I wanted to redo 15.1 today, but couldn’t make it to the box. So instead I went for a run. Which went quite ok. I’m always happy when I manage to run 5k. I had one little walk break somewhere in the middle, but was able to keep running the rest of it. My feet were hurting a lot.. not sure if it was the shoes or I’m just not used to running anymore.
Interesting to see is that my pace was the exact same as my last 5k run in September last year.
I was treated to this view at the end of my run :).
I guess it was more of a jog. I wanted to go for 5km.. but then I got tired :p.. and decided to go for 30 min, which only got me to 4.11km. I took my first walking break after 15 minutes and it kind of went downhill from there :(. I really want to run more though. Hopefully it goes better next time. I really want to get to 5km in 30 minutes!!
It was really nice weather btw. 22 degrees with the sun out. I was running sleeveless. At the end of November hehe. Gotta love Spain!
I had a super lazy day on Saturday, basically hanging on the couch reading my book all day. (Ok, so I am geeky enough that the book was about CrossFit, but still.)
In the afternoon I was able to get my lazy ass to move a little bit and I went for a 5k run. I hadn’t ran a 5k since… oh wow.. since almost exactly a year ago! September 26, 2013… That’s funny.
I ran 5.25km in 34 min 37 seconds then.
This Saturday, September 28, 2014, I ran 5.02km in 32 min 46 seconds.
No improvement there, but at least my average pace didn’t go down either. I have to admit that it was quite hard…. to keep going. You would think that a full year of CrossFit would have made me a bit faster… or at least make it feel easier at the same pace. But no such luck. It does give me motivation to start running a little bit more though. Maybe not 5k’s, but I think it would be good to do a bit more interval training with running. I dislike it so much though… so it’s hard to motivate myself. But I think I will be running a bit more when I’m in Holland next month. Take advantage of the flat country (because if there is anything I hate more than running, it’s running uphill). Oh btw, my run this weekend was actually with a little elevation as well, and the one last year was in Holland so completely flat. So.. there you go.. maybe I did improve a tiny little bit :p.
I think it should be my goal to run a 5k under 30 minutes before the end of the year!
I’m not sure this is worth mentioning here, but I am always a bit proud when I run, because I dislike it so much. So, I am mentioning it!! Haha.
Yesterday I had to bring my car to the garage, which is about 3.5km from work, so I decided to walk from there to work in the morning. Then in the afternoon when I had to walk back to pick it up it was mostly downhill, so I decided to run some parts :D. I had a 5.5kg backpack on so the run was quite slow (although when I look at my pace it was not that bad at all really). It was quite nice actually. Especially running downhill is such a happy thing to do. I think the main reason why I hate running so much during WOD’s is because the run that we have to do at CrossFit is partly uphill. Which is where I struggle the most.
Anyway, this was my walk/run/walk with a backpack yesterday.
I didn’t feel for working out after that though, so no WOD this day.
I ate 2 whole Rittersport choclate bars and felt so guilty about it that I decided to go for a run. My gps was being a bit funky so I thought I ran over 5k, but after adjusting some of the weird off course gps points I ended up under 5k. Oh well. It was nice to be running again. I haven’t been running for ages and I’m always so bad at it during the WOD’s that I think it’s good to practice it a bit more often again.
I don’t think I’ll ever be a good runner, but I think I did ok, if you account for the fact that it was still 30 degrees outside!
I haven´t been writing for a while and I´m not sure if I remember all of it anymore, but I´ll try :D. I didn´t go to a lot of workouts so it shouldn´t be so hard.
On the 5th of September I did the above workout. And I remember that I was really happy with it. I did it in 39.57 minutes if I recall correctly. I did knees to elbows instead of toes to bar. And I remember that one of the rounds I managed to do all 15 in one go and that felt so good!!
Saturday september 7th we did a Hero workout “Manion”. Which is 7 rounds of 400m run and 29! back squats 135/95lbs.
I did the back squats with 20kg bar and 10lbs on either side so that´s about 30kg. I think. I´m not sure if I remember correctly. Maybe it was a 15kg bar. I think it was 20 though… We had a timecap too, but I´m not sure what it was.. I think 40 minutes. I think I did 4 rounds.. But I don´t really remember this one very well. I do know that I really tried to do my squats properly and that it was quite heavy haha.
On the 9th of September I kind of screwed up. We started practising some technique for pistol squats and double unders. I managed to do 2 double unders in a row for the first time (until now I could only do one). After that we did Nancy: 5 rounds of a 400m run and 15 overhead squats. The overhead squat was a new move for me and it felt very awkward. Basically you hold the bar above your head with straight and locked arms. It feels like you´re over stretching them. You have to put pressure on (almost like you want to snap the bar) to make sure you don´t drop it. While keeping the bar up there you do squats (and feel like falling over :p). We did some practising with just a stick first and when it was time to do the wod I did it with a 15kg bar.
During round 2 I noticed my left arm had started sleeping. It slowed me down a bit because it was distracting. At some point I asked Rich if that is normal to happen and he said I shouldn´t worry about it. It didn´t hurt, so I continued. I don´t remember my time. We didn´t have a time cap so I did the full 5 rounds, but I didn´t look at the clock… The whole time my underarm and hand kept having the sleepy pins and needles feeling.
And this feeling never went away. I still have it now. It´s mostly only in my thumb now though. On Tuesday I went to the doctor and she sent me to the Neurologist on Wednesday. He told me I have a trapped nerve and to find out where it´s trapped I need to get an EMG scan. I´m getting that scan today. He also told me that I could do everything as normal as long as it doesn´t start hurting/gets worse. And it hasn´t gotten worse.. it doesn´t hurt. It´s just an annoying feeling. And to be sure I did decide to take it easy on the workouts. So I didn´t go to crossfit for a week.
Last Monday I finally went again. But I did skip on doing the Thrusters, as I didn´t want to have my arms overhead like that again before having my arm checked out properly.
Instead I used that time to practise my double unders. And this time I got up to 4 in a row! Progress!!
We didn´t end up doing Annie as too many people showed up. Instead we did 16 minutes AMRAP in pairs of 20 double unders/2o situps while the other one did a medballwalk up the hill. So basically one is doing as many double unders/situps in the time that the other takes a medball and runs it up the hill and back. We started before I even realized so we forgot to get some chalk to write down our reps, but I think we did pretty good. I just did singles instead of double unders though. I had been practising it before and just wanted to get a good workout in instead of stumbling around with the double unders.
Then, yesterday I went again.
We had a 36 minute time cap and I ended up doing 4 rounds in 36.5 minutes (with 10lbs ball). And now I feel completely worn out. This work out was so hard for some reason! I already had trouble getting through my reps in the first round. And during the first run I seriously thought about giving up because I struggled getting through it so much. But I kept going, albeit very slow. And when I finished my wall balls in the 4th round and the clock was on 35 minutes I considered of course to call it a day but ended up doing a sprint to try and make the run in the last minute anyway. So in the end I was happy with pushing through. But damn, do I feel it now! I haven´t felt this “empty” since the first week I started crossfit. It probably didn´t help that it was 30 degrees outside. But I think I could really feel that I haven´t done any sport really in the last week.
It´s been two months now since I started CrossFit and I´m still loving it. This month I don´t think I changed so much physically, but I can really feel the difference in my energy and strength. I did make some pictures the other day and I´ll post them later.
I really hope they can fix my sleepy thumb soon so I can stop worrying about it.
This Friday I fly to Holland for a 10 day holiday with my family. But I will be doing plenty of workouts there. I have a weekend at a waterpark, I am going to a Gladiator workout, doing a bootcamp training with a friend and at the end of the holiday I´m doing the Mudmasters MudRun, which is going to be such a fun challenge! I also want to check out the CrossFit box they have in my hometown :D. And in between I will relax and stuff my face with yummy Dutch snacks. I think this holiday will be a good one!! :D
I hadn´t been to CrossFit for a week again!! :O
But, I did do a lot of other working out. It was actually a very nice week for me activity wise. After that last WOD last monday I went for a run on Wednesday. I went in the mountains and the run started with going up up up for the first 10 minutes and I was able to keep on running. Which made me so happy!! Because I hadn´t been running for a while and I always really struggle with any kind of elevation. So for me it was a personal victory to manage to go up all the way without falling back into a walk.
Then on Thursday I did my very first home WOD haha. I had a bad headache so didn´t want to go to the gym, but in the end I got bored at home and felt like doing something anyway. So at home I did 70 burpees, 50 squats, 50 sit ups and 25 pushups.
On Saturday I went to the beach for my first solo kite session. Well, bodydrag session. I´ve had a few kite lessons and have now bought my own kite to practice with. But I haven´t had a lot of time to practice getting up on the board yet. I tried a little bit this Saturday, but there wasn´t much wind and I was struggling. But it was still fun!!
Then, on Sunday, I had the biggest challenge! A 10km run. I had never run more than 6km so I knew this was going to be hard. And I never run when the sun´s out either and this was right when the sun was out with 30 degrees C. So I was a bit worried. And rightly so. The first 5km were really nice and I ran them quite fast (improved my record!), but after that it just went downhill. I had to take a lot of walking breaks and it really was very very hard mentally to just keep on going really. But I made it in the end and even ended with a sprint to keep the clock from going into the next minute. I´m happy with the result, but I won´t be doing that again any time soon ;).
Tuesday I finally went to the gym again and did the following workout.
I tried to do it RX as much as I could. Which meant I did the push ups properly (not from the knees) and the snatches with 25lbs (as was written on the board). The double unders I unfortunately still can´t :(. During the warm up I managed to get a few in, but I can´t do two in a row yet so it would take me forever to do 30. Instead I had to do 120 singles per round. Handstand push ups I still can´t do either so had to do 8 wall walks per round. The pull ups I decided to do with the green band, which is much harder than with the black band. We had a 30 minute time cap and I made it almost through 2 rounds. In the second round I skipped the wall walks so I could finish the pull ups.
I felt good about it though, because I was using more strength than before so hopefully I´m building strength with that as well. I really want to try to follow the weights and things a bit more now.. which will mean I´ll be even slower than before haha, but I think is probably the best way to improve.
Anyway, not a lot of workouts at the gym, but a good week nonetheless. I have been slacking a bit with the eating habits though. And struggling with the headaches. I have one now as well and I want to go to the gym tonight, so hopefully it will go away in the next couple of hours.
Hasta luego!
On Monday we did the exact same workout that I did on my very first CrossFit class six weeks ago. So it was a nice way for me to measure some progress.
It was Fran (21-15-9 thrusters/pullups) and during the first class I did it in 10m13 seconds with 10kg on the thrusters and using the black band for the pull ups. After six weeks I was able to do it in 8m08 seconds with 5kg more on the thrusters. Still using the black band though.
But still, I managed to bring my time down with 2 minutes while adding some weight. So I´m happy :).
I also set a personal record for the Front Squat. I managed one good one. In my last set my coach told me I wasn´t going down far enough and when I finally did boy did I notice the difference! I wish he had told me a bit sooner though.. I feel like I´ve probably been doing it wrong all this time. Anyway, I did mange to do one good one with a 20kg bar + 70lbs in weight on it so that´s.. 52,2kg!! Getting close to my body weight!! :D
Last saturday we had an awesome WOD at the box. Normally saturday mornings are at the beach, but for some reason it wasn´t possible this week. I was a bit disappointed at first, because I love the workouts on the beach, but this was sooooo coool. Rich has just bought some new toys for the box and that includes two huge tires. So part of the workout was flipping tires :D.
The workout was:
2 teams of 4, per team:
180 clean & jerks
40 hill runs
8 distances of tire flips (I don´t know what the distance was)
So that was 45 clean & jerks each, 10 runs each and the tire flips we just did however it worked out. Which worked out in me and one other teammate doing 2 and the guys doing 5 and all four us doing the remaining 1 together.
The hill run was basically running up a hill and then jogging/walking back down.
The clean & jerks I did with 8kg.
Here are some pictures of the morning. It was so cool!!
The Thursday before that I brought my friend Mirella, who was visiting me from Holland. (She came on Monday as well.) She was really scared to come with me haha, but now she signed up to the box in Amsterdam because she loved it so much!! :D
The workout on Thursday was in pairs for time:
100 wall balls each
100 burpees each
100 sit ups each
The med ball was not allowed to touch the ground after start, so one of the pair had to hold the ball at all times. There was a 25 minute time cap and Mirella did really good for her first WOD. She finished the wall balls and sit ups and did up to 16 burpees I think. I finished the wall balls and sit ups too and got up to 65 burpees.
Before that workout we had to do 7 minutes of alternating Turkish Get Ups. Yes, that is an exercise. They are quite heavy! But I liked doing them. I think I did 3 on each side, so 6 total (with 8kg kettlebell). The exercise looks like this.
Before Thursday I hadn´t been to the box for a week!! :O I don´t know what happened, but lets say life got in the way :p.
This week I´m not going 4 times as I wanted to do either. I think maybe I should stick with 3 times a week. Not because I don´t want to go more often, but more because I just don´t really want to make the time for it. It gets in the way of other fun stuff (plus some much needed relaxing time) too much. Anyway.. we´ll see. I´ll go 4 times if I can and try to stick with at least 3 times a week no matter what.
On another note. I signed up for a run next Sunday! It´s a 10km run for a good cause. I´ve never run 10km in my life before so that´s going to be a challenge. I haven´t been running at all since I moved to this area so I´m a little out of practise too. And it´s going to be hot. It starts at 10am on the Marbella paseo and you get 1.5 hour to finish. I hope I make it!!
Whupsie. I haven´t been updating properly.
Last week was a tough week for me. The WOD on Thursday (August 8) was again really hard for me. I struggled a lot last week.. not sure why. This week is going better though :). But lets go back to Thursday. The WOD was like this.
It´s a “hero” WOD. We had a 40 minute time cap and I made it through .. wait.. I don´t remember!! I do remember that I only did 5 thrusters each time and that I did them (and the deadlifts) with 24.2kg (5kg less than the Rx). The first round I did 10 deadlifts, but changed that to 5 as well from the second round on. For me those (heavy) lifts are still very new to me and I don´t want to overdo it and hurt my back or something.
I think I did 3.5 rounds.. not 100% sure, but yea I think so.
Then, the beach WOD on Saturday. That one was really fun and hard. But fun. The WOD was run from one point to another (on soft sand) at about 30m distance. When there do 10 pushups and 10 squats. Run back and do 10 kb swings (8kg) and 10 burpees. Then run to the sea and go in up to your middle. Run back out to first point. That is one round and we had to do 10.
When everyone was long finished it was me and another Dutch guy that still had to do two full rounds. I don´t know how they can be so fast!!! They must be cheating :p.
After the WOD we went out for breakfast with some. They have been doing that for a few weeks now. When I used to come with Luke I couldn´t go as I had to drive him back to Calahonda, but now I can join :). And it´s the best breakfast ever! It´s at a place called Pan y Mermelada in Marbella and I don´t know how their breakfasts normally are, but they have a special “CrossFit” breakfast, which basically means you can get anything and everything for €12. Sandwiches, veggies, fruit salades, fruit juices, coffee, pancakes, bacon, more fruit, more veggies, more yummies. It´s delicioso!
Anyway, back to the WOD´s. This week I started going on Monday as well. On Monday the WOD was like this.
The squats I worked up from 20kg to in the last three rounds 43kg. I kind of last my form in the last round though.. didn´t go all the way down with my squat. I was afraid I wouldn´t be able to get back up again!! I think I can do heavier though.. If I don´t have to do 6 reps :p. Should try it next time. The walking lunches I did with 2kb swings of 8kg.
After that it was 3 rounds for time of kb swings and runs. (More running!!! GRRRR!!) I wanted to take the 8kg kettlebell again, but they convinced me to take 12kg. Which, when trying out, I had a hard time with from the first go. Butttt, I did manage!! In the end I did 90 kb swings of 12kg and 3 400m runs in 14:58 minutes! It felt awesome!!
Then.. yesterday..!
When you see this on the wall you know it´s time to be scared!
He called it the Tamburello. As Luke Tamburello (one of the box members) turned 30 yesterday. Hah! Let´s hope nobody turnes 40, 50 or 60 soon ;). In 35 minutes I got up to 18 wall balls. I did real push ups (instead of from the knees) for the first time in a WOD and made it through all 30 almost in one go :D. Box jumps I did 20″. Pull ups with black band.
I found the roll outs really hard.
BB Roll Out
You´re supposed to roll out all the way to a vertical position, but I can´t come back up when I try that. So I just go about halfway and pull back.
Double unders I don´t know how to do yet (they´re rope jumps where you jump once but the rope goes under twice) so I did 60 single jumps instead. And I did all of them in one go as well, which made me happy. The handstand pushups I did from a box. Basically you put your toes on the box and make sure your body is in 90 degrees so your upper body is straight up in the air and your legs are vertical. Then try and push up.
Handstand push up from box
Looks easy. Is not easy.
Sit ups were a piece of cookie (because a cookie is so much nicer than cake). The kb swings I did with 8kg (yah I know I should have taken the 12kg but trust me after doing all those other things my arms were already like jelly). Then the friggin burpees, which always make me dizzy. The push press is something I had never done before. I did them with 2 kettle bells of 8kg. It was quite heavy!! I had to do reps of 5 so I spent a lot of time on it.
DB push press
There was 1 minute left on the clock when I started the wall balls. I used a 10lbs ball and got 18 in there when the time was up.
It was a very nice workout!!
Today I´m feeling it though. Happy that I have a rest day ;). Tomorrow I´m going again. Today it´s one month since I started. I made some pics on the first day and some this morning as well. Maybe I´ll post a comparison picture later. Although I don´t think there is much difference to be seen yet.
I wanted to post something about my food habits as well. But don´t have time!! Will try and update soon!
It´s full on summer here in Spain now and it´s crazy hot because of it. I think that´s why I really struggled yesterday. I think on paper this WOD wasn´t as hard as some of the other ones I did, but I struggled a lot with it.
The workout was 21 minutes ascending ladder of
Burpees
Kettlebell swings (I used 8kg)
Handstand pushups
Box Jumps (20 inch)
Pull ups
We started with 2 reps of each and the ascending ladder means that every round you add 2 more reps. So first round is 2 of each, second round is 4 of each, etc.
I substituted the handstand pushups for wall climbs. And because wall climbs are a bit more straining we started them with 1 and then add 1 every round. But even that turned out to be too hard for me.
I really struggled a lot this workout. Black spots.. out of breath. Dripping sweat.
I did a total of 6 rounds, but I didn´t multiply to wall climbs. I just did one of them each time. I couldn´t handle more :( (I should really practice the hand stand!!). So in the end I did a total of 6 wall climbs and a total of 42 of each of the other movements.
After finishing the workout we got 3 minutes of rest and then had to run 1 mile, which was 4 laps around the building.
I thought I would be ok on the run as I´ve been practising running for a while now, but it was horrible! I started out too fast so I burnt out after the first lap and had to walk a short bit on every lap after that. The first lap I came in as one of the fastest, but in the end I was the last one to finish. Lesson learned ;).
I switched to another time. I used to go at 7pm as I went straight after work. But this week I moved apartments and I now live much closer to the box. So now I go home first and go to CrossFit at 8pm. It´s a bit quieter at 8pm so I think it´s nicer (7pm class is always fully booked with usually some extra people there as well). But it felt so much hotter today than last week. Not sure if the temperature is so much different or if it just gets more hot in there every hour. Because then I might switch back to 7pm :p.