The Old Gray Mare

Oh, the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be,
Ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be.
The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be,
Many long years ago.
Many long years ago, many long years ago.

OK, so I'm not a mare. I hesitate to call myself a stallion either, which is the male equivalent. The word stallion evokes images of strength that I don't necessarily feel these days. But, I'm not a gelding either.

Anyway, I was thinking about the Old Gray Mare song on Saturday, mostly thinking about the "ain't what she used to be" line. That's how I felt on Saturday after five straight days of CrossFit.

Friday night was a tough workout called Filthy Fifty:
For time:
50 Box jumps, 24 inch box
50 Jump­ing pull-ups
50 Ket­tle­bell swings, 1 pood
Walk­ing Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Good Mornings, 45 pounds
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
50 Burpees
50 Dou­ble unders

Scaling was supposed to be done by reps, not by weight, but I honestly did both. For the box jumps, I used an 18" box. For the KB swings, I used a 26 pound KB, not 1 pood, which is 40 Russian pounds, or about 36 US pounds. For the Wall Balls, I used a 14 pound ball rather than 20. For the Double Unders, I did the assigned as single unders and then half as many tuck jumps.

My plan was to do Level 1 - forty reps. But, just the box jumps, the first exercise, convinced me that this would be a bad idea, so I switched to 30 reps. Our fastest person did just over 19 minutes, and it took me 21:21 to do the workout with 30 reps.

After the workout, I headed home, cooked dinner, watched some hockey and went to bed. On Saturday, I woke up feeling physically exhausted. I did some things around the house that I needed to do, got some groceries, went to my daughter's lacrosse game, took my wife and son to breakfast, but I never really did any exercise. I walked around a lot, but no exercise.

On Sunday, my plan was to run 10 and I still felt extremely tired. Like an old gray mare. My wife and I opted to take the dogs on a long walk and we were out for about 1:45. But, it wasn't a run.

Today, to be honest, I still feel tired. I'll do CrossFit tonight, do running intervals tomorrow, and on Wednesday, I'm taking a vacation day. I should have time to get in a decent run that day. Then, CrossFit again on Thursday, and maybe a rest day on Friday.

I'd like to work out hard everyday and recover. I really would. But, the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be...