This year I decided to run the Bolder Boulder 10k Race like a true CrossFitter. I started with a 30 second sprint. Every time I crossed under a Kilometer marker I sprinted all out for 30 seconds for a total of 10 sprints. I sprinted the last one up the Folsom hill and through the stadium. In between sprints the original plan was to slow way down and fully recover yet still maintain a pace that would at least put me under an hour. The CrossFitter in me wouldn’t let me slow down as much as I had planned. About halfway through I realized I was making pretty good time overall and picked it up a little. I don’t know my time yet but I will be surprised if I am more than a couple minutes over last year’s time of 52:05 when I ran 5 days a week for three months in preparation. I have only run once for 15 minutes since March!

Posted from iPhone. I am on the road!

UPDATE:
Last year’s time: 52:05
This year’s time: 53:17

It took some convincing but I have scaled back a bunch on my original workout plan to make sure I am getting the proper rest. It is less than an hour a day 6x a week and one of those will be a light day. The new schedule actually makes me feel like a major slacker but I will just do what I am told and get over it. Here is my workout schedule for the next couple months.

Sun – Day off
Mon – Lift/CrossFit WOD (workout of the day)
Tues – CrossFit WOD
Wed – Lift/CrossFIt WOD
Thurs – Olympic lifting technique and/or CrossFit endurance
Fri – Lift/CrossFit WOD
Sat – CrossFIt WOD

For the next couple weeks I still have volleyball on Monday and Tuesday evening. My last tournament until late July is this Sunday. After that I will be taking Sundays totally off to relax.

What is fun about CrossFit is that if you work hard you surprise yourself on a regular basis. Yesterday we did 1 rep max on thrusters. Having no idea what my max would be I was hoping I could get at least 100#. Adding weight on each rep I didn’t fail until 125! I backed down to 120 and failed again. After another attempt I finally got 120 and figured I was finished. I started to put the weights away until Tim said ‘You’re done? You’re not done. Keep going.’ So I gave 125 another try and what-do-ya-know I got it!  So just for the fun of it I tried 130. I got that too! That is close to my body weight and the most weight I have ever had over my head for any reason. I tried 135 a couple times and was *really* close. I did not get it but I am glad I tried. It’s true, the only way to guarantee failure is to never attempt.

This is a thruster:

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You would not think rowing for 2 minute would be so difficult even when you have to do it 3 times. That is only 6 minutes. But try it. I don’t mean sliding up and down the base tugging on the rope. I mean really pushing your speed. Ugh!  Last time we did this my first 500 meters took only 1:46 but the next one was 2:30 and the third one was about 2:45. This time I wanted them all under 2:00 so I kept it a little more steady.

Row 500 meters / Rest 3 minutes
Row 500 meters / Rest 3 minutes
Row 500 meters

My times:
1st: 1:57.9
2nd: 1:57.4
3rd: 1:54.9

Last week we rowed 2000 meters. Andy did this in about 6:55!!!:

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.
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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.
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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.

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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.

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The event for the finals today has been announced and it looks like I am up to bat. Our time slot is 1:30. There are 16 teams left and only 8 will go on to California. For the final event 2 men and 2 women from our team must complete the following sets in any order as quickly as we can with only one person working at a time. Every person has to do 4 of the following sets and must complete the whole set before the next person goes:

21 thrusters
15 thrusters
9 thrusters

21 chest to bar pullups
15 chest to bar pullups
9 chest to bar pullups

5 deadlifts plus 10 burpees
5 deadlifts plus 10 burpees
5 deadlifts plus 10 burpees
5 deadlifts plus 10 burpees
5 deadlifts plus 10 burpees

6 squat cleans to overhead
6 squat cleans to overhead
6 squat cleans to overhead
6 squat cleans to overhead
6 squat cleans to overhead
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