Proof of concept

I was tempted to skip Thursday.  I was supposed to be cleaning our rental house and because I am lazy I didn't get an early start as planned so I only had a few minutes to gather some bags o' garbage at the house before I needed to leave for the WOD.  But I knew I would regret it if I skipped and would only feel better if I went to CrossFit.

And I was right.  This was a 2-part WOD with a small group of awesome athletes.  We played it Bro's vs Ho's.

3/29/12 WOD #32:

• Warm up: 500 m row
                  40 squats
                  30 sit ups
                  20 push ups
                  10 pull ups
• WOD #1: 2k row for time
                  Time: 10:40
• WOD #2: 1 mile run for time
                  Time: 10:53

This was a PR for me.  Perhaps my best mile time since 8th grade when I was running track (I use the word "running" fairly loosely): my first sub-10 minute mile.  

I would like to hold this mile time up as proof of concept that CrossFit works.  The last mile I ran was the very first day of CrossFit back in January.  My time that day was something over 12 minutes.  Even though I had not run a consecutive mile since then, I had participated in over 30 work outs of high intensity and become a stronger, better person.  And my mile time improved by around 2 minutes!  The proof is in the pudding, people.  Or at least, in the PR.

Doc's birthday WOD

If you have such a mind and it is your birthday, you can make up your own WOD and submit it to Lori for approval.  I think we can all agree that we are glad Doc was only turning 22.  This was a long WOD that got cut off at 40 minutes for those of us who needed to run home and shower before heading off to work.

3/28/12 WOD #31:

• Warm up: 50 DU (150 single)
                  10 burpees (actually, we were supposed to do 25, but my pants kept trying to fall down and I just was feeling grumpy so I said "fuck it" and stopped).
                  10 squats
                  10 push ups
                  10 pull ups
                  10 back extensions
• WOD: 3 rds for time (or 40 minutes, whichever came first)
             Row 22 calories (it takes a depressingly long time to row 22 calories)
             22 wall balls
             22 box jumps
             22 back extension
             22 sit ups
             22 push ups
             22 knees-to-elbows (modified to just tucking my knees up)
             400 m run
             Completed 2 rounds and 18 calories of rowing into round 3

This was a day of wardrobe malfunctions for me.  First my pants wouldn't stay on for the burpees, then my amazing sports bra that I bought from REI YEARS ago and I just LOVE because it is the best sports bra in the world...started to fail on me. The straps are adjusted with a little velcro-style closures.  But on this day every time I jumped or ran or did anything that might be higher-impact, the left strap started coming undone. So every 3 box jumps or so I had to reattach my bra.  And on the run I had to just hold onto my strap.  So this entire work out was overlaid with irritation at everything I was wearing.  

On the plus side, my wall balls were MUCH BETTER after the agony of 12.4.  Nearly every single rep hit the 9 ft mark.  It took me a while, but that's okay because it was something of a redemption.

TABATA this!

On Saturday of the last Open WOD my amazing sister-in-law was in town so we did the morning work out together!  (I figured I didn't need to save myself for the Open since I was only going to do 3 or 4 reps.  And besides, at least I would be nice and warm for those thrusters!)

The WOD turned out to be my first tabata.  I still don't know precisely what it stands for, or if it is actually an acronym at all, but I can tell you what it means.  It is a high intensity interval work out: 8 rounds of each exercise with each round consisting of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.  You get a 1 minute rest between each exercise to move on to the next one.

3/24/12 WOD #29:

• Warm up: 10 walking lunges
                  10 burpees
                  10 strict pull ups
                  200 m run
• WOD: TABATA this: 8 rounds of 20 sec work, 10 s rest
                                    Squats: 88
                                    Rows: 32 calories
                                    Pull ups: 26
                                    Sit ups: 70 
                                    Push ups: 103
                                    Total: 319

Turns out, I love tabatas!  I love being able to give it my all knowing that in just a few seconds I can collapse briefly on my face and shake it out a bit.  By the end of it my arms were shaky, my legs were shaky, I was sweaty and tired and I felt awesome! 

Double feature!

I'm still playing catch up with these posts from being gone over the weekend so this is actually about what happened several days ago... and I am actually getting further behind because we are in the process of MOVING! We just bought a house in Selah (our first house ever) and are slowly moving all our crap to our brand new home :)

Anyway, back to crossfit...

We had another double feature because one WOD was just not enough!

3/7/12 WOD #22:

• Warmup: 400 m run
                 10 tuck jumps
                 30 m high knees
                 30 m butt kickers
                 30 m lat shuffle
                 30 m broad jump
                 30 m HS walk (or continuing to work on hand stands)
                 20 tuck jumps
                 30 m high knees
                 30 m butt kickers
• WOD 22.1: ANNIE
                     50-40-30-20-10 reps for time of...
                     Double unders (or 150-120-90-60-30 singles)
                     Sit ups
                     Time: 20:47
• WOD 22.2: Three rounds for time:
                     500 m row
                     10 HS Pushups
                     Time: 12:05

I am honestly still getting my technique for normal jumping rope down and efficient without hitting myself in the head too much (or doing that really cool false start where the rope catches on your foot or some other body part repeatedly).  But it is getting better so I might be able to do real double unders soon.  I also was not doing true HSPU- I had my feet hooked on a weight bar on a rack and did them from there.  I could barely bend my elbows and it was freaking HARD.  

Dano's farewell WOD

Every time my alarm goes off at 5:20 on a CrossFit morning, I struggle to get out of bed.  I really love sleep and my bed is pretty awesome, so it is difficult to get myself moving.  I stagger to the bathroom to dress in my tron pants, sport's bra, and shirt of the day, brush my teeth, and head out into the cold, dark streets to make it to the box just in time for the 6 am class.  As I drive there I wonder what I'm doing to myself.  But every.single.time. it is 100% worth it.  I have no regrets as I drive back home to my sweet, sweet shower.  I have fallen in love with CrossFit, and I fall a little harder every day.

Today's WOD-o-torture was brought to us by a departing member of the box.  Dano is moving across the country and wanted to give us something to remember him by...

On an unrelated note, we got several inches of snow last night.  What the hell?!  Alright, back to the WOD.

2/29/12 WOD #20: Dano's WOD

• Warm up: 500 m row
                  20 burpees
                  10 pass throughs
                  10 pull ups
                  (there was more, but I got to this point and heard, "Everyone through the warm up?  Ok!  Let's go!" so that was where I stopped.)
• WOD: 5 rounds for time: 10 ball ups
                                         1 rope climb (modified)
                                         10 sit ups
                                         250 m row
                                         10 box jumps (20")
                                         10 pull ups (blue band still.  Tried the green during the warm up and I can do a couple pull ups at a time, but I knew for today's total of 50 I would need more support than the green band can provide).
                                        10 double unders (or 30 singles)
                                        Time: 4 rounds completed and 36 reps into round 5 at 32:30 (aka I was 4 pull ups into round 5).  For some reason people were having trouble completing 5 rounds in a reasonable time frame, so they called us done at 7 am.

This was definitely a modified WOD for me, and actually the kind of thing I was fearing would be the first WOD of the Open.  I am not yet able to climb a rope, so the modification was to lower yourself slowly down to the floor and back up to standing using the rope (three times for each rope climb).  I believe you were actually supposed to keep your body rigid as you lowered and raised yourself, but I didn't feel like I was even cheating by lowering myself to my butt first- it was damn hard just doing that!!  I also realized again that the other day when I was kicking ass at ball ups, I was fooling myself.  With the rings hanging high enough, I can barely do the movement necessary to bring my knees to my chest.  The double unders I modified as well because I haven't done even normal jump rope in years, and I don't think I ever managed double unders even as a kid on the play ground.  I'll get there, but today I just did the 30 single jumps and got back into the rhythm of the rope.