Back Again

Sorry for the absence. My sister visited for a week and things were just busy. Like getting home exhausted every night busy. I think I need a vacation from her vacation here.

Anyways, on to today's workout.

Here's what was on the menu. I was actually a bit excited to do this.

Mind you, that does only say 1 round. Not 7, that's just the way some people write. Going into it, I figured about 15 minutes to finish this. My goal was to get through every thing unbroken, but I had a feeling that 25 bag slams was just not gonna happen after the KBS. I was right. I went unbroken until 15 bag slams, then I had to take a break get some blood back in my arms. Managed the pushups in sets of 5, hand release of course.

Then... BURPEES!!!

Holy cow. Those hurt. It's only 15 right? Wrong! It felt like 100. I just kept thinking "don't stop" the whole time. They were very slow at the end.

Now to finish with TGU. Those are tough because you want to go quickly, but at the same time you can't because you could hurt yourself easily. I don't know about you, but a face full of kettlebell in the morning is not something I want.

Stayed strong and guess what? Blew my hypothetical time out of the water!

My time: 9:47!

I was pretty proud of this. At the end, I could see the clock and I was concentrating on not stopping. I was stoked at that time. Especially after the mini-wod warm up that we did. That was tough!

Back at it again tomorrow. We'll see how many people show up. It was packed this morning. I counted 22 as we went out for the warmup jog. Never though I'd see that in the morning. It's awesome!

Here's some shots of my past couple weeks.

Enjoying the company of my sister.

Of course we hit up Disneyland.

Crossfit right of passage: my first hand rips.

Played with some rays at SeaWorld.

Hoku got tired and had to take a nap.

Bryan's last wod at CFEV. Gonna miss you!!

Honey, I'm Home!

I never really left actually, just took a break. I am glad to say though, that I have a new outlook and I hope that the break leads to a change for the better. If you missed it, I added a page up at the top (wrote it a while back and never got always kinda chickened out about posting it) that details a little bit about me, in a roundabout kinda way. I like that. It's like a puzzle. Can you figure it out?

To catch you up real quick, since going on hiatus:

I traveled home to Hawaii and got in some good WODs at my sister's box, Crossfit Waipio.

I participated in the 31 Heroes WOD. That was a beast! I hit set new PRs in C&J (110) and Snatch (70).

 I finally bought a wetsuit and braved the cold California waters for some surf.

 Hoku graduated from Puppy Preschool with flying colors!

I can do unassisted kipping pullups for *all* the WODs (at least the ones we've done).

I totally fell off the paleo wagon in Hawaii and am trying to get back on it.

I complete Fran for the first time ever and did it Rx'd.

I started using Beyond the Whiteboard to track my results.

 My dad and I reconciled. He even came to visit me in SD.

You could say that I've been a busy body or you could say that I haven't. Either way, I felt busy! On to the WOD! Here's what we had today:

Fun yeah? I thought so.

My first reaction when I saw this was "huh... it's so short." That looks like a lot of stuff to do in 12 minutes. It sure felt like an eternity during it though.

It took me almost twice as long to do the step-ups as it took me to do everything else COMBINED! Those were killer. It didn't help that I couldn't really see over the kettlebell to know where the box edge was. I definitely almost fell a couple times. The first round I got through unbroken, but the rest I had to break into 10/5/5. It was hard getting up there for those last few reps. Everything else wasn't so bad. I used the swings to try and catch my breath and get ready for the next round of step-ups. That approach kind of worked... until I got more and more tired.

My result: 4 rounds + 10 (25 lbs)

My goal was 4 rounds. It took a lot to keep stepping onto that box in the final seconds. Even though my back was to the clock, I knew it was counting down. I just gritted my teeth and tried to keep moving and not drop the weight. My legs are going to be feeling this one later today. Thank goodness for some fish oil!

On a side note, here's some pics of what's been going on.

Reppin' Crossfit Waipio during the WOD today.

Tandem SUP at home with my sis.

The "after" picture from 31 Heroes.

My dad chowing down on some fresh uni at the Little Italy Mercato.

My little graduate!

She may love my dad, but she still hates the water!

Happy Monday!

Hey there.

I'll keep it short and sweet today. Here's what we had.

I was happy to see cleans. We hadn't done them in a while... and I was happy to see power cleans. I didn't feel like squatting all that way. We had a good warm-up session and I finally settled on loading the bar with 70lbs. 

I felt good throughout the first few rounds. By halfway, I felt a bit tired but still strong. I was taking slightly longer breaks between the rounds. My first few cleans were good, but I had to really concentrate on the last two. Those were the hardest to get out. 

In the end: 9 rounds

I wanted 10, but it didn't happen. I was happy enough to be doing cleans. 

On a side note, some shots from my weekend.

Took Hoku to the Loews Surf Dog Competition down the road from my house!

World record for most dogs (and human) surfing at one time.

This nice lash was from double unders on Friday.

Sunday breakfast... "Black Forest Pancakes" non-paleo choc chip pancakes with paleo cherry jam. 

Mmmm good.

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.

Mini-WOD Monday

I'm pretty sure that I dreamed about CrossFit this weekend, so I was ready to go this morning. When I saw the WOD, I even thought, "hey, this looks like fun."

Well, that was until I woke up enough and realized that those were overhead squats... my least favorite lift. Ever. I just don't like them. Weird, because I love snatch and snatch balance and everything snatch related, but I really hate OHS. Huh, gotta 'em sometime I guess. 

The class was pretty full this morning thanks to a couple Foundations graduates (yay! congrats!) and a couple of drop ins (welcome!). I ended up starting with the row/run to alleviate overcrowding with the OHS. I felt good for the first round, but the second run, my legs just didn't want to start moving. I finally got them moving on the last half of the lap (the downhill portion). I was on the floor when that part was over. 

Next up was the OHS. I feel like I shortchanged myself a bit, because I didn't go very heavy. Once again, psyching myself out. Started too light and ended up not reaching my full potential. Didn't want to keep going though because there were still kettlebell swings to get through. Huh, are the more reason to figure out my 1RM on OHS. Sucks though, because that means I'll actually have to do them. 

The pushups/kbs were last. You could break it up any way you wanted. At first, I figured I'd break it into sets of ten. By the time I started I figured I would get as many kbs as a could and go from there. That's how it went. Not bad. I was happy with my time too and the fact that I moved up weight for the kb (1 pood! yeah!). 

Here's my WOD: 

Run/Row: 4:54 

OHS: 33#x3; 53#x3; 63#x3x3; 68#x3 

KBS/Pushup: 3:32 

Not a bad start to the week. And on a side note, some shots from my weekend.

  Primal portobello mushroom pizza! You gotta have a little cheese every now and then.

Primal burger yumminess for dinner. Recipe from Health Bent

Breakfast this morning, I love me some hash!

My sis putting up a 55# snatch at CF Waipio. So proud of you!!!

Friday Fun

Coming off a high from yesterday's kipping success (and some sore traps from cleans), I can say I was a little less than enthused about today's workout. Oh boy, 100 pull-ups. I do love some pull-ups, but not necessarily 100 of them. I taped up a couple fingers that give me problems with sore callouses and got ready. My goal was the first 10 pull-ups I would do unassisted, even if it hurt my time and I had to do burpees. That was a success. I managed to knock out 5 and 5. Christa was a bit disappointed that I had to do burgees after only a few pull-ups, but after realizing I did them unassisted, understood. I mean, come on, I just got those yesterday. The rest of the pull-ups I did in sets of ten. Once, I got around 60 my arms started to get really tired and finishing the 10 reps took some fortitude. I had to use a huge kip to get my chin over the bar on the last one, but I got it over. My time: 12:29; 22 burpees Afterwards, I ended up doing a mini-WOD with another guy, Tony. Crazy right? I still had some time and figured what the heck, might as well. For time: 5 rounds 10 goblet squats (25#) 10 pushups My time: 3:55 Yeah, I think I earned the weekend. Just gotta get through work today. At least I didn't tear! Counting that as a miracle!

My WOD in Pictures

So today I had to be at work early... 0630. That meant I couldn't get my usual 0600 class. I hate that. I debated going for an evening class, then found out that I had been tasked to attend another meeting tomorrow morning. So again, no class. What's worse, I have no idea where the place for the meeting is. So now instead of an evening class, I had to go an scope out where this joint was. (I hate being late for things and I have a horrible sense of direction, scoping the place out was a must.)

After two days off (one of which was my first cheat day since sticking to paleo... it was an amazing aka the best brunch i've ever been to kinda cheat... I didn't feel bad), but I knew that I needed to do something.

So I came up with this to do at home:




150 of these


Followed by 150 of these


Finally, 150 of these


I don't own an abmat, so I improvised with a towel instead


How it turned out in the end...

Originally, I was going to do two rounds. Boy was that ambitious! I knew right away there weren't going to be two rounds. I almost visited pukie in the middle of the sit-ups!

Crossfit people are crazy... who else would think of a workout like that for themselves??