Countdown to 30: 2 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
5/03: 151.4

Sunday has become family day at the gym. Nick comes with me and works on whatever form stuff he's mastering (past several weeks it's been deadlifts and bench presses) then does cardio (usually walk or jog outside) while I get my Crossfit on. I really like that he joins in, even though he's not into fitness in quite the same way I am. It's cool to share what I'm learning with him, and to hang out.

So I was expecting that we would do the same strength based thing today, but Nick was game to give a WOD a try. I was planning on Tabata Something Else, which was the WOD I missed when I took Friday off.

So, brief explanation: a "Tabata" is thusly named because it is a high intensity training method developed by Dr. Izumi Tabata, who discovered that a 4 minute workout, cycling between 20 second of work and 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds, could produce amazing strength and endurance gains in already trained athletes. A 4 minute workout sounds pretty weak....until you do your first Tabata. Then you get it.

So "Tabata Something Else" is 4 back-to-back, 4 minute Tabata's. The first cycle is pull-ups, second is push ups, third is sit-ups, forth is squats. There is no rest between cycles, so the whole workout is 16 minutes long. The first minute isn't so bad but the last 15 are a bitch. Your score is the total number of reps you get, total across all cycles.

Nick seriously maned up and joined me for Tabata Something Else. He timed me, then I timed him. Alas I have misplaced our score sheet, but I think I was around 370 and Nick was around 210. I do remember I held a remarkably constant rate on sit-ups (10 on almost all rounds) and squats (17 across all but a few where I slipped to 16 - but upped it to 19 on the last one despite the burning in my quads). Pull-ups and push-ups were, no surprise, the weak links. I was disappointed with how quickly fatigued I got on the upper body stuff, but then again 150, 45# dumbbell swings yesterday was bound to take something out of me. I was also having some grip issues. Here's why:


Yes, this is the sight that greeted me after my workout when I pulled the band-aids off my pinkies. Remember how I blistered, then tore, the skin on both pinkies doing the aforementioned dumbbell swings? Well, they had not responded particularly well to being "protected" under a bandage for 24 hours. Truly nasty. They look much better now that they've had a chance to breathe--less necrotic. I think I was attempting my pull-ups with 80% of my fingers and doing the classy British tea-drinker pinkie-in-the-air thing with my wounded digits. You wouldn't think two little pinkies would make that much of a difference in grip strength, but I believe they do.

Dinner last night was delish, and plated up nice enough for a pic:



Ponzu-Maple Glazed Coho with Brown Rice and Spring (ish) Veggies

Countdown to 30: 12 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

After a few days of felling less-than-awesome physically it was nice to feel really on my game yesterday. Sunday & Monday I was just a bit tired, which is unusual compared to how great I've been feeling lately--I attribute it to my monthly hormonal variations and Seattle weather, which has been flipping between gorgeous and crappy all week. Tuesday was a wonderful rest day, and it was really rewarding to come back hard on Wednesday with that PR deadlift.

Today I knew what was in store for me off the Crossfit Mainsite: The Filthy 50! This is one of the first WODs I ever did, and it remains one of my absolute favorites. I think the first time I did the Filthy my time was around 45 minutes. Alison and I went at this one pretty hard. I was hoping for a sub-30.

Here's the Rx Workout, with my subs and notes in parentheses.
50 Box jump, 24 inch box (18" box)
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood (35# gripper plate)
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows (most ended up closer to knees-t0-armpit)
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Back extensions (straight back extension station was in use, so I did these on the angled back extension bench. I'm sure my back appreciated the break.)
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball (12# ball, probably 9 foot target)
50 Burpees (broke these up into 10 sets of 5 and seriously powered through them...my best burpee experience yet.)
50 Double unders (I knew at this point that double unders were not possible without a bathroom break, so I subbed out 150 single unders instead. I'll spend some time on double under form in the next week or so until I can figure 'em out.)

Total Time: 25:40. WAY under 30:00! Yeah! Next Time: Sub 25! (Or let's say sub 27 if I'm doing real double unders).

Alison rocked it out with 35 of each activity. Here's her workout, modified because she's new to Crossfit, but still plenty challenging, thank you very much.

35 Box jump, 12" box
35 Jumping pull-ups
35 Kettlebell swings, 15 pound dumbbell
Walking Lunge, 35 steps
35 Ab-mat sit-ups (I think she did these un-anchored, but I'm not positive.)
35 Push press, 20 pounds
35 Back extensions (Straight back extension station.)
35 Wall ball shots, 10 pound ball for first half, then subbed to 8 pound ball, 9 foot target
35 Burpees (A suck-fest no matter how you look at it.)
105 Single unders (Alison geared up and got it done with a 3:1 sub, even though jumping rope is not her favorite. At all.)

Alison's Time To Beat: 26:47 Next time she'll move up in either weight or reps....a few more crossfit workouts and she'll be doing this one as rx. Alison has the right kind of dogged stubbornness that will make her a damn fine crossfitter, should she chose to keep it up. (Dogged stubbornness is a trait I recognize in others because I am so overly endowed with it myself.) She might be in massive amounts of pain and she might be hating life but you just know she's not going to give up. That's so cool. Great job, Alison!

Good workout!

Countdown to 30: 20 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

Moving average on weight has been dead flat for several days. At this point I can only continue to eat clean, train hard and see what happens. Honestly, I'm not willing to drop my caloric intake below about 1800 with the way I'm training (I'm not giving up muscle if I can possibly help it), so I'll just have to see what consistency does for me over the next 20 days.

Spent the AM with K-Lo, but we didn't work out at all! We barely even talked about fitness, actually. Shocking! It was nice to hang out and see her.

So, did an afternoon Hero WOD, "Danny" named after a California SWAT team member who was killed in the line of duty. The guy Officer Danny and was going in to get when he was killed was (allegedly) a scumbag who has already been imprisioned for assault with a deadly weapon, jumped parole, killed another few cops earlier that day, and was wanted for the rape of a 12 year old. So as one would expect, the workout in Officer Danny's honor was a brutal ass-kicker.

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
24 inch Box Jump, 30 reps
115 pound Push Press, 20 reps
30 Pull-ups

Alison did this one with me and we both scaled like nobodies buisness (because 20, 115-pound push-jerks might be possible for me over the course of a day, but push-presses? Not yet!)

Alison got 4 rounds + 13 box jumps. She scaled to 12" on the box jumps, 30# on the push presses for her 1st round and 20# thereafter, and subbed 55# and 45# lat pull-downs for pull-ups. Nice work!

I was 3 rounds + 30 box jumps, 20 presses and 6 pull-ups. 24 pull-ups shy of four rounds. I scaled to an 18" box, and still managed to bash the shit out of my shin when I jumped into instead of onto the box on round one, rep 6 of box jumps. Completeing the rest of the jumps was a bit tingly and awkward after that. Used 60# for the presses, and broke the pull-ups into 10 sets of 3 for each round, but did them all unassisited.

My blood blister from the 120 pull-ups/120 dips workout had popped the night before and I used nail glue to tack the skin back together. Saddly, the nail glue did not hold out against the rotational stress of the push-press and pull-ups and long about round 2 the tender baby skin under the blister was being dealt the full force of the motions. Between the bashed up shin and the ripped off blister, this workout was painful in a non-muscular or cardiovascular way.

I'm not trying to winger: it's a fu@king Hero WOD, so I tried to toughen up and push through. Did what I could. RIP, Officer Danny.

After that, Alison and I talked about going straight into the Crossfit Endurance cardio WOD (1 minute ladder) and opted to go get ice cream instead. Yeah, that's right, ice cream! So we both had a child's scoop of the dairy free, fat free strawberry sorbet (140 calories for 4 oz) and it was both delicious and non-diet-breaking. Bella, who had also sustained injury that day (scraped knee and nose - recess can be brutal) was the motivation behind our medicinal ice cream break. She opted for mint chocolate chip in a sugar cone.

Playing Catch-Up

It's been less than fun this past 8 or 9 days. After a bike ride that kicked my butt, I took several days off of hard training, and have been just easing back into stuff.

Here's how last week has looked:
Monday: recovery day from bike ride; promptly got sick
Tuesday: sick
Wednesday: Crossfit WOD (push jerk); sick
Thursday: sick
Friday: Crossfit Personal Training Session (~60 minutes of swings, deadlifts & presses); still sick. Had to pause mid-way through an 8 min max round WOD, and the trainer must have thought I was going to pass out, because he switched out my 35# kettlebell for a 24#er when I wasn't looking. I think the 4 days of minimal eating really caught up with me as soon as I attempted exertion for any sustained amount of time.
Sat: sick; but starting to feel better. Ate today.
Sun: Swim Clinic (60 minute). Felt better after clinic; decided the time was right to start easing back into my training.
Mon: When I say easing back, I mean easy, damnit. Did a ~30 min bike ride (some hill work) + 90 minute walk
Tuesday (today): 1 mile open water swim in the heaviest swells I've ever dealt with. Did 125 yd repeats, building like this: 125; 125; 250; 250; 375; 125; 250 + several back and forths for sighting drills that added at least another 100 yds. Total = 1600

Hit It.

Crossit WOD for Wednesday 080716

Deadlift 5-5-5-5-5 reps
115/135/145/155/165

I'm not doing these right. Not stable enough. Lauren gave me some awesome pointers, but I have yet to implement her advice on heavyish loads. This is a tough exercise for me, especially trying to pull from the floor with tight hamstrings. Need to work on it, though: there's hardly a lift that's more universally applicable. I mean, we need to pick things up off the ground all the time, right?

No cardio yet, hoping to get in a PM run.

Update: I definitely did those deadlifts W-R-O-N-G. Lower back is all sore today, and hamstrings are tight but comfortable...as if to say, "hah hah, you lifted 165 pounds with stabilizer muscles and totally let me off the hook." Bastards.

My Plan Was A Joke

It was. My idea that I could take my base level of weight lifting from the most active period in my life (5+ hard gym sessions a week) and jump back into that, plus tack on a comprehensive endurance training program to do this tri was just not realistic. My enthusiasm was compounded by naivety, and it turns out my body just won’t do whatever my excel spreadsheet tells it to.
Prob #1: I was sick for two months. Okay, there have been days of not-sick, but for the most part, the entire late winter was shot do to a long-lingering flu variant.
Prob #2: I ignored being sick just enough to push myself into mild injury. Still unsure what went wrong, but after a relatively mild jog (with a good deal more hill climbing than I normally do, granted) my left foot was twingey. It stayed twingey, and actually progressed into limpy after a few hours. So, like a good girl, I stayed off my foot for jogging or cardio sessions. Not enough: one good session of lower body focused lifting and moves like walking lunges on my bum foot caused my opposite hip to get all jinky on me. I’m sure my foot pain caused my form to suffer and in turn put too much stress on the right hip. Twingy foot --> Jinky Hip --> Missed Gym Sessions. In any event, the combo has me layed up again, and to add further insult to the injury, I dropped a bench on my right foot this evening. What is wrong with me?!