Tag Archives: Workout

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I had a pretty bad day today. You know, those kinds of days where nothing seems to go right? You don’t feel like you got anything of consequence done. You feel like you are fighting upstream with everyone and everything around you. That was the kind of day I felt I had.

If I would have missed a workout today, well, that would have been bad, but luckily, V and I made it to the 6pm class. Upon walking in the door, I started feeling better. A little self inflicted punishment to help forget about the day and how much it sucked… that’s a good thing.

Tonight’s workout, I hear, was a qualifying WOD somewhere (not sure of where exactly) but it was five rounds of:

5 power cleans (Rx @ 155lb)
10 burpees (did as many strict as possible)
Red Line Sprint (roughly 200m, and there was no sprinting)

My time for this one was 14:41. I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping myself moving while not taking too many breaks. The first three rounds were OK, but the last two felt like someone had removed all oxygen from the planet Earth. Not a pleasant experience.

After the WOD we hung around and talked for a little while. I love the people that we have met at the gym. They are so incredibly nice. Not really any douche bags to be found there.

V and I hung around the house for a bit after getting home. I didn’t feel like cooking so we just scrounged around. We watched some more of a movie that we started a few days ago, then went to sleep.

Unable to sleep by the constant turmoil that is my upcoming wedding in Mississippi, I now sit here writing this blog post. I don’t really want to get into the details of what is ailing me on a public forum, but it has been the source of many hours of lost sleep. Needless to say, a huge weight will be lifted on June 6th, 2010.

I love the girl I am marrying more than I can ever describe. That’s got nothing to do with it. It’s all coming from the event itself.

At the very least, I managed to be a little bit productive by creating a fan page for Crossfit Cedar Park. If you go there and you love it like I do, take a second to log onto Facebook and be their fan.

I guess I’ll try to go to sleep now.

5 whole K’s?

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I hate running.

I really hate running.

If you know me, you know, I hate running.

When there are WODs that have lots of running in them, well, I don’t really look forward to the running part of things.

I have made some really great advances in running over the past year. With the help of my friends Jody & Paula, I was able to do the entire Turkey Trot last Thanksgiving with zero walk breaks. A few months after that, I did a Pose running skill session with Dave.

I am getting better at Pose, but I am still not that great at it. Granted, I don’t really work on it all THAT much, but my stride has certainly changed. I definitely notice that.

Still though, I hate running. That’s why this challenge is perfect for me.

Today was the start of it. We had to run a 5k (that’s 3.1 miles). Not really a huge distance, but not really over right away either.

My total time to complete was 32:31 or something like that. I don’t remember exactly, but it was somewhere between 32 and 33 minutes. I ran this one straight through without stopping to walk at all. With that said though, there were a few times that I really wanted to stop and walk, but I didn’t.

I did learn a few things from this run:

I can run faster than I give myself credit for. I run slow and conservatively because I **HATE** getting cramps in my side. Once I get one of those, running gets even worse for me.
I don’t really know what my weakest link is. I noticed today that when I was running, my lungs were fine.
There really wasn’t a time that I was out of breath or couldn’t catch my breath. The reasons that I wanted to stop were:

My legs feel like lead.
My legs are burning.
I am bored.
This is uncomfortable.

I hit a really great stride at the end of the run. It felt like I picked it up about 30-40% over what I had done up until that point. It was at that point that I realized that I was on the end of the damn run and there was just about a 1/4 mile left. Suck.

In 4 weeks, I want to be able to work at a higher pace and not do this blur between “running” and soccer mom power-walking. At the very least, I want to be able to have periods where I am running faster than what my current rate of “normal” is.

With all that said, I still think that it’s a great accomplishment to say that I ran a 5k without stopping.

It can only get better from here, right?

Dating Sage

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Wow. Just wow. This WOD yesterday (3/16/2010) was insane. That is all I can say about it. From what I hear, Sage is Bergenger’s daughter.

All in all, this is probably one of the most demanding WODs that I have had to do since starting the whole Crossfit thing 8 months ago. I found myself having to actually take breaks resting on the floor. When your coach says “the 95lb snatches aren’t the challenging part”, be worried! In fact, he was right! The thrusters are by far the killer.

“Dating Sage” consist of the following:

5 rounds of

10 snatches (95lb)
15 pull ups
20 thrusters (75lb)

I read the blog and said to myself, “boy, that looks like fun!”. As usual, the first round was fun. Round 2 – 5, yeah, not so much.

My overall time on this was 33:14. I could have taken quite a bit of time off had I not taken so many breaks. There were times where I thought I was going to hyperventilate. It’s because of this though, that these ARE the types of workouts that I love; the kind that you want to quit 5 minutes in. These are the kind of workouts that show you what you are made of and what kind of will power you have.

Somewhere around round three, I honestly believed that I would not finish the WOD. Part of me was hoping Dave would tell me to stop at 3 rounds, but, Dave’s a good coach and knew that I could finish. He knew more than I KNEW that I could finish.

With that said, I am proud that I got all the way though five rounds of this WOD. It was physically and mentally taxing.

If you read my blog, you know that I like to do some math with these WODs. This one is just an insane amount of work. Allow me to break it down:

10 snatches @ 95lb = 950lb * 5 rounds = 4750lb
15 pull ups @ 200lb = 3000lb * 5 rounds = 15000lb
20 thrusters @ 75lb = 1500lb * 5 rounds = 7500lb

That totals 27,250lb moved around. Divide that by 2000 and you get 13.625 tons. I moved 13.625 TONS IN ~33 MINUTES. That’s insanity. To put that in perspective, my car weighs 3468lbs. So, I moved like, almost 8 of my cars. Crazy. Anyway…

This Saturday, we are running a 5k to kick off the next challenge at CFCP. I am really looking forward to this one. Running has always been the bane of my fitness life (cue up memories of junior high school of my fat ass “running” the mile in the school yard, with all of the other kids blowing by me), so it will be nice to take a four week period to actually focus on improving that.

Team WODs

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Yesterday’s workout was a fun one. Well, “fun” is up for interpretation. I don’t think many would actually think this was “fun”. Maybe I’m just crazy.

We started out with 5 minutes of fun:

1 minute of jack-knifes (20lb med ball)
1 minute of leg raises
1 minute of jack-knifes (20lb med ball)
1 minute of leg raises
1 minute of jack-knifes (20lb med ball)

I think I got something like 109 or 115. The 20 lb medicine ball became heavier and heavier as time went on. I think someone was playing a joke on me. We then continued on to a nice little team WOD that Dave made up:

3 rounds of

2 minutes of {row, renegade row, squat}

I didn’t keep track of my reps here. There was no rest in between rounds and at the end, we had to add up our team score. I don’t remember what my score my team got. We came in 3rd out of the 3 teams, but I still got a great workout.

This Weeks Workouts

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On Wednesday (3/10/2010) night, we did a little number that I thought I did pretty well at. It was three rounds of:

400m run
10 clean to overhead (135lb – Rx)
10 pull ups

My time here was somewhere in the 23:46 area. I don’t remember exactly, but I think that’s right. Like I said, I thought I did pretty well on this one. I didn’t take any walk breaks on the 400’s, although, my last run was SO slow I may as well have been power-walking with my AM/FM headphones on. I felt strong on all of the clean to overheads and OK on the pull ups. I think I could have done more pull ups unbroken, but still, I was happy with my effort.

Friday (3/12/2010), I managed to get out of the house to workout. I was happy that I did because we did “Baseline” two times. The way the workout was written was:

“Baseline” (500m row, 40 squats, 30 sit ups, 20 push ups, 10 pull ups)
Rest 3 minutes
“Baseline” (500m row, 40 squats, 30 sit ups, 20 push ups, 10 pull ups)

There were not enough rowers for us all so we went in heats. The rest ended up being “until the next heat finished” which was closer to about 6 minutes. Again, I improved my baseline time. The last time we did baseline (the night we did it 3x), I did my first round in 5:00 flat. I was using a band (don’t remember the color).

This time, I finished my first round in 4:43. That’s an additional 17 seconds off my original baseline time of 5:40 on my first day of Crossfit. I have gone from jumping to band to kipping pull ups all in less than a year and that makes me happy. I have improved my time while making the workout harder. Cool.

The second set took me 5:14, just about 30 seconds longer than my first set. About 150m into the row, I felt my energy bottom out. It was all mental from there.

Weekend Workouts

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Friday was a relatively light work day. Normally, I go over to Jose’s house to work on Friday’s but he’s leaving for a trip, so we decided to work remotely. Since he had to go and pick up a van over lunch, I took the opportunity to accompany V to a Crossfit nooner.

3/5/2010 – Stairway to hell:

100 double unders (sub 300 singles)
90 back extensions
80 squats
70 sit ups
60 lunges (1 per step)
50 push ups
40 box jumps
30 KB swings (1.5 Pood)
20 burpees
10 pull ups

My time was 23:51 Rx. Well, 1/2 Rx? I did 300 singles, not double unders. I would have been there until the evening class if I would have tried. I guess I just need to work on them outside of WODs. Anyway… this workout seemed never ending. Even half way through, it still seemed like I had a ton of work still left to do. Sometimes, it’s just important to finish…

3/6/2010 – Saturday morning, we did the 300 challenge, a first for me.

25 pull ups
50 dead lifts (135lb Rx)
50 push ups
50 box jumps
50 floor wipers
50 KB clean & jerk (1 pood, 25 per arm)
25 pull ups

I came really close to finishing this one, but unfortunately, I will have to give myself a big, fat, DNF. I had 21 pull ups left when the cutoff time of 20 minutes came. Despite that, I am really proud of the effort that I put forth for this one.

I had a conversation with Lance after this WOD. I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t finish and he made a great point. He said that your body doesn’t care if you don’t finish. Your heart, lungs, cardio system, and muscles don’t give a crap. As long as you work hard, you have made a huge deposit into your “health account”. I wasn’t really feeling badly about myself, but this was really good to hear.

I was also really proud of V b/c she used the Rx weight for dead lifts. That’s right, ladies, 95lb dead lifts 50 times. That’s no joke. She also didn’t have to go down to her knees for the push ups. Can your girl do that? (Ryon, don’t answer)

Other than all that, it was a pretty, well… interesting weekend.

The chiropractor we have been going to told us about a place in Leander that sells grass fed beef and pork called the Sassy Pea market. We went there on Saturday to check it out and they had a pretty good selection of stuff. I would like to eventually buy 1/2 a cow and stash it in the freezer, but for now, we just got a few things to try; some short ribs, an arm roast, and some stir fry beef. They didn’t have any ground beef and they were out of pork.

They also have farm eggs, which makes me very happy.

We also had a conversation with them about selling our Perfectly Paleo products at their store. They did tell us that they are trying to do a little farmer’s market type deal and we might be able to sell there at some point. That’s a whole other blog post.

I am sore… and drained in every way I can imagine. Great way to start the week.

Welcome Back…

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Every time I go away on business, I have the intention of working out. This time, I think I was able to do it. I was able to get one WOD in last Tuesday (2/23/2010). I made this one to do in my hotel room:

10 rounds of

10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats
50 jump ropes

It took me right around 14 minutes to do this one. I didn’t have a stopwatch going. I just looked at the clock when I started and when I ended. I would have done double-unders, but I was on the 2nd floor and didn’t want to start heel smashing.

About 3 days later, my car was buried under 2-4 feet of snow depending on the side of the vehicle. I totally consider this a WOD. I worked like an animal for over an hour to get it completely dug out. Next time I am in a blizzard, I will see if I can improve on my time =)

It seems like every time I take a break from the gym, the workout that is planned for when I come back is really hard. In fact, I sometimes think that the coaches sit around and say “Bryan’s coming back today, what’s really hard for him?”.

No, I don’t REALLY think that, but it sure does feel like it. In fact, I don’t think it would matter what work out was picked for my first one back. It will pretty much always suck.

Last night’s WOD was deceptively hard:

7 rounds of

10 db cleans (Rx 40lb in each hand)
10 burpees

There it is again. Just 2 things. 70 times. Argh. This took me longer than I would have liked. I clocked in at 15:56 after lots of breaks. Better luck next time kid…

Week Ending Workouts

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Friday night (2/19/2010), we did “Running Phat Cindy”. I have done regular Cindy before with a personal record of 17 rounds. “Running Phat Cindy” is also AMARP in 20 minutes, but there’s now a run and the squats are weighted:

400m run
5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 back squats (65lbs)

I Rx’d this one and got five full rounds in. In fact, I completed my last squat as the clock was changing from 0:01 to 0:00. Just under the wire…

I didn’t feel so great on the runs for this one, but felt really good on all the other stuff. I guess I need more work on my running. I think that will be something that I will have to work on forever. The first 2 weren’t bad. After that, I took at least one walk break. Again, I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

Saturday (2/20/2010) morning, we took another crack at the “Fit Test” that we did back in November. This workout is:

1 minute of push ups
1 minute of sit ups
400m run
Tabata set of squats

My numbers for this were:

Push ups: 40 (previously 37)
Sit ups: 31 (previously 34)
400m run: 1:42 (previously 1:36ish)
Tabata squats: 104 (previously 150ish)

(I need to verify those numbers when I get home. I didn’t have my sheet on me when I wrote this.)

I didn’t do as well on this one as I did last time. The only thing that went up was push ups. I can probably make a few excuses as to why my performance wasn’t where it was last time like “I was tired”, “I was sore”, or “it was raining”. But really, I guess I really just didn’t do as well. Maybe those are legitimate factors, maybe they are not. I don’t know.

SUCK!

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The last few workouts have been nothing short of brutal. On Friday (2/12/2010), we did this lovely number:

10 cleans
10 burpees
10 jerks
10 burpees
10 clean & jerks
10 burpees
10 jerks
10 burpees
10 cleans

I finished this one on 10:44 (Rx’d with a 135lb bar). I really liked this one. It was fun and pretty challenging.

I didn’t go to open gym on Saturday because we had the garage sale for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Thanks to the people who helped with their time and to the people that donated things to sell. Mostly, thanks to Crossfit Cedar Park for letting us do it there. It was a great location and we raised about $300. Not bad for 1/2 a Saturday of selling people’s junk.

Last night (2/15/2010), I went to the gym in the morning to drop off some macaroons to sell. While I was there, I happened to see the WOD and then dreaded it for the rest of the day. When I arrived at 5pm, I warmed up and then had butterflies until this thing started:

4 burpees on the minute while completing:

20 Thrusters
20 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
20 Push Jerks
20 Overhead Squats
20 Front Squats

It didn’t seem SO bad when I first started, but, as with any “on the minute do something” workout, it got bad really fast. The fastest time for this workout in the sectionals was in between 3 and 4 minutes. Wow!

The longer time goes on, the more frustrating this thing gets. Just as you’re about to pick the bar up, the clock beeps and it’s time to do burpees again. BLARG!

Anyway, my time was 14:42. I was pretty happy with this, mostly that I finished in under 20 minutes.

Squatty Fran

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I checked the WOD yesterday around lunch time and didn’t really have any ill feeling towards it. Really, I just thought to myself “that’s a lot like Fran… we don’t have to get the weight overhead, but it’s more, and there’s a 1000m row… we’ll see how this goes”.

So, here’s what we did last night:

1000m row
21 – 15 – 9 {Front Squat (135lb Rx), Pull Up}

soreness of the past two workouts

Waaaa.

Black Box Crossfit in NYC

Speaking of wedding and relationship stuff, today’s our 2 year anniversary! I know 2 years isn’t a terribly long time and that you old timers that read this are saying something like “stupid kid, 2 years is nothing!”. Well, you are right, but it’s a milestone for me as no relationship I have been in has made it past the 2 year mark.

We have been doing a lot of wedding planning lately and while stressful, I feel that I am finally beginning to see past the time, effort, stress, and money suck of planning all of this so that I can actually focus on marrying a beautiful, awesome woman.