Normally I get really excited about “Nancy” appearing in the programming, since I love overhead squats, but this morning I was actually a little disappointed. I was hoping to work on something I do NOT like doing so I could keep improving.
So, instead I decided to go heavier on “Nancy” and challenge myself that way.
“Nancy”
5 rounds for time
400m run
15 overhead squats (78#) 17:49
The normal prescribed weight for women is 65#, so I went up to 78#. I did rounds 1, 2, 4, and 5 of the overhead squats unbroken. I broke round 3 into 9 and 6. In retrospect I didn’t actually need to stop—I was nervous because my elbow felt weird on round 2, but I could have done 15 straight. So, next time no stopping!
Also, next time I plan to do either 85# or 90#, and then after that my long term goal is to do the men’s weight of 95#! I was a few minutes slower today than my PR (which is 14 minutes something), but that was the day we did it on the track, so no turn arounds, and also the heavier weight today, so I am happy.
HOMEWORK—I am all caught up on my push ups! I did 80 over the course of today and am now back on track with my 20 per day commitment.
Today was Chris Devlin’s turn to be Kahuna and program the workout. He wrote a weighted version of Cindy. I had put this in my programming for the classes back last November, but the weights were a little different. I personally find this one much more tolerable than the regular Cindy—it’s hardly strength wise, but much less stressful both cardiovascularly and mentally. Regular Cindy is a like some sort of evil gerbil wheel!
Cindy Was a Zombie
As many rounds as possible in 20 min:
5 pull ups (20#)
10 push ups (10#)
15 squats (25#) Total: 9 rounds
The pull ups I did unbroken all the way through. I would definitely do more weight on these in the future. Push ups were super hard, as always—after a couple rounds I was doing 2 at a time for the rest of the workout. Squats were uncomfortable, but not hard.
I didn’t want to do my homework push ups after this, so I am saving them for tomorrow. I will do 60 push ups tomorrow to break back even.
I am such a baby when it comes to wall balls. Working on not making it such an ordeal. They’re really not that hard and I’m not actually that bad at them. I’m going to try to make friends with them.
I actually really like deadlifts, even though it’s not my strongest lift. I’m just not very fast at them. Today I did 165# instead of the prescribed 185# and it felt surprisingly good. I think I might have been able to do 175# and still finish within the 15 minute cutoff allotted for this one.
Wall balls I get really in my head about and I’m going to work on not necessarily pretending I don’t get in my head about them, but continuing to do them anyway. I did a bunch extra on a couple of the rounds to make up for ones that didn’t get up all the way. I called the ball the f-word a couple times, too.
...OH and it’s not a good idea to set an accountability for yourself and then promptly forget it. I did 40 push ups after class to make up for Wednesday’s and Thursday’s missed 20-per-day. Still have 20 more I owe for today.
For the next few weeks I want to get back in the habit of doing IndoRow every week to build my cardio back up. It’s less irritating to my plantar fasciitis than the running is and it’s pretty hard core interval work if you take it seriously.
Today we started out with 4 rounds of 30 seconds easy pressure and 30 seconds full pressure. Knowing there were only four intervals made it easy to go all out. My legs were tired from the deadlifts yesterday, but still felt pretty good.
The second wave was a 9 minute endurance wave - we varied between easy pressure, medium pressure, and medium hard pressure. When I focus on my breathing and my rhythm, these endurance waves are much better.
Lastly we did a race, but due to the makeup and arrangement of the class, we did solo races instead of our normal 2-3 person relay races. We did a 600m, 400m, and 200m with a little rest in between each one.
600m row - 2:09
400m row - 1:27
200m row - :39
Mind you, the water rowers are calibrated a bit different from the Concept 2’s at CFLA. I’m not really THAT fast! I find the water rowers to be about 10 seconds faster on average than the C2s.
Looking back at my log, I’m thinking I should have grown up on the east coast—fencing and rowing in the same 24 hour period? lol!
Michael put together a plan to work on strength building between now and the CF Games Regionals in May and I decided it sounded like a good idea and exactly what I need to work on, as well. So we worked out today after the lunchtime classes. We started with deadlift…
10x10 Deadlift - 120#
10 continuous deadlifts - 4 counts up, 2 counts down
90 second rest between sets
I started with just 120# because I haven’t done volume training like this before and I wasn’t sure how it would feel and how quickly it would get hard. I think next time I do it I will go for bodyweight and jump up to 135#. The grip got hard on this by the end, but I liked the rhythm and repetition of the movements—it really gave me a sense of when I engaged the lift properly and when I didn’t.
**Homework: I also did 20 push ups today. Today I am starting a 20 push up per day regimen to train for the Cindy finals. If I skip a day, they rollover into the next day and are added up together.
7:00pm - Fencing Lesson
Really good fencing lesson tonight. I learned some new things—attacking with the tip of the blade, not just the slashing movements. I was feeling really good about my wrist movement, keeping my upper body relaxed and moving the tip of my sabre quickly and, while not totally accurately, more accurate than usual.
My coach complimented me again this week on the improvement in my footwork. He said he doesn’t worry about watching my feet anymore, like he used to. He also laughed and demonstrated my old movement and said “It looked funny!” lol! I agreed and said, “It felt funny!”
This one looked like a good combo of different body parts…
4 Rounds for time of:
500m Row
8 Hang Power Cleans (95#)
12 Push Ups
16 Toes to Bar (kipping) 24:31
My legs felt really good today—I expected the cleans to be harder than they were. As I got tired I wasn’t as good about getting it land on my shoulders in one movement, but Michael made sure to remind me! Push ups were slow. Argh. Need to start my push up homework this week to work on that! Toes to bar would have been MUCH faster if I could string the kip together, but I end up doing one at a time with a little swing in between.
The rowing was GREAT, though. Kathryn T. and I wound up next to each other and right away on the first round I decided I liked her stroke rate and rhythm, so I locked in with her and we both went faster as a result. We did that on both rounds one and two. It’s a really awesome feeling to be in sync with someone who knows how to row. Reminds me of some of my favorite times in IndoRow when the class is really in tune with each other.
Got up bright and early so I could accompany Michael to pick up all the CFLA folks headed for the LA Marathon. We picked them up in Santa Monica at 5:50am and drove them to Dodger Stadium (or as close to it as we could get, that is!), then hung out and enjoyed the day in downtown LA.
Jeff was the Big Kahuna today and gave us a refreshing non-weight bearing workout. For me it was perfect for what was feeling like a sluggish Saturday morning and it woke me up and got me going.
5 rounds:
15 box jumps (20”)
15 walking lunges
30 abmat situps (non butterfly, hands on head)
15 walking lunges 11:29
My box jumps were definitely not graceful this morning, but I knew I would do well on lunges and sit ups. After a couple rounds I had to stop once or twice on the lunges each round on my way to the sit ups. My legs just got really tight. The situps I went straight through every round. I slowed down a little at the end of the situps on rounds four and five.
Thursday isn’t a typical workout day for me, but I wanted to do this third WOD from the SoCal Sectional.
“6 Max Efforts”
Row - 3 minutes for max calories
- Rest 3 min
Deadlift – 3 minutes for max reps (185#)
- Rest 3 min
L Sit – accumulate as many seconds as possible in 3 minutes
- Rest 3 min
Overhead Squat – 3 min for max reps (65#)
- Rest 3 min
Max Pull ups – one set
- rest 6 min from start time of pull ups
800m Run – for time
The deadlifts were just rough. Those take me a long time to warm up to and aren’t my strong lift. But I was pleased I did the full weight. Happy with most of the other stuff, too. The run was sloooooooow but I kept my feet moving - lots of little steps. The pull ups I purposefully stopped early on - I screwed up my lat the other week on Murph and it’s finally feeling all better and didn’t want to stress it out again.
The theme for this week is doing all the workouts from the SoCal Sectional! Today we did WOD#2, which is actually two mini workouts, exactly 20 minutes apart in start time.
CF Games SoCal Sectional WOD 2
“Double Down”
- start Part 2 exactly 20 minutes after starting part one
- cutoff time for both parts is 15 minutes
Part 1:
4 rounds for time of:
9 Cleans (135/95)
6 Handstand Push ups 8:48
Part 2:
30 Hang Squat Snatches
30 Chest to Bar Pull Ups
750m Row 12:02
The first workout definitely played to what has turned out to be a strength of mine - hand stand push ups. I have always loved them, even when I wasn’t any good at them, and I guess my persistence has paid off because I could now do all four sets of 6 unbroken to the abmat. From now on when they come up in a workout I’m just going to do them down to a plate - something lower than an abmat!
The second workout felt FARRRR worse than the first one. I came to a screeching halt on the chest to bar pull ups - my grip was just shot by that point. I started out doing sets of 3, then eventually sets of 2, then the very last three pull ups were one at a time. I literally thought I would not be able to row 750m. But, I did it!
These were really hard, but also strangely really fun!
After taking four days off from CrossFit, but still feeling completely exhausted from heading up the judging crew at the Sectional, I decided it was time to start getting back into gear. I feel like the whole year so far has been “getting back into gear” and this time it’s for real—no more traveling, no more getting sick, no more insanely big projects.
Today we did the first of the workouts from the SoCal Sectional - the Stadium Chipper. While we didn’t have to navigate the stadium steps, we also didn’t have the intensity of the competition and the crazy energy of the crowd from this past weekend.
“Stadium Chipper”
100m Run (holding a bumper plate (25#)
70 Squats (w/ plate)
100m Run (w/ plate)
35 Push Press (33#)
100m Run
15 Thrusters (95#)
100m Run
35 Burpees
100m Run
35 Wall Ball (14#)
100m Run
70 Double Unders
100m Run 23:58
The running and squatting with the plate weren’t so bad. Push press weren’t too bad. Thrusters were really tough, but thankfully there were only 15. Burpees were really tedious and wall ball…well, quite frankly I basically f’d around on these and didn’t work terribly hard. Got back into it on the run and double unders to finish hard.
7:00pm - Fencing Lesson
I was REALLY tired by the time it came around to my fencing lesson. Wasn’t sure how quick I would be mentally, both in terms of absorbing coaching and reacting quickly to movements. Also, the days we do anything shoulder intensive at CrossFit, I really feel it in fencing. I was able to keep my grip loose and relaxed, but my right shoulder was really aching part way into my lesson. Ugh! Still, a fun lesson and I’m continuing to make progress. My coach even commented that my footwork was better this week! It’s about time! lol!
