Closing out the week..

Crazy end of the week.. Finally now just sitting down to watch the Celtics playoffs..

So Thursday I did something random.

I did some deadlifts just to get back into the strength building world.. I basically went away from any good volume strength training during the marathon stint. I PR'd a bunch of 1 rep stuff during that time.. but not enough 3x5s and 5x3 type stuff.. Back into it today..
I did DLs at:
135x8, 225x5, 275x5, 305x5, 325x3, 335x1.. then went back down the ladder a little.. 275x5, 225x5..

Then I did a mini WOD while everyone did Fran. (I should have done it but my hands were wrecked to be honest and Fran is like almost entirely a grip and wind test for me at this point, so I didn't want an excuse for a bad score, I will do it on a day when I can leave it all out there..)

I did 4 rounds of:

4 Stone to Shoulder 115#

5 Ring Dips

25 Double Unders

Didn't even look at the time, I just went through this to "do a WOD"..



Friday I rested, and then on Saturday

'Morrison'

50-40-30-20-10

Wall Balls 

Box Jumps

KB Swings 1.5pood

Wow.. We did this partner style and this was a crazy burner.. I was smoked by the end of it..

Mike H and I went into this with the strategy to basically do "half of each rep set unbroken, then switch partners".. It worked surprisingly well, even when we were exhausted. I think the drop of reps per segment and our fatigue were perfectly linearly correlated (nerd alert).

I did all the box jumps with a rebound and definitely did not "open up to games standards" at the top on all of them.. I usually just open up at a jump off the box, I get a lot more met-con out of this style than the games way. I will do them that way when I am in a competition, but I think they are sort of annoying in high rep workouts when I can move so much faster the "other way".. Just my opinion. I will continue to preach the "show control at the top" for box jumps, but I do see the merit for just "building your wind" to do it the more bouncy way.

Rested Sunday, I have had a weird rest/work schedule this month. I need to get back to something more concrete like the 3 on 1 off that I used to do religiously. Looking forward to this week though..

And then Tough Mudder Saturday.. (I almost don't even want to do it after the Marathon, but I signed up for it back in November and now it's one of those things I am mostly only doing cuz 20 other friends are going up as well..)

Wednesday April 25th

I was amazing torn on what the hell to do tonight for some reason. My back was tight cuz my hamstrings were tight from the travel and I just could not shake everything loose with all the foam rolling on the planet.. So I decided posterior chain stuff or full depth squats were out..

The WOD from Tuesday looked fun though so I decided to give it a go just to get back into things.. No full depth and nothing heavy, looked like a straight up gasser.

AMRAP 12

Row 150 (no straps)

OH Walking Lunge 35#

12 Burpees

4 Rounds + 150m row and about 5 lunge steps..

Lunges are such mystery to me, they get so challenging so quickly even though they are a slow deliberate movement. Yuck.

I cruised the first round with a sub 30 second row, straight lunges and straight burpees in 2 minutes flat. The next two rounds were a little more paced, probably more like 3 minutes or so.. Last round was sort of blah.. I got to the burpees and was just like whoooaaaa breatheeeee.. 

(side note, Griff and I set it up so that you had to carry the weight back to the rower on the other side of the room.. I think I had 5 rounds in me if we set up the room more with rowers and plates on either side, but whatever, still a good WOD.)

I am really enjoying my streak of rowing without straps, I feel like it is making me a lot more smooth on my form.. I think it will help me a lot when I go to test a 500 or 2k row or something with full straps.. I am starting to feel just as comfortable without them there at all which is great.

Quick Recap

Haven't sat down at a computer for a while but here we go..

Thursday I just did a bunch of overhead work.. with no particular order or scheme in mind.. Just sort of put shit overhead because I wanted to let my legs continue to heal.
I did a bunch of 3 rep and 2 rep sets from 105 up to 130..
Then I kept 105 on the bar and did an ascending ladder if push press and strict pull ups from 1 up to 9 of each, with no time scheme. Just sort of went back and forth while the 7 PM class was mobilizing. I kept getting chatty and off course.

Friday - Tuesday I was in LA.. ate crappy, slept well, rested well. got 2 half ass hotel fitness room WODs in.. Not really happy with either, but they were fine just to "do something"..

First one I did a super set of front squats (on a smith machine, which I hate with a ripping passing) and bench press..
I did 5 reps of each and ascended the weights on the front squat from 155 up to 195, and 125 up to 155 on the bench.. Nothing special.. No time component.. just strength stuff..

Second one I did a really haphazard 20 minute AMRAP which crumbled halfway through..
The goal was to do: 5 lat pull-downs to mimic a strict pull up, 5 overhead press machine, 5 back squats in the smith machine, then a 200m sprint on the tredmill.
I put 140 on the lat pulldown to try to keep my form super strict, 90 on the overhead press (which I upped to 105 midway because it was too easy).. The back squats I abandoned halfway because the smith machine makes my back hurt, it always feels like you are pushing against the tower horizontally instead of "up" against the barbell, thing blows. I then subbed 15 air squats for this from the halfway point onward. The sprints I was hoping to just keep the machine on and running the whole time and hop on the moving tread when it was time to run, but it had a weight sensor so I had to start and stop it every time which was a buzzkill on the metcon portion of this..

I will say this though.. I sort of "half-like" to do sprints on the treadmill because once you set the pace to max out the machine (like 12.4 mph or whatever the max is on most machines), you HAVE to keep that pace until its over... When I run outside I tend to mentally check out and slow down "when it starts to hurt" just with human nature.. but on the treadmill, you can't..  Sort of an interesting feature on a piece of equipment I otherwise hate.

First time running since the marathon and it felt fine.. Legs are back in working order.. Ready to crush some shit this month.. Let's do it.

Tuesday-Wednesday April 17-18

Recovery days..

Surprisingly my quads, hips and feet don't feel that awful..

But my calves feel like have been beaten up by Rocky Balboa for about 15 rounds with no gloves.. Just total useless mush down there below the knees.. Ouch.

Might do some upper body stuff tomorrow and save my calves the trouble.. Will decide later.

Boston Marathon 2012

Me pretending to be a runner...

Where to begin..

This was one of the coolest experiences of my life. When the opportunity was presented to me 6 weeks or so ago to run the marathon for charity with a real live bib number and such, I just couldn't pass it up.. I have always wanted to run Boston, this was just my final kick in the pants to actually roll the dice. I have no endurance background whatsoever, and truthfully I dislike running anything over a 400m in a WOD, but this was just something I have always wanted to be able to say I did. 

Looking back, my training was pretty half-assed for this specific event even with the notice I had.. I just love CrossFit style workouts and weightlifting much more than I am ever going to like running, so I ended up doing a lot of stuff leading up to it that probably didn't help me all that much on race day.. But whatever.

That said, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the weather that I faced today. I'll explain as I go through the play-by-play, but this whole experience went from "cool athletic endeavor I want to do well at" to "I just want to stay out of the hospital today"..

If I were to do it again, I would obviously do it with more notice, with a more cohesive plan, and I would do it with a friend who was going to stay with me the whole time, going at it alone was cool at times, but lonely at times too.. I think having someone would have been helpful. Obviously hindsight is 20/20.

Getting right into it.. (sorry if I skip parts or details, if I do, its simply because I was delirious and forget)

So we stayed at the Laborer's Training Center in Hopkinton about 2 miles from the starting line, which was great because we did not have to battle any traffic or stress on the morning of... I just woke up, showered, ate a bunch of eggs, bacon, coffee and fruit, and got dressed for the day. I decided a little while back to do the race in my Inov-8s because they are the only shoes I have been training in that did not give me blisters, and they force me to run the more POSE running style of a mid-sole strike, no heel-toe action.. Which is great for the joints (my knees and back don't hurt at all today as I write this) but really tough on the muscles, especially the calves.

Around 930 AM, we got to Athlete's Village and I was so overwhelmed. More people than I could have possibly imagined were scurrying around taking their final nervous pees, putting on body glide, and writing their names on themselves. I knew in the back of my head how the Boston Marathon is one of the more prestigious and sought after running events in the world, but I did not exactly process just HOW seriously people take this. Everyone looked like that had done nothing but run and starve themselves for 6 months.. I don't want to be a dickhead or all elitist about this, because I don't mean it in that way.. But runners have exactly the body type I would never EVER strive to have. Flabby arms that look like they could never do a pull up, terrible hunched over posture, and sinewy tan legs in short shorts. Sorry people, I am sticking with weight training. Yikes. (It was also at this point that I was just like "Damn, I am way out of my league here"..)

The temperature started to warm up to that point where everyone was applying their final coat of sunscreen looking around like "Ugh, this is going to suck" as we were sitting in the shade and already breaking a sweat.

My attitude sort of changed on the march from Athlete's village to the starting line as I started to look around and see a lot more of the shirts saying things like "Running for my son" or "Every stride is to beat cancer" and more things of this nature. This sort of perked me up because I was just thinking how much bigger this event was than me. SO many people running for SO many different causes and important things, and here I was just trying to check an item off my bucket list.. 

In what seemed like no time we were at the starting line and off we went.. I promised myself I wouldn't waste any energy running around people and gunning out of the gate, which I actually stuck to.. My first 5k pace of about 11 minute miles was pretty much exactly what I was trying to stick with, given the heat.. My original goal was 10 minute miles, but I upped that goal once I saw the forecast, and abandoned that goal entirely at about mile 17, as I will explain. The downhill, the adrenaline, and the slow chosen pace made the first 5k feel like I was not even trying, felt like a complete walk in the park.. I remember thinking "I could do this until Thursday".. (wrong)..

My major fears heading into this were:

• Exhaustion/dehydration/etc.,  basically anything that would require me going to a medical tent.
• Blistering
• Chaffing
• Legitimately injuring something like a hamstring, ankle, knee or toe.. Something that would just royally have pissed me off if it prevented me from finishing..

I ended up way overdoing the hydration, I stopped at legitimately every single water or Gatorade station for a few sips, which completely slaughtered my final time because you had to come to a complete stop and walk every time you did that and prance to avoid all of the refuse of rotten old cups from the thousands of people ahead of me (the stations were about every half mile, ballpark).. Fortunately I never succumbed to dehydration along the way, so I guess I was better safe than sorry on that front. I never ended up blistering or chaffing as I sort of assumed I would, which was lucky, and the only part that really hurt was my right hamstring, that I never could seem to quite loosen up after about mile 5. It wasn't debilitating, just sort of annoying.. Like when you feel like you need to crack your knuckle but it won't quite release..

After the first 5k, I told Patricia basically "You can go ahead, I don't want to hold you up, because I am planning on walking a little after every 5k to gear up for the next segment".. Fortunately she went right on ahead and ended up setting a PR in the heat... B-A-N-A-N-A-S... She is fucking amazing.

I thought I could sustain something to the degree of "run 5k or so, walk for a minute or so, repeat" for the whole thing.. This turned out to be pretty much correct for the first 10 miles or so. I ran the vast majority of that part and felt really, really good.. There was plenty of shade, I drank plenty of water, I didn't need to eat anything yet, all was going well..

I saw Nora and her sister at Mile 8 which was my first viewing of someone I knew on the sidelines, which made me really happy and carried me through to at least the halfway point near Wellesley College.. (PS college students are getting way younger, every one of them looked about 11 holding up the "Kiss me" signs.. Stayed way away from that, looked like a lawsuit waiting to happen)

I made it to the halfway point at about 2 hours, 30 minutes, which is high comedy considering the winning Kenyans do the whole thing in less time than that.. But in my head I would have been totally happy with a 5 hour finish, given the weather, my experience, and my training..

Here's the part of the race I was not prepared for.. The re-fueling portion.. And the mental "wall"..

So I knew you had to eat something over the course of the race, I just never really figured out what.. I was hoping people would just sort of hand out bananas and power bars and all would be well.. As it turns out, there were way more water stations than food stations and I was just completely and utterly unprepared for this. Patricia had given me some extra little energy gummy things that sat well but didn't really fill my stomach, which continually pounded in hunger. I eventually made it to Mile 15 or so and got a banana from outside of Whole Foods and plowed that shit down.. I did not at all take into account the process of trying to digest while in a race.. I tried to run way too quickly after eating and felt banana at about my Adam's apple, and was just like "Fuck, you need to slow it down or you might yak".. So I walked about a quarter mile hoping my stomach would settle, which it thankfully did and I was able to jog it from about that point to Newton Wellesley.. I saw my dad (who works at the hospital) and that was a really pleasant moment, because I was not sure if he would be able to track me at work well.. Right after the hospital was the Power Gel station, which I gladly ate because I was famished at that point..

Right before the turn at the firehouse I saw Nora again and then KT and Byerly which perked me up a lot, I needed a boost because I was starting to burn out a bit.. I made it to the hills and with the state of my legs I made the executive decision that I would walk the uphills and run the straights and downhills as best as I could. It was seriously less efficient to try to run up the hills at that point, I was legitimately passing runners by walking at a reasonable brisk walk pace.. And I think they were trying a lot harder than me. I saw Lauren and Leigh from FCF around HB Hill and that was another boost I needed because the hills were mentally draining..

At Mile 17...

At some point during the hills I realized my time was all fucked up and I was not going to grace any record books today.. But I sort of flipped the switch from "I want to do as well as I can" to "I just want to finish this come hell or high water, I don't care if I finish at 8 PM tonight".. I saw so many people in medic tents, and so many people just crapping out that I pretty much wanted to forego doing my absolute best and just make it to the ending. It was so discouraging seeing all the people drop like flies.. I was really scared... Every single step at this point felt like it might be "the one that makes my calf cramp up".. Seriously.. my legs were just not conditioned for this heat at all...

Some dude at the corner of Grant St. & Comm Ave was handing out freeze pops.. Best idea EVER.. This was the most satisfying thing I had all day.. The cold and sugar combo was amazing at the time..

One thing I have forgotten to mention until this point.. the Spray Stations.. So, I fully understand the intent and appreciate the nice gesture.. But people from Hopkinton all the way through the Newton hills had their personal house hoses turned on  and were spraying runners at will.. At first, this was awesome because frankly I was hot and the water was cold.. Easy solution.. But after a while I was like.. OK. My shirt is soaked, I don't need any more.. I think I almost chaffed on my nips because of all this spraying and wetness.. I think I legit got sprayed with water 20 times willingly, and 85 times against my will just because I was running on the wrong side of the street.. No exaggeration.

I slowed down considerably through the hills for obvious reasons and when I made it to BC I thought I should pick it up a little because it was mostly downhill and the students were awesome in that portion of the crowd, lots of awesome cheering between Lake St and Roggies... (and lots of Natty Light cans all over the ground.. ahh the good old days)

The  final major turn onto Beacon St. is one of the biggest mindfucks ever.. Because that is the first point that you can truly see Boston, its right there in front of you.. But there is still 3+ miles to go.. It's basically this mirage you think you may never make it to.. I saw Sarah K and Greg at the turn unexpectedly which was awesome.

I did the best I could through Brookline, but at that point I was 100% in survival mode, half death-marching, half running through the crowds, trying not to let that "one bad cramp" happen. Also, there is so much less shade in this part of the race, that I felt like I was melting.. Mentally I was so checked out around Mile 23.5.. I remember thinking "I think they must have taken the Mile 24 sign down, because there is no way it hasn't been a mile since the last one".. It felt like it took absolutely forever.. Fortunately I saw Tyler from FCF, and then most of my roommates drunkenly cheering loudly which helped me out a TON.. I needed a pick me up so badly here..

Once I got into Fenway, I tried to relax a little and smile again knowing I was going to finish, and that it was only about another mile and a half, just a matter of time.. From here on in I basically ignored the heat, ignored the pain, and just went one foot in front of the other the best that I could.. Once I turned onto Hereford, there was no turning back... The last 600 meters or so is pure heart.. My legs were just for show at that point, they felt like they had no strength left in them at all.. Saw a few more friends on the last 400 meter stretch and that carried me into the finish, where I almost didn't even know what to do with myself.. Like I almost couldn't believe it was over, felt like it was never going to end.

Final 200 meters...

What a day... 10 years from now I am not going to give a flying fuck that my time sucked, I will just care that I got the medal, finished it, and did so with 6 weeks notice with absolutely no background in this stuff, in grueling conditions.. Mind over matter.

Technically, I beat the Kenyan Mutai who won the whole thing last year because he dropped out at mile 18 with cramps.. Tortoise beat the Hare today.. KABOOM.

My main takeaway from this was that I probably won't be doing anything like a marathon or a triathlon any time soon, it's just not my scene..  I would rather do almost any other sport or lifting competition for fun before I do this sort of thing again.. I especially would not elect to put myself through that in that heat again.. When your mind is more worried about legitimate health concerns instead of your pace or your form, you know you probably shouldn't have been out there.. That said, it is amazing what the human body can do sometimes..

If you need me for the next two days, I will be resting and eating ice cream.

Weekend before...

So Friday I changed up the WOD a little to skip out on box jumps and let my ankles and calves rest a little..

I did the box squats super light at 185 just to move around and get loose..

I did the workout the same time scheme and rep scheme but subbed pull ups for BJs and actually got some butterfly pull ups going a little bit, which was good, I am constantly wanting to get better at those without putting in the paractice, so today I made sure I tried to keep those going throughout.

I got up to 13 rounds plus 22 reps, tough WOD.. super sweaty..


Saturday morning I was up bright and early to go to this New Balance event that Patricia got me into through her relay team sponsorship.. I basically just had to show up and go for a jog, which seemed like a good idea to keep the legs loose before Monday.. And got a free pair of kicks out the deal.. Woot! They are the official Boston Marahton addition with little lobsters on them.. Pretty sweet, and really comfortable.

We went about 3 miles wayyyy faster than my marathon pace, we were cooking at the beginning.. The NB store is right next to the finish line so we jogged all the way up to it and then I decided I did not want to cross it until I earned it on Monday because I am superstitious.

Sunday, of course, I did nothing, just rested and got myself ready for the big day.

Thursday April 12th

So I was asked to put on this mini-class for this group at work called "YESNET".. I obliged because I love coaching and meeting new people and this sounded like an interesting opportunity just to plant the CrossFit seed in some new minds, if it was their cup of tea.

I headed to this little Fitness Center in Tewksbury in the basement at Raytheon nice and early to get in a workout of my own.. I sort of surveyed the area to figure out:
1) what crap they had that I could use
2) how much noise I could make without causing a scene


I am still in "marathon mode" and not going to anything too taxing or heavy, just trying to keep the legs loose and my wind fresh.. After a bunch of searching, moving a rowing machine, and stealing a kettlebell, I went into their "yoga room" and set up shop..

I did a 12 minute AMRAP of:

200m Row without straps (saved the time of getting in and out of them)

10 Push ups on mini-parallettes (chest down to full depth)

20 Double Unders

10 KB Swing (44 lb bell, heaviest they had)

20 Air Squats

I believe I got 6 full rounds.. But my mind is slipping today so it could have been one more or one less.. but the important thing was that I went unbroken on every segment and kept moving with good intensity.. The only part where I took like a mini-breath break was at the top of some of the air squats just so I could sprint the row every time.. Cool little makeshift workout, good one on the lungs.. every part of it was just easy enough to do all in a row.. good rep scheme choices for me.



The workout I had the Yesnet folks do was 5 stations of Tabata: Calorie row, air squat, sit up, KB swing, push ups.. They seemed to enjoy it even if their legs were rubber afterward, but its really hard to push people that you don't know personally since you don't really know their limits, and they have never been properly shown how to do certain moves.. but its good coaching practice to have a room full of newbies.. win/win..

Wednesday April 11th

Came in today with the intention of trying the 1RM C&J for kicks.. hit traffic and did not have time to do it before the evening classes, so I thought I would wait until afterwards. Did like 3 warm up reps at 8PM, all of them felt shitty.. Added a little weight to 185.. felt horrible.. Immediately packed up my crap and went to Tommy Doyle's..

No use forcing a 1RM when your body is not in the mood.

Tuesday April 10th

Took it pretty easy today.

Warmed up a bunch, foam rolled and used the tiger tail for like a half hour..Felt really good actually, very spry..

The class at 6 was doing the 2 minute DUs so I decided to hop in at the last possible second.. I literally grabbed my rope, moved a rower out of the way during the countdown and just did them completely cold.

I ended up doing 162 in the 2 minutes with no practice at all, which is more than my 159 from a month ago.. I am still not really happy with this.. I think I have somewhere between 180-200 in me on a good day.. I will probably try this again in the coming weeks and try not to trip up so much.. I did like 30-40-30-30-29 or something like that for my sets with dumb trip ups.. I should really be able to do like at least 50 every time and get that 200 I have wanted for so long.. ARGH.

FOOD -
530AM - Coconut Lara Bar, Coffee
9AM - Bacon Omelette with pepper and onions
Noon - Some leftover mac & cheese from Easter, and a salad with normal toppings on it..
5PM - Protein shake with coconut milk, whey, banana, peanut butter
9PM - Taco Salad with ground turkey, romaine lettuce, salsa, cheese and avocado.. (I love this meal, need to make it more regular, so easy too... Brown the turkey meat, cut the avocado in half.. end of prep)

Monday April 9th

ONE MORE WEEK...

Today was my last official training run.. Just to sort of get the legs moving.. Ended up doing a bunch more.. Just cuz I am weird.

I jogged 5.8 miles from my house, up to BC.. through the Newton Hills (down them, the other way is gonna be a lot worse next week).. up to Newtonville and back to the gym..

I ended up rowing a smooth 2K when I got there in about 8:30.. just to keep moving.. I was feeling froggy so I decided to do the strength work.. 5 sets of max pull ups.. I did 16-10-7-9-8 for my sets.. with totally varying rests.. I was sort of half walking around the room looking at other people throughout and never kept track.. 2 minutes rest on the nose each time would have been harder than what I did..

I watched the first heat do the WOD Lock & Load and decided I could muscle through it just to add one more thing to the day.

I also realized that this WOD is different than what I called Lock & Load back around Thanksgiving.. It used to be 3 RFT of swings, high pulls and push ups.. Today I somehow made it into 3RFT of swings, hand release push ups, and then high pulls..

The re-ordering and the addition of hand release made this approximately 10 times worse.. and added a minute to my time.. I was also pretty tired from the hour of running and the pull ups.. sue me..

I need to figure out what the hell else I want to do this week for training.. I am going to take it easy for the most part, not high volume heavy lifting, and no long endurance stuff.. I will probably do the 1 RM C&J on Wednesday morning, and work a bunch of mobility.. Besides that I am probably mostly going to do some rowing and some other upper body stuff like presses, muscle ups, etc. and save my legs the trouble of getting too beat up.. No box jumps, no sprints, and no lunges for this kid..

FOOD-
9AM - Bacon Omelette with coffee
Noon - Salad with turkey, veggies, feta, and craisins with olive oil..
5PM- Scoop of coconut peanut butter (ya, I found this at Whole Foods.. I could eat it like ice cream.. it is unreal.. I am in trouble..) and a scoop of protein powder in a shake with water..
9PM - Broccoli, zucchini and feta omelette..

Weekend April 7-8

Happy Easter..

Nothing going on this weekend..
Relaxed a bunch. Felt like I needed a lot of rest.

I made some little atlas stones too which should be ready in a couple weeks..

I made a 35# and a 65# stone so I now have an arsenal of 35, 65, 95, 115, and 145 so if I were to hold a small seminar on Strongman lifts for our members I don't have a barrier to entry with those.

I really want to do one of these soon and teach some tire flips more extensively, some farmer's walks more extensive, atlas stones, and keg carries.. Hopefully I will put it together this month once I get all the equipment..

Friday April 6th

Strength - Deadlift 3x5

I was a little tight today, so I treated today more as some "maintenance work".. Didn't totally push the envelope.

I did 255, 275 and 300 for my sets.. Felt fine.. Heavy but not bad.. Just got my reps in, nothing more.

WOD - Pink Floyd
5 Rounds
15 Box Jumps 24"
15 Sit Ups
2 Wall Walks

Time - 5:52 Rx'd

I enjoyed this workout.. The only thing I really slowed up on was the sit ups in the 4th and 5th rounds.. Just sort of had to breath and catch my breath for a second.. High rep ab work still wrecks me.. Whether it is as easy as sit ups or as tough as kipping T2B.. just gets very tiring very quickly.. something to work on..

I am blogging this on Monday for last week and honestly I sort of forget what I ate at what times..
I think I had a broccoli & feta omelette around 10 am for breakfast... Post workout shake around 2ish.. and then I had like a Chicken stir fry sandwich for dinner I think??

I have been upping the carbs a little here and there with some breads, etc. just in prep for the marathon.. I will probably go back to more Paleo afteward but I just need to have a store of energy this week, and its a lot easier to do so with a small bowl of mac & cheese or a sandwich than 3 huge bowls of steamed broccoli.. This is strictly for this one event, not really how I prefer to eat.. I have talked to some coaches who have done one before and they basically said "Paleo will make you more efficient, but you need to get some extra carbs from somewhere, and it probably will be really difficult to eat carrots all day long to get enough of them".. So I am taking their advice even though its not really the way I typically eat in my normal CF Training..

Thursday April 5th

Today was an awesome day.

"The Other Total"

1 Rep Max:

Clean 

Floor Press

OHS

Best lifts: 250 PR, 235 (tied PR), 175 (PR)

Today was one of my most successful days of pure weightlifting in a long while.

I had numbers in mind, I had a good plan, and I warmed up really well to get there.

I'll go through this quick because the videos can speak for themselves on the final lifts.

For cleans I went with:

135 x5, 165x3, 195x2, 215x1, 235x1, 250x1, 260 (fail, oh well)

My previous best was 245 a while back, so I jumped right from 90% up to the 102% to try for the PR.. Landed a little wide for my liking, but the hip drive was super solid and my pull off the ground showed good patience to wait for the arms to pull (as I yell at a lot of FCFer's for)..

For Bench Press (floor press) I sort of rushed through this because I have not done these in a long while so I had no idea where I would top out at.. I just went up the ladder quickly until I hit a stall point and didn't the push the envelope once I got there..

I did 135x6, 165x5, 185x3, 205, 215, 225, 235 (fail), 235

Louis helped me a little bit on the rep I failed, so I don't count that one, but I did hit it with success a minute later cuz I knew I had it. Nothing special here, just normal mantown bench pressing awesomeness.

I have not overhead squatted in a while.. Definitely not for a max. I had done 140x5 and a 155x1 this year, but I have not done anything with consistency on these.. So today was a super pleasant surprise.

I went with 95x5, 115x3, 135, 150, 160, 175 .. 

Puerto Rico'd this motherfucker twice today.. Super fucking amped.. And many other exclamatory curse words in a positive light.. Shoulder mobility has helped a lot as has working on the barebones basics of my air squat.. I stumbled a tiny bit standing this up, but never lost control. Very happy. BOOM.

Wednesday April 4th

I felt like this cat probably did the next day.. Just sore all over..

Rested.. Did literally nothing today. No mobility, hardly even moved except to show the night classes the kettlebell snatch form.. Body needed it.

I am excited for tomorrow's max efforts, I want to see if I can power clean 250, and try to OHS 160.. The PC has been a goal for some time, and the OHS is working toward my year end goal of getting a bodyweight overhead squat.. so ballpark 180, 185 just to be safe. Working my way up.. Got 155 last time I tried.

I also finished The Hunger Games tonight.. Cool book, super easy read..

One of my resolutions is to start reading more.. I read TONS of fitness and sports articles all day long when I should be "working", but I want to get back to reading more actual books.. Probably better for my brain than the constant re-runs of Seinfeld and Big Bang Theory that I typically subject myself too..

I think I can quote every episode of both from beginning to end at this point..


FOOD-

9 AM - Bacon Omelette
Noon - Same salad with chicken meatballs and avocado
5 PM - Shake with coconut water, banana and coconut butter
9PM- Eggs with feta, broccoli and zucchini (all sort of scrambled together, looked weird, tasted amazing)

Tuesday April 3rd

Strength - Farmer's carry
Max weight without dropping across the room..

I have done this for max effort a few times now.. at Rob Orlando's seminar I did 400 lbs across their gym which is a little smaller than ours lengthwise.. I did 390 a few weeks back late at night with success but almost had a stroke afterward from squeezing so tight.. I was curious what I could get up to today..
I carried 250, 290 without issue. We upped it quickly to 350 and I was able to do this and still felt like I had some left.. I think we jumped a bit too much ,but whatever live and learn.. We added 60 more lbs and went to 410 so I just attempted the PR before we took up way too much class time.. Surprisingly the actual deadlift part came up really easily, but I took one step, lost my footing, stumbled, lost my grip, and that was the end of that. The first two steps are so crucial with max effort carries.. Once I get going I can usually keep on walking, but getting the inertia going is hard when you have a load over your own bodyweight, in each hand.

I think I can do over 400 if I try it again.

"Lucky"

AMRAP 7

7 Hang Power Snatch 95/65

7 Pull- Ups

7 Rounds + 5 Reps Rx'd

Grip was sort of the limiter at a certain point for me.. I did 2 rounds in 1 minute out of the gate, thought that 10 rounds might be achievable.. But then I got through round 5 or so (at around minute 4) and realized time was speeding way up and I couldn't hang onto the barbell or bar for many reps at a time.. Score suffered there a little. Good WOD though.. Weight was just heavy enough to make it tough by the end, but not heavy enough that it slowed me down.

Monday April 2nd

Press Progression 1-3-5  Press-Push press-Push jerk

I have a love/hate with this press progression because my push presses and jerks are way way stronger than my strict press, so I am super limited on the first lift, but work my form on the last 8 reps..
I went with 95, 115, 135, 145, and then tried 155 but failed. Would have been a PR on my strict press but was not happening after the first 4 sets.. triceps were smoked. Good skill work though.. the 145# felt solid.

WOD - "Tabatarama"

Tabata segments of:

Bottom to Bottom Air Squats

Row Calories

Jumping scissor lunges

Double Unders

Tabata is super humbling for me. Those 7th and 8th rounds.. yikes.. such a mental grinder.

I was able to start out with 15 squats for the first half and slowly digressed to 12 per segment as my legs started to burn. This hurt a surprising amount, in a good way.
The Rowing I sort of gamed it and managed to get 6 calories per segment with 7-8 hard, long pulls.. I tried to stay really efficient on these.
Lunges were a burner as well, youch. I started out with 20 no problem and thought that was maintainable.. I was wrong.. Ended up with 14 per segment by the last couple.. Snuck up on me.
Double unders hardly worked today, my legs were useless lumps by the time I got to the end.. I got about 20 per segment for 6 of the 8 rounds, but 2 of them sucked, like 13 or 14.. I should really be able to get like 30 or more on this when I am fresh, but my legs were just screaming during the second half of this..

Good WOD..


FOOD
9 AM- Bacon and swiss omelette, coffee
Noon - Salad with Pesto Chicken meatballs, avocado, carrot, celery, olive oil
5 PM - Shake with ice, coconut milk, banana, almond butter, protein
8 PM - Chicken Nacoise salad from Fiolrella's Express... Chicken, red pepper, tomato, avocado, egg, goat cheese on it with a drizzle of citrus dressing..
930 PM- Couple spoonfuls of greek yogurt, vanilla flavored.

Weekend March 31st - April 1st

Rested on Saturday..

Got a massage in the morning and was basically a human marshmallow for the remainder of the day.. Needed that so badly.. Everything feels nice and loosened up again.. especially in my shoulders.. wow..

I recommend Grace at the Perfect Touch Therapy in Waban to anyone on this planet.. she is excellent.. Best overall athletic massage I have had to this point.

On Sunday I wanted to get in an extended-ish session of cardio related something for marathon training but wanted to stay off my toe that has been tender..

I decided to row 4 x 2000 meters.. I started off slowly and rowed about 9:20 on the first one, then 8:40, then 8:30, then 8:05.. I foam rolled in between each effort and was mostly just trying to keep loose, focus on my breathing and technique and get my heart rate up..

I probably should have done a little more, but I can only row so much in a room by myself until I get bored..


I am supposed to be on the "tapering down" portion of marathon stuff, which is fine because my main goal at this point is just to show up healthy on the day of.. I will probably do a bunch of 2-5 mile jogs here and there for the next couple weeks and stay away from anything "really heavy" weightlifting with my legs.. The phrase I heard recently that I liked is "the hay is already in the barn".. basically anything that I do to this point is not going to make me run any harder, better or faster on gameday.. I have already built up a certain level of mental fortitude and cardio training for this.. Just need to practice a little more, keep CrossFitting, and show up feeling good on April 16th.. 2 more weeks..

Food-
(again didn't really record well this weekend, but I'll give some of the highlights)
Saturday I believe I had a spinach and cheese omelette for breakfast post massage, had some whitefish tacos late afternoon, and then made a dinner with salmon, asparagus and roasted red peppers that was delicious..
Sunday I had just a greek yogurt in the morning, some hummus and snack dip type stuff in the afternoon watching the Celtics (who are playing amazing this month), and the had a burrito for dinner with chicken and extra guacamole..

The taco shells and burrito shells were the main "tsk, tsk" moments, probably could have gone with something else at the time, not a great decision but everything else was OK this weekend.. Will get back on track this week..