So after a couple of lack-luster training days last week, I finally decided to do something different to get off of that train I had myself on.. It was a cycle of..sore and tired, but think I'm ok to workout.. Try working out, but feel awful, so take a day off.. Feel better, so do ALL THE THINGS!..workout too hard nd find myself in the hole again.. So I finally told myself I would not go back to the gym until I could honestly say I felt good for a whole day.. No wincing while walking. No sniffles. No falling asleep at the drop if a hat.. You know, like a normal functioning adult? So that meant I took all of wed and Thursday off. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, or enough, but in assure you, it was both of those things. I felt 100x better on Friday, so I decided to go in early, practice a snatch EMOTM for the competition I was doing that weekend, and then bang out the Wodapalooza workout for the qualifier this week! Snatches went well, so we were off to a good start.. The qualifier workout was:
Find a 4 rep max shoulder to overhead in 2 min, then:
9 min AMRAP
3 cleans (95#)
3 hang squat cleans
3 thrusters
30 double unders
*barbell work must be unbroken unless you want to take a 3 burpee penalty
I wasn't exactly sure of what my 4 rep max was for jerks.. I knew I had done 175# for 3 before, and it remember that being pretty tough.. So I figured I would shoot for that! I warmed up to 165 and then got ready for the workout. I did my 4 reps at 175 and it actually felt pretty easy! Then I went for the workout.. No plan, just figured I'd go fast and.. That's all I got! That worked for about 3 or 4 minutes.. Some day I'll learn.. After finishing that up, I went home and got to thinking about how the workout was done..and I knew I could do better.. I would have to do it again.. Problem was that I had a competition all weekend and the workout is due by Sunday evening.. And I most likely wouldn't feel as fresh then as I still did Friday.. You see where this is going, yes? So I went in that afternoon, armed with a plan.. In my early rounds on my first attempt, I was trying to stick to a round per minute plan, then when that fell apart, I wasn't in control..rest was too long.. Double unders were kind of a mess.. So this time I planned to shoot for somewhere around 1:10-1:15 per round.. Especially in the early sets, so that I didn't lose control of the workout and have to go into survival mode.. I also felt that I had a little more in me for the jerks, since 175 had felt so do-able.. Not much, but some.. So I shot for 180 on those, and I got them! It felt heavy and not pretty, but after watching it in the video (I have to record the stuff and send it in as proof), I kind of wish I had tried for more.. Especially after the scores came out and I see I could have jumped about 10 places if I had done 185#.. But.. That's part of all of this.. You never know what everyone else will do. I didn't want to overshoot and start failing my jerks in warm ups and then not get the 180.. I felt like 180# for 4 unbroken jerks is pretty solid, so regardless of the ranking, I'm actually pretty proud of that! Then the workout.. I stuck to my plan.. 1:10 per round felt like plenty of rest at first and I was able to hold that.. I think all the way through? It started to feel hard in my last round or 2, and I thought about backing off, but told myself that it was supposed to feel hard and just to keep pushing and finish it up. I finished with just under 8 rounds.. My first attempt was only 1 clean into that 8th round, so I improved by 36 reps and felt pretty good about it! Again.. Scores came out and I started thinking 'why didn't you go for 1:05 or 1:08 per round', or something like that.. But I know how it had felt and I know I gave it my all.. So, again.. I'm pleased with that second attempt! Sunday night I got to see the rankings.. I'm currently in 29th place, out of around 300, I think.. Only the top 20 will get an invite for the elite division, so I have to work hard these next couple of weeks, if I want to make it! But I know it can be done.. Just stay consistent and push hard. I think with having more time to do it this weekend, I can test things more and practice, etc.. Hopefully work my way up!
I also competed on a team in the Naptown Bracket Buster here in town this weekend.. It was fun.. A well run comp with good programming, good athletes, and from what I saw, fairly consistent judging, so it was good! We had our ups and downs.. Things we excelled in and had a lot of fun with.. We literally ran away with the relay run.. We had 2 pairs that ran about 1 1/2 miles each and we were about a minute ahead of second place.. That was fun.. Then there was a 'strategy heavy' workout with barbells, holds and burpees.. We communicated well and executed..dare I say perfectly?.. So that one was fun.. We had a few falters where 1 or more maybe struggled a bit with a weight or a movement, which set us back a touch on the workout, but overall, there were a lot of varied challenges thrown at us and we were amongst the top in all of them, so I'm proud of our team! Personally, I enjoyed the comp quite a bit. I liked all of the challenges thrown our way and didn't find myself really tripped up at any certain time, so I guess we are doing something right? The only judging glitch that we experienced was being given a bunch of no-reps at the end of a workout that was a tight race, and meant the difference between 3rd and fourth overall.. The first no-rep was a right call..but then it seemed like they were more focused on reassuring themselves on that call (which, I know, is a tough one to make, especially in that environment!) and not on counting the 3 or 4 reps she correctly made during that time.. So they wound up taking about 4 or 5 squats from her, instead of just the 1.. And then we lost the race.. Oh, well.. We certainly had some other mistakes that cost us in that workout, so I guess it all adds up in the end.. Like I said, though, I was proud of our team and the work we put together in a tough competition, so it was a good weekend. I would definitely do that competition again!.. Coming back to seek revenge next year!
So given my inability to recover over the previous 2 weeks.. And the fact that I did that qualifier 2 times before the weekend long competition!.. I told myself that if I felt super tired and sore when I tried to wake up for the gym Monday morning, I would take a rest day.. Well, I woke up super tired and sore, so went back to bed and rested up.. I tell you what, it worked! I felt great today and definitely had a better workout today than I would have had yesterday, so maybe I'm learning..
So today was my 'day 1' for this week and it was:
Snatch with a 2-3 second pause above the knee: sets of 3 @ 95/105/110/120#. These went ok until I started rushing things at 120#.. Some went ok, but I think I lost my focus a bit, or something.. Decided to move along..
Squats: sets of 4 at 200/210#.. Ouch!
Weighted front rack step ups (20" box): 3 sets of 8/leg w 85#
GHDs with a 14# med ball: 3 sets of 20.. Sweatin hard by this point!
EMOTM x4 min 1 snatch @ 120#, then every :30s x 3 min 1 snatch @ 110#, then every :15s x 2 min 1 snatch @ 110#
Workout:
15 ring MU ( did 5/3/3/2/2 and it took 3 min)
20 HSPU (12/8)
25 cal row
30 pistols
25 cal row
20 HSPU (15/5)
15 bar MU (9/6)
Overall, it took me 11:50 to finish. Not too bad.. Calorie row always takes me a bit.. And pistols felt hard because my legs were feeling the squats and step ups..and all the snatches, too, probably.. But I felt like I moved as quickly as I could, so I will take it. Pretty good start to the week! We have some heavy hang snatches up for tomorrow, so I better be ready for that! Should be fun..
GLI comp 1/'14
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 22, 2014
Another fun team series day
After my lazy day off, I had another slow start to my day on Saturday.. Sleeping in as long as the kids let me..which, since Miles is free to come on out of his room as soon as he's ready, it's been more like 6:30 these days.. But that still beats 4! So it felt leisurely to me.. Especially since I didn't need to leave for the gym until 10:30-ish.. We had another day of getting our group together to do the second team series workouts and the traveling folks wouldn't arrive until 11:30, so no need to rush! Once we all got there, though.. It was time to get moving. Started off with a 2 rep max bench press. I was feeling good and started with what felt like an easy 165#. My max is only 175, so I guess trying it for a 2 rep max wasn't going to be easy. The first one felt fine, but that second one got tricky..and then stuck..and then stopped moving upwards.. Dang it! After the rest took their turns, I tried again at 170.. And then again.. Same thing! I think I learned that once the ol bench press starts to fail.. It's down hill from there.. Oh, well. Not bad. I had hoped for a bit more, but it wasn't for lack of trying! We ran through the rest of the 3 workouts and things went well! We had cleans at 105#, and those felt fine.. No collar bone/neck issues! It's actually feeling a lot better. I think it just needed me to stop hitting it long enough for it to heal a bit.. Go figure! We also had muscle ups in that workout and those felt good, too. Sets of 4, holding strong! I guess if I was following my plan, I'd have sets of 6 by now? But I think I need to back off of those just a bit.. Maybe just 2 or 3 days a week?
Next up was a relay where we each did 21/15/9 OHS and TTB's.. I underestimated that one a bit..as usual.. But I managed to squeak out my last few TTB's to make it through all unbroken! I usually don't feel my core/hips much in TTB's (even though that's what it is technically working, I usually feel it more in my grip), but those last few were feeling it for sure! But that one went well. Last, but not least, was partners doing 50 Deadlifts (155# for females) and 50 HSPU. Kicker here was that while one partner worked, the other had to hold, either the bar or a handstand.. Not too bad, though. I partnered with Nick and we were able to go back and forth with little or no rest through almost 3 rounds before the 15 min was up.. And then we were done! Not bad for a days work. We hung out a bit and chatted. There is a lot of discussion going on about upcoming competitions and such.. First up is my attempt to get a group on board to go out to Boston in January for the East Coast Championships. Just like Granite Games, this is a big comp that pulls a lot of top athletes out and the cool thing about this one is that you can do the individual competition on Saturday and then get a team of 4 together for the team comp on Sunday! Could be fun, right? Well.. We would have to do the on-line qualifier stuff first, so I need to get them on board quick! So anyway, that was that.
Sunday started off with an ill-advised attempt at fast mile repeats! I was shooting for the low 6 minute range and..that did not go well.. I had to settle for 6:43 and 6:49.. Ouch! Next time I will shoot for 6:30-6:40.. My last mile repeats, which I did a couple weeks ago, were all around 7 min, so I'm not sure what I was thinking? Aim high, I say! As soon as I finished that, I went over to the gym. My plan was to do the strength work from day 6 of this week.. Which was:
Sets of 2 on OHS: 125/135/145/165/175
Sets of 3 snatch balance: 115/125/135/145
Snatch balance presses at 55-65#/weighted GH raises with 20#
JD had mentioned pulling a weighted sled for a mile, and what could be more fun than that?! So I joined him.. It wasn't too bad! I added 70# to the sled and each lap took right around 2 min, finishing at 15:51. Good times! I hung around and worked, then when I got home, it was time for the apple orchard! We are usually terrible with this.. We always plan to get there at a good time, but usually don't make it til almost November when the pickins are slim, at best.. So this year was a huge success! Apples everywhere! Apples that taste good! We filled an $18 bag to the brim and then Matt immediately made apple crisp! Apples! We did it.. Finally.. 5 years of trying and finally a success. AND. As if that isn't exciting enough.. All that apple tasting wiggled Mason's loose tooth right out of his mouth! Our first lost tooth.. Big stuff!
And now Monday.. Pretty good day, though not my best workout ever..
Snatch with a 2-3 sec pause at power position: 2 sets of 3 @ 95/105# and 1 set of 3 @ 110#
3 sets of 5 squats at 200#.. Yeouch! Reps 4 and 5 of each set were tough!
Overhead walking lunges: 3 sets of 8 @ 120#/ 3 sets of 25 GHDs
High hang snatch EMOTM x 10 min: stuck at 115#. Most reps flew up and felt great, but I had some misses, so didn't increase the weight.. I was feeling pretty tired by this point, since I have to race through things on days like this. And snatches right after GHDs are always a little rough for me.. But, anyway.. Not bad, but not great. I had planned to increase to 120 and 125..
The workout was kind of rough, too..
15 min AMRAP
12 single arm snatch (55#)
16 CTB pull-ups
20 HSPU
As usual, the snatches were my sticking point. CTB and HSPU felt fine.. But those snatches slow me down! Any time I try to speed up, I have a near miss or not great rep that makes me slow back down.. So I only got through 3 rounds + 9 snatches.
After I got Mason on the bus and Miles ready to go, we went back in for more! The gym's workout for today was Helen and I hadn't done that one in a long time! I figured it would be a good 'second workout' option for me. I'm still pretty sore.. Probably some new soreness and just not being fully recovered.. My bench pressing muscles are sore! Shoulders.. My butt and hammies are sore.. Probably from DL and my sled pull, but I woke up with those sore legs on Sunday, so it must be mostly from Saturdays stuff.. So I couldn't come up with any lifts that sounded like a good idea, given my soreness and another comp to try to feel a little bit fresh for this weekend.. So I just stuck with some stretching, the Helen workout, core work with hollow/arch rocks, and some handstand/free-standing HSPU work! That was fun.. Sort of.. I hadn't worked on them since that weekend clinic this summer, so I wanted to get some more practice.. I got a couple sets of 4-5, so we will call it pretty good.. Helen is:
3 rounds
400m run
21 kettle bell swings (35#)
12 pull-ups
I'm not sure what a 'good' time is, but I tried to push the run as much as I could and didn't stop on the KBs or pull-ups.. It took me 7:38 to finish and it felt like a good burn! I spoke with Mike a bit about where my focus should be for the next few months.. Leading up to GG, I had that comp in mind for training and once the workouts were released, my 'extra stuff' training got even more specific.. Now that the comp is all done, I'm a little unsure of what to do? I know there is still a TON of things to work on..get better at.. Stronger..faster.. I know Mikes programming obviously works to improve all those things, but I always feel like I need to do more.. Just little things to continue to push me to be better. I think Mike agrees, somewhat, but he also wants to make sure I don't injure myself or get overworked..which I get..rationally.. But the irrational part of me just wants to do it all and conquer all the things and enter all the comps..and maybe win?! Some?? I think I need a balance of the two.. Push hard and work on weaknesses, but listen to my body and slow down and/or rest when I need it.. Sounds good, right? Fool proof! So for now.. I take it kind of/sort of easy-ish this week to be ready for the team comp this weekend.. I think I'm going to do the online qualifiers for Wodapalooza in Miami and ECC in Boston and just see what happens.. If I qualify for both, but can get some interest in the team stuff in ECC, I'll go for that.. But if I'm solo, I'll probably opt for Miami.. That's provided I even qualify.. But I figure it can't hurt to try. The workouts for those are typically more 'open-ish', so 'light wt/move fast' workouts that are always good to do, so it should fit in fine with my 'take it easier the next few weeks and then gear things up again for which ever comp you go for in Jan' (it's a working title) plan.. We shall see! I should probably just focus on getting un-sore, but I like to have a goal. I'm sure I'm super fun to coach!
Next up was a relay where we each did 21/15/9 OHS and TTB's.. I underestimated that one a bit..as usual.. But I managed to squeak out my last few TTB's to make it through all unbroken! I usually don't feel my core/hips much in TTB's (even though that's what it is technically working, I usually feel it more in my grip), but those last few were feeling it for sure! But that one went well. Last, but not least, was partners doing 50 Deadlifts (155# for females) and 50 HSPU. Kicker here was that while one partner worked, the other had to hold, either the bar or a handstand.. Not too bad, though. I partnered with Nick and we were able to go back and forth with little or no rest through almost 3 rounds before the 15 min was up.. And then we were done! Not bad for a days work. We hung out a bit and chatted. There is a lot of discussion going on about upcoming competitions and such.. First up is my attempt to get a group on board to go out to Boston in January for the East Coast Championships. Just like Granite Games, this is a big comp that pulls a lot of top athletes out and the cool thing about this one is that you can do the individual competition on Saturday and then get a team of 4 together for the team comp on Sunday! Could be fun, right? Well.. We would have to do the on-line qualifier stuff first, so I need to get them on board quick! So anyway, that was that.
Sunday started off with an ill-advised attempt at fast mile repeats! I was shooting for the low 6 minute range and..that did not go well.. I had to settle for 6:43 and 6:49.. Ouch! Next time I will shoot for 6:30-6:40.. My last mile repeats, which I did a couple weeks ago, were all around 7 min, so I'm not sure what I was thinking? Aim high, I say! As soon as I finished that, I went over to the gym. My plan was to do the strength work from day 6 of this week.. Which was:
Sets of 2 on OHS: 125/135/145/165/175
Sets of 3 snatch balance: 115/125/135/145
Snatch balance presses at 55-65#/weighted GH raises with 20#
JD had mentioned pulling a weighted sled for a mile, and what could be more fun than that?! So I joined him.. It wasn't too bad! I added 70# to the sled and each lap took right around 2 min, finishing at 15:51. Good times! I hung around and worked, then when I got home, it was time for the apple orchard! We are usually terrible with this.. We always plan to get there at a good time, but usually don't make it til almost November when the pickins are slim, at best.. So this year was a huge success! Apples everywhere! Apples that taste good! We filled an $18 bag to the brim and then Matt immediately made apple crisp! Apples! We did it.. Finally.. 5 years of trying and finally a success. AND. As if that isn't exciting enough.. All that apple tasting wiggled Mason's loose tooth right out of his mouth! Our first lost tooth.. Big stuff!
And now Monday.. Pretty good day, though not my best workout ever..
Snatch with a 2-3 sec pause at power position: 2 sets of 3 @ 95/105# and 1 set of 3 @ 110#
3 sets of 5 squats at 200#.. Yeouch! Reps 4 and 5 of each set were tough!
Overhead walking lunges: 3 sets of 8 @ 120#/ 3 sets of 25 GHDs
High hang snatch EMOTM x 10 min: stuck at 115#. Most reps flew up and felt great, but I had some misses, so didn't increase the weight.. I was feeling pretty tired by this point, since I have to race through things on days like this. And snatches right after GHDs are always a little rough for me.. But, anyway.. Not bad, but not great. I had planned to increase to 120 and 125..
The workout was kind of rough, too..
15 min AMRAP
12 single arm snatch (55#)
16 CTB pull-ups
20 HSPU
As usual, the snatches were my sticking point. CTB and HSPU felt fine.. But those snatches slow me down! Any time I try to speed up, I have a near miss or not great rep that makes me slow back down.. So I only got through 3 rounds + 9 snatches.
After I got Mason on the bus and Miles ready to go, we went back in for more! The gym's workout for today was Helen and I hadn't done that one in a long time! I figured it would be a good 'second workout' option for me. I'm still pretty sore.. Probably some new soreness and just not being fully recovered.. My bench pressing muscles are sore! Shoulders.. My butt and hammies are sore.. Probably from DL and my sled pull, but I woke up with those sore legs on Sunday, so it must be mostly from Saturdays stuff.. So I couldn't come up with any lifts that sounded like a good idea, given my soreness and another comp to try to feel a little bit fresh for this weekend.. So I just stuck with some stretching, the Helen workout, core work with hollow/arch rocks, and some handstand/free-standing HSPU work! That was fun.. Sort of.. I hadn't worked on them since that weekend clinic this summer, so I wanted to get some more practice.. I got a couple sets of 4-5, so we will call it pretty good.. Helen is:
3 rounds
400m run
21 kettle bell swings (35#)
12 pull-ups
I'm not sure what a 'good' time is, but I tried to push the run as much as I could and didn't stop on the KBs or pull-ups.. It took me 7:38 to finish and it felt like a good burn! I spoke with Mike a bit about where my focus should be for the next few months.. Leading up to GG, I had that comp in mind for training and once the workouts were released, my 'extra stuff' training got even more specific.. Now that the comp is all done, I'm a little unsure of what to do? I know there is still a TON of things to work on..get better at.. Stronger..faster.. I know Mikes programming obviously works to improve all those things, but I always feel like I need to do more.. Just little things to continue to push me to be better. I think Mike agrees, somewhat, but he also wants to make sure I don't injure myself or get overworked..which I get..rationally.. But the irrational part of me just wants to do it all and conquer all the things and enter all the comps..and maybe win?! Some?? I think I need a balance of the two.. Push hard and work on weaknesses, but listen to my body and slow down and/or rest when I need it.. Sounds good, right? Fool proof! So for now.. I take it kind of/sort of easy-ish this week to be ready for the team comp this weekend.. I think I'm going to do the online qualifiers for Wodapalooza in Miami and ECC in Boston and just see what happens.. If I qualify for both, but can get some interest in the team stuff in ECC, I'll go for that.. But if I'm solo, I'll probably opt for Miami.. That's provided I even qualify.. But I figure it can't hurt to try. The workouts for those are typically more 'open-ish', so 'light wt/move fast' workouts that are always good to do, so it should fit in fine with my 'take it easier the next few weeks and then gear things up again for which ever comp you go for in Jan' (it's a working title) plan.. We shall see! I should probably just focus on getting un-sore, but I like to have a goal. I'm sure I'm super fun to coach!
Friday, September 19, 2014
Eventually, everyone needs a rest..
So after a couple days of decent..not great, but not terrible.. Workouts, I thought things were back on track as far as recovering from the weekend and moving on to regular training.. Well.. Not quite.. I'd be lying if I said I had felt great in Tuesdays or Wednesdays workouts, but I was moving alright.. I'd also be lying if I couldn't tell things weren't quite right with my body this week.. Every morning felt really hard to get going. I didn't have my usual 'ready to go' feeling heading in to the gym. I had that cold that just didn't seem to be getting better. I also had a collar bone/neck bruise that was flaring up any time I did cleans or anything front rack..which is pretty much daily.. This had been going on for about 2 weeks. I was pretty sure it wasn't a huge deal, like a fracture or anything that was a big problem.. But I was also pretty sure that my daily re-bruising of it with banging barbells of various weights right on that same spot wasn't helping it heal. I didn't have too much of a choice in this, though I probably could have skipped a practice or 2 that included cleans or shoulder-to-overhead, but 2 of the granite games workouts included those and, well.. I wanted to practice them! Plus, then we had the actual competition, where I would be repeating those moves.. So here I was on Thursday, after completing Wednesdays work, which included power cleans in the strength portion and then a bunch of hang cleans in the workout.. Now it's Thursday and heavy cleans and front squats AND shoulder to overhead are all in the plan.. I really thought I would be ok with the full cleans and front squats and was only concerned with the STO, but I quickly found out that if I tried to catch my cleans properly.. In the right spot.. Right where that bruise is.. I was in trouble. Even the front squats I found myself trying to avoid that proper front rack spot, which put me in a less than ideal position and made the squat that much harder.. It wasn't going so well for me! Add all that to my continued soreness and my cold, which had meandered on down to my stomach and had me feeling queasy.. Things were not looking good for me at all. I spoke with my coach about the collar bone bruise issue.. He could see the bruise and swelling, so immediately agreed that I should avoid anything that caused more pain and try to let it heal a bit.. A gal from the gym who assesses athletes injuries for a living overheard this discussion and came over to add her two cents. She agreed that it appears to be a bruise right where the muscle attaches to the bone, given that most of my soreness is not on the bone, but more above and increasing tightness in my neck and shoulder. She suggested light stretching, ice, anti-inflammatory meds, just to reduce that swelling a bit.. And, of coarse, stop banging a barbell against it for a bit so it can heal! Ok, ok.. I was seeing where this was going.. I continued my strength stuff, but did my jerks from behind the neck.. Adapt and overcome, amIright? I was starting to set myself up for the workout, which I was going to adjust to dumbbell STO to avoid my poor, delicate collar bone, but as I continued to stall, I got into a discussion with Mike and he mentioned that maybe I'm going about this whole recovery thing wrong.. As in.. I'm not letting myself recover and I should stop trying to muddle through things and just take a break, already! This did not take much convincing, as I was feeling pretty crappy and could tell my body was just yelling at me to STOP. He also suggested that since I have a big-ish day ahead on Saturday with the next team series workouts to do.. And then a team comp the following weekend.. I should take a Whole. Day. Off. On Friday.. Again, kind of surprisingly, I agreed to this and was actually feeling good about taking a bit of a rest. I always hate missing workouts, but for once, I can tell I needed it. This whole thing of being this worn down is pretty new to me. I typically recover well and bounce right back after a competition.. Maybe this means I worked harder in this one? Maybe it means I need to up my intensity on a regular basis so that I don't get so wiped from a comp? I'm not sure it's possible to fully train like its a competition every day, or that it's even a good idea? I'm literally spit-balling, here, because I'm kind of clueless.. I'm sure I could up the intensity some in my training, but I think mostly I just need to better anticipate a need for recovery and not try to jump back in so quick. Probably wait til I have that 'eager to get to the gym' feeling before I move on.. I'll learn some day. The only other time I remember taking days off to recover from an event was the ironman.. It took me til Wednesday to feel ready for even light activity, but I was anticipating it that time.. As far as crossfit goes, this is a first. Duly noted! 3 days of topping each workout by minutes from what I had done in practice.. It can knock a gal down a bit! Alright.. So I took today off. I've iced my neck and it's feeling better.. I do have cleans in one of the workouts tomorrow, so we will see how that goes. It's a lighter weight, so I can probably get away with a lower catch to avoid that spot.. Otherwise, definitely feeling better and I absolutely have that 'let me at it' feeling about getting in to the gym tomorrow, so that's a good sign!
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Granite Games Day 3 and wrap up
Day 3 of Granite Games started off as the sun was rising.. A bit of a chill in the air.. It was time to run! We had a 5k to tackle. I was tentatively looking forward to this.. I knew it was going to hurt. I knew I would try to run as quick as I could.. And I also knew that if a lot of gals took off ahead of me, there wouldn't be much I could do about it.. My run is what it is and I can only do what I'm currently capable of doing. I suppose that's true of any workout, but it was pretty clear in this set up, where usually I can't see much of what is going on around me and where the competition is. Here..you can see who is ahead of you. Who is passing you. And in my case, who is just ahead of you, but you just can't quite reach them. Darn it! I did alright.. Took over a minute off of my last 5k test, which wasn't too long ago. This coarse had one hill at the start and they said it was a tiny bit long, so I can't be disappointed in myself for my time, which was 22:10.. It was just a bummer to see a small pack of girls just ahead of me..but just far enough out of my reach that no amount of me trying to dig deep and kick it in.. I just couldn't catch them! Oh, well.. Again.. Overall happy with how I did, just a testament to the level of competition around me.
Last up for me was the sprint/HSPU workout. It was about 100' run, pick up an awkward 70# ballistic block, run it back, do 20 regular HSPU.. Run back to pick up the other block, run it over and set the 2 blocks up for deficit HSPU..do 10 HSPU at a 9" deficit.. Run the shuttle sprint, come back and do 5 more 9" deficit HSPU..shuttle run to the finish. It was a 6 min time cap, which I wasn't initially concerned about.. Until I got in to the deficit HSPU and found out that my shoulders were shot! I know that 9" is quite a deficit.. And I know my body had been through a bit over the weekend, but is was a bit surprised by how badly my shoulders were burning. I would get a few HSPU done, get to failure, then have to come down and wait a bit for my shoulders to be ready to fire again. I got the work done.. Finished in 5:35. And that was that! My competition was done.
Overall..the weekend was great and the competition was a really great experience. The whole thing was amazingly organized and impressively put together. These guys seem to have taken notes on how regional competitions are run and what works well, and they put together a great weekend. The workouts were challenging and interesting and contained some fun twists. The venue was set up really well, easy to access, and incredibly organized. If I'm healthy and still moving in the right direction with my training next year, I would 100% return to this competition.. And hopefully make a better run for those top spots! I learned a lot through this weekend.. I've come a long way in my skills and workouts in the past year, but I still have plenty to work on and a long way to go if I ever hope to really hang with those top athletes. I was also a bit more broken down, physically, from the workouts than I had ever experienced before. No one else seems surprised by this revelation..but I was a bit cUght off guard by that.. I'm not sure what this means? I feel like I do quite a bit of volume training, so I don't know how to recreate this fatigue of a weekend of competing, other than to continue to sign up for more events. So.. I'm on the hunt for more quality competitions out there for me to get in to!
Speaking of.. I have another day of the Team Series competition this Saturday, which should be fun, though we don't know the workouts yet! Then I have another team competition here in town the following weekend, which should be good. After that, we are going to try to do our last team series workouts before I leave for vacation, but we have a lot of conflicts that weekend.. I hope we can make it work, but it's not looking good.. After vacation, we have our partner competition at our gym..more good times! So I'm not exactly lacking in events coming up.. I'd just like to find something for maybe early in 2015 to try another big comp..either solo or as a team.. By then, we should have an idea of whether we are making a big push for going as a team to regionals and possibly the Games..or if we don't really have a healthy crew and I'll be making a solo run at it. So hopefully we can find something good and figure it all out!
Monday was a travel day for me.. We finally got home to see the boys! I missed them a lot. We had to wait for Miles to wake up from his nap.. I wanted to go in and get him! But I refrained.. Then Mason, whom had broken down the night before and realized he missed us, so he was ready to see us when he got off the bus.. It was great to be home! After I took my mom to the airport, I thought maybe I would try to go workout.. But when I was getting close to the gym, I realized how sore I was still feeling. A quick message to my coach asking him what he recommended..he said I should either rest, or, at most, just row and stretch.. So that's what I did. Tuesday morning I woke up still feeling the effects of my cold, so I decided I would go back to sleep and hit the gym with Miles later. I was moving a little slow, but mostly felt ok.. Day 1 for this week was:
Snatch from 1" off the ground: sets of 2 @95/110/125
Squats: sets of 2 @175/200/210/225, then 1 rep @235. I was wary of how those would go, but it actually felt pretty good!
Weighted 20" step ups @85#/weighted GHDs w 14#
EMOTM snatch x15 min: stayed at 135#.. Some felt great and some missed
The workout!
5 rounds
500m row
4 snatch @125#
6 MU
Supposed to have 1:1 work:rest ratio on the rounds.. Each round was about 5-5:30, so I rested 'as needed/able' based on how Miles was doing. He did such a great job hanging out and being patient with me.. He mostly did his own thing, every once in a while waving at me or needing a hug..or a diaper change.. But mostly he did amazing and I'm a lucky mama! So that was that. I figure I should probably lay off the two-a-days for this week to recover a bit. I'll get back to harder training next week!
Today was a slightly lighter day and didn't take me near as long. I made it back to my early am training time..gradually getting back on track! Today was:
Power cleans from 1" off the ground: sets of 3 @115/125/135/145
Push press: sets of 2 @135/145/155/160/165(PR!)
Good mornings @85-95#/depth jumps
Workout:
(What I did)12/10/8/6/4/2.. (As it was written)12/9/6/3.. Oops! Extra fitness!
Hang cleans @145#
Bar facing burpees
9" deficit HSPU
Well..given that I did 36 extra reps in this, I guess it went alright! Again..shoulders were on fire from the HSPU! Guess I'm not as good at those as I thought I was.. We have done a ton of HSPU work..strict, deficit..strict deficit.. So I thought I'd be pretty solid at those..but, yet..I keep getting that 'shoulders hurt so bad I literally yell out 'ouch'' feeling..maybe I'm still tired? Anyway. It took me 19:48 to get through it all and despite the tough time on the HSPU, I was happy with how I handled the hang cleans and the workout, overall. I threw up a little after, so I guess it was a good one!
Last up for me was the sprint/HSPU workout. It was about 100' run, pick up an awkward 70# ballistic block, run it back, do 20 regular HSPU.. Run back to pick up the other block, run it over and set the 2 blocks up for deficit HSPU..do 10 HSPU at a 9" deficit.. Run the shuttle sprint, come back and do 5 more 9" deficit HSPU..shuttle run to the finish. It was a 6 min time cap, which I wasn't initially concerned about.. Until I got in to the deficit HSPU and found out that my shoulders were shot! I know that 9" is quite a deficit.. And I know my body had been through a bit over the weekend, but is was a bit surprised by how badly my shoulders were burning. I would get a few HSPU done, get to failure, then have to come down and wait a bit for my shoulders to be ready to fire again. I got the work done.. Finished in 5:35. And that was that! My competition was done.
Overall..the weekend was great and the competition was a really great experience. The whole thing was amazingly organized and impressively put together. These guys seem to have taken notes on how regional competitions are run and what works well, and they put together a great weekend. The workouts were challenging and interesting and contained some fun twists. The venue was set up really well, easy to access, and incredibly organized. If I'm healthy and still moving in the right direction with my training next year, I would 100% return to this competition.. And hopefully make a better run for those top spots! I learned a lot through this weekend.. I've come a long way in my skills and workouts in the past year, but I still have plenty to work on and a long way to go if I ever hope to really hang with those top athletes. I was also a bit more broken down, physically, from the workouts than I had ever experienced before. No one else seems surprised by this revelation..but I was a bit cUght off guard by that.. I'm not sure what this means? I feel like I do quite a bit of volume training, so I don't know how to recreate this fatigue of a weekend of competing, other than to continue to sign up for more events. So.. I'm on the hunt for more quality competitions out there for me to get in to!
Speaking of.. I have another day of the Team Series competition this Saturday, which should be fun, though we don't know the workouts yet! Then I have another team competition here in town the following weekend, which should be good. After that, we are going to try to do our last team series workouts before I leave for vacation, but we have a lot of conflicts that weekend.. I hope we can make it work, but it's not looking good.. After vacation, we have our partner competition at our gym..more good times! So I'm not exactly lacking in events coming up.. I'd just like to find something for maybe early in 2015 to try another big comp..either solo or as a team.. By then, we should have an idea of whether we are making a big push for going as a team to regionals and possibly the Games..or if we don't really have a healthy crew and I'll be making a solo run at it. So hopefully we can find something good and figure it all out!
Monday was a travel day for me.. We finally got home to see the boys! I missed them a lot. We had to wait for Miles to wake up from his nap.. I wanted to go in and get him! But I refrained.. Then Mason, whom had broken down the night before and realized he missed us, so he was ready to see us when he got off the bus.. It was great to be home! After I took my mom to the airport, I thought maybe I would try to go workout.. But when I was getting close to the gym, I realized how sore I was still feeling. A quick message to my coach asking him what he recommended..he said I should either rest, or, at most, just row and stretch.. So that's what I did. Tuesday morning I woke up still feeling the effects of my cold, so I decided I would go back to sleep and hit the gym with Miles later. I was moving a little slow, but mostly felt ok.. Day 1 for this week was:
Snatch from 1" off the ground: sets of 2 @95/110/125
Squats: sets of 2 @175/200/210/225, then 1 rep @235. I was wary of how those would go, but it actually felt pretty good!
Weighted 20" step ups @85#/weighted GHDs w 14#
EMOTM snatch x15 min: stayed at 135#.. Some felt great and some missed
The workout!
5 rounds
500m row
4 snatch @125#
6 MU
Supposed to have 1:1 work:rest ratio on the rounds.. Each round was about 5-5:30, so I rested 'as needed/able' based on how Miles was doing. He did such a great job hanging out and being patient with me.. He mostly did his own thing, every once in a while waving at me or needing a hug..or a diaper change.. But mostly he did amazing and I'm a lucky mama! So that was that. I figure I should probably lay off the two-a-days for this week to recover a bit. I'll get back to harder training next week!
Today was a slightly lighter day and didn't take me near as long. I made it back to my early am training time..gradually getting back on track! Today was:
Power cleans from 1" off the ground: sets of 3 @115/125/135/145
Push press: sets of 2 @135/145/155/160/165(PR!)
Good mornings @85-95#/depth jumps
Workout:
(What I did)12/10/8/6/4/2.. (As it was written)12/9/6/3.. Oops! Extra fitness!
Hang cleans @145#
Bar facing burpees
9" deficit HSPU
Well..given that I did 36 extra reps in this, I guess it went alright! Again..shoulders were on fire from the HSPU! Guess I'm not as good at those as I thought I was.. We have done a ton of HSPU work..strict, deficit..strict deficit.. So I thought I'd be pretty solid at those..but, yet..I keep getting that 'shoulders hurt so bad I literally yell out 'ouch'' feeling..maybe I'm still tired? Anyway. It took me 19:48 to get through it all and despite the tough time on the HSPU, I was happy with how I handled the hang cleans and the workout, overall. I threw up a little after, so I guess it was a good one!
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Granite Games, day 2
Well, folks.. I'm feelin bummed right now.. I'll try to find the positive and will, of coarse, move on.. But it's frustrating when things don't go quite right.. Especially when you have worked ridiculously hard to get better at that particular thing..and you KNOW you should have done better.. But let me start from the beginning of the day..
Our first workout wasn't set to start until 2:40 today, so we had a slow start to the day.. Breakfast, stretch out in the hotel room, lay down a bit, then finally head over to the venue around noon.. Well.. The plan was to head over around noon, but I got antsy and we left more like 11.. Anyway. I watched the end of the team competition and a little of the Rx division and then decided to head over to the warm up area to start to stretch out and get ready. First up was the 'unbroken' workout, which is:
50 unbroken DU
20 STO (110#)
30 box jumps (20")
40 CTB pull-ups
50 unbroken DU
40 CTB
30 box jumps
20 STO
50 unbroken DU
..so I did some double unders, a couple shoulder-to-overheads, a box jump or two to warm up.. As an extra twist, they added a 'buy-in' to the workout, which would be a handstand hold.. Hold a handstand without allowing your hands to move outside of a marked square on the floor for as long as you can in a :90 time frame.. How long you hold that handstand is the amount of time that will be subtracted from your total workout time.. Cool, huh. At least it was for this retired gymnast.. The unbroken workout was originally supposed to be a 16 min time cap, which I had barely beat in my practice at home.. But now with the :90s handstand hold and a :30s transition into the workout..that leaves 14 min for the rest of the work.. Oh, well.. Guess I'll have to move faster!
Things started off smooth and easy with the handstand hold. I held for a minute and came down.. I didn't want to overdo it and waste my shoulder strength too much.. I kicked back up briefly and wound up with 1:10 total.. I'll take it! A minute can be a lot in a workout! Double unders went fine and we were on our way. STO felt alright in the first round, so after a set of 14/6, it was on to the box. I moved through those fairly well.. Not blazing, but steady. Got to the pull-up bar, which was pretty high up, but I could jump to it alright. I did my sets of 10 and was feeling pretty good! So far, so good, but it was feeling SO thirsty and my darn water bottle was back by the start! Darn it.. So anyway, moved on after a bit of a breather to compose myself, got in to the DU and those went fine, as well.. Now back to the bar for more CTB and this is where it starts to really hurt.. I started with a decent set of 8.. Then 6.. And then it was chipping away at the set of 40 until I was done. I was still ahead of my practice time, so though it hurt a ton and wasn't pretty.. I was doing alright. Box jumps went fine. STO felt about 100# heavier and were rough! But done.. Finally back to the last set of unbroken DU.. Did I have enough left in me? I honestly wasn't sure.. Tried to stay focused and confident, but was kind of prepared for the possibility of not making it under that new 14 min time cap. Oh..did I mention I had about a minute left at that point? So I managed to make it through those DU, ran to the finish May, and was done! Finished in 13:35, but then after subtracting my handstand hold time, came out with a decent 12:25, which was good enough for 14th place in that event. I felt completely awful after that workout.. Just wrecked.. I thought we had a really short turn around into the next workout and was worried about whether or not I'd be able to do the cleans OR the muscle ups at this point.. But luckily I was wrong and we had a while to recover and prepare for the next thing.
I went over to roll/stretch out a while and eat/drink some recovery stuff until I felt pretty normal again.. Then went back over to join Matt and watch some of the Rx division tackle the next workout. Next up for us was my good friend, the clean/MU workout.. I practiced this darn workout a few times, since it was released about 3-4 wks ago, with varying levels of success.. Some days my cleans (155#) felt great and others were tough.. Some days my MU went awesome and other times I'd have misses and struggle.. This workout had a short (for me) time cap, so I knew it would be tough to finish, but I had gotten close in practice and was hoping this would be a time that things would go well..but alas..it was not to be. I felt fine. I know folks will say that I was probably tired from the earlier workout..and maybe there was some of that.. But mostly it was just a complete lack of ability, on my part, to adapt and figure out how to make the timing of my MU work on the equipment provided. I don't blame the equipment, though it was frustrating, but others were able to manage and I should have been able to handle it better.. As much as I have worked on these? I honestly don't know what else I can do to improve.. I'm stumped.. But the workout.. Which, in case you haven't read my other posts about this little gem, is:
12/9/6
Cleans (155#)
Muscle ups
With a 9 min time cap..
I had watched the Rx girls do this workout and had noticed a high number of girls having to be lifted to the rings..and then struggling with the MU for various reasons, but when I warmed up outside, it felt fine. Well, when I walked out to my spot on the competition floor and looked up at the rings, they were much higher than I expected and I let my judge know that I, too, would need help up to the rings.. Ugh.. I did not want to have to do that, but I knew I wouldn't be able to jump up there on my own and get any kind of decent grip on the rings..so hoisted up it would have to be.. I wasn't too concerned about this, but maybe a little aware of the fact that this might change things a bit.. But I started in on my cleans and those went just as planned.. Dropped each rep, but quickly picked it back up in sets of 6/3/3.. Over to the rings.. Tell my judge I was ready to go..hoist..swing..I'm up, but can tell my swing is a bit off.. Go into my next one..make it, but timing is even worse.. I managed 3 in that set, but it was downhill from there. I don't know if it got in my head? I tried different approaches to swinging down from the MU to try to stop the swinging of the rings, which was, in turn, throwing my timing way off and making the MU much harder.. But I could not figure it out.. Bigger swing.. Smaller swing.. Quicker swing? All the same, awkward, oddly timed result.. Which meant I was reduced to doing my MU in sets of 2 or even singles.. Which meant a lot of wasted time controlling the rings, coming down, telling my judge I was ready for lift-off, etc, etc.. I'm truly trying not to be too down about this and to just move on, but it was so frustrating.. Just knowing what I'm capable of, how hard I've worked on this..and having yet another competition come up where my MU don't go as planned (regionals I experienced similar issues). So I only made it through 7 MU in my round of 9's..the worst result of any of my attempts.. Bummer. That's all I can really say. It was a bummer.. And frustrating.. Did I mention I was frustrated?..cause I was.. But moving on. Tomorrow am we run.. Should be interesting! Definitely a different thing for a lot of crossfitters.. Early am?!(6:50 start) Outside in the cold? Run more than 400m increments? Unless you have a running background, this is fairly foreign in the CrossFit world. I actually had someone ask me if I thought they would move the run inside if it rained.. Um..no?? I did not think they would have us run a 5k inside? Didn't mean to sound rude, but folks run a lot further in a lot worse than cold and rain before.. I think we will be ok! Though I'm not sure folks will be dressed appropriately.. Hopefully they will.. We will see! But that should be fun.. And then the sprints and HSPU should be good.. Hopefully I can finish strong and move forward and continue to learn and grow from these experiences. I hate that MU keep giving me trouble in competitions.. because I actually really like MU and train them a TON.. I have to figure this darn thing out, though.. Can't let things like ring heights and different swinging and such effect me so much! Top gals did just fine (for the most part.. I did see some struggling a little more than usual.. But the impact it had on them was a lot less than the impact it had on me).. So I gotta be able to make it work if I'm ever going to hang.. Not that I consider myself to be the 'top'..but I'd sure like to move a little closer!..darn it.. But for now..we move on to tomorrow..
Our first workout wasn't set to start until 2:40 today, so we had a slow start to the day.. Breakfast, stretch out in the hotel room, lay down a bit, then finally head over to the venue around noon.. Well.. The plan was to head over around noon, but I got antsy and we left more like 11.. Anyway. I watched the end of the team competition and a little of the Rx division and then decided to head over to the warm up area to start to stretch out and get ready. First up was the 'unbroken' workout, which is:
50 unbroken DU
20 STO (110#)
30 box jumps (20")
40 CTB pull-ups
50 unbroken DU
40 CTB
30 box jumps
20 STO
50 unbroken DU
..so I did some double unders, a couple shoulder-to-overheads, a box jump or two to warm up.. As an extra twist, they added a 'buy-in' to the workout, which would be a handstand hold.. Hold a handstand without allowing your hands to move outside of a marked square on the floor for as long as you can in a :90 time frame.. How long you hold that handstand is the amount of time that will be subtracted from your total workout time.. Cool, huh. At least it was for this retired gymnast.. The unbroken workout was originally supposed to be a 16 min time cap, which I had barely beat in my practice at home.. But now with the :90s handstand hold and a :30s transition into the workout..that leaves 14 min for the rest of the work.. Oh, well.. Guess I'll have to move faster!
Things started off smooth and easy with the handstand hold. I held for a minute and came down.. I didn't want to overdo it and waste my shoulder strength too much.. I kicked back up briefly and wound up with 1:10 total.. I'll take it! A minute can be a lot in a workout! Double unders went fine and we were on our way. STO felt alright in the first round, so after a set of 14/6, it was on to the box. I moved through those fairly well.. Not blazing, but steady. Got to the pull-up bar, which was pretty high up, but I could jump to it alright. I did my sets of 10 and was feeling pretty good! So far, so good, but it was feeling SO thirsty and my darn water bottle was back by the start! Darn it.. So anyway, moved on after a bit of a breather to compose myself, got in to the DU and those went fine, as well.. Now back to the bar for more CTB and this is where it starts to really hurt.. I started with a decent set of 8.. Then 6.. And then it was chipping away at the set of 40 until I was done. I was still ahead of my practice time, so though it hurt a ton and wasn't pretty.. I was doing alright. Box jumps went fine. STO felt about 100# heavier and were rough! But done.. Finally back to the last set of unbroken DU.. Did I have enough left in me? I honestly wasn't sure.. Tried to stay focused and confident, but was kind of prepared for the possibility of not making it under that new 14 min time cap. Oh..did I mention I had about a minute left at that point? So I managed to make it through those DU, ran to the finish May, and was done! Finished in 13:35, but then after subtracting my handstand hold time, came out with a decent 12:25, which was good enough for 14th place in that event. I felt completely awful after that workout.. Just wrecked.. I thought we had a really short turn around into the next workout and was worried about whether or not I'd be able to do the cleans OR the muscle ups at this point.. But luckily I was wrong and we had a while to recover and prepare for the next thing.
I went over to roll/stretch out a while and eat/drink some recovery stuff until I felt pretty normal again.. Then went back over to join Matt and watch some of the Rx division tackle the next workout. Next up for us was my good friend, the clean/MU workout.. I practiced this darn workout a few times, since it was released about 3-4 wks ago, with varying levels of success.. Some days my cleans (155#) felt great and others were tough.. Some days my MU went awesome and other times I'd have misses and struggle.. This workout had a short (for me) time cap, so I knew it would be tough to finish, but I had gotten close in practice and was hoping this would be a time that things would go well..but alas..it was not to be. I felt fine. I know folks will say that I was probably tired from the earlier workout..and maybe there was some of that.. But mostly it was just a complete lack of ability, on my part, to adapt and figure out how to make the timing of my MU work on the equipment provided. I don't blame the equipment, though it was frustrating, but others were able to manage and I should have been able to handle it better.. As much as I have worked on these? I honestly don't know what else I can do to improve.. I'm stumped.. But the workout.. Which, in case you haven't read my other posts about this little gem, is:
12/9/6
Cleans (155#)
Muscle ups
With a 9 min time cap..
I had watched the Rx girls do this workout and had noticed a high number of girls having to be lifted to the rings..and then struggling with the MU for various reasons, but when I warmed up outside, it felt fine. Well, when I walked out to my spot on the competition floor and looked up at the rings, they were much higher than I expected and I let my judge know that I, too, would need help up to the rings.. Ugh.. I did not want to have to do that, but I knew I wouldn't be able to jump up there on my own and get any kind of decent grip on the rings..so hoisted up it would have to be.. I wasn't too concerned about this, but maybe a little aware of the fact that this might change things a bit.. But I started in on my cleans and those went just as planned.. Dropped each rep, but quickly picked it back up in sets of 6/3/3.. Over to the rings.. Tell my judge I was ready to go..hoist..swing..I'm up, but can tell my swing is a bit off.. Go into my next one..make it, but timing is even worse.. I managed 3 in that set, but it was downhill from there. I don't know if it got in my head? I tried different approaches to swinging down from the MU to try to stop the swinging of the rings, which was, in turn, throwing my timing way off and making the MU much harder.. But I could not figure it out.. Bigger swing.. Smaller swing.. Quicker swing? All the same, awkward, oddly timed result.. Which meant I was reduced to doing my MU in sets of 2 or even singles.. Which meant a lot of wasted time controlling the rings, coming down, telling my judge I was ready for lift-off, etc, etc.. I'm truly trying not to be too down about this and to just move on, but it was so frustrating.. Just knowing what I'm capable of, how hard I've worked on this..and having yet another competition come up where my MU don't go as planned (regionals I experienced similar issues). So I only made it through 7 MU in my round of 9's..the worst result of any of my attempts.. Bummer. That's all I can really say. It was a bummer.. And frustrating.. Did I mention I was frustrated?..cause I was.. But moving on. Tomorrow am we run.. Should be interesting! Definitely a different thing for a lot of crossfitters.. Early am?!(6:50 start) Outside in the cold? Run more than 400m increments? Unless you have a running background, this is fairly foreign in the CrossFit world. I actually had someone ask me if I thought they would move the run inside if it rained.. Um..no?? I did not think they would have us run a 5k inside? Didn't mean to sound rude, but folks run a lot further in a lot worse than cold and rain before.. I think we will be ok! Though I'm not sure folks will be dressed appropriately.. Hopefully they will.. We will see! But that should be fun.. And then the sprints and HSPU should be good.. Hopefully I can finish strong and move forward and continue to learn and grow from these experiences. I hate that MU keep giving me trouble in competitions.. because I actually really like MU and train them a TON.. I have to figure this darn thing out, though.. Can't let things like ring heights and different swinging and such effect me so much! Top gals did just fine (for the most part.. I did see some struggling a little more than usual.. But the impact it had on them was a lot less than the impact it had on me).. So I gotta be able to make it work if I'm ever going to hang.. Not that I consider myself to be the 'top'..but I'd sure like to move a little closer!..darn it.. But for now..we move on to tomorrow..
Granite Games 2014, day 1
Well, it's finally here.. The competition that I did an on-line qualifier for way back in June and have had my eyes on since then..it's finally here! I've trained hard, practiced the workouts, and come in as prepared as I can possibly be..so whatever the outcome from here, though I'm sure I'll always look at the 'what if' scenarios and always want more.. I can honestly say that I will be proud of what I put out there. So, here we go!
My travels got off to a bit of a rough start.. I went to bed Wednesday night with what felt like the start of a cold.. Stuffy nose, rough throat.. Great.. I tried all day Wednesday to stay super hydrated and sleep well, but it looked like this cold was settling in on me.. A cold is not a huge deal..but have you ever flown with a congested head? Oh. My god. I've never been in so much pain.. And I think the scary factor of the pain being in your head and the feeling that your ears are going to explode.. It was not fun.. And I got to do it twice, since the airlines thought a trip to Atlanta before heading to Minnesota would be fun. I tell ya what.. I've had ACL tears/repairs, all kinds of falls in gymnastics, and two c-section/labor/etc and never before had I experienced uncontrollable tears. Yes, tears. It was so weird! I couldn't stop them! Just streaming down my face as I chomped desperately on my gum, sipped water, and wiggled around unsure of what to do to stop my head from exploding.. The poor fella next to me looked terrified at what was going on.. It was bad.. But. I made it. I've taken some decongestant meds that are helping and, for the most part, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm definitely not 100%, but I don't think it's effected my workouts so far.
Wednesday I just ran through a couple things to prepare.. I did some snatches just up to 135# (the starting wt for the comp) and those felt pretty good. I ran through 12/12 cleans and MU..wasn't perfect, but I feel good about how to approach the workout to get my best result. I did some unbroken double unders and rope climbs, and then just some deficit handstand push up work.. Nothing too crazy, but it felt good to get that final practice in. Thursday was just travel and rest.. And Friday starts the competition!
Matt and I got up at a relatively leisurely pace for me..sleeping in til past 6am?! We went to breakfast because I know myself and that I'm not the best eater during these comps.. Once I get close to workout time, I don't really like 'real good' and just stick with bars and shakes and things, so I wanted to at least get breakfast in, since my first workout wasn't until 3pm. We had to be over at the comp site (St Cloud State University's ice hockey arena! Pretty nice venue! It's big and has stadium seating and jumbo trons.. It's a little chilly here, but that's no ones fault.. I'm very impressed by the set up and how things have run so far!) at 10:30am for our 'briefing'/meeting, so after that was done, there was quite a bit of time to kill before it was my turn to snatch. We walked around and shopped at the vendors..got a new jump rope! (Don't worry. I'm pretty sure I won't use it in my workout tomorrow!) got some clothes, headbans, drinks.. All the necessities! We watched a little of the competitors before us.. There are about 1000 athletes here?.. Teams, rx men and women, scaled divisions.. Lots going on! I will say, the chilly weather has been a bit of a factor, since our 'athlete area' and warm-up space is all outside.. But, again.. No ones fault and other than when it rained during our warm up time for the second workout, it hasn't been too much of a negative.. They have a big tent in the warm-up area and we had already gathered our things from the 'camp' by the time the rain hit, so no big deal.. Anyway, by about 1:15, I started to head over to get stretched out and start warming up for some snatches! I found another gal in the warm up area to share a bar with. Finding weights to warm up with was a bit of a struggle.. There was maybe 2 sets of 5's out there? Lots of 35/45# plates! but the smaller plates were few and far between.. We did a few warm ups and worked up to 105.. Did a few there until we could find more weights.. Then did a few at 125 until we could find those 5's.. Did some 135.. All was moving well and feeling good. We put 145 on, because we still had some time and wanted to stay warm.. Still moving well, though I had a couple misses there but no big deal.. Still feeling good. We lined up outside for about 20 min, so got pretty chilly in that time.. It was finally time to start! We took the long march out to our starting place, shared a few last nervous laughs and 'good lucks' with the fellow competitors..and then we were up! I had 8 minutes to get to my max snatch weight.. It was set up as a ladder, so we had to open at a pre-determined weight and then move up the weights in specified increments. Based on my current max of 155#, which I have only hit once, I knew I was only going to have a few weights to hit.. 135, 145, 155.. And if that all felt great nd just flew into place, I would try the 165, which is a weight I have never attempted before, so definitely was unsure of how that would go.. Since 155 is a pretty new max, I don't think I've even done so much as a snatch high-pull at that weight, so definitely un-chartered territory for me. So I get out to my spot, time counts down.. We were able to pre-load our bars (for some reason, just elites were allowed to do this? I wasn't exactly in a rush, so didn't matter much to me), so I loaded up to 135 and got ready to roll. I hadn't missed a 135 all day, so clearly it was time! First attempt..dumped.. Agh. Got the next one, though, so not too bad.. Loaded up to 145 and hit the first one.. Time for 155! It moved well and I was under it..several times..but for some reason, I couldn't quite stick it and stand the darn thing up!? I still felt confident, despite missing a few, because it was moving so well. I knew it was there and that it would happen..and finally..yay! Got it. The crowd in front of me gave a big cheer, which was nice.. I could feel them wondering why the heck I didn't just stand up with it..and I'm not sure I have an answer! But I finally got my 155 and based on how tough it was for me to get that, I opted to stop there. I could maybe have given the 165 a whirl..but I wanted to stay healthy and just go out with a solid lift, so that was that.. I'm happy with the weight I hit, but just wish I could have gotten my first or second attempt, rather than waste all that time with those silly misses.. Our time of the lifts did matter, since that was the tie break, but there's nothing I can do about it, so we move on!
We had a few hours between events, but I'm not big on leaving the comp site in the middle of it all.. Just too much stress of being away..will I make it back? Do I need to be somewhere? So we just stuck around, and that was fine. The next workout wasn't one I was too nervous about, so the warm up and such was pretty easy going. Next up is the rope climb/Deadlift/bar facing burpee workout.. 5 rounds of 2 rope climbs, 4 Deadlifts at 240#, and 8 bar facing burpees (meaning you jump over the bar after each burpee). I had done this once in practice and it took me 8min, so pretty solidly under the 10 min time cap. I knew I could get it all done, but it was going to be a matter of how hard I could push myself. With 5 rounds, I knew I couldn't come flying out of the gates, so I moved steadily..not rushing too much, but not taking any breaks.. Rope climbs were going well, getting to the top mostly with just 2 big pulls (had to do an extra mini-pull on a couple of the climbs), Deadlifts felt heavy, but was moving through the sets of 4 touch-n-go without too much of a problem.. And the burpees were..burpees.. I didn't try to fly through them, but didn't stop moving, either. I couldn't really tell where I was amongst the field. I pretty much just kept my head down and focused on what I was doing. I finished at 6:59, which was a minute faster than in practice! And that's with the extra comp stuff of advancing the bar down the floor, then the extra run/walk from rope to bar and back.. So I'm happy with how that workout went for me. I know I pushed hard because I felt awful right after! My feet were in an odd numb/cold/crampy state and I was a little light-headed.. I recovered quickly enough, but I could tell I was working hard! So I'll take it.. Day 1 done! I hadn't checked the standings all day.. I'm currently in 29th place, out of 35.. Not great, but I'm just a few points off of a much better ranking, so I just need to keep focused and work hard the rest of the weekend and see how things go! My snatch had me in 31st and I got 19th on the second workout.. I have my work cut out for me, if I want to climb the ranks a bit.. But I'm up for it!
We had our meeting last night, regarding Saturdays workouts.. We found out that there is a bit of a twist to the first workout.. First up is the 'unbroken' workout..but before we start, there will be a 'buy-in' where we have :90s to do a max effort handstand hold.. The total seconds we are able to hold in that time will be subtracted from our total time in the workout! This could bode well for me.. I think I need to be a little conservative with the handstand hold, so I don't burn out my shoulders unnecessarily before the workout, which can be shoulder-heavy with the double-unders, shoulder-to-overhead and chest-to-bar pull-ups.. I think I'll shoot for about a minute worth of holds.. We will see how it goes! But I'm excited for the next day of workouts.
I must say, all the shout outs from friends and fellow JoCo-ers wishing me good luck and offering support in this competition has been much appreciated and motivates me to keep working hard and do my best to represent them well. Lots of people in the gym have talked to me about this comp and have seen me practicing the workouts and such, so I know they are all with me in spirit and it means a lot to me! Here we go on to day 2!
My travels got off to a bit of a rough start.. I went to bed Wednesday night with what felt like the start of a cold.. Stuffy nose, rough throat.. Great.. I tried all day Wednesday to stay super hydrated and sleep well, but it looked like this cold was settling in on me.. A cold is not a huge deal..but have you ever flown with a congested head? Oh. My god. I've never been in so much pain.. And I think the scary factor of the pain being in your head and the feeling that your ears are going to explode.. It was not fun.. And I got to do it twice, since the airlines thought a trip to Atlanta before heading to Minnesota would be fun. I tell ya what.. I've had ACL tears/repairs, all kinds of falls in gymnastics, and two c-section/labor/etc and never before had I experienced uncontrollable tears. Yes, tears. It was so weird! I couldn't stop them! Just streaming down my face as I chomped desperately on my gum, sipped water, and wiggled around unsure of what to do to stop my head from exploding.. The poor fella next to me looked terrified at what was going on.. It was bad.. But. I made it. I've taken some decongestant meds that are helping and, for the most part, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm definitely not 100%, but I don't think it's effected my workouts so far.
Wednesday I just ran through a couple things to prepare.. I did some snatches just up to 135# (the starting wt for the comp) and those felt pretty good. I ran through 12/12 cleans and MU..wasn't perfect, but I feel good about how to approach the workout to get my best result. I did some unbroken double unders and rope climbs, and then just some deficit handstand push up work.. Nothing too crazy, but it felt good to get that final practice in. Thursday was just travel and rest.. And Friday starts the competition!
Matt and I got up at a relatively leisurely pace for me..sleeping in til past 6am?! We went to breakfast because I know myself and that I'm not the best eater during these comps.. Once I get close to workout time, I don't really like 'real good' and just stick with bars and shakes and things, so I wanted to at least get breakfast in, since my first workout wasn't until 3pm. We had to be over at the comp site (St Cloud State University's ice hockey arena! Pretty nice venue! It's big and has stadium seating and jumbo trons.. It's a little chilly here, but that's no ones fault.. I'm very impressed by the set up and how things have run so far!) at 10:30am for our 'briefing'/meeting, so after that was done, there was quite a bit of time to kill before it was my turn to snatch. We walked around and shopped at the vendors..got a new jump rope! (Don't worry. I'm pretty sure I won't use it in my workout tomorrow!) got some clothes, headbans, drinks.. All the necessities! We watched a little of the competitors before us.. There are about 1000 athletes here?.. Teams, rx men and women, scaled divisions.. Lots going on! I will say, the chilly weather has been a bit of a factor, since our 'athlete area' and warm-up space is all outside.. But, again.. No ones fault and other than when it rained during our warm up time for the second workout, it hasn't been too much of a negative.. They have a big tent in the warm-up area and we had already gathered our things from the 'camp' by the time the rain hit, so no big deal.. Anyway, by about 1:15, I started to head over to get stretched out and start warming up for some snatches! I found another gal in the warm up area to share a bar with. Finding weights to warm up with was a bit of a struggle.. There was maybe 2 sets of 5's out there? Lots of 35/45# plates! but the smaller plates were few and far between.. We did a few warm ups and worked up to 105.. Did a few there until we could find more weights.. Then did a few at 125 until we could find those 5's.. Did some 135.. All was moving well and feeling good. We put 145 on, because we still had some time and wanted to stay warm.. Still moving well, though I had a couple misses there but no big deal.. Still feeling good. We lined up outside for about 20 min, so got pretty chilly in that time.. It was finally time to start! We took the long march out to our starting place, shared a few last nervous laughs and 'good lucks' with the fellow competitors..and then we were up! I had 8 minutes to get to my max snatch weight.. It was set up as a ladder, so we had to open at a pre-determined weight and then move up the weights in specified increments. Based on my current max of 155#, which I have only hit once, I knew I was only going to have a few weights to hit.. 135, 145, 155.. And if that all felt great nd just flew into place, I would try the 165, which is a weight I have never attempted before, so definitely was unsure of how that would go.. Since 155 is a pretty new max, I don't think I've even done so much as a snatch high-pull at that weight, so definitely un-chartered territory for me. So I get out to my spot, time counts down.. We were able to pre-load our bars (for some reason, just elites were allowed to do this? I wasn't exactly in a rush, so didn't matter much to me), so I loaded up to 135 and got ready to roll. I hadn't missed a 135 all day, so clearly it was time! First attempt..dumped.. Agh. Got the next one, though, so not too bad.. Loaded up to 145 and hit the first one.. Time for 155! It moved well and I was under it..several times..but for some reason, I couldn't quite stick it and stand the darn thing up!? I still felt confident, despite missing a few, because it was moving so well. I knew it was there and that it would happen..and finally..yay! Got it. The crowd in front of me gave a big cheer, which was nice.. I could feel them wondering why the heck I didn't just stand up with it..and I'm not sure I have an answer! But I finally got my 155 and based on how tough it was for me to get that, I opted to stop there. I could maybe have given the 165 a whirl..but I wanted to stay healthy and just go out with a solid lift, so that was that.. I'm happy with the weight I hit, but just wish I could have gotten my first or second attempt, rather than waste all that time with those silly misses.. Our time of the lifts did matter, since that was the tie break, but there's nothing I can do about it, so we move on!
We had a few hours between events, but I'm not big on leaving the comp site in the middle of it all.. Just too much stress of being away..will I make it back? Do I need to be somewhere? So we just stuck around, and that was fine. The next workout wasn't one I was too nervous about, so the warm up and such was pretty easy going. Next up is the rope climb/Deadlift/bar facing burpee workout.. 5 rounds of 2 rope climbs, 4 Deadlifts at 240#, and 8 bar facing burpees (meaning you jump over the bar after each burpee). I had done this once in practice and it took me 8min, so pretty solidly under the 10 min time cap. I knew I could get it all done, but it was going to be a matter of how hard I could push myself. With 5 rounds, I knew I couldn't come flying out of the gates, so I moved steadily..not rushing too much, but not taking any breaks.. Rope climbs were going well, getting to the top mostly with just 2 big pulls (had to do an extra mini-pull on a couple of the climbs), Deadlifts felt heavy, but was moving through the sets of 4 touch-n-go without too much of a problem.. And the burpees were..burpees.. I didn't try to fly through them, but didn't stop moving, either. I couldn't really tell where I was amongst the field. I pretty much just kept my head down and focused on what I was doing. I finished at 6:59, which was a minute faster than in practice! And that's with the extra comp stuff of advancing the bar down the floor, then the extra run/walk from rope to bar and back.. So I'm happy with how that workout went for me. I know I pushed hard because I felt awful right after! My feet were in an odd numb/cold/crampy state and I was a little light-headed.. I recovered quickly enough, but I could tell I was working hard! So I'll take it.. Day 1 done! I hadn't checked the standings all day.. I'm currently in 29th place, out of 35.. Not great, but I'm just a few points off of a much better ranking, so I just need to keep focused and work hard the rest of the weekend and see how things go! My snatch had me in 31st and I got 19th on the second workout.. I have my work cut out for me, if I want to climb the ranks a bit.. But I'm up for it!
We had our meeting last night, regarding Saturdays workouts.. We found out that there is a bit of a twist to the first workout.. First up is the 'unbroken' workout..but before we start, there will be a 'buy-in' where we have :90s to do a max effort handstand hold.. The total seconds we are able to hold in that time will be subtracted from our total time in the workout! This could bode well for me.. I think I need to be a little conservative with the handstand hold, so I don't burn out my shoulders unnecessarily before the workout, which can be shoulder-heavy with the double-unders, shoulder-to-overhead and chest-to-bar pull-ups.. I think I'll shoot for about a minute worth of holds.. We will see how it goes! But I'm excited for the next day of workouts.
I must say, all the shout outs from friends and fellow JoCo-ers wishing me good luck and offering support in this competition has been much appreciated and motivates me to keep working hard and do my best to represent them well. Lots of people in the gym have talked to me about this comp and have seen me practicing the workouts and such, so I know they are all with me in spirit and it means a lot to me! Here we go on to day 2!
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Taper-ish
Let me try to re-cap a bit.. Not sure why, but I wasn't feeling the urge to write for a few days.. Sleep always won! But I've had a good past few days of working out, which has included a little more rest than usual! I might have to reconsider my thoughts on taking Sundays a bit easier after feeling so much better this Monday.. I used to make Sundays a 'no picking up heavy things' day and would just run or row.. But somewhere along the line, I made Sundays my 'do all the things!' Day..which has been fine, mostly, and I often feel quite accomplished after those days.. But I can't deny that I've had some rough Mondays where I 'lacked pep' and wound up not doing great on my lifts, which has been snatches lately.. Not exactly a lift you want to approach sluggish-ly.. So anyway. Here was Friday:
Hang power snatch: sets of 3 @ 85/95/105/115
Strict press: sets of 3 @ 105/110/110/115
Snatch high pulls @145#/ weighted Back extensions (35#)
Workout:
20 min EMOTM
Evens: 10 DL @ 185#
Odds: 10 wallballs and 30 du
I made all 20 rounds of these.. It wasn't exactly easy, but my rounds were all fairly similar.. I maintained unbroken sets of Deadlifts, until the last couple of rounds, and each of those sets took about :20s. The wallballs/du rounds were mostly unbroken (I think I tripped up on the rope once?) and each took about :45s. Not too bad..enough rest in there to stay consistent, so I was happy with it. I went back in to the gym Friday evening to tackle my old friend, granite games workout of cleans and muscle ups.. It went pretty well. Cleans felt good. I had a couple misses on my last MU of the round, which wasted some time, and I finished up the same as last time.. A couple muscle ups short of the workout. It will be close, come game time. I'll either be feeling good and pushed on by the pressure of the competition and be able to finish in time.. Or I may come just a little short.. Either way, I know I will give it my all and I have practiced as best I can.. So I just have to go execute. I rounded out my day with 10 rounds of EMOTM :15 mt climbers and 100m sprint. Each round finished right at :30-:31.. Pretty consistent!
Saturday I went in early and was solo for a lot of my workout.. Not complaining.. I'm used to working out solo, but it was a little different.. I started with:
OHS: sets of 3 @ 135/150/160
Snatch balance: sets of 3 @ 85/95/105/115
Snatch press: sets of 8 @ 55#/ weighted GH raises (18#)
Workout:
3 rounds
10 jerks (125)
10 squats (125)
10 bar MU
200' sled push (180#)
This took me 14:44 to complete and it was all sled push for me.. My sets of 10 were all unbroken and went pretty well..but those dang sled pushes got me, once again! I joined in with weightlifting class to work on snatch positioning, but then I cleaned myself up and headed out to watch some friends compete in a local competition! It was fun to go watch without any pressures of competing.. And my friends wound up winning! Always a good time.. So that was Saturday..
As I mentioned, Mike had encouraged me to take Sunday a little easier and just run a couple easy miles, so that is what I did and I felt pretty good. I did lots of stretching and mobility and what-not, so heading in to the week feeling pretty darn good!
It paid off because Monday went really well.. It was:
Hang snatch from below the knee: sets of 4/3 @ 85/95/110/120
Squats: sets of 3 @ 175/200/210 and a set of 2 @ 225#
Lunges: sets of 4(each leg) @125#/4 sets of 20 GHDs
EMOTM snatch: 3 each min x 4min @ 110#/2 each min x 4min @125#/1 each min x 4min @140#
Workout:
12 min AMRAP
2 strict MU
4 hang cleans (115#)
8 oh walking lunges (115#)
30' handstand walk
I completed 3 full rounds plus 2 MU and 4 snatches into the 4th round. It went alright.. Lots of breath holding, so felt pretty winded, but overall, things moved and felt pretty good.
Finally.. Today.. Shorter day of workouts, so it was:
Hang power cleans from below the knee: sets of 3 @115/125/135
Push press: sets of 2 @135/145/145/155#
GM: sets of 10 @75-85#/depth jumps
Workout:
4 rounds
8 bar MU
12 push press (95#)
16 box jumps (24")
This took 9:27 and went pretty well. Everything was unbroken, except the last set of push press broke at 9.. Otherwise, I felt pretty good. Tomorrow I plan to do some practice things to get ready for the comp workouts.. And then it's go time!
In other news, I finally got my hair cut today! So I have that going for me..which is nice..
Hang power snatch: sets of 3 @ 85/95/105/115
Strict press: sets of 3 @ 105/110/110/115
Snatch high pulls @145#/ weighted Back extensions (35#)
Workout:
20 min EMOTM
Evens: 10 DL @ 185#
Odds: 10 wallballs and 30 du
I made all 20 rounds of these.. It wasn't exactly easy, but my rounds were all fairly similar.. I maintained unbroken sets of Deadlifts, until the last couple of rounds, and each of those sets took about :20s. The wallballs/du rounds were mostly unbroken (I think I tripped up on the rope once?) and each took about :45s. Not too bad..enough rest in there to stay consistent, so I was happy with it. I went back in to the gym Friday evening to tackle my old friend, granite games workout of cleans and muscle ups.. It went pretty well. Cleans felt good. I had a couple misses on my last MU of the round, which wasted some time, and I finished up the same as last time.. A couple muscle ups short of the workout. It will be close, come game time. I'll either be feeling good and pushed on by the pressure of the competition and be able to finish in time.. Or I may come just a little short.. Either way, I know I will give it my all and I have practiced as best I can.. So I just have to go execute. I rounded out my day with 10 rounds of EMOTM :15 mt climbers and 100m sprint. Each round finished right at :30-:31.. Pretty consistent!
Saturday I went in early and was solo for a lot of my workout.. Not complaining.. I'm used to working out solo, but it was a little different.. I started with:
OHS: sets of 3 @ 135/150/160
Snatch balance: sets of 3 @ 85/95/105/115
Snatch press: sets of 8 @ 55#/ weighted GH raises (18#)
Workout:
3 rounds
10 jerks (125)
10 squats (125)
10 bar MU
200' sled push (180#)
This took me 14:44 to complete and it was all sled push for me.. My sets of 10 were all unbroken and went pretty well..but those dang sled pushes got me, once again! I joined in with weightlifting class to work on snatch positioning, but then I cleaned myself up and headed out to watch some friends compete in a local competition! It was fun to go watch without any pressures of competing.. And my friends wound up winning! Always a good time.. So that was Saturday..
As I mentioned, Mike had encouraged me to take Sunday a little easier and just run a couple easy miles, so that is what I did and I felt pretty good. I did lots of stretching and mobility and what-not, so heading in to the week feeling pretty darn good!
It paid off because Monday went really well.. It was:
Hang snatch from below the knee: sets of 4/3 @ 85/95/110/120
Squats: sets of 3 @ 175/200/210 and a set of 2 @ 225#
Lunges: sets of 4(each leg) @125#/4 sets of 20 GHDs
EMOTM snatch: 3 each min x 4min @ 110#/2 each min x 4min @125#/1 each min x 4min @140#
Workout:
12 min AMRAP
2 strict MU
4 hang cleans (115#)
8 oh walking lunges (115#)
30' handstand walk
I completed 3 full rounds plus 2 MU and 4 snatches into the 4th round. It went alright.. Lots of breath holding, so felt pretty winded, but overall, things moved and felt pretty good.
Finally.. Today.. Shorter day of workouts, so it was:
Hang power cleans from below the knee: sets of 3 @115/125/135
Push press: sets of 2 @135/145/145/155#
GM: sets of 10 @75-85#/depth jumps
Workout:
4 rounds
8 bar MU
12 push press (95#)
16 box jumps (24")
This took 9:27 and went pretty well. Everything was unbroken, except the last set of push press broke at 9.. Otherwise, I felt pretty good. Tomorrow I plan to do some practice things to get ready for the comp workouts.. And then it's go time!
In other news, I finally got my hair cut today! So I have that going for me..which is nice..
Thursday, September 4, 2014
I. Was. Running
Not that I've been running a ton, but definitely more lately than I had been for a while there.. It's interesting to me that, with running, it seems like a little focus and work can go a long way in a pretty short time. As I mentioned before, I've been doing my 'CrossFit to 5k' work..which has included sprints from 100-400m.. I don't think I've done 800's, though that would be a lovely addition! I've done a baseline 5k, mile repeats, 4x400's.. Not a ton, but a regular thing, and I think it's helping already. A few weeks ago, my 4x400's were all at around 1:24, but the last couple times I have done them, I'm able to hold somewhere between 1:15-1:19. That may not sound like much, but almost :10 in a 400 is kind of a lot. Especially since I remember when I ran those 1:24's and it felt like all I had at the time.. I ran a mile at the start of a workout yesterday and was comfortable at a 6:30 pace, where a few weeks ago I had to fight to come in under an 8 min pace. I wish I could see those kinds of improvements in my rowing.. Why is that, I wonder.. Just is what it is? I think all I can do for my row is to build a better capacity so that I can hold my upper level pace longer and recover faster from it.. I know that sounds pretty basic, but I feel like I try to work on improving my row..and any time I feel like it's improving, I'm quickly reminded that no..you still suck at rowing.. I will say I think I know my paces a little better on it and die a little less from it? Ah.. Baby steps, there, for sure..
Yesterday wasa pretty tough day for working out. I knew it would be tough to fit everything into my morning session, which is only about an hr and 15 min.. But I also knew that fitting it all into that time frame would work to make me better.. Push me harder than splitting it up.. So I did it.. And it was rough! Wednesdays workout stuff looked like:
Hang cleans: sets of 3 @95/115/135 and 2 sets of 2 @145#
Front squats: sets of 3 @155/175 and 3 sets of 3 @185#
Jerks from the rack: sets of 3 @125/155/165/175#
Clean high pulls: 4 sets of 4 @175#
Full clean + hang clean every :30s x 8 min @135#.. Whew! This is tough, but definitely felt good to be able to complete.. Long 8 min, though, when you're watching the clock just wishing it would somehow slow down so you could have a second to get a drink before the next round.. But it was either time to breathe, or time to drink.. Not time for both.. And breathing wins..
Quick..recover while you set up for the workout!
30 fat bar thrusters(110#)
30 bar facing burpees
30 MU
30 HSPU (4" deficit)
We could break this up into rounds however we wanted.. I just broke mine into 2 rounds of 15, which was ok for the first round, but I was pretty spent after that and somehow, that thruster bar felt a ton heavier in the second set of 15! I probably should have done 15/8/7.. Or maybe broken it up even more.. When I spoke with Mike later about the workout, he said he would have done sets of 5 or 6.. Which seems like a lot of transitioning around? But probably would have kept me moving faster and not gotten so fatigued in each movement. Muscle ups went ok.. Not my best sets ever, but not bad. Sets of 4 and 3 come pretty naturally and it helps me when I remember to get a strong back swing and vigorous kip. I seem to default to smooth and easy with things..which is good for some things, but sometimes aggressive works, too.. It's not my 'go to' behavior, so I have to keep reminding myself of that.. It took me 21:30 to finish and I was spent! I went home to gather myself and get ready for the next thing.. I wanted to do something 'cardio-ish' and was thinking about rowing.. But the gym's workout for the day included a mile run, so I thought that would be a good thing for me to do. It was actually a good one and I enjoyed it. It was:
1 mi run
50 kettle bell swings (35#)
40 alternating lunge jumps
30 TTB's
20 burpees
10 bar MU
I mention above that the mile took me about 6:30.. All told, this workout took 14:06. Not bad.. I also wanted to get some work in on my unbroken double unders, which I need for a granite games workout.. So I did 'unbroken Annie' (50/40/30/20/10 du and abmats). And that was it for Wednesday..
Today was 'active recovery', which is always welcomed, and I certainly did 'less' stuff today..but I'm not sure it would qualify as recovery.. But I do plan on an easy day on Sunday (as prescribed by coach Mike!.. I had some other plans in mind, but I agree that it's probably best that I take it a lil easier..), so fear not, friends.. I shall rest up a bit for the big event! Just not yet.. So today I did:
Snatch singles to 145#. I hit 145 easily, but 155# just wasn't there today. I was lacking the 'pep' and 'pop' that I needed.. Which is why I will take an easy day or 2 before next weekend and make sure to get my sleep in!
After some snatching, it was time for sprints.. We did 4x400's with 200m easy jog in between each set. I started a little slow with my first 2 400's at 1:19, but picked it up a bit with my 3rd and 4th runs being 1:17 and 1:15. Not too bad.. I'd like to get to where I can hold around 1:10-1:15, but we will see if I can get there!
Finally, I wanted to run through a workout for the competition.. It's called 'unbroken' and includes 3 sets of 50 unbroken double unders..and 80 chest to bar pull-ups..among other things.. It goes:
50 ub du
20 STO (110#)
30 box jumps
40 CTB
50 ub du
40 CTB
30 box jumps
20 STO
50 ub du
16 min time cap
Whew! This was a good one.. I actually moved through it pretty well, though I had my stuff spaced out all over the gym, making transitions longer.. But I found that I could move through the different skills in fairly big sets.. STO went 12/8 in the first round and 14/6 in the second.. Box jumps I just kept moving until 30 was done.. CTB went well with sets of 10 throughout.. I found that I needed to take a minute to breathe and prep for the unbroken double unders, but overall, I think this workout can go pretty well for me. It took me 14:30 to finish today, but I know I can move faster than that.. So I think it went alright, as far as tester workouts go. And that was it for today.
Miles and I took a lazy day of reading, snuggling and just hanging out. Mason has been a little testy in the evenings, making doing homework with him super fun! He did get 100% on his spelling test today, though, and there were some words on there that he had struggled with in studying, so I know he worked hard for it and I'm proud of him. It's a constant roller coaster with that kid, but I know it's all part of the deal. School takes a lot out of him and I try to give him some 'unwind time' after school, but maybe we need to just dive right in and play after? Who knows.. By graduation, maybe we will figure it out..
Yesterday wasa pretty tough day for working out. I knew it would be tough to fit everything into my morning session, which is only about an hr and 15 min.. But I also knew that fitting it all into that time frame would work to make me better.. Push me harder than splitting it up.. So I did it.. And it was rough! Wednesdays workout stuff looked like:
Hang cleans: sets of 3 @95/115/135 and 2 sets of 2 @145#
Front squats: sets of 3 @155/175 and 3 sets of 3 @185#
Jerks from the rack: sets of 3 @125/155/165/175#
Clean high pulls: 4 sets of 4 @175#
Full clean + hang clean every :30s x 8 min @135#.. Whew! This is tough, but definitely felt good to be able to complete.. Long 8 min, though, when you're watching the clock just wishing it would somehow slow down so you could have a second to get a drink before the next round.. But it was either time to breathe, or time to drink.. Not time for both.. And breathing wins..
Quick..recover while you set up for the workout!
30 fat bar thrusters(110#)
30 bar facing burpees
30 MU
30 HSPU (4" deficit)
We could break this up into rounds however we wanted.. I just broke mine into 2 rounds of 15, which was ok for the first round, but I was pretty spent after that and somehow, that thruster bar felt a ton heavier in the second set of 15! I probably should have done 15/8/7.. Or maybe broken it up even more.. When I spoke with Mike later about the workout, he said he would have done sets of 5 or 6.. Which seems like a lot of transitioning around? But probably would have kept me moving faster and not gotten so fatigued in each movement. Muscle ups went ok.. Not my best sets ever, but not bad. Sets of 4 and 3 come pretty naturally and it helps me when I remember to get a strong back swing and vigorous kip. I seem to default to smooth and easy with things..which is good for some things, but sometimes aggressive works, too.. It's not my 'go to' behavior, so I have to keep reminding myself of that.. It took me 21:30 to finish and I was spent! I went home to gather myself and get ready for the next thing.. I wanted to do something 'cardio-ish' and was thinking about rowing.. But the gym's workout for the day included a mile run, so I thought that would be a good thing for me to do. It was actually a good one and I enjoyed it. It was:
1 mi run
50 kettle bell swings (35#)
40 alternating lunge jumps
30 TTB's
20 burpees
10 bar MU
I mention above that the mile took me about 6:30.. All told, this workout took 14:06. Not bad.. I also wanted to get some work in on my unbroken double unders, which I need for a granite games workout.. So I did 'unbroken Annie' (50/40/30/20/10 du and abmats). And that was it for Wednesday..
Today was 'active recovery', which is always welcomed, and I certainly did 'less' stuff today..but I'm not sure it would qualify as recovery.. But I do plan on an easy day on Sunday (as prescribed by coach Mike!.. I had some other plans in mind, but I agree that it's probably best that I take it a lil easier..), so fear not, friends.. I shall rest up a bit for the big event! Just not yet.. So today I did:
Snatch singles to 145#. I hit 145 easily, but 155# just wasn't there today. I was lacking the 'pep' and 'pop' that I needed.. Which is why I will take an easy day or 2 before next weekend and make sure to get my sleep in!
After some snatching, it was time for sprints.. We did 4x400's with 200m easy jog in between each set. I started a little slow with my first 2 400's at 1:19, but picked it up a bit with my 3rd and 4th runs being 1:17 and 1:15. Not too bad.. I'd like to get to where I can hold around 1:10-1:15, but we will see if I can get there!
Finally, I wanted to run through a workout for the competition.. It's called 'unbroken' and includes 3 sets of 50 unbroken double unders..and 80 chest to bar pull-ups..among other things.. It goes:
50 ub du
20 STO (110#)
30 box jumps
40 CTB
50 ub du
40 CTB
30 box jumps
20 STO
50 ub du
16 min time cap
Whew! This was a good one.. I actually moved through it pretty well, though I had my stuff spaced out all over the gym, making transitions longer.. But I found that I could move through the different skills in fairly big sets.. STO went 12/8 in the first round and 14/6 in the second.. Box jumps I just kept moving until 30 was done.. CTB went well with sets of 10 throughout.. I found that I needed to take a minute to breathe and prep for the unbroken double unders, but overall, I think this workout can go pretty well for me. It took me 14:30 to finish today, but I know I can move faster than that.. So I think it went alright, as far as tester workouts go. And that was it for today.
Miles and I took a lazy day of reading, snuggling and just hanging out. Mason has been a little testy in the evenings, making doing homework with him super fun! He did get 100% on his spelling test today, though, and there were some words on there that he had struggled with in studying, so I know he worked hard for it and I'm proud of him. It's a constant roller coaster with that kid, but I know it's all part of the deal. School takes a lot out of him and I try to give him some 'unwind time' after school, but maybe we need to just dive right in and play after? Who knows.. By graduation, maybe we will figure it out..
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Sometimes you handle the barbell, sometimes the barbell handles you!
Quick lil recap of Tuesday comin at ya..
Power cleans from above the knee: sets of 3 @115/125, 2 sets of 2 @135
Push press: 4 sets of 3 @135/145/145/155
Good mornings: 4 sets of 6 @85#/single leg jumps: 4 sets of 6 each leg
Workout:
4 rounds
8 hang cleans(135#)
16 pistols
24 cal row
As I'm sure you already guessed, the calorie row was where I spent most of my time in this workout.. It took me 15:13 to complete and went mostly well.. I was able to do my first set of hang cleans unbroken, which I was pleased with. I broke the second set at 6 and two, but was feeling good and going for all 8 again in the 3rd set..until I lost my hook grip and, somehow, in a failed attempt to re-grip by letting go of the bar (?!) while it was at my hip/in hang position..but I must have been off balance, or something, because that maneuver left me crumpled on the floor under the bar! Luckily I fit under the barbell, so wasn't hurt at all and just laughed at the ridiculousness of it.. So other than some lost time, all was well.. I was able to link all 8 again in the last round, so..redemption! And that was that..
I went home and felt pretty tired.. Sleepy tired, not necessarily 'worn out' tired, if that makes sense.. But I looked through my week of training and the workouts for the upcoming competition and came up with a plan.. For today, I was to head back to the gym for a little strength/skill work and then to do the gym's workout for the day.. I wanted to do some Deadlifts at the weight being used in a workout at the comp..might as well throw some bar facing burpees in there..and then round it out with some muscle up work.. It looked like:
4 rounds
4 MU
4 DL (240#)
8 over the bar burpees
Not too bad. Muscle ups were OK.. First set of 4, then 3/1, 2/2, and another set of 4. DL were all unbroken and felt pretty strong, so I feel good about that heading in to the competition..
The gym's workout was a quick one for me..but still tough..
4 rounds
8 jerks (95#)
12 box jumps (20")
16 ring rows
Hands down, the ring rows were the 'meat and potatoes', as they say, of the workout..yeouch! Took me 5:36 to complete it and it felt good! So that was it for today. I asked my coach what he thought about taper/prep for next weekend.. I told him my plan of doing my regular training this week plus some specific skill/workouts to prep.. Not going too crazy. A pretty normal week of training, but to start scaling back a bit next week..mon-wed and then travel on thurs! He said that sounded good, so that's what I'll do! But, for now..we sleep..
Power cleans from above the knee: sets of 3 @115/125, 2 sets of 2 @135
Push press: 4 sets of 3 @135/145/145/155
Good mornings: 4 sets of 6 @85#/single leg jumps: 4 sets of 6 each leg
Workout:
4 rounds
8 hang cleans(135#)
16 pistols
24 cal row
As I'm sure you already guessed, the calorie row was where I spent most of my time in this workout.. It took me 15:13 to complete and went mostly well.. I was able to do my first set of hang cleans unbroken, which I was pleased with. I broke the second set at 6 and two, but was feeling good and going for all 8 again in the 3rd set..until I lost my hook grip and, somehow, in a failed attempt to re-grip by letting go of the bar (?!) while it was at my hip/in hang position..but I must have been off balance, or something, because that maneuver left me crumpled on the floor under the bar! Luckily I fit under the barbell, so wasn't hurt at all and just laughed at the ridiculousness of it.. So other than some lost time, all was well.. I was able to link all 8 again in the last round, so..redemption! And that was that..
I went home and felt pretty tired.. Sleepy tired, not necessarily 'worn out' tired, if that makes sense.. But I looked through my week of training and the workouts for the upcoming competition and came up with a plan.. For today, I was to head back to the gym for a little strength/skill work and then to do the gym's workout for the day.. I wanted to do some Deadlifts at the weight being used in a workout at the comp..might as well throw some bar facing burpees in there..and then round it out with some muscle up work.. It looked like:
4 rounds
4 MU
4 DL (240#)
8 over the bar burpees
Not too bad. Muscle ups were OK.. First set of 4, then 3/1, 2/2, and another set of 4. DL were all unbroken and felt pretty strong, so I feel good about that heading in to the competition..
The gym's workout was a quick one for me..but still tough..
4 rounds
8 jerks (95#)
12 box jumps (20")
16 ring rows
Hands down, the ring rows were the 'meat and potatoes', as they say, of the workout..yeouch! Took me 5:36 to complete it and it felt good! So that was it for today. I asked my coach what he thought about taper/prep for next weekend.. I told him my plan of doing my regular training this week plus some specific skill/workouts to prep.. Not going too crazy. A pretty normal week of training, but to start scaling back a bit next week..mon-wed and then travel on thurs! He said that sounded good, so that's what I'll do! But, for now..we sleep..
Monday, September 1, 2014
Miles is TWO!
Monday is off to a pretty good start.. I planned to get in to the gym a little early for today's comp stuff and the gyms partner workout for the day.. I actually hadn't seen this weeks workouts yet when I started off at the gym.. For some reason my phone didn't get the text.. So I started with some 1 1/4 squats followed by a behind the neck jerk. I was rockin those out at 105/115/125/135/145/155 when JD came in and asked if I was going to do the comp workout stuff and forwarded it to me.. I hate being behind or missing a workout, so I just started on on the days work.. It was:
Squats: a set of 3@175, 3@200, 3(3@210#).. Those were feeling good, so off to a good start!
Snatch from above the knee:sets of 3@85/95/110 and 2(2@120). All good there, too
Weighted front rack step ups(20"): 2 sets of 8(each leg) @65# and 2 sets of 8 @75#. These were tough and I'm already feelin it in my 'buns of steel', but the tougher part for me was just holding that bar in the front rack so much.. But overall, good stuff.. And finally, 4x10 weighted GHDs (14#)
JD was ready to do the partner workout at this point, so I put the rest of the comp stuff on hold for a bit and got to work..
20 min partner AMRAP (1 person works at a time)
1000m row (we did rounds of 250m to try to keep the pace up)
100 abmats (25 at a time)
75 wallballs (both used the 20# ball and did sets of 20/15)
50 pull-ups (25/25 unbroken)
25 HSPU (13/12)
We got through 1 round and then through some of the wallballs (no idea how many he did..10-ish?). We didn't exactly sprint..maybe should have gone a little faster? But we moved the whole time and it was a good workout..
Then I got back to work on the competition workout stuff.. Next up was doing a full snatch and a hang snatch every :30s for 8 min..ouch! This was tough.. Not so much because of the weight.. I did 110#, which is 70% of my max, and didn't have any misses.. But it was just hard to keep picking the weight back up so quick and holding on to the bar.. My hands are a little tender, so that didn't help.. It was good, for sure, but definitely tough.
Finally, the workout..
10 min AMRAP
10 alt single arm full snatch (45# dumbbell)
12 TTB's
14 box jump overs (24")
I got through 3 rounds.. Not amazing, but those snatches with the full squat added in were tough! I had gotten better at the regular single arm snatches, so I guess we needed to come up with something to make me awkward and slow again? Well, that did the trick! The rest of the workout was fine..just figuring out the dumbbell work. And that was it! By this point I was a sweaty mess and needed to get home to see my big two year old! I had started the day off by peeking in on him in his bed..and of coarse he woke up! He was super sweet and we spent a little time snuggling..then got him set up in my spot in bed with his dad. When I got home we had some donuts ready for Miles, which is his favorite.. He actually just grabbed the whole box and said 'thank you!' And took off for the table! At least he said thank you? Then I gave him a couple presents, just to get things rolling.. Then got to work on his Henry Hugglemonster cake! Now a bit of a rest before the official birthday fun begins.. So much fun!
Squats: a set of 3@175, 3@200, 3(3@210#).. Those were feeling good, so off to a good start!
Snatch from above the knee:sets of 3@85/95/110 and 2(2@120). All good there, too
Weighted front rack step ups(20"): 2 sets of 8(each leg) @65# and 2 sets of 8 @75#. These were tough and I'm already feelin it in my 'buns of steel', but the tougher part for me was just holding that bar in the front rack so much.. But overall, good stuff.. And finally, 4x10 weighted GHDs (14#)
JD was ready to do the partner workout at this point, so I put the rest of the comp stuff on hold for a bit and got to work..
20 min partner AMRAP (1 person works at a time)
1000m row (we did rounds of 250m to try to keep the pace up)
100 abmats (25 at a time)
75 wallballs (both used the 20# ball and did sets of 20/15)
50 pull-ups (25/25 unbroken)
25 HSPU (13/12)
We got through 1 round and then through some of the wallballs (no idea how many he did..10-ish?). We didn't exactly sprint..maybe should have gone a little faster? But we moved the whole time and it was a good workout..
Then I got back to work on the competition workout stuff.. Next up was doing a full snatch and a hang snatch every :30s for 8 min..ouch! This was tough.. Not so much because of the weight.. I did 110#, which is 70% of my max, and didn't have any misses.. But it was just hard to keep picking the weight back up so quick and holding on to the bar.. My hands are a little tender, so that didn't help.. It was good, for sure, but definitely tough.
Finally, the workout..
10 min AMRAP
10 alt single arm full snatch (45# dumbbell)
12 TTB's
14 box jump overs (24")
I got through 3 rounds.. Not amazing, but those snatches with the full squat added in were tough! I had gotten better at the regular single arm snatches, so I guess we needed to come up with something to make me awkward and slow again? Well, that did the trick! The rest of the workout was fine..just figuring out the dumbbell work. And that was it! By this point I was a sweaty mess and needed to get home to see my big two year old! I had started the day off by peeking in on him in his bed..and of coarse he woke up! He was super sweet and we spent a little time snuggling..then got him set up in my spot in bed with his dad. When I got home we had some donuts ready for Miles, which is his favorite.. He actually just grabbed the whole box and said 'thank you!' And took off for the table! At least he said thank you? Then I gave him a couple presents, just to get things rolling.. Then got to work on his Henry Hugglemonster cake! Now a bit of a rest before the official birthday fun begins.. So much fun!
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