Burpees, Pull-ups and Sit-ups, with a dash of Thrusters

It had been a while since I made it to CFR on a Saturday morning.  At 11a.m everyone was going to be doing 14.5, but the 10am session had a slightly different WOD:

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of:
-Burpees
-Pull-ups
-Sit-ups

Between each set, do five thrusters with 95lbs. 

I finished this in 18:34.



I did a muscle-up before the WOD.  I had to work to get up there.  I think I could be kipping and pulling harder.  Lifetime total is now 15.   

CrossFit Open Throwback Tuesday

With the CrossFit Open coming back, CFR decided to revisit a couple of workouts from last year's open for the Tuesday WOD.  And why not?


13.2:
10 minute AMRAP of
-5 shoulder to overhead (115lb)
-10 deadlifts (115lb)
-15 box jumps or steps on a 24" box

Here's how I did on this last year.

A year later, I wasn't quite as proficient.  I got 7 rounds, plus one push press. 

I used push presses for the overhead lifts, and was able to bang them out pretty quick.  The deadlifts started to suck about halfway through, but writing this the next day I have zero back discomfort so I guess the bit of foam rolling I did helped.  I stepped on the box the whole way through.  It allowed me to keep a steady pace and not burn myself out. It's maybe not quite as fast as jumping, but I didn't have to rest during the steps at all.   


We rested for 10 minutes.  Then..



13.5
Four-minute AMRAP of
-15 thrusters (100lbs)
-15 C2B pull-ups

Here's how I did on this last year.

Unlike the Open version of the workout, where you get another four minutes for every three rounds you complete, we were supposed to stop after four minutes.  Not that it mattered to me anyway. 

Again, I did significantly worse than last year, though that can probably be excused by being older, injured and freaking tired from the first WOD.  Plus, the competition atmosphere, with hordes of people cheering me on, was missing. 

I'll settle for a score of 61 (two full rounds, plus one thruster)

"Nothing good happens in a back alley"

2 rounds for time:

10 Thrusters (115lb)
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

15 Push Press (115lb)
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

20 Kettle Bell Swings to Shoulder Height 70lbs
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

25 burpees
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

The Rx'd version of this calls for dumbbell thrusters, using 55s.  We had a shortage of those so I volunteered to do a barbell version with a slightly heavier weight.  Even though the weight was heavier, not having to do this with dumbbells means this was an easier version.  Not that it was actually easy, mind you. 

15:26. 



Overheard at the Gym

The Boy accompanied me to the gym, and did the workout in the back alley with the rest of us.  He followed the pace set by Shae, rather than his old man, who was considerably slower.

My son is a very inquisitive little boy. You don't so much have conversations with him as you get interrogated by him.  He just constantly asks questions.  While I love my son as much as one human being can love another, this habit can be somewhat maddening.   I've developed a few coping mechanisms (don't worry, bleeding hearts, none of them involve electroshock training) but have somewhat gotten used to it.

For people who aren't around my kid very much or aren't forced by the laws of nature to love him, his habit might be considered either mildly amusing or insanely annoying. 

Leya, God bless her, seemed to fall in the former camp, and she temporarily immortalized a few of the Boy's questions on the CFR whiteboard.

(To me) "Is she stronger than you?" "Yes, she is."

"Why am I so sweaty?"

(To me) "He's better than you!" He ould've been referring to Lance, Shae, Justin or just about any dude who was there on Sunday, really.  I think he meant "better at CrossFit," but could have been referring to my moral fiber, my contributions to society, or my potential usefulness in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

(To Leya) "Were you born here?" "Yes." "Do you live here?" "Sometimes it feels like it." "Where do you sleep?" "I pull those crash mats up over the bathroom and sleep up there."

Father-and-son Jackie

A. Jackie

1,000m row
50 thrusters with a 45lb bar
30 pull-ups

When I got to CFR today, Kim Fly told me that everyone else had already started Jackie, so I'd be in a heat of one. 

The Boy was tagging along with me so I figured I'd make him do the workout alongside me, just modified with PVC thrusters and jumping ring pull-ups.  He wouldn't have to worry about counting reps, he could just switch when I switched. 

It was fun. I figured that I wouldn't PR this today, given that I'd be paying a bit of attention to him and not going up against anyone, but as it turned out I got a 20-second PR. 

7:56 (PR) 

B. 1 km run

Yeah... after doing Jackie, I wasn't going to be setting any records on this.  It was a nice little cool-down, I guess. 

5:04



The Boy didn't join me on the run, but did do a little sprint in the alley.  When I told him it was time to go home, he protested, "But I'm not sweaty yet!"

So he did a bunch of other stuff:
-headstands on an abmat, and handstand push-ups (his head comes up about 2 inches, but still);
-"atlas stone" lifts and carries with a 20lb medicine ball; and
-more jumping pull-ups.

I guess he got sweaty at some point, because he took off his shirt.  As Kim Fly noted, "You can do that here."

Finally, he and I also did a race to 10 burpees. He managed to eke out a win on that one and it was almost completely legit.

I was very proud of him... not just for the burpee win.

Earlier at home, I told him I was heading to CrossFit.  He had had a busy day already playing with some neighbourhood friends and looked like he was ready for a nap.  He told me he wanted to come to CrossFit with me.  I told him I wasn't sure he was up to it, but he insisted.  He said if he needed to nap, he could nap there.  (He's done it before.)

I'm proud that he seems to be grasping the idea that physical fitness is important. 

In the era he's living in, there are so many things that can derail a kid's happiness.  It would be great if one thing he and his little sister didn't have worry about were self-esteem problems stemming from weight, body image and athletic ability. 

It's a lesson I wish I had taken to heart a lot earlier in my life.   As I've noted here before, for most of my life pre-CrossFit,  I was overweight.  Maybe not obese, but ranging from chubby to fat.  It wasn't my parents' fault. They enrolled me in sports and prepared reasonably healthy meals.  But when left to my own devices, I'd spend hours playing video games or watching TV and consuming way too much junk food.  Genetically, I'm not predisposed to being able to eat whatever I want and still be lean. 

The results were predictable.  And I wrongly felt they were inevitable, that this was just the hand that I've been dealt.  I bought into the belief that I didn't have the capacity to change myself, because it was easier than getting off my ass and doing something about it. 

It definitely impacted how I saw myself, and not in a good way.  I'm not saying I spent every waking hour mired in a deep depression because I was carrying 20 or 30 extra pounds, but I wasn't always as happy or as confident in myself as I could have been.  Starting CrossFit five years ago definitely helped change that, though a lifetime of thinking of yourself as the fat kid is hard to completely undo. 

My goal for my kids is to encourage and enable them pursue healthy and active lifestyles.  If they achieve that through CrossFit, great.  I'd be just as happy if they did it through soccer, dancing, swimming, basketball, gymnastics or martial arts... or all of the above. 

Whatever activity they choose, they don't have to be the best.  I just want them to try hard and have fun being active. 

They shouldn't have to go through life thinking of themselves as the fat kid who can't. 

13.5: Thank God I'm not elite

"How dare you judge me, Steve? You have no idea what I've been through."

"13.5 may be awful, but it's over quickly.  Which is also the line of reasoning I use when attempting to woo Tracey."
-Me to AngDesj, on Facebook. 


I think I've mentioned before that I don't like AMRAPs for the simple reason that if you are better at CrossFit, your reward in an AMRAP is more work.  Talk about a disincentive. 

Well, 13.5 was even worse... but fortunately the only people who suffered the consequences are the people who are super fucking awesome at CrossFit.  

This would come as no surprise to anyone who's spent five minutes watching me do a WOD or reading this blog, but if there was a Venn diagram with a circle representing "People Who Are Super Fucking Awesome At CrossFit," your humble yet sexy blogger would not be inside that circle.  I'd be over in the circle representing "People For Whom CrossFit Is The Thin Line Separating Them From Obesity."

13.5
AMRAP in four minutes:
15 thrusters (100 lbs)
15 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Here's the evil part:  If you get done three rounds within the four-minute time limit... you get another four minutes.

It doesn't stop there... for every three rounds you manage to complete, another four minutes are tacked on the clock.  So, theoretically, this workout could go on for a long time for those who are really elite.

Since the WOD was announced, I couldn't stop thinking about it and how I would have to get that bonus time or I'd be hugely disappointed in myself.  But for some reason I did the math wrong and thought that getting to that point meant completing 60 total reps, not the 90 it actually is.  I thought 60 reps would be hard, but doable for me. 

I got to the gym on Saturday morning, and Lexi told me no one at CFR had made it out of the first four minutes.  "It's 90 reps," she pointed out. 

Hey, they don't call it MathFit. 

Hearing that was like Christmas morning.  Which I guess means Lexi = Santa Claus. 

My goal was still to get into the 60s.  But now I had the luxury of knowing I didn't have to worry about having to do this for longer than four minutes.

I started the WOD unsure if I would do the first 15 thrusters unbroken.  In earlier heats, I saw a lot of people start fast and fade early. 

Once I got them going, I figured I should just finish rather than eat up precious seconds by resting early and having to pick up the bar again. 

Cary was doing this next to me and he finished his thrusters before me. 

As I moved to the C2B PLUs I was paying attention to his counter more than Steve, who was counting for me.  It probably helped me keep my pace fast, but really, I should probably just pay attention to what I'm doing. 

I got through the C2B fairly quickly and was back at my barbell with more than 2:30 left.  I was pretty sure at that time that I was going to break 60, since I was halfway there. 

I also knew that this set of 15 was not going to be unbroken. 

I picked it up and did 8 reps... I would have liked 10, but I had no choice but to drop it.  I thought I'd do the last 7 in one set, but after 4, I had to put it down. 

When I finally did get to the C2B, I did a set of 5 or so, then turned around so I could see what the clock read.  That helped me get through the last 10, though I did have to break it up into three or four sets, including a final set of 1. 

I was back at my barbell with 45-50 seconds left.  I don't remember what I did for sets, but I just knew I wanted to get to 70 or 72.  I would have been thrilled with 72. 

The gym was yelling at me, so that helped me pick the bar up when I really just wanted to leave that fucking thing on the ground. 

I got to 71 with four seconds left.  I was down in the squat part of the thruster for #72 when time ran out. 

Final score of the final Open WOD: 71 

After I went, I stuck around the gym to watch a couple of the later heats. 

And photobombing.  Hot damn, I love photobombing

There were some impressive performances, particularly Lance, who was the only person at CFR to get to that second four minutes. 

His reward for being elite was another four minutes and a final score (I think) of 124.  It was awesome to see. 

It's amazing to me to think that the top score in the world is more than double that.  Josh Bridges scored a 254. 

Sucks to be that guy... this week at least.

Fran

21-15-9

Thrusters (95lb)
Pull-ups

It had been almost exactly two years since I had last done the standard Fran workout.  (Note: I re-read my blog post from back then and holy shit do I take myself way too seriously sometimes.) 

I was still pretty sore from the WOD on Wednesday so my expectations were not great that this would be the day I would finally break 5:00 on Fran.  I tried doing a few thrusters when warming up and they got heavy after, like, three reps so that didn't exactly boost my confidence, either.

I'm writing this three days later, so don't remember a ton of what happened once the actual WOD started but here are some highlights from my fuzzy recollection:

• 21 thrusters - I did 11 straight, rested with the bar on my chest, did another four, rested again, did one more and then had to drop the bar.  Obviously, it wasn't as efficient as it could have been.
• 21 pull-ups - I think I did 12 uninterupted, then five and four. 
• Finished the first round in about 1:40ish

• 15 thrusters - Sets of eight and seven.  I know in the past I had to split these into sets of five, but I think that was because I had burned myself out in the first round by doing both sets uninterrupted.
• 15 pull-ups - Rapid singles, briefly touching my feet to the ground, but not letting go of the bar for a bunch of them at the start.  I must have stepped away from the bar at some point, and probably more than once, to give my hands a rest. 
• Finished the second round at about 3:30ish.

• 9 thrusters - sets of five and four, I think.  I can't remember.
• 9 pull-ups - As I got near the end, I remember thinking: "Okay, don't fall off the bar this time, dumbass. Especially since you're doing this on the 8-foot bar over a box."

"TIME!"


4:50.  PR 

Even though my first sub-5 Fran time comes about three years too late, I'm still happy about it.  It had been a longtime goal.

Days like this are when I really love CrossFit. 


.

"Hope"

Same format as Fight Gone Bad, and it's just as awful.  I sure "Hope" I don't have to do this one again anytime soon. 

(Ha! I kill me.)

Three five-minute rounds, with one minute at each station:
-Burpees
-75 lb power snatch
-24" box jump
-75 lb thruster
-Chest to bar Pull-ups

I had a pretty good pace in the first round (88 reps, I think), but dropped off in the second (60) and third (55).  My goal was to maximize my reps on the burpees, snatches and thrusters.

203 total reps.

Sandbag Burpee Jackie

For time: 1000m Row
50 Sandbag Thrusters – 45lb
30 Burpees

8:30

.

Here comes the PAINSTORM

AMRAP 40 mins:
Run 200m
5 thrusters

The workout says to start at 30kg/20kg and add 5kg after each successful round. However, we were all like "FUCK THE METRIC SYSTEM! WE AIN'T FANCY!" and used pounds instead.

Started at 65lbs and added 10lbs each round.

12 rounds plus 3, which meansI got to 185lbs and did three thrusters at that weight. I wouldn't have got any at that weight, but Nolan gave me a tip. He told me to accelerate upward on the thruster NOT from the bottom, but once my hips broke parallel on the way up.

.

"Football Gone Bad"

This is a version of Fight Gone Bad adapted by CrossFit Football and selected by Nolan for the Sunday WOD. It was fitting, given that the AFC and NFC championship games were played today.

3 x 5 Minute Rounds (one minute at each station) for time:

1. DB Thrusters (2x45/25lbs)
2. Box Jumps (20″)
3. Push-ups
4. Double Unders
5. Calorie Row

Rest one minute between rounds.



I got 372, as counted by D3. Looking at the earlier scores, I was hoping to beat 300 but this WOD is filled with stuff I am not great at.

However, double unders were the great equalizer. Someone who is good at double unders is going to do well on this. If you're reasonably competent at DUs, you can do a lot more of them in a minute than DB thrusters or rowing for calories. You could choose which station to start at, so I started with DUs in order to be as fresh as possible for each of the three rounds. I ended up doing 188 total DUs, which is almost half of my total score. Frankly, I'm amazed that it wasn't a greater proportion, considering how hard everything else was for me.

"Jackie"

1000m row
50 45lb thrusters
30 pull-ups

I didn't do the first part of the day's WOD, a clean and jerk "wave," because my wrist is still bothering me when catching a clean.


8:16. That's 19 seconds faster than my only other recorded time of doing Jackie, one year ago almost to the day. That's a fairly good time. I was trying to stay ahead of D3, but it's not like it was a fair race because he HAD done the clean and jerks before doing this, whereas I was fresh.

For the row, I turned the rower up to 8 and a half, compared to my usual 7ish. I think that helped. I took a couple of quick breaks, but managed to complete the row in around 3:35.

Thrusters - I did the first 15 unbroken, then it was a bunch of smaller sets. Sixes, fours.

Pull-ups - 10 unbroken from the start, then smaller sets. My final set was two.

I felt a bit nauseous afterward. My forearms were tingling. I was unsure how I would be able to drive home.

I guess that means it was a good workout.

“Team Connection”

In teams of 4:

200m Run with 45lb Sandbags – 2 members

100 Overhead Squats 95/65 lbs – 25 reps each, 2 working at a time

200m Run with 45lb Sandbags – The other 2 members

100 Pull ups – 25 reps each, 2 working at a time

100 m Partner Carry – 2 members, 1 there, 1 back

100 Thrusters 95 lbs/65 lbs – 25 reps each, 2 working at a time

100 m Partner Carry – The other 2 members, 1 there, 1 back

100 Bell Swings 55/35lb – 25 reps each, 2 working at a time

200 Jumping Lunges as a team 10 at a time, 2 working at a time

400 m Run all together as a team


My team, the Queen City sEXies (Jarrett, Sarah and Alannah), finished this in 20:33. I'm writing this two days later and my legs are still making me pay for every step. Frisbee tonight is going to be fun. And by "fun" I mean "a complete fucking debacle."

Run/Thrusters

5 rounds for time:
400m Run
10 Thrusters – 135/95lb

I harboured illusions of doing these sets of thrusters in two sets of five. It ended up being 4-3-3 for most of them. And to call them thrusters is a bit generous. For the most part, they were a front squat followed by a push press, rather than one fluid motion.

It took me 19:35. I managed to avoid getting lapped by Blair... until near the end, at least. The worst thing about Blair being such an uber-athlete is that he is such a nice and humble guy. If I turned in his results, I would be an insufferable prick. ("Uh... would be an insufferable prick, Tyler?") Real funny.

I convinced Franz to do this one after a nine-day layoff from CrossFit. He was going to do "Helen" instead. There are at least four benchmark WODs that I've missed recently that I would like to make up, but I told myself that I'm doing the Workout OF THE DAY unless I have a really good reason. So I pestered Franz until he agreed just to keep me from annoying him.

"Lift Off"

For time:
20 Snatch (squat or power) 95 lbs
Then 10 rounds of
10 Thrusters 45lb
10 Toes to Bar (sub = straight leg raises)
200M Run

The rx'd weight for the snatch on this is 135 lbs, but the competitors in this weekend's "Spring Fling" were told to do it with 95 lbs. I was going to go ahead and do 135 lbs anyway, because I am so fucking badass.

Then I looked on the whiteboard and saw a bunch of times that were all north of 30 minutes, and many that were 40-plus. So much for being so fucking badass.

Even scaled down, it took me 32:54.

The good: Did all the thrusters without dropping the bar. (Pretty lame, I know.) I was also able to string together a number of T2B before dropping off the bar in each round.

The not-so-good: Toes to Bar just absolutely suck. We were told not to tear our hands, and I didn't, but my Sissy Hands were hurting pretty bad pretty early into this. I do have a nice big blister on my right hand ring finger, so we'll see if that hampers me on Saturday.

"Fran Will Not Be Broken”

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:
10 Thrusters – 95/65lb – UNBROKEN
10 Pull-ups – UNBROKEN
*To a max of 10 rounds

If you get 8 for example, start over until you get 10 in a row.

Rest 5-10 minutes, then 1K Run for time.

When I first looked on the CrossFit Regina website saw this horrible variation of Fran from the twisted mind of Robin, my first reaction was to cancel my plans to go at lunch.

Then I remembered that being scared of a workout is not a valid excuse to skip it. Actually, I believe one of the unofficial tenets of CrossFit is that if the workout doesn't scare you, it's not hard enough.

So I went. My plan was to attack this workout at a reasonable pace and rest when necessary so I didn't have any broken sets, which would just demoralize me and waste energy. I figured five or six rounds was a reasonable goal.

As it turns out, my strategy worked better than expected and I exceeded my goal.

8 rounds + 7 thrusters.

I don't think I rested unnecessarily all that much, but I may have been able to squeeze a bit more out of myself on this one.

The 1k run totally sucked afterward. About halfway through, my calves were threatening a mutiny and I thought I might have to start walking. Then, on the home stretch down McDonald St. we were running against a strong wind and that was just brutal.

Time was 5:16, which is slower than my 1k average the last time I ran a 5k.

Queensland Australia Sectional WOD #2

After yesterday's Strength work, I wanted to do a CrossFit WOD today and this one is perfect in that it is only 10 minutes of work and shouldn't mess me up too bad to do strength stuff on Thursday or Friday.

10 mins max reps, consisting of the following stations:
4 minutes – Thruster 110/77lb
3 minutes – KB Swing 55/35lb
2 minutes – Muscle-ups
1 minute – Burpees

People like me who cannot do muscle-ups, sub 10 pull-ups. That means I don't get the RX’d star, which is sort of a bummer. I've been meaning to get an MU tutorial, seeing as it's my other major CrossFit goal for the year. The problem is that the Strength workouts take at least an hour, so time is sort of an issue. I should probably just carve out some time to work on some muscle-ups when I know Aaron or Robin is going to be there, and after I've done some work on that, I could do a brief metcon as well. Perhaps I'll try to work that in next week.

Athletes move from one station to the next at the end of the allotted time without rest.

My results:

35 thrusters
43 bell swings
20 pull-ups (equal to 4 MU for the purposes of scoring)
14 burpees
____________96 total. I thought I could break 100 on this. I spent a little too much time trying to catch my breath. Still, I felt pretty good about this. Not necessarily because the result was all that impressive (it wasn't) but just having done it.

Either that, or it just might be a nice day out and I had an extra dose of Vitamin D this morning. Life is good. Go out and hug someone.

How many sets for 100 pull-ups?

We had to do 100 pull-ups, for time.

The catch was, every time you drop off the bar, you have to do 10 thrusters with 2 x 35lbs dumbbells

As rx'd in a seemingly endless 22:43 or something.

Sets of 25-15-11-11-12-8-12-8, and, of course 70 thrusters.

If you add them up, you'll see that I did 102 pull-ups. That's because I can't do math. (74 + 8 does not = 80)

Tyler almost bails on "Fran-ish" (a.k.a. "C2B Fran") but eventually discovers his testicles

Kind of a weird morning.

When I signed up online for the 6am class, I saw that there was only one other person registered for the class. I figured that at least a couple more people would show up, but when I got there, it was just Franz (who was coaching) and MichelleD.

Then I looked on the board and saw that the WOD was C2B Fran.

21-15-9 of:
95lb thrusters
Chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Fuck.

While this isn't what I consider to be a benchmark WOD, it's close enough that I would have liked to know I was doing it a little more in advance than 15 minutes. With benchmark WODs (basically, the ones with girls names) I usually prefer to do them in the evening so that I can come in, see what people have done, and feed off some of the energy in the gym. This morning, I was going to be doing this one alone because MichelleD was going to be doing yesterday's WOD.

Also contributing to my foul mood was the fact that when I looked on the whiteboard, my results for the first part of yesterday's WOD (skips and pushups/mountain climbers) were in the bottom third of everyone that did it yesterday. It pisses me off because that's the kind of stuff I'm supposed to be good at.

So, during a half-hearted warm-up, I started looking for reasons why I shouldn't do Fran-ish. I thought about maybe trying to improve my score on the first part of yesterday's WOD. I even seriously contemplated just going home and going back to bed.

Basically, I figured I was going to completely tank on this and I really didn't want to have the whiteboard displaying a substandard time under my name for the next week. (When I'm thinking rationally, I know most people couldn't give two shits about my results, but those moments of rational thinking are rare).

While the little devil on my shoulder was telling me, "Go on, bail on Fran-ish... you can go home to your nice warm bed," the little angel on the other side took a break from kettlebell swings to say, "This is what CrossFit is all about: getting you physically prepared for the unexpected. In real life, you don't always get to choose what challenges you will face. Man the fuck up, douchey."

The devil was the reason I got fat and stayed that way for years, so I listened to the angel.

Speaking of angels, Franz provided some good coaching throughout.

The last time I did regular Fran was one of my better days ever at CrossFit. That day, I had the benefit of a cheering crowd, a week's notice of the workout being Fran, and, because I did it in the evening, I had a whole day's worth of results to compare to.

Today, I probably managed to summon up about 85-90 per cent of the intensity and focus I had during Fran last time. There were three or four pull-ups I didn't get all the contact I wanted between my chest and the bar, and the breaks I took were probably too long and too frequent, but I got through it.

Time was 7:00 which is a little under two minutes more than my regular Fran time. I'm not sure if the C2B pull-ups should really have that kind of an impact on my results, but I gave just about everything I had this morning.

One other thing: I was no longer in a pissy mood.

I actually don't know if that 7:00 time is "good" for a person at my level, or how well it will hold up against the people I usually compare my results to. At that point, I didn't really care. I had done it. I didn't listen to the devil on my shoulder who wants me to stay in bed when that alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning, and who tries to talk me out of doing a workout because the result might bruise my fragile ego.

Fuck you, little devil. I refuse to be your bitch.

As I attempted to recover from Fran-ish, I looked at the clock and noticed that it was only 6:40am. So I started looking forward to getting home a bit earlier than normal, and maybe even rousing Tracey for a morning quickie. Then I found out that I wasn't done.

I hadn't noticed the bonus work was to do 75 GHD sit-ups in as few sets as possible.

Fuck.

I was shooting for three sets, but figured I'd probably end up doing it in four.

Turns out it took me five sets: 20-15-9-16-15.


Here's a video of a guy doing C2B Fran a lot quicker than me.

Painstorm XXXVI

10-8-6-4-2 front squats, push press, thrusters
10-20-30-40-50 pull-ups
10-15-20-25-30 burpees

I woke up stiff and had a pretty good internal debate with myself this morning about whether to take a rest day, knowing what I was in for with this one.

I mean, that's just a shitload of pull-ups, any way you slice it.

I probably would have elected for a rest day, but I stupidly wrote,"This Painstorm terrifies me" on the CrossFit Regina website, so everyone would have known that I pussied out. See, it's not being a pussy that I'm ashamed of, it's people knowing I'm a pussy.

So I rediscovered my testes and headed to the gym.

Then, just seconds before we started, Robin casually mentioned that when she did this in January, it took her 55 minutes.

What the hell was I supposed to do with that information? Good thing my bowels were empty or I might have shat my pants.

37:54

Hero WOD "Daniel" - Let's see how far we've come

This is the workout:

50 Pull-ups
400m Run
21 95lb Thrusters
800m Run
21 95lb Run
50 Pull-ups

There was snow in the back lane and a cold Prairie wind blowing, so trainer Paul started to write the substitute rowing version on the whiteboard.

Fuck that.

"We're running!" I said. Everyone agreed. Even the guest CrossFitter Paul from Edmonton who was running in those Vibrams (fixed)Five Fingers things that are basically like gloves for your feet.

The runnng in the cold air was pretty shitty. The thrusters were tough, and the last set of pull-ups were brutal.

Time was 19:37.

As far as I can tell, this was only the second time I've done "Daniel" and the first time was back in July of last year, which was about two months after I joined CrossFit.

Back then, my time was 37:29.

I love CrossFit.