Only me and one other guy, Scott, opted for the 5K run. My time is a minute or more slower than the previous test. So, most of my benchmarks are worse. Do what you will with that information.

Again, a slower benchmark. But this time it’s because I stupidly tried to do Fran at 65#. Stupid.

Hmm. Though I can’t remember this one, the presence of DUs leads me to believe it wasn’t an easy one for me.

In the original crossfit open version of this, the weight increased with each increase of reps. Such a bad a idea. I don’t remember this one much, but it looks like I was just slightly lower than some of the strong guys in this class. This was the day I then went on a plane to visit my buddies in Chicago (see previous post). Not a great workout to do right before jumping on a plane.

Yeah.

One of my coaches, Jess, has been great at giving me cues to improve my DUs, and it’s sorta kinda beginning to pay off. I still have trouble, but have been stringing more together lately. The most recent observation she made was to slow down my hands since my feet can’t keep up. You’d think maybe I would have figured that one out myself. I didn’t.

I do remember finishing this one and actually saying something like, ‘wow, this was pretty good’. On occasion the workouts we do balances out the heavy squatting we’ve been doing during our “skill set” portion of class. This is an example of that.

This was a Friday, our “de-load” day. I didn’t do HS PUs, but instead just held the HS for 30 sec or something. I see we did DUs here which leads me to believe I did not enjoy this one. If you squint to see the times you’ll notice I was the last one done, by like a couple of minutes.

Instead of the 100m sprints in the rain we did 250m sprints on the erg. If anything, I’m consistent.

Core to the max. We called those skater jumps “apolo ohnos”

This was a good one, with decent rest in between each set.

The pull ups were killing me on this one. A lot of resting, a lot of bands. A lot of counting by 3’s

Yep

Halloween WOD. Our fearless leader Jess dressed up as an 80s aerobics instructor. We ended up combining times as two teams. To win it, i think your best bet is to do the front squats for the minute, and do them quickly, to outpace what you would have gotten were you to d squat cleans. At least, that was my strategy. Unless my legs couldn’t handle it any more.

Oh, look. Doubleunders. And look at that low score next to said DUs. Sheesh. Actually being as this was a while ago I have very little memory of it. See how I can just block these out of my head?

So, after 2+ years of crossfit, I finally found myself doing a 2K. And, it wasn’t as dreadful I had feared. Oh, wait. It was. My time, not great, but I’ll take it … especially if I don’t have to do another one for 2 more years.

Well, then.

People don’t realize how difficult jumping squats or split squats are until they have to do them repeatedly. I won’t forget the workouts from The New Rules of Lifting, which incorporated both into their workouts. Ouch, just ouch. I chose the jumping squats.

I used a dumbbell instead of a kb. 25#, maybe? Yep.

Yes, 3 1/2 min more goodness, with the goal of hitting half of your original 7 minute number. I made it, and I also beat my previous record for 7 min. We later found out that some of the classes didn’t do the 3 1/2 minute portion. The risks that come with attending the first class of the day.

This was yesterday’s (end of the month, end of the week). A very sweaty workout. Pull-ups were terrible, maybe because I did the burpees before the row, and that wiped my back strength out? All around a hard and long workout.

A lot of front squats this month. Not a fan of this particular squat.

I am a nervous nelly when it comes to those lateral jump overs. Ideally one can whip them out, do them quickly. I can’t string more than two or three together like that.

Lot of writing on this wall. Hm. Doubleunders I’m sure slowed me down for this. I was a full 2 and a half minutes slower than the other guy, it seems.

I remember this one in that the kettlebell swings clicked for me. My coach, Jess, gave me some cue that changed the way I was doing them, for the better. It’s all about the momentum.

I remember doing this one, especially the skill work (balance) …but it’s not memorable.

A lot of running. Good deal.

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.

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.

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.

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.

3-5-14

Open 14.3

3-17-14

3-19-14

Open 14.4

Open 14.5