This week has been busy. As it’s getting closer to the wedding, I am finding that more and more of my “free time” is taken up with planning, making decisions and really, just trying to figure stuff out.

Today, Sunday (4/11/2010), I am flying to Albany for work. Although I hate traveling for my job, I am a little excited about this one as I will get to visit CrossFit Albany! Also, today, I am finding myself to be REALLY sore in almost every body part due to this week’s workouts.

On Wednesday (4/7/2010), we did this:

• 50 ring dips
• 400m run
• 50 push ups
• 400m run
• 50 HSPU
• 400m run

My time was 21:51.

This workout sucked. Really. It sucked. It was really hard. I tried a few HSPU before the WOD started and planned to try to do SOME of them as Rx’d during the WOD, but that didn’t happen. I was able to do about 25 of the ring dips Rx’d before I could no long hold myself up. I had to put one foot on a box at that point.

I went out for my run. On the way back, I was thinking “Ok, 50 push ups… this is cake… bust ‘em out”. Yeah. That didn’t happen either. I came back in, got down and did about 6 at which point I looked my coach and said “I’m not even out of breath! My chest is just shot.”. She laughed. Ha ha. I ended up doing 2-3 at a time until I eventually got to 50.

Another run, no problems.

I’ll bet you can guess what happened with my HSPU. =)

They didn’t really work out. Dave came outside and told me that I could do negatives. I tried that and made it until about 10 reps. At that point, I couldn’t hold the handstand anymore, so I moved over to using the box in the pike push up position, thing. That sucked. It sucked hard. I am still sore.

Friday (4/9/2010) was another awesome heavy metal night at CFCP. We essentially did a repeat of the first week, working on the Bergner warm up and snatch, but then we did the Bergner warm up and skill transfers with weight. That was SO much fun! Dave had us do a really short WOD consisting of the following:

3x

• 5 muscle snatch
• 5 snatch balance
• 5 overhead squats

This one wasn’t for time so I didn’t time it or push hard to finish fast. This was strictly to work on form on all three of these movements. Also, I didn’t use a lot of weight, just 65lbs. It’s nice to do these WODs where you can focus on the form and learning the movement.

When we got home, we were both itching to do something else. Victoria came up with a terrible fast WOD. We jokingly called it “sorta-bata”. It’s basically Tabata sprints based on the 20/10 interval/rest, but instead, you 3s of rest. The caveat is that you have to do 4 burpees before you can rest. So, sprint, burpee, rest, repeat 8x. The faster you do your burpees, the more rest time you get. I wanted to puke by the 3rd round.

Saturday (4/10/2010) we came to open gym at CrossFit Cedar Park and did the following partner WOD:

• Red stripe run (~200m)
• 100 burpees
• Red stripe run (~200m)
• 100 squats
• Red stripe run (~200m)
• 50 of those things where you lay on the grown, raise your legs, and your partner throws your feet down

This was a partner WOD. The rules were:

• You could split the work any way you want to.
• You can’t do any work without your partner. Meaning, if your partner’s lagging on the run, you have to wait for them to get back before you can get to work on your next thing.

Me and V finished in ~13 minutes (somewhere between 13 and 14) which I am pretty happy with. I thought we did a great job, actually. We split the burpees and squats by alternating 5 each. That worked out really well. I think we were a little more haphazard with the last ab thing, but we still finished quickly,

I said to V this weekend “do you notice that you’re not always last anymore?” and she said she did and noted that we have quite a few new people. So, after being at CrossFit Cedar Park for almost a year we have definitely made gains. We finished this WOD sort of middle of the field. What I love about this group is that everyone hung around when they finished and cheered on the people that were still going.

After this WOD we went back inside and Dave the destroyer made us do planks. At that point in time, my upper body didn’t really have much left to give. We did three 1-minute holds. I was able to do the first one all the way through. The second and third had at least 2 drops. There was nothing left there. Oh well. Maybe a few days of recovery are in order.

So, now, right this second (1pm on Sunday) I am on a plane headed to Albany (well, DC to get a connection, anyway). I got lucky on this trip and got 1st class tickets on the way there. Honestly, I didn’t even realize they were 1st class when I booked it but here I am. I don’t know if I will be able to go back to coach again. =)

The main difference I notice is in food service and quality. Sure, the seats are bigger and more comfy and you get to get on and off the plane first, but the food is noticeably better and served on actual real plates. It’s really weird to me. Also, there’s one flight attendant dedicated to the 8 seats in first class, so you can get what you want when you want it. Weird.

Anyway. When I land in DC, I’ll have about an hour to get connecting flight to Albany. Once there, I need to get my car. I decided to go with Hertz this time. After renting from that P.O.S company last time, I won’t use a little guy anymore. Usually, I like to patronize small businesses, but that last rental company was just horrible. Just horrible.

I am trying to decide what day to go to CrossFit Albany. Truth be told, I am leaning toward Tuesday and Wednesday as I am really freaking sore. Yes, even my hands are sore. Go figure. My only argument for going on Monday would be to talk to some of the people there to see if they can recommend any good places in town to get some paleo food. That’s really the worst thing about traveling for work.

Trying to stay paleo on the road is relatively difficult as you really can’t be sure of lots of ingredients when every meal is prepared by someone else. Sure, you can stay “low-carb” but avoiding grains, bread, pastas, potatoes, but to be truly paleo to the degree that WE do is hard. Good luck finding grassfed, free range, or even just “organic” meat out in restaurants. Lame. Hopefully the guys at CF Albany will have a few suggestions.