Tabata on Crack

So I've fully come to realize that I'm a horrible blogger. It doesn't help that I've put all of my motivation into working out and legitimately forgot that I may have other responsibilities in life. Who'd have thought that would ever come out of my mouth. Honestly, being out of school is all kinds of messing me up. Being in school at least kept me on a semi-regular schedule of homework, class, work, and working out. Once I took the school factor out of the equation and added in a "grown-up" to do list, I just don't know what to do with myself. But I digress. I'll start with last week when I got back from being at home.

I was fortunate enough to get a direct flight that got me back in Rochester at about 10 AM. Win for me. My original plan was to get my butt right off to the gym at my regular noon time. Yeah that didn't go so well. I really just wasn't feeling it mentally. So I went to the vet's office, picked up the puppy and went back to campus to spend the day enjoying the sun. Ended up on an EMS call, go figure. The only bummer moment I had about missing the gym was that I was missing doing the 20 RM back squat for the week. I really wanted to use that day to get over 100 pounds, but I don't know if I actually would have brought myself to do it.

Tuesday I went running with Melissa. We were on Day 2 of the Couch to 5k program so we were still doing a 1 min. jog with a 1 min. walk for 20 minutes. Wasn't too bad. I figured out how to turn the GPS tracker on. We went a total of 2 miles with a 10:03 min/mile pace.

Wednesday I got back to the gym. It was definitely challenging yet somewhat invigorating. Last week we did quarterly baseline workouts so my "warm-up" was a baseline:

500m row
40 air squats
30 sit-ups
20 push-ups
10 pull-ups

In January when I last did this, I was using my knees for the push-ups and the highest assistance band that we have. I finished the entire thing in 7:13. This time round I still used my knees for the push-ups, a more difficult abmat and I used a lower assistance band for the pull-ups. I finished in 6:40. Definitely a major improvement. My goals for next time are going to be to at least get off my knees with the push-ups. I'd also like to bring my 500m row time down a little bit. Right now it's about 1:55. I want to get it down to the 1:40s. I'm still starting off strong but getting tired right around the halfway mark. Either way, it's not like I got a lot of room to complain. We also filled out reflection sheets but I'll get to that later.

Now on to the real work-out:

Strength:
5 x 5 push press, 1 set every 2 min.

MetCon:
"Elizabeth"
21-15-9 
Clean
Ring Dips

I really surprised myself with the push press. My 1 RM back in January was 103 pounds, so I was kind of keeping that in mind when they told me I had to do 5. Well long story short, my 1 RM became my 5 RM in the span of 3 months. Ain't that some shit.

Elizabeth went well too! I forget what weight I used for the cleans. Prescribed for women was 95, but I doubt I was that ambitious when I had 21 of them to do. My ring dips are definitely getting better too in regards to the range of motion I can do now. I usually use an assistance band draped between the two rings, but even then I couldn't get very good range of motion. This time I was getting fairly decent range of motion. They gave us a 10 minute cap and I finished in 8:40. Not too shabby at all. Especially with all the work I did.

Thursday I went back for more torture. My arms and back were already in agony.

Skill:
3 rounds NTE:
10-15 supine ring rows
8-12 knees to elbow
8-10 pistol squats

MetCon:
3 min AMRAP:
7 wall balls
7 kettlebell swings
...rest 2 minutes...
3 min AMRAP:
7 push-ups (hand release)
7 broad jumps

Midline:
4 x 10 GHD sit-ups

The skill work was fairly difficult. I'm not quite at the stage of doing fully supine ring rows, so I just hung myself from the rings while keeping my feet on the floor. Knees to elbow are still very difficult because I have this squishy tummy that likes to get in the way. My flexibility is much better than it used to be but I won't be doing any toes to bar anytime soon. My pistol squats are improving. I can get just a bit lower than I used to without any assistance. I call it a win.

The MetCon was rough. For the wall balls I used the 14 pound ball, which was the one prescribed, and the 35 pound kettlebell. I think for this one I got through 3 full rounds and 10 reps into the next one. For the next AMRAP I did full body push-ups. I don't know how long my jump was, but if I had to guess it was somewhere in the 4-5 foot range. With that one I did 2 full rounds plus 13 reps. I was fairly pissed I couldn't get that last rep in and make it 3 rounds. Oh well.

Friday...you guessed it...I went back for even more! My poor legs up until then had been idly standing by waiting for their moment to shine.

Strength:
5 x 3 hang power snatch, 1 set every 2 min.

MetCon:
12 rounds - for total meters
20 sec max effort row
40 sec recovery row

The strength was a little awkward. My arms were already pretty tired so taking a barbell and lifting it from the ground to over my head in one step was a little bit like being on a teeter totter. I finally maxed out at 73 pounds. Wonder what I could have gotten if I wasn't exhausted.

The MetCon was interesting to say the least. I called it tabata on crack. Instead of doing 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, it was 20 seconds of all-out work and 40 seconds of active rest. My total meters were 2432. I thought it was a low number, but apparently in put me higher up in the class than I thought. I guess that means I'm a pretty decent rower? For my max efforts I kept the pace at about 1:45. For the active rest portions, I started around 2:45 and towards the end I was at about 3:20, which is partially why I don't understand how I got that many meters out of it. I didn't think I was pushing that hard in comparison to the rest of the class. Regardless, my legs got the workout they were asking for.

I was supposed to go Saturday but I was pretty much toast by the end of those 3 days. With my horrible diet lately, I still rocking the workouts but my recovery sucks. I still didn't have it in check last week. I was just so out of control. I would have one good meal and then go to the RITA base and go nuts. I was not feeling good about myself. Thursday was the only day I was good because I was at Henrietta all day and I apparently have a little better self-control there. Otherwise I was just horrible. I felt like crap and not feeling like I could get back on track was just making me feel crappier. I was giving it my all during workouts, but I would just feel awful about myself afterwards. I gained back a little bit of the weight I lost during the challenge. Not going to say how much, but I'm not impressed with myself right now. So, once again, the diet is proving to be an issue. I'm still a food addict.

The one thing I did realize last week was that shoes are everything in CrossFit. I got my first pair of Reebok Nano 2.0's and they're absolutely amazing. I'm getting a lot more power in my lifts, because they're very minimalist shoes so I can actually feel the ground instead of feeling through an overly rubbery sole. Honestly, they're all around a wonderful shoe. Not recommended for running, but for the gym and even walking, they're so much more comfortable than running sneakers. I never thought I'd say that shoes are everything.

Well I'm going to cut this short. My computer's dying and the Catalyst Games are tomorrow! I will be updating with my workouts for this past week, along with the detox I finally put myself through. There will also be my results from tomorrow on there! I'm so nervous, it's crazy. They posted the WODs and there are burpee box jumps. Eek.

Anywho, g'night all!