CFF Day 86 – Not Giving up the Belt Yet!

Tuesday July 14, 2009 5:30 AM
Woke up and told myself that I was going to take a rest day. I somehow even justified it in my mind and tried to go back to sleep. But my inner crossfitter wouldn’t let me, he dragged me out of bed and to class, I hate that guy, and I love him. Big Class this morning so the WOD was converted into a team workout, which only affected me in a positive way…will explain later. Had a long warm-up with lots of OH Lunges, some double under practice and some mobility drills. Then, straight into the WOD

WOD – Teams of two
5 sets of:
Row 500M
Run 400M
One person starts the Row, the other Starts at the Run. You can’t start the other activity until your partner is back.
TIME: 26:07

Thoughts:
My partner was Tommy Mo, he is a running and rowing beast, so I had to do my best just to prevent him from having to wait around too much. We had a lot of really good competition in Super Dave and Garth, Nate and Brandon, Season and Audra, and Leslie and Lisa. I started out running and immediately was behind Nate and Garth. I did my best just to keep Nate within 10 seconds so I could try to get him on the row. I couldn’t do anything about Garth, as he is crazy fast. I was able to catch Nate by midway through the 2nd Run, he doesn’t know it, but he pushed me the whole way, I know how fast he can be so I was very worried about him catching me. Garth was doing something crazy on the rower which was allowing me to nearly keep pace with him, he wasn’t strapping in his feet. It took me about 5 extra seconds to do that, but it was definitely worth it! The last run was really hard. I got out before Garth and foolishly tried to keep pace with him over the first 150. That gassed me for the last 250. The last row was about as fast as the first one because I knew Super Dave was coming around the corner any second. I sprinted the whole thing. I had a great advantage – I had a clear vision of the entrance to the fort and would be able to see him coming. I was able to finish about 4-5 seconds right before him to give Tommy Mo and I the win! I’m continuing to feel really good about my running, I think that definitely carried me today. I need to get better at rowing, perhaps I will alternate my warm-ups with double unders and rowing from now on. Since I never had to wait for my partner on any of the exercises, our time was my time, which I’m proud of, I don’t think I would have got there if it wasn’t a team workout, but that is the beauty of crossfit- there is always reasons to keep pushing, keep going!

5k with a bunch of Dead Heads...wonder if I should run with a Hepa Mask?

Other Stuff:
Glad my running is coming into form because I’m doing a sweet 5k with my buddies Bones and Q. (maybe Krissy) a week from Thursday. It’s the Terrapin 5k in Grant Park. None of us are dead heads (my wife is though), but they have a very sweet wicking tie-dyed shirt as swag, which is awesome. I’m not really sure where or how I want to finish. I think I would be happy if I could somehow come in 27-30 minutes. I’m not sure if I’m setting my goal too low or high, but I don’t really have a good benchmark on this run. I will after this!! I’m not going to have my gps watch to help pace me, which sucks, but hopefully I’ll find it next weekend when we clean the garage.

Weight:
After the disaster that was my weigh in yesterday, I ate really good and had a great workout. I was rewarded with my new low!!!
202.3! I’m pretty psyched. I’m thinking by the end of the month at the latest I’ll be going down to Papa Joe’s and eating some tasty tetrazzini!

Volleyball??

How could I pass up the opportunity to put a pic of Misty May up on my blog....she's an F'ing rockstar

Wait…What??? Volleyball? Yep, Volleyball. As some of you know, I’m a game player. I’m bad at a lot of them, but I see that as an opportunity to get better, rather than a sign that I shouldn’t play anymore. So, I started playing volleyball a bunch of years ago at the CDW gym. I was pretty bad, but I was playing with all of my good friends from work, so it was okay. I gradually got better, and, by the time I left, I considered myself servicable. So, I played this morning, and expected some rust. There was rust, but mainly with my jump timing. BUT……I was faster than ever, my reaction times were great, I got to more balls than ever, it was very fun! I guess CrossFit helps with Volleyball too, who knew? That is the kind of test drive that I like!

There is talk of the GYG being open all 5 weekdays. If that happens I will be able to use Friday as my rest day and go in and play VB every week. That would be awesome! If only someone who had control over that was reading this post…..

Didn’t go to the Fort yesterday, as I was out late Tuesday night playing softball (1-2, and awesome pitching) and had stuff to do Wed night (laying a sweet path from the deck to the driveway and digging a drainage ditch). I will return tonight, tomorrow morning and Sat morning. It is crazy, that if I miss just one day, I feel like I’ve been gone for weeks. Crazy.

Still scared to weigh myself. I don’t think I’m lower yet, as soon as I think I’m lower, I will again.

Test Drive

Yea sure kid, whateva you want

So, back in the day when I had a license, no car and stuff to do, I had a little trick. I’m not sure how I discovered it, but I figured out that if I rode my bike over to the used car lot by my house, looked at a beater car, acted interested in it, they would let me “take it to my mechanic” across town. Then for a couple of hours I would go do the errands or whatever I would need to get done, and bring it back to them. I must’ve done this 10-15 times and they either didn’t catch on, or didn’t care, which was nice. Test drives are great because you treat the car like absolute garbage to make sure that it can stand up to the “rigors” of your usual driving schedule…floor it, slam on the brakes, turn the radio up so loud that your ears pop, take it up to 90 in a 45….all that stuff. I was reminded of this little story because I felt like I took myself for a test drive this past few days.

Friday morning – CrossFit – Scaling (up at 5am)
Friday day – work on the yard, house all day getting ready for Owen’s party
Friday Night – Poker – chopped the pot 4 ways for a share of 1st, good thing too, cuz I was short stack. (Home @ 2:40am)
Saturday Morning -Helping a buddy with his bouncy business (up @ 5am)
Saturday Day – Owen’s party out in the sun, trying to be entertaining to kids of all ages
Saturday Night – Help buddy pick up bouncies – (Home @ 12:30)
Sunday Morning – Sleep in! Up @ 7:30 to drive to Julie’s dads for Father’s day.
Sunday Night – Up to WI for My Dad’s father’s day (Home @ 8:30) – (Bed @10)
Monday – Golf 36 holes in the blazing sun (up @ 5)(Bed @11:30)

Then, back to normalcy for work on Tuesday. I did fairly well on the diet, except for the soda, that seems to be my weakness. I love the stuff. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, just get back on track and forget it happened. I am, however, a bit worried about weighing myself next…

All in all, I think I held up pretty well. I beat the crap out of myself, got no sleep and have come through it mostly intact. I woke up with a touch of a sore throat Tuesday morning and this morning so I didn’t go to the gym, just to be safe. My clothes are in my car in case I feel good enough to go tonight. I’m excited to resume my workouts and eating right. I have come a long way, but have to keep the pressure on b/c I have such a long way to go, can’t get complacent!!

This deck brought to you by….

My friends and family kick ass. Julie took the kids camping with Casey and Alex so I could concentrate on the deck, major rockstar wife! Ken was at the house all day Saturday and Sunday helping put the bottom of the deck up. Q. came up yesterday to help stain and put spindles up. When Krissy was done with her workshop, she came up to help. We formed an assembly line for the spindles that I think good ol’ Hank Ford would be proud of, and knocked 5/6 of them out! Without all this help, I know we’d be looking at an unfinished deck next weekend for Owen’s party. With it, I think we’re going to be able to get it done.

Was a very long weekend, lots of work, not much sleep. No Crossfit, but I feel like I was ran over by a truck from the sun and all the work, so much so that I skipped this morning workout. I am going to get lots of sleep tonight and hit it tomorrow. I’ve changed my approach to working out over the past few months. If I am rundown, I’m taking the day off and resting, in the past, I would push through it. Coincidentally (or NOT) every time in the past, something has come up that prevented me from continuing at the same intensity. I would get sick, or injured, and never get excited to get back to that intensity. That has not happened thus far in this program, and, of course, I will get sick, hopefully not injured, but if I do, I think I have built a solid enough base to make myself committed to it.

Bicycle Karma

Well, I’ve officially begun paying karma back for all the people who’ve helped me after my bicycle breakdowns and crashes. More about those in a bit…
After softball on Tuesday (1-2 with two very well hit balls), I was driving down one of my back road short cuts, about 5 miles out of town when I see this dude all decked out in bicycle gear walking his expensive looking bike down a hill, going the way I was coming from. I had some extra time, because our softball team is horrible and we get beat quickly. So I get about .25 of a mile past him and am able to do a U-turn. Turns out he was riding with a bunch of guys and blew out his front tire, didn’t have a spare, and all his buddies left him, which sucks, but what can they do? So, he was walking back to town where his car was parked. Fortunately, my trunk was clear and my seats were down b/c I went to home depot over the weekend to get 800lbs of lumber for the deck. So, we threw the bike in and I drove him to his car. He was an engineer from Motorola. I don’t remember his first name, but his last name was Colorado, which is pretty cool. I think he was Spanish…but I suck at guessing that stuff, I know he had an accent. Anyway, he seemed like a pretty solid guy.

No CFF today, rest day…thank God, my arms and shoulders are shot…although I’m getting an urge to run like 3-5 miles, that is just not right! I think I’ll be able to resist, but who knows…I’m thinking of getting some chucks to train in, we’ll see. Tomorrow I think I’m gong to go back to CDW@Play for some volleyball in the morning and then go to CFF in the evening.