Crossfit log for Friday, July 22nd

I missed the class this AM, snooze button on my cellphone is too small for my 5:30am fingers to find correctly

So I did the WOD from the CFE site:
15:00 AMRAP
10 Back Squats 95# it called for 135#
15 KB Swings 20kg it called for 1.5pood which is closer to 24kg
20 GHD Sit-ups

Did 4 rounds + up to 5 GHD sit-ups.

Not bad. Worked really hard on keeping a neutral back and outward rotating my hips during the squats.

Dave Grant's Beer Mile

Dave was totally I'm gonna kick ass here dudes, and he drank his first beer pretty quick so I was nervous cause in my other beer mile, my fisrt beer was my fastest and it just got slower from there, but i tried top ace my self, but I couldn't let him jkust run awayu, so i tried to stay with him in the first 400 bad idea managed to get my breathing under control and finshed my beer before him

NOw I was runnin gmy own pace and was better for it, not so out o f breath at beer 2 and 3. Afer beer 4 i ran for all i was worht since didn't need to save breath for another beer.

Broke 10 minutes!!! YEAH!@

9:52!  I ROCK!!!!!

Crossfit log for Thursday, July 21st

Back feels good today. A bit sore, but a good sore, like "I worked hard" sore, not "I can't bend over" sore.
Shoulders are sore too.

Today's WOD at the Y.

5 rounds of:
10 wall balls
10 t2b
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 double-unders

Harder than I expected it to be.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, July 20th

Good WOD today. Tough one.

10 rounds of: max rep. 65% 1RM Clean, max rep. pull-up. 30min time limit.

Pause more than 5 seconds and you're done, let go of the bar and you're done.

Don't know my 1 rep max clean, so picked a relatively light weight I felt I could manage (85lbs). We could only use one band, but all the green ones were taken, so I use purple.

12/6, 10/5, 12/5, 10/5, 9/5, 6/3, 7/4, 7/4, 3/2, 0/0

I really focused on keeping my back neutral during the cleans. and felt good. It's a bit sore now, but a good sore, not like last week. We'll see how if feels tomorrow.

Next time I think I'll go even lighter using the 15lbs bar instead of the 35lbs "women's" bar.

Crossfit log for Monday, July 18th

Wow, a day off followed by a weekend trip to visit family and suddenly I've had 4 days off.

Back is much better, so I eased back in to it and did the recovery day workout (15 reps of push-ups, GHD situps, GHD extensions, air squats, pull-ups (did 170lbs on the pull-down machine)) then I added some shoulder press (also 15 reps).

Then I got on the treadmill for 10 minutes, then stretched. My back soreness is more related to my hips, hams and glutes than anything else, so I gave them a good stretch.

Back at it tomorrow AM.

Crossfit log for Wednesday July 13th

Practised double-unders today with my brand new skipping rope.

Bounced around like an idiot for 15 to 20 minutes and got a couple of good runs, 5 and 6 in row and managed once to do 8 in a row. Surprisingly exciting accomplishment.

Did some GHD situps and hip extensions. (10 of each)

Then I got on the rower and did 1500m in 6:12. Solid, but exhausting.

I was hoping to get 10 double-under in a row, but I'm happy with 8, if felt really good to string them together like that.

But mostly I feel sore. All the time. It seems like I'm putting my body through the ringer ever other day. But them sometimes I feel strong. I jumped on the rower the other day for 500m and felt awesome, better than I've ever felt, holding pace seem effortless.

My running isn't improving, yet. I need to be more disciplined and do the intervals and not bail and go for a long run, like yesterday.

I'm really looking forward to getting on the bike, maybe in the fall, and see how that feels. Or in the pool, with all this upper body work I hope to see some improvement there too.

Really now I need to be patient and do the work and look for results later, if I look now I'm afraid I'll get discouraged and throw in the towel prematurely.

Running log for Tuesday, July 12th

I decided instead of intervals to go for a long run.

Long being just under 9km, since I haven't run over 5km in ages.

Next time I get a hair brained idea like that, someone make sure I don't do it on a day that's 80% humidity and if feel like 30ºC

But I did it. Stopped at every water fountain, but I did it. 50:51 5:44/km I'll take it.

Crossfit log for Monday, July 11th

Decided to go, since I needed to bring the van to the dealership anyway, it was a good morning to drive in instead of the lengthy bus commute.

Naturally having done Wall-balls yesterday, today's workout: you guessed it: wall-balls.  "Karen": 150 wall balls for time.

After warm-up and 2:00 AMRAP of double-under, (which I managed like 20!) we did the wall-balls. I used a 15lbs ball, instead of the 20lbs prescribed. I tried doing them in groups of 25 but that wasn't happening, decide to aim for 10 at a time and that worked nicely. Managed it in 13:41.

Sweat bullets. Halo firmly in place. Maybe some intervals at lunch.

Crossfit log for Saturday, July 9th

On Wednesday, I told Reza I'd be back Friday or maybe Saturday. He said I should come Saturday, the workout would be great (said with a sadistic smile).

Today I went and the workout was nuts, I barely made if half way.

We did, Diane 21-15-9
Dead lifts (225/155), Handstand push-ups
followed by Elizabeth 21-15-9
Cleans (135/95), Ring dips
and then Fran 21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65), Pull-ups

I didn't even finish Elizabeth!

I can't do hand stand push-up, or ring dips, or pull-ups very well. So, Diane is Dead lifts (145#) and Handstand pushups with my feet on a box, started Elizabeth (95#), on the round of 15 I was running out of time, so I just kept doing Cleans, working on my form and technique, until time ran out. My technique was starting to get better near the end.

My lower back is sore now. I should probably make an appointment with Angela

Crossfit log for Friday, July 8th

Went to the Y hoping to do another custom WOD, but it just didn't workout, I did some dead lifts, just to work on my form, nothing too heavy, gradually go up to 205lbs.

The WOD I wanted to do included box jumps, but there is nothing a the Y that his high enough and stable enough to do them,

While I thought about what to do I tried to do some strict pull-ups and managed surprisingly to do 4 in row.  Ended up calling a day.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, July 6th

Reza is a sick sick man. He made us run 400m in the warm up holding 2 25lbs dumbbells. It was not fun.

Skills work was Press, Push Press and Thrusters. I have a hard time doing the drills with a broomstick and no weight to counterbalance your moves. It feels very lame, but I guess it's important.

Today's WOD:
run 500m
30 Thrusters (95/65)
run 500m

We practiced our thrusters with gradually increasing weight as part of the warm up and I knew (even before we started) that 30 Thrusters @ 95# wasn't happening.

I tried with 65#, and it felt pretty easy. And I done 65# Thrusters as part of a recent WOD so I knew I could do that, but I wanted to do more, so I tried with 85# and it was tough. I might have been able to pull it off, but decided to hedge my bets and go with 75#. It was a good call. I did Thruster in just over 5 min, doing sets of 5 before dropping the bar. Which means I had to do 4 cleans to get the bar in position, so more work, but it worked out well, the last Thruster almost didn't make it. It wasn't pretty, but I did it.

Not a long or brutal workout (like Monday) but challenging and fun.

Finished in 10:38

Crossfit log for Tuesday, July 5th

Made up my own WOD today.

It was harder than I expected it to be.

I wanted legs and core so I decided to do squats and toe-to-bar. I wasn't sure how many to do, one frequent formula is three rounds of 21-15-9. Then I looked around at some crossfit sites to see what they were doing. www.Crossfit.com main site: rest day (of course), www.CrossFitEndurance.com had: 5 rounds each for time of (3 Front Squats 70% 1RM, 6 Box Jumps 30″/24″, Row 9 cals (I don't know what that is)).

So I thought, 5 rounds for time sounds good but how many???

So then I went to www.CrossfitPei.ca, they were doing (10Min AMRAP - 5 Thruster, 10 Burpees) AMRAP - yuck, burpees - hmmm

I scrolled down and yesterday they had: 5 rounds for time of: 5 Cleans, 10 Box Jumps, 15 Pushups.

Ah ha! I'll do 5 rounds for time of 5 squats (weight to be determined), 10 toe-to-bar and 15 burpees. Sounds great!

I get to the gym and part of my warm up I do some air squats and GHD sit ups and hip extensions and I try a couple of toe-to-bars. Um... yeah... not doing 5 rounds of 10 of those.

So as I start doing squats with just the bar (then adding a little weight to find what I can handle), I'm rethinking my custom WOD.

Final decision: 5 rounds for time of 5 squats (settled on 115lbs), 5 toe-to-bar, and 5 burpees.

I could have done more burpees, but I wanted numbers that were either the same all round, or all incremental. So 5 rounds of 5 each was the formula I chose.

It was very challenging. I did it in 9:15, I'll have to try it again some day to see if I can do it faster. The squats were rough, but the T2B were worse. The burpees just tired me out.

So I'll call it a success!

Yay me!

Oh and I almost forgot to add I did 500m on the rowing machine to cool down.

Crossfit log for Monday, July 4th

After a brutal Canada Day race, I took the weekend off.

This morning back at it, with 3-3-3-3-3 Cleans, manage to do 115lbs. I have the strength to go heavier, but my technique is lacking. The lift part is getting pretty good, but the clean part lacks coordination.

Then we did the WOD: 10 rounds of 10 box jumps, 10 pull ups.

Box jumps were a snap. I love doing those. (except when combined with squats or dead lifts).

But I hate pull ups. Passionately. Started with the green band and after the 3rd round went to get a black one to give me an extra boost, and even then it was a struggle.

But I did it, 100 box jumps, 100 pull-ups. 20:37

I may run a lunch.

Four of Five (but really of Four) - Canada Day 5km

Brutal.

Morning was chaotic, getting everyone loaded up and ready to go. We were late leaving, but still made time to stop at *$. We picked up Denise and drove out to Kanata for the Canada Day Race put on by Bushtukah.

My warmup consisted mostly of running back and forth to the van to bring back some item we no longer needed or to fetch something we'd forgotten.

Left the kids in the care of Jo-Jo, Denise and Clarisse and headed to the start line, wished Kiza  good luck and seeded myself near the front. I saw Nick and wished him luck.

I didn't think it would go nearly as well as I was hoping. My hips and back were still sore for recent workouts, and during my "warmup" I felt tight. But I was determined to let it ride.

We took off at a crazy pace and immediately hit an up hill. So much for pancake flat there Andy!  Pace was like 3:45 or something. Saw a big sign that said 1km way to soon to be the actual 1km marker, but then I noticed my stopwatch hadn't started! Grrrrr!

I settled down a bit, focused on running the tangents and taking note of the people around me. But I was already starting to feel it wasn't happening by 2km. I was hot, sore and out of breath and decide to walk the water station, get some fluids down and get my heart rate down, the hammer it home.

I must of left my hammer at home. My pace kept climbing and energy level kept dropping. By 3.5km I was in damage control. I rallied in the last kilometre and managed to hold pretty good form, if not pace, to the end.

I've been asking to much of my body lately. I have to remember this is a long term goal and plan, I'll continue CrossFit over the summer and re-test in the fall. Maybe beat Beethoven (the first 5km I ever did).

I was so wiped that I fell asleep in the van on the way home.

Final time: 22:37

Again, brutal.