Reel it the Pace

My pecs are still pretty sore to the touch, but my other sorenesses are mostly gone. Not feeling anything new from yesterday’s 150 squats, which is a surprise. Took a nap around 4:45 and then was out in the garage after 7.

Year of the Engine – Interval

4 Rounds

  • 5:00 Row
  • 1:00 Rest

During the foundation phase (first 12 weeks) of the program I held a sub 1:50/500m pace for 4x 1k with 1:00 rests and 6x 1k with 1:30 rests. Going for 5 minute intervals is an extra 1:20 of work, so I knew the 1:50/500m pace could be a challenge. I hadn’t done shit else today, so figured I might as well go for it.

I felt good during the first three rounds. In the early parts of round four I could feel my posterior chain getting tight and lose power. I significantly started to fall off pace in the middle of the round, to the point where I was seeing a 1:55 on the monitor and my average pace ballooned to 1:50.7. Luckily I had enough left to turn on the nitrous in the last 90 seconds and bring my average pace back down. My distances were 1,365 – 1,366 – 1,365 – 1,365m. It was another sweaty one, with the temperature still being above 80°.

The Right Scales

Yesterday I had sore calfs, abs, and pecs. Getting sore abs from toes to bars is a rare treat. I’m a little confused why my pecs are so sore, but maybe from doing the larger sets of T2B combined with the wall balls, because when I simulate the motion of both movements I feel it. Walked 18 holes on the golf course. Today all that stuff is still sore, plus my lats. Out in the garage at lunch.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

33:00 Airdyne

**Endurance with 7s sprint @ 7, 14, 21, 28

Earned 946 calories over 19.65 km and probably could have filled a bucket with all of my sweat. Later I went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

2 Rounds

  • 15 Air Squats
  • 10 Russian KBS (44#)
  • 20 PVC Pass Throughs
  • 5 Shoulder Presses (PVC)

Strength

Push Press

  • 10×45#
  • 5×95
  • 5×125
  • 5×155
  • 5×185
  • 3×205
  • 1×220
  • 1×235
  • 1×245

I belted up for 205 and above I think, maybe even the 185. Still got it! I was hoping to hit at least 235 today and the 245 even felt good. That’s only 15 pounds under my all-time best and I haven’t been doing much heavy overhead pressing. The bench press work probably has some decent carry-over.

Midline

5 Sets

  • 10 Sit-ups

In between some of the push pressing.

Conditioning

  • 50-40-30-20-10 Front Squats (45#)
  • 50-40-30-20-10 Russian KB Swings (53#)
  • 2 Legless Rope Climbs (13′)

The Rx was 75# front squats, American swings, and 1 rope climb, with an 18 minute time cap. There was no way I was attempting Rx for 150 front squats and I figured the empty bar would challenging enough. I did my rounds as 30-20, 25-15, 18-12, 20, 10. I think I’m retired from American swings with my back, so I did the Russians all unbroken. Since I was scaling two movements I went for the Rx+ of 2 rope climbs and decided to make them harder by not using my legs since it was only 10 reps. Barely finished at 17:55. I made the right scaling decisions.

T2B to Plan

My quads are still sore and my back is a little tight from yesterday. Out in the garage at 11 to get on the bike while watching a company townhall. Figured I might as well use the time to do something while I was listening.

2019-07-24-bike-townhall

Year of the Engine – Polarized

36:00 Airdyne

** Endurance with 7s sprint @ 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30

I missed out on both of the 33 minute polarized workouts due to the FireWod substitutions last week while on vacation. This was the first time doing six sprints. It completes week 8 of the Polarization phase and week 20 overall.

I racked up 1,042 calories and 21.5 km. That felt really good after not using the Airdyne in over 2 weeks. Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

  • 20 Double Unders
  • 10 Good Mornings (45#)
  • 10 Walking Lunges
  • 4 Inch Worms

Strength

Deadlift

  • 10×45#
  • 5×125
  • 5×155
  • 5×185
  • 5×215
  • 5×245
  • 5×265
  • 5×285
  • 5×310

Used a neutral grip throughout and no belt. Felt ok. Not used to lifting weight like this.

Conditioning

15:00 AMRAP

  • 30 Double Unders
  • 15 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
  • 30 Double Unders
  • 15 Toes to Bars

I’ve done something similar twice before on this programming, but with pull-ups instead of T2B. Some people said they’ve done it with T2B, so I must not have gone on those days. I was close to 6 rounds on my last attempt with the pull-ups, so I was hoping to get in that ballpark. I hadn’t done a double under in about 6 weeks, since the calf injury, so this was going to be a test. My goals were to limit misses with the rope and do 8-7 T2B each round, which I knew would be the big challenge. Would have liked fewer misses with the rope, but I’ll take it after such a long break. It was a success on the bar and I’m loving the Bear KompleX Black Diamond grips, which I haven’t even had to chalk up yet! Got through 5 rounds, dubs, wall balls, and dubs for 5+75.

Triple Pull

Yesterday I already had sore quads when I rolled out of bed. Walked 18 holes on the golf course. Today at noon I was out in the garage for some rowing.

Year of the Engine – Interval

10 Rounds

  • 1:00 Row
  • 2:00 Rest

Really had no idea on a pace for this since none of the other interval work has been similar. I picked 1:35/500m based on a guy on BTWB who always beats me. My actual pace was 1:34.9 every round for 316 meters. My stroke rate was 33-34 every round and 35 on the last one. It was good to be back on the rower after not using it for over a week.

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

  • 3×10 Reverse Hypers (160#)
  • 400m Run
  • Burgner Warm-up
  • Power Snatch
    • 3×75#
    • 3×95#

Conditioning

E7M – 5 Rounds

  • 400m Run
  • 400m Row
  • 15 Pull-ups
  • 3 Power Snatches

I averaged a 1:50 pace on the rower, did 8-7 for every round of pull-ups, and went 115-125-135-145-155# for the snatches, which were all touch-n-go. With the 155, I had to stop at the hip and reset for a second. I think it’s been about 6 weeks since I’ve done a snatch, when I first strained my calf. The three pulling movements in a row was a challenge.

Brutal Twos

On Friday I woke up early to beat the heat and teed off by 8am, walking 18 holes. Yesterday I drove back to Saginaw. When I got home the heat index was 96 and rising! Due to the heat and I don’t really take many true rest days in the summer (I walk 5-6 miles on the golf course of my “rest” days) I decided not to exercise. WHOOP said I still wasn’t recovered this morning and I didn’t get enough. Went to open gym at 10am.

No B.S. Bench Press

  • 10×45#
  • 5×95
  • 5×135
  • 5×165
  • 5×195
  • 5×215
  • 3x5x235
  • 12×215 (MAX)

Nice to have a spotter for a true max rep set. Beat my previous best, which was 9.

Conditioning

3 Cycles – E3M (2:00 cap on each section)

  1. 5 Rounds
    • 2 Strict Pull-ups
    • 4 Hand Release Push-ups
    • 6 Lunges
  2. 15/10 cal Echo Bike + 30 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
  3. AMRAP Burpee Box Get Overs (48/40″)

On the 3rd cycle, I got the final lunge done just after the 2:00 buzzer rang. The bike and wall ball combo was the worst. I had a good pace on the first round of bike, but after that cruised. Was able to do 30 unbroken wall balls for the first two, but couldn’t hold on and only managed 12-13 for the 3rd round. I did 15-13-14 burpee box get overs. Pretty brutal workout with the humidity.

After mowing the lawn in the evening (still 80+ out) and having a low WHOOP recovery score for 2 days I decided not to do rowing intervals.

Burpee Sandwich

Would have liked to golf this morning but the course must of had an outing because all of the tee times were booked.

Year of the Engine – Mixed Polarized

I adjusted another FireWOD for being at the lake.

  • 5 Rounds
    • 800m Run
    • 20 Burpees
  • 800m Run

My rounds were 6:08, 6:23, 6:40, 6:52, and 6:37 with my final run taking 5:01. Total time of 37:43. Surprise, I’m slow at running.2019-07-18-zones

Pacing

Last night I could feel sore hamstrings too when I sat on particular chairs. Had to be from the bear crawls I imagine. Another good night of sleep and I hit the road running at about 9:30.

Year of the Engine – Endurance

39:00 Run

My goal was 4 miles and I got it by paying closer attention to the pace on my watch every few minutes. RunKeeper recorded exactly four miles and Garmin had 4.03. I still need to maintain more of a steady pace through a run instead of falling off in the middle.

2019-07-17-run-splits

If I can pick up the pace after three miles I should be able to hold on to a better pace throughout. Looking at my heart rate zones, I don’t really want to be spending this much time in Z4 for an endurance workout though. According to my WHOOP graph, it looks like it was during that final mile.

2019-07-17-run-zones

Midline

5 Rounds

  • 2:00 Plank
  • 1:00 Rest

I got interrupted between 3-4, so got about 2 minutes of rest there. I started feeling a little shake during my fifth plank, but overall this was easy. I guess all of our Sunday core work is paying off.

Jump the Wall

My shins are sore from those broad jumps the other day. Every time I say I should do them more often. On Sunday after a boat ride, some kind of allergies started to kick in and my nose won’t stop running. I suffered through it to walk 18 holes of golf yesterday, took a nap after lunch, and sleep about 10 hours last night. I’m still not over it today.

Year of the Engine – Mixed Polarized

Since I don’t have a machine for the regular polarized workouts I adjusted one of the FireWOD workouts to fit.

5 Rounds

  • 800m Run
  • 15 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 15 Hand Release Push-ups

I wore my Garmin watch so I could easily do 400m out and back as well as use the lap timer for rounds. My round splits were 6:00, 5:59, 6:02, 5:58, and 5:49 for a total of 29:49. Thrilled my times were so consistent and wish I could pace runs faster. As you can see in the graph, my heart rate was coming down during the running.

A Little Long

Worked out a little before noon.

“Brenton”

5 Rounds

  • 100′ Bear Crawl
  • 100′ Broad Jumps

**Do 3 burpees after every 5 broad jumps.

I hadn’t done this workout since 2015 summer vacation, with a time of 8:17. Found a spot where I could do the full 100 feet in one shot, which always helps. It ended up being closer to 110 though after remeasuring! Got 10:25 with my last round being my fastest at 1:43.

5 Sets

  • 10/10 Lateral Step-ups (33″)
  • 20 Plank Jumps
  • 20 Squat Jumps

Kind of nasty with the high step. Took me 14:11.

Three and a Half

Slept until 8:30 this morning, which felt great. Woke up in the night with a real fun right calf cramp. Went for a run at 10:15.

Year of the Engine – Endurance

36:00 Run

It’s been 5 weeks since I ran, due to the calf injury and that was a 27 minute run. I always struggle finding and keeping a pace. Wore my Garmin watch which helped a bit. Ended up going 3.52 miles according to RunKeeper. I could feel my left calf a little, which is the one I had stained.