Friday Fun!

Got up early to wod this morning with the 6 am crew (and I didn't even have to go to work today!). What can I say? I love those guys!

Although, I did cringe a little when I saw this:

That's a lot of running and rowing... even for two people. 

The game plan that Oscar and I made up was to start with the running. That's our weakest element, then the pull-ups to rest our legs a bit before the row. We would do the sit-ups and goblet squats last. The run we would do relay style in single lap (one lap around the block is 300m) increments. The pull-ups in sets of 5, rowing in 500m splits, sit-ups in sets of 25 and goblet squats in sets of 10. 

Naturally, that's not how it really worked out, but I think what we did ended up suiting us better. 

The run we did as planned, which went really well because you were rested after each lap and could go all out every time. Because I started the running, while I waited for Oscar to finish his last lap, I got set up for the pull-ups. When he finished, I was able to immediately start and knocked out 15, then Oscar picked it up and did what he could. I ended up doing more but I'm stronger at them then he is so it worked out. While I finished the pull-ups, he got ready for the rowing. Since he's stronger at that he pulled more of the weight for rowing. Sad face, but I'm just not a great rower. I felt kinda bad. Oh well. While he finished that, I moved over to the sit-ups and got ready, so that while Oscar was resting from the rowing, I just busted out the as many sit-ups as I could then we switched. It worked the same way for the goblet squats too.

Our end result: 36:04

We were even the first to finish! And we're not the fast people by any means. I was extremely proud of our performance. And it shows how far we both have come since starting Crossfit. It was awesome.

On a side note, check out some of the awesome surf in IB from yesterday.

Late night and Soreness

Another late writing session. What a way to end the week. Got out late from work and still had to do errands. Didn't get home until late and still needed to take Hoku for her walk and play/training time. Thank goodness that she is a little ball of joy and actually did really good walking today. At least I am now good and ready for my 4-day weekend! Too bad I don't have big plans... oh and I'm still gonna wake up at 0530 tomorrow morning to wod with the 6 am class. That's dedication. Or obsession. Not sure.

Rewind to the beginning of the day and it was less stressful. I woke up sore this morning. Hmmm... maybe it was the 50 thrusters? Maybe it was the weighted butterfly stretching? I don't know for sure, but I do know that I was sore.

Then this happened:

Not gonna lie, I was hoping for the option of hang power cleans just so I wouldn't have to do a full squat. I was not that lucky. I strapped on my OLY shoes and got ready to work.

This didn't last that long though. 

6 rounds @ 85 lbs

That's about what I expected. My form turned to crap during that last round and that's how I knew that I had to stop. I was landing on my toes instead of my heels. Not good.

On a better note, I'm more and more getting the hang of butterfly pull-ups. I'm able to get up there, now I have to overcome the sense of fear I get when I realize that while doing these, my face is repeatedly swinging toward the bar. Once I get used to that, maybe I'll string more than a few together at once.

Super fun!

It's bedtime already... but I really enjoyed the wod this morning, so I need to make sure I record it.

Here's what got me excited last night when I saw it:

Isn't that just awesome looking?

I thought so! Even though I have said many times before that I hate rowing. I do hate it, but if it's less than 2000 meters, then I feel like it's doable at a decent pace for me. My only gripe from this was that male and female Rx weight was 45lbs. I mean, come on guys... if I can have to get 45lbs up 50 times, you should do at least 65lbs! <end rant> I still love my fellow dudes anyways.

The row was a little weird for me today. The first 200m felt like nothing, but the last 300m of both 500m splits felt like it took FOREVER. I was able to keep about a 2:05/500m pace for the whole distance while keeping my stroke count around 24 s/m. I was happy with that, still the last girl off the rower though. Grr!! What else can I do? Any tips? Seriously! I'm like the world's worst rower!

Moving on, I had made the decision beforehand to split the 50 thrusters into sets of 10. That seemed doable. I had a tiny inkling in the beginning to just keep going and push it out. I'm glad I thought better than that. I would have died doing that. 45lbs isn't a lot of weight, but those last 10 reps felt like 100lbs!

By the time I got to the pullups, both my arms and legs felt like jello. And like I said a couple days ago, I'm not using bands for pull-ups anymore. With my arms already like jello, I really wish that I had a band. I had to really concentrate on my kipping form to keep the rhythm and get all the way over the bar each time. JLaw is like a hawk watching and she WILL no rep you if you don't get over. I broke those into sets of 5.

My goal before this was finishing in under 12 minutes. How'd I do?

11:40 Rx

Just squeaked it in there!

On a side note, a couple weeks ago I finally caved and got a pair of the Reebok OLY Lifters. Then this week they come out with the ones you can design yourself. I have the worst timing ever. Whatever, I like my charged green ones.

(Almost) Helen

This is gonna be a quick one because it's late (for me) and I gotta get some sleep. Would have worked on this earlier, but I spent most of my night keeping an eye on this little one who decided to be a little terror tonight.

Don't let that cuteness fool you, it didn't last long!

The WOD this morning I called "Almost" Helen... known at our box as Hell-in. Today, I called it "Almost" because the run portion was shorted 100m. We only did 300m. Hey, I'm not complaining. Helen was the first non-Foundations WOD that I ever did and it sucked. Here's today.

I really wanted to use the 25lb kettlebell today. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, however I was feeling yesterday's deadliest and box jumps a bit. J-Law wouldn't let up though and I grabbed a 35 pounder. Ugh. Getting that thing all the way overhead would be a definite challenge.

Overall, not bad. I got through the first round unbroken and felt good on the run. The second round wasn't as triumphant. Definitely slowed a little on the run and had to break the KBS into 11-10 and pull-ups into 7-5. By the last round, my run was sluggish for the first half though I managed to stride out the last half. Same deal as round 2 with the KBS, but this time the pull-ups went 6-6. 

My time: 11:55

My first attempt at Helen ended at 13:20 and that was with 25lb KBS (eye level only) and the green pull-up band. I would say this morning was a comparable effort. I can't say how much cutting the run down affected my time, but I'm happy with the results. 

Jump Around

Today was another of those "it doesn't look so bad" days. Just like every other time too, I was horribly wrong. Guess that I'll never learn. It will always be bad.

No weights, but tough work nonetheless.

I started the first two rounds not using a band for pull-ups, but I knew that wouldn't last. By the third round I was on the red band. The pull-ups were still a struggle. 30 seconds of max effort, even with pacing, is tough. I was exhausted after 20 seconds and really had to push to get in a couple more reps each time. 

The tuck jumps sucked, but once I got a pace going I felt good. I actually was able to get more reps at the end than in the beginning. Laura made us turn around and face the back wall away from the clock a few rounds in. Except my shin hurts now. Boo!

Lastly, the sit-ups. My game plan was to be consistent. I'm not very fast at doing them, but I held on and managed to get 15 almost every time.

Here's my breakdown at the end of it:

Pull-ups: 154 reps

Tuck jumps: 447 reps

Sit-ups: 158 reps  

Total: 759 reps

I'd say that's not too shabby.

On a side note, I wore my Reebok Crossfit Nanos for the first time today. Not too bad. They definitely need a break in period. I'll do a shoe comparison/review once I get a good feel for these. 

I got the black and grey ones.

Hoku chilling outside this afternoon.

Check out this pic that Laura took this morning. My minions!

Pull-ups!

Memorial Day Murph 2012

OMG! I have been so bad at writing lately. I'm sorry to those (if any) who read this. I'm working on being better.

I had a great long weekend. Saw Battleship on Friday. I thought it was hilarious, but that's probably because I made fun of all the Navy stuff the whole time. Mostly, I watched it to see Alex Skarsgaard (aka Eric Northman). I also got a bit homesick seeing Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. I was there when they were filming this. Seems like such a long time ago.

Anyways, I spent most of my weekend thinking about Monday. Why? Because I had Memorial Day Murph to prepare for. I remember the first time I ever saw the Murph WOD. I thought it was batsh*t crazy. Seriously, who does that to themselves? Mostly due to the fact that I hate running, I knew I would never do this WOD.

Well... there I was at 10:00am Monday morning, warming up to start. I knew it would suck, but I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and remembered why I was doing it: to honor those who have served and sacrificed for their our country.

I had settled on just doing my best to pace the miles as fast as I could without killing myself. Turned out okay. I don't know my exact time for the first mile, probably around 8:30ish. There was another girl, Christy, who I basically paced off of. She finished just ahead of me.

I broke down the pull-ups, pushups, and squats Cindy-style (5, 10, 15). That worked great for me. I felt like I kept my pace pretty good. I managed to stick with kipping using the red band, I was pretty proud of that. I'm glad I stuck with Cindy-style. The pull-ups def got hard by the end and I really needed to use the kip. At halfway through I had to break the pushups into 5-couple-of-breaths-5. The squats, I just tried to keep going.

I was out the door for the second mile right around 34:00.

And then I DIED. Like for reals, my legs just did not want to move. My knees were killing me from all the squats. I felt like I was towing a tractor trailer around the block with me. If you've never been to CFEV, there's a pretty good restaurant around the corner from the box called Mission. It being a holiday and all, there were a ton of people waiting outside to get seated. I just yelled "excuse me" every time and ran right through them. Oh well. Hopefully it reminded them that Memorial Day is about more than just food. I pushed through until the end.

I made it back in the door at 46:11. Yay me. It did suck, not gonna lie. It was hard, but I'm glad I did it. I'll definitely do it again next year.

Here's some shots from the morning.

The 9:30am heat doing their work.

Did I mention that I hate running?

Me and Hillary post-Murph

The "Two Brown Chicks," me and Laura.

Oscar and I from the 6:00am crew.

Irene and I cheering on the 11:00am heat.

Winded...

No weights today... boo! Just sprints waiting for us. Great. At least it would be a fast WOD and I could get in some supplemental work afterwards.

At least there was no thinking involved. All you had to do was run the distance. Our trainer, Laura, even told you when to go again. I like simple. I do not sprints as much. Brought back memories of doing sprints around the track for rugby. I used to dread 200m sprints. Dread. Today was no real exception.

I felt good for the first 100m felt good. Pretty much everything after that sucked. We did the whole down-and-back thing for the 200m. I'm not a fan of that because you have to slow down to turn around and then it just takes so much more for me to pick the pace back up again. The 300m sprints turned out to be me just trucking around the block as fast as I could. 

Needless to say, I was dead by the time this was over. That supplemental work I was talking about? Turned out to be just a few rounds of kipping pull-ups. That was all I could get out.

On a side note, I spotted this awesome stickered van on the way home today. Hawaiian Pride!!!