Tag: run

1st Place

This morning I competed in the Out for Blood Duathlon in Mount Pleasant, MI. The event is a 5k run followed by a 20k bike. There are both road and mountain bike divisions, which is really nice. I finished first in the men’s age 26-35 mountain bike division! Official times won’t be posted online for a few days (they aren’t very organized). I did track each leg of the race using RunKeeper, so I have a rough idea of my total time, depending on how long my transition took (I didn’t hurry).

5k run – 22:20

20k bike – 46:46

That should put me somewhere around an hour and 10 minutes total I’m guessing. Last year I was in the 30-39 men’s mountain bike division and won, but they switched up the divisions for some reason this year. My 5k run was 24:13, so I cut nearly 2 minutes there. Leading up to this year’s race I only completed one run longer than a mile in the last month and it was a 4 mile run at a slow 9:36/mile pace on a recovery day. You don’t need to run to get better at running. Do CrossFit!

My total time last year was 1:12:32, so I probably improved that by a little more than 2 minutes there. I was really cruising on the bike but in the 8th mile, we turned straight into the wind and it killed my pace. Check out the splits on RunKeeper and you can see exactly where it happened. I went from a 3:36 in mile 7 to a 4:43 in mile 8.

I’m really happy with my run and how steady of a pace I was able to keep. Looking forward to the full results getting posted online so I can see how I fared compared to mountain bikers in the other divisions.

2 WODs for the Time of 1

Surprisingly I’m not sore at all from the heavy deadlifting yesterday.

Warm-up

  • Tabata Air Squats
  • 1 Mile Run

I thought I was running a nice average pace, but ended up running a 7:00 mile without pushing myself very hard. That’s good news for Saturday’s duathlon.

This was actually two WODs combined for one total time.

WOD #1

  • 100 Pull-ups
  • Each time you come off the bar, do 10 Russion KBS.

I used a 53# KB for the swings. I set a new PR by getting 12 kipping pull-ups right off the bat before coming down for a break. The number of reps went slowly down after each set. I have a new tear on my right pinky finger and a nice blood blister under my last tear on the left ring finger. Seems like I tear my hands in a new spot every time.

WOD #2

  • 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Wall Balls
  • After each set of wall balls, do a dumpster run, which is about 200-300m.

The wall balls were no problem because the most we had to do in a row was 10, but there wasn’t much of a break from running, especially at the end.

I finished both WODs in a total time of 32:55. This was a good lead up to the race for me. Some speed work and good conditioning.

Slow and Steady

I haven’t taken a full day off since Monday, but didn’t do much of a workout on Friday. Survival Fitness was closed today because over 20 folks were down in Ohio to do a Tough Mudder. I decided to put in some miles on the road because I haven’t run any real distance in preparation for next weekend’s duathlon. My goal was to run a real slow 10:00 minute per mile pace. I went a total of 4 miles in 38:24. According to RunKeeper my mile splits were 9:31, 9:49, 9:39, and 9:25. How’s that for consistency?

Do What You Want

The last 3 days were pretty good WODs, so I decided to just go in to Open Gym tonight and work on a few things. I warmed up with a 300m run. Then I alternated between snatches and HSPU, taking long rests in between. For the snatch work I started at 75# and went up by 10# each time, doing doubles or triples. Made it up to 125# and then failed at 135# before calling it quits. I tried HSPUs on plates and one AbMat for the first time so that it was a true HSPU. I was able to do 4 in the first set! Next set I did 2 and after that I switched to 1 AbMat with my hands on the floor. Nice easy day, but worked on a few things that needed work. Matt took some videos of a few snatches and they were not the greatest. I’m jumping pretty far backwards, which will never work at higher weights. Good to see on video and learn from it.

Quad AMRAPs

Went to a night class since the only morning class is 5:45am on Tuesday. It was kind of nice, even though I really like how I feel throughout the day when I workout in the morning.

Warm-up

5 rounds

  • 1m Russian Twists
  • 1m Plank

I used a 20# KB for the twists and got a total of 292 (counting each side) through the 5 minutes.

WODs

4 different 3:00 AMRAPs

At each station perform the buy-in exercise and reps. Then do max reps of another movement for the remaining time of the 3 minutes. Keep track of max reps for each station. Rest 2 minutes between stations.

  1. 20 Box Jumps
    -MAX DB power cleans
  2. 20 Burpees
    -MAX Push-ups
  3. 300m Run
    -MAX Ring Rows
  4. 20 KBS
    -MAX Wallballs

I used a 24 inch box for box jumps, 35# DBs for power cleans, a 53# KB for Russian swings, and a 20# MB for wallballs. I think my reps for the MAXs were 31, 41, 37, 35, but I might be off by a few on some of those.

Strength

Find 1 rep MAX for clean + thruster. We broke into groups by strength and formed lines to each take a shot at a weight before moving up. I think we went 65#, 85#, 105#, 125#, 145#, 165#. Those all went up pretty well for me. I was the only one left, so Matt pushed me to go for my body weight of 180#. I got the weight up with a power clean without too much trouble. I normally would do a full clean as it gets this heavy, but I knew I needed to squat for the thruster. The clean was a 15# PR. I went for the thruster and got it about half way over my head. I think if we had done this before the WOD I could have gotten it, but I was pretty fried. I’m thrilled about the clean PR especially since it was a power clean. 165# is a lot more than I’ve ever attempted with a thruster as well.

Carry the Medicine Ball

Got another solid night of sleep last night. It’s great to be home sleeping in my own bed again.

Warm-up

  • 600m Run
  • Power Skipping
  • Walking Zombie Kicks
  • But Kicks

WOD

A religious CrossFit box somewhere came up with this partner WOD. It’s supposed to be based on the 14 stations of the cross. I’ll hold off on any comments about the religious nature.

  • 400m Run (both partners)
  • 50 Pull-ups
  • 40 Burpees (both partners)
  • 80 KBS (Russian)
  • 60 MB Thrusters
  • 100 1-arm Push Presses
  • 100 Lunges (both partners)
  • 60 MB Cleans
  • 200 Sit-ups/Plank
  • 60 K2E
  • 50 Pull-ups
  • 100 Lateral Hops
  • 100 HR Push-ups
  • 800m Run (both partners)

One partner holds a medicine ball at all times except when doing burpees, lunges, and sit-ups/plank. I partnered up with Matt, the owner, since we had an odd number of people in class. We used a 20# MB for the workout. When performing burpees and lunges each partner completes the prescribed number of reps. During the runs, we handed off the MB at the half-way point. As an example, we split up the pull-ups into several sets, each doing a total of 25 pull-ups. Then we each performed 40 burpees on our own. For the push presses, each partner should end up doing 25 with each arm. When you get to 200 sit-ups/plank, one partner is doing sit-ups while the other is holding a plank.

It took us 42 or 44 minutes to finish, I don’t remember the time. The last half of the 800m run was straight into a strong wind. Absolutely brutal holding the MB. I highlight for me was getting kipping K2E for the first time. I wish I had figured this out a couple of weeks ago for all of the T2B.

Partner WODs are always fun on weekends. Now it’s time to enjoy Masters Sunday.

Back at Survival Fitness

I was absolutely exhausted last night when I got home. Went to bed at 10pm for a solid 10.5 hours of sleep! First day back at Survival Fitness this morning and it felt great. It was a pretty big class from what I remember the size being a few months ago. I’m excited that SF will be moving to a much bigger space soon.

Warm-up

  • 300m Power skipping while with OH PVC
  • 30 Air Squats
  • 20 PVC Pass thrus
  • 30 OH Squats

The power skipping was pretty taxing, especially having to hold the PVC overhead. I hadn’t done anything like that before.

Skill

5 rounds

  • 30s Handstand
  • 30s Deep squat hold

This was really easy considering I’ve been doing scaled handstand push-ups. I could feel it in my wrists a bit though.

WOD

  • 1 Mile run
  • 100 box jumps
  • MAX HR push-ups
  • 100 sit-ups
  • MAX pull-ups
  • 100 KBS
  • 1 Mile run

There are over 20 people from SF doing the Tough Mudder next weekend, so this WOD was designed to prepare them. It was a good test for me as well since I have the duathlon coming up in two weeks. I ran the first mile in about 6:40. The last time I did a mile test was November 20, 2011 in 7:47, so I was thrilled with my progress. I used a 24 inch box for the jumps without a problem. It’s just that 100 is a lot to knock out in a row. For maximum HR push-ups I was able to get 26 unbroken. I split sit-ups into sets of 50-25-25. I went with strict dead hang pull-ups, since the bars aren’t high enough for me to do kipping, and set a new PR with 7. The worst part of this workout was doing 100 KBS. I used a 53# KB and broke them into sets of 10 for most of the way. The last mile took me about 8:20 for a total time of 39:19. Along with another guy, we were the only people to finish under the 40:00 goal. He smoked me pretty good on both runs, but since I did fewer push-ups and pull-ups I was able to get a head start on the last run.

Back on the Jump Rope

I was exhausted yesterday afternoon and throughout the night. Made it an early night and got a ton of sleep. Today I’m sore from a combination of Saturday’s track workout and all of the burpees yesterday.

I got to the box a bit early and worked on muscle-up technique for 5-10 minutes. I’m getting closer.

Warm-up

  • 800m Run
  • 5 minute Clean warm-up

Strength

6 Sets

  • 1.1.1 Clean & Jerk (10 sec between reps)
  • 2-3m Rest

Used 95#, 115#, 125#, 135#, 145#, and 155# for my sets. The last rep or two were pretty ugly.

WOD

  • 750m Row
  • 25 T2B
  • 75 DUs
  • 500m Row
  • 20 T2B
  • 50 DUs
  • 250m Row
  • 15 T2B
  • 25 DUs

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I did any jump roping, but I didn’t want to skip out on today’s workout so I did it. I tried to concentrate on keeping my head back in a good position instead of chicken-necking. I was successful until I towards the end when I got really exhausted. I could feel my neck coming forward at that point. My row was really slow and sluggish today and T2B were rough on my hands. Yesterday I developed a blister on one of my fingers from pull-ups and it popped during the OLY class. Of Course T2B ripped it wide open today. That’s a lot of reps on the bar. I was last in class by quite a bit with a time of 20:58. I thought it was going to be a good day when I ripped off 27 DUs right off the bat the first set, but it was not to be after that.

Sunday Funday

Yesterday after walking 18 holes of golf I had to rush home, shower, and get out to a restaurant for happy hour and dinner with a bunch of my CrossFit friends. Great fun! Such a good group of people. It’s going to be hard to leave this year, but I’m heading home to my close friends and another great group of folks at the gym there.

Since we started dinner before 5pm yesterday, I was in bed around midnight with enough time to recover enough to hit the 9am this morning. Getting out of bed was rough though. I couldn’t believe how sore I was from the interval workout at the track. After moving around a bit and eating a banana I felt better and decided it would do me good to get in for a tough workout.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 3 World’s Greatest Stretch (each leg)
  • 10-15 of each
    • V Sit-ups
    • PVC Pass thrus
    • Air squats

WODs

Teams of Three. For both portions, team members will cycle through full rounds one at a time, with only one member working at any one time. The goal is to move as quickly as possible, thus minimizing your partners’ rest periods and racking up as many rounds as possible.

Since class was small (imagine that after a night of drinking!) most of us paired up for teams of two instead of three.

15m AMRAP

  • 3 Deadlifts
  • 6 HSPU
  • 9 Box Jumps

Deadlifts were done with 225#, I used 2 AbMats for the HSPUs, and jumped on to some stacked up tires that were taller than 24 inches. I was able to complete all rounds unbroken, which is why I went with 2 AbMats instead of 1. At a team, my partner Adam and I completed 15 rounds plus 3 deadlifts. I went first in this AMRAP. Teams of 2 was actually perfect here and we kept a steady pace of 1 minute rounds. With 3 people I think our rest period would have been too long.

After finishing the first WOD, I was feeling so much better than when I woke up. I’m glad I decided to make it in to class instead of going back to bed or going for a hike.

We rested for 5 minutes before hitting the second WOD.

15m AMRAP

  • 5 Pull-ups
  • 10 Burpees

I went second in this AMRAP because Adam is better at pull-ups than I am. In the end it didn’t matter because we each completed 9 rounds for a total of 18. That’s 45 pull-ups and 90 burpees each. This WOD would have been much better with a team of 3. My kipping pull-ups are getting much better because I’m able to feel when I get out of control and dial in the swing. I’m also getting better at adjusting my grip on the bar.

After the workout I headed to Total Wine & More to pick up some beer. CrossFit Full Strength has started to call today Sunday Funday because everyone is encouraged to bring a 6-pack of beer for after the noon OLY class. Last week was the first one and it was fun.

Olympic Lifting Class

After a snatch warm-up progression with the PVC pipe we worked on our snatch technique by doing a power snatch followed by a full snatch. I worked up to 105# I think.

Next we got out the racks and worked on the drop snatch with overhead squat. I got up to 125# there. Tried 135# once, but I had the weight too far forward and my feet were too wide.

I wasn’t quite all there and felt weak during the OLY work today, but it was good to get a final session in with Johnny.

Track WOD

CrossFit Full Strength announced this week that they would start doing some workouts at the Phoenix College track on Saturday mornings starting in April. I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to do any since I’m heading back to Michigan on Wednesday, but then they decided to start this week. Since I had a 10:15am tee time with the guys and the track workout was at 7:30am I was able to make it. I got up at 6:30am which I’m not a fan of. I only have a few more days in town so I wanted to make the most of them and squeeze in as much as I can.

We warmed up with some high knees, butt kicks, skipping, 360s, backwards skipping, and a 400m jog.

In teams of 3, one person runs at a time so the others get 2x rest in between intervals. Complete all intervals at 400m before starting the 200m runs, etc.

  • 2x 400m Run
  • 3x 200m Run
  • 4x 100m Run

Just walking out to the track brought back memories of high school track practice. My events were the 110m high hurdles and 300m intermediate hurdles in track, so we did a lot of workouts similar to this back in the day. I absolutely loved this workout and felt as good as I could have expected. It was actually a nice way to get the day started.