Ultrarunning, skiing, nutrition, and babbling

A couple PRs in the gym

2012-01-26T08:24:00.002-05:00

I took both Monday and Tuesday as rest days and I felt ready to go last night in the gym. After our warm-up, we worked on back squats using a 5-5-3-3-1-max rep scheme, starting at about 65% of one rep max. This is not an ideal scheme to hit a new PR, but I felt pretty good as I progressed through the workout. I started at 225, then 240, 255, 275 and 295. Even at 295, I felt pretty good. So, I decided to try for 320, which is five pounds heavier than my PR. I first hit 315 in May of last year, and then repeated that weight twice more last year.

I was very happy with my single rep at 320 - decent depth, I stayed upright, and it was never in doubt. I'm sure that with a proper warm-up, I can go 5-15 pounds higher than I did last night.

After the squats, the main workout was rowing 2K as fast as possible. In some ways, I'd rather row 5K, because the intensity at 2K is brutal. I knew when I sat down that I wanted to go sub-8, which I'd never done before. Despite being warned about not going out too hard, I managed to do it anyway, although not too badly. I hit the first 500 in about 1:55, the second in 1:57, and the last two were each just over 2 minutes. The last 250 meters was really tough, but I hung on for a 7:57.

My total "working" time in the gym was less than 12 minutes last night, lifting and rowing combined. In that time, I got two PRs and a great workout. I'm ready for more at CrossFit tonight.

Tough four days

2012-01-23T13:32:00.002-05:00

On Thursday and Friday, after a few rest days while feeling under the weather, I returned to CrossFit. I worked hard both nights, and by Saturday morning, I was feeling sore. The squats from Thursday night really affected me, and it was difficult to bend over and pick up my skis all weekend.

We had some new snow over the weekend - about 7" over a two day period, but a lot of the trails were firm and fast. During instructor training on Sunday morning, we witnessed an amazing collision between two guests. We were shocked that the one person walked (well, skied) away from the collision.

For the first time this ski season, we started to explore off-piste terrain, and we decided that it's just not ready yet. We skied two moderate tree runs on Saturday and they were passable, but not a lot of fun. On Sunday, we tried two different very difficult tree runs high on the mountain and found them to be less than fun.

Nonetheless, we had a fun weekend. We skied some steep trails, some nice bump runs on natural and man-made snow, and there was lots of laughter all weekend long. Saturday morning, one of my students had problems with her poles getting off the chairlift, and she didn't make it off the chair. She hit the bar that stops the chair and the lift attendant helped her off the chair. This always reflects badly on the instructor, so I needed a way to get even.

At lunchtime, I ate half of a sandwich and while the offending lift-rider was in the bathroom, I stored the other half of the sandwich in her jacket. I didn't really want to eat it later, but I thought it would be funny for her to carry it around all afternoon. When she found the sandwich, I thought she was going to kill me. I was laughing so hard that she almost succeeded.

We spent Sunday at Lincoln Peak, a part of the Sugarbush resort where we don't ski very often. We were just about done at that side of the mountain, and we took a short break before we rode the Slide Brook Express chair back to the main mountain. The Slide Brook chair is a two mile ride that lasts 11 minutes, and it's important that the kids aren't freezing when we get on the chair. As we left the lodge where we'd warmed up, to ski to the chair, I got a question from my daughter. Here, I'm going to borrow her Facebook post about how the conversation went:

Me: "I'm tired can we go down the easiest trail"
Dad: "ok. Which way"
Me: "the easiest"
Dad: "which way"
Me: "the easiest"
Dad: "which way"
Me: "the easiest"
Dad: "Sarah the name of the trail is which way"
Me: "oh"

This had all of the girls in the group laughing hysterically. It was just too easy to do this to her at the time. It turned out that Which Way had lots of features from recent snow-making, and it might have been our most fun run of the weekend.

All in all, I had another great weekend with the students I teach. When I have a good weekend, it's hard to believe I actually get paid to go skiing with them. Yes, I have a lot of responsibility for their safety and I do teach them things, but it's just plain fun.

Today, I am amazingly sore and tired, and I'm taking a rest day.

Back to the gym

2012-01-20T13:19:00.002-05:00

After three rest days due to a minor cold, I felt ready to do a workout yesterday, although I planned to do an easier-than-normal workout.

I arrived at the gym early and spent some time stretching. Then, the first part of our warm-up was 5x10 back squats. Normally, I'd do my work sets at 22#-245# for this rep scheme, but yesterday, I did one set at 185, one at 225, and three at 205.

Next was the main workout:

5 rounds, as quickly as possible:
7 power cleans
11 chest-to-bar pull-ups
15 Dumbbell push presses

The Rx'd level was ridiculously hard, and even level 1 was more than I wanted to do yesterday. But, level 2 was too easy, so I decided to work between the two levels. Regretfully, the gym was really full, and we needed to partner up on the barbells, and everyone seemed to be doing one of the weights on the board. That meant I had to choose between 115# and 75#. I opted for the lighter weight, but it turned out to be too easy. I used bands, especially trying to go chest-to-bar, for the pull-ups. And, I used a pair of 20# dumbbells.

The workout went just fine, but I think my partner and I only did four rounds. Even at the easy level I chose for the workout, it was hard for me to believe that I'd been the fastest person out of 22 in the gym. So, I'm guessing I did four rounds in just under 10 minutes.

Overnight, I was really sore and I didn't sleep too well. Part of our warm-up had included rope jumping, which I hadn't done since breaking my rib, so I wonder if that was the problem. Plus, power cleans can bother my shoulder at times.

I feel OK now, although a bit sore from the squats, but I'll go to CF again tonight after work. Once again, I'll take it easy, trying to not cause my illness to return, and saving something for skiing this weekend.

Prescient?

2012-01-17T09:12:00.002-05:00

In my last post, I said I felt like I'd been on a roll, but I also felt like I needed a rest day. And on Friday, I took a rest day.

On the weekend, I skied hard with my small herd of students and we had a great time, spending most of the weekend on single black and double black trails, most of them covered with sweet, soft moguls. By Sunday night, I was feeling really drained. I came straight home from the mountain after work, rather than skiing a few extra runs, and took a nap before dinner. I went to bed early knowing that I was getting sick.

By the end of the work day yesterday, my whole body ached. I was working a bit late, and sometime after it got dark, I basically fell asleep beside my laptop. (I worked from home yesterday and I was working on my bed when I fell asleep.)

This morning, I still feel pretty wrecked, so I'm working from home again. I certainly don't want to infect anyone in the office. I took an Alleve a little while ago, and I hope it helps me to feel better.

So, no workout yesterday and certainly none today. I'll be back as soon as my body says it's ready.

I was sick in mid-November. I was sick in early April last year. I was sick in mid-October of 2010. I was sick in early March of 2010. I was sick in January of 2010. That means I've been sick six times in 25 months right now.

As I look through my training logs, I see words like "sore" or "exhausted" or "beat up" way too often. I see periods of time where I take time off because I'm sick or feeling burnt out and beat up.

I'm guessing that none of this is a coincidence.

I'd like to say that getting old sucks, but from looking at my logs, it's more likely that training excessively is just plain stupid.

Time for a rest day

2012-01-13T11:20:00.002-05:00

Here is how the first 12 days of the year have gone so far:

Ski
CrossFit
Rest
CrossFit
Row
CrossFit
Ski
Ski
Row
CrossFit
CrossFit
CrossFit

I feel like I'm on a roll and I've been happy with my CF workouts this week. But, I'm also a bit tired. Last night, we started with 5x5 of power cleans. This lift, at heavier weights, aggravated my rib and shoulder. In the last set, I managed to pull 3 cleans (of my 5 attempts) at my current PR of 165#. So, I should easily be able to clean 175# or more with the correct warm-up.

Then, our main workout was as follows:

1000 meter row
50 deadlifts (135#)
50 wall balls (14#)
50 kettlebell swings (35#)

It took me just over 14 minutes to get through this workout and I was pretty happy with the workout. But I didn't sleep well last night, mostly due to my ribs and shoulder being unhappy.

So, while I feel like I'm on a roll of some sorts, it's time for a rest day. Plus, we've gotten a decent amount of snow at the mountain this week and some new advanced terrain is open. If the girls in my group can handle the cold weather, we'll be skiing some really nice advanced terrain all weekend.

Strict Press PR

2012-01-12T11:35:00.002-05:00

In December of 2010, I did a strict press of 125 pounds. Coming from a running and skiing and hiking background, ever since I started lifting for real, my leg-dominant lifts have been much better than arm-dominant lifts. I still haven't cracked 200 pounds for the bench press and my strict (or military) press has been slow to improve.

Late in last year's ski season, I also hurt my rotator cuff, which set me back a bit in shoulder strength. In mid-September of last year, I managed to set a new PR at 127.5 pounds. And last night, I got to 130 pounds. That's an improvement of about 4% over 13 months. Yes, I'm old and I'm still setting PRs in the gym, so I should be happy about that. And, I think I am ready to lift more on this lift - I did too many warm-ups lifts at higher weights yesterday.

So, I've got a PR and I'm happy.

It's snowing, so I'm even more happy.

It's supposed to keep snowing in the mountains right through tomorrow. I'm practically ecstatic.

I'm feeling remarkably good right now. My rib is mostly healed, although certain workouts can irritate it a bit. In the first 11 days of the current year, I skied 3 times, rowed 2, and went to CF 5 times, with only one rest day. And, surprisingly, I don't feel beat up at the moment.

I'll go to CF tonight, but with lots of snow for the weekend, I may take a rest day tomorrow so I'm fresh for skiing hard this weekend.

New "Rest Day" workout

2012-01-10T12:54:00.002-05:00

One of the things I like best about approaching my fitness and diet from a Primal/Paleo perspective is the amount of time I save in exercise.

Recently, when I don't have a lot of time, I've found that I can jump on a Concept2 rower, and row 5K in just over 20 minutes. This is a challenging workout for me, yet it's over quickly and doesn't leave me sore the next day.

That's what I did last night, instead of doing a tougher workout that might have left me sore or more beat up after skiing all weekend.

If I do this often enough, it would be nice to get my times down under 20 minutes.

And, as soon as my rib is completely healed, I will get back to doing some interval running workouts.

Tonight is CrossFit.

How much training is enough? Or, too much?

2012-01-09T12:02:00.002-05:00

Two years ago, I did some sort of workout or race on 200 distinct days. Overall, I feel that I lost fitness that year and I definitely gained weight - fat to be more specific.

Last year, I trained 227 distinct days, with a major emphasis on CrossFit. I lost ten pounds of body mass, and perhaps 15 pounds of fat. So, this was enough for me to improve, although the change in training emphasis was also a factor.

All last year, after a poor start to the year, my goal was to work out at least 2/3 of the days in the year. I didn't make it but I still improved my fitness.

So, having turned 50 years old last week, I'm trying to figure out an optimal way to structure my workouts. I enjoy the training I'm doing these days. After so many years of simply running year round and skiing on the weekends in winter, I've really diversified my training. I would say that CrossFit is the focus, but it's not all I do. I like to ride my bike. I still run, but mostly shorter, faster runs than in years past. I like to do heavy lifting sessions on my own, outside of the CrossFit environment. And, I like to ski at a high level on difficult terrain. My students this year are old enough and skilled enough that we are doing exactly that. After skiing on Saturday, I arrived at the mountain tired yesterday. And, we skied hard again.

In past years, I didn't ski as hard on the weekends. So, I could often do 4 or 5 workouts during the work week. These days, that seems excessive.

If I'm trying to balance optimal fitness with minimal injury risk, there must be some "sweet spot" that I can find. But, I don't know where it is right now.

I'm guessing that it's somewhere between 5 and 6 workouts per week. And, no more than 3 of those should be CrossFit. One day should probably be more aerobic than the other days, which tend to be done at high intensity.

For now, I think I'm going to mostly go by feel. I did 6 days last week. This week, I'll do 5 or 6. But, I think it makes no sense to try to train 7 days per week. And when my body tells me it's tired, I think I need to listen.

It's kind of odd that after 27 years of consistent exercise/training, I'm still trying to figure out some optimal plan. Of course, that keeps things interesting as well.

So close

2012-01-05T12:06:00.002-05:00

After work yesterday, I headed to CrossFit. Our workout started with six sets of deadlifts, done in sets of 5-5-3-3-1-max. We were supposed to start at 65% of our current max and move up from there. I started higher than 65%, and the first five sets were 255, 275, 295, 315 and 335. I felt pretty good at this point. Knowing that I'd done three consecutive reps at 355 on Monday, I wanted a different challenge. So, I took at shot at 405, a weight that's been a goal for a while. I got the bar a couple inches off the ground, but stalled out and couldn't finish it.

However, I had probably done too many heavy DLs between Monday and yesterday to have my best chance. I think I'm close and I'm sure I'll get it by the end of the month, if I can stay healthy.

After the deads, we did a 12 minute, max rep workout, doing 20 wall balls followed by 10 sumo deadlift high pulls, repeat until time expires. I did level 1, using a 14# med ball and 65# for the high pulls. I did just under six rounds, and after pushing too hard in some recent workouts, I deliberately controlled the pace in this one. Overall, I was pretty happy with my pacing and effort. As I get a few more weeks of CF workouts under my belt, I'll be able to push harder through the main workouts.

My ribs were sore after the workout last night, and I think it was from the wall balls, although attempting a 400+ pound deadlift can't be discounted.

Tonight, I'll do a quick 5K row after work and then do CF tomorrow, before skiing all weekend.

Back to work...

Back from a much-needed vacation

2012-01-04T13:00:00.002-05:00

I spent the last 12 days on vacation from my day job. I will admit that I taught skiing for half of those 12 days, so I wasn't completely idle.

I took a few rest days around Christmas and enjoyed a nice Christmas holiday with family. Starting the day after Christmas, I was scheduled to teach skiing for 7 consecutive days. Given my recent rib fracture, I was a bit concerned about that much skiing, but it turned out to not be an issue.

Our ski season here is off to a terrible start. On Monday and Tuesday after Christmas, I got no work at all. I skied a little each day and then left the mountain early. On Tuesday, I did a good workout of heavy lifts - squats, strict presses, deadlifts, bench presses and walking (weighted) lunges. The following day dawned with terrible road conditions, and I stayed home most of the day. I tried to drive my son to work in the morning, before the road crews had worked on our road, which was solid slick ice. I have a Subaru with studded snow tires, and after a mile, I gave up and drove back home.

After the town put cinders on our road, things were much better, and I finally got out to the gym. I rowed hard for half an hour instead of my normal 5K row. The extra 8-9 minutes of rowing were torture and I barely made it to the end, or at least it felt that way.

The next day, we had a foot of snow at the mountain but still very few customers. Again, I got no work, skied a little bit, and then went home early. That afternoon, I did another heavy lifting workout, doing front squats, clean and jerks, power snatches and trap bar deadlifts.

On Friday, I finally got to teach for a few hours and then I skied with my wife for a while. It was a fun day and it was nice to ski with my wife - something I don't get to do often enough. The weekend was fairly warm and I taught my normal lessons on Saturday and Sunday. The snow pack was slowly disappearing, but the skiing was fun.

Monday was my 50th birthday. My wife and I planned a day together to celebrate my birthday. I did a CrossFit workout first thing in the morning, then we did some shopping, and we met some friends for a nice lunch. We spent the rest of the afternoon with our friends, and then went home to have dinner with our children. All in all, it was a fun and almost relaxing way to spend my birthday. I did have to cook my own dinner, but it wasn't that difficult.

Yesterday, I took one final day of vacation. I spent most of the day just relaxing and then in the evening, my wife and I went to see Bucknell, our alma mater, play at Dartmouth in basketball. Bucknell trailed by as many as ten points in the first half, but used a 22-4 run in the second half to put Dartmouth away. With classes not in session at Dartmouth, it was interesting to watch a game in a nearly empty gym. It was empty enough that I got a stern look from an official after making a sarcastic remark about one of his calls. But, the Bison prevailed, so it was a good evening.

Today, I'm back at work and I'll be going to CrossFit later today. My rib injury is much better, but I'm certainly not 100%. Hopefully, it won't limit my activities much at all as the healing process continues.

Plus 10%

2011-12-22T12:10:00.002-05:00

Last year (2010), I did some sort of workout on 200 different days - probably my lowest total in a long, long time. I know I did more in 2002, when I tore my ACL. I did more in 2009, when I fought a torn hamstring tendon for much of the year. I might have done fewer days in 1998, the year my daughter was born, and I was struggling with a job that I hated. I simply had no motivation that year, although I finished the year strongly, and got through two marathons just before moving to Vermont.

Partway through this year, it looked like I'd get at least 240 workouts this year, a 20% increase from last year. But, after a lackluster autumn of workouts, I'm at 221 with ten days left in the year. So, I'm currently 10% higher than last year and I may get close to 15%.

Compared to where I was in September, I'm not really thrilled. I have definitely gone backwards in the last couple months. But, I'm lighter than a year ago, more flexible and explosive than a year ago, stronger than a year ago, and much happier with where I am now vs. where I was then.

On the second of January, I turn 50. Hopefully, around this time next year, I'll look back at my 51st year on this planet as another year of improvement.

I would like to get a little stronger, return to running more frequently, do more rowing this year and improve there, improve my skiing, and improve my body composition in the coming year. All of those things should be easy to accomplish at age 50, right? So, maybe it won't be easy, but the alternatives aren't very attractive.

I need to get this rib healed so I can get back to training harder and skiing a bit less cautiously.

And, on January 2nd, we start a 60 day Paleo challenge at CrossFit, and I'm looking forward to that.

CrossFit

2011-12-21T08:18:00.002-05:00

After a three week absence from CrossFit, I finally went back last night. A couple weeks ago, I thought the cold I was fighting was finally gone. But then, I did a hard 5K row that had me coughing a lot. And then later that night, I fell and cracked a rib.

The rib is still sore and I still have some remnants of a cough from the cold I had over a month ago. The combination of a sore rib cage and a cough isn't exactly pleasant. But, I also hadn't done any workouts (other than skiing) in two weeks, so I needed to do something.

As it turned out, the workout was one that was fairly gentle on the ribs, and I did keep the weights low.

After the warm-up, we were supposed to do 7 heavy single reps of snatch balances. This is a lift that I'm not very good at, due to mobility issues in my shoulders. Compared to a year ago, I'm doing much better with the mobility, but any attempt at a snatch balance with real weight overhead ends up with me in a quarter squat rather than a full squat, and that is really an entirely different lift. So, I worked on overhead squats instead, focusing on form. My heaviest set was 3 x 85 pounds, and I did a lot of reps at 65 pounds. The coach really emphasizes that he'd rather have us do low weights with good form vs. higher weights with bad form.

Then, the main workout was a short one:

21-15-9:
Overhead squats
Sumo Deadlift High Pulls

The prescribed weight was 95 pounds (heavier than I did in the "strength" portion of the workout), with Level 1 being 65 pounds and level 2 being 45. Given the rib injury and the three week break from CF, I opted for Level 2. The overhead squats didn't bother my ribs at all, but I could feel that a heavier high pull would be an issue.

I finished in 4:10, and felt like I'd cheated as I watched some of our stronger guys take over 6 minutes to do the workout at 95 pounds.

My ribs were a bit sore after the workout but I did manage to sleep reasonably well after taking some Aleve. I think I'll try CF again tonight.

Great weekend of skiing

2011-12-19T12:37:00.002-05:00

I had a pretty quiet workout week last week. My ribs are still really sore, and I needed some painkillers just to sleep for the past week or so. Things were slowly getting better, but after two days of skiing this past weekend, including lots of moguls, I'm sore again today. I am scheduled to ski for 10 straight days starting Saturday, but if skiing is going to interfere with my rib(s) healing, I might need to curtail that schedule.

I did teach skiing all weekend. We still have limited terrain after one of the least snowy early winters in years. Luckily, it got very cold for part of the weekend and the mountain is making as much snow as they can right now.

On Saturday, none of my group of girls showed up to ski. The weekend before Christmas tends to be slow, as people are busy getting ready for the holidays. We also have coaches, especially college students, who tend to be busy that weekend. So, I covered for two other coaches on Saturday, and had six very energetic skiers on my hands. Four of them were younger than my group, but they just wanted to go, go, go. And so we did. I think that we skied more runs on Saturday than I'd skied the entire previous weekend.

On Sunday, two of my own group showed up, so I had a group of 8, and I had an assistant coach for the day, which really helped. My assistant is the older sister of a former student of mine and she did a great job. Despite cold temperatures and lots of operating snow guns, we skied hard all day. One trail in particular was a lot of fun, with snow guns blasting and big moguls setting up as the day progressed.

Over the weekend, one of the girls that I'd skied with for the first time ever told me "If I've learned one thing about you, it's that you like to smile and laugh a lot." As far as I'm concerned, I couldn't be paid a bigger compliment by a ski school student. In general, if they are having fun, I'll be having fun and smiling and laughing. And it was indeed that kind of weekend.

The downside to the weekend was that my rib injury seemed to regress. It was feeling better last Friday, but now feels very tender again. The pain is really isolated to one spot, but a blow to the ribcage anywhere near that spot (such as falling while skiing - even instructors fall sometimes) is pretty painful. Hopefully, five days away from skiing will let some more healing occur.

Also, I really want to get into the gym this week. The CrossFit coach has told me that I can show up and substitute any movements that bother the ribs. However, I'm afraid that just about everything will hurt. We will see. Tonight, we are decorating our Christmas tree at home. Tomorrow night, I'll be at CrossFit and I'll see how it goes.

And right now, all I want for Christmas is lots and lots of snow. This might be the slowest start to the ski season since 1999.

Quick Update

2011-12-12T15:08:00.002-05:00

Once again, I've gotten so busy that I'm doing little but working, and nobody really wants to hear about my job. Well, my bosses want to hear about it, but I'm sure they don't read my blog.

The cold that I've been fighting has been gamely hanging on. I still have a little bit of a cough and some congestion. It wouldn't be an issue at all, except...

Last Wednesday night, I got out of bed in the middle of the night to go the the bathroom. It was a cold night, and I'd worn a pair of wool socks to bed. Flannel and wool are the standard New England form of birth control for half of the year or so. Well, that and sleeping with almost 200 pounds worth of Rhodesian Ridgebacks, but that's a different story, and seems to be peculiar to my household.

As I hopped out of bed to head to the bathroom, wool socks hit the wood floor and it was like I was on ice skates. My legs went out from under me and I hit the right side of my rib cage very hard on the edge of my bed.

On Thursday, I was sore, but ignored it other than taking a rest day. I figured it was just a bruise. On Friday, I was more sore, and wanted to visit the doc, but I had to be in my office all day, and my office and my doctor's office are 65 miles apart.

Over the weekend, I started teaching skiing for the year. The mountain was ridiculously crowded, conditions were less than optimal, and I was terrified about falling on my right side. I managed to stay upright on Saturday, but Sunday, we skied in moguls under snow guns for a lot of the day. I managed to fall three times, but none affected the ribs. Luckily.

Last night, I had another restless night, trying to sleep, but every time I'd doze off and move slightly, the pain would wake me up. Finally, this morning, I visited the doctor. He's pretty sure I fractured the rib, but said that there's really nothing to be gained from an x-ray. After 4+ days, if there were other issues, I'd probably have symptoms other than just pain. He gave me some pain medication to help me sleep for a few days, and I'm anticipating a long night of sleep tonight.

In the past three weeks, between being sick, busy at work, and now injured, I've been to CrossFit a total of three times, and done a total of 7 workouts, with my 2 ski days not counted in that total. I can feel myself getting fatter by the day.

So now, I need to figure out what exercises I can do until my ribs are better. Hopefully, it won't be long until the pain subsides a lot.

I heard a rumor recently that Christmas is coming in the next month or two. Perhaps I should start thinking about my Christmas shopping. If I can't work out, I might actually have time to do some shopping.

Lastly, I'm fairly certain that the higher suicide rate in the US around Christmastime is caused by hearing "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" one too many times.

Back at it

2011-11-30T08:29:00.003-05:00

In the photo above, I was back at CrossFit after a 2+ week break, doing deadlifts in workout called Bradshaw (more below).

I seem to finally be over a cold that lingered for about two weeks. Most years, I deliberately plan a 2-3 week downtime, where I basically give myself permission to do nothing at all, unless I'm really motivated. Usually, this break comes in the winter, so I will do some skiing, but not much else for a few weeks. I think the rest is good for me, and it helps me (mentally and physically)from getting burned out on training. But, about 14 months ago, I discovered CrossFit. And somehow, last winter, I forgot to take a break.

I looked at my training logs over the past couple weeks, since I wasn't training. I was curious how long it had been since I'd gone more than a week with no workouts at all. The answer was 13 months - much longer than it should have been. Between a lot of stress at work and the training I was doing, I think everything just caught up with me. And, after about two weeks with no workouts at all, and then a week to ease back into things, I am feeling much better.

During the past three weeks, I got past some major hurdles at work. I was faced with a few really difficult technical issues around a new product and how to generate reports in a totally new software architecture, and I managed to solve all of the problems (no thanks to one of the hugest software companies in the world, who will go unnamed here). I caught up on sleep. Over a four day Thanksgiving break, I slept more than 10 hours for three straight nights.

And last Wednesday, after no workouts for two weeks, I hopped on the rowing machine after work. I rowed my second fastest 5K ever on the rower. Then, I took a rest day and cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my family and my wife's family. The day after Thanksgiving, I did a workout on my own - some lifting and Abmat sit-ups. The next day, I went to CrossFit, and did a scaled down version of a tough workout named Bradshaw. And then, I rested for two days, despite the fact that I had the option to ski on those days. I simply felt like I needed the rest and there will be many days to ski starting very soon.

Last night, I went to CrossFit after work, ready to do a hard workout for the first time in a while, and I most certainly got a hard one:

30 minutes, as many reps as possible:

5 deadlifts (I did 205#)

13 push-ups (I switched to knee push-ups within the first 10 minutes)

9 box jumps (18")

I think I completed the fewest rounds of anyone in the class, doing 12 total rounds. I was averaging 2 minutes per round for the first 8 rounds, and then suddenly, it was taking closer to 3 minutes per round. Despite switching to knee push-ups, my triceps are still shaky this morning from 156 push-ups. My legs are also feeling the 108 box jumps.

Tonight's workout starts with heavy back squats. After that, I'm guessing we'll do a much shorter main workout, given what we did last night.

This coming weekend I will be doing pre-season ski instructor training. Hopefully, some of it will be on snow, but the weather is making that look less and less likely. It's been ridiculously warm, and after being open for 4 days, Sugarbush had to close on Monday. Even if I spend the weekend just talking about skiing, it will be nice to spend time with my ski instructor friends and get ready for the upcoming season. I'm probably going to have a different role at the mountain this season. Rather than spending the season with a fixed group of students, I'm going to be a fill-in coach, a trainer for newer coaches, and then spend a lot of time in training with our most experienced coaches. By the end of the season, I would like to take my PSIA level 3 skiing exam. In order to get ready for that exam, I need to have a more challenging season than my normal job, and I need to spend time improving my skiing, with feedback from our best instructors. My boss suggested that a different role this season should challenge me more than my normal job, allow me to take the training I need, and also help out with some of our newer coaches. I'm looking forward to a very different kind of season.

Skiing soon?

2011-11-18T08:44:00.003-05:00

The snowmaking guns are on at Sugarbush!

I'm excited to see some good friends from college this weekend, and looking forward to cooking with my good friend Bob. He and I are doing a multi-course dinner for our wives (plus my two children and one other girl who is visiting for the weekend) and it should be a lot of fun. I've got 4 different courses from a pair of ducks (pate, duck breast prosciutto, confit, and seared duck breast) plus sweetbreads and beef carpaccio on my list of courses, along with some local cheeses. Bob will add a soup, a salad, and a dessert. They will be tiny courses but a lot of fun. I've put an incredible amount of time into a few courses that will be over in a bite or two.

After this meal, cooking Thanksgiving dinner for 14 people next week will be a breeze.

Thankfully, I seem to be getting over my cold just in time for this dinner. Right now, it's been 8 days since my last workout and I'm not quite ready to return to the gym. Hopefully, I'll be at CrossFit on Monday, ready to go. Before this cold, I had gone no more than 5 days with no workouts earlier in the year. I'm guessing that CrossFit will be tough for a week or two, given that the explosive strength/lactate threshold fitness is the first to disappear when you take a break.

Did I mention that the snow guns are on? If all goes well, I'll be wearing ski boots one week from today.

Re-Posts

2011-11-16T08:34:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I removed two posts I had written about the problems at Penn State. I mentioned in yesterday's post that I had removed them, and gave a brief reason why I'd done so. My friend Ollie replied to yesterday's post with a nice comment:

"Actually, I wish that you'd repost those articles you wrote about Penn State. While your assessment about the "smug writers" is correct, the solution is to have more sane, thoughtful voices, not fewer."

So, I'm putting both posts into this one post. My apologies to my friend Jeff, whose comment on my first post seems to be forever gone.

I forget the exact days that I posted them, but both were posted last week, in the first week or so of the scandal. They are listed below in the order I originally posted them.

Shatter the Illusion of Integrity

I woke up this morning with Rush's song "The Spirit of Radio" in my head. I don't know why. I don't think I've heard it recently. But, as I thought about the song, and the sad events at Penn State over the last week, it seemed to make some sense to me.

For the most part here, I write about me - what I do, what I think, what I want to do. It's my blog, so I guess I have that right. Most of what I write is about workouts, races, skiing, and every once in a while, a political comment. Today's post is deeply personal and written with a heavy heart.

Last Saturday, as I was watching college football, news started to break out of Penn State about indictments and truly heinous acts by a former Penn State coach. At first, it seemed like one bad apple, and perhaps some higher ups who didn't follow through on their legal obligations. But, as we all know now, it was way more than that. And, despite everything we seem to know, I wonder if it's still going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

This will probably be a long rambling post. First of all, if I get a fact or two wrong, please forgive me. And secondly, if any sentence here sounds like I'm support the people in power at Penn State, it's unintentional. I simply cannot support the people who have lost their jobs in any way.

But, let's go back to the beginning. I grew up in PA, born in 1962, four years before Paterno became head coach. I remember a Christmas day bowl game for PSU where my grandmother was horrified that my dad would turn on football on Christmas. I remember Art Schlichter, a star football recruit for Ohio State, throwing the ball to Penn State defenders repeatedly in his first big game - or maybe it was his first ever game. I believe Penn State beat Bert Jones in the Sugar Bowl before Jones went on to replace Unitas in Baltimore. By the time I was 10 or 11, my parents took me to Penn State's spring football game - the Blue and White game. I paid $1 that day to join the Nittany Lion Club. After the 1976 season, I cobbled together $65 for a ticket and my share of expenses to go to the Sugar Bowl, where Penn State lost to Alabama in a heartbreaking 14-7 loss. Somewhere, I still have the pom poms given to us by the Penn State cheerleaders before that game. While in college, I remember trekking from Bucknell to Penn State with my best friend and a little bit of money, hoping to score a cheap ticket to the game against Maryland. We got into the game in the middle of the first quarter. I remember seeing Booker Moore break his leg in a home game. I remember being disappointed when PSU kicked a late field goal against Cincinnati in a blowout game at Beaver Stadium. I think the field goal may have put them over 50, but it didn't matter and it seemed tacky. I remember seeing Pitt blow out Penn State while I was a grad student at Penn State in 1984. I've seen Penn State play many games at Beaver Stadium. I've seen them play in the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl. I've seen them play at Brigham Young and at Boston College. I've watched 100s of games on TV. I remember Mike McQueary having a huge breakout game against Minnesota, throwing 4 or 5 TD passes in one game. Greg Garrity's catch. The Giftopoulos interception. Two national championships. Curt Warner outrushing the Heisman winner in consecutive bowl games (Walker and Allen, I believe) The Orange Bowl loss to Oklahoma and Jamielle Holloway - John Shaffer's only loss. I've seen Penn State beat Nebraska, Notre Dame, Oregon, Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State in person. I was there the day Penn State lost 6-4 to Iowa, when Iowa took a deliberate safety and dared PSU to score a field goal. Three straight losses to Nebraska, Iowa and Cincinnati to start their national title defense in 1983.

I guess it's in my blood. I've been to a game as recently as a month ago. I had hoped to go the game this coming weekend, but ticket prices were too high for me.

In my life, I have to say I've had three people I've admired as father figures. First is my father-in-law, a wonderful man who is the same age as Joe and got his PhD at Penn State while Joe was an assistant. The former head athletic trainer at Bucknell, Edgar "Hal" Biggs taught me a lot, put up with some lapses on my part, and was the first ever adult to treat me like another adult. And of course, even though I never met him, there was JoePa. Integrity. Honesty. Succeeding the right way. And even when they lost, fans still had his morals to lean on. No excessive celebrations on the field. No fancy uniforms. "When you get to the end zone, don't dance, but act like you've been there before and expected to be there".

And in a few days, it's all been shattered. I'm left in despair. I've read the indictment. I don't see how McQueary (who I thought might be the next head coach) or Paterno can feel they did the moral thing. People were hurt. Badly. People were hurt long after it should have been stopped.

I'm so sad for those boys. So ashamed of the apparent complicity. I feel like I've been stabbed in the heart.

Which leads to the illusion of integrity:

Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength

Bearing a gift beyond price, almost free

All this machinery making modern music

Can still be open-hearted.

Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question

Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty.

One likes to believe in the freedom of music,

But glittering prizes and endless compromises

Shatter the illusion of integrity.

For the words of the profits were written on the studio wall,

Concert hall

And echoes with the sounds of salesmen.

Yeah, the song is about how industry and money ruin radio and music, and how fans can rob the artists as well, but it seems to apply here as well.

The gift of Penn State football, almost free if you chose to watch it on TV and simply enjoy.

Honesty here applies to the consumers, but in reality, it was people at Penn State who showed a lack of honesty.

Glittering prizes, endless compromises, profits, salesmen.

To me, the illusion of integrity has always been that now. I know that 60+ years of hopefully doing the right thing isn't erased, but it's tarnished beyond recognition. And Penn State fans are left to grieve. I do hope that the grief is about the pain inflicted upon a cadre of young boys. There will be plenty of time later to grieve for the football team and university.

Right now, I haven't missed watching, attending, or listening to a single Penn State game for years. This Saturday, I honestly have no interest in what happens on the field. I'm very curious how the fans in the stands will act, and curious if the players will be able to find a way to even care. But, I'm not sure I'm curious enough to even watch.

(Post-script to this post: I did watch the game and I'm glad I did. While I found the pre-game mid-field prayer a bit contrived, it was nice to see the honest emotions of fans caught on TV. Along with the 100,000+ fans with tears in their eyes, I'm sure there were many, many more people at home affected the same way.)

Biggest Sports Scandal Ever

My wife and I were discussing the concept of big sports scandals last night. Almost everything we could think of came down to cheating for one of two purposes - to win unfairly or to make money.

Overage pitchers in the Little League World Series

Point shaving in college basketball

Stealing signs in the 1951 NL pennant race

Steroids in (insert your sport/event here)

Officials in the 1972 Olympic basketball finals

A bizarre case of two horses whose owner did an "identity switch"

The infamous 1919 Chicago Black Sox

Betting on sports where you are involved (Pete Rose and an NBA official)

Riding the subway to a Boston Marathon victory

Knee-capping a figure skating opponent

Bribery to get the Olympics or World Cup

Stealing a corked bat from the umpires' locker room

Doctoring the baseball (Yes, you, Doug Drabek)

So, who lost in each of the examples above? Obviously, truth, integrity, honesty, whatever you want to call it, took a big hit. Gamblers (legal and illegal) were affected. Pride. Egos.

To all of that, I say (trepidatiously) "So What?"

None of those can compare, in my opinion, to hiding a pervert in your midst, and even worse, giving the pervert access to his victims and a location to commit his crimes.

Some people think that the NCAA will never again use the death penalty in a sport, as they did for the SMU football team in the 1980s. There is so much money to be made in college football, especially with a team that is on TV every week and sells out the third biggest stadium in the country regularly.

But, if there was a cover-up, if there is evidence that Penn State covered for Sandusky in any way, or evidence of wrongdoing shows up related to a missing prosecutor (search the name Ray Gricar and see what you think), Penn State might deserve the death penalty.

It's hard to imagine that Beaver Stadium could sit empty for a few years, but perhaps it would be appropriate.

There have been rumors in State College for a few months that Urban Meyer has interviewed at PSU and even bought a house in Boalsburg. But, why would he want that job now?

Just like the Catholic Church, the term "fall from grace" seems so appropriate.

And remember, I'm a fan. This isn't an opinion from an Ohio State fan who thinks that Tressel and Hayes were treated badly. I have to admit that I loved those guys going down.

The word schaudenfreude seems so apropos. (German and French in the same sentence!)

Thanks for the comment Ollie!

Random thoughts from a runaway life

2011-11-15T10:16:00.004-05:00

I just deleted two posts I wrote about the whole Penn State scandal. The more I've read about this on the internet, the more I've been disgusted with smug writers who seem to know (without a doubt) who did what, who was at fault, what should be done, etc. I've decided that I don't want my blog to even be part of that conversation.

I seem to have come down with a head cold. Work has been intense and stressful, with a 12+ hour day yesterday. In the last couple weeks, I've also gotten somewhat lazy with my diet, eating grains, particularly wheat, after assiduously avoiding them for months. Is getting sick related to that?

Two weeks ago, I got in five good workouts. Last week, I only got in two workouts. Work played a factor there. Stress. So, maybe being sick is a combination of diet, stress, and lack of sleep. I'm trying to fix all of these right now, although the stress may never go away unless my job goes away. And if that happens, one type of stress will simply replace another.

Right now, even though I haven't done a workout since last Wednesday, I'll probably take a few more days off this week, given how I feel right now.

My son managed to wreck our second car two weeks ago, and he came very close to totaling the car. He has stepped up to pay for a rental car and the deductible, and it's been an expensive lesson for him and an inconvenience for everyone else.

The car accident prevented me from getting to the Stone Cat marathon as planned. My wife and I were planning two nights away from home for that race, and without another car at home for the kids, that wan't good parenting. And, the marathon had prevented me from attending a party for a good friend that I don't see often enough.

My wife and I did manage to see Furthur a couple weeks ago, mostly because that one was close enough to home that we could leave home just for the evening. I have to wonder if that's the last time I'll see Phil and Bobby in concert. There were some high points in the show, but the audience was nowhere close to a sellout. If they aren't selling out medium sized venues, maybe they'll decide it's not worth living on the road all the time.

I even took a few days of vacation around that show and the planned marathon. But then, I did some work on every one of my vacation days - not really the time off I needed.

This weekend, some good college friends are coming to visit and I'm very much looking forward to the visit and cooking a nice dinner for all of us.

Today is 11/15. Sugarbush had hoped to open for skiing on the 19th, but it was 60F when I got up this morning. It is supposed to get colder towards the weekend and with a little luck, we might be skiing the following weekend.

And maybe in a few days, I'll get back to CrossFit.

If I don't spontaneously combust before then...

CrossFit "Karen"

2011-10-27T12:00:00.002-04:00

What could be more simple than 150 Wall Balls? Just do them as fast as you can.

Well, I did a sprint workout on Monday. Tuesday, I did some lifts that I rarely do, and I was sore going into the workout yesterday. After our warm-up, I was a bit more loose, but still somewhat sore.

Oh yeah, then we did 6 sets of increasingly heavy strict presses, tiring out our arms somewhat. In theory, the Wall Ball is about the power coming out of the squat - the hip extension that propels the ball upwards. In theory. But, it doesn't always work that way.

I looked at the board before we started. The fastest times were in the low 7 minute range. Many of those were scaled - using a med ball that weighed less than 20# for a male or 14# for a female. I had visions of taking 15 minutes, given how I felt, so I scaled my workout to a 14# med ball.

And then, we were off. I did a set of 30 before a short rest. I thought maybe I could do the workout as 5 x 30. But, 20 reps into my second set, I was hurting. I took a short break. And then did 20 more. And 20 more. At 90, in my state of oxygen deprivation, I "realized" that I only needed two more sets of 20. (I have a math degree). Then I realized it was three more sets. Time seemed to slow down. I started to think about not throwing up. But, I kept going. And, I made it at 7:46. My buddy Ken did sub-7 with a 20# med ball. He's young and tough and strong. It was a great workout. Tanya, to my immediate left, finished about a minute later. Her time for the prescribed workout was very solid.

I don't know if anybody really enjoyed the workout, but it was a burner. After I finished, I staggered to a chair to sit down for a bit, and for a second, I thought I might get sick. But, I held it together.

Now today, I just need to see if I'm too sore to work out.

And next time we do Karen, I'm moving up to the 20# med ball, even if it takes me all day.

Nice and Simple

2011-10-26T12:44:00.002-04:00

Last night was a "work your weakness" night. I got to the gym early and spent almost half an hour stretching.

Then, it was pretty straightforward:

10x4 front squats - every minute on the minute - at 115#

I can lift a lot more than that, but I'm working on using the standard grip and keeping my upper body upright. So, the lighter weights allow me to do that and still get in a good workout.

10x5 kettlebell swings - 53 pound KB - every minute on the minute

Then, 12 minutes, as many reps as possible:

10 Bulgarian Split Squats using 2x26# KBs, five on each leg

10 Burpees - focusing on form on every rep.

In total, I did 40 front squats, 50 KB swings, 60 BSSs and 52 Burpees. I can feel today that I worked hard yesterday. But, if I'm not tired or sore after a WYW day, I didn't really work my weakness.

CrossFit again tonight. The next two days are questionable because my snow tires aren't on yet and we are going to get some snow tomorrow evening and into Friday morning.

Eleven Days - No Posts

2011-10-25T13:04:00.003-04:00

In the photo above, although my form is far from perfect, I was setting a new PR in a lift called the split jerk. The photo was taken a couple weeks ago.

In my last post, I said I needed some rest. I did take some rest days, a total of 7 rest days in 11 days. And, I feel a lot better.

Work has been really, really busy. We are working on a new product, seriously changing our existing products, and it's been stressful. For a while, between training, work, commuting, and sleep, sleep was losing badly. I was exhausted, and decided I couldn't keep going like that. I know I'm in trouble with my sleep if I find myself feeling sleepy on my drive home. That has happened more than once this month and it's simply not smart or safe.

I'd been working out 5-6 days most weeks recently. Two weeks ago, I did 4 days. Last week 3. And I've been sleeping. Yesterday, I went to bed before 8:00 p.m., and slept until almost 6:30 this morning. I feel pretty good today and I'm looking forward to getting back to CrossFit tonight. I've had a couple months this year where I went to CF 15-16 days out of the month. This month, it's been 6 days so far, although I've done some other workouts as well.

Last night, my wife and I did a 30 minute running interval workout. A short warm-up, go hard for a minute, easy for a minute ten times, and then a cooldown. Then, a quick dinner and an early bedtime.

Hopefully, I'll get back to training a bit more in these next couple weeks. By the first of December, I should be skiing on the weekends, so I have one more month to get myself in better shape for the winter.

I need a rest day!

2011-10-14T09:46:00.003-04:00

Last night at CrossFit, I arrived sore and tired. Luckily, the warm-up plus some additional foam rolling was just what I needed, and by the time the main workout hit, I felt a lot better.

We started out with heavy singles of split jerks. This is a fairly complex Olympic lifting movement, and I don't get to practice it very often. Basically, it's a technique for finishing a Clean and Jerk, and a proper split jerk allows many lifters to jerk more weight than by any other jerk method. But, if you don't do it fast and really drop under the weight, it can be a frustrating movement. Before I picked the link above, I looked at a number of videos that showed pretty poor form. It's not that I'm better than the people in the videos, but there were clear form issues in many of the videos out there.

Anyway, my C&J PR is 165#, so I should be able to split jerk more than 165#, if my technique is correct. But, before last night, my best had been 125#, done more than 6 months ago. Part of the lack of progress had been my shoulder injury, but my shoulder feels pretty good these days, so I'm more willing to try heavy overhead lifts right now versus a few months ago.

After warming up, starting at 45 pounds, I easily got to 125, 135, 145 and even 155. I struggled at 165, just missing twice. The misses were all about form - I was not fast enough and didn't commit hard enough to dropping under the bar. But, I got a big PR and I know I can go even heavier.

After the split jerks, we had a 13 minute MetCon. Some of our workouts start with a task that is called a "buy-in". A buy-in is a task that needs to be completed to start the workout, but doesn't count towards your score for the workout. The goal is to complete the buy-in quickly, so you have plenty of time to accumulate whatever the "scoring" task is.

So, last night, we had a 1200 meter run as a buy-in, and for the rest of the 13 minutes, we did Turkish Get-Ups. Our score for the workout was the total number of TGUs completed. Our 400 m loop is long - by as much as 20% or so. We actually ran about 0.85 miles, and it took me 6:54 to complete that task - about an 8mpm pace. Then, in the 6+ minutes that remained, I managed to perform 15 TGUs with a 26 pound kettlebell.

Today is a rest day. I'm hoping I feel less sore and beat up tomorrow. I'm planning to do a 3 hour or so run tomorrow, given that I have a marathon in 3 weeks.

Another tough night at CrossFit

2011-10-13T11:39:00.002-04:00

Back to back really tough nights have been rare at CF recently, or so it seems. Maybe it's because I missed a few classes the last couple weeks due to a lot of other things going on in my life.

I was tired and my quads were a little sore when I got to the gym last night. I warmed up on the rower, doing 4K to complete the 100K rowing challenge in 28 days. I definitely improved my rowing technique and got faster on the rower in the past four weeks. However, I can't say that I've become a fan of rowing, so I'm sure I'll drop my volume down somewhat.

Next, we did heavy deadlifts. I did the following:

2x225 - warm-up

2x275 - first working set

5x305

3x325

3x355

failed at 375, rested, failed again

2x325

This was easily the most reps over 300 pounds that I've done in one workout. It was obvious that I'd been working hard (the 3x355 was really tough) when I could barely budge the 375 bar.

So, after rowing 4K and doing hard deadlifts, it was now time for the main workout, and it was a tough one:

5 rounds, as quickly as possible:

40 double-unders (or 120 jump rope singles)

30 box jumps

20 kettlebell swings

Because I can't do double-unders consistently, I knew this would be a long workout.

In the first set of rope jumping, I made 113 reps unbroken. And then, I almost killed myself on my first box jump, missing the jump and narrowly avoiding a fall. I slowed down and got through the jumps, but after the first round, I switched to a lower box, fearing somewhat for my safety. Missing a box jump and landing on the edge of the box does unpleasant things to your legs. For the KB swings, I used a 35# KB, and the first round went smoothly.

In the second round, I did the 120 reps unbroken. That felt good. The lower box jumps and the KB swings went well. And then, I forgot how to jump rope. Before I'd gotten to 60 reps in the third set, I had at least 15 missed jumps. I don't know what was going on. So, I blamed it on the rope, threw it in a corner (somewhat angrily), went and got a new rope, and did the last 60 reps uninterrupted. In the fourth round of rope jumping, I went 120 straight. And in the last round, I basically stopped at about 50 to catch my breath, but didn't miss a rep. Clearly the rope was at fault in that middle round.

I was the last one in the gym to finish, in 23:59. And, I was whipped. After the workout, I saw the chiropractor that works at our gym, for some work on my neck and my shoulders. He noted that my shoulder were really showing the effects of the workout we'd just done - mostly the deadlifts, I imagine. He also commented on my form during the KB swings, and gave me some pointers to avoid injuries with these, especially at higher weights.

Today, I'm sore from my last three days of workouts. I can't go to CF tomorrow, so I'll go tonight and scale the workout as needed to get through it safely.

I'll work from home tomorrow. My daughter has a soccer game. I'm done with the rowing challenge. I think I'll take tomorrow as a rest day.

CrossFit - Chief

2011-10-12T09:48:00.003-04:00

Just under a year ago, I walked into a local CrossFit gym for the first time. The date was 11/2/2010. I had been anxiously waiting for CrossFit to come to Vermont for a few years, and I don't know why, but the week before, I'd done a Google search and found out that there were suddenly 2 affiliates in Vermont. If I've heard the story correctly, Wyoming got its first affiliate just before Vermont, making us the last state with a CrossFit box.

I walked into class that night, mostly to observe. I watched the warm-up. I watched the strength work. And then Jade, the owner and coach, asked if I wanted to do the main workout. I had workout clothes with me and I jumped at the idea. The workout was called Chief. It goes like this:

5 rounds of the following:

3 minutes of as many reps as possible - 135# barbell cleans, 6 push-ups, 9 air squats

1 minute rest

After each rest period, you start where you left off. That night, I used 95 pounds for cleans rather than 135. I had never done a clean before in my life. After the first two rounds, I switched from real push-ups to knee push-ups. And, I completed 21 full rounds, plus 3 cleans.

Last night, when I arrived at CrossFit, I rowed for a while. Then, I did the official warm-up. Then, we spent 10 minutes practice double-unders with jump ropes. And then, we did Chief.

This time, I went to 115 pounds for the cleans and I probably should have done 135 pounds. But, my PR is only 165 pounds and we were told that our goal should be continuous motion in the set of 3 cleans. I knew I could do that at 115#, but I wasn't sure about 135#.

I was determined to do legit push-ups for every single round.

In the first three minutes, I completed 4 rounds. In each of the next four, I didn't make four rounds, but I completed more than 3. With 10 seconds left on the clock, I needed to do 9 air squats to complete 18 rounds. I missed by 1 rep.

So, I finished three fewer rounds than almost a year ago. With higher weights. With 108 legit push-ups. A year ago, I don't know if I could have done 108 legit push-ups in 19 minutes.

A year ago, I could barely walk the next day. Today, I'm a bit tired but not too bad. That's a good thing, because I saw on Facebook that tonight's workout is going to be tough. The main workout will come after some rowing and some heavy deadlifts. I need 4KM more to complete my 100KM rowing challenge. That will be finished tomorrow if tonight's workout doesn't completely trash me.

Just under a year later, I remain as challenged and intrigued by CrossFit as that first time I met the "Chief".

Just some numbers - 3/4 of the way through the year

2011-10-11T15:46:00.002-04:00

Last year, I did a total of 190 workouts during the year - probably the fewest days of exercise I've had in a year in the past 25 years or so. This even includes 2000, when I was injured and recovering from surgery for a lot of the year, and 1998, when the birth of my daughter and some work issues led to a below average year.

As of yesterday, I've done some sort of exercise at least 191 days this year. It breaks down something like this:

Running: 250 miles (pretty pathetic, but more than last year)

Cycling: 475 miles

Rowing: 93KM

Skiing: 32 days

CrossFit: 91 days

Other workouts: 17 (mostly strength work)

And, I've lost 25 pounds for the year. I still have more weight to lose, but it's been a good year so far. I'm really excited to start skiing in six weeks or so, and see how my lighter weight and improved fitness translate to the mountains.

Rowing 10K

2011-10-06T15:05:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago at the gym, I heard some people talking about their best times on the rower for the 5K. One person commented that he'd just rowed a new 5K PR, and that when he started rowing, it was never his intent to go that hard. He simply started rowing, felt good, and ended up pushing hard through the distance.

That's exactly what happened to me yesterday. I was planning to row 10K, with no particular time goal. I took it easy for the first 2000, and it felt pretty good. And, I wasn't that far off from my 2K PR. So, I decided to push a little bit for the next 2K. That went pretty well as well. So, I kept pushing hard. My third 2000 went pretty well, but I struggled a bit on the 4th. As I started the last 2000, I was hurting, yet I knew I'd have a big PR if I didn't give up.

My first 5K was 20:48 and my second was 20:44, for a time of 41:31.6. My previous best for 2000 was 8:18, and I basically averaged that pace for 10000 meters yesterday.

After I was done, I basically laid on a mat in the gym, sweating and trying to recover. I was on the mat for a long time, with sweat just pouring off of me.

I am planning to get to CrossFit tonight and then do some rowing tomorrow morning. But, I also feel like I might be coming down with a cold, so we'll see how things go.

Sucked into a vortex, it seems

2011-10-05T14:07:00.002-04:00

I don't know if I've been busy, or just not motivated recently. It's probably a little bit of each, but I seem to just be hanging on. And I'm not even sure what it is that I'm hanging onto.

Last week, I skipped CrossFit on Thursday and Friday to end the week. I didn't work out at all those two days. News at work earlier in the week certainly affected those decisions and my motivation.

On Saturday, I managed to get to the gym for a 6K row - not a very interesting or significant workout. Sunday, I worked, and when combined with the crappy weather, I didn't do much else.

Monday, I managed to row 10K and go to my daughter's soccer game after work.

Tuesday, I actually overslept and I was late for work. I can't remember the last time I did this, but I haven't been sleeping very well recently. I was exhausted after work and didn't do anything but watch TV.

We have been dealing with a broken-down car (the part is due in today), so I've been playing chauffeur a lot. This morning, I took my daughter to the orthodontist and I've been working ever since.

The great majority of my work today has been de-activating our most financially lucrative customer in our data system. I think that this issue has really been part of my sudden and recent malaise. The termination from the customer cost me a long-overdue raise and that's been an unpleasant turn of events. What's even more frustrating to me, at times, is that my company has a really good product that has a great return on investment for patient and providers. Basically we have a product that gets patients and doctors talking to each other, cooperatively managing Type 2 Diabetes, and our research shows that our product saves over 25 times what it costs in health care costs. Soon, we will have similar capabilities related to other chronic diseases. So, shouldn't people be beating down our door to get this product?

Unbelievably, the fact that our product can reduce healthcare costs is a dis-incentive for many potential customers. "So, let me get this straight. I am going to pay you money. My diabetic patients will be healthier in the long run. They won't need as much hands-on health care. So, I am going to pay you money so that I can bring in less revenue? Don't let the door hit you on the way out." So, our challenge is to sell to people who have some money on the line - some "skin in the game", so to speak. But, the people with money on the line tend to be far removed from the individual patients. We are talking about government and large insurance companies. They like the idea, but they seem convinced they can do it better. Without us. Yet, I know for sure that this isn't happening at places where we have worked in the past.

It scares me that the health care system can be that indifferent. A billable visit or even an amputation doesn't seem to be an issue. Yet, doing something proactive to help people be more healthy and reduce health care costs isn't worth the effort. I really love my job and I think it provides value to its users and society as a whole. And yet, we are having a hard time getting anywhere in the market. Chronic diseases consume a huge percentage of our health care costs - as high as 75% of all health care costs. That doesn't even begin to address things like lost productivity at work (one study in 2003 estimated that lost productivity was about 4x the health care costs associated with chronic disease), or lost/reduced quality of life.

I believe in what we do at work. A decade ago, I had a job in the genetics software field where I had a similar passion. Despite our belief in the value of our product, and despite getting the company public, I eventually lost my job as 75% of the company was laid off in one day. I was the most senior employee who lost a job that day, and a lot of the reason for that, in my opinion, was that I had a lot of options worth a lot of money in an acquisition, but worthless if I was laid off. I had given an excess of time and effort to that company but didn't receive the same consideration in return. I swore I'd never work that hard again or care about a job like that again. And yet, here I am.

Yesterday, I finally told management at work that I needed some time off. I'm taking a four day weekend this coming weekend to go to a college football game with my brother.

In early November, I'm going to take a long weekend to see Furthur, run a trail marathon and then visit some other friends. I need the break.

Now, if I can just find the motivation to row my 10K tonight, I should at least remain on target for my 100K rowing challenge. And, tomorrow, I hope to return to CrossFit after missing a whole week - something I haven't done in quite a while.

And while I'm not on vacation or at the gym, I'll probably continue to work too many hours. Because it seems to make sense to me.

Busy week

2011-09-29T13:46:00.003-04:00

When did I last post? Maybe last Friday morning.

Work has been crazy busy, working with a consultant on a new product that we are building. I am the consultant's go-to person for any and all questions about the product. I'm also building a lot of reports that will be part of the new product. Plus, those reports are what our customers will see, so attention to detail is very important. And, I'm also building a huge suite of test data for the application once coding is finished. So, work has been very time consuming.

Last Friday, I rowed an easy 5K and then went to watch my daughter play soccer.

Saturday and Sunday, I watched some football, went fly fishing with my son, and did some work around the house. Plus, I worked when I had time.

Monday, I rowed 10K and went to watch my daughter play soccer again. I was very glad to be at this game, their first win of the year.

Tuesday, I worked and went to CrossFit. I got in some easy rowing before a tough workout - as many reps as possible of the following in 30 minutes:

Run 400 meters

30 Kettlebell snatches - my arms and shoulders are still sore from these

20 box jumps

10 pull-ups.

I did four rounds plus part of another 400, finishing the fifth 400 at 31:55. Our "400" is actually closer to 470 meters, but it's close enough.

Wednesday was kind of a rough day. We got some bad news here at work regarding our biggest customer. This had all kinds of immediate financial implications for our small company. I was just about to get my first raise in over 5 years, and it was supposed to be a nice raise. Instead, the raise was put on hold and some other people took temporary salary cuts. Hopefully, we'll close some sales soon and our revenue won't affected too badly. I really believe in the value of the product that we provide, or I wouldn't be taking the chances with an underfunded start-up the way I've been doing for years.

It was a disappointing day though. I made it to CrossFit after work, did some easy rowing, some heavy squats, some fast rowing, a bunch of burpees, and some running. Then, I went home and the day got worse. The Red Sox blew a lead and lost. The Yankees didn't seem to make any effort at all to hold a lead over Tampa Bay, and Tampa won in extra innings, knocking the Sox out of the playoffs - the end of an epic collapse.

Then, my wife and I awoke at 3:00 a.m. this morning to the sound of our dogs fighting. After we got them apart and calmed down, we discovered that one or both of them had emptied a garbage can all over the kitchen and living room. It honestly looked like someone had deliberately poured the contents of the garbage as widely around as possible. We figure that if either or both dogs get sick, we'll know who is guilty.

Today, it's back at work and CrossFit later.

I'm at the midpoint of the rowing challenge in terms of time, and I've rowed 51,000 meters, just about half of what I'm supposed to do in the challenge. So, that is moving along just fine.

Busy workout in humid weather

2011-09-23T11:36:00.002-04:00

Last night, when I got to the gym, it was just starting to rain. It had been humid all day.

We work out in a warehouse type of facility, a typical CrossFit "box" that in no way resembles a Globo Gym. There is no air conditioning, and the big back doors are often open, so we essentially train in the same "air" that exists outside.

I got to the gym early yesterday. So, I worked on Double Unders for a while. I'm getting better, but still not ready to incorporate them into a workout.

Then, I rowed 3000 meters towards our month-long challenge. I'm at 30KM after 8 days, easily on pace for my 100KM.

Then came the official warm-up:

Run 100 meters

3 rounds of Cindy (5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats)

Run 100 meters

By now, having only finished the warm-up, the humidity was really affecting me. My shirt was absolutely soaked. Luckily, I had a second shirt in my bag and I switched for the main workout.

Next, we were supposed to work on snatch balances. Regretfully, to do a good snatch balance, you really need to have a good overhead squat, which I'm still working on. So, despite doing OH squats on Monday, I spent the strength portion last night working on them again.

After 20 minutes of OH squats, including one where I lost my balance and had to throw the bar, it was time for the main workout:

12 minutes - as many reps as possible:

Row 2000 meters

Double Unders or Box jumps

The rowing was there simply to take up time, delaying your start of the double unders or box jumps. Your score was the reps for the last exercise, and I was doing box jumps. It took me 8:18 to row 2000 meters, leaving me about 3.5 minutes for box jumps. I got 45 in that time span. Two other people who rowed more slowly than I did also managed 45 box jumps. So, while my rowing had given me an advantage, the others were much more proficient in the box jumps. I guess that gives me a "work your weakness" task the next time we do that workout.

So, in one workout, I did some running, easy rowing, hard rowing, pull-ups, push-ups, air squats, overhead squats, rope jumping, and box jumps.

Just another day at CrossFit.

My plan for today is to row an easy 5000 meters after my daughter's soccer game. Tomorrow, I'm planning some running sprints and 10000 meters of rowing before I start watching college football.

Sunday, I might row a bit, but my main priority is getting out for some fly fishing with my son. The season is just about over, and some of our rivers and streams have finally recovered enough from Irene to be worth fishing again.

And Another PR in the Gym

2011-09-22T12:25:00.002-04:00

I am on some kind of a roll recently in the gym.

In recent weeks, I've set new bests for the clean, the clean and jerk, the strict press, the 500 meter row, and tied bests in overhead squats, and the back squat.

Last night, we were working on deadlift sets as follows:

5 reps - 65% of 1 rep max

5 - 70%

3 - 75%

3 - 80%

1 - 85%

max - 90%

But, I hadn't tried a maximal deadlift for a while, so I deviated in the last set. I started at 245 for my first set, and by the fifth, I was at 320 pounds. This went pretty easily, so I skipped the 335 pound max reps set, and tried for a new PR at 385 pounds, vs. my previous best of 375.

It turned out to be a very unusual lift. I got the bar a couple inches off the ground and then I just stalled. After maybe 5 seconds (OK, probably 2, but it felt like a lot more), I was about to give up on the lift, assuming I couldn't make it. My lifting partner said later that I shifted my body position just a little bit, moving back just a bit and allowing my hips to open up a bit more easily. Suddenly, the bar started moving slowly upwards again. I knew as soon as I had movement, I'd finish the lift. When I fail, it's always early in this lift, unlike strict presses, where I often fail at the end of the lift.

And, bit by bit, with the whole gym watching, I nailed the rep. Everyone broke out in applause; it was pretty cool to pull it off with an audience. It wasn't pretty, but it's a new PR for me.

My weight is down to 210 right now, from a high of 236 back in April. One of my deadlifting goals for a while has been to lift twice my body weight. Yesterday, I lifted 183% of my body weight, so I'm getting close. If I can get under 200 pounds and get to 405# on this lift by the end of the year, I'll make that goal.

After my deadlift, the rest of the workout seemed unimportant. The workout was 100 burpee pull-ups, which is a tough one. You do a burpee, but instead of the normal jump at the end, you jump to a pull-up bar and do a pull-up. If you can't do pull-ups, you are supposed to do 10 burpees, 10 pull-ups, etc.

Another option is jumping pull-ups, where you use a lower pull-up bar than prescribed, and really get a jumping start to the pull-up. I chose that option, and scaled the workout to 60 reps. I finished in 11:29, but kind of felt like a cheater because everyone else was still going.

After the workout, the chiropractor worked on my shoulder a bit, and we decided to decrease the frequency of treatments; my shoulder is just about fully healed.

Then, I headed home to watch the CrossFit games on TV.

All in all, it was a pretty good day.

Today, I'll do some rowing and the CrossFit workout, and then tomorrow may be a rest day. My legs are a bit tired today.

Another lifting PR

2011-09-21T12:01:00.002-04:00

Last night at CF, we started with 7 x 1 clean and jerks. This is a lift that I don't do very often, except at lower weights in our main workout. The goal last night was to do heavy reps. I looked at my logbook and found that my best C&J was only 135 pounds. Given that I'd cleaned 165 pounds a week or two ago, and that I can push press 135 pounds, it seemed a sure thing that I would, at the very least, tie my best weight.

I warmed up at 95 pounds and then started adding weight, 10 or 20 pounds at a time. At 155 pounds, the lift still went pretty well - a new PR by 20 pounds. Then, I tried 165 a few times. I could handle the clean, but my jerk (I was using a split jerk) just wasn't dynamic enough, and I failed a couple times. Finally, after some coaching, I managed to commit more to the movement and I nailed 165 pounds. So, I tried 175 pounds, which would be a PR for the clean as well as the clean and jerk. Here, I failed on the clean. My pull was good enough, but I just couldn't get under the bar quickly enough. But, I'm getting better.

I dropped back to 165 and nailed another rep there and then called it a day on the C&Js - with a 30 pound PR.

Next was the main workout - 4 x 500m of rowing. I had planned to take yesterday as a rest day from rowing after rowing for 3 straight days, but it wasn't to be. The pointers that I got at the gym recently from a Concept2 employee have really helped me, and I'm rowing faster than ever.

In a time trial at 500 meters a few weeks ago, I got 147.6. Yesterday, my first rep, with less effort than the time trial a few weeks ago, was a 1:46.4. I did fade a bit, with one rep at 1:50, but I averaged 1:48.1 for the four reps. And, I got a 500 meter PR out of the workout.

Work has been crazy for a few days, but our release seems to be stabilizing, so I can get back to my normal software development work for now. I hope. Nothing seems to be broken at the moment anyway.

Tonight at CF, I know we are starting with heavy deadlifts, but who knows what we'll do after that.

Sometime this week, I need to do some running as well. I've got a marathon in six weeks or so.

Row, row, row your (fake) boat...

2011-09-20T13:15:00.002-04:00

The last few days, including the weekend, have been pretty intense at work. We put a major new release out yesterday, and it's required a lot of planning and baby-sitting - making sure that nothing is misbehaving in the software.

I've managed to keep working out, but things have been pretty boring the past few days.

Friday was a rest day.

Saturday was the farmers market, an 8K row, and I watched college football the rest of the day.

On Sunday, I worked, did a lot of work around the house, rowed 5K pretty easily, and tried to get to bed early.

Yesterday, I rowed and did CrossFit. I had a really good workout yesterday, feeling really strong. Some lifting, some bodyweight stuff, some running - same old, same old.

Then, home for dinner with the family, a couple innings of the Red Sox game, up at 5:00 today, took my son to work, and got to the office before 7:00.

I think I need a vacation.

Owww! - Beat up today

2011-09-16T10:01:00.002-04:00

Last night's CF workout was very different than normal.

First, I arrived early and rowed 5K, the start of my 100K in 30 days challenge. That was a more substantial warm-up than I normally do, but I kept the effort fairly moderate.

Then we worked on squat snatches. I'm getting better at this lift, but I still have some mobility and speed and technique issues. We did 3x3 at heavier weights and then 3x10 at lighter weights.

And then, we went outside for sled pulls - 8 reps of about 30 seconds each with 90 seconds rest. These were brutally hard, and my entire body hurts today.

I was planning to row some more today, but with a CrossFit fundraiser/workout tomorrow morning, I think it's a rest day today.

Tomorrow morning, we have an open gym, doing a workout called Fight Gone Bad. It's 17 minutes of torture. It's also a major CF fundraiser, so we'll have a big crowd.

After that, I'm likely to come home and take a nap while attempting to watch college football. Hopefully, I'll be up for some rowing on Sunday.

Autumn is rapidly approaching here in VT and we are going to have cool temps all weekend, with the chance of frost. Hopefully, the farmers markets will continue to have good produce for a few more weeks, but as October approaches, the volume definitely decreases. I haven't really been in a regular supermarket all summer, living off food from the farmers markets and the side of beef in my freezer. It will be disappointing to return to the supermarket in October, even though we belong to a high quality co-op. It's just not the same as buying from the farmers directly.

Strict Press PR

2011-09-15T11:15:00.002-04:00

A friend of mine mentioned to me recently that my blog is, um, somewhat boring. Now, she doesn't really exercise much - yoga and a she's a hasher. I can easily see that this could be boring. The title of the blog suggests that it's about ultrarunning. I haven't finished an ultra in a couple years right now, although I did a marathon this summer and I'll do another this autumn.

It's not ski season, so there's not much to say about skiing.

And, I do talk about nutrition, and I'm making good progress with a Paleo/Primal diet, but I don't spend a whole lot of time talking about that. My doctor thinks it's a fad. My boss, a doctor, also seems to think the same thing. I see what is happening with my fitness and physique, and I think the diet and CrossFit should get the credit. However, while my weight is down and my strength is up, I'm far from being a cover model for Mens Health or some other such magazine. Even if I ever did have the lean, ripped body, there's still the rest of me that would need airbrushing, I suppose.

So, am I just talking to hear myself talk? Is this just a diary that I allow the whole world to see? I don't think that's really true, because there's a lot I'd write in a private diary that I'd never even consider writing here.

Perhaps it's just a glorified workout log. I do wonder if someday, my currently teenage children will stumble upon this and read it, and find out more about the dad that they ignore on a regular basis. After all, Project Runway or video games are way more interesting than a dad, at least right now.

Well, enough of that rambling. Time to write about what I always write about - a workout.

We started with strict press work at CrossFit yesterday. The rep pattern was 5-5-3-3-1-max, starting at 70% of max and going up by 5% each round. Yesterday was 9/14/2011. My best ever strict press is 125, first achieved on 12/14/2010 - nine months prior. I've done 125 a few times since, but I've failed at every attempt higher than 125. The shoulder injury that I suffered in March of this year has been part of the issue, but it's a frustrating lift. Just like the bench press, an increase in this lift comes with lots of workouts doing the lift in question, and with the addition of muscle mass in the upper body.

So yesterday, after finding that my single rep at 90% (112.5 pounds) went pretty well, I decided to skip the 95% set and try for a PR at 127.5. That would be a 2% improvement in 9 months - not very significant at all. But, I did nail the rep, and then did 3 additional push presses at the same weight. So, at age 49, there's something in my life where I'm still improving.

After that lift, the rest of the workout seemed pretty easy:

12 minutes, as many reps as possible:

12 push-ups

12 sit-ups

12 box jumps

I came within four box jumps of completing 6 rounds. If my arms weren't still feeling the effects of 200 push-ups on Monday, even if they were knee push-ups, I would have done more reps.

When I got home last night, I spent two hours watching the CrossFit Games on ESPN2. I've officially crossed into CF-nerdom now, I suppose. It was nice to see a lady from our gym doing so well in one of the workouts. And, my wife really enjoyed watching it and she will be doing her first ever CF workout this coming Saturday. My daughter, on the other hand, had a completely different viewpoint. She seemed a bit weirded out that I get home late every night because I'm doing something that ridiculous. Then, I told her about CrossFit kids, and she is now interested in trying a workout with one of her friends.

Because I stayed up late, I overslept this morning and never got to the gym to row before work. I'll definitely row tomorrow after work, and maybe I'll get in a few thousand meters after CF tonight.

Yesterday's workout

2011-09-14T11:25:00.002-04:00

It was pretty basic yesterday. After our mobility work, we spent 10 minutes working on rope jumping. I was getting frustrated with my double unders, because I can do one, and then I speed up my jumping to correspond to the faster rope speed. The coach suggested doing one double and then go back to singles for a while, and then another double, repeat, etc.

This turned out to be easier than I expected and it might be the key to me gradually being able to do multiple double-unders in a row. I will continue to practice.

The main workout was as follows:

3 rounds, as many reps as possible:

row for 3 minutes (count calories as reps)

hang cleans for 2 minutes, 75 pounds

pull-ups for 1 minute (band-assisted for me)

Rest for 2 minutes

I was consistent, albeit unimpressive, on the rower, getting 44 calories each time. My hang cleans really degraded, starting at 27 and falling to 22 and 20. My pull-ups were consistent, at 11, 11, and 10. I was still tired from 100 pull-ups the day before, and even the first set was tough.

It looks like autumn is on its way to Vermont. We have the potential for frost Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. I'm hoping to do some bike riding this coming weekend, if the daytime temperatures are warm enough.

Saturday morning, we are doing a fundraiser at CrossFit, using a workout called "Fight Gone Bad". It's an annual CF event, and I'll donate some money to the cause and show up for a rare Saturday workout.

And tomorrow, the 100,000 meter rowing challenge starts. I've committed to rowing 100KM on the rower in a 30 day period. This will be in addition to any running or CF workouts I do. It should be a busy month.

Solo CF Workout

2011-09-13T11:03:00.002-04:00

Since I worked at home yesterday, I had time for a longer than usual workout. I decided to do a CrossFit workout on my own. I chose Murph, a classic workout from the series of Hero workouts:

Run 1 mile

100 pull-ups

200 push-ups

300 bodyweight squats

Run 1 mile

The runs must come at the start and end of the workout, but the middle part can be broken up however you want. I did pull-up sets of 15-10-15-10-10-10-10-10, and then simply doubled and tripled the pull-up total each time through for the other movements.

I used assistance bands for the pull-ups, and I did knee push-ups. I can do 80-100 total push-ups in sets, but with 200, there was no way I could do them all that way.

My total time was 54:11, which is easily the longest CF workout I've done. If I'd tried to do it without assistance bands and the easier push-ups, I might not be done yet.

Today, I feel tired but not sore. I'll have to see how CF goes after work today. It's a warm day and it's going to be warm in the gym.

On Facebook, someone has recently proposed a workout called "4000 ways to F**k up a 10 mile run". This is scheduled to occur the first weekend of October, but I have to admit that I simply don't know if I can do it:

40 rounds, for time:

Run 400 meters

25 push-ups

25 sit-ups

25 bodyweight squats

25 burpees

If I think back to workouts over the last six months, I've done up to 200 knee push-ups in a day, I've done 140 sit-ups in one workout, I've done 300 air squats, and I've done at most 100 burpees. Add in ten miles of running while trying 1000 reps of each of those movements? I don't know if I can possibly finish this workout, and if I can, it will take me more than 8 hours. I may give it a go, but be reasonable when I start to hit the wall on burpees or some other limiting factor.

By the end of the week, it sounds like our local weather is going to take a turn towards autumn. We are likely to have scattered frost in New England by the weekend, and high temperatures in the 50s for a few days. I may need to pull out some of my cold weather cycling gear if I'm going to ride this coming weekend.

Annual physical, a sprint workout, and some college football

2011-09-12T10:52:00.003-04:00

On Friday afternoon, I had my annual physical. It was kind of odd, in some respects. My previously borderline high BP was normal. I've dropped one medication and cut another in half. I had lost 23 pounds since my last visit to my doctor, just a few months ago. He noted that my mood or disposition or whatever you want to call it was better than the last time he'd seen me. All in all, things went really well. Then, my doctor asked how I'd accomplished the improvements. I gave credit to training at CrossFit and my Paleo Diet. He stopped for a second, and said he wasn't familiar with CrossFit. But, Paleo was just a "fad diet", implying by the way he said it that he didn't think it was a good idea. I felt like asking him if I'd merely shown "fad" improvements in my health, but I just dropped it. I'd like to lose another 20-25 pounds right now, and see where I am at that point. I am feeling more and more fit all the time, I'm definitely getting smaller, but I am still 30 pounds heavier than when I got to Western States in 2008 - the year the race was cancelled by fires. I have more muscle mass now than I had then, but I also have more fat mass, and I need to keep working on that.

Given my family history of diabetes, the doc did order a Hemoglobin A1C test. I deal with this test all the time in my work, but I've never had one before. Hopefully, I won't be surprised by a bad result.

Friday after work, my wife and I did a quick sprint workout. We warmed up for half a mile, ran a quarter very hard, walked back to the starting point, and did three more quarters. I averaged 1:36, which is the best I've done in a long time. On the other hand, about 20 years ago, I did a dozen quarters averaging 1:16, with only 1:45 or so of recovery. I'll never see that again, but what I did on Friday is much better than when I did the same workout a couple months ago.

My wife entered a 5K XC race on Saturday morning, only 14 hours or so after this workout. She took second in her age group. I've been too polite to ask how many runners were in her AG.

Saturday, while my wife was racing, I went shopping at the farmers market, took my daughter and one of her friends out for breakfast, got some new tire tubes for my bike, and then came home to cook and watch football. I'd hoped to ride my bike, but time got away from me and it never happened.

My main interest was the Penn State vs. Alabama game. I have to admit that I didn't like anything that I saw from Penn State. After Penn State took an early 3-0 lead, Alabama tried a fake punt on their next possession. In my opinion, the spot of the ball was terrible, Alabama just barely got the first down and they went on to score a touchdown. However, even if the call was wrong, it ultimately didn't matter. Penn State simply didn't have the talent to play with Alabama. There is a world of difference in their talent levels right now. For years, I know that many people have been suggesting that Joe Paterno should retire. I've often argued that he's earned the right to retire when he wants. Penn State is only a few years removed from an 12-1 season and a BCS bowl win over Florida State. But suddenly, they seem to be, at best, a second tier team. I hate to say it, but perhaps at age 84, Joe really needs to consider retiring. I'm just a fan, a nobody in this issue. Yes, I've gone to lots of Penn State games over the years, seeing them play in CA, PA, MD, UT, LA and MA. In PA, I've seen a lot of games. Right now, I'm not even sure if I want to watch them on TV any more. I don't donate a lot of money to the university. I'm not a coach, a sportswriter, and I don't even have a degree from PSU. But, I'm guessing that there are donors and potential recruits out there who are seeing and thinking the same things as me. Oh well, it's just a sporting event played by other people that I don't know. I don't know why I let it occupy so much space in my life at times.

After training hard during the week, I ended up doing very little over the weekend. I mowed the lawn, bu that's far from a workout. I'm working from home today, so I'll probably do a CrossFit style workout on my own tonight before heading back to the actual CF gym tomorrow.

The 100 kilometer rowing challenge starts later this week as well.

My shoulders are trashed

2011-09-09T09:12:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday, we did cleans for a one rep max.

On Wednesday, Sumo deadlift high pulls plus knee-ups hanging from the bar.

And then yesterday, we did snatches and deadlifts.

The really good thing is that my shoulder injury from earlier this year is much improved. I am not holding back as much in my workouts, although I limited my snatches to 95 pounds yesterday. So, while my shoulders are sore (cleans and snatches should make your shoulders/traps sore if you do them correctly), I'm not feeling injured.

The "hot spot" I had at the top of my right hamstring felt better as the day went on yesterday, and our workout included some running, which felt OK.

Yesterday's workout:

5x5 Snatches (power snatches for me - I suck at squat snatches).

Then, 15 minutes, as many reps as possible:

10 deadlifts at 185#

10 pull-ups (band assisted)

run 250 meters

I completed five rounds plus 10 deadlifts.

Today, I'll do a running interval workout after work.

Tomorrow, I'll do a bike ride before settling in to watch the Penn State vs. Alabama game. Penn State is a 10 point underdog at home, and will have to face a tough defense and a tailback who torched them at Alabama last year. But, I think this Penn State team is better than last year's team. Both teams are unsettled at QB and at least 4 different QBs should take snaps during the game. Penn State will probably have to play nearly flawless football to win, especially in the red zone. They'll have to stay away from penalties, turnovers, and poor decisions by young QBs. But, playing at Beaver Stadium is a big benefit. I've seen some very good visiting teams lose there over the years.

Oh yeah, I have a physical today. After seeing my weight drop and my fitness improve with a Paleo diet and CrossFit, I'm hoping that my bloodwork today also shows improvement from a year ago.

Weather, and of course, more CrossFit

2011-09-08T10:32:00.002-04:00

September is one of our rainiest months in Vermont. I like the rain in September, because I know it's filling the ponds used to make snow in the winter at the ski resorts. If we had to wait for natural snow, there are some years that we wouldn't be skiing yet at Christmas or New Years Day. Instead, we are normally skiing by Thanksgiving, which is now only about 10 or 11 weeks away. So, the September rains are important.

But, after Hurricane Irene and the devastation it caused here in Vermont, we just don't need any more rain right now. But, it rained most of last weekend and it's been raining all week. We've had a lot of rain and rivers are very high right now. My son and I haven't even been able to consider any fly fishing recently, given the depth and color of the rivers. Of course, considering the damage done to property all over the state, not being able to go fishing is truly a trivial consideration.

It sounds like the rain will finally wind down today and we should have a decent weekend. Hopefully, my lawn will dry out and I'll be able to get it mowed. I'm hoping to ride my bike this weekend as well, although I have to fix two flat tires before I can do that.

Last night, at CrossFit, we did 6 sets of progressively heavier squats, with a rep pattern on 5-5-3-3-1-max. I started at 195 and ended up at 310. My two reps at 310 weren't very high in quality; my depth wasn't good enough.

Then, we did 21-15-9 of these three exercises for time:

Burpees

Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (I used 85#)

Toes to Bar (I did an easier variation called knee-ups)

My time was 9:59.

More CrossFit tonight, although I've got one really sore spot at the top of my right hamstring, so I might need to take it easy tonight. If my leg feels OK, tomorrow will be running speedwork.

Paleo Challenge Benchmarks

2011-09-07T08:25:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the start of our 30 day Paleo challenge at CrossFit. We needed to get weighed, photographed, and do some benchmark tests to compare at the end of the month. The contest has four scoring categories - Paleo Diet compliance, weight loss, performance improvement and a subjective "physique change" based on photos.

My weight was 213.6 - down about 22 pounds from late April, but that still puts me only halfway from where I was to where I'd like to be.

There were four performance benchmarks:

1 rep max barbell clean:

I realized after the workout that I had never before attempted a max barbell clean. I'd done reps at lower weight of both power cleans and squat cleans, but no max attempts. My technique was terrible as the weight increased. I really needed to be doing squat cleans as the weight increased, but my technique was a poor power clean. I got to 165 and then failed 3 times at 175. Over the next four weeks, I need to practice this lift. I'm strong enough to lift more if I get the technique down.

Max reps ring push-ups:

I had done these only once before and I did only 11. Compared to a standard push-up, the fact that the rings can move makes things very interesting.

2 minutes - max box jumps:

I was pretty happy with 33 box jumps in two minutes, although I saw some much better results than mine.

500 meter row for time:

This one left everyone on the floor, lightheaded and gasping for breath. My technique has been improving on the rower and my times have been improving somewhat, but going all out for 500m is not something I've done recently. I started out at a 1:35-1:36 pace, but that didn't last too long. Near the end, I'd drifted over a 2:00 pace, and I didn't even hit my goal of 1:45, instead rowing 1:46.7.

So, I now have five numbers to improve upon in the next month. Losing weight will help with the four benchmarks, and sticking with my Paleo diet will help me to lose weight. It all starts with how I eat. Some people might be able to do it, but I simply cannot out-train a bad diet.

Long weekend, more workouts

2011-09-06T13:34:00.002-04:00

After CrossFit on Thursday night, I spent Friday working from home. I was planning to go to the gym after work, but the weather forecast for the weekend made me change my mind. We had nice weather on Friday, with lots of rain and electricity expected for the rest of the weekend.

So, after work, I did a simple workout that I've been doing a lot recently - a short warm-up, and then 10 by one minute hard, with a one minute walk between each hard rep. I did a total of 2.5 miles in under half an hour and I was done.

Saturday, I went to the farmers market in the morning and I wanted to watch some college football, including Penn State's noon game. So, I went to the gym for a quick workout:

Deadlift pyramid - 5 reps at 135 ending up with one rep at 335. I tried a heavier rep but it wasn't there on Saturday. Then, on my own, I did the CrossFit workout known as "Cindy":

20 minutes, as many reps as possible:
5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 air squats

I used assistance bands for the pull-ups and after the first few sets, switched to knee push-ups, so I could keep moving quickly. I ended up with 14 rounds plus 5 pull-ups. Today, I can still feel the 210 air squats in my legs. I keep having this fear that I'll get to the gym tonight and the workout will be "Cindy".

After the workout, I got pretty lazy for the rest of the weekend. I did some cooking. I watched college football. I went for a swim. I slept in on Sunday. It rained so much that I couldn't mow the lawn. And then, it was time to come back to work.

Today, we start our 3rd Paleo Challenge of the year at the gym. In the first challenge, which lasted 45 days, I just kind of gave up about halfway through. I caught a cold that wouldn't go away, I wasn't getting to the gym enough, and I just let it go. In May, we did a 30 day challenge. In that one, I stuck with it pretty well and finished 3rd. As of now, I'm down over 20 pounds since late April, and another month of strict eating and hard training should help me to improve that. As long as I stick with it this time around.

Nicole

2011-09-02T10:31:00.002-04:00

The photo above is one that our CrossFit coach took last week in a "Work Your Weakness" workout. The caption that he put on the photo was "Damon hitting some of those awful bulgarian split squats". While it certainly looks like I was working, I actually like this lift, and I have done them a lot in the past. They are a mainstay of workouts in the New Rules of Lifting books, and I've used them for years. But, it had been a while since I'd done them.

Last night was an interesting workout named Nicole. The goal was to do as many pull-ups as possible in 20 minutes. However, it wasn't that simple. We started with a 400 meter run, although our 400 meter loop is closer to 470 meters according to my GPS device. Then, we could do as many pull-ups as possible without coming off the bar or resting on the floor. As soon as you came off the bar, you had to run another 400 meters. Repeat until out of time.

This workout is different than many workouts in that it has some strategy. Also, every time you run, you are losing time to the clock while accumulating no "points". Do you run as fast as possible to do as many rounds of pull-ups as possible? If you do that, will the hard running compromise your pull-up total. Also, when you get to the point in pull-ups where you aren't cranking them out anymore, should you do a hanging rest for a while and then try to do a few more? Or, should you abandon the pull-ups, run and resume the pull-ups?

The people who scored highest tended to use the run hard, do pull-ups quickly, quit when you stall, and run again strategy. I used the run a bit easier, hang for a bit and eke out a few more pull-ups strategy. I managed five rounds, and my pull-up totals were between 11 and 14, for a total of 61. The best score yesterday was a 155 by a new guy to our gym - a very lean and fit college student who weighs only 140 pounds but can deadlift 375 pounds.

The coach picked the workout because it was the one year anniversary of the gym being open and Nicole was the workout on opening day.

Today, I'm working from home, so I'll work out on my own tonight, but I'll do a CrossFit style workout. Tomorrow, I'll do some short interval work before I settle in for the first full day of the new college football season.

More CrossFit

2011-09-01T10:47:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my 15th CrossFit workout of August - the most I've done in one month since joining the gym. For the year, I've done 92 CF workouts in 8 months, an average of 11.5 per month. I would like to average 3-4 workouts per week in general, although the coach is now telling us that he is going to change the programming a bit to make it more physically feasible for people to do 5 straight workouts during the work week. We have enough people who work near the gym but live far away, and those people, including me, don't make the Saturday workouts, which tend to be long. So, it sounds like we'll do fewer long workouts during the workweek for a while.

I've gotten some good comments this week about my weight. Two friends that I hadn't seen for a couple months mentioned that I'd definitely lost weight. And, in a more typical CrossFit fashion, someone at the gym mentioned that it was clear I'd been dropping some "tonnage".

Starting next week, we are doing another 30 day Paleo challenge at CrossFit, so I may have to give up dairy for a month again. I don't seem to have any real issues with dairy and I tend to eat some high quality cheese on a regular basis, plus cream in my coffee and I cook with cream as well.

So, last night's workout:

5x5 push presses - I used 125 pounds, which is close to my max for a single strict press

Then, 15 minutes, as many reps as possible:

5 pull-ups

10 push-ups

20 Abmat sit-ups

This is one of those workouts that most people could do at home, as long as you have a bar to do pull-ups. It was pure simplicity and plenty difficult.

I used an assistance band for the pull-ups, but should have used a lighter band. For the push-ups, I was very happy with how my shoulder felt, and I didn't do any knee push-ups. This was the first time I've done a high volume workout with push-ups without needing to back off to protect my shoulder.

I did 7 rounds plus 15 reps - 40 pull-ups, 80 push-ups, and 140 sit-ups. That's an average of one rep every 3.5 seconds for the 15 minutes. The fastest guys in the class did up to 13 rounds. When you can do kipping pull-ups with no assistance, things can move a lot faster.

Back to the Gym - Tough Night

2011-08-31T11:21:00.003-04:00

After three days off, I was expecting to feel pretty strong in the gym last night. But, it didn't happen that way at all.

After our warm-up, we spent ten minutes working on rope jumping; I spent the time working on double-unders. I did get two in a row at one point, so bit by bit, I'm improving. But, I was also sweating a lot just from the rope jumping and I felt out of breath at times. That seemed odd, given that I should have been rested.

Then came the main workout, a really tough one, especially for me:

21-15-9, as quickly as possible

squat snatches

dumbbell thrusters

Both of these are difficult moves for me, although, to be honest, I think the second is tough for just about everyone. My overhead squat sucks, which means that legit squat snatches are next to impossible. Eventually, I transitioned from crappy squat snatches to a power snatch followed by an overhead squat and then just to power snatches.

On the DB thrusters, I started at 25 pounds per hand and eventually dropped to 15 pounds, and I still struggled at the end. My time was just under 11 minutes and I felt like a failure. Low weights, poor form on the lifts, and completely gassed.

Hopefully, tonight will be better.

Exciting weekend - crazy weather edition

2011-08-30T10:04:00.002-04:00

I last posted on Friday morning, after going to CrossFit for my 4th consecutive day. I went again on Friday, as planned and then hurried home that night. I will admit that I was pretty sore over the weekend from 5 straight days of CrossFit, but it was an excellent training week.

Saturday was mostly spent getting ready for the big storm. We did some grocery shopping, got some ice to help protect the contents of our large meat freezer in the basement, did some work outside, such as moving things into the garage. We rarely put our cars in the garage, but we did make room for one as this storm approached, and we parked the other car where no falling trees could reach it.

Our daughter wanted to stay overnight with friends, but with the storm due, we vetoed that choice, much to her dismay.

I spent so much time prepping for the storm on Saturday that a workout was never an option; there simply wasn't time.

As we went to bed on Saturday night, the forecast was still very ominous and we had no idea what to really expect. I woke up about 2:00 a.m. to make a trip to the bathroom and discovered that it was already raining lightly. I slept in on Sunday until about 8:30. It was raining harder when I woke up and we had some light breezes out of the north with some occasional higher gusts. But, by noon, the wind had died down and we were left with very heavy rain and no wind for much of the day.

We were trying to keep abreast of the storm on local news and the Weather Channel. Our satellite signal for TV was very intermittent during the heaviest periods of rain. At one point, we were surprised to hear the next town over and a particular local road mentioned on the Weather Channel. Apparently, the road had flooded and a bridge was gone. This was one of the two routes we could have used to pick up our daughter at her friend's house, so forcing her to stay home was clearly a good idea, at least in the adult world view.

During the afternoon, the electricity blinked a few times, which seemed odd given the lack of wind. The local radio station that I usually listen to for local weather details was off the air. We discovered later that they had some serious flooding issues.

In reality, we had no idea how bad the flooding was around the state. We live at 1100' and our property drains reasonably well. We had one minor roof leak at our chimney during the heaviest rains and some water in the basement, but no other issues on our property.

I was working on cooking dinner when the lights suddenly went out. Because we use propane, I was able to finish cooking dinner, and we ate by candlelight. We even played a game of Mousetrap with the kids, who delighted in killing my wife's mouse first and me next.

About the time it got completely dark, the rain was diminishing, but the winds were picking up. We had a couple hours of gusty winds, but nothing super strong. As the winds diminished, the house was amazingly quiet with no electricity to fuel gadgets.

I used my cellphone to keep up with local events on the web, but eventually, I needed to save some battery life. So, by 9:30, we went to sleep. We knew there was no school for our daughter the next day and my offices were closed, but I could work remotely if the town had power.

On Monday morning, the drive to town wasn't too bad. The local golf course had flooded and a few businesses and houses had been damaged, but we seemed much better off than the rest of the surrounding towns. And, according to the power company web site, our power was due to be restored by 10:00 p.m. on Monday, much better than radio projections of weeks for some people.

And then, around 1:00 p.m., downtown went dark. The power company had apparently discovered some issues with cables near a river and they needed to take the entire town, plus some neighboring towns, offline. We were told that the best we could hope for was Wednesday, and Friday was quite possible. Now I had a new concern. I have a large freezer that I use so I can buy local grass-fed and pastured meat in bulk. It had about $1000 worth of meat in it.

I contacted some friends who had extra freezer space and power and then packed up and took the meat to their house. Meanwhile, my wife and kids went to visit some family locally, for dinner and a shower.

And then, around 9:00, the power came back. I have no idea why it happened so soon, but I won't complain. So, I'm an hour away from home, our meat is nearby in a friend's freezer, and my family is at home. My wife's office is closed today. My daughter's entire first week of school has been cancelled. We have friends and neighbors without power and with extensive property damage.

We managed to survive unhurt, with no property damage, and at most, lost a couple hundred dollars worth of refrigerated food. Compared to what many other people are going through, we were very lucky.

Today, I hope to get back to the gym. I was disappointed to miss the CrossFit Total workout yesterday, which was the test workout after our 12-week Wendler Cycle. I may do it on my own later in the week.

4 Consecutive Days

2011-08-26T10:52:00.002-04:00

My goal for this week has been to go to CrossFit five days in a row, something I've only done once before. To be honest, it's not what CrossFit officially recommends. If someone looked at the workout of the day on the official CF site, he or she would see that Thursday and Sunday are rest days - never more than three days in a row.

But, this was as much a challenge to see where my fitness is as a goal for a tough workout week. While I've done some longer workouts this summer, such as a marathon and the 100 mile relay, my total number of workout days has dropped off since late June. Work has been busy, life has been busy, etc. As of this past Sunday, I'd only exercised 33 out of 59 days, which is less than I prefer.

So, I decided I wanted six workout days this week and five of them at CrossFit.

Last night was a "Work Your Weakness" night, so I got to pick my own workout after the warm-up. I got to the gym early, so I got to do some extra stretching and foam rolling, and I did some practicing with the jump rope. One of these days, I'll get double-unders.

The WYW workout has two parts, one for strength and one more for speed.

For the first part, I chose Turkish Get-ups and Stiff legged deadlifts. For the first ten minutes, I did 2 TGUs per minute for ten minutes. For one, I started with the kettlebell in my left hand and for the other, in my right hand.

For the SLDLs, I did 3 per minute for ten minutes, at 155 pounds. This is a really low weight for a regular deadlift, but it works my hamstrings pretty well on the SLDLs.

For the second part of the workout, I chose weighted Bulgarian Split Squats and Abmat sit-ups. Each round was 5 BSSs per leg, followed by 15 sit-ups. In 12 minutes, I completed 80 split squats (40 per leg) and 125 sit-ups. Amazingly, my abs aren't sore today, so maybe the sit-up wasn't the weakness I thought it was. Perhaps I should have done wall climbs or toes-to-bar instead.

Tonight, we have our final workout of the Wendler lifting cycle - a low weight deadlift workout. I'm not sure what the second half of the workout will be, but I should survive it.

Monday we have a workout that will test the results of the 12-week cycle.

Tomorrow, I have a lot of prep work around the house before the hurricane hits on Sunday. I'm hoping to squeeze a bike ride in sometime on Saturday, but getting ready for the storm takes precedence. The current weather forecasts, even for central Vermont, are pretty ominous.

Lots and lots of deadlifts

2011-08-25T10:12:00.003-04:00

Before I describe last night's workout, above is a photo from Monday's burpees. I like the fact that I'm not only doing the burpee correctly here, but I am also clearly leaner than I was a couple months ago. I need to step on the scale and see how it's moved, if at all.

Last night was an easier workout than the night before. And, it contained no squats or burpees, either one of which might have sent me running away from the gym. Luckily, I managed to get out of work just in time for the class.

We started with our final day of Wendler strict press work, a de-loading week:

5 @ 60

5 @ 72.5

5 @ 85

Then, 5x10 of DB strict presses. I did the first three sets with a pair of 35s and then dropped to 30s. Then, 3 x max of chest to bar pull-ups. I used a band and got about 8 on each set. Then, we had the main workout:

As quickly as possible:

21 deadlifts

Run 400 meters

18 deadlifts

Run 400 meters

15 deadlifts

Run 400 meters

12 deadlifts

Run 400 meters

The prescribed level was 225 pounds for deadlifts, and if I was more rested, I would have done that. Level 1 was 155 pounds, which was too low for me, so I picked 185 pounds, in between the two.

I got through the first 21 reps without a break and ran my 400. On each of the next three deadlift sets, I had to take a short break, about 2/3 of the way through the set. I also had to be careful lowering the bar, so I wouldn't hurt my back.

My time was 14:42, and I've got no complaints with that.

I'm still sore today, but I'll go to CF tonight. My goal of five straight days is getting closer to reality.

This coming weekend, I think I'll do some bike riding and mowing on Saturday, before the hurricane arrives. I'm not sure what, if anything, we'll do on Sunday - maybe an early hike somewhere.

CrossFit - Helton

2011-08-24T08:01:00.002-04:00

When we do back to back workouts at CF that use the same or similar movements, I usually end up pretty sore for a couple of days. After doing squats and burpees on Monday night, we had a variation of squats plus a lot of burpees on Tuesday. I'm walking a bit slowly today.

The workout was Helton - another in the seemingly endless series of "Hero" WODs. It's sad how many workouts we have that are named for soldiers killed in the line of duty. Joseph Helton from Georgia died from an IED explosion in Iraq in 2009.

Once again, as soon as I walked into the gym, I knew it would be tough. One of my frequent strength training partners, Bob, was still doing the workout when I arrived at the gym. He was in the 4:30 class yesterday and I arrived about 5:30. And, the clock was over 40 minutes and ticking for him. There was no strength work on the board either. That all meant a grueling MetCon.

Helton - 3 rounds, as quickly as possible

Run 800 meters

30 dumbbell squat cleans (the little hop in the video isn't necessary or maybe even appropriate)

30 burpees

The Rx weight for the squat cleans was 2 x 50 pounds. Level 1 was 40 pounds and level 2 was 25 pounds. I chose 30 pounds and had a pair of 25s nearby in case I needed to drop down, but I stayed with the 30s, as it turned out.

I'm pretty sure our 800m loop is a bit long. It took me 4:45 to do the loop and I was running faster than that, or at least it seemed that way. Maybe I'll double-check it with my GPS sometime. By the time I was through the first round, I'd used almost 12 minutes. I figured that if I could do 12-13-14, I'd be pretty happy. And, that's about what I did, finishing in 38:21. At that time, I was about mid-pack in the class. We had some people in the mid to high 40s, and everyone looked beat. Already on Facebook this morning, I've seen a comment from someone else in the class that she is sore today.

Today, I have a 7 hour meeting that might force me to miss CrossFit after work. Hopefully, I'll make it, but if not, I can probably use the rest. Or, if I do miss the class, I might do an easy bike ride instead.

CrossFit Simplicity

2011-08-23T11:34:00.002-04:00

Last night's workout was incredibly simple, yet plenty tough.

We started with our Wendler squat work. This was a deloading week, so the squats were fairly easy, and I maxed out at 210 pounds.

We did 3 sets of 5 reps at easy weights.

Next was 5 sets of 10 reps of box squats - a squat where you actually sit down for a second at the bottom and then return to the standing position. I did one set at 135 and 4 sets at 155.

And then, the MetCon:

10 minutes, as many reps as possible

10 burpees

10 pull-ups

How can anything be more simple than that? Most people could do this at home, although band-assisted pull-ups are tougher at home.

I came within 3 reps of 5 rounds - just couldn't get those last three pull-ups to finish the round. Most people got 6-7 rounds. The best part for me was that all 50 burpees were done with good form - no crawling back to a standing position, followed by a slight jump. That is the most quality burpees I've done in a workout at CF.

I feel pretty good today after that workout. Let's see what tonight brings...

Long-ish run on the Kingdom Trails

2011-08-22T09:57:00.003-04:00

Thursday, I did a short sprint workout at home. All told, including warm-up and cool-down, I did 2.5 miles, with 10 minutes of hard effort. I felt stronger than I'd felt on this workout recently, and really had a fun workout.

Friday, I was planning to squeeze in a workout, and I was allegedly on vacation, but I ended up working most of the day and never got to the gym. That was fine though, as I was planning a long run on the Kingdom Trails in East Burke, VT on Saturday. The runners for that run included my wife, two friends from Canada - Pat and Lorne - and me.

Lorne is planning a rim-to-rim-to-rim in the Grand Canyon next month, and this was his fifth consecutive weekend with a run of 5 hours or more. He is as lean and fit as I have ever seen him.

We started our run right about 9:00 a.m., on the easier side of the trail system, rather than on the Burke Mountain ski area trails. For a while, we took it fairly easy. Pat and I ran towards the front, talking away, while Lorne was hanging back a bit with my wife. About 75 minutes into the run, my wife took a hard fall and hurt her right pinkie, but luckily it wasn't broken or dislocated. About half an hour later, we crossed a paved road that provided an easy way back to the car, and Cheryl called it a day. She still had two miles to the car, but she could do them at her own pace.

By this point in time, I had decided that three hours was enough for me. I'm glad I didn't have thoughts of going longer than that, because as soon as my wife headed for the car, the pace changed quickly. I was walking through a sunny meadow, trying to take an electrolyte capsule, and suddenly Lorne and Pat were gone. I spent most of the next hour trying to stay close enough to see them, and not get lost.

As we closed in on three hours, we got back to the car and discovered that my wife had just gotten there. She and I changed clothes and did almost a mile back to town, where we had some lunch and relaxed until Lorne and Pat were done. I did just under 12 miles for my workout. By the time Pat and Lorne finished, in about 5.5 hours, they'd done about 22 miles.

Lorne seems to be in great shape for his run in the Canyon next month. My wife and I were both happy with our runs. We each did a run that matched our fitness levels and our training goals. Pat hadn't gone nearly as long this year as he did Saturday, but as usual, he was strong the whole way through.

We spent the rest of the day getting some food and hanging out together. I don't get to see my two friends from Canada very often, and we were up well after midnight, just catching up with each other.

Today, it's back to work and back to CrossFit. This is our final week in the Wendler strength cycle. I have made every single strict press workout in the cycle, but my attendance for squats and deadlifts in the last 3 weeks wasn't very good.

Next Monday, we try the CrossFit total again, and I'm hopeful that I'll improve from last time. But, I honestly don't expect a big improvement. If I can keep my squat at 315, add 5 pounds to my press to get to 130, and add 10-20 pounds to my deadlift, I'd end up at at 820-830 total pounds, vs. an 805 last time we were tested. That's not a big improvement, but my training probably hasn't earned me any more than that.

Two (mediocre) CrossFit workouts

2011-08-17T11:42:00.002-04:00

I'm clearly still feeling the effects of the race on Saturday, despite two rest days. I would never have needed two rest days after a race like this 20 years ago or even 10 years ago. But, I guess that's what happens when you get old(er).

Last night, I rode to CrossFit after work. The warm-up was ten minutes of stretching and foam rolling - whatever you wanted to work on. I used the foam roller the entire time, really focusing on a slightly sore ITB where it attaches to my right knee. I worked on my quads a bit as well.

Then, we had ten minute of rope jumping practice. I'm getting closer and closer on double-unders. I had a least 10 times that I got one rep, and once that I got two. Within a month or so, I think I'll have it down. I have to remember to stay on my toes and not get "happy feet" and start jumping too quickly as the rope speeds up. I also need to get the pulsing of the rope rotation down - fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow...

Then, we had the following main workout.

3 rounds, as many reps as possible, do each exercise for 40 seconds, and then use 20 seconds to transition to the next:

Box Jumps

Med Ball Slams

Kettlebell Swings

Wall Balls

Kettlebell sumo deadlift high pulls

Burpees

Because I was still feeling the effects from Saturday, I chose the weights for level 2. This worked fine except for the high pulls, where I definitely should have had more weight. I did 239 total reps in 12 minutes of work - about 20 reps/minute of active time. I was soaked with sweat, but it was a good workout for me after the run on Saturday. It was fast without being too much stress on my tired leg muscles.

After the workout, I rode home, helped to cook dinner (I grilled salmon and made Bearnaise sauce as my contribution), and headed to bed early.

At 4:45 this morning, the alarm went off and I got dressed to head back to the gym on my bike. I was surprised by how dark it was, and when I left a little after 5:00, it was still darker than I'd like. I used a flashing light on my back, but I could have used a headlight too. I was about a mile from the gym when my bike started to act a bit funny. It took a bit for me to remember the feeling that comes from a flat tire, but that's what it was. I rode for a bit more until the tire was really flat and then walked the last half mile to the gym, just in time for the workout.

This morning was a Wendler Strict Press workout - the last heavy day before we'll do a test in a couple weeks.

Here is the workout as scheduled:

5 reps at 105

3 reps at 115

1 rep (or more) at 127.5 - my best ever is 125

I got the first two sets, but failed badly on the last. I did a couple push-presses at the weight, just to get the feeling of having it overhead.

Then, 10x5 close grip bench presses

3x10 band-assisted chin-ups

And, the main workout:

12 minutes, as many reps as possible:

5 wall climbs

10 toes to bar, or knees to armpits, or knee-ups (I did knee ups and need to work on all of these)

I had never done wall climbs before and did not do them nearly as well as the demos at the link. After three rounds of wall climbs, I switched to the alternate movement - push-ups with a five second hold at the top of each rep.

I completed 6 rounds plus 5 push-ups in the 12 minutes. My shoulders are trashed right now.

After the workout, I fixed my flat tire. The flat had been caused by a staple. I'm not sure how I picked up a staple on the road, but that's what I found. I rode home, showered, packed to go home for the rest of the week, and then managed to miss the bus to work. I managed to catch a later bus and got to work much later than usual.

I'm leaving early this afternoon and taking some time off this week. I haven't really had any time off this summer, so just a shortened week this week will be nice. Saturday, I'm meeting a couple friends to run long on the Kingdom trails at Burke Mountain.

100 on 100 relay

2011-08-16T08:56:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, I ran the 100 on 100 relay here in Vermont for the fourth time. In 2007, I was on a fast team and we finished in the top 15 or so. We had one runner who ran 5:30s the entire time he was out there. I was in pretty good shape that year, although I'd run the Vermont 100 a few weeks earlier. I don't remember our exact team time and I can't find it on the web anywhere, but we were close to 13 hours, if I recall correctly.

In 2008, we barely made it to the starting line. Our fastest runner dropped out on race morning with an alleged death in the family. Our team captain had some sort of cardiac "event" while at the hospital for a lung function test and he was out. And, another runner got stuck at JFK airport and didn't make the start. That last runner's boyfriend filled in for her, even though he wasn't a runner. We found one more runner who was a lot slower than anyone else on the team, and she gamely gave us some miles. I ran a fourth leg that day - a very steep leg up the access road to a ski resort - to let another runner rest a bit more. Despite our best efforts, we skipped legs 16 and 17 and showed up last in the standings, even though we didn't really finish.

I skipped the race for some reason in 2009. Last year, I was out with some friends on the weekend of the Vermont City Marathon and someone asked if I was running the relay. I said no - my old team had disintegrated and I didn't have a team. A few days later, I was on a team. That team needed an alternate, in case a runner dropped out, and my wife agreed to be the alternate. Within days, someone dropped out, and my wife and I were on the team. We aren't a fast team, but it's a fun team. We finished fairly late last year, but we finished. This year, five of the six runners returned:

Christy: Team Captain

Kristin: The lady who was stuck in JFK in 2008

Jack: Her boyfriend, and now a two time finisher of the Spartan Death Race

Katie: A last-minute replacement after an injury took out another runner

Cheryl: My wife

Katie turned out to be a very solid and competitive runner, although I think she had a bit of performance anxiety. Every single one of us runs as hard as we can when we're running, but when others are running, we are pretty laid back - no pressure, let's have fun, make it to the finish sometime. But, Katie seemed to be putting a lot of pressure on herself. At one point during the day, I saw a team with a clipboard for recording splits. While I record my own time, if the team ever starts recording everyone's time, I want out. This might be a race, but I want it to be fun as well.

Kristin has run a 100K, her first two 100 milers, and at least on marathon already this year.

Christy had a tough time with asthma and blisters at the Vermont City Marathon earlier this year, but she's always in shape to race.

Jack has been swimming a lot since the Death Race in June. He told me on Sunday morning, after the race, that he was glad to have another non-runner on the team to prove that you could run this thing without run training. He meant me and my CrossFit and bicycling training.

Cheryl isn't in the kind of shape she was a year ago, when she paced the last 30 at the Vermont 100 and had a really good running year. Nonetheless, she took second in her age group in a 5 miler two nights before this race.

I'm in better shape than a year ago, lighter, a bit faster, and I've run a little more this year than last, but like Jack said, I'm pretty close to a non-runner these day, despite finishing a marathon in July.

Our running order was Christy, Jack, Cheryl, me, Kristin, and Katie. Runner #2 has the toughest day and runner #3 has the easiest. Number 5 is somewhat long but mostly flat. Number 6 has a hilly first leg and then things get easier. Runner 1 starts easily and ends with a brutal long climb in the afternoon heat. And my run started with a four mile climb in a 5.2 mile leg, an easy 4+ miler, and then a late-day 10K that seemed to be just slightly uphill the whole way. I've now run all of legs 3, 4, and 5, plus parts of 1 and 6 (the 2008 team led to us running mixed legs). I hope to someday be in good enough shape to be runner #2. On Sunday, I think I already claimed leg 6 for next year.

Compared to drama in other years (missing runners, a migraine that almost took out a runner, runners late for exchanges, getting lost, losing a required safety light, runner dropping on race morning, etc.), this year was fairly calm and methodical. The weather wasn't quite what we expected as some afternoon cloud cover dissipated and let temperatures go higher than forecast. Otherwise, things went very smoothly. Christy, Jack and Cheryl cruised through the first three legs. Jack lost a little time to an unscheduled "elimination" break, and Cheryl ran her 7 miles more than 5 minutes faster than projected.

I have to admit that when we are out there, we tend to find a team close to us and fixate on beating that team. It helps to keep us focused as we run. Last year, it was Team Port-a-Potty, and I can't remember if we beat them or not. I think we did. This year, we discovered that our ex-Governor, Jim Douglas, was the driver for Team Douglas. Between our teammates, I don't know if any of us had ever voted for Douglas, a four-term Republican. Christy and I, in particular, were adamant that we hadn't, and we targeted them as the team to beat.

I joked that we should be able to beat them, because the ex-Governor wouldn't be able to navigate correctly during the day. I assumed he'd turn right at every intersection. Regretfully, he knew how to make a left turn in a vehicle.

On my first leg, which was almost all uphill for the first four miles, I somewhat "stalked" the Team Douglas runner. I was waiting for the downhill in the last mile to make my move. The team met me partway up the hill, and I even told them that I was stalking my prey. Just before the four mile mark, I used a short downhill to close the gap. Then, just after four miles, I made my move and passed the Team Douglas runner.

Regretfully, they had their best runner in the #5 slot, and he was able to pass Kristin and open up a pretty good lead - about 6 minutes. That was somewhat disappointing to us, after having taken the lead. But, Katie came back in leg 6 and closed the gap to 3 minutes. So, after each runner had gone once, we were down three minutes.

Leg #1 had been pretty short, and Christy warned us that the #1 runner for Team Douglas was pretty strong, and they had a long leg coming up. This leg was uphill for just a bit, screaming downhill for a while, and then a moderate uphill for about 3 miles. Our deficit increased. On the next leg - the longest of the race - Jack maintained the deficit for a while, but eventually lost a bit more. Cheryl and I were running against their weakest runners, and we each made up some time, but didn't catch them. Team Douglas was an open team and we were masters open. Plus, they had 5 male runners and we had 2. At this point in time, it appeared to be a losing battle.

On the second longest leg, Kristin didn't seem to lose any ground, and we discovered that the Team Douglas runner needed medical assistance after pushing so hard in the long leg in the afternoon heat. We were glad that the runner was OK, but Jack and I, at least, quietly saw this as an opening. Next Katie ran another strong leg and closed the gap for us. As we started our last legs, we had three interesting legs to go. Christy had a long uphill leg that is very difficult. Jack had a four-mile uphill to run. And then Cheryl had a leg that rolled up and down for three miles, before a screaming 1.5 mile descent. Try as we might, we couldn't catch up to the Douglas team on these legs. Next, I had my final leg, a 10K. It started with a downhill mile, and then seemed to go up for most of the rest of the run.

At this point in time, fast teams that had started well behind us were starting to catch us. I had 8 runners pass me on this leg and I couldn't do a thing about it.

I handed off to Kristin, and she and Katie had great runs to the finish. While we were waiting to see if Kristin needed any aid, we were somewhat confused by two women hanging out at another team's van, dressed in nice summer dresses. This wasn't runner attire. It turned out that they were at a nearby wedding, they'd had too much to drink, and they were looking for runners from their college alma mater, and also randomly inviting runners to the wedding reception. We declined as we were seriously underdressed and we doubted that we'd really be welcomed by the rest of the party. We were sure they'd been drinking when they asked us how we were doing and Jack told them we were winning, and they didn't doubt it for a second.

Our final time was 15:03:19, about nine minutes behind the Douglas team. However, something still smells fishy. In leg 17, they didn't use the same runner who'd had the medical issue earlier. We don't know if they followed race rules and used runner #6 to run leg 17 and then runner #1 to run #18. However, we aren't competitive or petty enough to consider protesting something like that. Yet, we aren't non-nonchalant about the the whole thing to not at least think about it.

We did notice at the awards ceremony that the ex-Governor had gotten a finisher's medal. It was mentioned that somebody should have a few beers and then snip off his medal. But, nothing like that happened.

We also spent some time talking to the race winners - the Hello Kitty Athletic Club, who won for the second consecutive year with an average pace of 6:22/mile. A year ago, they averaged 6:10. They are quite a team - uniforms, patches, and they hand out Hello Kitty swag to their adoring fans. People on our team received a patch and a Pez dispenser.

We finally left the awards ceremony after dinner, somewhere around 11:00. We checked into a local condo for some well-deserved sleep.

Here are my mile splits from my legs:

#1:

10:44

10:43

11:52

9:51

7:50

7:44 (for 0.36 miles)

Total climbing for this leg was about 770'

#2:

4.11 miles, 9:36 pace, 200' of climbing

6.05 miles, 10:24 pace, 370' of climbing

My quads are shot from pushing hard all three legs. I averaged 10:05 per mile for 15.5 miles. Last year, I averaged 9:48 per mile for three easier legs. So, maybe I'm not really in any better shape than a year ago.

I can't wait to do it again next year.

Should I be sore the day before a race?

2011-08-12T09:52:00.002-04:00

I'm not really too sore, but three straight days of CrossFit have left me a bit tired. I think that after a rest day today that I'll be fine for the relay tomorrow.

My wife ran a race last night (5 miles, dirt road, rolling course), so she isn't exactly tapering into the relay either. But, today is a rest day for both of us.

CrossFit was pretty straightforward last night:

Warm-up

Strength Work:

7 x 1 squat snatch - Due to shoulder mobility issues that also affect some other overhead lifts, I was doing a partial squat on each snatch - something between a muscle snatch and a squat snatch. I checked my logbook and my max lift of 115 pounds last night was 10 pounds better than the last time we did this one. If my shoulder was healthy, I'd be around 155 pounds.

Then, the MetCon:

3 rounds, as quickly as possible

10 kettlebell overhead squats, left hand

10 kettlebell overhead squats, right hand

20 pull-ups

run 400m

I used light KBs at 26 pounds and still struggled with my depth on the OH squats. I am getting better on these lifts, but slowly. I used an assistance band for the pull-ups. And, one of my 400s was pretty slow because my shoe came untied. Basically, I did this one fairly easy, at level 2, trying to save something for the relay tomorrow. Last week, I did 170 pull-ups in 3 CF workouts. This must have been an easy week - only 110. I'm trying to work on getting rid of the bands for these, but I'm nowhere close to doing large number of pull-ups without bands (or kipping pull-ups). But, I'm getting better week by week.

The weather looks great for the relay tomorrow. It should be a fun day.

Dodging Thunderstorms

2011-08-11T08:21:00.002-04:00

It's been about 3.5 months since I rented a room close to my office and began bike commuting. That will end at the end of this month, and it will be nice to be living at my own home full time again. It's been a good experiment with some positives and some negatives. I've definitely exercised more than I would have otherwise, I've been able to work longer hours, I've saved money, and I've saved two hours per day in a car. But, I've missed being home on a daily basis, and I know my wife has had to pick up a lot of slack, like cooking dinner while I'm gone midweek. On the other hand, I've been doing all of my own laundry, so that's probably helped her somewhat.

Yesterday, we had a nasty thunderstorm come through the area about 3:30. More were in the forecast, but they all seemed to miss the local area. Last night I was thinking about how lucky I've been with these storms all summer. Despite a very rainy spring, and our normal summer thunderstorms, I haven't been caught on my bike in a bad thunderstorm yet. I've gotten wet and I've heard thunder while on the bike. And, I've modified my schedule at times due to the weather, either arriving at or leaving work a bit earlier or later than planned to miss a storm.

I've got three weeks of bike commuting left. I wonder if the luck will continue.

Last night's CrossFit workout was pretty straightforward and not as difficult as the night before.

Strength work:

3 strict presses at 97.5 pounds

3 at 110 pounds

max at 122.5 pounds (two strict plus two push presses)

5x10 ring dips (band assisted)

3x10 pull-ups (band-assisted)

MetCon: 3 rounds, as many reps as possible:

Row 1 minute (use calories burned as rep count)

Rest 30 seconds

Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (75 pounds)

Rest 30 seconds

Tuck Jumps (in lieu of double-unders)

Rest 30 seconds

I averaged about 13-14 calories on the rows, mid-20s on the high pulls, and low-40s on the tuck jumps, for a total score of 246.

The rowing was almost a rest interval in comparison to the other two "on" minutes each round. The high pulls were definitely the toughest part for me, especially by the third round. The rest interval was really a misnomer, because we needed those 30 seconds to record our score and move to the next station. The toughest part of the workout might have been sharing a barbell on a humid evening. The sumo deadlift high pull uses a grip on the inner part of the barbell - a smooth part of the bar with no knurling. So, holding onto the bar was difficult, as sweat accumulated and chalk dissipated.

I'll go to CrossFit again tonight, but with the 100 on 100 relay on Saturday, I'll probably do the workout at an easy level. I did last night at the Rx level, but tonight will be somewhere in the level 1 or level 2 range, based on the difficulty of the assigned work.

CrossFit - Jack

2011-08-10T08:14:00.002-04:00

Last week really beat me up. It was three days of CrossFit with some bike riding each day that did it, but the real issue was squats. We did heavy back squats on Monday with high rep, lower weight front squats. Then, on Wednesday, while still sore from Monday, the workout included 150 air squats, done in sets of 30. On Thursday, I could barely walk. CrossFit wasn't even an option.

Friday after work, my wife and I went out for a 4 mile run. I could barely run due to soreness, and it took almost an hour to walk/shuffle 4 miles. On Saturday, I was still sore. I started a deadlift workout that I'd skipped on Friday, but even that wasn't working. After my warm-ups, I did 5 reps at 255 pounds - an easy lift for me - and then quit. I knew if I increased the weight at all, I'd end up hurting myself.

Sunday needed to be a rest day. After not sleeping well on Sunday night, I was exhausted by the time I got off work on Monday, and I simply went home, ate dinner and went to bed. Finally, yesterday, I was rested enough and ready to go again. In the previous 5 days, I'd done a slow four miles and a few moderate weight deadlifts. But, I needed the rest. My body made that very clear.

Anyway, last night at CrossFit, after the warm-up, we did practice for muscle-ups. Of all the movements we do at CrossFit, this may be the last one I'll get. I'm nowhere close right now. To do a muscle-up properly, you need to be able to do an unassisted chest-to-bar pull-up and unassisted ring dips. Plus, there are some technique issues during the "transition" from pull-up to ring dip that are not easy to master. For those of us who couldn't do actual muscle-ups (most of us at the gym last night), we worked on components of the movement. I chose unassisted pull-ups. Normally, when we do pull-ups, we do so many of them that I need an assistance band to get through the workout. Last night, I decided to do 2 unassisted pull-ups, every minute on the minute, for 10 minutes. I hadn't even tried any unassisted pull-ups in a while and I was happy with how this portion of the workout went. Next was the MetCon - Jack:

20 minutes, as many reps as possible:

10 barbell push presses

10 kettlebell swings

10 box jumps

I chose 85 pounds for the push presses, 53 pounds for the KB swings, and 18" for the box jumps. Well, I chose 21" for the jumps, but after just a couple reps, I knew that I was going to have issues with that height.

The push presses were the limiting factor for most of us. As set after set accumulated, it became tough to do 10 straight without putting the bar down, or resting with the bar in the clean position, which isn't really a comfortable resting position.

I ended up doing 7 rounds, and on 6 of the rounds, I did the push presses without the bar going to the ground.

I was really happy with my KB swings. This was the most reps I'd done in a day with the 53 pound KB. I worked really hard on form and using hip extension to push the KB up. I think I'm just about done using the 35 pounders and I'll be at 53 until I'm ready to go to the 70s.

I'll go to CrossFit tonight and probably tomorrow morning, and then rest for 48 hours until the 100 on 100 relay this Saturday. This will be my 4th time running this relay, and I'll be runner number 4 on our team. I've never run this leg before. My first run is a hilly 5.5 miles. My second leg is the easiest, a fairly flat 4.2 miles. My third leg is mostly flat and 6.2 miles. Our team starts at 6:00 a.m. with a projected finish time just after 9:00 p.m. - 13 hours for 100 miles. We have 5 of our 6 team members back from last year, and I believe that our new runner is faster than the person she is replacing. I'm in better shape than last year, but at least one runner on our team (perhaps my wife...) is not in the same shape as last year.

Our time was close to 13 hours last year, so we should be close to that again this year.

Discretion - sometimes you just need a rest day

2011-08-05T08:59:00.002-04:00

Apparently, doing 150 air squats in a workout where your legs are already fried from squats earlier in the week is a bad idea. As much as I wanted to go to CrossFit yesterday, I am clearly an injury waiting to happen. So, I took a rest day yesterday. I worked late, cooked dinner, did some laundry, watched some baseball, and got some good sleep. Tonight, my wife and I will do a slow easy run.

I want to be especially careful because I'm on a 6-person, 100-mile relay team next weekend. And right now, one of our 6 is out with an injury, so we are searching for a replacement runner. If I hurt myself, the team is really in trouble.

So, despite my head wanting to go to CrossFit last night, my body said no and I listened.

But, I'll be back at CrossFit on Monday, and I'll get in some workouts this weekend at home as well.

Next week, I'll probably start tapering for the relay after Wednesday's workout. I'll probably do something easy on Thursday and rest on Friday.

CrossFit Wednesday

2011-08-04T08:54:00.002-04:00

I got to the gym early and spent about 20 minutes with a foam roller, working on my quads and hamstrings. By the time we started our warm-up, my legs felt better, but not great.

The strength work was our Wendler strict press work:

5 strict presses at 95#

5 at 105#

max at 115# - I got three

The coach was watching closely on the rep where I failed. She said she could see that it was right shoulder (the one that I injured) that was causing me to fail. I'm not surprised that the right shoulder is weaker right now, but at least I'm healthy enough that I'm building it back up.

Next was 5x10 of bench presses. We were supposed to use the regular (wider) grip, but I did close grip to protect the shoulder.

Then, 3x10 of chin-ups, bringing my three day chin-up/pull-up total to 170 (all band-assisted, but still a lot of work).

The Metcon was pretty easy:

5 rounds, as quickly as possible:

30 air squats

50 double unders

If you can't do double-unders, you are supposed to do 50 single-unders and then 25 tuck-jumps per round. But, given my sore quads, I thought the tuck jumps would be somewhat risky or painful, so I substituted 100 single unders instead in each round. My total time was 9:41.

Today, I realize that 150 air squats, as easy as they are, can exacerbate soreness from "real" squats. I'm more sore now than I was 24 hours ago.

So, should I rest today? Tomorrow? Or when I'm dead?

Last night, we were talking at the gym about being sore, about injuries, and about modifying workouts. The owner and primary coach is absolutely fine with people modifying workouts to protect their health. In that respect, he sees CrossFit as training. But, there is also the competitive side of CrossFit. We have a big white board that contains the best results posted in the gym for 30 or so standard workouts. To make that list, you need to do the workout as prescribed and all reps should be legal. To compete at the CrossFit games, you have to do each rep of each workout correctly and as prescribed.

I'm on the side of using CrossFit as a goal to help with other things. I do like the workouts themselves, and I like the group workout aspect, but I also see CrossFit as something that helps with body composition, strength, mobility, endurance, balance, etc. These things help me with my running, my cycling, and my skiing - activities that I enjoy outside the gym. So, I use CrossFit to improve other things, and not just to improve or even compete at CrossFit. Others have a different approach and see CrossFit as a competitive sport rather than just a training method. Luckily, it seems to work for all of us.

But, back to the conversation we had about training and injuries last night. One of things I said was that the only thing worse than being tortured by these workouts would be an injury that prevents me from doing the workouts. So, I'll continue to scale or adapt the workouts or even skip workouts as necessary. I'm not sure of the logic there. I'm trying to be sure to avoid injury so that I can train hard enough to feel like I'm on the edge of going too far and getting injured.

CrossFit and then a nice anniversary dinner

2011-08-03T09:56:00.002-04:00

Right now, my quads are sore to the touch from front squats on Monday at CrossFit. I think I love CrossFit more than CrossFit loves me. It seems like some sort of abusive relationship that I should try to escape, but I keep going back.

Last night, after the warm-up, we spent ten minutes working on rope jumping technique. I spent the time trying to to double-unders, which continue to frustrate me. I know I'll get there someday, but I'm not there yet. Then, the main workout was as follows:

20 minutes, as many reps as possible:

4 pull-ups (band assisted)

4 ring dips (band assisted)

8 kettlebell swings (35#)

That's what I did. The prescribed workout included muscle-ups and hand-stand push-ups and heavy KB swings. I did a scaling between level 1 and level 2. And, in retrospect, perhaps I should have gone heavier on something. I completed 15 rounds, which was near the top of anyone all day. I know I couldn't have done nearly as many KB swings at 53 pounds. Even though I dropped the amount of assistance on my pull-ups from what I used the day before, doing them 4 at a time made them seem much easier. I have now done 140 pull-ups the last two days and I know tonight has at least 30 more.

After the workout, I got cleaned up and my wife and I went to The Belted Cow Bistro for dinner to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. The meal was definitely non-Paleo, and the chef had agreed to do a special tasting menu for us. This is what he served to us:

Seared scallop in a cauliflower puree, pea sprouts, a little bit of blood orange juice

Tuna tartare (yellowtail) topped with deep fried bits of onion

Soup and Salad - a tiny cup of a perfect cream of corn soup that tasted like corn but had no corn in it. The salad was a bit of local mesclun wrapped in prosciutto with a scallion vinaigrette

Tortellini made with two Vermont cheeses, in a brown butter and fresh roasted tomato sauce

Deconstructed Duck - Pepper crusted sauteed breast with leg confit, served in a fig-balsamic sauce

Rack of Lamb (2 chops - we were getting stuffed), basil mashed potatoes, roasted red peppers

Dessert - one of each:

Warm Strawberry Rhubarb tart with ice cream

Chocolate creme brulee with hot chili powder and curry powder (odd but interestingly good)

Despite how my quads feel, after that dinner, I'm headed to CrossFit after work. I need to keep on working out to see if I can make it through the next 25 years of marriage.

Sunday Sprints and Monday CrossFit

2011-08-02T07:44:00.002-04:00

For the second weekend in a row, I took it pretty easy. My wife and I had planned on going for a short run on Friday night, but we skipped it due to rain. Saturday, I slept it and then didn't do much at all. I spent most of the day relaxing, catching up on episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert on the DVR, and I watched a baseball game. Sunday, I slept in again.

I've been working a lot of hours and working out really hard during the week, and the past few weekends, I've felt the effects. It's nice not to have any big events that I'm training for, knowing that I can relax when my body tells me I need some extra sleep or a rest day.

Sunday afternoon, I finally got my lazy butt out the door, and I did a short running workout - 10 x 1 minute. After my warm-up, I ran hard for a minute, walked for a minute, and repeated until I'd done 10 hard minutes. Then a cool-down and I was done.

Sunday night, I think I discovered I'd slept too much earlier in the weekend. I woke up at 2:00 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. But, the alarm was set for 4:30, so I didn't have to wait too long until it was time to get up. I was at work before 7:00 and had a busy day with a new employee.

CrossFit was tough last night. It was a hot day and I knew the gym would be warm. We started with our Wendler cycle work for squats:

5 reps at 225

5 reps at 255

2 reps at 285

I was supposed to do max reps on the last set, with a goal of 5, but it just wasn't there. On this Wendler cycle, I haven't missed a single strict press workout, but I haven't been as consistent with squats and deadlifts. On both reps at 285, my form wasn't good - I was letting my back round a bit and not keeping my chest high. I was worried about failing and getting hurt on a third rep, so I stopped after two.

Then, 5 x 8 front squats at 135 pounds was next. I was supposed to lift heavier, but I am trying to work on using the standard grip for front squats rather than the alternative "cross-hand" grip. It has only been recently that I've gotten to 135 with that grip, despite a best of over 200 pounds with the other grip. I've basically decided to re-build my front squat by only using the standard grip, and working at whatever weight I can handle. And, those 40 reps were plenty.

Next came the MetCon:

Rep scheme: 5-10-15-20-15-10-5, as quickly as possible

2 x 25 pound dumbbells - ground to overhead, any technique allowed

pull-ups (I used an assistance band)

For the dumbbell work, I started doing power snatches, which are quick, but taxing to the arms if you get lazy with your hips. By the time I got to the first set of 15, I mixed in some clean and jerks instead. The set of 20 was all C&Js, and as the reps descended, I gradually went back to power snatches. My time was 16:45 - one of the slower times in the class. I'd spent most of the workout right on the verge of throwing up, so I don't think I could have gone any faster. Given the heat, and the number of reps, I've got no complaints.

Today is my 25th wedding anniversary. In my head, I don't really feel much older than when I got married all those years ago. My body tells a different story though. But, my wife looks as beautiful to me today as she did all those years ago.

I'm going to leave work early today to go to CrossFit. Then, my wife is going to visit me in my rented room for the evening. I have talked a local chef into doing a custom menu for us at a highly regarded local restaurant this evening. No kids. No dogs. Just the two of us for an evening. It doesn't seem that long ago that it was just the two of us - no kids, no dogs, no mortgage, etc. Now our son is out of high school, our daughter is 13 going on 25, and I've got an awful lot of gray hair. But still, it's not a bad place to be.

Two Tough CrossFit Workouts

2011-07-28T13:02:00.002-04:00

Last night, I wasn't sure what to expect at CrossFit. It was a de-loading week (a lower weight recovery week) in our Wendler cycle. I didn't know if the workout after the lifting would also be easy, or if we'd get a tough one because the strength work was so easy.

As soon as I saw the board, I knew it would be a tough one for me. But first, the lifting:

3x5 strict press, maxing out at 80 pounds - very easy

5x10 DB Presses with a pair of 35# DBs - This was hard for me due to the number of reps.

3x10 chest to bar pull-ups - This was too easy because I used too much of a resistance band.

Then came the main workout - no equipment required:

100 burpees, as quickly as possible.

Before I ever started CrossFit, I would do burpees at the end of some weight workouts. But, CrossFit burpees are a bit different than the burpees I used to do. If you look at the two different burpee links, you'll see that CrossFit burpees require you to essentially drop your hips to the ground and then do at least a knee push-up that is not required in the other video. This makes them significantly harder. But, I'd done 100 burpees a couple months ago, doing 5 of them, every minute, on the minute. So, I knew I could do the workout in 20 minutes or less. Some of the best times of the day were around 6 minutes, and many of the best times were posted by females. I was moderately happy with my 11:48, and it gives me a time to improve upon in the future.

Immediately after the workout, I had another Graston/ART treatment on my shoulder and things are still progressing. I'm not 100% though, and I remain cautious on certain lifts, mostly anything overhead with a wide grip.

After CF, I rode home, showered, cooked, ate, went to bed, and set my alarm for 4:30 this morning, so I could go to CF before work today. I have a conflict after work, so it was 5:45 a.m. or not at all today. By 5:00 a.m. and first light, I was on my bike, and by 5:30, I was at the gym.

This morning, there was no strength work posted, which guaranteed that the MetCon would be tough. The workout was named Lumberjack 20:

20 Deadlifts (275lbs)

Run 400m
20 KB swings (2pood)
Run 400m
20 Overhead Squats (115lbs)
Run 400m
20 Burpees
Run 400m
20 Pullups (Chest to Bar)
Run 400m
20 Box jumps (24")
Run 400m
20 DB Squat Cleans (45lbs each)
Run 400m

Level 1 was 185 pound deadlifts, 1.5 pood (53 pounds) for the KB swings, 75 for the overhead squats, regular pull-ups, an 18" box for the jumps, and 35# DBs for the squat cleans. I used only 65# for the OH squats, again taking it easy on my shoulder. And, despite my best intentions, I dropped to 25# DBs for the squat cleans.

Despite knowing it would be a long workout, I started out too fast. Maybe it was because deadlifts are a strength of mine and I was fine with the running. But, doing 20 good KB swings at 53# was too much. As I headed outside for my second 400m run, my stomach rebelled because I'd started too hard. I lost two minutes until I could start running and I thought briefly about dropping from the workout. After the first three movements, the toughest work was behind me and I got into a better groove. It wasn't until the DB squat cleans that I had issues again. I had to rest three times during those 20 reps, and I was still on the verge of puking as I headed outside. I started my 400 meters with about a minute of walking and then recovered enough to run the rest.

My time was 35:58 - the slowest in the class. But, six months ago, it would have been a lot higher and I continue to make progress. As long as I'm making progress, I'm not even worried what those 25-year old, 8% body fat percentage guys are doing. It's just me against the workout.

After the workout, I biked to my room, showered and got to work as quickly as possible.

Tonight, I won't get to bed until close to 11:00. I need to decide if that will be enough sleep to let me get up and go to CF at 5:45 again tomorrow. If I don't do that, I'll probably go for a run with my wife after work tomorrow.

Oh yeah, if anyone in the state of Vermont reads this blog, my son became a licensed driver this morning. Be careful out there.

CrossFit Tuesday

2011-07-27T12:56:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, with an ominous weather forecast, and some thunderstorms headed our way according to radar, I left work at 4:00 to do the 4:30 CrossFit class instead of my normal 5:45 class. It turned out that the 4:30 class was really crowded.

On my ride to the gym, I heard some thunder in the distance, but the storm didn't catch up to me. I heard later that there were some strong storms to the north and south, but we missed them completely.

As I looked at the workout last night, I wasn't thrilled. We were doing some movements that just aren't kind to my shoulder. It's not that I can't do them, but I still try to keep the weights low, and I am really paranoid about re-injuring the shoulder.

We started with our warm-up and then moved into snatch balances - 7 sets of 1 rep each, going as heavy as you can. I have some mobility issues on this lift, on overhead squats, and on squat snatches. So, I kept the weight fairly low and worked on form for the duration of the strength work.

After this, the main workout was as follows:

21-15-9, as quickly as possible:

Squat Snatch (65# for me)

Pull-ups (band-assisted)

Box Jumps (21" for me)

First of all, the squat snatch causes me problems as I mentioned above. All three of the lifts I mentioned above require you to hit the bottom of the overhead squat position. I'm working on it, but progress is slow.

The workout was not 21 snatches, 15 pull-ups, and 9 box jumps. It was 21 of each, then 15 of each, and then 9 of each. If we couldn't do squat snatches, we were supposed to do power snatches instead. In the first round, I did about 10 marginal squat snatches before dropping to power snatches as my shoulder fatigued.

In the second round, I did about six squat snatches and then went to power snatches. The last round was all power snatches.

My total time was 13:04. Because the lifting part hadn't been too heavy, I didn't feel as wiped after this workout as I often feel.

I rode my bike home, went out to run an errand, and then cooked dinner - a grilled porterhouse steak, curried mashed cauliflower, and my "landlady" (it's hard to call her that; she's more like a roommate and we cook dinner together all of the time) made a caprese salad.

My errand last night was to arrange a surprise for my wife for next Tuesday, when we'll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. She knows we are going out for dinner, but not much else about that evening.

Tonight, I'll do CrossFit after work, and if I get to bed early enough, and get some good sleep, I'll be up at 4:30 to go again at 5:45 a.m. tomorrow. I'm busy after work tomorrow, so I have to go before work or not at all.

All in all, I do have to say that I'm fully recovered from the marathon and back to a full workout schedule. Of course, it's only 17 days until the 100 on 100 relay, so I'll be beating my legs up in that relay fairly soon. Our team met earlier this week to select legs for the relay and I'll be runner number 4. I've done this race 3 times in the past and I've never done leg 2, 4, or 6. So this year, I'll get #4 out of the way.

Deadlift PR and Some Rest

2011-07-25T08:35:00.003-04:00

At CrossFit, we are seven weeks into the 12-week Wendler training cycle we are using to focus on strength, particularly the back squat, strict press and deadlift. Friday was a deadlift day. My prescribed deadlifts were as follows:

5 reps at 285 pounds

3 reps at 320 pounds

1 rep (or more) at 355 pounds

Until earlier this year, my deadlift best had been stuck at 355 pounds for about a year. Then, after a long plateau, I seemed to break through a bit. I did a 365 pound lift earlier this year and then repeated that twice more, the last time coming in a workout called "CrossFit Total", where you do a max squat, press and deadlift for a total weight. I hit 805 pounds the last time we did that workout, an improvement of 50 pounds from late in 2010.

Friday night, I was really surprised how easy 355 pounds felt. Rather than do extra reps at 355, I decided to try one rep at 375. I was shocked at how easily I was able to lift 375. The first time I managed to lift 365, the lift seemed to take forever as the bar moved very slowly to my waist. This time, the lift seemed almost easy and I'm sure I could have done 385 or more.

After the deadlifts were done, I did 5 sets of 10 reps per side of kettlebell deadlifts, and then did a workout named "Jackie"

1000 meter row

50 thrusters @ 45 pounds

30 pull-ups

I used assistance bands for the pull-ups and finished in just under 11 minutes.

On Saturday morning, I got an early start on my bike and rode 35 miles to meet my wife at the farmers market. By waiting until Saturday morning to go home, it gave me the chance to get to CrossFit Friday evening, get in a good bike ride Saturday morning, and save one car trip from our home to Montpelier.

After we got home from the market, I took a nap, the first of a handful of naps over the weekend. After my bike ride, I basically spent the weekend relaxing - some time at the local pool, napping, watching movies, cooking, and mowing the lawn. After three straight days of CrossFit and the bike ride, I was tired and it was nice to just take it easy the rest of the weekend.

Heat Wave

2011-07-22T12:44:00.003-04:00

The heat just doesn't seem to want to quit. I've slept with the AC on for days now. The last time I went a night without AC it was because I was awake all night at the Vermont 100. It seemed like today would be cooler, but the last time I checked, it was 96F outside.

I don't even want to leave the air-conditioned building where I work.

But, I will do that about 4:00 and head to CrossFit on my bike. After CrossFit, I'll ride a bit more and then jump right into the swimming pool.

After some air-conditioned sleep, I'll ride my bike for a few hours to meet my wife tomorrow, saving some more gas money this week. I'll start at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow to try to beat the heat.

After that ride, I don't know if I want to go outside for the rest of the weekend, unless the heat wave finally breaks.

Next week, it appears that I'll be in my office every day, so I'll do a lot of CrossFit workouts. After a couple easy weeks before and after the marathon, I'll do three CrossFit workouts this week, and hopefully at least four next week.

Double CrossFit - twice in 12 hours

2011-07-21T11:21:00.002-04:00

First of all, I have to admit to being lazy on Tuesday. I ended up working late, knowing that it would force me to miss CrossFit. I really could have made it out earlier, but I felt tired and I rationalized that the work was more important than the workout. Kind of a weak excuse.

Yesterday was the first day of really serious heat in the current heat wave. I put my bike on the bus in the morning and rode the bus to work. After work, I rode to CrossFit. The air was thick with heat and humidity.

We started with our Wendler cycle strict press work. I did a 5-3-1 strict press at 100-110-125. The last rep at 125 tied my PR. I then did a few push presses at 125 to work on getting that weight overhead. Then, 5x10 close grip bench press and 3x10 band-assisted chin-ups.

The MetCon was not one of my favorites:

As quickly as possible:

10 Renegade Rows

10 Toes to Bar, Knees to Elbows, or knee-ups (I chose the latter - the easiest option)

9 Renegade Rows

9 Knee-ups

.............

1 Renegade Row

1 Knee-up

I finished in 10:36 and then biked home. Because of a class this evening, my plan was to take a shower, cook dinner quickly, drink a boatload of water, call home to talk to my wife, and get to sleep as early as possible. I didn't get to sleep until about 9:30, an hour later than I'd hoped.

This morning, the alarm went off at 4:15 a.m. I hit the snooze button. I hit it a few more times. And just before 5:00, I decided the world would continue if I missed CrossFit today and just did some bike riding. I reset my alarm clock. And before I could fall asleep, I thought about skipping Tuesday's workout.

I bolted out of bed, put on my cycling clothes and rode to the gym.

Today we started with 5 x 3 of clean and jerks. This is a lift that still bothers my shoulder a bit, so I took it easy. I started at 95 pounds and worked up to 135 pounds by my 5th set.

The MetCon also included C&Js:

4 rounds, as quickly as possible:

5 Clean and Jerks (95# for me)

15 Ring Rows

30 Double Unders (or 30 single rope jumps and 15 tuck jumps)

My total time was 10:59. After that, I rode back to my rented room, took a shower, packed a lunch, and caught the bus to work. I'll get in another 6-8 miles or riding later tonight.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do CF after work rather than going home, like I normally do on Friday. Saturday mornings, my wife and I go to a farmers market in Montpelier, so I'm just going to ride there, about 35 miles or so, and meet her, which eliminates one more car trip for the week.

By the time I get home after three straight days of CF and that bike ride, I'm guessing I'll be a bit tired.

Back at it

2011-07-19T11:31:00.002-04:00

I took yesterday as a rest day. After being on my feet for about 18 hours at the race, and then walking for four hours to the finish, my feet and legs were killing me after the end of the 100. I think that I managed to get dehydrated while working the aid stations, which made the four hours of walking a bit more difficult. I was tired enough that I worked from home yesterday, rather than coming into the office.

Today, I'm back in my office and it's time to get back to the workout routine. I'm planning to ride to CrossFit tonight and do the CF workout and then ride back to my room. Hopefully it will be a workout that's kind to my tired legs.

Right now, I've taken off 12 of the last 25 days. Part of that was tapering for the marathon and then recovery from the marathon and then some time volunteering at the race last weekend. But, it's time to get back to a more regular schedule. Before this recent 25 days, I had put in two really solid months of workouts.

I am running in a 100 mile (6 person team) relay race next month, so I've got another event to shoot for right now. After that, I need to decide if I want to run a 50K in September and a 50 miler in October, and a trail marathon in November. My guess is that I'll either do all three or none of them. I'm just not sure which way I'll go.

VT100 - Volunteering and some pacing

2011-07-18T11:27:00.002-04:00

My wife and I worked at the Vermont 100 run all weekend. Even in the years I don't run the race or plan to do any significant pacing, it's nice to be there and see many of my ultra friends.

On Friday, we worked the medical part of race check-in. I got to meet some new people, say hi to old friends, but the thing I noticed the most was the number of first timers and new faces who were doing the race.

After the medical check-ins were complete, we headed home to get a good night of sleep, knowing that we'd be awake a long time after we woke up on Saturday.

We got to the Camp 10 Bear aid station at about noon on Saturday. Runners hit this station at mile 47 and again at mile 70 or so. So, it's a busy, busy aid station. We immediately jumped into the fray, trying to help as many runners as possible. At first, the focus was on runners hitting the aid station for the first time, as a few returning elite runners showed up on occasion. Eventually, by early evening, the runners were all past mile 47, and we had a break until the masses returned to mile 70. During this lull, some of the volunteers ended their shift, leaving us a bit short for a while. I was re-assigned to be the chef for the station, although it was a pretty easy gig. I handled it just fine, except for occasionally burning a grilled cheese sandwich on the grill.

At this point, I'm going to make some statements that might be controversial, but they might not matter if no one actually reads this blog. The sport of ultrarunning seems to really be changing. The crews of the runners assumed that the aid station food was for them, as well as the pacers and runners. One woman asked my wife if she could take a certain food for herself, as a crew member. My wife replied that the food was intended for runners and pacers. The woman clearly didn't like the answer, and as soon as my wife turned her back, the woman simply took what she wanted. We had people inside the aid station all day, taking food from wherever they wanted. We had a huge number of runners complain that we didn't have what they wanted. One person let us know that not having a vegetarian broth was not acceptable. A few others let us know that not having coffee was not OK. Another person complained that our fruit supply was inadequate for the vegans. We didn't stock the aid station. We were merely volunteering, giving up our weekend to help runners finish a race. But, it sure seemed like we were being blamed for perceived slights.

When I run 100s, I find out what the aid stations will supply, and if I need something else, it goes in a drop bag or my crew brings it for me. It's dangerous to assume that an aid station will supply something critical to your race success.

At one point, so much food had been taken by crew and spectators that my wife drove to a nearby store to re-stock our station.

Demands were common. Thank yous were almost unheard. I got fewer thank yous in 18 hours of aid station work than I hand out while running a 100.

The entire mentality seemed to be one of entitlement; the race was responsible for feeding the masses and satisfying every whim. I found this very disappointing, to be honest. In all the years I've worked at this race, I've never seen this prevailing attitude before.

A week ago, I ran a new marathon here in Vermont. The marathon drew runners from all over the country. The race had 21 aid stations - for a marathon! However, running near the back of the pack, I was shocked at the litter on the course. How could people just throw their trash on the ground when there were so many aid stations.

Is this what running has come to? A sport of high race prices, where runners feel entitled to anything and everything? Litter doesn't matter. Volunteers don't matter; they are servants for the runners. I don't mind being that servant, but I don't accept being treated rudely by runners, pacers or crew persons.

After my wife and I had worked over 10 hours at Camp 10 Bear, we moved to Bill's aid station at mile 89 or so. We were scheduled to work there through the close of that aid station at 6:45 a.m. The runners here were tired and the crews were tired, so the rudeness was reduced. However, runners did seem incapable of using a trash can. They would pick food and drinks off the table, use some or all of what they picked, and then just leave the mess on the table or the floor for others to clean up. They were also very demanding of the medical personnel.

Finally, about 5:30 a.m., I'd had enough and I decided to try to sneak in a nap. Minutes after I laid down, a good friend of mine, with ten prior finishes at the race, came into the aid station. I heard my wife offer him my pacing services and he said he'd love the company. The heat the previous day had taken a toll on him, and he's essentially been walking since mile 57. We had plenty of time to finish if we simply walked the remaining 11.4 miles without wasting too much time. And, that is what we did, getting Joe to the finish line at 29:40 for his 11th finish. I was glad to be part of his race. Joe has incredible longevity in the sport and is someone I respect a lot.

I was amazed when we passed the final aid station - an unmanned station. Not 30 yards from the station, which had a garbage bag, I found a Gu wrapper on the ground. Again, I fail to understand why the littering is OK. It just makes no sense.

After Joe finished, rather than staying for the awards, as we usually do, we headed home. Even though my pacing was at an easy pace, after the marathon the previous weekend and being on my feet for almost 18 hours at aid stations, I was beat. So, my wife and I headed home, and by noon, I was showered and in bed for a well-deserved nap.

I will continue to participate at the VT100 in the future, as an athlete, a pacer or a volunteer. But, if the trends I saw this weekend continue, I'm not sure how many more years I'll participate. I'm glad we helped out and I enjoyed time with friends, but some other parts of the weekend were really disappointing.

A little recovery work

2011-07-14T08:38:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, I put the bike on the bus and rode the bus to work. There is one huge hill on the way to work and I simply didn't want to ride the bike up that hill, to be honest. After work, I hopped on my bike in pouring rain, and rode to CrossFit.

My plan was to do the first half of the workout, skip the second half, and then have the chiropractor work on my shoulder for a bit. (He does appointments at the gym in the evenings.)

The first part of the workout was a press day in the Wendler cycle. Here is what I had planned:

Strict presses:

3 x 92.5

3 x 105

max x 117.5

Ring Dips:

5 x 10

Pull-ups:

3 x max

The first two strict press sets were easy. On the third, I was disappointed to only get two strict presses, but I added three push presses, with minimal push-off, to get the bar overhead a few more times.

I used assistance bands for the dips and pull-ups and go through them OK.

The main workout last night was 8 minutes of clean and jerks - as many as possible. The prescribed weight was 95 pounds, and level 1 was 65 pounds. I have to admit that I thought about doing the workout. Then, I thought about how my legs would feel partway through, as I had to drop into a starting squat position repeatedly. And then, as I fatigued, how would my shoulder feel pushing the bar overhead as I got lazy or tired in my core, which helps to stabilize the bar overhead. So, I watched the workout, which was the right decision.

After the workout, the chiropractor really worked on the shoulder. He believes that the supraspinatus is in great shape now, but there are still some issues with the infraspinatus. He had the Graston tools out last night plus really worked on some sticking points with the active release. It was a painful session and the shoulder is still unhappy today.

During the workout, the rain had stopped. Shortly after I hopped on my bike to ride home, the rain started again, but it was a nice light and cool rain.

My "landlady" (it's really hard to call her that as we have mutual friends and have quickly become friends) and I cooked dinner together. I grilled a small local chicken with some herbs and garlic, while she made a salad of green beans, green zebra tomatoes, shallots, lemon, olive oil and dill. It was a tasty and simple dinner.

Cooking simple dinners like these makes look forward to the day where I can cook dinner for just my wife and me, rather than feeding a teenage boy and a picky teenage girl every night.

Today, I'm doing some bike riding, but no other exercise. Then, I'll be volunteering at the Vermont 100 all weekend, so I won't do any training this weekend. Next Monday, I intend to get back to my regular exercise routine.

Recovery

2011-07-12T12:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I worked. And I ate. Not much else. Oh, I went to the pool with the family for a while.

Today, I'm working. I'm thinking about an easy bike ride after work, but I'm not committed to the idea.

I work on the fourth floor of an office building. I don't use elevators here. I'm not sure which is worse - walking downstairs, which hurts the quads a bit, or walking up the stairs, which points out how tired my legs are.

Tomorrow, I plan to resume commuting on my bike rather than by bus. I might even go to CrossFit tomorrow, since the first part of the workout is all upper body work.

This coming weekend, my wife and I are volunteering at the Vermont 100 Miler all weekend, so I probably won't do any training over the weekend.

Next week, I'll get back to training as my body tells me it's OK.

Mad Marathon

2011-07-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

How did I get so old and slow? I know it's been a gradual process, but this is somewhat ridiculous.

Also, where did my killer instinct go? It used to be that going to races was all about beating people. If I wasn't in good shape, I wouldn't show up.

So, it's kind of interesting that I'm quite satisfied with a 6:11:18 marathon. That is not a typo. My previous slowest road marathon was a 5:01 at Chicago in 1998.

Back in the early 90s, I could hop into a marathon on a whim and run in 3:20s. I haven't run that fast in quite a while right now.

Just a few years ago, I could routinely run a 4:00 marathon based on ultramarathon training.

But, things change. Since I tore a hamstring tendon in the spring of 2009, my running just hasn't been the same. Last September, I finally gave up on the active running recovery, and simply quit running for about six months. I started up again this spring at a low level. In the ten months preceding this marathon, I ran fewer than 200 miles.

I weigh about 215 now, and I'm carrying a lot more muscle mass than in prior years. I ran my fastest marathon at just under 170 pounds.

I'm 49 years old and I've been running for 26+ years. My best days are clearly behind me. That's OK. Things change.

I trained for this race with lots of CrossFit, other lifting, a little bit of running (long run of 13 miles), and some road biking. I didn't really do much race-specific training.

Lastly, I've been eating a low carb paleo diet, and I have never run a marathon while eating low carb before. To be honest, that part worked really well. I ate no food after dinner on Saturday night, used Vespa during the race, and took in a total of 300 calories in 6+ hours. I never felt like I was low on energy during the race.

I was shocked that this brand new race had 1200 participants. I almost didn't sign up for the event due to its $85 price tag, but I figured I'd give it a chance, being the first year for a local event. Apparently, the race was a huge draw for the "50 states" marathon people, and runners showed up from 46 states and 12 countries. I had expected about 50 locals to show up for this race on a course that was sure to be difficult. Having now run the race, I see no reason to pay that much for this event again. There was nothing wrong with the race, and $85 may reflect the current market for marathons, but not for me.

My plan for the race was simple:

Finish under the 6:30 time limit
Mix walking and running to maintain a steady pace
Run using Vespa and very few calories
Have fun
Don't get hurt

To finish, my basic goal was to get 15 minutes ahead of a 15mpm pace, and then just settle into a 15mpm walk/run pace. I hit the 5 mile mark right at the hour, so I was 15 minutes ahead of that pace early. My goal became very simple. Hit mile 6 by 1:15, mile 7 by 1:30, etc. It was a very hilly course:

I don't know if you need a Garmin Connect account to see the details, but the View Details link will show the elevation profile along with other details about my run. From mile 8 to mile 16, the course was mostly uphill. Runners were coming downhill towards me as I went uphill from 12 to just short of 16, and the entire way, I stayed focused on my 15mpm pace, hoping that I'd still have something in the tank on the way back if I didn't push too hard on the ups.

And, it worked. After mile 18, the course was mostly downhill. I was able to run a lot more and my conservative pace had paid off. I used Vespa and a total of 3 gels, and my energy levels were great. I had fun. I finished. I even picked up about 10 minutes on the 15mpm pace over the last few miles, despite the day getting pretty warm.

Today, I'm tired but not too beat up. I had fun. I met all of my goals, meager though they were.

Now, I need to decide what to do next. I have a relay race next month, but no other running commitments after that.

But, I can't get that "unfinished business" Western States 100 miler obsession out of my brain. So, this has me thinking about doing more running for a few months and trying to qualify for the Western States lottery at a fall 50 miler. Stay tuned.

Grains

2011-07-08T11:34:00.002-04:00

It seems to me that the harder I try to avoid grains, the worse I feel every time I eat any grains, especially wheat.

Last night after work, I had a class, so I needed to grab a quick dinner. I ended up getting a burrito. It wasn't really very good, and it had a wheat tortilla. This morning, I had stomach cramps and my body seemed really unhappy with my food choice.

I'm not sure what's going on, but the last few times I've eaten wheat, I've had similar symptoms. Yet, in years of eating wheat on a regular basis, I never had these issues. Anyway, it's something I'll monitor and I'll continue to keep wheat and other grains to a minimum in my diet.

With the marathon on Sunday, I did an easy 14 miles of cycling yesterday. Today, I'll run for an easy 45 minutes or so after work.

But, right now, I'm off to interview a candidate for a job opening I need to fill.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Same old stuff

2011-07-07T08:48:00.004-04:00

I got lucky with the storms yesterday. We had one really violent thunderstorm come through while I was still at work. I rode my bike to CrossFit during a break in the storm. Then, it poured during our workout. I rode home from the gym in a light drizzle. And, after taking a shower, despite hearing some thunder in the distance, I was able to use the grill outside to cook dinner.

For the day yesterday, I did the following:

Bike: 14.4 miles (this morning, my cyclometer seems to have stopped working for some reason)

CrossFit:

5 strict presses at 85 pounds

5 @ 100 pounds

5 @ 110 pounds

5 sets of bench presses: 10 reps, 95 pounds, short rest - kept the weight low to protect my shoulder. The shoulder continues to improve, but normal grip bench presses still put stress on the injury.

3 by 10 band-assisted pull-ups.

The MetCon included a movement called "toes to bar".

I was working on this movement just the day before and I'm starting to get them, but I can only do 5 or so at a time. The alternate movements were knees to elbows or simple "knee-ups". I started with a few toes to bar and then gradually faded to knees up in the MetCon:

As quickly as possible:

25 dumbbell push presses (2x30# for me)

5 toes to bar

20 dumbbell push presses

10 toes to bar

15 dumbbell push presses

15 toes to bar

10 dumbbell push presses

20 toes to bar

5 dumbbell push presses

25 toes to bar

My time was somewhere between 11 and 12 minutes - I forget exactly what it was. My upper body is sore today and I'm guessing my abs will be sore tomorrow.

Today, I'm doing my bike commute but no other workouts. The weather today is perfect for riding - no storms at all in the forecast.

Sort of tapering into the marathon

2011-07-06T09:26:00.002-04:00

I did take some rest days over the weekend. My wife and I were both feeling somewhat sick all weekend, so that gave me a good excuse to take a couple rest days.

It's hard to know if I should taper for this marathon or not. And, considering how few miles I've run this year, what would a taper be?

Yesterday, I rode my bike to and from CrossFit. To start the workout, I did 3 sets of heavy back squats (5 reps each). After that, I was scheduled to do 5 sets of 10 reps of front squats, at 170 pounds. I knew that this would hit my quads and I didn't want to trash my quads at all with the marathon in five days. So, I did 5 sets of 10 back squats instead, at a light weight (135 pounds).

After that, the main workout was pretty straightforward:

5 rounds, as quickly as possible:

5 squat snatches (95#)

Run 200 meters

My squat snatch form is nowhere near as good as the person in the video link. To do a good squat snatch, you really need to have a good overhead squat, and that's a lift where I have some mobility issues. So, my squat snatches were closer to muscle snatches, to be honest. I was very happy that my shoulder didn't complain putting 95 pounds overhead 25 total times. The workout took me just under 11 minutes.

Today, I rode to work, and after work, I'll ride to CrossFit, hoping to dodge the forecast storms. Our workout tonight starts with strict presses and bench presses, so it won't be a leg-intensive workout.

After today, I won't do any more CrossFit workouts until after the marathon. On Thursday, I'm planning to do my bike commute, but nothing more. Friday, I'll run an easy 3 miles with my wife. And Saturday will be a rest day.

I've never prepared for a marathon anything like this one. I'm curious to see how I feel in the later miles on Sunday.

Mid-Year Summary

2011-07-05T10:20:00.002-04:00

It's now July, just past the halfway mark for the year. It's a good time to look at what I've done so far this year and see if I'm moving in the right direction.

Through the end of June, I had done something "physical" on just over 70% of the days in the year:

CrossFit: 53 times

Skiing: 32 days

Lifting: 15 days (excluding CrossFit)

Running: 38 runs totaling a measly 150 miles

Cycling: 23 days totaling 263 miles, most of that bike commuting

So, what has that effort done for me?

First of all, one of those skiing days resulted in a hard fall that caused a significant shoulder injury. That has limited my lifting at times, but I am slowly getting better, with assistance from medical professionals.

Am I more fit than I was six months ago? This one is easy. I am absolutely more fit. My endurance is better, I've set some PRs in the power lifts, and my workouts validate the fact that I'm in better shape than six months ago.

How am I doing with losing excess body fat? I've also made progress here. I am about 15 pounds lighter than I was at the start of the year, and I'm sure I've added some muscle mass, so my fat loss is in excess of 15 pounds. To be honest, I'd like to be another 25 pounds lighter and I'm working on that.

So, what's ahead for the second half of the year? I am scheduled to run a marathon next weekend, and with only 150 running miles so far this year, it will be a challenge. But, I think I'm fit enough to get through the race.

I am entered (for the 4th time in 5 years) in the 100 on 100 relay in August - a 6-person, 100-mile relay. I won't be really fast, but I will get through my miles OK.

I might do a trail ultra at the end of this month, a very difficult 34 miler in the mountains of NH. I'm leaning away from doing this one, to be honest, because I'm probably not really ready for this amount of time on my feet. I'm guessing it would be 16-18 hours, and my longest day so far this year is 6 hours.

After these events, I'm not sure if I'll do any more running events or not.

As winter approaches, my focus will be on getting into the physical shape I need to be in to tackle a ski instructor certification exam - my PSIA Level 3, part 1 exam, which focuses on skiing ability. That test is my primary goal for next winter.

I'm guessing that my focus for the second half of the year will continue to be CrossFit, fat loss, and having fun with my workouts. That means some running, hiking, power lifting, cycling, etc., as I feel like it. But, CrossFit and eating well will be the primary focal points.

Some Lawn Work, Interval Work, and an Evening of Fishing

2011-07-03T13:46:00.002-04:00

My "weight" work yesterday was using a chainsaw to cut up some fallen wood on our property and then disposing of the wood after it was cut up. It was warm and it was hard work, with some good help from my son.

After that, I took about a 90 minute break to re-hydrate and then headed out for a short but intense run. After a warm-up, I did 10 by 1 minute hard, with one minute of recovery. I didn't cover a lot of miles, but it was a good workout.

Later in the day, my son and I went out fly-fishing for a few hours. I caught a couple native rainbows in a stretch of river we'd never fished before. The second one was beautiful and I wanted to get a picture, but I decided to get it released quickly so its survival odds would increase. So, no picture.

This morning, we were going to hike Killington, but a thunderstorm scuttled that plan, so I've been working instead. So much for my "holiday" weekend. I'll probably spend too much time working today and tomorrow.

With my marathon now 7 days away, I'm taking some rest days to be sure I'll be rested. I'll probably hike or run easily tomorrow after resting today. Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll go to CrossFit, but I'll really back off after Wednesday.

My slowest ever marathon was just over 5 hours in Chicago in 1998. This is a much tougher course, we'll have more challenging weather, and I'll likely be slower than in Chicago. But, my plan is to just have fun.

Work Your Weakness - Again

2011-07-01T11:56:00.003-04:00

I like this workout at CrossFit. If you are honest, it really is a way to spend time focusing on something that you dread and work at getting better.

The first part is strength movements. Every minute on the minute, do a low number of reps of something that requires strength.

Yesterday, for the first ten minutes, I did 2 front squats at 155 pounds every minute. I can lift more than 155 in the front squat, but I wanted to focus on form and proper depth, and 155 is the perfect weight for me right now. I can execute those squats with good form, but it's still heavy enough to tax me.

My second ten minutes were another nemesis - ring dips. I did use a support band, and did 10 sets of 5. After the first five sets, I switched to a lighter band and increased the difficulty of each rep.

Next, we had a 12 minute MetCon, with as many reps as possible. I chose two movements where I do OK, but pushed the difficulty of each.

I started each round with box jumps, but at 21" rather than my normal 18". Make a mistake here and you get hurt. I did 8 reps per round.

For the second half of each round, I did wall balls:

I normally use a 14 pound ball for these, but jumped to 20 pounds last night. I did 12 per round. I was surprised that the wall balls were the limiting factor for me in the workout. I know I hit the "weaknesses" appropriately because I'm sore all over today.

After work today, I'll do a run with my wife - not too long or too hard.

Sometime this weekend, I'll do some speedwork, and if the weather cooperates, a hike as well.

Whatever made me sick yesterday isn't 100% resolved, but I was able to train yesterday, and that's good enough for me.

Good Workout, Bad Dinner

2011-06-30T10:58:00.002-04:00

After the workout on Tuesday, yesterday was almost a rest day at CrossFit.

After our warm-up, we went straight into some strength work on strict presses. But, every fourth week of the Wendler cycle is a de-loading week (low weights), so that work was fairly easy. The only hard part was some chest-to-bar pull-ups the day after we did 90 pull-ups.

After the strength work, the MetCon was not too bad:

8 minutes, as many reps as possible

8 reps - sumo deadlift high pull - 75# for me (between Rx and Level 1)

8 burpees

I got through just under six rounds and I was tired, but not beat up. After the workout, I saw the chiropractor who has been working on my shoulder. He is very happy with the progress we've made and he didn't even pull out the Graston tools yesterday. He did some active release work, and worked on the biceps tendon a bit. After the biceps tendon work, I did my first fully pain free push-up in quite a while. So, the shoulder is probably 80%-90% there. I am going to see him just every other week for a while now, and hopefully let my body complete most of the remaining healing on its own.

I rode home after the workout, beating an approaching rainstorm. As I went through the kitchen, I found four ingredients for dinner: a locally made Mexican-style chorizo, fresh spinach, eggs, and cream. That was a perfect primal meal waiting to happen, and I cooked the sausage first, added the spinach, cooked that, added the cream, and finally some eggs. I also added some salt and pepper. And, I cooked everything well enough - none of the ingredients were under-cooked.

I ate dinner while I watched the Red Sox game and did some laundry. By 10:00, the Sox had lost and I was in bed. My alarm was set for 5:15 as usual. But, I woke up about 4:30, feeling terrible. One of those ingredients in the dinner was tainted somehow. Since then, it's been a rough morning, but I'm finally feeling better. Hopefully, I'll feel up to doing CrossFit later today, assuming I can get to the gym.

Michelle Obama is in town today, and I normally take a low-traffic shortcut through a hotel parking lot on my bike at 5:00 or so. But, Michelle Obama is speaking at that hotel at 5:00 today, so I probably not be allowed to use the short cut, so I need to fight through some much nastier traffic on my bike to get to the gym.

Badger

2011-06-29T07:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's CrossFit workout was Badger.

I had never done this workout before and didn't know its history until I Googled it later. After reading a bit about the workout, I feel like I certainly didn't do it justice.

Here is the prescribed level for the workout:

3 rounds for time:

30 squat cleans, 95 pounds

30 pull-ups

800 meter run

One of the first clues that a workout is going to be difficult can be found when you walk into the gym. We have a number of large whiteboards on the wall. One shows our warm-up for the day. The next board shows our strength work for the day. Then, the next four boards show the four levels available for the main workout. Last night, the strength board had no workout. Instead, there were some comments about the main workout, and about how hard it was. Next, I started looking at another set of whiteboards where the previous groups from yesterday had posted their times. Almost every time was over 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes isn't a long time to be running, or cycling or swimming at a steady pace. But, 30 CrossFit minutes can seem like an eternity because you are going hard the entire time.

And, squat cleans are not easy. Well, they're not really difficult. But, they wear on you. You start as if you are going to do a light deadlift, but suddenly, you're doing a front squat instead. There is a lot of movement and it gets easy to cheat - just don't drop down into a full squat for each rep. As you get tired and start to cheat a little, squat cleans can start to look more like power cleans, a much easier movement at light weight.

So, with all of those excuses lined up, it's pretty obvious I didn't have a great workout. That's the interesting thing about CrossFit. I've had some good workouts recently. I've been doing the Rx'd workout more often. I've been passing people during running segments. I'm getting stronger. Feeling confident. And then, bam! I got humbled big-time last night.

For level 1, the only change was to drop the squat cleans to 65 pounds instead of 95. But, I also use assistance on pull-ups. If I had tried to do 90 unassisted pull-ups, the clock would still be ticking on my workout.

As we started the workout, it took me about 10 squat cleans to know I was in trouble. I started breaking the squat cleans into smaller sets - 5s and then 4s. After I finally got through the first round of the cleans, I started my pull-ups. I soon found myself doing them in sets of 5. That would eventually drop to 3 and even a couple sets of 2. By the time I headed out on my first run, I knew that level 1 was going to be too much. My legs felt terrible for the 800 meters and I hadn't run since Saturday.

I knew that level 2 used only 20 reps rather than 30 for the cleans and pull-ups. I decided to drop to 20 reps for the next two rounds.

And, it still sucked. Or, I sucked - however you want to look at it.

Finally, after almost 37 minutes, I staggered back inside, done with a very humbling workout.

One of the ladies from our gym recently placed first in the CrossFit Northeast Regionals. She finished the workout in just over 26 minutes and made it look easy. But, I think everyone else was over 30 minutes.

After the workout, I hopped on my bike and headed home. I immediately hopped into the swimming pool to try to cool off. I then drank at least 8 glasses of water before I went to bed. And, this morning, I got up at 6:15 instead of 5:00.

I know that part of tonight's workout is strict presses from the Wendler cycle. But, it's a de-loading week, so the lifts are fairly easy. I'm hoping the main workout isn't another grinder like last night.

Sometimes, it's just time to rest

2011-06-28T11:35:00.002-04:00

All day yesterday, I felt tired. Sleepy. Lethargic. Not motivated to work out.

Going into Friday, I had worked out 13 of 14 days and 26 of 30. Due to weather, I took a rest day on Friday. I did some interval work on Saturday, and then rested again on Sunday. But, it still didn't appear to be enough.

I left work at 4:00 yesterday, and got to my rented room about 5:00. I had already decided that CrossFit wasn't going to happen. I went to my room, turned on the AC, and took a nap for 90 minutes. Then, I got up and had some dinner, and went back to bed.

This morning, I felt a lot better. My bike ride to work normally takes 35-37 minutes. This morning, I was in the big chainring most of the way, feeling strong, and I made it in 32 minutes. So, the rest must have done some good.

Tonight, I'll do CrossFit.

But clearly, I just needed some rest the past few days. I need to make sure I'm paying close attention to how I feel, and getting rest days when I need them.

Thirteen Days Until the Marathon

2011-06-27T08:01:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, I pretty much goofed off. I was supposed to run with my wife or do heavy deadlifts on Friday. Instead, we were both tired and we took a rest day.

On Saturday, I did 6 quarters with long rest between each repeat. My wife did the workout with me, and we ran in the rain. We let the dogs sit this one out, although they could have used the exercise. I averaged about 1:45 per repeat - pretty slow.

Sunday was supposed to either be a long hike or a long run, but instead, I slept in. I spent a lot of the day doing nothing, and never really did anything useful other than mowing the lawn and cooking dinner.

So, I'm now 13 days from a marathon. To be honest, I don't really feel like running a marathon at my current weight and my current (lack of) fitness level. I am sure I can finish the event under the time limit (6:30), but I'm not sure what the point would be. I don't have to prove to myself that I can finish a marathon, after doing more about 125 marathons and ultras in my life. I see no reason to truly slog through a super-slow marathon either, unless I can honestly say that I'll enjoy the experience. And, I don't think that I will.

I'm trying hard these days to train hard, but have my training days be fun. I don't mind working hard, but I want to be having fun when I work hard. I don't know if doing a marathon right now will provide me with any fun.

So, I'll think about it. I might be able to drop to the half marathon.

I could run long today after taking a rest day yesterday. But, I'd rather go to CrossFit. And that preference feels like I'm answering my own question about running the marathon.

If it's not fun, why do it?

Just another CrossFit Thursday

2011-06-24T07:55:00.002-04:00

I've used this title for a blog post before. Chrome just told me so. I hope it doesn't screw up every search engine in the world. Maybe if I used the title "Gay Pride", I'd get a little temporary rainbow icon attached to my post. If that comment made no sense, go to Google and enter the term and look at your results. Do it quickly before the brouhaha subsides or Google changes the "catch me if you can" doodle.

Anyway, yesterday was a pretty typical day. I spent most of the day fighting with Windows 7. Actually, for ten days now, I've been fighting Windows 7 (64-bit professional). On two different hardware configurations at work, from two different manufacturers, the Windows updates from those days have caused all kinds of problems. My cloud-based shared drive and back-up service have been interrupted, and my config files were trashed, rendering some old backups unusable. I have probably been through 40 reboots of my own computer. I have had to purchase some software for a co-worker because Windows got so corrupted that his computer barely worked. He still has to attempt to re-apply the Windows updates now that he's repaired the OS. I can't imagine that we are the only two people who have had these problems, yet I've seen very few complaints on the web. As the IT director for our little company, I've now had to "decree" that Windows updates no longer be automatically applied. This, in turn, makes our anti-virus software unhappy, as our vendor there expects every Windows update that is security related will be applied immediately. Sometimes, I hate computers. Well, I really should just work on Unix/Linux. Or maybe a Mac.

After I finally got out of here yesterday, feeling very frustrated with computers, I took it out on some iron at CrossFit. After a more vigorous than usual warm-up, we worked on overhead squats for a while. We were supposed to use heavy weights, but my shoulder got really sore the last time I tried heavy OH squats. So, I kept the weight lighter and really focused on my form and good depth in the squat. I have some issues with shoulder and hip mobility that really make this a tough lift for me, and I am getting better, but I have a long way to go. Given my strength in other lifts, I should easily be able to do 135 pounds or more for an OH squat, but that just isn't the case.

After the OH squats, the MetCon was pretty straightforward:

12 minutes, As Many Reps As Possible:

Row 250 meters

10 DB Split Snatches, right hand (35#)

10 DB Split Snatches, left hand (35#)

The DB split snatch was a new movement to me. From the name, I instantly knew what the lift was, but I'd never done it before. I could tell that my form wasn't very good because the left side was much harder than the right. Yet, this lift should derive its strength from the hips rather than the arms, so if my weaker arm was limiting me, my form was the issue.

I made it through four complete rounds plus 95 meters on my fifth rowing round.

Today, I am scheduled to do Wendler cycle deadlifts. But, my current plan is to run with my wife instead. We really enjoy our hour-long runs when I get off the commuter bus on Thursday or Friday evening. We might get thunderstorms, and if that happens, I'll do my deadlifts instead.

Tomorrow, I want to do some 400 meter repeats on the track, and Sunday, I'll do a long run or a long hike.

And then it's back to work. I wonder what will go wrong with Windows next week.

Mt. Mansfield hike, Paleo Challenge, More CrossFit

2011-06-23T08:05:00.005-04:00

My friend Jeff commented yesterday that I should put up some pictures from the Mt. Mansfield hike on Sunday. I only took two photos on the hike, one of my wife and one of my son on the summit. My wife probably doesn't appreciate that I got a photo of her eating an energy bar, but I was the person with the camera. My son was really tired at this point, but held up pretty well in his first real workout in quite a while.

Here is our hiking route, produced using my Garmin Forerunner, Garmin's Connect software, and Google Earth:

The mileage I got from the Garmin doesn't match the guidebook mileage, and one "lap" isn't even a "Garmin" mile because I hit the lap button by mistake. One thing that I really liked about the Garmin Connect site is how it corrected the elevation numbers that the unit recorded during the hike. The Forerunner told me we'd climbed 4690 vertical feet, while I suspected the actual elevation to be closer to 3000'. The software took the GPS points and corrected the vertical to 2964'. All in all, it was a fun day and my son now needs only Killington to have summited all of the VT 4000 foot peaks on his own power. We may do that one this weekend, and we might even throw in Pico, the highest peak in VT that doesn't hit 4000'.

On another subject, the winners of our month-long Paleo challenge at CrossFit were announced yesterday. I didn't know about it until I got to the gym and a few people congratulated me. I wasn't sure what they were talking about at first. Rather than repeat the details, they can be found here. I'm not sure if I like Jade's comment about "Damon rounding out the top 3." I am spending all my time at CrossFit so I can be a little bit less round.

Since really working to reduce the carbs in my diet in mid-April, and moving to a Paleo-style diet, I've lost about 18 pounds so far. I was at the highest weight I've ever been, and I still have plenty to lose, but things are moving in the right direction. From June of 2008, when I was in great running shape for the Western States 100, until April of this year, I had gained 52 pounds. Not all of that was body fat, but it was still the biggest weight swing I'd ever had in my life, and I'm working hard to revert those bad changes. I'll probably never again be as light as three years ago unless I give up lifting, but I'd still like to lose another 25 pounds or so. Working for a start-up software company for the past few years, plus a serious hamstring injury and a love of good beer has been a bad combination for my weight.

My eating was right where I wanted it to be yesterday, including local rabbit roasted with rosemary, garlic and olive oil. I had that with the fresh-from-the-garden chard and a salad.

That dinner came after this workout:

Biking: 14.2 miles for the day, most of it in a light rain

Strict presses

5 x 95#

3 x 105#

1 x 120#

Push press:

4 x 120#

Close grip bench press:

5 sets of 10 at 85# (still protecting my shoulder a bit)

Pull-ups - 3 sets, max reps, and I dropped to a lower strength assistance band to make it more strength work rather than endurance: 8, 7, 7

Finally, the MetCon was as follows:

10 minutes, as many reps as possible

15 power cleans at 95#

30 lateral jumps over the barbell

I did this one at the RX'd level rather than level 1 (65#). I knew I'd get fewer reps, but the AMRAP workouts are a good time to push the weights to a higher level. On the "as quickly as possible" workouts, using a weight that is too high results in a long, slow slog. On an AMRAP, you just do what you can and you're done when time expires. I did 3.5 rounds in 10 minutes.

Today is more bicycling in the rain and CrossFit. Tomorrow, I'll switch my focus to running for three days - my final real runs before the marathon in just over two weeks. I need to break in a new pair of shoes this weekend.

Tired of being tired?

2011-06-22T08:06:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, I wonder what all of this training stuff is really about.

This morning, I woke up feeling tired and old and creaky. I thought briefly about putting my bike on the bus and getting a ride to work. But, as usual, I put on my cycling clothes and pedaled to work. It's not a hard ride; it takes me 35-37 minutes every morning, and there is one big hill, but it's not that big a deal. In the evening, I ride another 45 or so minutes, with the ride split up by CrossFit. Those 75-80 minutes on the bike are way more fun than 2 hours in the car. And I have to think they are better for me and the environment than driving.

But, I was tired from CrossFit this morning. At CrossFit yesterday, I was tired from lifting on Monday. Monday while lifting, I was tired from hiking on Sunday. On my ride to work this morning, I was thinking about being tired. Maybe I was thinking about feeling old too, but that wasn't the main train of thought.

I really enjoy CrossFit. I like the improvements in my strength and my stamina. I enjoy the people I train with. I have no intention of competing in CrossFit, so that sometimes leaves me wondering "why?"

But, even if I was competing, like with running over the past 25 years, the "why" question doesn't go away. Since April first in 1985, I have made training of some sort or another a top priority in my life. I've race hundreds of times - road races, track races, trail races, triathlons, duathlons, relays. I've done running races from 800 meters to 100 miles. I've been elated at times and frustrated at others with the training itself and the races.

I've skied hundreds of days in the past 12 years. I've taught skiing for 300 or more days over the last decade. I'm always moving, always training, always trying to "improve". But, improve what? Why? When will I arrive and be done improving? And if I do arrive, then what? Do I just stay "there" until the realities of old age take me away?

If it's all about being healthy, I should place most of my focus on my diet and put less time into training. I definitely train (exercise - whatever) more than I need to for my overall health. If it's fear of being fat, well, that hasn't been a raging success. If it's to avoid getting old, that doesn't seem to be working. If I'm trying to stave off the effects of getting older, why do I feel old and creaky right now?

Why have I endured a torn ACL, numerous bouts of Achilles tendinosis, a rotator cuff injury, bike crashes, broken ribs (twice), broken toes, plantar fasciitis, and other assorted aches and pains all of these years?

I don't know if I have any answers to these questions. I do sometimes think about Bear Bryant, the legendary football coach. When it was time for him to retire, he recognized that fact and told everyone that the team deserved better coaching than he'd provided. He was asked what he would do now that he was retiring and gave a simple, seeming throwaway answer: "Probably croak in a week." In less than a month, he was dead.

Maybe that's what I'm doing. Training because I'm afraid I'll croak the second I stop. And, for the most part, it's fun. It's challenging. CrossFit is especially challenging because the goal is to constantly change things and force you to learn new things and adapt to new stimuli. It's not like training for ultras, where you can spend hour after hour doing the same thing, slowly building a huge endurance base. As soon as you think you have something down at CrossFit, they change the rules on you.

So it goes. I'm tired. I'm somewhat tired of being tired. And yet, I don't want to quit, or at least I don't think I want to quit. And I don't know why I don't want to quit. I don't feel ready to croak quite yet.

Yesterday:

13 total miles on the bike.

10 x 2 sumo deadlifts at 275#, every minute on the minute

10 x 5 kettlebell swings at 53#, every minute on the minute

12 minutes, as many reps as possible:

10 band-assisted pull-ups

200 meter run

Completed 6 rounds, but the last 200 meters took me past the 12 minute mark

Fun weekend

2011-06-20T13:19:00.002-04:00

Friday, my wife and squeezed in a quick workout at lunchtime. I did my Wendler cycle deadlifts and some stiff-legged deadlifts, but that was it for the workout. The deads were heavy, so it was a lot of work, but done in a short period of time.

Friday night, we had a family gathering to celebrate my son's graduation. It was a fun evening, full of many "So, what now?" questions for Phil.

On Saturday, we went to the farmers market and not much else early in the day.

Phil and I got out for a couple hours of fly fishing. Despite numerous hatches going on, we didn't see a whole lot of action. Phil hooked one small fish and I saw a couple fish, but that was mostly it. Well, I did hook a really big one - myself. And stupidly, I'd forgotten to crush the barb of the hook before I tied the fly to my line. I try to always do this, to minimize any injuries to fish that I will be releasing. So, I suddenly found myself with my left index finger impaled deeply by a fish hook. And the barb was preventing me from backing out the hook. It took me over half an hour to work the hook forward through my skin, remove the barb, and then remove the hook from my finger. This work averted a trip to the emergency room and its associated costs. Plus, I'm current on my tetanus shot, so I think everything is fine.

Yesterday, my wife and son and I hike Mt. Mansfield. We used a trail that my wife and son had never seen before on the ascent - the Maple Ridge Trail. I'd come down this trail but never ascended it. It was the first hike of the year for all three of us and our time was fairly slow. The total distance was under 10 miles, with about 3000' of climbing, and it took us 6 hours. We did rest for half an hour on the summit though. It was a beautiful day on the mountain and there were a lot of people out there. I saw people hiking in Vibram Five Fingers and even one couple hiking barefoot. Given that this is Vermont, I shouldn't be surprised.

After the hike, we stopped in Waterbury for dinner at The Alchemist - a really nice local brewpub. I was so tired and dehydrated from the hike that I had club soda rather than beer.

Today, after work, I'm going to do some squats in the Wendler cycle, followed by 5 sets of 10 Bulgarian squats. After that, I'll run home from the gym.

Tomorrow, I'll be back at CrossFit.

Three weeks to my marathon. It's going to be a slow one.

Easy Hour on the Feet

2011-06-17T08:30:00.004-04:00

That's me briefly leading the pack in Wednesday night's CrossFit workout.

My wife picked me up at the bus station last night, and we did an hour-long leisurely walk-run, covering about four miles. After I'm away from home most of the week, the hour or so that we have alone to run or walk is something we both really enjoy.

Today is my son's high school graduation, so I am working half a day and then squeezing in a quick workout before the graduation ceremony. My son is really unhappy with his principal right now, and I don't blame him. My son is not big on ceremony as a general rule, and planned to get his diploma without a cap and gown. He didn't buy a yearbook, had no interest in a class ring, no interest in sending out graduation announcements, thinks graduation presents make no sense, etc.

Yesterday, the principal informed the class that anyone not wearing a cap and gown could not participate in the graduation. He would have opted out right then, which he'd prefer to do, but he's complying to make his mom happy. Plus, you have to pay money to use the cap and gown. I offered to intervene for my son, but instead, he's just laughing at what he sees as perversity in the process.

After graduation, we're having a small family gathering to celebrate. He is more interested in some promised fly fishing time later this weekend.

I'll probably take tomorrow as a rest day and just do some fishing with my son.

My replacement Garmin Forerunner arrives tomorrow, so I'll take that out on a long hike or run on Sunday before my son and I do some more fly fishing.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Yikes, it's three weeks to my marathon.

Mixed Results in Last Night's Workout

2011-06-16T08:21:00.002-04:00

Last night started (after our warm-up) with the Wendler cycle again, doing military presses. My first two sets were fine, but the third (and heaviest set), going for max reps didn't go well at all. I failed on my first rep and ended up doing a slight dip and drive - a push press rather than a strict press. I don't know why that happened, but my upper body lifts definitely seem to progress very slowly.

I've been running and skiing for years, so I have the leg strength for squatting and deadlifts, but bench presses and strict presses are definitely a weakness. And, those lifts really require the addition of muscle mass to see major improvements. I don't care if I add the muscle mass, but it doesn't happen very quickly.

After the presses, we did 5 sets of ring dips and 3 sets of pull-ups. I used bands for assistance, but dropped down a notch on the band that I'm using.

The main workout suited my strengths really well:

7 rounds, as quickly as possible:

10 deadlifts

Run 200 meters

The prescribed weight was 225# for men. I knew I could do this, but the last few sets would be tough. And, with a heavy deadlift workout scheduled for Friday, I didn't want to do 70 deadlifts at 225 pounds. So, I opted for level 1 (155#) and really focused on pace. I was the third person done in the group, and for the first time in quite a while, I was passing people on the running reps. I felt smooth and strong the whole way through the MetCon.

I've had some really good workouts over the last five days and I'm feeling a little tired from the effort, but not too bad.

Today, I am going home because of my son's high school graduation tomorrow. My wife and I will do an easy run this evening - maybe 45 minutes or so. Tomorrow, I'll do my deadlift workout, but it will be short (and intense). By Saturday, I'm guessing I'll need a rest day or at least a very easy day.

I've got a marathon in just over three weeks. Maybe it's time to start training for that. My recent weeks have been something like 3-4 CrossFit workouts, 50 miles of bike commuting and 2 runs totaling 10-18 miles. My long run is 3 hours at an easy pace. The marathon is going to be a challenge.

Better Weather Than Forecasted

2011-06-15T08:35:00.002-04:00

Monday morning, I was looking at a forecast that called for rain most of Monday and Tuesday. It drizzled on me a bit on my bike ride to work on Monday, but it was barely noticeable. And, it's been dry ever since.

After lifting hard on Monday, I couldn't make it to the gym yesterday. After work, I had an appointment at the same time as my CrossFit workout. OK, perhaps I'm being a bit dishonest there. I could have gotten up at 4:30, gotten dressed, ridden to CrossFit, done the 5:45 a.m. workout, ridden back to my room, showered, and then ridden to work. But, I knew I'd get 20 road miles in yesterday with some good hills, so I skipped CrossFit. I did get in the road miles and the weather was beautiful for the riding.

Today is supposed to be a sunny warm day, and it was warm enough to ride to work without a jacket this morning. I was tired and sore enough from the past few days to consider riding the bus, but I rode the bike instead. Tonight, I'll go to CrossFit and then tomorrow, I'll ride to work in the morning and do an easy run with my wife in the evening. Tonight, our focus is Wendler strict presses before the main workout.

I need to go home tomorrow rather than Friday because my son's high school graduation is Friday. He is thrilled to finally be done with high school, but his academic future is still somewhat cloudy. We were very surprised when he received a rejection letter from his "safe" school last week. He easily exceeds all of their minimum academic requirements - by quite a lot - yet he was rejected for some reason. And, they don't even have his AP and SAT achievement test results yet. So, he's asked for clarification and basically appealed the decision. He has another in-state backup school, but he really wants to leave Vermont for college, and if I were him, I think I'd want the same thing.

On Friday evening, we will have a family gathering to celebrate his graduation. I thought he'd want to go on a trip or do something else a bit more grand to celebrate. All he really wants is some pizza with family on Friday night, a new laptop to take to college and he's asked for some time for the two of us to go fly-fishing this weekend. That will be easy to accommodate.

After I ride and run tomorrow, and then lift on Friday, I'll have 8 straight workout days. Saturday will be a rest day, with some fly fishing. Sunday, I'll either run long or do intervals.

Tough Night at CrossFit

2011-06-14T10:58:00.001-04:00

The Wendler lifting cycle we are doing at CrossFit is pretty tough. The 12 week cycle is broken down into 3 4-week mesocycles. Each mesocycle gets harder in weeks 1-3, and then week 4 is an easier week, before increasing the load for the next mesocycle.

Right now, we are in week 2 of the first mesocycle. In week 1, the rep scheme for the primary lift is 5-5-max. In week 2, it's 3-3-max. In week 3, it's 5-3-max. The weight goes up in each set and from week to week, except during the fourth (deloading) week.

So, last night, I started with back squats, doing 70%, 80% and 90% of my one rep max of 315:

3 x 220

3 x 252

max reps at 285 - I got 4.

Then, each workout, we do one or two "supporting" lifts - higher reps, less rest, lower weights. Last night, we did barbell lunges, 5 sets of 10 reps per side, and I used 110 pounds. This was brutal, but I managed to get through it. During the first set, I didn't think there was any way I'd get all 5 sets, but I did.

Then came the MetCon workout:

12 minutes, as many reps as possible:

5 push-ups

10 pull-ups

20 air squats

40 rope jumps

10 tuck jumps

I was beat from the strength work and didn't even manage to finish four rounds. But, I got in a great total workout. Plus, I got over an hour of bike riding done for the day as well.

Today, I have an appointment after work, so I won't make it to CF. But, the appointment will increase my cycling mileage for the day to over 20 miles, mostly at an easy pace.

Tomorrow, it's back to CF for Wendler military presses.

Laid Back Weekend

2011-06-13T09:58:00.003-04:00

The weather wasn't so nice this weekend, which helped to make it pretty relaxing.

Friday after work, I went to the gym very quickly to do some Wendler Cycle deadlifts and one supporting lift:

Deadlifts (3 minutes rest):

5 x 240

5 x 275

max reps at 310 (did 7 at 315 - 315 is easier to rack than 310 - six total plates instead of twelve)

Good Mornings (1 minute rest):

5 sets of 12 at 90 pounds

Those lifts took about 20 minutes. After the workout, I hurried home to mow the lawn before the rain showed up.

When the alarm went off on Saturday morning, it was pouring outside. My wife suggested we skip the 10K race, and since it had been her suggestion to run the race, no urging was needed for me to agree. We slept in, went to the farmers market, and went out for breakfast. About 3:00 p.m., it seemed like there was no hope for a break in the rain, so I went out for an easy 50 minute run. No dogs or humans wanted to come along.

After the run, we watched some movies and I cooked dinner - a relaxing evening.

Sunday morning, I got up early, planning a 3.5 hour run. The first 40 minutes were done with my wife and the dogs. My wife wasn't enjoying the run, so she quit after 40 minutes when we got the dogs back home. I headed back out by myself. About an hour or so later, I realized that I also wasn't really enjoying the run. The bugs were bad, the temps were low but the humidity was high, and I just wasn't comfortable. So, rather than continuing away from home, I turned around and ended up doing 2:40 or so rather than 3:30. I simply saw no point in continuing when it just wasn't fun. (If I'd written that a few years ago, I would have laughed at myself for being a wimp. Right now, I simply don't care. I got a decent workout and that's good enough.)

I had a nice dinner with my wife and daughter on Sunday night and now I'm back at work. Pretty boring, huh?

I did read a really interesting book over the weekend: "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" by Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney. Unlike many of the books on the market that talk about Paleo, Primal or Evo lifestyles, this book was really about the science, not theories on why we should eat like cavemen. Admittedly, those lifestyle books do contain science, and I find them to be valuable books, but this one went straight to the research on a number of topics.

In some ways, I thought title was misleading because there was very little art and a lot of science in the book. Here are a few thoughts I sent to the person who sold me the book, Peter Defty, who produces and sells the Vespa supplements I've been using on my long runs:

"I found a couple grammar mistakes, which drive me crazy in non-fiction. It wasn't as bad as Deep Nutrition, but it still makes me wonder if something else might not have been checked carefully enough.

I loved the fact that things like Paleo and Primal weren't even mentioned. This was a pure science approach to the subject. One thing that it did allow was for the possibility that the human genotype is changing faster than some of the Paleo/Primal people might believe. That was one of the few "guesses" in the book.

I think the title is deceiving. I mentioned the book to a few friends and they all bought it. One of them is going to hate me because she found GCBC too technical. I think this book is almost pure science. When it comes time to approach the "how", they refer you to the Atkins book that they helped to write (and which I bought yesterday as a follow-up). This book will be very difficult for the masses to read. I found the chemistry and biology to be fascinating most of the time, and they admit when they are going to get really technical, but most non-scientists will be lost on even the basic sections.

I think there were two fantastic take-aways from the book:

1) The human body reacts very uniformly to VLC diets, but not uniformly at all to high carb diets. Unlike Paleo or Primal, which have a cult/religious feel to them at times, this book acknowledges that people are different and will react differently to high carb diets. However, the reactions to low carb, especially higher fat/low carb are very uniform and the exhibited phenotypes for people eating that way are markers of good health. Maybe I am reading too much into that, but it seems incredibly obvious that this is what our genotype has evolved to "prefer".

2) The entire concept and timing of keto-adaptation, which they stress repeatedly, and how quickly that adaptation can be impaired makes me wonder if concepts like "cheat days" (the weekly "re-feed") or cyclic ketogenic diets really don't make sense. I know that the book really made me re-think how I tend to eat on a weekly basis. I am very strict during the week, but the weekends tend to be more relaxed. I work away from home during the week, so I'm in a rented room and cooking in someone else's kitchen. I keep protein, veggies and fats and salt there - that's about it. I work out really hard and eat really low carb. On the weekends is where I might eat grains (I had some bread on Friday), sugars (tonic water is a favorite during the summer), or alcohol (gin with that tonic water, an ice cold beer or more), etc. Am I impairing my adaptation significantly by regressing on the weekends?

Oh yeah, I certainly feel better about the fact that I like salt on my food after reading this book. It also gave me a much better appreciation of why you tell me to be careful with electrolytes and hydration with the Vespa."

So, I really enjoyed the book, but my job is developing software to help manage chronic diseases, with Type 2 Diabetes as a focus. I started in college as a chemical engineer, and studied organic chemistry for quite a long time. I also read extensively, probably obsessively, about diet and metabolism. While this book is targeted at both medical professionals and laymen, I think a lot of people might struggle with it. On the other hand, I think it does a great job of explaining why medical research is so messed up, it shreds some studies that are accepted as "gospel", and even if you have to skim over the most technical parts, it includes a lot of valuable information.

Ultimately, I like that the book allows that some people can be very healthy on diets that are not low carb. And, low carb does not have to mean meat-based. A vegetarian or vegan diet can be low carb, although this can be more difficult to pull off than with an omnivorous diet.

And, some (many? most?) people can't obtain optimal health on a diet where carbs aren't seriously restricted.

And lastly, there is no reason you can't be an endurance athlete on a low carb diet, providing you accept the time necessary (weeks) to fully adapt to the diet.

It seems to me that I've been moving more and more to the Paleo/Primal/Low Carb side of nutrition for the last couple years. My improving fitness and decreasing weight right now are reinforcing those decisions.

Not my week so far

2011-06-10T09:16:00.002-04:00

It hasn't been a truly terrible week. And, I really have no right to complain about my life. I have a pretty easy life compared to so many people, especially given the economy these days.

But, I've been feeling old this week. Maybe a little bit depressed.

My knees are feeling achy.

My legs are still sore on Friday from a workout on Monday. I took a rest day yesterday and I still feel tired.

It's been hot and humid all week - weather than I don't particularly like.

It rained a lot too, which messed with my bike riding schedule all week.

The mosquitoes are really bad.

My puppy ate my Garmin Forerunner and it will cost about $200 to replace.

The puppy also didn't like being tied outside yesterday afternoon, where we thought he was simply enjoying a nap in the sun. So, he jumped through a window screen to get back inside. I now have to fix two window screens, including one the other dog jumped through last fall.

My chainsaw won't start and my weed whacker won't start and I need both of them to do some work around the house.

I came back home a day early and I'm working from home today. It just seemed like the week wasn't going my way and I wanted to be home. But tonight, despite me being home, everyone else has plans, so I'll be eating leftovers for dinner - just me and the trouble-making dogs.

OK, now that's out of the way. It's really not so bad.

I have a house, a job, a wonderful family, two lovable dogs, and I'm in pretty good overall health.

Sometimes, I just need to vent a little. And perhaps wish I was 20 years younger.

Deadlifts tonight before I mow the lawn. 10K race tomorrow. Long run on Sunday.

But it looked so easy

2011-06-09T07:44:00.002-04:00

When I got to CrossFit yesterday, my plan was to only do the lifts for the Wendler cycle - 3 sets of strict presses, 5 sets of bench presses, and 3 sets of chin-ups, and then go home.

Well, I had an appointment at the end of class for the chiropractor to work on my shoulder - ongoing Graston and ART work that seems to be helping my shoulder a lot.

But, the main workout for yesterday was as follows:

12 minutes, as many reps as possible (AMRAP):

Run 200 meters

20 kettlebell swings

I decided to do this workout because it's one where you can easily slow down and scale the workout. When we do "as quickly as possible" (AQAP) workouts rather than AMRAP workouts, it's harder to scale things. You need to complete the reps for an AMRAP workout (excluding Tuesday when I simply opted not to do that). But, the AQAP workouts can be taken more slowly if desired.

But first, I did my Wendler cycle work.

Strict press:

5 reps at 80#

5 reps at 95#

max reps at 105# (6)

Bench press:

5 x 10 @ 115 - Because of my shoulder, pushing in the horizontal plane is something I still do somewhat carefully. I did the bench presses at 75 pounds to be safe.

(I've been in the office for just over an hour now and the fire alarm has gone off at least 15 times. We had a fire drill yesterday. I'm sure this is testing of some sort. Sort of sure. If I don't finish this post, I guess that means it wasn't a drill today.)

Chin-ups (band-assisted) - max reps - 3 sets

Then, the 12 minute AMRAP:

Run 200m

20 KB swings (I picked a wimpy 35# KB)

I took it easy and got through the run on my fifth round plus five more KB swings.

The Graston and ART treatment went pretty well. My range of motion has improved dramatically. I still have issues in the infraspinatus, but most areas outside of the supraspinatus tendon are otherwise resolved. Most of the treatment last night was Graston on the supraspinatus (painful) and then some ART to make sure the infraspinatus wasn't affecting my range of motion. I'm making good progress with these treatments, and I moved my next appointment with the orthopedist out a month to see if I can resolve things this way rather than needing any more injections from the doctor.

Today is a rest day. Really. Honestly.

(They finally announced that the fire alarms are just tests after 70 minutes of on and off alarms)

But, I don't want to get old...

2011-06-08T09:51:00.002-04:00

Why am I still trying to train like someone half my age? It can be discouraging at times.

Monday, I ran before work and then did a hard - very hard squat workout after work.

Tuesday, after work, I rode the bus to my rented room. On the walk from the bus stop, I tripped and fell on the sidewalk. That must have been some sort of sign that I was tired. I changed clothes and hopped on my bike for the ride to CrossFit. I had trouble just getting my shoes into the clipless pedals. Perhaps another sign? The ride itself was pretty uneventful.

At CrossFit, I was sweating during the warm-up. Yes, it was a hot day and a harder than normal warm-up, but I could tell I was tired. The weight work was 5 x 5 of squat snatches. Right now, this is a lift that still bothers my shoulder, so I did some alternate work. I did some very light weight overhead squats. Then, I did some muscle snatches. And finally, some power cleans. Again, I felt exhausted through all of the this. The main WOD was as follows:

5 rounds for time:

10 box jumps

10 wall balls

10 burpees

Ugh! The box jumps and wall balls would be brutal after Monday's squat workout. It was hot. I was unmotivated. After the first round of jumps and wall balls, I did two burpees. And then, without really thinking about it, I quit doing burpees. I took a rest. I ended up doing the box jumps and wall balls, but rested every time I should be doing burpees. Even doing level 2, it was still too much for me last night. I was dead after the workout. I pulled out my logbook at the gym, started to write something, got frustrated by my workout, scribbled over what I'd written, and then scribbled an expletive over that. I finally mustered the energy to ride back to my room.

I was too tired to cook dinner, it was too hot, and I wasn't hungry anyway. I did have a cooked chicken breast and a pickle in the refrigerator. I finally mustered the energy to eat them before heading to bed.

Today I am even more sore from Monday's squats. I rode my bike to work but with little energy.

Today's strength work at CF is focused on the strict press. We have sets of strict presses, bench presses and chin-ups. After that, I'll probably skip the main WOD and head home. My legs need a break, to be honest.

I could go back a few years - not that many really - and find weeks where I would do back to back hard workouts with no issues at all. Maybe it's because they were mostly running workouts and I'd been a runner for many years. I've now been lifting for about 4 years and doing CrossFit for less than one year. But, there are times when CrossFit leaves me feeling very, very old, and I wonder what happened to that young runner who could train hard so often.

Wendler Cycle in the Gym

2011-06-07T08:46:00.003-04:00

We are starting a 12 week Wendler Cycle (Google it if you want the details) at CrossFit, focusing on our back squat, strict press and deadlift. The goal of the 12-week cycle is to increase your 1-rep max in each these lifts. The cycle is often done with four lifts, with the bench press being the fourth. But CrossFit, in general, isn't very big on bench presses, so we are focusing on the three lifts that make up the sum known as the CrossFit total. I recently got just over 800 pounds for my CF total. We'll see where I am three months from now.

The first workout was last night, but I wasn't at CrossFit. I worked from home so I could be at home in the evening to celebrate my wife's birthday. Luckily, if you know your max lift in each of the three lifts we are working on, and you have the appropriate spreadsheet, the workout can be calculated for you.

Here is the main Wendler Cycle workout I did yesterday. Mondays are squat days, Wednesdays are press days and Fridays are deadlift days for us on this cycle.

205 - 5 reps

235 - 5 reps

270 - as many reps as possible without going to failure - I made 5.

Then, 5 x 10 front squats at 160 pounds.

I think the front squats were tougher than the back squats. That was a lot of reps, they hit your quads more than back squats, so today I have sore glutes and sore quads.

After the lifting, I did a short MetCon workout of my own:

4 rounds, as quickly as possible:

25 push-ups

row 250 meters

That was it. And, even after a rest day on Sunday, I feel trashed today. I have a meeting tonight and can't make it to CrossFit. It's likely that I won't get to train at all today, but that happens sometimes.

Some running and some celebrating

2011-06-06T11:53:00.002-04:00

Friday, I planned to take a rest day. My wife was picking me up at the bus stop and I thought we'd go right home. But, she wanted to run, so we did an easy run together. It was without a doubt the best run I've had in a long, long time. After a six month break from running, getting back to running somewhat regularly hasn't always been fun. I've needed to mix walking with running on a regular basis, and I've been really slow all the time. Without CrossFit, I'd be nowhere at all, so I'm certainly glad I still trained during my running hiatus.

And, my hamstring really seems improved, which was a big goal of the running hiatus. But Friday night, even though I was slow, I didn't need to walk. I was just cruising and enjoying the run. I think my wife was surprised, because she was struggling to keep up the entire time.

Saturday morning, we got out to the farmer's market early. We needed to finish our shopping for a meal to celebrate my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary.

I put together a five course meal, based mostly on local foods. We had local cheeses, a local rabbit braised with local bacon and veggies, a salad of local greens, local beef and chard in the entrée, and even a bread pudding that used bread made from local wheat. There was even a local wine in the meal.

Dessert was purchased, but made by local cooking school students. We had a really fun evening celebrating with my in-laws.

Before I started cooking on Saturday, I did manage a quick interval workout. I warmed up and then did one minute hard, one minute easy times ten. My "hard" pace was in the 6:30-6:45 range, slowing down as I got to the later repeats.

Sunday, I took a rest day, and this morning, I did a short run before work. This was my first run before work in quite a while. When I was running ultras, running before work was something that happened just about every work day. But, as my running mileage dropped the last two years, it's become less common. Recently, I've been biking before work, but not running.

Today is my wife's birthday, and we will go to the gym to lift after work. Then, I'm going to cook a nice dinner for her birthday before I head back out of town tomorrow morning. The rest of the week will be CrossFit workouts, until my next long run next weekend.

Eating and Exercising in a Primal/Paleo Style

2011-06-02T12:50:00.004-04:00

I remember the first time I read the Paleo Diet for Athletes book. It was during 2005, not long after I'd had a 93 mile DNF at Western States. I'd had a good year as an athlete in 2003 (Wasatch finish) and 2004 (Hardrock finish), but my weight was not where I wanted it to be. I had run Wasatch close to 190 pounds. In my best road racing days, I'd run my PRs when I weighed close to 170 pounds.

The next year, I ran a huge number of miles to get ready for Hardrock, and ate a diet based on tight portion control for months. Every dinner would be one plate of food, with 1/4 for protein, 1/4 for salad, 1/4 for a veggie, and 1/4 for a carbohydrate. Every lunch was a salad. My weight dropped, but I was miserable on this diet. Also, my fat consumption was really low, and I was constantly hungry. It was only my fear of the Hardrock course that allowed me to stick close to this diet. I raced Hardrock under 180 pounds and had a good race. I had dropped about 20 pounds in two months to get to that weight, and without that weight loss, I probably would have never finished Hardrock.

The evening after the race finished, we went to a very nice restaurant in Telluride. I had a meal full of fat and protein (plus some nice wine) and truly enjoyed my first meal in quite a while.

I had just had two pretty good ultra seasons, finishing two of the harder 100s in the country. But, I wasn't satisfied. I spent a lot of time reading about nutrition in the fall of 2004. I felt like I needed some sort of change in my diet to help me get leaner. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I decided to become a vegetarian for at least one year to see what happened. Would I lose weight? Gain weight? Save the planet? Improve as an athlete? I wasn't sure, but I made the change.

The first time I recorded my weight in my training log in 2005 was in mid-February. I was at 189. Eating a vegetarian diet, I arrive at Western States at 185 pounds. I was working with a coach at the time, and I had run a very tough 50 miler just three weeks prior. And, overall, I'd done less training than I would have preferred. On race day, I was doing OK, but I eventually had foot problems on some long downhills late in the race, and I missed the time cut-off at mile 93.5. I tried two more hundreds later that year and dropped out in both of them, both around the 65 mile mark. In the last attempt, I was sick and had a sore foot.

Overall, I think the experiment was a failure. I didn't race well, I was sick more often than usual, and I didn't feel like I recovered well all season long. After two years where my mileage was well over 2000, I ran just over 1600 miles this year and still complained about being tired in my logbook.

At one point that year, I bought the Paleo Diet for Athletes. I was reading it over lunch at a restaurant, and I remember a phrase that basically said if you were a vegetarian, you should give the book to someone who would get some value out of it. That made me angry and I considered tossing the book.

In 2006 and 2007, I returned to my "hometown" race and ran the Vermont 100. In 2006, my weight had drifted up into the mid-190s, but I trained well and ran 27:20. The next year, at about the same weight, I ran 26:04 on a longer course. If I'd been 10 pounds lighter, I probably would have run sub-24.

I finished the year in good shape, and was thrilled when I got picked for WS in 2008. Just like in 2004, I went back to portion control for my diet. It wasn't fun, but I needed to finally finish WS. I was at 182 pounds when we left for the race (I'd taken up weightlifting the prior year and gained some muscle mass), and as lean as I'd been since Hardrock. Then, the race got cancelled. I'd had thoughts about going for sub-24 given how fit I was and how lean I was. But, the cancellation was out of my control and I could try again in 2009.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to 2009. The disappointment of the missed opportunity seemed to give me an excuse to slack off on my diet again. I trained hard for a fall marathon, but my diet was terrible leading up to the race. I hoped to run under 3:30 and instead had a terrible day. I knew by mile 8 that I was in trouble and I almost quit at 16. But, I plodded to the finish. My weight had crept up to almost 190 pounds by race day.

By this point in time, I had read Stu Mittleman's "Slow Burn" and some more info on Maffetone training - both oriented towards easy training that seems to aid in fat metabolism. Then, I heard of the Primal Blueprint. And, I re-read the Paleo Diet for Athletes. And, probably most importantly, I read "Good Calories, Bad Calories". I wasn't quite sure what to do with them though. Running on a low carb diet seemed to make very little sense at all to me, at the time. Plus, I had Western States in 2009 to deal with. So, I stuck with my normal diet.

In April of 2009, I suffered a nasty injury while playing kickball. I tore a hamstring tendon pretty badly. We tried as much rehab as possible, but the fact was that my chances of finishing Western States that year died as soon as I hit the ground after tearing the tendon. I eventually had a Platelet Rich Plasma treatment later that year to help with the tendon injury.

At Western States, my weight had pushed up close to 200. My mileage was low, I could lift OK, but intensity was tough in running or lifting. I missed an early cut-off and was out of the race before the marathon. By the end of the summer of 2009, I was at a low point. Running wasn't fun or even comfortable. It seemed like I was at the chiropractor or the orthopedist's office all the time. The injury had robbed me of my easy stride and stolen all of the joy from running.

In 2010, I ran fewer than 300 miles. I started one ultra and missed the turn-around cut-off in a 50K. My wife and I did a 5-mile run together in September of 2010, and I wouldn't run again for six months. My hamstring was still not healed, running held zero fun, my weight had gone up to 230 pounds, and I was in the worst shape of my life.

I was trying to eat a Paleo/Primal diet, but I wasn't working out enough. I was drinking too much alcohol, especially beer, and making bad food decisions, especially on the weekends. I skied hard this past winter and I felt like I skied OK, but long days in the bumps weren't a lot of fun. Trying to support that much mass on a 5'10" frame in the bumps is a lot of work.

By the time ski season had ended, I had gotten pretty disgusted with my fitness level. Even though I was doing CrossFit, during the winter, I didn't go often enough. I only made it to CrossFit once in February - pathetic. As ski season neared its end, I really needed to make some changes.

I started pushing myself back to the paleo/primal way of eating. I also stopped drinking beer and cut way back on any other alcohol. By the time we started our Paleo Challenge at CrossFit at the beginning of May, the momentum had turned. My diet has been good, my exercise has been consistent, and I'm getting fitter and leaner. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I'm heading in the right direction.

Of course, I've done this all before, and then lost it, so who knows where I'll end up. For right now, I'm just glad that I'm eating in a way that's enjoyable and giving me the results I want. So many times when I've lost weight, it's been pure torture. I certainly miss some foods right now - bread being at the top of the list. But, I can have a little bread on occasion and still lose weight. I just can't eat it for every meal.

This coming weekend will be an eating challenge, as my wife's family gathers to celebrate her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. But, I'm the chef for the celebratory dinner, so I can certainly make sure that I have access to the foods I want to eat.

Last night's CrossFit workout was one of our easier workouts in a while, it seemed. After the warm-up, I did 5x3 of snatch grip deadlifts. Everyone else did 5x3 of squat snatches, but that lift still bothers my shoulder. My snatch grip deadlifts are limited by grip strength more than anything, and my working sets ranged from 225 pounds to 295 pounds.

After the lifting, we did the following for time:

Five rounds of the following:

6 Clean and Jerks (I used 95 pounds to protect my shoulder)

Run 200 meters

The light weight for the C&Js plus the fact that we had running made this pretty easy for me. I was the second fastest person in our class, in 10:02.

Today is a rest day. Tomorrow, I'll do running intervals. And Sunday, I'll probably do some canoeing and fishing with my father-in-law and son.

Two Tough CrossFit Workouts

2011-06-01T13:55:00.001-04:00

I now hate the number 7. Being a person with a math degree and a love for number theory, I've always been partial to prime numbers. In the winter, I am always happiest when the number on my ski lift chair is prime. Yes, I'm a geek. No reason to deny it.

But, last night's workout was all about 7s and I wasn't happy.

It started innocently enough. We did some good warm-up work. Then, we practiced some Olympic lifting movements - cleans. We did 5 rounds of a clean complex as follows:

3 power cleans

3 hang squat cleans

3 front squats

To take it easy on my shoulder, I kept the weight fairly low at 95 pounds.

Then we hit the main workout:

7 rounds, as quickly as possible:

7 deadlifts

7 box jumps

7 kettlebell swings

The prescribed workout was 275# for the deads, 30" for the box, and 70# for the KB swings. Level 1 was 185#, 24", and 53#. I basically did level 1, but I only used an 18" box, not a 24". I can do 24" box jumps, but if I tried to do that many in that workout, I'd end up missing a few and possibly getting hurt.

I thought that deadlifts at 185 pounds would be easy, but there was a secret hiding in the workout. Every movement involved the hips for a lot of its strength. After the first round, I was surprised that 185# felt so hard. That's about half of my max. How could it be so hard? By the fifth round, every exercise was getting tough. Plus, it was hot in the gym.

I finished in 12:34 and was happy to be that fast. From there, I rode my bike back to my room. I almost got detoured by a cremee stand, but I knew that I had a weigh-in at the gym today. Ice cream would have to wait, no matter how hot the weather.

I had a tough time sleeping last night, for the second night in a row. It was just too hot for sleeping, even with a fan blasting at high speed. I got up at 5:30 this morning, planning to ride my bike to work. But, after a shower, I could hear thunder outside. A quick check of the weather showed a significant thunderstorm about to arrive. So, I put on my work clothes, and rode my bike to the bus station. The buses have bike racks, so I put my bike there. Just after the bus started moving, the storm arrived. We had high winds, heavy rain, hail, and a lot of electricity. I was very glad not to be riding in the storm.

At lunchtime, I hopped on my bike and rode to CrossFit. I have a work meeting tonight, and today is the final workout for our 30 day Paleo challenge at the gym, so I had to work out earlier today. We had five total measurements for the challenge, with my scores shown:

Compliance points for diet and workouts: 347 of a possible 450 points.

Maximum single rep weight for a thruster: 145 (start was 145, but with a shoulder injury, it's not surprising that I didn't improve)

Max pull-ups (band assisted for me): 16 vs 10 at the start

Time for a fixed workout: 9:44 vs 10:47 at the start - about a 10% improvement

Weight loss: - 7.6 pounds (I'm down 12 total in the last 6 weeks)

For the most part, I lost points in the first category for not drinking a protein drink right after the workouts, not getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night, and for eating non-Paleo foods on the weekends when I've been home. But, even with those transgressions, I'm certainly happy with the rest of the results, especially the weight loss.

I doubt that these scores will be close to good enough to finish in the money, but it's much better than the last challenge, where I basically quit after two weeks. We are doing another challenge in September.

Good Weekend - Including Some Rest

2011-05-31T11:01:00.002-04:00

Last time I wrote something here, I believe I complained that I was tired. I ended up taking both Thursday and Friday as rest days. We had no real plans for the weekend, so I was looking forward to some relaxed down-time - sleeping in, no computers, some exercise, and some time with my family.

As it turned out, the weather was fairly bad, which made it even easier to rest.

On Friday night, I don't think we did much of anything. My son had finished his high school senior project earlier that day, and he was tired from working on that. That project was his last major hurdle to graduation in the middle of next month.

On Friday, we got some take-out for dinner, watched some hockey, played a little cribbage and listened to music.

On Saturday, we woke up to grey skies. The farmer's market had been moved to a new location due to flooding, and we didn't make the trip, assuming many vendors were dealing with storm-related issues from earlier in the week. Instead, we did some grocery shopping, got some dog food, I bought some new music, etc. When we got home in mid-afternoon, my wife and I headed out for a run with the dogs. We could hear thunder in the distance as we started. The storm kept moving closer and my wife and the dogs went back home after 35 minutes or so. I went back out to do a couple hill repeats, but after one, the storm was close, it was pouring, and I called it a day.

Later on Saturday, we watched some movies (both versions of Cape Fear), listened to music, played some cribbage and mostly relaxed. I used a break in the storms to grill some chicken for dinner. Highly exciting!

Sunday morning, my wife and I headed out for a run again. The forecast wasn't promising, but I wanted to do a 3-hour run (really a run/walk). It was warm and humid and the mosquitoes were pesky. We did about 2.6 miles with the dogs. That was plenty for them in the heat. Then, my wife and I did another 3 miles together before she headed home to wrap up an 8.5 mile run. I continued on, with a goal of whatever distance I could cover in 3 hours. I was slow, but managed to stay on my feet and moving for the three hours.

After the run, I mowed the lawn, grilled some burgers and we watched a movie. See how exciting my life is.

On Monday, my wife and I walked the dogs for an hour. By 8:00 p.m., I was falling asleep and I still didn't feel like getting out of bed when the alarm went off at 5:15 this morning.

Today, I rode my bike to work, I'll ride to CrossFit after work, and then ride to my rented room after CrossFit. I don't even want to know what the temperature is outside right now. I'm sure it's hotter than I ever like to see.

Six weeks until my marathon.

Oh yeah, today is the end of the 30 day Paleo challenge at the gym. I'll be curious to see how my weight and strength have changed in 30 days. My eating wasn't as good this past weekend as it should have been, so I'm curious what my weight will be this evening.

Tired

2011-05-27T11:15:00.004-04:00

I think this chart explains why I'm feeling tired right now. Note that the lines that represent the last two weeks and the last month have been pretty high for a few weeks. And, I'm sometimes combining cycling and CrossFit in the same day. I took a rest day yesterday. I'm going to take another rest day today. I'm still sore from CrossFit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I'll do a run and Sunday I'll do a longer run.

For right now, my body is saying I should rest for another day. And, this chart shows I've been working (playing really) hard.

I've lost 12 pounds in the last 5 weeks, so the hard work and good attention to my diet is paying off. Regretfully, I still have at least 30 more pounds that I need to lose.

If there's a muscle that doesn't already hurt, CrossFit will find it

2011-05-26T10:46:00.002-04:00

After work yesterday, I rode my bike to CrossFit. It was one of our first sunny, warm days of the year, and the drivers seemed very focused on the weather and not on the road. A friend of mine posted a similar observation on Facebook. I ride to CrossFit on a very busy road and I was very observant last night after seeing how people seemed to be driving.

When I got to CrossFit, I had already decided in my head to scale the workout to an easy level. I was just so sore and tired from Tuesday and my bike riding that I felt like I needed an easier workout.

After our warm-up, the first part of the workout was 5x8 of dumbbell presses. I wanted to take it easy on my shoulder, so I used 25# dumbbells rather than the 40# or 45# I would normally use. I got through those sets without feeling any problems in my shoulder. Then, our MetCon was as follows:

As quickly as possible:

Single-leg deadlifts, in sets of 21-18-15-12-9-6-3, with each set followed by a 200 meter run.

The prescribed weight for men was 95#, which I knew I could do pretty easily. I got through this one pretty well, staying close to some people who are normally way faster than I am. This workout just suited my strengths pretty well. My total time was just under 11 minutes.

The purpose of the workout, including our warm-up, had been to focus on the hamstrings. The single-leg deadlifts stress the hamstrings a lot, and then running hard with tired hamstrings is another stress on that muscle group. Today, both hamstrings are very sore. Going into the workout, my hamstrings might have been my only muscle group that didn't hurt. Now, I hurt everywhere.

After the workout, I had another ART/Graston treatment done on my right shoulder. It was a painful treatment, but my range of motion was really improved afterward. Before the treatment, I couldn't move my arm backwards at all without pain, and it was easy after the treatment. The total range of motion without pain improved dramatically with this 15 minute treatment.

Today is a rest day, and I'll probably run or hike most of this coming weekend, rather than lifting. That will hopefully give my shoulder a break for a few days.

For the first time in years, I won't be attending the Vermont City Marathon on Sunday. In the past 8 years or so, I've either run the full race, run on a relay team, helped to pace a friend, or just been an observer. This year, it will be none of the above, and I'm going to try to enjoy a quiet weekend at home with my family. I looked at the regional race calendar, wondering if I might find a low key 5K or 10K somewhere, but I think the VCM has scared other races away from Memorial Day Weekend. It's the second biggest marathon in New England, and other races that tried to compete might have some attendance problems.

100 Training Days So Far

2011-05-25T08:07:00.002-04:00

With my bike ride to work this morning, I've now done some sort of exercise/training on 100 different days this year. Last year, it took me until the end of June to get to 100 days, and I only had 190 total training days last year - my lowest in a long time. Here is the breakdown of this year so far:

Skiing: 31

Bike Riding: 9

Running: 20

CrossFit: 39

Lifting on my own: 11

That adds up to 110, rather than 100, mostly because of bike riding to and from CrossFit. I think the other "double" day was a run and CrossFit.

In the last 6 weeks, my weight has dropped about 10 pounds, as I've paid much better attention to my diet, made sure I trained very consistently, and I cut out alcohol.

Last night's CrossFit workout, especially as Rx'd, was brutal:

100 pull-ups

100 KB swings (53#)

100 Double Unders (rope jumping)

100 overhead squats (95#)

This was to be done for time, and unlike some workouts, where you can rotate between the lifts to get all of your reps done (Google "CrossFit Murph" for an example if you care), in this case, the workout was linear. Do all reps of one exercise before moving to the next.

Level 1 was 80 reps at slightly lower weights, so I chose that. I used bands for assistance in my pull-ups. My KB swings were done at 35#. I can't do double-unders consistently, so the alternative for that was tuck jumps, which are no fun at all. And, because of my shoulder, I can't do overhead squats safely, so I did front squats at 65#. It took me 24:31.

I felt guilty after I'd finished, because some really fit people were struggling mightily with the Rx'd workout. The last person finished in just under 40 minutes and he was really struggling on the overhead squats.

Today, I am sore all over. I will go to CrossFit tonight, mostly because I have an appointment there for another ART/Graston treatment on my shoulder. I will probably do a Level 2 workout tonight, unless our coach takes pity on us and gives us an easier day after yesterday.

Tomorrow is a rest day.

Just your average Monday

2011-05-24T11:13:00.002-04:00

I rode the bus to the office yesterday morning. I worked all day and then left the office to catch another bus to the place where I'm renting a room. I changed clothes and rode my bike to CrossFit.

Our workout was pretty straightforward last night:

Warm-up.

Chin-ups - 5, every minute on the minute for ten minutes.

Then, 5 rounds of the following, starting each round every four minutes:

30 push-ups (I did knee push-ups to protect my shoulder)

20 Box Jumps (18" for me)

10 Sumo Deadlift high pulls (65# for me - again, protecting the shoulder)

Your score for the 5 rounds was how many seconds of rest you earned. For example, I finished the first set in 2:30, so I got 90 seconds of rest. I ended up with 420 seconds of rest, probably the lowest number in the class. My biggest issue is box jumps. A requirement of a legal box jump is full extension either on the box or extending while jumping off the box. Many people simply cheat, and never do a full extension. This allows for pretty fast box jumps. The fastest legal people jump onto the box and then extend while jumping backward off the box. I'm very methodical and I extend on the box and then step down. I need to speed up this process.

Overall, it was a good workout with 13 minutes of hard work in 20 minutes. If my right shoulder was healthier, I would have done at least some of the push-ups as regular push-ups, but 150 might have been more than I could do even if 100%. I'm starting to feel some twinges in my left shoulder at times, probably compensating for my right. So, I need to be careful.

After the workout, I had another ART/Graston treatment done on the shoulder. He found another spot in the shoulder that needed work, the infraspinatus this time. So, he is now working on three different areas on my shoulder and neck. Immediately after the treatment, my range of motion was much better and pain-free. I'll have another treatment tomorrow.

I see the orthopedist again in early June, so I have time for a few more of these treatments before that. Hopefully, ultrasound will show some improvement and I will be able to defer any more injections for a while.

If the weather cooperates, I will ride my bike to CrossFit this evening. If we get the thunderstorms that are forecast, I might ride the bus back to my rented room and take it easy this evening, but I hope not.