The countdown begins!

I leave for Tough Mudder TODAY!

My last couple workouts before the big race…

Last Wednesday my track workout was 8×400 at 5K pace with a 200-m recovery run between… nothing too difficult but was definitely a good lesson on knowing what my pace feels like.

Last Thursday I was late to class so got to do a fun 20 burpees, 10 pushups, 10 squats and 10 situps to start the morning! After working on our DB full snatch form, we hit the WOD which was 4 rounds of 1 min. burpees, 1 min. situps, 1 min. single-arm DB full snatches, and 1 min. rest going for max reps. My tallies were as follows: 20-28-8-15-26-8-15-26-9-17-28-9. Finished with tabata lunges — 10.

Friday I had an 18-min. run to do and banged out 2.23 miles. Was pretty pumped at the 8:04 pace there, and it didn’t even feel too difficult.

Saturday at running club we paired up and did some relays so that was a fun change of pace… ended up getting in 4 200s, 2 400s and a 550. I paired up with my friends Kristen and Lindsey for the team WOD… we left the gym and ran back to the park with a 35# KB, a sandbag, and our waterbottles for an outside workout because it was GORGEOUS out. Once we got there we had 50 burpees, 100 sandbag clean and jerks, 150 KB swings, and 200 squats to get done. My team KILLED it. We split it up evenly but I jumped in to help finish our extra squats at the end and we were still the first team to finish. Raf wanted us all to run back together so we then hopped in and helped the other 3 teams finish their stuff… I ended up doing 50-60 extra squats and 50 extra KB swings but it was so nice out and such a change of pace to be in the park that it was a blast. After the workout Raf let us try tossing the KBs, we got some funny looks from cars on our jog back to the gym, and then he let us play with the BIG tire and we did partner tire flips the length of the gym and back. Fun day!

Tuesday we did a 1-mi. time trial… I unofficially PR’d my mile again at around 7:10, but I told JP that I don’t think it was quite an entire mile. To finish up we got to do either 3 handstand pushups, 5 ring pushups, or 7 regular pushups every minute on the minute for 7 minutes. I did ring pushups which was a fun change of pace and I definitely felt it in my shoulders a little on Wednesday.

Wednesday was my last track workout for Coach Steve and he gave me a quick and easy one! 6×200 90 seconds rest… breezed through it with all my times in the low 40s.

Yesterday was my final workout before the big race! Took it seriously easy… the WOD was Grace — 30 C&Js for time. I used outrageously light weight (45#) because I was really just trying to stay active and not kill myself before Saturday, but it was kind of nice because I got to work a lot more on my form than I otherwise would have. My jerk is pretty fancy, but my clean really needs some work. We finished with 10 box jumps on the minute every minute for 10 minutes (20″ box).

Today is my REST day, and tomorrow we will see how I stack up against the Tough Mudder! If all else fails, at least we’ll have a good-looking team photo in the shirts I made for everyone 🙂

My phone takes terrible photos -- they are actually neon yellow.

I got double unders!

So the Saturday after my last post I missed running club and barely made it to the Team WOD on time… drank so much the night before that I don’t even remember what we did after the 10-min. AMRAP of WOD 3 (of which I managed only 60 bar-facing burpees and no overhead squats… struggles).

Last Tuesday, though, I was pretty impressed with myself. The WOD was 100 burpees for time, but you had to perform 3 deadlifts at the beginning of each minute. There was a 15-min. cutoff time for the workout and most people didn’t get to finish all their burpees. Granted I was only deadlifting 105# (155 RX’d), but I finished in 12:01… JP said he wasn’t even going to do the workout until he saw my time. Minus my low weight, my time hung with the big boys all day long.

Last Thursday to start off we did triple thrusters going up in weight each time for about 15 minutes. I started with 35#, then did 45-55-65-75-75-80 and finished at 85 which was pretty tough for me but felt good to hit that far into the workout. In a shocking move, I still have to keep thinking about tracking my knees outward and keeping my elbows up at the bottom of my squat. The WOD that day was 5 rounds of 15 KB swings (I use the big girl 35# KB now!) and 5 dead-hang pullups (I can’t kip soooo this was no different than usual). I tried using just the blue band for pullups but it’s not happening yet… ended up with blue & purple. Finished in 8:13. We finished with tabata situps (which I’ve been told to do normally now… no more butterfly legs!) and my score was 12.

Saturday it was raining so we did running club inside and did ladder turf-length sprints. Lucky for us Coach Steve had us do a BONUS ROUND which consisted of 4 turf-length sprints with 5 burpees at the end of each length… It sucked so, so, so much more than expected. Everyone who showed up on Sat. ended up doing the CF Games Sectionals WOD 4 which was a 20-min. AMRAP of 5 power cleans (100# RX’d; I did 65), 10 toes-to-bar (which I scaled to K2E), and 15 wallballs (14#). I ended up with 7 total rounds plus 5 power cleans and 10 knees-to-elbows.

A bunch of us working on our toes-to-bar

Yesterday I PR’d my mile time AGAIN (3rd time in a month?) at 7:17 and still had wayyy more left in the tank than I expected. I’m starting to see a mile in the 6s in my future.

Anddd for my favorite news: I GOT MY DOUBLE UNDERS TODAY! Thanks to JP 🙂

To start the day we practiced tire flips, arm bars, Turkish get-ups, and did 5 minutes of KB clean and jerks (25#) then moved onto the workout which was 3 rounds of 50 DUs and 25 KB swings (35#). I did a lot better about keeping the top of my KB swing strong and not letting it rotate over me and having to drop it (apparently 35 pounds of solid metal can, in fact, break?). As for my DUs, I’ve been pretty much nailing them with a single hop between each and so did my first round like that but started catching my feet on the 2nd round. JP told me to pick my feet more up than back in my hop which immediately made a difference, then he told me he thought I could do regular DUs, which I didn’t really believe but I went for it and right away busted out like 8 in a row. With a few more tips from JP about whipping the second rotation around harder and keeping breathing/staying relaxed through my shoulders, I ended up stringing together a good 25 in a row! Needless to say I was really surprised and excited. With a lot of pausing for instruction and for chalking up my sweaty hands, I ended up finishing in 16:01. Good day!

Filthy Fifty

Last Tuesday’s workout was a tough one! First on the docket were deadlifts 30 secs. on/30 off for 15 rounds. Dawn told me to use 75# but I accidentally grabbed a 45# bar and ended up doing 85# for the workout, but it was fine. I got 10, 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7, 6, 6, 5, 7, 6, 6, 5, and 7 reps each round… ended up with a majorly sore back as a result of letting my form slide… good thing I had made myself a PVC roller! I went out to Home Depot and got a 2-foot section of 6″ diameter PVC and wrapped it in athletic tape; it’s my new favorite thing and made my back feel so much better (also, it only cost me about $5, as opposed to foam rollers that will set you back about $20 and don’t work as well). Next we did 5 rounds of 15 unbroken wallballs, 30 secs. rest b/w rounds. I started with a 12# ball but switched to a 10-pounder for the last 3 rounds because I was dying. To finish up this wonderful day we did 5 rounds of pullups, 30 secs. on/30 off. I am now officially using a combo of the blue band and whatever little one I can find lying around for my pullups. No more green band, WOO!

Last Thursday I think I dogged the workout a little bit… definitely could have pushed harder. We did 1:15 of thrusters (45#), 1:15 of pullups, 45s thrusters, 45s pullups, then 30s thrusters and 30s pullups. I switched to the green band for the last 30 seconds of pullups because apparently I was in the mood to act like a little bitch and not just gut it out. Finished the workout with 2 rounds of tabata “your weakness.” I did double unders and pushups… my scores were not too impressive so I will just keep them to myself.

On Saturday at running club Coach Steve had us laddering down… we started with a 1,000-m run, then 800, 500, 400, and 200, and he had me running with the “fast group”… let’s be real — this has NEVER happened to me before. So that was pretty cool. It’s also nice because I push myself so much harder trying to keep up with the fast guys. Was dragging a little bit towards the end, but one of the other women was coming up quickly on the 200 and lit a fire under my ass… it felt good to push as hard as I could for the finish. Headed in for the 9am team workout after… not too sure what we did but it went something like a KB walk over the bridge to start and finish the workout, and divvying up between us goblet squats, pushups, and KB swings.

Monday was my first day of work, but Coach Steve had me scheduled to run a 5K time trial so I got up nice and early and went out at what felt like a nice, comfortable pace… that nice, comfy pace took me to a PR of about a minute and a half on my 5K. Finished in 26:10 so I was pretty pumped… although Coach Steve says some running calculator had me pegged to run a 25:42 based on my mile time.

Tuesday I actually got my ass in the gym for JP’s early bird 5am. We took a break from all the metcons and got some good lifting in. First for the day was max press/push press/push jerks. JP had me use 45#, but I banged out 8 rounds instead of the 4-5 we were supposed to get in so it seems 45 was a little too light. Next we did 5 rounds of 10 unbroken front squats. I did 65# for all rounds instead of upping the weight because the 10 reps got pretty tough towards the end of each set. JP told me to keep thinking about pushing my knees out (as Raf’s been yelling at me about for 3 weeks), and once I was thinking about it he said my squat was a lot better than he had thought… below level and everything. We finished with tabata situps (score = 11).

Wednesday Coach Steve had me running 3 rounds of a 200-m, 400-m, and 600-m run (rest = the time it took to run the interval) in the rain. So that kind of sucked. D-town’s terrible track was good and flooded in a couple spots and it was wet and cold… gave me a little motivation to get it over with and get home, though.

Today’s workout was the FILTHY FIFTY, one of the big crossfit workouts. Dave told everyone who had never done it before to scale down to a “Dirty Thirty” or a “Filthy Forty,” so I did 40 reps of everything (all weights as RX’d!), though at the end I felt like I definitely could have done more. So my Filthy 40 went like this:

40 box jumps (20″)
40 jumping pullups
40 KB swings (35#/1 pood)
40 walking lunges
40 knees-to-elbows
40 push press (45#)
40 good mornings (25#)
40 wallballs (8#… should have gone heavier)
40 burpees
40 double unders

I finished in 33:47 and everything went pretty well… the KB swings got a little tough and the K2E was killing my hands as usual, but push press went way better that I expected and I used a WB that could have been heavier. The burpees epically sucked; however, I banged out 40 DUs with only one single hop between each, stringing them together like a CHAMP. I’ve literally never done them better so it was a good end to a [surprisingly] fun workout.