A little more consistency

Two weeks ago, at the tail end of an illness, I got to CF 4 times in a week.  It was tough and I coughed through a lot of the workouts, but I got through them.  OK, I scaled them quite a bit too, recognizing that I wasn't 100%.

Last week, I did a double red blood cell donation, and that messed with me for a bit.  I didn't even consider doing CrossFit the day I donated blood, but I did the next 2 days.  Again, I scaled the workouts and Thursday, in particular (running, ab work, farmer's walks and bench presses) felt really hard.  My wife and I were planning to ski on Saturday, and we were both sore and tired enough that Friday became a rest day.  So, 3 days of CrossFit last week.

This week has been very difficult - higher volume work.  Monday night include 4x7 front squats and 4x7 back squats, followed by some clean and jerks and some ring rows.  Tuesday was 10x5 deadlifts (for me), with each set followed by 20-30 seconds of jump rope practice.  But, in reality, that was the warmup for this little gem:

As quickly as possible:
25-20-15-10-5 kettlebell swings
5-10-15-20-25 burpees

The way you do this is 25 swings, 5 burpees, 20 swings, 10 burpees, 15 swings, 15 burpees, etc.

I admit I had to scale the burpees to 60% of the recommended number and I still really struggled.

I got home from the gym, and I felt like I'd been bludgeoned with a hammer.  Every movement hurt.

Last night started with 7x7 thrusters.  I looked at the workout and simply wanted to bail.  A thruster is a front squat, except at the end of the front squat, you essentially do a push press to get the bar overhead.  The second half of the workout had the bar go overhead 60 times (lighter bar than earlier), plus some 400m repeats.  Despite being a former runner, I was easily the slowest runner in my class last night and I finished nearly last.  If I hadn't gone really light on my push presses, I would have been last.

Last night, I wasn't as sore as the night before, but I am seriously tired.  I am busy tomorrow, so I really want to do the workout tonight.  Tonight is a "work your weakness" workout, so I'm going to focus on the muscles that don't already hurt.  We do 10 rounds, with 4 exercises per round, starting every minute for 40 minutes.  Tonight, I think my 4 exercises will be row 200m, 5 strict push-ups, farmer's walks (heavier than last week), and 3 hang power cleans.

Tomorrow, I get to sleep in, work from home, go to the doctor for my annual physical, and then do some fly fishing.  After that, I plan to sleep all weekend.

Derailed for a few weeks

Just before my teaching part of ski season ended, I started to get sick.  I was in the gym on a Tuesday night, and the workout just felt horrible.  By the time I got home, I knew I was getting sick.  I called in sick the next day, and tried to see a doctor.  My normal doctor doesn't work on Wednesdays, so I got stuck with a guy I didn't like very much.  (Yes, I realize that living in a small town were I can see my regular doctor most days on short notice is a luxury many don't have).

The doctor was running way behind schedule and they tried to re-schedule me.  I felt like death and said I'd wait.  Mostly, I wanted some cough medicine and I wasn't going to get any codeine if I just went home.  After talking, the doctor said he thought I had the flu.  But, I'm guessing because it was so late, he didn't feel like doing a confirmatory flu test, so he could consider giving me Tamiflu.  I probably should have fought harder for this, given how long the illness ended up lasting.  But, instead, I took a script for a very tiny amount of codeine and went to the pharmacy and then home.  I was out sick the next day.  I worked from home the day after that.

And then it was my last weekend of teaching skiing.  I'd done nothing since Tuesday and I felt like crap, but I skied anyway.  It was going to be my last chance to see most of my students and their parents until next winter.  To be honest, it was miserable, but I got through it all.

The next week, I managed to get to the gym twice, but it was not pleasant at all.  On the weekend, my wife and I had planned a nice trip for 2 to Pittsburgh - some nice meals, a couple nice cocktail bars, and a rare chance for us to see the San Jose Sharks play hockey, at the Penguins.  Truth be told, the Sharks only played hockey in the second period.  In the first period, the third, overtime and the shootout, they looked clueless  Ken Burns played well and Thornton played well and everyone else was just in the way.

After a long drive on Monday, we were back home.  I got to CrossFit twice that week, and coughed and coughed the entire way through the workouts.  I skied on Saturday, but had zero energy and I called it a day after 5 runs.

Two more days of coughing at CrossFit happened the next week and then it was off to Middlebury for the opening weekend of trout season.  I was finally starting to feel better and the cough was finally fading away.  Lots of fishing led to no fish at all - pretty standard for opening weekend.

Finally, after that weekend, I got to CrossFit 4 times in a week, although I did take it easy most days.  This week, I hope I'm on my way to 4 days again.

This illness took most of 4 weeks away from me.  Early on, I was sleeping 12-16 hours per day.  I've been tired for weeks.  My fitness has regressed.  The cough is still not 100% gone.  But, I'm a lot better now.

Right this minute, I'm off to do a blood donation - a double red cell donation.  That should knock me down for a few days again.  I like donating the blood.  But, with O+ blood, they want as many red cells as I can spare.  I got a nice note from the Red Cross about how my last donation was used (in vague enough terms to not violate HIPAA privacy laws) and that made me feel good.

Time to go visit the vampire.