Holly Jolly Challenge Days 8 – 11

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Day 8: This is the day that I actually got sick with a stomach flu. I felt fine all day the previous day, but, you can see from my eating after lunch, that I couldn’t really eat very much. I slept pretty much all day.

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Day 9: My stomach felt very week and so I couldn’t really eat very much at all. There aren’t very many “comfort food” options on paleo. Usually when I am sick with something like this, I like to eat toast and crackers, but I wasn’t about to risk loosing points (and therefore, money) just to eat some toast. I know that sounds a little crazy, but it’s not THAT big a deal.

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Day 10: Starting to feel better, but my stomach was still unsettled. At times I felt fine and at times, I felt absolutely horrible.

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Day 11: I felt much better. I am starting to eat more normally, but still, I have the unsettled feeling so it’s hard to finish meals, eat a lot, or find most things appetizing.

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Not Pushing as Hard

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Today’s WOD was one that I will probably remember for a while, because I’m a geek. I’ll get to that later.

I didn’t go all out on this one by any means. My stomach is still feeling unsettled and weak from the virus that I caught the day after Thanksgiving, so I didn’t push as hard as I normally would. “Pukie” was close by, though just in case.

Nikki came up with a good one for us today:

  • 800m run
  • 10 KB Swings (24kg)
  • 10 – > 1 Push up
  • 1 – > 10 Dead lift (225lbs)
  • 10 KB Swing (24kg)
  • 800m run

My time was 25:24.

This workout killed. The first 800, 10 swings, and 3-4 sets of the ladder were cake, to be honest, but once the the dead lifts started getting higher in number, I started getting much slower. I think I was able to bust out 5 dead lifts unbroken at most. The rest were done in small sets.

By the time I was done with the dead lifts and push ups, my lower body muscles pretty much had nothing left. When I picked up the kettle bell to do the swing, I popped my hips as best I could, but the weight went nowhere. Since Jody and Lance were yelling at me, I decided to suck it up and do them.

Next was the last 800m run. By this point, I could barely even move my legs as my lower back, butt, and legs were pretty much dead. I had to walk about the first 100m or so just to get my legs moving. I then was able to complete the last of it in a series of walks and very slow runs. Jody was nice enough to run and walk along with me as I suffered through this last leg. This is why I love Crossfit. I don’t think there are many other places where you will find people willing to suffer with you even AFTER they have completed what as asked of them. This is amazing to me every time I see it.

After this workout, after I got home and relaxed for a bit, the geeky side of me came out. “I did 55 dead lifts at 225lbs each”, I thought to myself. “Hmm, I also did 20 KB swings at roughly 53lbs each”… that’s a lot of weight!

<MATH>

  • 55 Dead Lifts @ 225lbs = 12375lbs moved over time
  • 20 KB Swings @ 53lbs = 1060lbs moved over time
  • 12375lbs + 1060lbs = 13435lbs moved over time
  • 13435lbs/2000 = 6.72 TONS moved over time
  • *this isn’t including the push ups which would have added (200lbs (me) * 55=) 11000 additional pounds or 5.5 additional tons.

</MATH>

How much did you move doing your curls at the gym tonight?

I have been backed up on my sheets for the Holly Jolly Challenge. I know. I know. I will post them tomorrow.

Pass the Pukie. Wait. Nevermind.

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I woke up this morning not really feeling so bad. A little sore, but not so bad. That all went to shit as soon as this workout started. I, like most people, probably have a very love-hate relationship with the Tabata method of training. It’s great because it’s quick, compact, effective, and exhausting. It just absolutely sucks because you are sucking wind the entire time and your muscles just scream for rest, but they can’t have it.

Today’s open gym workout was:

Tabata{

  • Squat
  • Push up
  • Box Jump
  • Sit up
  • Sprint

}

My numbers kind of sucked today. As soon the the workout started the energy left my body. Here’s how my sets turned out:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Total

Squat

21

19

16

16

15

16

14

16

133

Push up

18

12

8

6

5

6

4

5

64

Box Jump

4

3

0

6

2

6

5

5

31

Sit up

10

10

9

8

7

7

7

8

66

Sprint

OK

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

You can see that my numbers aren’t as good as they are normally. Particularly, you can see the big fat “0” in the third round of the box jumps. That’s where I had to stop or I would have puked.

At any rate, I finished and now will be relaxing (cleaning the house, changing air filters, hanging shelves, cooking, designing shirts, and planning a wedding) for the rest of the day.

Holly Jolly Challenge – Days 5 & 6

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I didn’t blog yesterday because I was exhausted. I got in a small workout and my eating wasn’t really enough as my day was a bit rushed with errands. Today sucked for eating, but it was a cheat day, so whatever.

I had another really big accomplishment today making this week tremendous in terms of progress. On top of moving off of the band for pull ups & upping my dead lift 50lbs, today I ran that longest that I have ever run without stopping for a walk-break/pass out.

To get a team WOD in for the Holly Jolly Challenge, my team, “The WOD Quad” signed up for the Turkey Trot around downtown Austin. We opted to do the 5 mile run which, to be honest, scared the living you-know-what out of me.

If you ever read my blog, you know that I despise running. I have hated running my whole life. From the time that son of a bitch gym teacher made us run it in 6th grade until now, I just hate it. I suck at it and I am often bottom of the barrel in it.

Today, I gained a bit of confidence in the running area as we (Me, Paula, and Jody) completed the 5 mile run in 57 minutes. I took zero, that’s right, zero walk breaks. Honestly, I have to say that my team really helped me here. They asked me if I would have been able to do it had they run on and simply, no, there’ is no way I would have. If I were running alone, I would have taken walk breaks, sit down breaks, whatever.

This is the benefit of Crossfit or, well, any exercise program where you have people that you have to be accountable to. Now, Paula and Jody weren’t drill sargenting me into running this thing. They were actually very nice and offered walk breaks on many occasions, but well, I guess I am getting better cardio and endurance because there were actually parts of this run where I didn’t feel stressed or taxed at all. This is just downright odd to me.

There were certainly times that I wanted to quit. Mostly during the hills that the mean planners of the route decided to throw in, but I didn’t want to let the team down.

You might be wondering “where was Victoria?”. Well, sadly, she came down with a rather nasty stomach bug yesterday and couldn’t run with us today. She is feeling better today and was missed by us all. I am sure she would love to run with us on the next one.

Lastly, here are my sheets for yesterday and today. I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving and got to spend it with people they love, I certainly did although I did miss the rest of my family. Victoria and I spent the evening at my grandmother’s house in Leander with her neighbor and their two kids. It was a really good time and I’m happy I got to hang out and overeat with them!

I am so thankful for the people and communities (Kung Fu and Crossfit) that I have in my life. These two schools of thought and training have changed me in so many beneficial ways. I don’t know what kind of person I would be without them.

While we are on the subject, I am also very thankful for my job. In a time where people are losing jobs left & right and people out of work can’t seem to find their way back in, I am extremely thankful that I have a job that allows me to learn new technology while still being an important player in the company and in customer interactions. I know I complain a lot, but that is really how I feel if we get down to the nitty-gritty.

Ok, enough with the sappy, here’s the sheets. Don’t kill yourselves shopping tomorrow.

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Help Me Help Them!

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Many in the CrossFit community were affected by the tragic shootings at Fort Hood, but none as directly as one of Crossfit Cedar Park’s affiliates, Lumberjack Crossfit.  Four members of that affiliate were killed..

CrossFit is launching a hero workout fundraiser for our four fallen soldiers. On December 5th, we are asking affiliates and individuals to do two things: participate in the workout (as a display of solidarity with Lumberjack CrossFit) and to reach out to family, friends, and strangers to donate whatever you can.

With the help of the CrossFit community, we can assist the men and women at Ft. Hood and Lumberjack CrossFit to raise money for the families of the fallen, and the future needs of the approximately 30 wounded.

The long-term needs of these families and the wounded are significant; many of the wounded are still in intensive care. Most will not fully recover from being shot multiple times at near point blank range with a .357.

Our community clearly has the ability and commitment to make a difference for these folks. Let’s turn out on the 5th and show our support by registering as a fundraiser now.

My personal fundraising page: https://www.rapidreghost.com/cfhf/FundraiserPage.php?frID=57

For more information: http://www.cflumberjack.org/

Holly Jolly Challenge – Day 4

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Today’s eating was good, but I wasn’t very prepared for meals. I sort of ended up just throwing stuff together.

I totally wasn’t planning on working out today but when I looked at the CFCP blog and saw that we were dead lifting tonight, I couldn’t pass up a chance to see where I stand. I have been wanting to know my one rep max for a while and tonight, I got a pretty damn good idea of what that is.

I had THOUGHT that my 3 rep max was 325. I was wrong. So as it stands,  my FIVE rep max is 300lbs, my ONE rep max is 325lbs. I got that a few months ago when I worked out at the KF school with Ryon. Well, it WAS 325lbs until tonight.

Tonight’s WOD was simply:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 Dead lift.

I did more than five sets as I had some trouble finding my max. The weights for my sets were:

225lbs – 295lbs – 315lbs – 335lbs – 355lbs – 365lbs – 375lbs

After 375lbs, I gave 405lbs a shot just for the hell of it. I got it about 80% of the way but just couldn’t stand completely up. Although I was slightly disappointed to not break 400lbs, I added a solid 50lbs to my dead lift. AMAZING! I am sure that my goal of dead lifting more than 400lbs isn’t THAT far away.

I remember when I was dead lifting with Ryon, I could barely sustain my grip to lift 325lbs. Tonight, I didn’t have that problem at all, even when I was trying 405lbs. My grip has gotten a hell of a lot stronger. hjc09-day04-bryan-cropped

Cindy

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Today marks a HUGE physical accomplishment for me. I wasn’t planning on it happening and I didn’t even think it would once it started.

V and I started Crossfit on August 19th, 2009. That was the day we did our baselines. That was just a few days over three months ago. I had to do jumping pull ups on that workout.

Today, our workout was “Cindy” which is an AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 20 minutes of:

  • 5 pull ups
  • 10 push ups
  • 15 squats
    I got 15 rounds in (that’s 75 pull ups, 150 push ups, and 225 squats… damn!)… and I did all of my pull ups without a band. I am still sort of in shock to type that and realize that it’s actually about me. If you ever doubt the strength and endurance gains that crossfit can deliver, this is in fact testament. In just 3 months, I went from not being able to do more than 3 unassisted pull ups to now 75 unassisted in 20 minutes. THAT is amazing to me.
    Here, tonight is yet another reason why although you CAN do crossfit in your garage, you (most people) really can’t. I can guarantee you that if I were in my garage tonight, I would have taken longer between rounds, taken more frequent breaks, and probably would have gotten in 8-10 rounds.
    The difference here is that we all had a whole room of people encouraging us, counting for us, and pushing us to get every ounce of whatever we had out of us. THAT is worth every penny you pay and possibly more.
    I am looking forward to more gains, more progress, and just great overall health.