Tag: run

San Diego Sunday

I arrived in San Diego last night for our yearly Automattic company meetup. Got up early this morning and hit up the fitness center in the hotel for a workout.

Warm-up

Did an easy 800m run on the treadmill.

WOD

  • 100 DB Hang Squat Clean Thrusters (30# DBs)
  • Every minute on the minute (except for at the beginning), do 5 burpees.

We did this a few months ago at SF from the ground instead of the hang position. Back then I took some rest minutes doing 0 clean thrusters and finished in 23:42. Today I did them from the hang starting position like the video done by Jason Khalipa where this WOD came from. Finished in 15:35 today without taking any “rest” minutes.

Finisher

  • 100 Russian Twists (25# DB)

I did these in sets of 50, 25, and 25, but didn’t time it.

An Easy-ish Deck

I made it to the 10am class which gives me enough time to pack and get ready for my trip. Flight leaves at 1:30.

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s High Knees
  • 15s Air Squats
  • 15s Mountain Climbers

WOD

Deck of Cards

Suits:

  • ♣ – Russian KBS (53# KB)
  • ♠ – 1m Plank
  • ♦ – Air Squats
  • ♥ – Burpees

Ranks:

  • 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace – 10 reps
  • 2 through 9 – Face value in reps
  • Joker – 150m Run

I finished in 32:36. Planks really sucked because they brought down the intensity and at one point I had 6 of 9 cards come up a spade. Usually deck of cards is pretty brutal but today it wasn’t bad with the selected movements and the fact that the highest rep count was 10.

Finisher

Prowler Sprints – 25m High Push followed by 25m Low Push

Casey A. and I did some prowler sprints at the end of class. The first sprint we had 135# loaded on the heavy prowler and it was pretty easy, so we added another 45# plate for 180# of load and did 5 more down and backs. My legs are getting stronger because the heavy pushes are getting a lot easier.

Getting Better at Thrusters

My abs are a little sore today, but not really any more than yesterday, which is surprising. We really blasted them on Monday and Tuesday. I walked 18 holes of golf this morning and went to the 7pm class.

Strength

5 Sets

  • 3 Push Presses
  • 1-2m Rest

I warmed up with a set of 8 at 45# and a set of 5 at 95#. For my working sets I used 115#, 135#, 145#, 160#, and 170#. Had some left in the tank for next time too.

Accessory

3 Sets

  • MAX Ring Push-ups
  • 90s Rest

I knocked out sets of 28, 15, and 9 (I think). Honestly can’t remember the last set.

WOD

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

  • Thrusters (35# DBs)
  • Box Jump (28″)
  • 150m Run (length of run is the same each round)

Thrusters actually felt pretty good today. I think learning to properly scale my weights is really helping out. I did each set without putting down the DBs. The 28″ box was a bigger deal than expected. I finished in 13:50.

Finisher

DU Tabata

I did pretty good with me DUs today. Got quite a few unbroken strings of around 20.

Testing My Back

I’m feeling good after the rest day yesterday. Matt is out-of-town for the weekend so I offered to help out with the weekend classes. Today was sort of on open gym and I was looking forward to testing out my back as well as trying a few things that are part of a competition I’m doing in October.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • Various stretching, including PVC pass-thrus and around the world’s, PVC OHS, world’s greatest stretch

WOD #1

“Grace”

  • 30 Clean and Jerks (95#)

This one comes straight out of the competition. I’ve been staying away from cleans for the last couple of weeks because of my low back. It felt pretty good doing this today. I finished in 2:42 without too much of a push since I was doing it by myself. A month or so ago I used 125# and did it in 5:10-ish, so I’m confident I can get down around the 2 minute mark.

WOD #2

10:00 EOMOTM

  • 5 Deadlifts (225#)
  • 5 HSPU

I’ve also been staying away from deadlifts because of my low back. These felt really good and easy. All of the HSPUs were strict and unbroken.

WOD #3

10:00 EOMOTM

  • 10 Thrusters (65#)
  • 10 Pull-ups

The competition has “Fran” but the beginner division, which I’m competing in, only uses 65# and does jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups. I figured this was a good way to build up for it. I should have gone heavier with the thrusters and maybe did fewer reps there. Everything here was unbroken as well. I’ve never been able to do that many rounds of pull-ups unbroken like that.

WOD #4

20:00 EMOTM

  • 30s Row

This a great one for conditioning. Go all-out for those 30s and then catch your breath for the next 30s.

I’m really happy with how my back handled the workload today. I wouldn’t have been able to do this 2 weeks ago. I’m in charge of making up the WOD for tomorrow’s classes, so that should be fun. It’s going to be some kind of partner WOD.

Designed for Me

Yesterday morning I walked 18 holes of golf but took a rest day from CrossFit. I really needed it after the hill sprints on Sunday. Went to the 9am class today.

Warm-up

  • 1m DUs
  • 20 1-arm Russian KBS (10 each arm)
  • 1m DUs
  • 20 Russian KBS
  • 1m DUs
  • 20 Goblet Squats
  • 1m DUs
  • 20 KBS

Right out of the gate I nearly set a PR for unbroken DUs. I get 43, just one shy of tying my PR. I think I get in my head and sabotage myself each time that happens. I had some pretty decent streaks throughout, but got worse as I got more tired. I used a 53# KB for everything.

Strength

Matt is starting to put more focus on strength work and shorter WODs finally. That is one of the things I loved about the box out in Phoenix. I was making big improvements each month in my squats and deadlifts. I haven’t even done a 1 rep max back squat since I came back to Michigan!

I grouped up with Brian and Rick for this.

3 sets

  • Max Reps Right Arm KB Shoulder Press
  • Max Reps Left Arm KB Shoulder Press
  • 2-3m Rest

Started out with a 35# KB and did 19 and 21 reps. Moved up to a 44# and did 11 reps on each side. For the last set I used a 49# and did 8 reps each.

WOD

  • 50 Box Jumps
  • 250m Run
  • 40 Box Jumps
  • 150m Run
  • 30 Box Jumps
  • 100m Run
  • 20 Box Jumps
  • 100m Run
  • 10 Box Jumps
  • 150m Run

If I didn’t know any better I’d say this WOD was designed for me to crush. We were allowed to rebound off the box and off the ground to work on the skills there. I used a 24″ box and finished in 8:54. I did some double rebounding to speed things up, but it really wears you out so I stuck with rebounding off the box most of the time.

Finisher

  • 100 HR Push-ups

I finished in 6:21, beating my 7:48 time from just 3 weeks ago!

Sprints at the Saginaw Soap Box Derby

After mowing the lawn I felt like doing something else, so I headed out to the Saginaw Soap Box Derby to run some hill sprints.

I ran the hill 10 times from the finish line up to the starting line, walking back down each time for recovery. The track is 290 meters long and it took me a total of 42:38 with the running and walking. My legs are pretty tired to say the least.

Odds and Evens

I was up bright and early (before 6am) to head to Gladwin for a golf scramble. Got back to Saginaw around 6pm, relaxed a bit and then did a garage WOD.

20:00

  • 10 Burpees (odd minutes)
  • 5 DB Front Squats (50# DBs, even minutes)

I loved the 10 burpees every minute for 10 minutes so much I thought I’d reuse that. My sweet spot for 10 burpees seems to be around 24 seconds and 21-22 seconds if I push extra hard. I was experimenting with some stuff to increase my turnover. Seems promising, but I’ll have to keep at it to see. I should have done 7 or 8 reps for front squats, because 5 went by pretty fast. Over the 10 minutes that was 100 burpees and 50 front squats.

I took a 5 minute rest before moving on.

10:00

  • 10 AbMat Sit-ups (odd minutes)
  • 10 HR Push-ups (even minutes)

I planned on doing 20 minutes of that, but the reps were going by too fast and it was too easy. For the next 10 minutes I bumped up the rep counts. No extra rest in between; the 20 minute timer kept running.

10:00

  • 15 AbMat Sit-ups (odd minutes)
  • 15 HR Push-ups (even minutes)

In the last 2 sets push-ups after the 10th rep it was a struggle to get the rest, so it workout out perfectly. Over 20 minutes that was 125 reps of each. I took a minute or 2 of rest and then ran a 7:20 mile around the neighborhood.

Finish with L-Hangs

Feeling good and my back is better each day. Walked another 18 holes of golf this morning. The walking is probably helping too.

Warm-up

  • 30 Air Squats
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30 PVC OHS
  • 10 rounds
    • 100m Run
    • 10 Suitcase Deadlifts (72# KB)

The runs were just a slow jog to loosen up.

WOD

5 rounds

  • 10 Ring Rows
  • 10 Burpees
  • 20 Goblet Lunges (53# KB)

I like this one because I need the ring row work, burpees keep up the intensity, and weighted lunges or good for the legs. I finished in 10:22.

Finisher

7 rounds

  • L-Hang (MAX)
  • 7 V-ups

Surprisingly my abs are sore today from the sit-ups we did yesterday. That rarely happens. I did mostly L-hang in the first round but after that it was a bent knee hang. The hangs sucked and I’m pretty sure I’ll be feeling them the next couple of days.

I stayed after a bit for open gym. Did some DUs and sucked so gave up on them for the day.

Strength

Shoulder Press

  • 5 @ 85#
  • 5 @ 105#
  • 5 @ 115#
  • 3 @ 125#
  • 3 @ 135#
  • 1 @ 140#

That’s a new PR, beating my old one by 5#.

Death by Wall Balls

Yesterday I finally bought a couple of lacrosse balls and taped them together. I’ve been rolling on them while watching TV at different times throughout the day to try to loosen up my back muscles and speed up the healing process.

Warm-up

10 rounds

  • 150m Sprint
  • 30s Rest

Loved this one. Definitely one of my strengths.

WOD

Death by Wall Balls

I got through the round of 19 and then 14 reps of round 20. I had to take a short break in the round of 19 and that pretty much ended me right there.

Finisher

Prowler sprints loaded with 95#. Pretty light weight, but allowed me to go faster. I got in two high sprints and two low ones.