Early Morning

You have to find a time to invest in your fitness. For me that is before the work day starts. I'm usually in the gym at 5:30 to start the workout of the day. This is a great time for me because it allows me to get some work in the bank before the day begins. With my job, I'm never 100% sure what the time after the end of the school day will bring (in addition to all of the extracurricular activities we have). It also ensures me of not being bound by the weather by only biking after school. So this morning, along with four of my guys who like to do work, we hit the Crossfit Countdown Throwdown WOD #2 (with some strength work before:

Warm-up:
3 rounds of

• 50 single unders
• 10 squat holds
• 10 push-ups
• 10 sit-ups
• 10 arm haulers

Then strength work with front squats

(5,5 - warm-ups) 3,3,3,1,1,1 - increasing the weights to hit 225 pounds of the last rep

then 12 minutes of work

0 - 3 minutes - run 400 meters (right at 1:30 for me)

3 - 10 minutes - 7 minute AMRAP

5 x #115 front squat

7 x toes to bar

9 x #115 shoulder to overhead

5 rounds by 16 reps (5 front squats, 7 toes to bar, 4 shoulder to overhead)

10 - 11 minutes - rest

11 - 12 minutes - Burpees (I was able to get in 22 burpees)

I really liked the scheme of this workout, constantly varied! Two areas of improvement for me would be shoulder and wrist mobility (definitely an area in which I need to invest more time) and strength. This was taxing to the cardiovascular system, but I need the strength to push through unbroken on the presses.  Also, it was definitely a strength issue because I was able to recover fairly quickly, and complete 22 burpees in the nest minute. Hopefully this will build some capacity for me for the competition in just over a week.

Like we always do about this time (yeah, lyric reference...), I start talking about the ROD (ride of the day). Short and simple Fulton Ride tonight, just spinning the legs out again. I could really feel the front squats on this ride (didn't I say something about lowering the volume earlier). We had pretty awesome weather for a January that wasn't even approaching Manurary as the temps rose to the high 40s, I'll take it!

Building Capacity

Theme of the week: Building Work Capacity

I feel very lucky to get to train with some great guys. This morning at 5:30 AM we tackled a continous 3 round workout:

3 rounds for reps (:55 work/:15 rest)

Row for calories
Sit-ups
Wall Ball (#20)
Pull-ups
Box Jumps (24")
Single-unders (continuous but did not count in reps)

I was able to hit 358 reps. I went for over 21 calories eachtime on the Concept2, between 30 and 40 sit-ups, 23 or more wall balls (at least 20 unbroken), 15 - 20 pull-ups, and 15 - 18 box jumps. I was thoroughly spent. These workouts test your ability to continue to push through each minute to strive for that extra rep. Hopefully this will get me accustomed to some of the work that will be done in the Crossfit Countdown Throwdown in a couple of weeks.

Along the lines of "work capacity", my guys have decided (and I'm along for the ride as well) to accept the challenge of the Tough Mudder. 10 - 12 miles of obstacles and what not. My only trepidation is the "shock" that is part of this event. The biggest positive I see on firat glance, is that this is an event that encourages teamwork to make it through. I am thinking this will be a tremendous experience!



Tonight on the bike we went looking for some snow (yeah, I know, exact opposite of what I wanted yesterday), so that Joe could test out his Kenda Small Block 8s. Needless to say, if you are looking for it it is nowhere to be found. However, we did get to enjoy some nice "Iron" road bed. The ride itself was a nice relaxing recovery ride on the Redline Monocog 29er (36x15) to flush out the legs form yesterday,.

Inclement Climbing

Shawnee State Forest...you cannot find a more wretched hive of climbs in southeastern Ohio...or something
like that! Joe and I made the trek south to the Shawnee State Forest area just west of Portsmouth, OH. The are is simply beautiful, and offers up some tremendous view of the river valley and hills of southeastern Ohio. It also provides us with some tremendous gravel road training climbs. These are the closest we have to coming anywhere near the climbing that Joe will see next month at the Southern Cross.

I'm sure glad I mounted up the Michelin knobbies on the D460, it was slick and icy and muddy and just about every possible road condition you could envision int he short 24 miles we covered today. The weather was very difficult to dress for, as the temperature stayed in the lower 30s, but the climbing heated up my core, and the descents  brought it right back to cold! 

We were able to accumulate over 2500 feet of climbing, which is much needed to get ready for the Death March and Warrior Creek races that we be here before long. 

I felt good on the bike today, and didn't hit a Crossfit WOD today. I'm going to cut my training volume for a week and see if how that affects me. It always good to change up volume and methods to keep it fresh. 




The Strava Track:



Of course I had to compile the shots from today's ride into a video:

Video:

You have to have skills...

Skills! It all about skills! You have to have them. You have to train them. No matter what endeavor (athletic or otherwise) you have to train them.

With that in mind, the morning WOD crew did some skill work. The intent was to take

Dynamic Warm-up (all while moving)

• Ankle mobility·
• Knee hugs
• Quads stretches
• Walking Sampson Stretch
• The inch worm
• Walking Pistols
• The spider walk
• The toy-soldier march
• Walking toe touch
• High Knees
• Butt Kicks
• Karaoke

Skill Work:

Short practice with each of the following moves (ring dips, med ball cleans, double unders, and hand stand push ups). We also looked at the following scales for each of the movements:

• Ring dips - using the parrelletes for dips
• Med Ball cleans (no scale)
• Double Unders - divide single unders by three
• HSPU - hand stand kick up and floor push-up

WOD:

3 Rounds for total reps:

1:00 Ring Dips

:30 rest

1:00 Medicine Ball (#20) Cleans

:30 rest

1:00 Double Unders

:30 rest

1:00 Hand Stand Push-ups

:30 rest

This was a tough workout skill and strength-wise. The movements really checked your skill. The key to being able to put up high numbers was staying efficient in your movements. As you approached the ring dips it was important to not waste a rep as fatigue set-in, a no-rep used almost the same effort as a good rep (same for the HSPUs). I was able to string out 14 dips early and hope to be able to eventually get to 21 unbroken. The MB cleans was a good chance for me to focus on technique for any clean. I need to get better at getting myself under the bar. One bright spot was being able to string together 30 dubs at the start of each minute. I need to clean up my technique a bit, I'm still pretty rough with the donkey kick and shoulder use. I can still feel my shoulders from last weeks WODs and I felt weak on the HSPUs...need to program more of these and introduce structured skill sessions to work on depth and kipping for this movement. 

All in all, it was a pretty good morning and I was able to get 302 reps for the WOD. 

After school we did the Cove Ride. It was a brisk 39 to start and the temperatures dipped down to 34 by the end of the ride. These rides are always tough to dress for as they start out sunny and end as the sun sets and the temp drop (and you're sweaty at that point). I had the typical Mavic, Pearl, Windstopper and it was probably a layer too much for the ride.

Riding into the wind always adds that little extra level-up to the ride, especially as we climbed and turn onto Jisco West for the final part of the climb and were smacked in the face by the zonal flow. I needed the extra effort and the slightly longer route to wake my legs back up from being off the bike over Christmas vacation. Hopefully the weather and snow-melt cooperates so that we can can get to Shawnee State forest on Sunday.

The year begins!

And so the new year begins with a trip to the McClintic TNT Area for some riding festivities with the Ohio Valley Boys. The best thing about the ride was getting to see all of the guys (Jon B., Eric P, Matt J. and Cal-Boy, along with the usual Joe and Tony). The ride was very flat, but did offer up some cool views of the bunkers.

I stayed pretty warm as the temperatures stayed in the low 30s. Apparel today included the Mavic jacket,Nike Pro base layer, Pearl Izumi Themal Jersey, wool ski socks, PI Barrier GTX shoes, and Marmaset Gore Windstopper gloves.



Of course i decided to do a video compliation of the GoPro Pics.


This was a great recovery ride to begin the year fresh. I have lots of prep and training to do before the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek and need to get Joe and I signed up for the Sub 9 Death March this week!

2013 is shaping up to be a great year!

Back to Scioto Trail

It was great too get back to Scioto Trail State Forest today. We actually saw a couple of guys on mountain bikes and a couple of guys on cyclocross bikes enjoying the day. I tried a couple of new angles on the GoPro today, didn't account for the slightly muddy sections for the rear seatpost mount.

Picasa Web Album



Video Montage!

GPS