity up.
"By Land & By Sea"
Row 1000m Run 800m
Row 750m Run 600m
Row 500m Run 400m
Row 250m Run 200m
Results: 26:47
Not awesome, and not horrible - I'm fine with that.
Rolled out and used the band a ton after the WOD. Also tried this MWOD for calves, since mine get sore so often. Holy crap did it hurt -- more on the left side than the right. That is my "tight" side according to the chiro, so I'm not surprised.
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After the WOD I set a new kipping pullup PR -- 12 in a row! Last week I did 10, and thought that was freaking awesome. And this week I've got 2 more! I'm still not as good with stringing them together during WODs, but I'm more hopefully about that getting better now that I'm able to get more in a row just in practice.
Woot!
I'm thinking an update to my "kipping pullup progress" video is in order. Maybe for that I can bust out 15. :-D
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Anybody else doing the OPEN sectionals? I am doing my best to help our affiliate get a team spot at regionals, so hopefully nothing comes up in the workouts that will cause me to DNF. Fingers crossed...
No, that's not a typo in my blog title -- I ran a 15K on Saturday morning.
A 15K with a 2 mile hill. The top of the hill is also the mid-point of a very long, and tall, bridge.
Yes, I did lay down on the ground for a little while after I (finally) crossed the finish line.
Here's my stats:
5K 00:33:15
10K 01:06:43
Chip 01:42:54
Final 01:47:32
Pace 00:11:05
A far cry from my hoped-for pace of 10 minutes/mile -- but hey, what do you expect when you haven't been doing any high mileage training runs? I did do a 5.5 miler last weekend, and I'm glad I did because I think it really cut down on my post-race soreness.
To help combat soreness, I also spent about 30-45 minutes with my lacrosse balls, stretch bands and yoga mat in the parking lot after the race. I still felt pretty tight even after doing all that on race day, but today is 2 days after and I'm feeling pretty much fine. Yay for no DOMS!
We moved into a new place, and I'm finally able to run loops of several miles without any annoying turn-arounds. There's nothing I hate more than an "out and back".
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? :)
For a second, I thought, "there's another sweet assassin?" I hit the link and it lead me right HERE. I was dumbfounded and touched. In my journey discovering my physical capabilities, meeting goals, taking big strides, seeing the changes in my body and how I approach everyday challenges, never ever have I thought myself a bad ass crossfit lady. This moniker I save for the other women that I cheer on in my box, that I marvel at in the Games, and those I meet in our growing community... but not little old me. So to see myself placed in the group by a BAD ASS CROSSFIT LADY is humbling and inspiring to keep progressing in my crossfit journey.
Crossfit keeps getting better and better.
Well, Sweet Assassin, now you know where I stand -- to me ALL my CrossFit ladies are BADASS CROSSFIT LADIES. No matter if they are scaled or Rx. No matter what opinion they have about their body, their abilities or their worthiness for that title. THEY ARE BADASS. And you absolutely are too. :)
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Even though I posted a bunch of stuff on Saturday, for some reason I forgot to talk about what I actually did on that day. Um, yeah, I am supah smart. heh
I got up early to run a 5k, while husband headed out on a half marathon.
Unfortunately I did not PR, even though I did try. Boooo! :( I would like to blame the extremely crowded start of the race, but really I just did not push myself hard enough. Fortunately for me, the race season picks up tremendously down here in the fall and winter, so there should be lots of opportunities for me to attempt to PR on the 5K distance in the near future.
Used my watch to time my first mile -- I'm happy to say it was 8:03. Yay 8 minute mile! :-D
2K row, however, was pitiful -- 9:21. Total sandbag -- I set in at a 2:20 pace and just stayed there the entire time.
Second mile was 9 minutes "ish". Had some watch issues, but no biggie, I was mostly interested in the time of my first mile anyway.
Overall my goal was to finish in less than 30 minutes, which I did. And the weird tight/cramp thing I was having in my lower right back/hip area is now alleviated, so I'm very glad I worked out today.
Due to that pain, I'm going to my first chiropractor appointment tomorrow. Hopefully it helps and doesn't hurt, like my massage I got in February that made my traps sore for a week. That sucked. Keep your fingers crossed. :)
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Time to shower and find some dinner. Nighty night. :)
I envisioned this WOD taking *forever*, but it really wasn't that bad. I could improve my time on this one, but I was pretty happy with the work I did.
WOD:
4 rope climbs
50 thrusters (45/25)
400m run
50 thrusters
1 mile run
Results: 22:39 Rx; time for 1 mile: 9:32
The 4 climbs went well! I used the "standard" rope around the leg technique to go up, and then experimented with different feet placements to come back down again.
For some explanation about the different stuff I was trying, check out this video on rope climbing tips from Beastskills.com.
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Our gym is talking about having another Paleo challenge... And I'm not sure how I feel about it. At the start of our last challenge I had been eating Paleo on my own for several months, had seen excellent results in losing fat and improving performance, and was super gung-ho about getting others on board.
Then the challenge started, and all hell broke loose. Some kind of latent adolescent rebellion kicked in, and suddenly didn't want to eat Paleo because now I "had to".
And honestly, my Paleo mojo has been majorly fucked up ever since. To the point where I'm reading "The Primal Blueprint" and eating a bowl of ice cream.
[O]verall, I think this kind of competition is counterproductive. I’m not saying “don’t run a 5K” or don’t challenge yourself in a way that feels right to you. I am saying that the challenge or competition mentality, when it comes to our bodies and our health, is probably more of a distraction than a help. I think it pushes us into a more narrow definition of what’s acceptable for ourselves.
I can't find the link, but I also read a blog post once about a woman who started a challenge, and had it derail her from a good routine because she wasn't able to be a perfect competitor. So, if I can summarize, she had a good thing going, hitting the gym regularly, doing her thing, good results. Then the gym started a challenge -- you know the drill, start with a benchmark WOD, 6 weeks, repeat benchmark WOD. She had this grandiose plan about how she would "pump up" her current routine so that she would blow her old time away at the end of the challenge. But the pressure to be a perfect competitor completely stalled her ability to even continue what she had been doing. She stopped going to the gym completely because she wasn't able to do it perfectly, as the perfect competitor.
Hope that made sense to you guys -- I'm bummed I can't remember what blog that story came from.
I'm left wondering if they'll include a story that turned out badly for the athlete, like what happened with me. Where a person that had made a relaxed and gradual switch to Paleo found themself derailed by the challenge, because it created pressure to adhere to a perfect standard.
Thoughts from you all? Have you done a Paleo challenge? If you have, did you like or dislike it? Did it help or hurt your overall efforts?
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For 2 weeks earlier this month I had the opportunity to assist with teaching swimming lessons at our pool on base, since I had just completed (and thankfully passed!) my Red Cross Water Safety Instructor course.
And you know what? I'm pretty good at helping little kids learn how to swim. Except the making them submerge when they don't want to part, I am not good at that yet. But other stuff, I'm pretty good at.
It was so fun to see the students in the 2 classes I helped with progress! They worked so hard, and learned a ton, and never gave up, and had so much fun and were so excited.
And so now I'm seriously thinking about signing up for the CrossFit Kids certification, especially because one is being held in Atlanta soon, and that's actually within driving distance for me...
Those of you who CrossFit and have kids -- let me know your thoughts on CF Kids. Are your children already too busy with other sports to participate? Or is it something they would enjoy making time for? Would you like your kids to have class at the same time as you? Or at a different time so you can watch them and maybe participate a little bit in their class?
I think metabolic conditioning is our “bait” – it’s the bright shiny object we use to reel them in.
Did CrossFit draw you in with the "great sweat" workouts, and then you found yourself becoming obsessed with barbell lifts or gymnastics? This was true for me, so I'm just curious if it was true for you guys too?
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. :)
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
Um, WTF? How have I gone this long without posting anything here?
Maybe it has something to do with the unpublished draft post titled "Lost: CrossFit Mojo"...
I've still been doing WODs, but definitely not anything close to my dedicated 3-on-1-off I had going for a while.
I got a pullup bar for at home, as well as rings, and the pool I've been lifeguarding at also has a pullup bar that I've been using a lot. I'm working my tiny kip / almost deadhang pullups since that bar is mounted very close to the wall. I get 30 minute breaks throughout the day, and try to do 5 rounds of a Cindy-ish thing -- as many pullups as I can in a row (3-4 usually), 10 pushups and 20 squats.
That must be working, because last Tuesday I did Murph and managed to finish the whole thing. Definitely without the weight vest though! It took me about 90 minutes, and I broke the 100 pullups, 200 pushups and 300 squats into 20 rounds of Cindy. Finished 12 rounds of Cindy in 20 minutes, BTW. Much better than my pitiful performance (7 rounds + 5 pullups) a couple months ago.
Also, I've worked up to 4 unassisted ring dips in a row. It's time to get a freaking muscle up! But I have a new strategy in that area. I would like to start with doing a strict muscle up, instead of trying to fling myself up and into it. We'll see if I stick with that idea, but it's the one I'm thinking about now.
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I'm in a bit of a different place with my CrossFitting right now... It's coming up on a year since I really started dedicating myself to this program, and I've definitely seen lots of benefits. But a few things have happened in the last 4 or 5 months that have squelched some of my enthusiasm. The sad thing is that those things are all external, and I have let them affect me. I need to get refocus on what matters to me, what motivates me, why I want to CrossFit, and why I want to coach -- irregardless of whatever else is going on around me.
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Also, I'd like to mention that I'm on a 2nd read of the book "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth right now, and I highly recommend it to those who have struggles with compulsive overeating. That's an area that I struggle with, and more so when I'm not super-focused on training.
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So, hopefully this will get me started with some more regular posting. Not because I think anyone out there is really anxious to read about my WODs (except maybe Angie, thanks for the email girl :p), but because I need to continue to keep this record.
I woke up thinking about doing 100 burpees, but there was a break in the rain, so I headed outside for a run instead.
According to my Nike+, I went about 2 miles. First half was pretty much downhill, second half was pretty much uphill, with a finale of the giant hill my parents live on top of. Lovely. Living in the flatland is making my hamstrings deficient, I think. I need to figure out how to build them up for the 1/2 in 2 weeks -- sprints, I guess?
Then I did a shortened version of Blackjack, starting with 15 total and working down from there -- rather than starting from 21. Didn't run a timer.
Not the most challenging workout, but better than nothing. Didn't want to take 2 full days off, and yesterday a workout just didn't happen, and today I'm flying home. Back to normal tomorrow when I'm back home. I need to decide if I'm going to continue with the 603 PTP now, or restart, or restart sometime in the future.
The WOD at CF Camden was too brutal for a 4th day workout, so I took an active rest day. A couple of miles probably helped my sore quads more than sitting on my butt anyway. :)
I think I was going pretty fast at the beginning of my run, but I don't have any record of it because I didn't push the button properly to start up my Nike+ sportband. Doh! I'm obsessed with run metrics, so that really pisses me off.
In any case, I've run the route before, and know I went about 1.5 miles at the point that I realized I wasn't recording. From there til the end of my run, the Nike+ says that I did 2.84 miles in 28:24. 10 minutes per mile pace. Boooooo. Running slow sucks.
Husbeetle and I ran on base, then went to the pullup bars by his office afterwards. I did two sets of 2 consecutive pullups, and then 2 single reps. Not much, but hey, it's my rest day. :-p
Usually I don't post on my rest days, but now that I've made it my goal to post more than just WOD recaps in this blog, I'd like to start using rest days to write about other topics. I thought about adding "Rest Day" to the title, but I don't know. We'll see... Maybe I'll just add that as a label...
-- I didn't include it in my goals post, but one additional thing I'd like to do during 1Q10 is measure my current abilities based on the USMC PFT (Physical Fitness Test) standards for women.
This idea first occurred to me soon after meeting my husband (he's an active duty Marine) four years ago, and I've thought of it from time to time since then. Now seems like as good a time as any to put the idea to the test.
The tentative plan is to measure my performance now (as soon as possible after I get back home from this trip), and then again at the end of March. Hopefully I will get a higher score in March. :-p Even though he will roll his eyes and think it's cheesy, I'll get my husband to administer the test; we'll use the track on base and the pullup bars by his office (same place we took the 1st kipping pullups video).
I can definitely do the minimum right now, so at least I know I won't fail. :-p
In order to score a perfect 300 points as a female, I would need to do the following:
70 second flexed arm hang
100 crunches in 2 minutes
3 mile run in 21:00
200 points is the minimum score for 1st class fitness classification for some of my age. There's no set way to get that score -- I could rock out the run and situps, and not do as well on the flexed arm hang, and get 200. Etc, etc, etc.
When I woke up and saw the sun shining, I immediately thought, "I need to run at Valley Forge Park".
Then I went outside with the dog, and realized it was freezing cold and windy as shit!
Too bad I already told my husband about my idea -- off to the park we went, bundled up in our cold weather gear; thank god we remembered to pack it for the trip.
As usual for wintertime running in Pennsylvania, it was miserable at the start, but once the sweating kicked in full force (after about 10 minutes) all was well. The wind kept things interesting -- the gusts were so strong it was even hard to go against them downhill. Forget about uphill -- we were crawling.
There's something about running outside, with the wind in your hair and the sunshine on your face, that makes everything feel right in the world.
Results (from Nike+): 5.08 miles in 50:25 -- 9:55 min/mile pace
-- Physically, I noticed two things about my body during this run.
One, it takes a lot to get me out of breath. I wasn't really gasping for air at any point during this run, not even on the first super-long hill heading up to the visitor's center. When I took a quick potty break around mile 4, it only took a few seconds for my breathing to completely return to normal.
Two, my legs were HURTING. Holy shit. Ow. I ran the 5 mile loop at the park many times during my 6 years living in the Philly suburbs, and this was by far the most painful attempt. I know it wasn't from going really fast -- a 10 min/mile pace is "nice and easy". I have a suspicion that it has a lot to do with living in the flat lands for the last year. All the walking and running that I've done has been on essentially flat terrain. Very boring and also not as good of a workout as hilly terrain. Maybe I can blame my crappy deadlift PR on that too? :-p
In any case, my legs were so brutalized that I had to walk up the second half of the super steep hill around the 3.5 mile mark, despite taking the shortcut through the grass. That was a first for me, I can usually run the whole route without stopping. I will conquer this route next time I'm back in PA visiting husband's family.
-- Speaking of running, I'll be posting about runs a lot more in the next few weeks because we're signed up for the Critz Tybee Half Marathon. I'll be doing training runs in addition to my usual CrossFit workouts.
I love that we are the kind of couple who signs up for a race in the city where they got married as part of an anniversary trip. :)
