Tyler gets, I dunno... ranty? Preachy? Sanctimonious?

I wrote the following on the CFR blog today.  My goal was to encourage at least a few more CFR members to think about signing up for CFR's Spring Fling.  I worry the tone comes off as preachy or like I take all this shit too seriously (maybe I do... or maybe I don't take it seriously enough), but I stand behind the sentiment. 

Since this blog is where I write about my experiences with CrossFit, I might as well re-post it here.

What prompted it was a post by Robin.

Robin said:
CFR members, we have 8 men and 8 women already signed up for Spring Fling! If you want to compete, make sure you sign up at CFR TONIGHT! Registration will be made public tomorrow!

Which compelled me to write with my two cents.

Tyler said:
Re: Spring Fling – I encourage any CFR member who’s on the fence about this to sign up. Just do it.
16 participants from CFR is a good number, but I think it would be great if we could get some more out for a competition hosted by OUR OWN GYM.
 
Friggin’ Synergy in Saskatoon chartered a bus to so they could have, like 20-some people drive 8 hours across a frozen Prairie in January to FrostFit in Winnipeg. I’m sure they, and Function, and Brio and Flux and other gyms will have good sized delegations. We should too.

So, set aside those lingering doubts and sign up. If you are new and have to scale most of your WODs then sign up for Div 2.

If you’ve been doing CrossFit for a while and can do most of the WODs as Rx’d, then sign up for Div 1.

Look, I don’t have muscle-ups, I’ve never deadlifted more than 315, and I get winded just watching Lance and Shae and Leya and Tiff work out, but I still signed up.

Yes, I will not finish anywhere near the podium and you might not either because there will be some freaking crazy fit ninjas in the same division, but you know what?

It doesn’t matter.

You’ll get to push yourself in a fun, supportive atmosphere with people you know (and people you don’t) cheering you on and there is no pressure because even if you finish last in Div 1 or Div 2 or the Masters category, you’re still way ahead of everyone who didn’t compete.

I can virtually guarantee doing this will make you love CrossFit even more than you already do. Take it from the guy who finished SECOND LAST in 2012 (that would be me… and I barely edged out a new CrossFitter because I could do double-unders and he couldn’t)
Even with my ridiculously fragile ego (I get legit mad when my own 5-year-old kid repeatedly beats me in boxing on the Wii) I still signed up for Div 1 knowing that I could very well finish last this year.

I think it would be awesome if you signed up, too.

Okay… I will get down off my soapbox now.

Then Mike, one of the nicest guys at CrossFit or anywhere else, followed up with a post that struck exactly the kind of tone I wish I had.  Dammit.  No wonder that guy won CrossFitter of the Year.

Mike C  said:

I could not believe how much fun I had at Frostfit. Getting to know Tyler, Jenn and Tiff along with our CFR support team was an incredible experience. I finished 20 out of 25 in div 2 and I came away inspired, enthusiastic and focused on the things I wanted to work on. I won’t be able to compete with many of the athletes at Spring Fling, but if that mattered, how many of us would go to CFR every week other than the super-humans like Robin, Matt, Joel and the others Tyler mentioned? I kind of had the same reaction to other competitors that I do at our gym – amazed they can do what they do, humbled in my own abilities, but really uplifted by how accepting and kind everyone is and how they genuinely root for you to do well.

I have found that the competition was less about competing with others and more about testing yourself in a way you haven’t before – in other words it’s really in line with what makes CFR amazing every day. Sign up if you are hesitant, and feel free to slash Tyler’s tires if you don’t like it. (that’s ok, right Tyler?)

Cleans / 4x400

A. Hang Power Cleans, then Power Cleans

Hang power cleans 2-2-2-2 
I did 95-155-175-185

Power cleans 2-2-1-1
195-205-215-225 (tied a PR)

B. 4x400

The WOD called for two minutes each at four stations (squats, rowing, pull-ups and push-ups), separated by a minute break.  My shoulder was acting up so I decided to just run a 400m at the start of each three-minute cycle, resting for the remaining time. 

These are approximate times:

1:52
1:40
1:42
1:45.

Not great, but I'm fine with it for numerous reasons. 

• First time running in months. 
• First time running in the Innov-8s, and my calves are feeling it right now, let me tells ya. 
• Running in a muddy alley. 
• The 200m turnaround point is gone, so I estimated where it used to be. 

Oh and I had to dodge or hurdle a dead, smashed up seagull two times each run.  There was only one dead bird, but I passed it twice because our route is a round trip.  I wonder if Usain Bolt ever had to deal with this sort of thing?

"It's Complicated"

Three person WOD.  I teamed with Nathan and Steve and Victor.  Yup, that's four guys. 

I'm writing this three days later so I may not get this exactly right, but this is about the gist of it.

Each person takes a turn at the station.  You don't move to the next station until the dude doing wall balls is done, and you only count the wall balls, so there w  Everyone does every station before moving to the next round.

Round 1
a) 30 WB, 15 burpees
b) five pull-ups, five hang cleans (95lbs) (then sixes, then sevens etc)
c) five bell swings, five sit-ups (then sixes, then sevens etc)

Round 2
a) 20 WB, 10 burpees
b) five push-ups, five bell swings (then sixes, then sevens etc)
c) five shoulder to overhead, five toes-to-bar

Round 3
a) 10 WB, 5 burpees
b) Power snatch
c) double unders

Round 4
a) 20 WB
b) five push-ups, five bell swings (then sixes, then sevens etc)
c) five shoulder to overhead, five toes-to-bar

Round 5
a) 30 WB
b) five pull-ups, five hang cleans (95lbs) (then sixes, then sevens etc)
c) five bell swings, five sit-ups (then sixes, then sevens etc)

I think we finished in 26:40-something. 

Rhiannon 316 says that WOD just whipped my ass

A. "Sasquatch"

For time, using a 75lb barbell, do 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 of:

• Sumo deadlift high pulls
• Push press

I did the first sets of 21 unbroken, then when I broke up the SDHPs, I would transition straight from the last one into the push pulls. 


6:57  (PR)

 

B. "Rhiannon"

10 minutes of double unders.

I did 50 in the first minute and then it was all downhill from there. 

316.

Not my best. And that's the bottom line. 

"Marathon Monday"

 5 rounds for time (30min time cap):

• 4 Squat Clean and Jerks (185/125)
• 15 Chest to Bar Pull-ups
• 13 Burpee lateral jumps (over barbell)

Then finish with 1km Row (once)

When I read this originally, I thought every round ended with a 1km row.  Even though that would be an insane amount of work, it didn't occur to me just how insane.  If I had taken some time to think about it, I probably would have stayed home. Fortunately, thinking too much is something I rarely do. 

Even as it was written, this was a very gruelling workout.  I was doing this by myself, as well.   The gym was full, but it was Strength Club on one side and  a youth soccer team doing a training session with Keenan on the other.  There was also the Sask Weightlifting Association guys, who - if they had paid any attention all - would have likely been amused by my struggles to squat clean and jerk a weight they would consider an inadequate warm-up weight. 

Ah, yes, the clean and jerk.  Before starting, I had to consider was whether to Rx this WOD with the 185lb squat clean and jerks or go with the 155lb intermediate weight.  My general rule of thumb is that if I can do it, I do it.  I can do a 185lb squat clean and jerk, but that's a fairly heavy single for me.

I went with the 185lb, realizing that it would take a significant amount of time.  I may have underestimated just how much.  Doing those four reps in each round took more time than either of the other exercises, due to the lengthy breaks in between lifts.  I just couldn't bring myself to get back to the bar.  Because I was doing a squat clean, I wanted to ensure that I was able to do the lift without failing every time. 

In the first round, it took me around two minutes to do the set of four.  I think by the later rounds, I was taking more than three minutes, maybe close to four to do those same four reps. 

The C2B pull-ups were fine.  I split them into two sets at the start, three sets at the end.  The burpee lateral jumps were okay.  I was moving pretty slowly by that point in each round.

I finished the five rounds in 28:11. 

It probably took me at least another minute, maybe more, to get strapped into the rower, and then I rowed the 1000m in 4:02.

VolkeFit Harbour Village Throwdown!

Smile and the whole world smiles with you. Squat, and you squat alone.

Steve hosted another CrossFit get-together in his garage on Saturday.  (Oh shit, I hope by me calling it that, I'm not getting him in trouble with CrossFit HQ.  Gotta protect the brand, y'know.)

There were 11 people taking part, I think.  We split up into teams, and I ended up on a stacked team consisting of Matt, Leya, Shae, and Uncles.  It was kind of like being a journeyman left-winger for the Moose Jaw Warriors who somehow ends up playing on the mid-80s Edmonton Oilers dynasty team.

I didn't record results, so I'll just talk about what we did. 

WOD #1

Teams of three, conga line.  Two rounds of: 

10 burpees

15 squats

200m-ish run 

(Joel, Leya and me)

This was fine.  I like doing all of this stuff.  This was the first time I ran outside in my new, minimalist Innov-8s, so I may have gone a little slower as I was more conscious of where I was stepping. 

Or maybe I was just running that slow because I haven't actually run anywhere in five months. 

WOD #2 

Teams of three, one person working at a time 

-Three minutes of OHS for max reps (95lbs)

-Two minutes of hand-release push-ups 

(Matt, Shae and me)

I think I mostly held my own on the OHS, doing a couple sets of 15.  Let's not talk about how I did on the push-ups, mmkay?


WOD #3
7-minute AMRAP:
Teams of three, one person at each station:
-Sit-ups
-20 power cleans (135 and 95lbs)
-handstand hold

(Matt, Leya and Uncles)

Score was the max sit-ups.  You switch whenever one teammate has completed the 20 cleans. And -- here's the nasty part, which I'm proud to say was my idea -- you can only work when the one teammate is in the handstand hold 

I sat this one out... which made it way more entertaining. 



If your face doesn't look like this when you CrossFit, you're doing it wrong



WOD #4

5-minute AMRAP (I think... I could have the time wrong)

Teams of three - Each person at a station, rotate when everyone's done.



Keep in mind, the camera adds a good 50-60 lbs



-20 overhead lunges - 45lbs 

-20 front squats - 135lbs

-20 kettlebell snatches - 55lbs

The front squats were a special kind of awful, especially when you (meaning me) are the last person to finish at your  station in a garage full of hyper-fit people and your team is waiting for you to hurry the fuck up, fatass so they can get back to exercising. 

WOD #5

Everyone does this, going through one at a time. 

One minute at each station:

-Wall ball

-Box jumps (20")

-Pull-ups

-Battle ropes

Battle ropes are one of those things that look not so bad, but then you do them and you are just praying for the sweet release of death. 

***

Driving with Arnold:

I saw this on Fuck Yeah CrossFit and I liked it so I stole it and put it here. 

 

Front Squats (3s), Tabata, "Rhiannon"

A. Front squats 3-3-3

I did 185-205-225 (PR)


B. Tabata (Box jumps and push-ups)

112 box jumps and 85 push-ups for a score of 197. Not my best.


C. Rhiannon. Ten minutes of max double unders.

258. I always think I am gonna do better on this than I do. Ah, well, doing it right after Tabata is as good a reason as any for a sub-par showing.

Back Squats / "Clean and Push"

A. Back Squat 5-5-5 start @ 75%

I did 235, 255, and 265, all of which seemed much harder than I remember.  Hey, maybe I should squat more than once every three months. 

B. “Clean & Push”

5 rounds for time:
10 Power Cleans 135/95lb
15 Push Ball 20/14lb and 10′/9′ line (Wall Ball without squat)

I believe I finished in 10:14   I felt like I was pretty slow on the cleans.  I suppose I could justify it by saying I wanted to make sure my technique was solid, but the truth is probably just that this shit is hard sometimes. 

1km row

Did this at home.  When I sat down, I was gonna do 2km, but I wasn't feeling great after 150m and decided to puss out.

3:39

Snatch, 3/5 Nancy, Deadhang PLUs

A. Snatch
Hang Power Snatch 2-2-2-2 @~65%

Power Snatch 2-2-2 (as ~ 70,74,78%)

We didn't follow this exactly.  Did  95, 115, 125, 135, 145.


B. 3/5 Nancy
3 rounds NOT for time:

500M Row
15 Overhead Squats 105/70lbs (scale to 95/65 75/55 65/45 or empty barbell)

Done.  Did the OHS uninterrupted. 


C. Deadhang Pull-ups
2 x max reps (score by total reps), rest ~3 minutes between attempts (no bands, beginners do negatives for 2 sets of 5)

I did 12 and 6.

Hero WOD "Jorge"

“Jorge” For time:

Dammit.  I thought this was ubered with GHD sit-ups, and Rx'd with regular sit-ups.  According to the main site, the Rx'd version includes GHD sit-ups.

I did regular sit-ups. 
30 sit-ups
15 Squat cleans – 155/105lb
24 sit-ups
12 Squat cleans
18 sit-ups
9 Squat cleans
12 sit-ups
6 Squat cleans
6 sit-ups
3 Squat cleans


14:51

Doing a relatively high number of somewhat heavy squat cleans isn't easy for me, but I think I could have shortened my breaks and finished this sooner.  I should have also double-clipped the plates on the bar. 

CrossFit Open 2013: That's how I do

While the Open was ongoing, I wasn't keeping track of where I was in the standings. I did, however, start poking around the leaderboard after I finished up.

I thought it might be interesting to record my results here, so I can look back in a year and compare my results to next year's Open. I'd expect that I'd finish lower in the standings, given that more people will likely take part in the Open, and any performance gains I make will probably be incremental at best (and that's barring any potential setbacks I could experience due to age, injury and/or binge eating.)

So here's how I finished:

18,117th place worldwide
I don't know how many guys actually completed all the workouts in the individual men's category, and finding out would take more time than I'm willing to invest in this. I do know that my result put me just behind Darren Jenkins of Australia. I beat him in four out of the five WODs, but he totally destroyed me in 13.3. I'm coming for you next year, Jenkins! You best watch yo' kangaroo-kissing, boomerang-tossing, Crocodile Dundee-loving ass!


485th in Canada West
This is out of 1,288 guys who submitted scores for every event. Not quite the top third, but at least it's on the right side of the bell curve. It's probably an appropriate result for someone who is fairly good at some aspects of CrossFit, but far from elite.


9th in CrossFit Regina. 
Looking at the list of CFR dudes who submitted scores for every event, there isn't a single guy who ranked ahead of me that I would have expected to beat overall.   In fact, there were at least four guys below me who would have likely pushed me out of the top 10, but didn't do all the events due to injuries or other factors.  So that result flatters me.  (I think you're pretty, too, Result).


Here's how I ranked in Canada West for each WOD.  Clearly, 13.5 was my best event, and significantly boosted my finish in the overall standings.
 
13.1 - 682nd

13.2 - 612th

13.3 - 769th  Once again, Dave Castro can kiss my ass.  

13.4 - 492nd

13.5 - 301st  Fuck yeah. 

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.

Skillwork and Rowing/KB

A. Skill – Time to work on skills that are your weaknesses. 

The suggested skill was kipping pull-ups, but I thought I'd do jumping muscle-ups instead.  I did a few of those, then figured I was pushing my luck and could mess up my shoulder, so I switched to pistols. 


B. Metcon

8 rounds for total distance of 60-second row and 90-second rest

During the rest, 10 Kettlebell Swings to shoulder height – 55/35lb , ACT 70/55lb. 

I did it with the 70lb KB.   Dubba stah, babay!

2441m rowed. 

2km Row

 7:37.0

Um, that's it.

I did this in my basement as my father-in-law helped a friend of his with  tax returns about eight feet away from me.  The only reason I mention this is that it might have impacted my performance, since I refrained from my usual ridiculous agonized grunting.  I also left my shirt on. 

Maybe I'll move the rower out to the garage when the weather gets nicer and we clean out all the mouse poop. 

I followed this epic workout up by eating two and a half pieces of a DQ Skor Treatza Pizza.  It was my Wife's birthday and I don't need much of a reason to revert to my fatass ways.