Crossfit log for Wednesday, July 18th: Hooked up with Fran, finally.

Just before the fire (life is now separated into "before the fire" and "after the fire"), I missed my date with Fran, I got my chance to make it up today.

Fran is a benchmark workout in Crossfit. It's three rounds of thrusters and pull ups.  21 reps of each the first round, followed by 15 and then 9.  A thruster is a barbell exercise where the bar is racked on your deltoids under your chin. From standing, you do a front squat, then you thrust upwards to standing and with that momentum, push press the bar overhead, then return the bar to the rack position for 1 rep.  The prescribed weight for men is 95lbs on the bar.

I'm not there yet. I've tried 65lbs, 75lbs and even 85lbs with varying degrees of success.
My previous Fran efforts have been :
Sept 2, 2011: 13:22 @ 75#
Oct 8, 2011: 9:44 @ 75#
Nov 19, 2011: 13:35 @ 85#
Jan 23, 2012: 8:12 @ 65#
April 6, 2012: 9:16 @ 75#

Today: 7:24 @ 75# !!!! knocking nearly two minutes off Fran is a big improvement.  I'm not sure if I took fewer breaks than previous efforts, but I am sure the breaks were shorter, I made a conscious effort to minimize the time I spent panting and wallowing in self-pity staring at the bar, and just got back to work.

In November after my fiasco, some athletes that used lighter weight and band-assisted pull-ups had times close to 6:00. Francois said they needed to up the weight and us less assistive bands. They were getting too fast at their current effort.

Previously he had said, over 10 minutes and you aren't getting the metabolic conditioning. In fact he sometimes caps the workout at 10:00.

So I think that's my plan. I'll go back to 75# to get back under 10:00 and work until I can go sub 7:00 or sub 6:30 before I increase the weight again.

I went unbroken the first round at 65lbs in January, but I made it to only 16 of the first 21 today, so I also want to be able to do the first 21 thruster unbroken before I move up. I think next time might be the last at 75lbs. We'll see.

So at the very least, I got a good plan out of today's workout.

Plan is working. I think I'll add to that plan, that the first 21 thrusters have to be unbroken before I move up to 85#. I went unbroken the first round at 65# in January, and I made to 16 of the first 21 today. So I think next time might be the last at 75#. We'll see.

I broke up the work, round 1, thrusters 16 + 5, pull ups 15 + 6, round 2 thrusters 5 + 5 + 5, pull ups: 5 + 5 + 5, round 3: thrusters 5 + 2 + 2, pull ups 9! I was going to break them up, but coach Isabelle was standing right next to me yelling "UNBROKEN! UNBROKEN! DON'T STOP", makes it hard to drop off the bar with that going on!

Very pleased with this.

At lunch I did the Frog in the pot of boiling water workout on the lousy treadmills at the Y, the only work out I can really do on them.Started at 6.4 mph increased by 0.2mph ever 2 minutes. Stopped at 26:00 at 8.8mph (approx. 4:19/km) not stellar, but solid. Needed to go 4 more minutes but I didn't have it today. Maybe doing this on the same day as Fran isn't such a good idea.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, July 17th

Skill work: Split jerk. Lighter weight to focus on form, 75#.

WOD
5 rounds for time
30-25-20-15-10 double unders
5-10-15-20-25 kettle bell swings 20kg

Did really well, even on the double unders, until the last round, couldn't string together 4 in a row, and even the kettle bell, I had to break it up.

6:52

I'll take it.


At lunch I did dead lifts at the Y, since I missed Crossfit on Monday and they did dead lifts.

PR'd at 255lbs, but my back wasn't very pretty. But I did it.

Crossfit log for Friday, July 13th

Interesting workout today.

Strength work was floor press, like bench press, minus the bench. You obviously can go as low because you elbows can go past the floor. I'm not sure I get the point, but I managed 165lbs, so better then my best bench press. Woot.

The WOD was a good one.
500m row
1 rope climb
10 thrusters 75#
1 rope climb
8 thrusters
1 rope climb
5 thrusters

6:19

Thrusters were hard. I don't like them. I should've done women's red Rx instead of men's blue, the rope climbs were 3 climbs, 2 climbs 1 climb but the thruster were 65# instead of 75#.

But it was good, fast and intense. I liked it.

Crossfit log for Thursday, July 12th

Today we did "snatch balance". Well everyone else did, I still can't overhead squat, so I worked on that with an empty bar instead. It's better than before, but still needs a ton of work.

Snatch balance is practice of the last part of the snatch. So rather than driving the bar up in front of you, you start with the bar on your shoulders, and simply dip at the knees and hips and drive the bar up to catch it in an overhead squat.

I'll get there.

WOD was another rough one
3 rounds 21-15-9
-kettle bell swing 20kg
-wall balls 14lbs
-burpees

8:19

Crossfit log for Wednesday, July 11th

Wednesday seems to have become the WOD only day. No strength work.

Thankfully it wasn't very leg intensive, so I should be good for this evening's 5km time trial.

4 rounds of 3:00 AMRAP on 1:00 rest # of reps for score.
- 5 triceps dips
- 6 ground to overhead 95#
- 9 air squats.

Scored 114. Made 1 full round each of the 3:00 minute rounds, made it through the second set of dips each time, never got the squats the second time, did 3 sometimes 4 ground to over head each round except the last, I only got 2.

Running log for Wednesday, July 11th

So last night's 5km time trial was a total bust. I got there too late (corralling kids is like corralling cats sometimes), so I took off quickly to warm up. It was like 6:45.Kiza  had said she'd start it at 7:00.

Instead of staying around the soccer field, once I got the end of the field where the rest of the route started, I ran out the start of the route, planned to go 4:00 out and 4:00 back. As I'm running back, when I get to the soccer field, the group is running towards me. They had started early. I was bewildered. A few of the clinic members convinced Kiza that I had already started my own personal time trial (she really should've known better, but I was nowhere in sight). So I went back to the started, tried to get my heart rate down and drink some water. I took off 2:30ish behind the group.

So naturally I started way too fast to try and catch up. And it was really hot and dry, my throat was parched by the turn around. Thankfully someone was there with water so I managed to get a quick drink. I bummed some water from a fellow runner with less than a kilometre to go. I got a stitch in kilometre 3, and had to walk for a few seconds.

Finished in 22:23. It was a disaster. We'll try it again in 8 weeks, see what I can muster.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, July 10th

We did split jerk for strength. Did 95#, tried a couple of times at 115# but it was too heavy.

Did 4 sets of 4 reps super set with 8 reps of ring rows.

WOD was 4 rounds for time
- 10 plate push ups (alternating 1 rep hands on plates, 1 rep hands on floor)
- 10 pull ups (unbroken)
- 20 sit ups

6:28