CFF Day 102 – CF Nasty Girl ‘Fran’

Thursday July 30, 2009 5:30 AM

No, not Hurricane Fran, but it felt like it!!!!

This is the workout that we were supposed to do on Tuesday when the mayor forgot his keys. He was nice enough to come in on his day off and have a make-up class. I felt like crap this morning. Yesterday’s workout was very tough, last night from 7pm on, all I wanted to do was go to bed! On top of that, I slept like garbage. But, always happy to be at the fort!

Warmup: 500m Row – I sprinted the first half and worked on form the 2nd, felt good.
WOD: “Fran”
21-15-9
Thrusters (30K)
Pull-ups (Blue Band)
Time: 9:35

Thoughts:
It just might be impossible to convey how hard this workout actually is through words. I finished somewhere around 6:20. I still have the ‘exercise shakes’ 5 hours later. Lets break it down.
21 Thrusters – Did these unbroken, felt great!
21 Pullups – Perhaps I should have used the green band for this one, but I was being stubborn. I did a set of 5s, then all 3s, 2s and four 1s to end it. When I couldn’t do more than 1 in a row, I really fought with myself to have Ryan set up the green band for me. Also, I was having great difficulties with the box being in the wrong spot, I kept hitting it on my way down.
15 Thrusters – Drained, I still repped out 5,5,5 – on my middle 5 my left knee started to go out, doing thrusters with one leg is pretty stinking difficult!
15 Pullups – Fixed the box and began with 4 good ones with the intention of doing 5,5,5 – it went way downhill from there. 4,3,2,1,1,1,1,1
9 Thrusters – knee still hurting, this is when I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, 5,4
9 Pullups – really hurting, did 3,2,1,1,1,1
As you know by now, I’m competitive. I don’t like losing, I don’t like being the last to finish. I was last to finish this one, by a longshot. I don’t like that I have to use the band and everyone else is doing regular pull ups. Since I didn’t have a baseline on this one for myself, I compare myself with the other guys, and they whooped up on me today. I know, I have to keep perspective…I couldn’t do one pull up 3 months ago, and now I’m mad that I finished minutes behind elite athletes who have been doing it for longer, who are stronger and weigh less???? (Yes, Dammit, I am!!) My heart is mad, but my brain knows that I will get there, just have to keep pushing.

++Finished without having Ryan put up another band for me
—Keep my elbows up, they dipped a few times and that caused me to lose my form on my thrusters

Quote of the day: Me, about an hour ago to Q. “I’m too exhausted to even blog about that workout”

Crossfitter of the day: so many choices here, I’ll list what I’m thinking and let you weigh in…
The Mayor Zach – coming in and doing right by the GYG for the makeup Fran
Tommy Mo – Came in at 5:30 in the morning to CHEER for us, and take pics and video
The Garth Show – Came in to say hi, and then to Run a 9K with Brit and finished in 46 minutes
Brit – Ran a 9K with Garth (hopefully you had headphones LOL j/k Garth) -And finished in 46 minutes
Audra – Ran 3.7 miles – (she has gone on the record as saying she despises running)
Pete – Pushed himself so hard that he nearly passed out
Super Dave – took a minute + off of his Fran time, while doing 22lbs more!
Brandon – Also took a minute + off of his Fran time – extra props for doing it without much time at the fort lately.
Ryan – my partner, did a great job counting and cheering for me, also doing this for the first time, did full pull ups and was a sweaty mess afterwards!

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!

CFF Day 83 – Team Saturday

Saturday July 11, 2009 9:00 AM

Came to the Fort feeling good again. Considering how many people are out, the 12-14 people at the gym was awesome. Zach is leading this team challenge, and I’m told its one of the first he’s designed. That makes me scared and excited all at the same time!

Standard Warm-up

WOD:
In Teams of Two (partner was Super Dave), AMRAP in 35:00

1st Person Run 400M
2nd Person
-5 Push Ups
-20 Sit Ups
-5 Pull Ups

When Both people are done, go outside and flip the huge tractor tire together, then jump into and out of it one at a time.

Then, 2nd person runs while 1st person does PU, SU, PU. Then Flip and Jump again. That is One Round.

Super Dave and I completed 9.5 Rounds to take the WIN!

Totals: in 35:00
Push Ups: 50
Situps:185
Pullups: 40
Run: 2 miles
Tire Flips: 18
Tire Jumps: 36

By the end, the hardest thing for me was the situps. and Sunday and Monday, I felt it! I used the Blue band for the first 6 rounds and then switched to the green. I was proud of this one. There was a lot of strong teams that we were competing against. The first 2-3 Rounds we were playing catch up because Boyd and Ryan got out to a phenomonal start. We didn’t quit, kept going and pulled out the W. Dave is a phenomonal partner and pretty much was flipping those tires on his own by the end!

Posing with Super Dave and our Belt!

Weight:
203.5 up a little, but not bad considering the diet and missing M, T, TH this week.

Diet, Diet, Diet, Diet!!!!

So, I’ve been talking all about me. And well, thats okay I guess b/c it’s my blog. But I want to talk a little about two of my training partners.
Super Dave and Garth. They are great examples of what it means to be a CrossFit athlete. They work their butt off, are coachable, nice, approachable, and when they finish ahead of you, they are cheering for you until you are done! That is awesome. At the time that the before pictures were taken, they both had been doing CrossFit for a year+.

Super Dave:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garth:                                                                                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, most of you know, I’m not really into half naked men. Not really my bag baby. But in the parlance of our times, I mean, holy shit! Do you believe the changes. These are guys that were in UBER good shape before they started eating Paleo, and trimmed off whatever fat they had remaining in only 60 days by just following this simple rule:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.

Are you kidding me???? The dieting industry is like a $600 Billion juggernaut and these two guys have reduced it to 14 words? Holy crap! I was there when they took the before pictures, I was really in disbelief that they should be taking “before” pictures at all…but the proof is in the pictures. This is what they look like right now….That just happenened.

I’m following the same diet, that’s how I’ve lost the majority of my weight. Someday, I’ll be to their before pictures, and then, hopefully a few months later, I’ll be to their after pictures!