Crossfit log for Wednesday, February 29th: Oh Cindy, how I love to hate thee

Progress is progress.

Cindy, for any non Crossfit types, is a standard workout, like a benchmark.
In 20 minutes, do as many rounds as possible of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats. Sounds deceptively easy, but when you get to 15 minutes you are wishing it was over 5 minutes ago, and you still have 5 minutes to go!

Last time I did this was in October, I managed 11 rounds plus up to 10th squat in round 12. Today I did 14 full round, plus 2 pull ups.

Progress.

If my arms weren't sore enough from the 60 push ups in Mondays WOD (workout of the day), they certainly are now!

Man date

Had supper with my buddy Dave yesterday at Stella in the market. It was good to catch up.

The take home was that I need a new job. He was clearly a happier man no longer working at PCO.

Putting out fires continuously for 15-20 years takes it's toll on a guy. And I've been feeling the strain for a while now.

The Filet Mignon was delicious, as was the Pinot. The company was the best.

P.S. I totally guessed the age of the one and a half month old baby at the next table.

Self-sabotage or just over tired?

Granted a had a great night's sleep last night. (despite the 5:00am wake up from a freaky dream), so I really have no excuse for forgetting my gym bag.

My lunch time run is out the window now. Grrrr.

This is the second week in a row I've done this and it costs me at least a day of training.  So now I either have to run tonight or skip another day. 

Maybe a rest day is a good thing.....

I really like volleyball

Friday last I reluctantly volunteered to attend my daughter's grade 6 volleyball tournament at a neighbourhood school. 

I should have known.  I loved every minute of it.  

It brought me back to my days as a volleyball player in high school. The one sport I was ever any good at. 

I brought the best from my coach to the court side.  Encouraging, forget that bad play, focus on the next one, be ready, get into position. Praise the opponents for well executed plays.

My daughter was embarrassed at first because I was so vocal, especially to the "strangers" on the other team, but when my enthusiasm became contagious and was praised by her peers, she came around, and started being more vocal herself.

Over lunch I told them that the best game they had play during the morning session was the one they had lost.  This piece of news shocked them.

I explained that sometimes it's better to lose to a stronger team than beat a weaker one, as long as you give them a run for their money, and play your best, which was what they had done.  I told them they should thank the other team for pushing them to play their best and congratulate them for a hard won victory.

I think they got the message. Or at least the gist of it.

They tied for first among the 4 schools in attendance.  They were pretty pumped about that.

Facebook was abuzz with celebration and a couple of posts mentioned me. 

"I hope he comes back"

"It's because of him we won"

"He really help by saying - it's okay" [when they missed], to which one of the boys replied "You're lucky, madame just yelled at us". ;)  

So now I have to go back. 

I can't fathom how I was ever reluctant to go in the first place.

Crossfit log for Monday, February 27th

Crossfit this morning was good.

Legs were tired from yesterday's run.

We did snatches again. Resorted to the split snatch once we added weight.

Started with the drop snatch, basically with the bar on you shoulder like for a back squat, start on your toes, like you are at the apex of the pull, and drop down under the bar in to a squat. Needless to say I suck at this, it's essentially a speed overhead squat. One day.

Then we added weight and I went to the split squat, which I can do. Started with 55#, and went up to 65# and finally 75#

The WOD was 6 rounds for time:
10 "plate" push ups (hands on two bar bell plates, alternate hands on plate/floor)
10 wall balls 14#
10 v-snaps

10:50

Then we did some box jumps for height. Managed 34" before i had to leave. I think I could do 42".

Running log for Sunday, February 26th

Ran with the Running Room, needed to be 6:00/km or faster to be back in time to pick up Irondaughter at gymnastics.

The two lead runners seemed to be going at a pretty good clip. I don't normally do the walk breaks, and after we completely missed the first one, I figured I was with the right group. We did take some walk breaks, but they were sporadic, and usually at a milestone, top of hill, next light, at the corner, whatever, just take some water and what not.

Started out with an average pace of 6:12/km after few km, then despite looking at Garmin and regularly seeing 5:4x managed to drop the average pace to 6:18/km. By 16km were down to 6:08/km, so I was in good shape. Around this time the ladies were planning to stop at a gas station to refuel, so I decided to keep going on my own. I picked up the pace and got the average down to 6:01/km.

Not bad. I was only a few minutes late picking up Irondaughter.

It was a tough run. I honestly can't remember how I ever ran a Marathon!

29.14km 2:55:41 Done.

Crossfit log for Thursday, February 23rd

No WOD today.

We did skills work on the snatch and strength work on the squat.

The bulk of the time was spent on the snatch. I did what I could. My lower back is still a bit sore from yesterday's dead lift, plus the fact that I can't snatch, made for an interesting workout.

Some minor improvements were seen though, so good on me.

Did two sets of front squats 95# and 125# then I was done.