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!!

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.

(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. 

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!!!

Friday Fun (a little late)

Sorry for all the missed posts lately. It's been a crazy week around here. I didn't feel so well on Tuesday but was hoping that it was just allergies. After taking some zyrtec and realizing that didn't help at all and feeling pretty crappy later watching Totem, I resounded that I was indeed getting sick. Ugh, I hate being sick. I especially hate being sick while watching something as awesome as Cirque du Soleil. I stayed home sick on Wednesday and took Thursday off from CrossFit as well in order to kick this cold. Luckily, it worked and I was back at the box yesterday morning.

Here's what welcomed me back.

At the box, we just started something new, which I think is an awesome idea. In our Foundations classes, there are 3 WODs that we use at the end of each. Now, we've worked those WODs back into our programming and are using them as benchmarks. Sounds like a great idea to me. 

I decided to use this as training for when I eventually have to do Fran. After the warmups, I loaded up 65lb and got ready to start. 

For some reason, I always forget that thrusters are much harder than push press. It was doable, but I couldn't finish any of the sets unbroken. I had to go by fives in order to keep good form. The box jumps were actually my best part of this WOD. I had a good rhythm that I was able to keep up the whole time. The run portion was, well, a run. Like any other. Mostly I used it as an opportunity to catch my breath before getting back to thrusters. 

My time: 13:00 

That's actually 27 seconds slower than when I did this in Foundations, but considering that I did this in Foundations with just the 23lb bar... I'd say this is still an improvement. Looking forward to doing this again in the future and seeing how I fare.

On a side note, here's some shots from the week.

Push press on Tuesday.

The show was amazing! Can't wait to see another one.

This little pup keeps me pretty busy too. She likes getting into trouble. 

PFA time!

No CrossFit yesterday, I had to rest up.

It comes along twice a year and it is once again time... the Physical Fitness Assessment (PFA). One of those things you have to do when you're in the military. I don't know who decided that some pushups, sit-ups, and a 1.5 mile run accurately assess your fitness, but hey, I'm sure someone gets paid a lot of money to figure this crap out.

Lately, due to the whole problem of being on a ship and not really doing anything that helped my metabolic conditioning, my scores have tanked. Nothing super horrible, but definitely nothing to be proud of.

Enter CrossFit.

My approach this time was to treat it like a WOD. This is how it would look if it were a WOD.

2 min AMRAP: situps

2 min rest

2 min AMRAP: pushups

5 min rest

1.5 mile run for time

Not bad huh?

I did:

92 situps (101 is max score)

46 pushups (46 is max score)

13:00 run

Since starting CrossFit, I added 12 sit-ups and cut nearly a minute off my run time. I'd say this stuff works.

Too Light... ha!

I don't know what it is... maybe that we are getting closer to the summer? Maybe that more people are moving to East Village? It's been harder to find parking in the morning in front of the box. I used to always get this one spot across the street. Nobody parked there overnight. Now, it's always taken when I show up and I'm not showing up any later. Huh... might have to start making friends with the homeless people around the corner.

Anyways, this is what we had this morning.

I was pretty excited for this one. Even though it contained running... 200m, I could do that! (I think!) There were a lot of people around this morning too. A couple of drop ins added to the usual numbers. Once we all had our barbells set up, we took up the majority of the floor place and were packed the tightest I've ever seen it. 

Still comfortable though and we got straight to work.

I had set up 63lb for the push press. I wanted to go "heavy" but not so heavy that I couldn't finish unbroken. 

The first round, the weight felt heavy, but I think I just wasn't warmed up enough in that movement because it became easier in the later rounds. About halfway through, Christa looked at me and said, "Kana, you look too strong for that weight." To which I immediately was shaking my head while finishing a press. She chuckled. I was having to push quite hard to finish out those rounds.

The runs were... okay. Sucks that it's the slightly uphill area of the block for the first 100m. Definitely worse going up for the first half. 

15min AMRAP: 6 rounds + 15

On a side note... a coworker and I went to Urban Chicken for the first time today for some lunch. It was much better than I expected from the look of things outside. Don't be discouraged by the exterior! They only use locally grown produce and free range chickens, which is good for paleo menu options. I got a 1/4 chicken with two sides. I choose the salad and grilled veggies. The food was phenomenal. The chicken was nicely seasoned and moist. The veggies! I don't remember the last time I had zucchini, but I remember that I never liked it. Today... uh... it was delicious! So tender and perfectly charred. I'll definitely be going back. Probably for a cheat meal so that I can try a Chicken Turnover, cause those things looked amazing.

Mile a Minute

More like mile in 8 minutes and some change.

I'll get right to it. This is what I woke up to.

I don't even like running 600m, it's no secret that I don't like running nearly a mile even more. That's what was up for us this morning. 

At least there wasn't another run tacked on to the end of the wod like the last time.

Pretty straightforward today. I focused on my running form and breathing much more this time. I don't know if it was that or just that I'm getting back into better shape, but...

I made it back in the door in 8:19.

That's a full 1:40 faster than the last time I ran that distance. That was on March 24. Hmmmm... guess this CrossFit thing is working.

There was the row afterwards, however I have my PFA (physical fitness assessment) this week and my quads are still sore from Friday so I decided to take it easy. I rowed an easy 1000m.

Of course, once I get to work, I find that the test is rescheduled to the following week. Great.

On a side note... here's some shots from my weekend.

Finally summer weather! I busted out the shorts.

Yummy paleo breakfast of sweet potato hash, bacon, and eggs.

And a not quite so paleo dinner. Mussels and shmrip on a spicy red sauce. Homemade goodness.


This little angel is Hoku and she comes home on Friday. Can't contain my excitement.
Check out her blog Put a Corgi In It and follow her on twitter @HokuBear

Friday Fun (and pictures)

It's partner wod day! Got up ready to go today (and also ready for the weekend)!

Came into the box this morning and found this.

Okay... it didn't look that bad. I mean, when you thought about it, it was only 40 reps of each exercise per person. 

For some reason, Curtis P's sounded familiar. I don't know why. When I read the description, I knew that I had definitely not done those ever before. They didn't sound like much fun, power clean into lunge into push press. That's a lot, but then...

Christa said, "They aren't that bad. I did 75 of these the other day. They're fun!"

I have to admit, I pushed the believe button wholeheartedly. 

And then we were off. First 600m run went fine. Then Hillary and I moved on to the CP's.

We started off using 53#. Mostly because it was the lightest weight that we could use bumpers on in case we had to drop the weight. Seemed ok in the beginning. We were doing 10 reps each then switching. By our 15th rep each, we had majorly slowed down. It wasn't the clean that was hard or the push press. 

It was those damn lunges!!

Somewhere in the middle of that we decidedly that we would switch to only 5 reps before switching. Before you knew it, we were down to just a 45# bar. Let me tell you, it's amazing what I difference 8# can make.

It took us the better part of 20 mins just to finish the CP's before finally moving on to the burpees. I don't think I was ever so happy to do burpees. We were able to stick with 10 reps each before switching and had a pretty good system of yelling out when we were on the 9th rep so the other person could prep and smoothly transition. 

Next was the part that I looked forward to... pull-ups. I love training pull-ups and was excited to tackle this. Same deal here, 10 a piece, then switch. Worked good for a bit, but somewhere in the middle we both switched to 5 reps each, then I went back to 10 reps. Hillary tore her hand last week on the 100 pull-ups so I didn't mind pushing out a few more reps. 

Finally we were running out the door for the last 600m run. The first 300m went fine, but the last. As soon as we came around the corner for the uphill portion my calves were in serious protest mode. They did not want to move. I felt like the harder I pushed, the slower I went. Finally we got to the top and I did my best to stride out the downhill portion. I was able to turn on the burners and sprint the last block in the door. (Then made a dash for the trash can. Don't judge, I worked hard).

Our time: 31:44

On a side note, during my turns to "rest" I snapped some pics with my phone. Here you go! Have a great weekend!

Hillary prepping for the clean portion of Curtis P.


Dreaded lunges.


Into the push press.


The guys pushing out their sets.


Don't slow down!


Hillary's burpee face plant.

Still going.

After what seemed like forever, we finally got to the pull-ups.


David clearly enjoying the stretching after the wod.


Bryan and Christa chatting afterwards.

Keep up the good work!

My Poor Knees

Most of the time when I run, my knees bother me. Today, I knew it was going to happen. Quite a bit of running and because I was tired, I did not have the best running form either... I was mostly trying to get the hell back in the door the quickest way possible. Needless to say, by the time lunch rolled around, just getting out of my desk chair sucked. Then I remembered that I hadn't taken my daily dose of fish oil yet.

A couple of swallows and two hours later... ahhhh. Much better.


Back to the real stuff, here's what started off my pain today.

Have I mentioned before that I hate running? I have and if you haven't been keeping up... I despise running. I have short legs, they don't go fast and they don't like when I try to get them to go faster.

Amazingly, since a couple months ago when I started all this, I can know keep up with the pack for the most part. Makes me feel a teeny bit better about myself. Yeah, I have self esteem issues.

Running aside, there were also those nasty 20 thrusters to deal with. In true form, once again I was over thinking.

"45# is too light, but 63# might be too heavy."

That's what was going through my head since I saw the board this morning. 45# seemed so light, but the reps did total out to 60, which is a lot. What do I do?

Set up the midget bar with 15s? Nope. I set up 63# and then brought over an empty 45# bar too, just in case.

That, in the end was what saved my butt. After running and trying to be somewhat quick about things, 63# was not gonna happen for all 20 reps each round. I knew it. 

Here's how it did turn out:

1st round: 63#x10; 45#x10

2nd round: 63#x5; 45#x15

3rd round: 63#x10; 45#x10

I don't know what happened during the second round. I think I tried to make up some time by dropping to the lower weight earlier. Not that it made a huge difference. By the time I got back from the last run, I'm pretty sure I just said fk it and did more of the heavy weight. 

This workout led me to one conclusion, when Fran eventually arrives (and she will someday), it's not going to be pretty. 

Total time: 20:20

On a side note... dinner tonight was some grilled deliciousness. Since the clouds decided to hold off on dumping the impending rain storm, I managed to squeeze this meal in before it gets nasty.

Meat!!! I think I'm in heaven.

And these tasty treats: grilled bacon jalapeño poppers.

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!!!