81 miles

Thats probably how far I've rowed in CrossFit so far... but more accurately, thats the distance I'm willing to drive for a great workout with a great group of friends/fellow athletes.  81 miles is the distance from the hotel lobby, to the parking lot of CrossFit Diamond State.  One way.

I was actually going to title this post something different, relating to hitting "PRs" but not hitting them....but after seeing exactly how far it was, I thought 81 miles had a better impact... but on to this PR business.  Got plenty of sleep... well, got A LOT more than the previous night (7? hours), didn't want to get out of bed, but I did.  Made it to yet another morning class.  This may become a habit, we'll see. 

So I roll up, not quite as early, so I didn't get to enjoy the stars, and there were more people there than I've ever seen at a 545 at Unlocked (not that I've been to all that many).  8 athletes, maybe 9?  Good group.  Todays skill work is the clean (squat clean if you prefer).  1RM is on the board.  1RM it is.  I started kinda light.  I usually try to do 2-3 of the lighter ones, but I'm still a baby about my knees, so I only did 1 of each.  Got up to 125 very quickly, then did 135.  Here is where things got fuzzy mentally.  I don't typically travel with my little notebook that has my 1RM in it, and the last time I remember doing this, I had two 45's on the bar (making it 135 right).  I've still got some goods in the tank, so I add 10 lbs.  Boom.  145, PR!  I'm excited.  I add 10 more.  Didn't get under it at all.... so I did a 155 power clean.  Ok, that works...except it's not a squat clean.  I think I just need time and some weight loss to get more comfortable with "throwing" myself under the bar. 

Going to pause on the workout right there.  Later that day, I sent an email to the Mrs, and found out that 145 was my squat clean PR... so I was a little down that I just matched a PR... I shouldn't be, but I am a little.  I also found out that 150 was my power clean PR.  I did 155 today.  PR for me.  LOL.  So it's a mixed bag, PRing on the screw up of another movement.  I'm still chuckling.  I'll take it.

The rest of the workout was an AMRAP called Ski Ball.  These names...  smh.  12 minutes of fun.  6 push press at 115, which is my 1RM... so I'm doing 95.  12 ball slams, which I've never done, it called for 30, I decided on 20lbs since it was my first time.  24 double unders.  I wont regale you with stories of my suffering, it was great, we'll leave it at that.  No real chance to catch my breath.  The last two ( I made it into the 5th round) sets of push press got to be pretty heavy, but it was only sets of 6, so I was able to stay unbroken.  The slams... I was worn out on the last couple of those.  I mean... it wasn't pretty.  And the doubles were singles... and it has since reinforced the need for my own rope.


I was gassed.  It helped that Coach Brian seemed to be on my side of the room, I think that pushed me past where I wanted to stop at, and kept me going throughout the workout.  Always working on being comfortable with being uncomfortable.  Let me go back to the gassed part.  I drug my feet all the way to the car, I haven't been that tired in a long time.  I was laughing at myself for considering doing another double day...

Then I got to work.  Around 10 am, I pinged Andy at CFDS.  Told him that I'd seen their WOD for tonight, and that I had concerns after having done 30 push press at Unlocked.  He said it depended on how I was feeling, that I could probably do something else for the strength, since they were working on a 1RM of... you guessed it, push press.  Fast forward a few hours, and I'm on the way to CFDS, I'm doing a double folks.

There is no place like home, and the smell of CFDS is something I look forward too.  It sounds weird, it probably is weird, but I don't care, it's something that is ingrained in my CrossFit psyche.  We go through the warm ups, it's a small class for Tuesday.  I did about half of each warmup.  I really just wanted/needed to stretch away the drive and sitting all day, the rest of me was loose, good to go.  Small class means I get my own rack, my own rack means I can focus a bit more.  Knowing I did the 95# for 5 rounds of 6 reps in the AMRAP this morning, I had a feeling I could beat this 115 push press PR.  I set out to do just that.  I put a bar up, and two 25's, figured I'd start where I left off this morning.  Did two, put it down.  At this point I knew it was at 95#.  I stopped counting in my head.  I went and grabbed two 15's put them on, did 2 more.  Went and grabbed two 10's put them on, two more.  This time I grabbed two 5's, this time I did 1 rep, it's getting heavy.  Grabbed two more 5's, this rep was pushing it.  Grabbed two more 5's, this was going to be my last rep.  To call it ugly would be a complement to how awful this felt like it looked.  I can't say for sure what it looked like, I don't film these things yet... but I felt like after the dip drive, it was a lot of squished face, bar wobbling nonsense.  Got it up though, and of PRs, sometimes thats all that matters.

I start taking the weights off, first the 5's.  5, 10, 15... 30 lbs, ok.  Then the 10's.  50.  15's off, that makes 80.  25's (which I thought were 45's the first two times counting them... #fishstories )   ok, we're at 130.  Add the bar.  175.  YESSIRRRRRR.  Too tired what?!?!  Excuse me while I straighten my tie.  That 'dere be a 60lb PR on the push press.  Maybe I should start dating my PR's so I can tell how long between them I've gone?  Either way, thats a 60 POUND PR!  For a shoulder move.  yeah buddy.  I should have wrong the glorious PR bell...  I didn't.  Saving it for my first over 200# move there I guess.  *shrug*

Alright, I'm all celebrated up, couldn't find a champagne bottle anywhere... then I looked at the board... there was still a WOD to do... awww crap.  This thing was a monster... a very sneaky one.  It looks ok on paper. 
 
400 meter run
25 KB swings Rx: 53/35#
25 ring dips
400m run
20 KB swings
20 pull ups
400m run
15 push press Rx: 135/95#
15 ring dips
400m run
10 push press
10 pull ups

Being as this was my second WOD for the day, and having just PR's my pushpress, I opted for much lighter KBs and PP weights than maybe I would have at another time.  I will go through this one, unlike that AMRAP above.... the pain is fresher you see  :)

The 400m row started off super slow....as in there was a 321 go, and I didn't have my feet in the rower yet.  LOL.  The pads weren't set right at all.  Probably took me 20 seconds to get in before I got going.  Almost caught the other rowers, I'm liking this 4.5 rower setting and the fact that I'm aiming for 20-22 pulls per min, rather than the 32ish I was doing before.  Thanks Barbell Shrugged.  The KB's... I'm so glad I went down a KB for this.  At 15 my arms were smoking, had to set the bell down.  Andy (just like Brian...) is right to my left, I picked that bisch right back up and got back to work.  I'm already starting to pant... already.  Over to the box.  I tried to do straight legged ones.  Got 3 done, and they were slooooow and arguous.  Nope, bent knee.  I would have sworn to you that I could feel the fibers in the triceps being ripped... I feel like I went to parallel and got up about 70% of the way before engaging the legs a little bit.  25... finally done.  I really wanted to sit on that box for a few seconds, but there was no rest for the weary. 

The second set of rowing wasn't bad, same pace as the first, all good.  Then Mike Li walks by, said something about me smelling good.  This has been bugging me since he said it.  I need to segue, sorry.  I can't speak for other big dudes, but I know being smelly is high on my lists of things to avoid, like passing gas.... now he said I smelled good, but did I really, or was he just clownin?  I took the time to put on fresh deodorant before I drove down, so I'm pretty sure between the Irish Spring shower this morning and a second coat of deodorant, I shouldn't' stink, not that early into a workout...   anyway, I digress.  This second set of KB swings was easier... but only becasue I knew what I was going to do before I got there.  10-10.  Done.  Other people were using the rings, so no ring rows for pullups, this was jumping pullup territory.  It takes a concentrated effort to not just jump.  I flex and pull with everything I've got as I'm jumping.  There is now a brief pause at the top, before I fall back to earth.  Wasn't there before.  Getting stronger...Joelle is beside me, nursing her way back from some injuries, doing ring rows.  Lucky!  LOL.  Maybe not, I'll have to ask her next time.  During a break (at this point I'm doing 2-3 before stopping), she's like lets do 5 in a row, don't stop.  OK, bet.  JUST the sort of challenge that makes me try harder.  We got our 5, I broke up 2 more sets, then finished with 5 strong. 

This rowing was painful.  Consistent, but painful.  I'm tried now.   Halfway done, on the the push press.  I grabbed the bar, this stuff is LIGHT, but after 3, it's not so light.  I thought I was going to break it up into 5's, but instead I did 10, then 5.  Small victories.  Last set of dips.  3 sets of 5, leggo! 

No.

Oh they were difficult.  3 here, 2 there.  I got what would have been the second set of 5 through sheer force of will.  I tried hard for that that last set.  Got 4, went down and didn't come back up for 5.  Had to push myself up with the legs.  Didn't miss a beat though, as soon as I was reset, I finished my last one.  BOOM.  Done with those devils.  Last row.  I'm somewhere around 30m already when J was like if you don't stop, I wont stop.  I LOL'd a bit.  Told her I don't stop, it's the stroke count I'm after, just looks like a stop.  :)  We powered through that last bit together, done with the rowers.  Push press... ok, 5 and 5, go.  Truthfully, I could have probably screamed through 10 straight, but I wanted that quick break, thought I'd still be faster with it.  Jumping pullups... I see the light at the end of the tunnel...it's blindingly bright.  4-3-3.  DONE!  I wanted to collapse.  Instead I grabbed my KB and did 10 mo... no, no I didn't.  I did grab it and took it over to where it belonged though... there was a nice big box to sit on right beside there.  2 birds, 1 stone sort of thing. 

The rest was brief, as soon as Dr. J got done, gave her a five, we were finished, then I started breaking down my bar.  The last three ladies were at their pullup stations, giving this everything they had.  Cheered them on with everything I had left.  Everyone is done.  Yay \o/  Cleaned up my bar, stuck around a bit after, talking with my peoples, tried my hand at yelling encouraging things to the Pallers as they did the same workout....need to get used to this if I'm ever going to coach.  :P 

A good day... a great day really.  Two WODs again, and I did what I felt was a solid job in both, got two PR's... yeah, this was a good day.  Still haven't had any post WOD meals with anyone from CFDS... Had Chipotle with the De Leon's and Peets from Unlocked a month or so ago.  Folks upstate be slippin. 

I want to WOD with CFDS on Wednesday, It's bro day, but I don't think I'm going to be able to.  Work things and all.  I've already seen Unlocked's WOD.  Lots of running with a sandbag (hence the title Sandbagging)... not sure how to translate that to a rower, so I wont be going there in the morning... that and I'm tired.  LOL.  I'll talk a big game, but no, Wed should probably be a rest day anyway...

Thats all I've got, just fought off a monster simple sugar craving with positive thoughts and water.  Need to find me some fruit, stay away from the processed stuff.  Until next time.

dw