Thrusters and Burpees. Hiking and Swimming Big Creek.

I had a devil of a time falling asleep last night. I must have been awake, tossing and turning, from 10:30 to midnight. And then just when I’d finally fallen asleep, Lena woke up at 12:30. And then at 1:00. And then at 2:30. A brutal night of wakings and interrupted sleep.

Coffee. 2 block breakfast (salmon and a date). And off to CrossFit Asheville for the 6:00 am.

Warm Up

Agility drills. Sampson and Hip Mobility. Calves. Hamstrings. Pull-Ups and Push-Ups. Overhead Squats. Side Plank Rolls (all 10-15, I forget exactly).

Thrusters and Burpees.

Strength/skill work:
Thrusters: Find your 5 rep max

WOD:
50 Burpee Time Trial

With the Thrusters, I didn’t exclusively work towards my 5-rep max, but I worked to maximize weight at “work-out speed.” So the weights reported were executed at “full-speed.”

Results:
PVC warmups, 10 x 45 / 5 x 65 / 5 x 70 / 5 x 75 / 5 x 80 / 5 x 85 / 5 x 90 / 5 x 95 /

Then we did the burpees! There’s always time for more burpees.

Results:
4:00 exactly

Swimming Ground: Big Creek

We rode out to Waterville Road and the Big Creek Park, and hiked up the trail to a super water-hole. Totally beautiful. And cold. We did not hike all the way to the falls.

PUC Day 23. CFA Teamwork WOD. Rafting the Pigeon.

Sleep was long (9:30 pm to 6:30 am) but interrupted about 3-4 times by Lena, including a 3:00 am nightmare, which brought her into our bed for 40 minutes. Food was adequate yesterday, and my choices were, on the whole, good. So I feel good this morning. Coffee, milk, 1 block breakfast, etc.

Pull-Up Challenge Day 23

I decided to do the Pull-Up Challenge first. 23 reps today. So I set my watch to a 75 second interval, and determined to do the whole group of 23 in a series of short sets spaced at 1:15 intervals. It would be 1 set every 75 seconds, first 1 set of 3, then 10 more sets of 2, for a total of 11 sets. This process worked well. On sets 9 & 11, front grip sets, I began to feel fatigue which made me worry I wouldn’t complete the second rep, but I got them. Reverse grip remains stronger than front grip.

Reps #1-23: done in 11 sets (1×3, 10×2), alternating grips, performed one set per 1:15, total time: 12:45. From 6:58 to 7:11 am.

After breakfast and more coffee, I headed to the CrossFit Asheville 9:00 Saturday workout.

Warm-Up

Agility drills warm-up. Sampson. Hip mobility. Calf/Hamstring stretches. Overhead squats, Shotguns, Supermans, Hindu Pushups

WOD: Teamwork: Weighted Run, Tire Flip, Pull-Ups, Burpees, Kettlebells

3 Rounds for time of:
200m 45lbs overhead bar run
10 tire flips
20 pull-ups
20 burpees
30 Kettlebell swings

To be completed by teams of two. Work together to hold the bar overhead for the run and teams may work together for the tire flip, but for the remaining exercises only one person works at a time while the other rests.

My partner was Mike Peterson. Results: 23:48, 45# kettlebell.

It was a whole lot of fun, a good sweat. The workout was followed by a bit of playing around with rings and other stuff.

Rafting the Pigeon River

Yael’s cousin Amiya is in town from London, UK, for a few days, and had the brilliant plan to go whitewater rafting. I am a fan of this sort of thing, so I said, “heck yeah, I’m coming with you!”

We went on a half-day trip on the Pigeon River with Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) and had quite a blast. Our guides, Charlie and Chris, were complete sweethearts, and the Pigeon half-day, with class II-IV rapids, was a fine couple of hours on the river. Highly recommended.

In Honor of SSG Hansen; PUC Day 6

Decent sleep, but too little of it, and interrupted (at 12:30 am) by a piss and a little tossing and turning. Then a 5:00 am wakeup. 1 block breakfast (quadruple fat). Coffee.

CrossFit Asheville WOD: In Honor of SSG Hansen

Our workout today was a scaled and modified version of the “Hansen” Hero WOD which debuted on the CrossFit website this past Saturday, May 2nd.

3 rounds of 4 minutes each, featuring:

1 minute of max reps of burpees, followed by:

30 Kettlebell Swings

30 sit-ups.

If you took longer than 3 minutes to do the Kettlebells and the Sit-ups, as I did on round 2, a minute was added to your time. If you finished the Kettlebells and Sit-ups in under 3 minutes, you rested. It was a cool, somewhat brutal Wod.

Warm-Up

6:00-6:30 am: “Football” Agility Drills (e.g. 10 yards shuttles with dropping to pushup at either end; fast feet with jumping and dropping to pushup and rolling right or left; etc.); Parkour and Tumbling: fun stuff!

Workout

My time: 13:08.

Results: I did 15, then 11, then 12 burpees. Kettlebell swings: 30×45#, 7×45# + 23×35#, 30×35#.

Pull-Up Challenge Day 6: 6 reps of dead hang pull-ups.

Rep #1: after the workout, about 7:15 am. Front false u-grip.

Rep #2: at home, after breakfast, about 8:00 am. Front false u-grip.

Reps #3-4: at home, after breakfast, about 8:30 am. Rear false u-grip.

Reps #5-6: at home, about 8:50 am. Front false u-grip.

Coach Corey says I should perhaps rethink my commitment to this challenge, since it doesn’t allow for recovery or enough modulation to spur adaptation. He is worried that injury might result, or over-training. He suggests, at a minimum, to add rest days to the challenge. I am taking his advice to heart. I will decide when the purpose of my challenge has been met. And the purpose is: to master the dead hang pull-up — at my current level of fitness. So I will take my regular rest-days off of the challenge, resuming the normal count on the workout days. And I may not go all the way to 100. I will stop when this “challenge” has convinced me that I can do the pull up.

“Charlotte”

Named not after a girl, but for the city in N.C. where a couple of our trainers recently got their level I cert. J.C. try this one in your park. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. It’ll make a man of you.

10 rounds for time of:

200 meter sprint
10 burpees.

My time today: 23:34. I bet you can beat it, J.C.

MCB