The workout: 3 rounds for time:

Round 1: 21 kipping pull-ups, 21 box jumps, 21 push presses
Round 2: 15 kipping pull-ups, 15 box jumps, 15 push presses
Round 3: 9 kipping pull-ups, 9 box jumps, 9 push presses

(Push press is where you push the bar from your shoulders over your head. Girls @ 75# / Boys @115 for this workout).

The noon class was huge yesterday, at least 15 people. I battled out this workout with a very strong girl named Elizabeth. She got a good head start on me with the pull ups but I caught up on the box jumps. We were neck and neck and pushing each other to work harder…. and harder… and harder… In the end, she beat me by 1 second. Grrr. As we both crawled across the gym floor reaching for our water bottles Elizabeth turned to me and said “I don’t want to have you in my class anymore.”  Ha ha ha!  Our times?  6:40 and 6:41.  Not too shabby.

The diet prescribed by the CrossFit community is called The Paleo Diet. There is a wealth of information online about it written by people who know a lot more than I do so I won’t go into details. In simple terms you eat garden vegetables, lean meats, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, little starch, and no sugar. I have heard numerous arguments both for and against The Paleo Diet. In fact, I have heard scientific evidence for and against every diet on the market. To tell you the truth I am not convinced one way or the other by any of that. I am more interested in results I can see for myself. So I am just going to try it and see what it make me feel like and how it affects my performance.
.

Happy Mother’s Day all you mothers!

I am not a mom but I still plan to have a nice day. I am finally taking a day off from working out – mostly because our gym is closed but also because I promised myself I would not run myself into the ground like last time. Seven days of CrossFit in a row is a lot. Compared to Friday’s workout, yesterday’s was not unbearable (although still ridiculously hard as always):

8 rounds for time of:
4 dead lifts @ 195# for girls / 300# for boys
150 meter “sprint”

The word “sprint” is in quotes because after a few rounds it is not much like a sprint anymore. However, I did get a sudden burst of energy on the last one knowing I was almost finished. That happens a lot.

Anyway, I was happy to be able to keep up with a few of our more elite boys on this one (they are really amazing so that almost never happens) but it isn’t really a fair comparison. They had a lot more weight to handle. I am willing to bet they were closer percentage wise to their 1 rep max than I was.  In retrospect, knowing I can handle 195, I probably should have tried 205. Next time…
.

From time to time someone asks about the title of my blog. It is a pretty grand title for someone who mostly talks about working out. It comes from a famous epitaph and you can read that here. The main point is that you do not necessarily have to dedicate your whole life to a political cause or to create an anti-gravity device to make a mark on the world. It is about the sphere of influence that every person possesses. If you work on being a better person it will influence those around you and they will influence others and so on (like chain mail). Self-improvement is infectious.

The change I have initiated on in my own life is to overcome a fundamental flaw in my character. When you are as impulsive as I am it is very hard to follow through on promises you make to yourself and others. You are easily distracted by… well, everything. This can make it very difficult to meet goals. So I decided I need to learn to follow through on my goals despite distractions and set backs – to push through when its hard or when I suddenly feel unmotivated. Some of my personal goals just happen to be fitness and health related but there is a bigger picture.

For those who DO have grander plans the title can also have a more literal meaning. For example, I have a soft spot for three major life issues: people with problems related to their weight and eating habits, people living in poverty, and the environment. For this, the title can be read like a task list. First I need to change things about myself to make me better equipped to then tackle issues outside my own life. (In the meantime, I still pick up groceries and go to the dentist now and then).

This is a very young blog and I am still working on the Change Myself part. Obviously I don’t believe that improving my performance in CrossFit is going to change the world. I am just hoping it will change me and that someone will notice. It will take some time. There are no shortcuts to building character. But just because I haven’t built an orphanage in Africa yet doesn’t mean I won’t.
.

Overhead squat. My nemesis. The one thing that could have prevented me from making our affiliate cup team and the one thing I could not have contributed at Regionals.

Our workout today looked like this:
3 rounds for time of:
500 meter row
12 overhead squats @ 75# (115 for boys)
50 double unders (jump rope)

My time was 13:59 which is not terrible except I didn’t earn it. For one thing I did 65# instead of 75#. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with doing less than the prescribed weight if you are doing the most you can do. But I have both the arm strength and the leg strength to do at least 75#. It is just technical problems (and probably mental) that keep me from doing what I know I am otherwise capable of.

Grrr. I hate the feeling of knowing I didn’t work as hard as I could have. It feels like a missed opportunity. Even at a lesser weight the depth of my squats was questionable. My arms were bent and sloppy. Worrying about the squats had me holding back on the rower and frustrated on the double unders. Overall it was a mess. In my mind there is only one option. I am going to fix this problem so that by the time we go to California I will look forward to workouts that include overhead squats.

.

In totally unrelated news I had a dentist appointment this morning. I love my dentist office in Boulder. The whole side of the building is windows so when you sit in the chair you have an expansive view of the Flatirons. The chair itself is a plush leather massage chair that slowly kneads your back while you get your teeth cleaned. This morning I was thinking, I can’t believe insurance pays for me to take a nap in a massage chair while someone else cleans my teeth. I felt like royalty. Seriously, if they didn’t have to scrape the enamel with that tiny sickle it would be like getting a pedicure.
.

My goal this month is to go to CrossFit at least 5 times a week. It is difficult to subject yourself to something so difficult so frequently but I don’t want to go to California wishing I had done more to prepare. I want to know exactly what I am capable of contributing to the team. And I want that to be more than it is now.
.

A funny thing happened yesterday. I went to CrossFit ready to work. The task was to find my 1 rep max weight on front squat. I had no idea how much I could do just once. I figured I would start at 100, add 5 each attempt, and end up around 125. But Tim saw me do one squat at 85 and said “Start with 125 and go up from there”. My response was the same as always. “You’ve got to be kidding”. But then I tried 125 and it wasn’t too bad. So I tried 135. No problem. 140… 145… 150… 155… My max ended up being 165! 

It is amazing how much more we are capable of then we believe possible. The tentative response to a challenge is a knee-jerk reaction that needs to be overcome. For me the comments are partially made in jest and I think that is okay – a little joke now and then to ease pressure of impending doom. (See? Heh). But I also need to be careful not to undermine my own performance with underlying self-doubt. I know if I constantly try things that seem impossible it won’t always go the way it did yesterday. But I also know that sometimes it will. That said, I have a new response when Tim tells me to try something that sounds impossible. “Yes Sir”.

Here is a video of me doing front squats at 100. I wanted to figure out why I have a problem getting the required depth and fix it. Nothing worse than having to do extra work because reps don’t count.

.
Results: SEE RESULTS HERE

To make the final round we needed to be in the top 16 of 30 teams on Friday. Done!  But to compete in the 2010 CrossFit Games in California we needed to finish top 8 on Sunday. Before the final event we were barely clinging to 8th place by less than 2 seconds. To find out how we did and see some photos CLICK HERE.

.