7/9 – Testing Week Continues

And so we continue on with testing week – the one that we did back in April.  It’s fun to compare the results though I didn’t actually do tonight’s WOD the last go around.  Here’s my chance.

WOD #1

400m run/row

1:25

It was raining so we all rowed.  I asked Hayden why we didn’t run in the rain later on and he pointed to the flooded street out front.  Good call Coach.  Never noticed this before.  It was pretty much a lake and I kind of feared a bit for my car stalling out as I was leaving the box.  Why is my life enveloped in flooding right now (two Canadian cities are under water, ugh).

The row was good.  I was thinking about 1:30 going into it and managed to hold under 1:50/500m split throughout though I was definitely feeling it in my legs – my hammies were still tight from all the squats the night before.  I also had a higher stroke rate that I’d have preferred – it was over 30 the entire way indicating that I wasn’t being as efficient as I could be though that being said, if I can get my split to drop at the (slightly) higher stroke rate then I can then focus on lowering the stroke rate at the same speed.  Give and take.

WOD #2

12-9-6

Power cleans (60/42.5kg)

50 unbroken DU’s

5:45 (42.5kg, broken DU’s)

Started on this one thinking the power cleans would be heavy though they didn’t feel too bad (as Brendo noted – the weight gets lighter as soon as 3-2-1-Go… is called – truth).  I did 7 and 5 on the first set, 5-4 and then 6 unbroken (ouch).  I also planned to go for unbroken DU’s as I’ve done 50 unbroken twice in the past week, I started out on the first set and had to struggle to hang on from 40 onward and tripped up at 47.  Argh…  this definitely took a lot out of me and I knew from then on that I wouldn’t be going unbroken – my shoulders (from HSPU’s) and forearms were screaming already so I bailed out of the ‘unbroken’ at that point but continued on at that point starting my DU’s at zero.  Did about 35 then finished off before hitting the cleans again.  I did managed to do most of the first two sets of cleans with a hook grip though – improvement right there though touch and go it got a little weird.  Anyway, something I need to get used to it helped.

Afterward went next door for open gym and did a bit of skill work – Steph and I have plans to be awesome…

I did

3 x 5 ring dips with the yellow band,

then

3x5 jumping muscle up transitions on the rings

Got some good feedback from Rhys on the jumping MU’s too – getting my head through and into a dip rather than trying to just straight into the locked out position.  Helped and started to feel like a MU would.  Baby steps.

Rolled out for a while and gossiped with Mikey and Shaun while waiting for the torrential downpour to stop – at least it eventually died down.

6/18 - 'Karen'

Some days I just wish I didn’t look at the WOD before heading to the box.  Yesterday was one of those days.  ‘Karen’.  ‘Karen’ is a bitch – not as bad when she’s not followed by DU’s and muscle-ups as in the open the past two years but still enough to make you not look forward to her at all.

Strength/ Skill

5 Rds

10 Chest to bar Pull Ups

Max L-Sit

Used the red band for the first 4 sets of c2b pull-ups then Coach Scotty yelled at me (nicely) to not kip with the band so finished up with both red and orange bands.  It was almost comical at the beginning (easy) then a struggle towards the end (so hard).  The L-sits were done hanging from the bar.  I think on average I was around 20 seconds for each.  It was fun partnering up with George for this one though I think us giving each other time increments on the L-sits didn’t actually help much – we both aimed for 20 seconds rather than going to failure – that being said my arms/ hands weren’t having much more anyway.  It was a good 20 minute warm-up heading into…

WOD ‘Karen’

150 Wall Balls 20/14lb

9:23 PR (14lb to 9’ line)

I have only done ‘Karen’ in the open WODs.  The first year (2011) I didn’t finish the wall balls in the 12 minute time cap.  This year I finished the wall balls (aka ‘Karen’) in 10:55 (the tie-breaker as noted on the games website score).  My summary from 13.3 noted that I did a set of 10 reps then sets of 5 for the rest with Coach Tara judging/ cheering me on.  It was nice to have a reminder of that going in.

Last night I just went with what felt good – even as the air squats in the warm-up reminded me of how sore my hamstrings were from ‘Diane’.  I started off just getting into the rhythm and found it feeling solid – I easily hit 15 reps and while I thought of going for 20 (especially as the boys on either side of me hadn’t yet stopped I knew it was still a long way to the finish and took a little break).  I didn’t want to get into sets of 5 until I had to so I picked up the ball again and did 10, it felt okay and I tried to stick with this number.  I remember at 45 reps in noting how hard it was starting to feel and how I wasn’t even yet halfway (the hard part is when you hit 75 and make that halfway realization).  Thankfully I never even noted 75, I was struggling to maintain sets of 10 and did through to 95 reps.  I wanted to hold on to the number but just couldn’t – that being said I also didn’t want to drop down to sets of 5 either as 10 (11) sets of 5 is still a lot to wrap your mind around. I decided on 8-7 pattern.  Which I followed through til the end.  The last few rounds were a struggle in forcing myself to both pick up the ball and go and also keep going even when I wanted to stop/ my form was getting a little wonky.

It was fun working beside Brendan – he helped me to minimize my rest times either because he was getting back to the ball/ still working or because Coach Scotty came around and was counting him down to get back at it and I used this cue as well.  My splits were fairly consistent.  I rememeber hitting 25 reps in the first minute then 50 at the 3 minute mark (approximately) and then 100 at 6 minutes in (approximately).  Finishing just over 9 minutes was fairly decent in my mind, a solid 1:30 faster than my previous PR.  I will definitely take it.

And for anyone questioning why I showed up for ‘Karen’ when I hate her so… it’s for a few reasons – trying not to cherry pick WODs and also because I’m fairly certain we’ll see wallballs in the Primal Throwdown and I knew I could use the practice.  The extra dose of confidence it gave me definitely helped.

6/17 – “Diane”

WOD “Diane”

21-15-9

Deadlift (102.5/70kg)

HSPU’s

10:19 Rx (almost)

First time I’ve done “Diane” Rx – or almost.  I scaled the HSPU’s to one abmat after the first 5 reps as my shoulders are still aching from Saturday’s sessions – and are being a little wonky.  Cam tried to tell me that I wasn’t doing HSPU’s at all but I just dismissed him.  Nope, I knew I could manage – definitely feeling them today though – pretty sure my arms are still shaking.

Initial plan was to break the deadlifts into three sets of 7 on the first round then 8-7 (or three sets of 5 depending on how I felt) then 5-4 if possible.  I was facing across the room and could see Brendo doing his heavy deads and when I got up to 7 no one else in the room had put the bar down yet so I decided to keep going.  I thought that 11-10 would be fine but then threw in one more rep before putting it down so I’d only have 9 to go when I picked it up.  Two sets done, not too bad.

On to the HSPU’s.  As I said, I had an abmat with the green plates and was going to try and go Rx but my kip was off and my shoulders were screaming – I did 5 reps then figured if I was to get anywhere near finishing in the 10 minutes that I’d have to scale.  Still I struggled but got them done – no big sets at all – I think 3’s at most when I could sometimes singles.  Like I said, my kip was crap.

The second round of deadlifts were solid.  One quick break as I was starting to feel it a lot – again still in my arms just from the hanging weight.  Back to the HSPU’s and agony, struggling through.  I think I had about 90 seconds or less when I started the round of 9.  Coach Scotty said that he’d let us continue over the time cap if we were almost done and I wanted to get there.  I quickly finished off the deadlifts then went straight into the HSPU’s, I tried to string two together and failed the second.  Oops.  I tried to get it done under 10 minutes but couldn’t.  I just needed to rest more in between reps in order to actually complete them which sucked.  I did however get it done and was quite happy about that.  I’d definitely like to try her again when my shoulders aren’t so fried.  On the upside though – pretty sure my shoulders are getting huuuuge… feels like it at least… haha.

6/11 – Heavy Deadlifts, Short WOD

WOD

5-4-3-2-1

Deadlift (90/130kg)

Burpee Box Jump Overs (18/24”)

2:42 Rx

Was a very quick WOD tonight.  After an extensive KB warm-up wherein Coach Scotty had me demonstrate the KB clean portion – then proceeded to note how if he stood really close to me I still wouldn’t hit him as the KB should be moving upwards – and then stood really close to have me demonstrate – I almost conceded to the pressure, too much stress – but thankfully didn’t hit him.  Even still he made me demonstrate the burpee box jump overs (I’m beginning to feel like the demo queen as Coach Tara had me demo all the movements as well during the rope climb WOD on the weekend)

Wasn’t sure that I’d do Rx for the WOD… Brendo was wondering aloud the same thing as the weight was heavy but in the end we both challenged ourselves and it was good, I need to keep doing this.  I managed to go unbroken though all the deadlifts though there were a few towards the end that weren’t pretty and needed a bit of extra shuffling to get the weight fully locked out on the top.  Around the set of 2 it felt like more than my PR, ridiculous how quickly that changed but I managed knowing there were so few left.

The burpee box jump overs were fine though again, the 18” box could have been 30” for what it felt like.  I couldn’t just right over top like some were doing but rather jumped onto then off of and when I landed on the ground on the otherside I pretty much just crumpled to the ground as my legs weren’t doing much in the way of supporting me.  A couple of times I actually scared myself with how close my face came to the top of the box when I did this (I was turning 180 degrees in mid air on the descent).  Thankfully there were no face plants, that would have sucked. 

I got a little confused on the set of 5 thinking I’d only done 4 burpee box jump overs but turns out it was 5.  After a brief pause it was back to the deadlifts.  I’m really glad I went Rx, it was definitely a challenge but my time was still fairly respectable for the design of the workout.  Happy it was short as well even though it felt a million times harder.  Love the challenge.

5/28 – “Annie”

WOD “Annie”

50-40-30-20-10

Double Unders

Sit-ups

7:28

First day back from vacation and it was a good little one to get going.  Knew from the way I was feeling that there wouldn’t be any records set but was looking forward to it anyway.  Brendan and I were beside each other and he really pushed me to go faster.  There was a bit of back and forth for the first couple of rounds then I snuck ahead by a few situps and went from there.  He definitely made it challenging knowing in my head I couldn’t stop to rest at all.  Finished almost one minute slower than my PR but was to be expected.

Followed it up with a bit of open gym.  Didn’t really have  a plan but was inspired by the OHS WOD at the regionals so worked on that.

Open Gym

Overhead Squats

Warmup

5x15kg

3x25kg

Working

5x3 @ 35kg

This felt solid. Not sure what my previous OHS PR was but this was probably close to it.  Haven’t done them in ages and it felt good.