Countdown to 30: 3 Days to Go

4/1: 157.0
4/2: 155.0
4/3: 155.2
4/4: 154.6
4/5: 154.8
4/6: 154.2
4/7: 153.2
4/8: 154.8
4/9: 152.6
4/10: 151.2
4/11: 153.2
4/12: 152.2
4/13: 152.2
4/14: 152.4
4/15: 153.2
4/16: 152.2
4/17: 152.0
4/18: 151.8
4/19: 152.0
4/20: 152.0
4/21: 152.0
4/22: 152.6
4/23: 151.4
4/24: 151.4
4/25: 151.6
4/26: 151.8
4/27: 151.6
4/28: 152.6
4/29: 153.6
4/30: 151.2
5/01: 149.6
5/02: 150.0

Great day today. Lots of great family time celebrating Nick's awesome quarterly review (these are days to be a rock star at work, and Nick is pulling out all the stops) and I even picked up a few new books too!

At the gym, I came back from yesterday (took it as rest - was feeling a bit run down) feeling ready to go, but I gotta say today's Crossfit WOD was intimidating.

The WOD was Hansen, a new Hero WOD named after Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Hansen, who was killed in Afghanistan while serving as an EOD Technician. These Hero WODs suck, in all possible ways: they are a reminder that one of the (usually young men) of our community has died, and because of that they are super challenging both physically and mentally. Hero WODs are generally made of hard motions with heavy weight for lots of reps and lots of sets, and this on was no exception. When everything in the workout sucks, when your hands break open and bleed (as mine did on this one) and when you think you cannot actually do anything more, you go do it anyway, because in a tiny tiny way you are honoring the memory of a fellow Crossfitter. RIP Sgt. Hansen.

As Rx:
5 Rounds for time
2 pood Kettlebell swing, 30 reps
30 Burpees
30 Glute-ham sit-ups

As performed:
45# Dumbbell swing, 30 reps (1.5 pood, or 54#, is the woman's rx weight)
30 Burpees (did the push-up but the jump towards the end was a bit weak)
30 Glute-ham sit-ups

37:06 (I think - my stopwatch/phone is downstairs...will edit if I am misremembering. My goal was sub 30. Not even freaking close.)

This was tough. At the end of Round 3 I could not believe I still had 2 more rounds to go. At the end of the Round 4's swings I realized I had blistered then torn the skin off the bottom joint of each pinkie finger. I did the rest of the workout without using my pinkie fingers, which was a strange feeling on the burpees, and caused me to change my grip on the final set of swings.

After the workout was over, one of the trainers at the gym, who I know and who is a totally nice, cool girl, told me people were worried about my swings. She basically said they were a liability cause if I ever slipped, and someone got hurt, it was 45#, it could be a huge problem....which I get. I think the real issue is that I was set up next to the GHD station, and that's across from where people do their stretching and stability stuff, and I think I musta freaked somebody out. I got the impression that if I did the swings somewhere more...isolated...it wouldn't be a problem.

To be frank, I did look a little freaky doing the swings. My hair was all greasy and flying everywhere, my shoulders were all striated and tendony, my pants were rolled up and my bruised-to-hell shins were on display and I had my music way up so I'm sure I was grunting and breathing really loud in a very uncouth way. Plus, you know occasionally I would yell at myself: "c'mon!" or "5 more! let's go!" or - when I discovered my pinkies were out of commision - "oh, fuck!" I probably would have freaked me out if I had seem me. I can hardly be offended that the poor 65 year old's who were also there were a little nervous. Anyway, I apologized. I don't want to freak anyone out. :(

For all the Globo Gym horror stories out there from Crossfiters, my gym has been super cool. Two of the training staff have their level 1 cert, and one of them - the oft mentioned Kevin - runs his clients thru Crossfit type workouts almost every day. The trainer who talked to me about the swings was totally nice about it and seemed apologetic for having to mention it. In general, it's what you would expect from an independent place. There are a lot of regulars and the staff and regulars form a big, occasionally messy pseudo family. Sometimes there's drama. For the most part I've been able to stay out of it, and I intend to keep it that way. If that means subbing ab-mat sit-ups for GHDs and doing my workout in an empty racquetball court, I'll do it.