It’s been a while since I last posted. Busy and fun and hot summer. I’ve got some tasty food posts lined up in the queue, but let’s get down to business first …

This was the last wod of the month, and suited my strengths, Burpees and erging. I don’t necessarily like these activities,i can just keep a good pace for both of them.

Earlier this week. I was in the “SSC” class, where we use telephone poles to measure distances and I was positive we were running to the 5th pole, not the 4th. But, if everyone is running to the 5th, what are you going to do, not do the same? Slow workout for me.

Karen is bad enough, but then she has to go and bring her mean friend Double Unders to (literally) whip my butt. I didn’t even meet the other one. As it turns out, though, I did Karen in the same amount of time as I did it without her friends waiting around for me.

I felt this one for days after, especially in the tush. Reverse lunges will always do it to me. Also, I messed up the counting so had to guesstimate the math at the end.

What’s missing in this photo is the 7 minute rest in between rounds (3 rounds). The goal is to maintain the highest intensity for all rounds, and strive to kee the same time throughout. I knew Round 1 was going to be faster as I didn’t pace myself well in the first 250m erg piece. Rounds 2 and 3 are more like it.

Slow and steady.

Toes to Bar have become a pain in the butt. Technically, a pain in the back. So I’ve stopped doing them. Knees to elbow (or, it’s hated alternative, V-Ups) are just fine by me. With T2B AND DUs, this was not a favorite.

We did this last summer. I can’t read my notes to see how I compare, though. Press and Push Press are among my favorite lifts, though.

Pretty sure I ran the first part and erged the second one. I was too tired to get my butt out the door, so I sat down at the erg instead.

My goal is always to stay at or under 4:00 for a 1,000-meter row. If you have the option of erging first or second (which we have to do due to lack of rowers for everyone) … choose the latter.

I like the ladders. I haven’t done much bench press since starting CrossFit (vs. the gym, where I did it all the time). It’s a nice change of pace. I miss it.

I really ought to include the year in these post titles, as I’ve now been doing this crossfit thing for well over a year (2 years in September). I’m still only slightly embarrassed about it. Anyway, it’s benchmark time, so we are repeating several of the “girls” and I am noticing my times are slower than last year. I’m carrying a little more weight than I was last year (going to have to start shedding those winter pounds at some point).

I know I missed taking a couple of pics, possibly of a benchmark. I also missed class at least once (due to lack of sleep). 

Karen. Slower this time around, I think because a) I counted more accurately and b) I tried not to cheat and count bad reps and c) I’m just slower these days. It’s a benchmark WOD trend this summer.

Hmm. Barely remember this one.

You can do anything for 60 seconds. Something I like to remember when working out. It’s that abs routine on the side that kills me.

First, I did not PR in my 1-rep max attempt at the DL. Then the WOD, where I’m guessing the Double Unders gave me quite a bit of trouble, as they usually do.

Headstands are harder than you think!

Lookin’ good, Helen! Lookin a few seconds faster this time around.

I cranked it in the row, then died doing the KB swings. Sad story.

That time I thought I beat my time by like a minute, only to realize I actually was 4 seconds slower.

Look at my time. I’m much slower than the others. Working on form for my pull ups. Yeah, that’s what it was.

This was today. Bar-facing burpees are getting easier. Still annoying, but not as annoying.

Happy Lifting.

Lots of Wendler, and other fun to be had. FYI, these are in no particular order, only the order in which WordPress uploads the photos, I suppose.

When you walk in and see this written on the wall, you know it’s not actually going to be a “Good Time” … this was 8 hill sprints. My first sprint was “with the guys”, from 38th up to 35th on 55th Ave NE. The next 6 were from 37th up, and the last one, because we were running out of time, was from 36th up. The debate then arose, would you rather do Sprints, or Karen? I said sprints. But last week I did Karen, and I’ve since changed my mind. Ha!

We do the Push Press/Chin Up routine every so often. The trick is to make sure you’re counting appropriately. But the “then” part was new and improved.

This was the morning I barely got a wink of sleep, ended up missing the 5:30am and shooting for 9:30am instead. The 5:30 class killed it. Me, not so much.

I don’t ever recall doing “bar-facing burpees” until after “The Open” this year … now they’re, like, all the rage or something. Not a favorite, because you lose your rhythm every time you have to stop, jump, turnaround, etc.

So, there’s this one …

I tried to do handstand pushups and I still can’t. I can do handstands against the wall like a boss, I can manage the “negative”, just can’t manage the getting my arms straightened up again part. Kinda freaks me out.

I think the goal here was to do the swings unbroken. I’m pretty sure I broke them up after the first round. Sometimes I have it, sometimes I don’t.

That time I tried to lead an erging session for my classmates. I hope it was helpful. It sure was a lot of rowing.

It was either this one or another WOD when I vividly recall trying my first round of T2B and feeling bad things in my back. Know when to say when, and just say yes to scaled workouts (i.e. knees to chest)

What’s up with these HSPUs? I did try and succeed at doing the “kick” to get myself up into the handstand position, for the first time. That was cool. Sometimes when I do the cartwheel like motion, I stop short. There’s some weird mental thing I have with handstands, and it makes me do moronic things.

These are good days to interject into the ones where you think you’re gonna pass out. I like the ones I can hardly remember. At least I think I do.

The abs/core workout is the worst. Those flippin scissor kicks still get to me.

Last but not least (and not really last of the month, since Memorial Day came early this year) … My first attempt at the full version of “Murph”. Not too shabby, though my pull-ups and push-ups were not RX … I started my push-ups on the floor and ended up on the bar. Also, my legs hurt for days after this due to all the squats. Sheesh. But, I’m happy I did it, even though I did hem and haw over which one to do up until the timer started.

Did a poor job of taking pics… Boo… This is in no particular order, definitely not chronological.

04-07-14 “Get Your Goat” implies that you work on things you need to work on. I believe I did front squats and firehouse run. really I could have worked on my DUs, but, well I didn’t.

040214 Smiley face on the board doesn’t mean there are smiling faces on the people

043014 Ah yes, where we debated “exactly which telephone pole”?

042114 Hmmm… This is vaguely familiar but obviously I enjoyed it so much I’ve erased it from memory

041814 This was choose the WOD you haven’t already done this week … I did the KB Swings / Push Ups / Run

041614. Yup Did this one, too.

041414 The Birthday WOD. Pull ups AND Chin ups. Good times.

March means Crossfit Open WODs, among other things. If you want to read more about the open, I encourage you to check out Danielle’s blog. Danielle is a trainer at SCF and she actually did the Open, as opposed to me, who watched video of people doing the open. She just posted a recap on her reactions to it.

So, I did do Open-like WODs, as they were the workouts on Fridays this month. I just did modified versions of them. Modified they were still very tough, and I can’t imagine doing the real thing. Maybe I would have tried it in my 20s, but I am decidedly not in my 20s any more, and not that I’m counting but next week kicks off the last year of my 30s. Yowzas. I guess that’s another post for another day.

Here goes …

(Below) My first WOD back from a few days in California. It was actually a nice segway into getting back into the swing of things. Get it? Swing?

3-3-14

(Below) Ummm. Yep. I did this one all right. And … that’s about all I can remember about that.

3-5-14

(Below) This was Open 14.2 I did not do the RX. The modified was Front Squats and Pull Ups.

Open 14.2

(Below) And here is 14.3 … The modified was that you didn’t increase weight with each round. Because, you know, increasing weight AND reps is totally, totally, TOTALLY ridiculous.

Open 14.3

(Below)  I do recall wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t recall much else. We did a lot of Cleans this month, probably in prep of the Open WODs. It seems everything was about the Open.

3-17-14

(Below) Zach and his smiley faces. That doesn’t make it a happy moment. I definitely felt the chest burn on this one.

3-19-14

(Below) Hello, Open 14.4. What they call a Chipper. I had planned to do the Toes-to-Bar, which I can do. When I got to that point I did about 3 Toes-to-Bars and was like FTS! So I did knees-to-chest instead. I managed to get through the Power Cleans (not RX). With about 30 seconds to go, our trainer, Jess, asked if she should pull out the rings so I could finish the dips (I don’t think anyone planned to get that far through).  I just shook my head, waved my arms, like no, please no.

Open 14.4

The inspiration for this was the 300 KB swings a day challenge our coach was doing. I didn’t think I’d get more than 20 unbroken KB swings, but my top score was in the 80s.

(Below) Forgot my phone, so here is 14.5. Last, definitely not least. So, it’s not just burpees. It’s bar-facing burpees. That is, you face your Thrusters bar. You do a burpee. you jump over the bar, you turn to face the bar, you do another burpee. You do that 21 times, after those 21 Thrusters of course. Then 18 times. Then …

I did the modified version, meaning my Thrusters weight was not RX, and my time was not terrible, right around 15 minutes. Though it was hard to get into a good burpees rhythm, if you just kept yourself moving and didn’t slow down, it was okay.

Open 14.5

The day after 14.5 I did a Trail Run with a couple of other CF gals and Trainer Jess 2 (the ultramarathoner Jess, as opposed to Yoga Jess) We ran around Ravenna/Cowen Park trails for about 50 minutes, in the cold rain. The rain wasn’t bad. The trails were fun. Within the first five minutes, Jess had us doing this interesting descent, what looked like a 30-foot drop in the mud. I ended up squatting and basically sliding down the mud. I later told her I was more freaked out by that descent than I was when I started 14.5. The run was fun, especially as Jess regaled us with stories about Badwater. Bad ass, is what I say.

(Below) Last one of the month. I used the 14-lb Wall Ball for once. I’m short. I do not like Wall Balls.

And … buy-bye March!

Valiantly tried to remember to take photos. I think I did okay this time:
Doubleunders make most WODs longer. I was able to string more than 10 once. Want to know how? I watched Sam, in our class. He’s good at everything. He jumps up straight, but higher. I tried the same thing and lo and behold. Doubleunders. They still are not a favorite and when I’m tired I still stumble around, but hey, I figured it out.

Fortunately this running one landed on a morning it was not raining.

Six minutes? Quickie.

This year I’ve noticed some wrist soreness on my right wrist. Could be crossfit overuse, could be keyboard/poor ergonomics, could be walking a maniac dog, or all three combined. Danielle suggested wrist wraps, which I got from Amazon. I use them for front squats and other overhead movements (at Liz’s suggestion). After weeks of daily wrist mobility, I noticed this week the pain and soreness had mostly disappeared. Nice.

Valentines Day workout. It included partners, but there was an odd number of us. Guess who was the third wheel? Moi. “The Breakup” was fun, though. They are hard but I mostly like those minute deadline ones.

I missed the day everyone was going for box jump height PRs, but suddenly my 20″ box is everyone’s 20″ box, so I went up to 22. It was awkward but I finished.

I’m not remembering this one much. I remember the skill work a little more, because I was unable to get the kipping pull-up done. I’m not upset. I’m not fond of the kipping, I’d rather just do strict whenever, whereever.

Single-arm is really effective. Always harder than anticipated.

This was the last WOD of the month (why these are not in order, no idea). I was trailing Molly, about to head out for the run and Mitch said, “go catch up to Molly” ah ok, good idea. So I sped up to do just that. Narrowed the gap, but not enough.

This was good. I made up time during the row, and lost time in the Doubleunders. It all evens out. Still the DUs are looking better.

This was like parallel universe, sine Jess taught, but in the main box, and the 5:30 class. Whoa! On this day Jess demonstrated a push-up supported by the back of her hands, fingers facing each other. WHOA. Wrist mobility.

The one pic that’s missing is the day we showed up and the power was out! A few of us stuck around to erg in the dark. I erged for about 15 min but a) erging bores me to tears these days (did I really do 40-min pieces?) and b) didn’t want to make our poor coach wait in the dark for us to finish.

So, there you go. Short month, but lots of pics. Phew.

Well, good thing my new year’s resoltuion wasn’t to be better at remembering things. I had a pesky habit of leaving the gym without a photo. I also left a couple of WODs out (including today’s) for a special Super Bowl post coming soon. Here are a handful, in no particular order.

AKA Day after the NFC Championship Game. Woot! See the Hangover WOD to the side. If Top Pot opened before 6:30AM in Wedgwood I have have done it!

One of those ones where counting gets really difficult. The workout does, too.

Deadlift.

Pike Pushups as an alternative.

Doubleunders were the killer here. As always. The K-to-Es were pretty bad, too. But not as bad as the DUs

I did this one? I mean, I must have. I took the picture. Um. Okay.

I’d file this one under “they always look easy on the whiteboard but they never are”

The Bear Complex is a favorite ’round these parts. I see it at least monthly, it seems

I love the descending workouts. They are much more digestible, don’t you think.

Some final 2013 WOD memories …
The first week I was in LA. Didn’t feel like doing a travelling WOD, so instead I ran.

The Tabata (20″ on, 10″ off) here was to go through the entire routine, not one exercise at a time. I kept wanting to skip the 10″ off in between the single-arm db presses.

This was a quick one. My strategy for 1000m Crossfit rows is to do a start, sprint, shift then 10 on/10 off (the off not really off but more like 80%), then crank it back up with 250m (20-25 strokes) or so to go. This leaves enough to do other parts of the WOD. I also try to row last (if we take turns).

At first Danielle wrote “Crossfit open 12.1” but then Rina looked it up on her iPhone so D updated it to TBA. The point was to reduce the complaints prior to he timer going off. CF Open 12.1 is … 7 minutes AMRAP of Burpees. Blarg.

I hate wall balls

Oh, I missed class on Friday. I’ll just go Saturday. Oh, Saturday is Murph. Team Murph, but still.

That doesn’t say kettlebell soup. It’s short for sumo deadlift high pull. File this under “looks harmless but it’s not”

After class Jess informed me I did “5” twice. Whoops. Accidental extra credit.

there were red were a few where I forgot to take pics. like, the last one of the year (yesterday) that was 6 min, 1/2 mile run, then max push-ups; e min rest. Then 6 min, 1000m row, max lunge with OH plate. Oh yeah, and pull-up work. I did one unassisted pull-upbarely, to end the year.

Last year my fitness New Years resolution was to run a race I hadn’t done before. I did three of those. Yay. What to do for 2014? I’ll let you know.