Fran

After a tough day at the office, I managed to make it to the gym around 8:15 and get in a Fran: 21, 15, 9 of 95# thrusters and chest to bar pull ups. PR on this was 9:50. Despite being tired already, I managed to hit 9 minutes even, although it took the last of my will. The bike ride home was lonnnng and the collapse upon coming home was fast.

Looks like Michael today, a WoD that I normally do pretty well on. Will have to do it out in Brooklyn, as you can actually run out there.

1 year anniversary

Today is my one year anniversary with Melissa. In addition to a pleasant couple of days and a first date redux, this weekend has afforded me an opportunity to look at some of my goals, accomplishments and failures over the last year.

First, it would be difficult to disagree with the statement that I am in the best shape of my life. I can lift more, run farther, recover faster and have the highest level of confidence in my own physical ability than at any other time. Moreover, I feel like I have climbed to the top of a mountain, looked briefly around at how far I have climbed and then immediately started to look for more mountains to climb. I want to continue to feel that drive to do more, faster, better and have fun while doing it.

To that end, I have been trying to also find the appropriate training/living balance, which seems to work out to 5-6 days on and 1-2 days off, usually weekends. Sadly, some days, like today, get in the way and I have to stay late at work. Will hopefully continue tomorrow.

Jerking around

WOD today was 3x5 clean and jerks. After warmup and a little form work I ended up with this weight breakdown for sets: 95, 115, 125, 135, 125. The 135 set was crap form, especially on the jerk portion. The jerk is such a powerful movement that it is lost on an amount of weight that I can shoulder press, much less push press. The clean ended up being more of a power clean than a squat clean.

This should be a link to understanding the different types of cleans, for those that are unfamiliar:
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CleanCatchHeight.wmv

And this should be the jerk: http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_PushJerkDaveOpensHip.wmv

Lastly, this is what we did, which is essentially putting them together (except I did a push jerk, rather than a split jerk): http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/josh_everett_lift.mpg

Follow up on the Sprint Triathlon

On August 23 I took on my first Triathlon. It was an off road Sprint distance which meant:

800m swim

11 mile trail bike

5K trail run

Since I am best described as a safety swimmer and had never swam more than 50m until that weekend, the first part was the most difficult. It took me 26:39 to get out of the water and I was tired, disoriented and sore from using my abs way too much. Unlike kayaking, mountain Biking and running, you can't fake swimming with athletic capability. You either swim or you don't.

I was 150th out of the water, but pulled ahead on the bike and run to 117th. Not impressive, but I will take it, since I was obviously unprepared for the swim. Not sure if I like the tris, as the events are poorly sequenced(mass swim start is dumb) and not particularly interesting. Adventure racing seems like a much more interesting competition and much less able to be tech'ed for prior to the race. AR punishes those who don't have GPP and that is what I train.

We all like what we are good at, I guess.

Here is the ghetto photo of the finish (yes I am too cheap to buy the $30 print):

Approaching the Anniversary

Still missing posts, but will try to catch up.
(Sunday) Tried Lynn over the weekend: Body weight (BW) bench, 1.5x BW deadlifts, .75 BW cleans. I weigh 177 Done in sets of 10, 9,8, etc. for time. I completed the bench (185)in sets of 3s and 2s, deadlifts of 265 in 2s and 1s, and didn't even try 135 pound squat cleans, as that is just downright dangerous with my current form. I only made it through the ten round, before running out of time and realizing that I am too weak to complete this workout.
Also carried 27 inch TV home from Spanish Harlem.

(Monday) Did FGB at regulation weight and finally made it to 300! Workout is 3 rounds, 1 minute per exercise, 1 minute break between rounds and no breaks between exercises. Count reps for score. Exercises are: 75# push press, 75# sumo deadlift high pull, box jumps, 20# wallball, row (calories). Very pleased with this performance.

(Tuesday) CFE stair WoD, did 3 rounds of (2 min on/2min off, 2 min on/1 min off). Climbed 60 stories, descended 45. Not happy with the setup, but can adapt later. Probably always descending during rest periods so work sets are always going up.

(Wednesday) Did BW benching again, with pull ups and back squats. Workout was terrible and reinforced my own weakness. Then did CFE wod of 16 rounds of 10 sec work/20 sec rest at sprinting. Went a total of 1025m, but on a 100m course requiring back and forth. Will probably just do 100m sprints next time.

(Thursday) REST DAY!!!!!

Murph and Front Squats

Did Murph on Monday, the day after the tri, and finished in 44:05. Murph is:
1 mile run
100 pull ups
200 pushups
300 squats
1 mile run

partition the body weight any way you want, as long as the runs are the bookends. I broke it 5, 10, 15 across the three exercises for 20 rounds. Felt good and since I was not doing chest to bar on the pull ups, they felt like the rest portion. I almost wussed out because of the triathlon the day before (more on that later), but did it anyway and am happy with the score.

Then did form work on the Front squat on Tuesday with a 6X8 at 65#. Really helped and I will have to revisit next week to actually push the weight up.

Wednesday is a rest day for me, so today will likely be yesterday's work out or some similar insanity.

Back on it

Well, blogging fell apart right around the time of my birthday. This makes sense, considering I suffered probably the worst injury since I broke my leg right about then. Nothing like being in near constant pain for a week to put a dent in your training.

But, I am back in action. To prove it, I went hiking and camping with Anthony (roughly 26 miles and three mountains over 2 days) and I finished my first Triathlon. Good times, although I learned that I am swimming retarded. Will have to work on that and many other things.

So, time to re-dedicate, prepare and get on track to kick ass at the Urbanathlon on September 27th.