Roosters & Pistols

It was an interesting week for me at Crossfit.

Since the box was observing the Labor Day holiday, I went to the Saturday WOD armed with a WGP to compensate for the extra rest I would be enjoying. But the enthusiasm for my “win” suddenly crashed when Sam told us we were going to be sprinting. Outside. 100m. x10.

Fortunately, Carrie, Tyler and an amped-up Saturday crew were able to get me back into my WGP mode, and it ended up being a lot of fun. I am definitely not a runner, but I was able to make pretty consistent time on each of the 10 sprints.

Then came Sunday. Wow…who knew that I would be so sore just from running. My calves, quads and hamstrings ached…getting out of bed on Sunday was tragically comedic. This is why I hate running.

On Tuesday morning, I checked the CFDC blog to find out what the WOD would be: 5k run. Really? REALLY?

I thought about this WOD all day at work. I started out very positive. Sometime around 11am it was “OK, we’ll eat a good lunch and then see how we feel”. Around 2PM it was “let’s make sure we keep drinking water – gotta stay hydrated for the 5k”.

By 4:30, the supportive voices in my head had been hijacked.

When I left my office at 6PM, I couldn’t even look at the gym bag in the backseat of the car. I drove straight home and went to bed early. Humbled.

The next day when I checked the CFDC blog, JoDee had written about how challenging the 5k had been for her to complete…but that she felt really good about how she had been able to pull it off at the end and finish it. I was incandescently jealous. I should have gone that night. Even if I had been the last guy to complete the 5k, it would have felt better than defeating myself by not even trying.

On Wednesday night we did clean & jerks. By far, not my favorite lift. Before we started the WOD, Chris asked me how heavy I planned to go – I said 95lbs. He kind of rolled his eyes like I was joking – “no, really….ur gonna go heavier than that!”…”no, really, 95lbs!”.

I ended up doing 135lbs x3. PR. With better technique, I think I could go even heavier. It was a good WOD on the heels of the 5k that I deserted.

Last night we did pistols and hand-stand-push-ups (HSPUs). The pistol is like a squat – on one leg. I wasn’t able to complete the range of motion and go all the way down, so I placed a box beneath me that I could lower myself down upon. We had to do 14 rounds of 3 pistols on each leg and 3 HSPUs.

I finished the WOD in 15:30 – not a stellar time – the cutoff was 15 minutes.

But I’ve started to look forward to any WOD that includes HSPUs. It’s like the only fairly-intimidating exercise that I can do with confidence – granted, I do them with a couple of abmats under my head…but I think I can reduce that down to 1 abmat pretty soon. HSPUs are FTW…or as Carrie says, FTMFW.

I had planned to go to the 6PM class tonight, but there’s been a schedule change – no classes after noon today until Monday morning. This schedule change totally made me realize how addicted to Crossfit I’ve become. How can I go 3 days without a WOD?

This drastic situation required extraordinary measures. I decided to go to the 7AM WOD this morning.

I had never been to a morning WOD – first off, I hate to get up early. Next, I wasn’t sure how well I would be able to manage at work after a tough WOD. 3rd, there are some logistics issues to consider…what to eat before the WOD?....shower at the gym or drive back home?....

I ended up eating some applesauce before the WOD which held me over just fine…then I came home and had a real breakfast and a shower.

Except for the waking-up-when-it’s still dark outside part, it was a nice way to start the day. We’ll have to wait and see how hard it is to get through the entire workday.