photo by Steve Penland

Thursday, July 31, 2014

THIS is Why I CrossFit

(Clearly I've recovered from my cranial rectal inversion of Monday and am now thinking happy thoughts again...)




We all had a stage of life where we conquered seemingly insurmountable obstacles; achieved goals we could hardly believe; transformed ourselves into something our former selves would barely recognize.

Unfortunately, this stage mostly happened before we turned two and thus none of us remembers it.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could remember, though?  If we could experience again what it felt like to sit up by ourselves for the first time? To trade "scream and hope someone figures out what I want" for "I'll just crawl over there and pick up the damn thing myself? " To be able to walk anywhere we wanted without a hand to hold onto?  It would be so cool to remember how it felt to achieve something so seemingly impossible; something that we had no reason, based on our past experience, to believe that we could ever achieve.

Since I can't remember, though, CrossFit lets me experience this feeling again on a regular basis.

By the time you turn 50, most of the "wow, I can't believe I did that" moments seem to be gone.  I've made it through school (lots and lots of school);  I've gotten a job I enjoy; I'm married to the man I love.  There are a lot of big things that I've achieved in my life and that I'm happy about--but there are a lot more little things that I've never done, never believed I could do, and had long ago stopped attempting.  I had a view of myself, as we all do, that was built up through years and years of successes and failures--and by a year ago, at 49, that view was so pervasive that I had pretty much given up challenging it or trying to change it.  I was good at what I was good at (mostly "thinking" stuff) and I was bad at what I was bad at (mostly physical stuff), and while I might get a little stronger through skating workouts, or change my skating technique for the better by a small amount, I was pretty convinced that, as Popeye says, "I yam what I yam" (without the spinach though, at least until I went Paleo).

In the past year, CrossFit has challenged that view of myself again and again, because to my surprise I've discovered that, while I may not be a rock star at this stuff, and I may learn it more slowly and execute it more poorly that most of the people I work out next to in the box...nevertheless, I can do it.  Climb that rope?  Sure.  Pick 200 pounds up off the ground? Yup.  Do a pullup?  OK.  Do a Handstand?  Pass that jumprope under my feet twice while only jumping once?  Do a pistol?  Done, done, and done.  And today, I got to add something else to that list, and to change my view of myself just a tiny bit more.

There is a distinct possibility that we might be asked to swim in the Granite Games.  The organizers have hinted about it enough times that either a) they really are going to have a swimming WOD and they want to prepare us, or b) they're just messing with our heads.  Either way, though, I figured it would be silly--given the amount of time and energy I'm spending on training for all the dry-land WOD possibilities--to completely ignore swimming.  So I haven't been ignoring it, exactly...I've just been falling back into my "well, I can't possibly do that" view of myself.

I don't mean that I can't swim.  Oh, I can swim...if by "swim" you mean "put me in the pool at one end and I'll make it to the other end without resorting to sinking to the bottom and walking, or to using a life jacket."  I can even, thanks to my mom having been a swimming teacher for a while, execute some basic swimming strokes, most notably the side stroke and some aspects of what we called the "front crawl" back when I learned it.  What I cannot do, what I've never been able to do, is to do any swimming stroke while exhaling with my face in the water.  

The Hubster kept saying "you mean you 'wont,'" but to me it was definitely "can't."  Whenever I tried to exhale into water I would panic, feel like I'm choking, start to inhale instead of exhale, and then really choke.  Call it some kind of weird phobia, but I've simply never been able to do it and I gave up trying long ago.

But now, well, now I had to give it a try.  I mean, I can climb a damn rope, right?  I can do a pullup (well, on a good day), right?  I never thought I could do those and I achieved them...how silly would it be to resign myself to doing the side stroke or a nice dog paddle for a possible swimming WOD without even trying to overcome my fear?

So today I tried...and I did it.

That's right...I did it.  It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast, but I swam two lengths of my friend Mary's pool exhaling with my face in the water and turning my head to the side to breathe.  Just like a real swimmer (well, almost).

A sight never before seen--me swimming with my face in the water.

It may look like I'm swimming with my head out of water,
but I'm simply ensuring that I won't get a lungful
of water when I turn my head to breathe.

All the credit for this achievement goes to Mary.  Not only did she give me some coaching in the basics of swimming with one's face in the water-but she also suggested I try swim goggles (and lent me a pair).  Turns out my "exhaling into water" phobia was actually closely related to my "claustrophobic and being in a pitch dark room" phobia (that's why I carry three flashlights in my purse and no, that one is not likely to change any time soon).  Eyes closed plus face in water plus trying to breathe (even to breathe out) equals panic; add vision to that equation and suddenly the panic is gone and I can exhale into water enough to use a half-assed crawl stroke, and even enough to get soundly beaten at two games of "dive down and pick up the marbles from the bottom of the pool" (I know the game technically doesn't require exhaling under water but I have a ridiculously cork-like buoyancy and I'm not getting anywhere close to under water with my lungs full of air).  

Well.  After my first "real swimming" excursion across the shallow end of the pool (all 20 feet of it), I was as giddy as a toddler who has just let go of the coffee table and taken a couple of wobbly steps for the first time.  And then I kept trying to swim farther and farther (turns out 2.5 lengths of the 40-foot pool was my limit), and babbling excitedly to Mary and her daughter about how happy I was that I had finally overcome my inability to breathe out into water.  I think it was the most fun I've ever had in the water.

There's nothing like the high you get from doing what you thought was impossible (no matter how silly the task might seem).  I don't drink, let alone use any of the more mind-altering and illegal substances available, so I don't have a lot to compare it to...but it's better than an extra cup of coffee in the morning; better than a can of Monster before a skating race (not that I would do that of course because that stuff is bad for you), better than the first day of summer vacation.  And regularly experiencing these highs changes a person.

A while ago,  Coach Jason mentioned that, rather than projecting the distinct lack of confidence in myself that I had shown when I first came to SISU, I now sometimes had "a bit of a swagger."  I tried to resist the smartass urge to reply with a quote from my favorite CrossFit t-shirt "It's not swagger; I'm just really sore."  Because I knew what he meant.  I could feel it, and apparently others could see it as well (and hopefully it's not an obnoxious amount; after all, I'm still a middle-aged Minnesota woman.)  When I visited my parents this past weekend my mom was asking about CrossFit and told me how happy she was to see me so excited about something again.  Parents love to see their kids (even their 50-year-old kids) happy, and let's be brutally honest--skating has not made me excited or happy for the past few years.  So my mom was glad to see me happily obsessed again...and, she said, she could even see it in the way I walked.  She didn't use the word "swagger," (I don't think that's in many 73-year-old's vocabularies), but I knew what she meant.  Happy.  Self-confident.  "Yeah, I can do this."  That's what she meant.

So yeah, there's a lot to love about CrossFit.  I love the intensity of the WODs and the support of fellow athletes and coaches and working so hard that you're leaving little drops of sweat behind you wherever you go.  I love that I can wear pants that I haven't fit into for years and that I can, for the first time ever, see some faint outlines of abs and arm muscles and that I feel, at 50, like I'm the fittest and healthiest I've ever been.

But more than all that, I love the high of doing something I thought was impossible.  The surprise and ultimate satisfaction of changing that long-standing view of myself, whether it involves a rope or a stupid pair of swimming goggles or maybe even something more important like taking a risk and trying something new and hard (or something old and "impossible").  I love believing that I can do things that I never thought I'd be able to do, and I even love that maybe I have confidence in myself that is expressed, in a nice Minnesota middle-aged woman way, as a tiny bit of "swagger."

And that is why I CrossFit.




Monday, July 28, 2014

Getting My Head Out...

...of my butt.

That has been my task today.

I didn't start the day with what my mom likes to refer to as a "cranial rectal inversion."  In fact, the day looked promising at the start.  Last week kind of kicked my butt; at CrossFit on Monday I was still tired from all the Mayhem of the weekend, and even though last week was my "easy week" for skating--so I only had one skating workout instead of three--I never really recovered during the week.  By Friday I was sore and even more tired and, thus, cranky (although to be fair, random crankiness does seem to be a by-product of 50-year-old female hormones).  Fortunately I had nothing planned for the weekend except a quick trip up north (with the dog) to visit my parents.  A little time with the folks, a little time with the lake, and a lot of sleep, and by this morning I was ready to go.

And the day actually started off pretty well.  I have about an hour's worth of "stuff" that I do at CrossFit every day before class; mobility and strengthening weak areas and working on skills that I can't yet do or can't yet do at an acceptable level (I refer to this as my "Unsuck Yourself" WOD).  Today's workout, pistols and pushups, fit neatly into the category of "stuff I've been working on unsucking."  I do three sets of max effort pushups every morning before class and have improved from 5-4-3 to 15-15-10 in two weeks; and I do 45 left-leg squats every day (you might recall that I'm almost but not entirely incapable of doing left leg pistols).  I still didn't have faith in my ability to do left-leg pistols--my knee still hurts from the few I did in the Granite Games Sectional WOD--and my pushups are pretty much done in slow motion...but I was anxious to give it a try.

And the WOD went pretty well.  I ended up doing 50 pushups--all on my toes--and 40 pistols, 20 of which were left leg.  The left leg ones were definitely a bit sketchy, and I may have no-repped some that I had to judge for myself, but three of the four that the coach saw got the thumbs up, so it seems that I'm officially able to do left leg pistols now.  So I was fairly happy with the WOD.

Until I looked at the board.

I know, I know--it doesn't matter how you compare to others; the key is "are you improving?"  And I'm definitely improving.  But it was still discouraging to see that my score was almost 30 points below the next lowest score--and that was a 13-year-old kid who's only been doing CrossFit for two weeks and who didn't even know what a pistol was at the start of class.

After looking at the board, I could feel my head begin creeping towards my butt.

And then the coach asked if we were all staying for the Butt Camp class (yes, there should be an umlaut over the "u," but I'd have to Google how to make it and I'm too lazy) after our class.  I wasn't planning to--I had a long skating endurance workout lined up for the afternoon--but when I looked at the skills and the WOD, I decided that I should stick around since they were hitting several of my weak areas, notably kipping pullups and Toes-to-Bar/Knees to Elbow.

Why yes, in retrospect signing up for a class composed chiefly of "things I suck at" when I was already feeling particularly sucky does seem like a bad idea.

And it was.  A clear-headed listing of "things that went well" and "things that didn't" in Butt Camp would actually show that I should have been pleased with how I did.  I managed to climb the rope all six times; I used the Rx kettlebell weight for the first time (true, I almost lost it behind me over my head once, but still...); and I managed to do clapping pushups (well, sort of...does it count if you do a regular pushup then pause at the top, do a little "dip" for momentum, then kind of bring your hands together before basically falling on your face?).  So there was plenty of good stuff.

All of this, however, was completely eclipsed by the kipping pullups and the T2B/K2E, the combination of which sent my head firmly, completely, and irrevocably up my butt for the remainder of the (ironically named) Butt Camp.

First, kipping pullups.  I don't do "kipping pullups;" I kip, then I do a strict pullup.  I might get a bit of an advantage from the momentum, but you'd have to look hard to find it.  This is still worlds better than my K2E efforts, though (let's not even talk about T2B--I have never done one of those).  I practice K2E every morning, and have achieved exactly four of them--over four different days--in the two weeks I've been practicing.

I got none today.

I have no idea why I can't do them.  I don't know whether it's technique or strength or some magic "T2B/K2E" secret that every other CrossFitter in the world knows...but I simply cannot do them.  And when I practice, I don't even know what to focus on because I have no idea what's not working.

So by the time the 12 minute AMRAP was done, I was near tears and pretty much would have needed the jaws of life to remove my head from my butt.  When I whined about my K2E failure after class the coach reminded me that I'm considerably older than almost everyone else in either class (he also said "you can't turn a turd into a silk purse in a day," which I thought was a succinct way of putting it).  So that helped a bit, but the main effort of reversing the cranial rectal inversion would fall to me.

Seriously, how could I get so upset over the one or two things that went poorly, when so much else went well?  (In addition to all the stuff I listed above, I also PR'd my squat snatch).  I'm usually a pretty positive person and I try to look for the silver lining in every cloud, but today was an epic failure in that department.

In thinking about it, I decided that I'm getting a bit freaked about the Granite Games, which are now about six weeks away.  My one big goal for the event (other than just enjoying every aspect of it as much as possible) is to be able to do all the movements in the WODs. I don't care how slowly I do them, or how few reps I get...I just want to be able to execute them.  And I can't execute T2B/K2E.  There are, of course, several (hundred) other things I can't do--ring dips and handstand pushups come to mind--but I think they're less likely to turn up than are T2B or K2E.  So yeah, I'm getting a little nervous.

But still, it doesn't help to get all bummed and cranky.  A bad attitude is not conducive to learning new things.  I need to notice the things that are going well; to work on the things that are hard, without becoming discouraged; to keep my head out of my butt...

..and maybe, with a lot of work and a little luck, get my knees to my elbows and my toes to the bar.


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Mayhem in Mankato

(All right, kids, you may want to go to the bathroom, find a comfortable chair, and arm yourself with your caffeinated beverage of choice--this is gonna be a long one!)


Mayhem in Mankato started early yesterday; 4:20 am to be exact.  Between the early start time (the Hubster is a night owl) and the fact that it was looking like at least a 15 hour day and the dog's bladder is only rated for 12 hours, we had decided that the Hubster should sit this one out as a spectator.  As I pointed the (fully-loaded) Subaru in a Mankato-ly direction at 5 am, I decided that there were up sides and down sides to traveling alone to a competition.  Sure, it's fun to have someone to talk to in the car (and to keep me awake), and it's always great to have the Hubster at a competition...but as someone who is rigidly obsessive about somewhat fond of my routines and rituals, I also love driving to workouts and competitions alone, for a couple of reasons.

First, there's the music.  I have one playlist that I listen to every time I drive to a workout or competition (skating or CrossFit).  I may add songs to the playlist throughout the year, and I tend to create a new playlist for the upcoming year every spring during the skating off-season...but in general, I listen to the same pre-workout music for a year (like I said, I like my routines.  And apparently I have a massive tolerance for repetition).  And since after about, oh, a week, I know the songs very well, I like to sing along with them.  Very badly.  And very loudly.  And since my playlist only has about 36 songs--and some I reserve for the drive home from workouts--I have to repeat the songs many times on long drives.  I'm pretty sure that upon hearing me launch into "Sexy Bitch" at top volume for the third time in an hour most passengers would be ready to fling themselves out the window at 65 miles per hour...so I don't sing when I have passengers.

But it's a big sacrifice.

The other issue is the temperature, and here I'm less concerned about my passenger's comfort.  Between perimenopause and a well-medicated thyroid, I tend to always run a little warm--and when I get one of my 20-or-so-per-day hot flashes, we're talking red zone heat.  Since I usually have to just put up with hot flashes, I love being in the car where I can crank the air whenever I want, to whatever temp I want, and thus stop the hotflashes dead in their sweaty little tracks.  So if my passengers complain (through blue lips and chattering teeth) about frostbite, I just tell them "suck it up, Buttercup, that's what sweatshirts and wool socks are for."  But it's nice, sometimes, to just crank that air whenever I want without feeling bad about my passenger's comfort.

So the drive down to Mankato was happily filled with bad singing, loud music, and cold air, and everything went great--until I hit the detour.  Apparently the turn I needed was within the detoured section, so when I got back on the highway after the detour I was past where I needed to be and was clearly heading for the wilds of Southern Minnesota.  Thanks, though,  to my smartphone and my "Chronic Hyperpunctuality" (I feel compelled to always be early), I still managed to get to the competition before registration even opened.

At registration, I got my T-shirt and swag bag (filled with protein powder and various pre-workout performance-enhancing substances) and got my arm marked; apparently the competition organizers were concerned about misplacing a CrossFitter or two.
My first "temporary tattoo."

Then I set up SISU Camp on the floor of the "warm up gym" and waited for my teammates to arrive.  Ah, here they are:
Bobby, Chris, John, Josh, Monica, Jessica, and me.
A great group to hang out with!

Women's Rec, my category, was first up on the schedule, so after a quick warmup and a very thorough briefing by the (very nice and extremely patient) official, we were led to the gym for WOD #1--hang cleans and front squats.
Briefing the Scaled folks.  Poor guy had to do this about 20 times
throughout the day--and we all had a million questions.

I was nervous, of course, but not actually too bad.  I'm used to competing because of skating races, and I knew the weight--55 pounds--was pretty light. My big concern was whether I'd be able to do the lifts quickly; I tend to be rather slow and deliberate about physical tasks, especially those that involve lifting things that I might drop on myself.

To my surprise, though, I was able to move quickly through the cleans...
Yes, I'm rockin' the therapeutic neoprene knee sleeve.
Nothing screams "I'm old" quite as loudly
as sporting one of these bad boys in
an athletic event.

..and the squats.
See that wall ball on the plate behind me?
We had to move that to a new plate 
between each of the three rounds
 of cleans and squats.

And when the dust settled, it appeared that I had moved quickly enough to finish the WOD in first place; I beat the Speedy Strong Young Thing (SSYT) next to me by three seconds, 1:51 to her 1:54.

Then I got to watch my teammates.  I don't have photos of Josh or John or Monica and Jessica in the WOD, but here are Chris and Bobby killing WOD #1...


...and sisters Monica and Jessica, looking ready to take on the Scaled WOD.

And then it was time for WOD #2.  This one was described as a "skills test" (or something like that): one minute each of situps, air squats, box step-ups, and 35 pound snatches.  This one was kind of fun.

The situps were, well, situps.  Not much to say about them.
The fastest situps I've ever done in my life.  You can see the box and bar 
waiting for me, and that's SSYT on my right.

The squats were fun.  At the time.  Not so much today.
I felt pretty good about the air squats; 
54 in a minute, and someone told me afterwards
that they looked "crisp."  I'm assuming that's
a good thing.

The box step-ups (we were forbidden from jumping) were fine...
Note to self: if you consistently step up "right foot first"
for a whole minute, your right leg will hate you the next day.

...until they weren't.
No, I'm not attempting the "Box Puke-Over;" I tripped
and I'm trying to avoid a face plant.

This happened twice.  I'm beginning to see the wisdom
of forbidding us from jumping.

And finally, the snatches.  Coach Alye, who was cheering us on and providing advice during the morning, warned me not to let go of the bar, since it would feel so light.  A good warning, too...
Nothing says "badass" like flinging an empty bar overhead, eh?

To my surprise (OK, I admit it, and delight), I was first in WOD #2 as well, by 2 reps--157 to SSYT's 155.

Score another one for "old!"

We had a bit of a break before WOD #3, so I decided to eat something; so far I'd been subsisting on BCAA's, protein shakes, and a banana.  So I had some of my "chicken, apple and celery" salad, which I usually have post-workout.  It was really good, but I made myself stop at half of it, in deference to the upcoming "Deadlifts and Burpees" WOD.  

Turns out that was a good decision.

I wasn't too worried about this WOD because the deadlifts were extremely light--65 pounds--and Burpees are, well, Burpees.  They're going to suck no matter what.We only had to do 15-12-9 of each of them, so I decided that speed would be the deciding factor in this WOD.

Did you know that it's possible to "go out too fast" in a Burpee workout, just as it is in a skating race?

I didn't know that. 

 I do now.

I blazed through the first 15 deadlifts and Burpees, and the next 12 deadlifts and three of the 12 Burpees.  And then I died.

I'm quite familiar with the sensations associated with going out too fast in a skating race; the burning lungs, heavy legs, and "shoot me now" feeling.  Going out too fast in Burpees, though, was a novel experience; I usually approach them very slowly and deliberately in WOD's at SISU.  Suddenly, your legs will no longer jump out and back in--in fact, you can barely get them to step; that one-inch high plate you're jumping onto morphs into a 20 inch box and you're no longer jumping, you're stepping onto it; your lungs burn, your arms don't work...and Burpees are now threatening to turn into Pukies. 

Good thing I only had half the chicken salad...and good thing I don't have any photos of this WOD.  In the end, SSYT kicked my butt by 24 seconds, 3:01 to 3:25.  And I hate to admit it, but when I could see her pass me (moving to deadlifts while I was still Burpee-ing), I experienced the same mental give-up that I often get in skating when my opponent passes me.  I hate head-to-head competition so I'm surprised I survived until WOD #3 before my being right next to my main competitor got into my head.  Oh, well...something to work on for next time.

So after the three events I was in first and SSYT was in second.  The event organizers had announced that the top six competitors from each division would do a fourth WOD, which they were keeping secret.  And since there were only six of us in Women's Rec, we were all doing WOD #4.  Which turned out to be thrusters.

Now, let me pause for a moment here to discuss thrusters.  For those who don't CrossFit, thrusters are a nice whole-body movement involving squatting with a bar, then standing up and thrusting the bar overhead (hence the name).  For me, thrusters fall into the category of "things that make my left shoulder hurt;" anything that involves lowering a bar from overhead is a sure way to tick off my shoulder.  In fact, thrusters are the main reason that I signed up in the Rec category instead of scaled; on some competition websites (although not Mayhem's), 65 pound thrusters are listed in the Women's Scaled category.  So I signed up Rec in fear of 65 pound thrusters, and this seemed to be a good idea.  Last week in WOD's at SISU I ended up doing 35 pound thrusters (with some shoulder pain), and having to limit jerks (where we also had to lower the bar to our shoulders after each one) to 50 pounds because of shoulder pain.

So, what did "Secret WOD #4" contain?

Yup, that's right...65 pound thrusters.

Sigh.

The WOD went like this:  run to the bar, do 15 thrusters with the 35 pound bar.  Run back down the mats, pick up two 5-pound plates, run back to the bar and put them on.  Do 10 thrusters with 45 pounds.  Run back down the mats, grab two 10 pound plates, run back, put them on...and do five 65-pound thrusters.

Oh, well, I thought, if lowering it hurts too much I can always drop the bar after each one and clean it up again for the next thruster.  At least, I thought that until our long-suffering "briefing official" told us, very firmly, that dropping the bar from overhead would not be allowed.

Damn.

Oh, well...nothing to do but give it my best and see what happened.

So I did.  As I expected, the 35 pound thrusters were no problem.  Nor were the 45 pounders...unless you count not being able to keep the bar level.
Go ahead, try to guess which arm is stronger...

When we finished the 45-pound thrusters and headed down the mats to grab our 10-pound plates, SSYT and I were basically neck-and-neck...
SSYT has picked up her plates and started back; I'm just picking mine up

Then it was back to the bar, to put the plates on as quickly as I could.

Apparently (and this may surprise the SISU coaches who are used to seeing me fumble around with bars and plates) I rock at putting 10-pound plates on a bar, because I finished assembling my 65-pound bar and started the thrusters slightly before SSYT did.

I squat-cleaned the bar...

...pushed it up overhead...

..and then mentally grimaced as I began lowering the bar and waited for the familiar pain.
"Mentally grimaced?"  Who am I kidding?
I'm the queen of goofy expression...

Which never came!  To my huge surprise, I had no shoulder pain whatsoever (note to self: apparently I need to warm up for overhead stuff by doing 15 35-pound thrusters and 10 45-pound thrusters as fast as I can).  So I finished up the five thrusters, then flung the bar down and headed for the "finish line."
Fling and go, baby!

Not much of a sprinter, but I'm doing my best...

And to my great delight, I arrived at the finish line first.
Post-WOD "I think I won" euphoria.

Turns out I won WOD #4 by 12 seconds, 2:01 to 2:13, and thus won Women's Rec.
SSYT and I on the podium.

So I was happy; very happy.  And today I'm sore; very sore.  Despite that, the first thing I did this morning was to hobble to the computer and sign up for another competition, a team even in New Ulm in mid-August.  Jessica and I will be doing Scaled, and I can't wait.

Even if it turns out there are 65-pound thrusters.


Friday, July 18, 2014

Let the Mayhem Begin

Tomorrow I'm going to do my first "real" CrossFit competition, "Mayhem in Mankato."  The Granite Games qualifiers were all "online" format, meaning that we did the WODs at SISU and then turned in the scores.  So while the Granite Games stuff was definitely a competition that required giving maximum effort (I still have the sore leg from the pistol WOD to prove that), it was still low-stress in a lot of ways.  We were doing the WODs in our home box, with only other SISU athletes and coaches to witness our triumphs and screw-ups.  We had just one WOD to do per day, and we could repeat it if we felt we hadn't done our best.  Basically, although the effort required was something that--no matter how hard I thought I was working--I'd never even come close to before in a WOD, the Granite Games WODs felt like familiar territory.  Tomorrow, though...tomorrow is a vast sea of "I don't know."

I don't know how the schedule works or how they set up the WODs or where and when we warm up or where the bathrooms are or, well...anything, really.  Well, I do know what the WODs will be, because they've posted those...but other than that I'm clueless.

For my first competition I chose to sign up in the Rec (or in my case, perhaps "wrecked" might be more accurate) division.  This lowest-level category has much lighter weights than Rx and Scaled, and completely avoids more challenging movements like pullups and toes-to-bar.  Given my general cluelessness about all other aspects of CrossFit competitions, this seemed like a good idea...but it also means that I'll need to try to do the movements as quickly as possible, since the weights will be a lot lighter.  To help prepare for increasing my speed, as well as to get pointers on all the WODs,  I used my Personal Training time with Coach Jason this week to go through all three of the WODs and get some advice.  For "Burpees to plate," the suggestion was "yeah, just like that...only three times faster."  For snatches--"yeah, that looks...good enough."  Clearly, speed is not my thing and when I do up the speed, my already sketchy technique takes a bit of a hit. But still, I I feel like I've got a pretty good idea of what I need to do and I got some great pointers on how to do the movements quickly...so assuming I don't step up to the bar tomorrow and completely forget everything, I'm feeling OK about the WODs.

As far as the logistics of the day, I've tried to plan out what I need to bring and, in my usual "if there's a remote possibility I might need it, I'm packing it" approach, I have stuffed the rear seat of the Subaru completely full.  Clothes and foam rollers and knee sleeves and lacrosse balls and tape and water bottles and protein shakes and...food.  Lots and lots of food.  There are several of us from SISU doing Mayhem tomorrow; most are my fellow Warriors from last week, so it should be a lot of fun.  I told the others that I'd bring Paleo brownies, so I spent the morning making Paleo granola bars...
...and Paleo brownies...
What?  I had to try one, right?  I mean, I 
can't give people untested brownies, can I?

...and then spent a lot more time packing a lot more food.  Muffins and my usual post-workout lunch of chicken salad (both Paleo, of course) and my "post-workout-carbs," (a sweet-potato-and-fruit concoction that the Hubster insists on referring to as "pus"), as well as some dried fruit and nuts and maybe a few other things if I think of them.  This is in addition to my usual "bag 'o protein bars, Gu's, and applesauce packs" that lives in the car.  If you ever get stranded in a car for a couple days, mine is the car to be stuck in.  If you can find a place to sit, that is...
Yeah, that's an awful lot of crap
for one person for 8 hours...

Anyway, clueless or not, I'm really looking forward to Mayhem.  It should be fun to hang with the other SISU folks, do our best in the workouts...and eat brownies.  Lots of brownies.

Sunday, July 13, 2014

The Dirt

As promised, here are the "real" after pictures from the Warrior Dash...



Clearly, a good time was had by all!

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Warrior Dash Report

We started out like this:
A mighty clean-looking bunch.  Oh, and 
notice that big hill behind us.  Yeah, we 
ran up that.  And several of its brothers.

We ended up like this:
There's a full-mud shot of the whole group out there somewhere
on someone's smartphone,
but it hasn't surfaced yet--so you'll have to make do
with funny hats and bad hair.

In between, there were 3 miles of (a little) running and (mostly) walking; 13 obstacles that involved climbing, crawling, water and mud; and a whole lot of fun.  The SISU group made the event a puddle-stomping, joke-cracking, somersault-doing, cheer-everyone-on blast.  This is definitely an event you want to do with a group, and I can't imagine a better group to do it with.

As it turned out, the obstacles weren't a problem; none of them were challenging physically.  Of course, it would have been different had we been trying to do the course for time; there was pretty significant potential for slipping on the wet obstacles--especially some of the climbing ones--for anyone moving quickly.  Fortunately I moved with my usual sloth like methodical pace, and thus never came close to disaster on any of the obstacles. There were a couple of climb-over ones that could have gotten into my head if I'd stopped to think about them, (or paused at the top to look down) but I didn't so they didn't. 

Actually, I think that for a lot of people the biggest obstacle in the event turned out to be the terrain,which the website had described--with great accuracy--as "mountainous." Hey, if you hold an event on a ski hill you might as well take advantage of the natural obstacles--so they ran us up and down the hills multiple times.  (And they took advantage of the man-made stuff as well; I suspect that a mid-race drenching and our post-race showers were both provided by snow making machines).  I saw many people struggling up the last ski hill using the "bent over, pushing on legs with hands" climbing mode that predicts some serious muscle soreness tomorrow.

As for me, my skater butt wasn't too concerned with the hills.  No, my biggest challenge came at the very end of the race, on one of the last obstacles.  It started with a high climb up a cargo net, which was OK.  As with many of the climb-over obstacles, going up was fine and so was going down--it was climbing over the top of the obstacle that got a little tricky.  On this obstacle, fortunately the "down" side was short--just an 8 foot climb down a cargo net--so my fear of heights didn't kick in.  I wasn't happy with the horizontal cargo net we then had to traverse, but not because it was suspended fairly high above the ground.  No, I was cranky because the crawl peeled off my "keep the biohazards out" bandaid that I had carefully applied to my scuffed knee (I misjudged the bar/knee clearance on a clean yesterday) and had managed to nurse through almost the whole race unscathed and attached.  When I got past the horizontal net and climbed another short wall to look over the top at our final descent, though, I forgot about my bandaid.  I was facing the most scary obstacle yet.

A water slide.

I hate water slides.

For us control freaks, there's just nothing fun about whizzing down some slippery slope with no say in how fast you go, and then landing in some unpredictable position in water of unknown depth--water which, of course, will try to force its way into as many bodily orifices as possible when you catapult into it.  Trade "water" for "half-water-half-mud that God knows how many people have landed in then done God knows what in" and you have an obstacle that will make you stop and think.

So I stopped and thought, but I really couldn't see any other way down.  So I carefully edged myself into the slide, used both hands and both feet as brakes for as long as I could and then, when my speed got too fast to control, I plugged my nose, held my breath, closed my eyes, and landed in the "water."  Whee.

Other than the "slide of doom," though, the race was a blast.  I had a great time and I'm really glad I did it...but now I am DONE for the weekend.  Eat, sleep, roll, eat some more...that's pretty much all I have on the schedule for tomorrow.  I have exactly 36 hours to recover before my next CrossFit class...and one week before my first "real" (on-site rather than online) CrossFit competition, "Mayhem in Mankato" next Saturday.

This summer just keeps getting better and better!


Friday, July 11, 2014

Wimp Saunter



A couple of months ago I signed up for a Warrior Dash that will be taking place tomorrow morning.  It seemed like a good idea at the time: 3 miles, 13 obstacles, some mud and mayhem and fun, and all with a bunch of people from CrossFit SISU. Oh yeah, and a T-shirt.   Seemed like a great way to challenge myself physically and have some fun with the great people that I sweat next to multiple times a week in CrossFit.

Of course, that was before the Granite Games came up.

Now?  Well, now I'm thinking my "Warrior Dash" tomorrow may well end up being more of a "Wimp Saunter."  Between the Granite Games sectional WODs last week and my (perhaps not terribly effective) attempt this week to, for the first time, switch from training for skating and simply doing CrossFit, to training for both--I have done more workouts the past two and a half weeks than I ever have in that time frame before.  Eighteen in 18 days, and that was with the five days off when I was at the cabin.

Ooof.  No wonder I'm not feeling particularly warrior-like today.

Still, despite the need to perhaps tweak a thing or two in my workout planning--I had to do four days in a row of CrossFit this week due to coming back from the cabin late Monday night; I've never done this before and by today's WOD my arms were suggesting that perhaps I might consider never doing this again.  (My butt might agree, since it's probably sporting a new bruise or two from my falling on it repeatedly today when I was attempting to clean a weight that I can usually get.)  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...despite the need to tweak my schedule a bit, most of the workouts actually went OK.   So in general I think I can handle the "train for both sports" thing, at least for the summer (when I have no job and no schedule beyond what I feel like doing at the moment).

 I do have several sore spots to work around, though, including a left knee (from left leg pistols), my usual left shoulder stuff, and a right quad pain (from what turned out to be inappropriate insistence on finishing a very long endurance skating workout on Tuesday).  I went to a very good Physical Therapist today; he's based out of CrossFit MN and I've seen him a couple times before, and he was able to assure me that my shoulder and leg issues aren't serious, and he gave me some strengthening exercises to add to my "remediate the weak spots" list.

With my left knee being less than enthusiastic about running, and my left shoulder being unpredictably cranky when asked to work, running and obstacles should be interesting tomorrow.  What with general fatigue and the minor injuries, I have decided to focus on "have fun" rather than "challenge yourself"as the theme for my Wimp Saunter Warrior Dash.  Obstacle looks like it might take a lot of arm strength to get over?  I'm going around.  Knee hurts when running fast?  I'm running slow--or even walking.  My goal is to enjoy the event as much as possible, without risking injury or aggravating my cranky bits.

I do kind of want to challenge myself mentally, though, should the occasion arise.  By this I mean that, if there are obstacles that are easy physically but that scare me (I'm extremely claustrophobic, so think tunnels), I'd like to challenge myself to do them.  But then my PT told me today about an obstacle in a Warrior Dash that he did that consisted of crawling on your hands and knees up a hill in basically a tunnel for 200 feet; hot, pitch black, and with people jammed in front of and behind you.    Something like that would not be a challenge--it would be a way of assuring myself of a full-on shrieking meltdown the likes of which you've never seen a 50 year old woman perform in public before.  So I'm probably not going to challenge myself to do anything that might involve me needing to be sedated and forcibly removed from the obstacle. On the off chance that something like that would come up, you know.

Anyway--Wimp or Warrior, I'll find out tomorrow.

Now I need to go find some clothes and shoes that can survive a mud bath.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

It's Official...CrossFit Is "In"

In my list of "things I'm obsessed with."  In my list of "things I really want to get better at."  In a separate drawer in my workout clothes storage area.  In numerous bookmarks on my computer.  In my workout log, in my blog profile, and in how I think of myself...I'm not just a speedskater anymore, I'm a speedskater and a CrossFitter.

So now, CrossFit is in my blog title as well.


Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Wheelhouse

I'm beginning to think, after just over a year of CrossFit (yes, I missed my CrossFit-versary on July 6.  Since I was only at CrossFit MN for a month, I kind of consider my August start at SISU as my start to CrossFit)...anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...after a year of CrossFit, I'm beginning to think I may actually have a "CrossFit Wheelhouse."  It's tiny, and there's only room for two things in it...but nevertheless, it's a wheelhouse.

I do have a skating wheelhouse, and I've known this since I started racing.  My best events have always been the 3K and 5K (just as, in high school track, my best events were the mile and two mile).  I apparently have no fast-twitch muscles whatsoever--except possibly those involved in talking and eating--so longer distances have always been my friend.  And since skating produces times that one can compare to the times skated by one's peers, it's pretty easy to see what you're good at--so yeah, 3K and 5K are in the wheelhouse.

CrossFit is a bit tougher.  Up until very recently I've been scaling almost everything, which makes it difficult to compare my results to others', and WODs are rarely repeated, which makes it harder to see rates of improvement in various movements--as opposed to skating, where you get many opportunities, each workout or race, to compare times over just about any distance you'd like.  Still, I was pretty sure that there were a lot of CrossFit movements that were definitely NOT in any wheelhouse I might posses.  Take yesterday, for example.  Yesterday was a "so far away from the wheelhouse I can't even see the wheelhouse" day.

We started with skill work on Toes to Bar and its scaled cousin, Knees to Elbows.  Now, I have to confess that never, in a year of CrossFit, have I ever achieved a T2B or a K2E.
This is my pullup.  Unfortunately, it's also my T2B and my K2E.
Notice that toes and elbows are nowhere near bars nor knees.

After being assured by Coach Jason that K2E, if not T2B, were very likely to show up in Granite Games WODs, I gave it my best shot.  But even with some good suggestions and the exhortation to "pretend that a bunch of judges are staring at you and you have to get this" (hey, it worked with pistols and chest-to-bar), I was unable to execute any, resulting in the coach declaring that K2E and T2B are my current Kryptonite.

Kryptonite is definitely not in one's wheelhouse.

The WOD was a bit better in that I could do both movements--rope climbs and pushups--but neither are things I'm proficient at.  True, I did get asked to demo the rope climb, but I know there was an element of "hey, if she can do it, anyone can do it"--which I wholeheartedly agree with (but it made my day anyway.  I don't often get asked to demo anything).  So I can get up the rope, but it requires great deliberation and is a slow, methodical process.  And pushups?  Well, I started CrossFit unable to do even one--two shoulder injuries had had me avoiding any plank-type exercise for five years, with predictable results.  I was finally getting to where I could do 10 or so unbroken pushups, and then I hurt my shoulder (why yes, I did hurt it doing some ill-advised, not-in-class, and ultimately ineffective T2B practice last March).  So now I'm back to doing very sloooooow, laborious pushups, and after about 10 of them (with a rest break) I have to switch to toes on the way down/knees on the way up.

So yesterday was not a "wheelhouse" day.

Today, though?  Today's WOD consisted entirely of the two CrossFit movements that I now consider to be "in my wheelhouse."

Ready?  Here they are:

Running and rowing.

I know...exciting, right?

It makes sense that I'd be reasonably proficient at these two movements; both require a lot of cardio fitness, which I have from skating, and both are usually done in short intense intervals, which is how my skating workouts are programmed so I've trained that particular system pretty extensively.  Also, skating and rowing use many of the same muscles (many of my masters skater friends row in the summer for cross training).  

And--and this is a big plus--neither of these movements require a ton of coordination.

So it's kind of fun, when I see a running/rowing WOD, to feel like "hey, I'm pretty good at this.  This one will go well."  I'm sure pure rowing/running WODs probably won't come up often...but still, it's nice to have a wheelhouse.

Even if it's a tiny one.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

How I'll Spend (the rest of) My Summer Vacation

I just got back from five days at the cabin for the annual Family Work Weekend.  Since "The Cabin" is a compound of six cabins (one 90 years old) and an A-frame garage that was built by my dad with help from me and my sister when we were 12 and 14, and it's owned by um, let's see, I think with my dad's generation and my generation we're at 14 families--well, there's a lot of work to do.  And a lot of fun, what with cousins and cousin's kids and dogs everywhere.  My parents live there full time now, too, and, except for some "aging parent health issues" that make my very sad, I always love visiting them.  Keira, of course, is in her happy place at the cabin...which usually means "elbow deep in Lake Superior."
Swim?  No thanks; I'll just stand here for 10 minutes.

I knew that there would be no time for workouts during the work weekend, but that was OK...I'd planned ahead.  I beat myself to a pulp with Granite Games Sectionals workouts and three more CrossFit workouts after that (one of which, for the first time ever, I simply quit right in the middle of; my left leg is still complaining about the pistols) right before we left for the cabin.  I figured that this way I wouldn't care if I didn't get to work out during the work weekend--and it turned out I was right.  My arms were so sore that it was Sunday before I could lift them over my head without wincing.  Good plan, huh?

Of course, it being a "work weekend," there were still some "functional strength" WODs to be done.  There was the "Firewood Chaingang AMRAP:" Take small armload of firewood from cousin.  Pivot 180 degrees to hand wood off to next cousin.  Pivot back 180 degrees for the next load. Repeat until wood pile has been moved from where it was to where it should be.  There was the ever-popular Two Rounds, Not for Time of the "Middle-aged-lady middle-of-the-night outhouse dash."  And then there was the grand finale:  The 400-pound window "Ground to overhead to scaffolding to hole in wall." Fortunately this one was a four person team event.  Unfortunately, my sister Energizer Bunny and I were two of the team members.
The Hubster and Brother in Law, and the window that's 
a lot heavier than it looks.  And I'm pretty sure the scaffolding
was a lot higher when we were on it, too.

So anyway, the cabin was fun. I mean, what's not to love about this?

But now, I'm excited to be home.  If today was any indication, July and August are going to be a whole lot of fun.  I'm trying to plan my weeks to include four CrossFit workouts, one CrossFit personal training, three oval skating workouts, and one "recovery" trail skate per week.  Today was CrossFit in the morning, then lunch, then skating in the afternoon, then dinner.  Really, who could ask for a better day than that?  Of course, there's the small matter of being 50, and of perhaps having more enthusiasm than stamina, but assuming I don't just tip over from tiredness at some point, the rest of the summer is looking pretty good!


Tuesday, July 1, 2014

So, What Happened to the Skating?

As you might have noticed, posts about skating have been mighty scarce here lately.  In fact, it looks like my last post about skating was June 8.

Not to worry.  I still love skating, and I still am skating.  Or, I was until last Tuesday anyway. Up until then I was completing my three oval workouts per week and they were going well--I was getting low, the technique was feeling good, the lap times were great.  Then, last Tuesday--in the middle of a fairly epic endurance workout involving 16 one Kilometer (2.5 laps) repeats, with 1.5 laps rest in between-- my right Achilles tendon started hurting.  I had had trouble with my left Achilles earlier in the season, but it's fine now; I guess it's the right one's turn now.  By 12 sets it hurt enough that I figured it was prudent to cut the workout short, which was a shame because my lap times were fantastic and I was pretty excited about it (44-45 second laps, versus last year's 49-52's for the same workout).

I tried skating at the races Wednesday night, even bringing my trail skates, which contact my leg further up my Achilles so I thought they might not hurt.  No dice; the Achilles was still extremely crabby, especially on corners.  So I didn't race, and I haven't skated since. We're heading to the cabin tomorrow for the family work weekend, so I don't plan to skate again until next Tuesday.  That will be two full weeks off, which should be plenty of time for the Achilles to heal.  And when I skate again I'll try using my old skates, which I've been able to use without pain before when my Achilles were acting up.  I injured my right Achilles back in 2008 and it took almost a year to heal completely, and I'm not interested in having that happen again--so I'm being pretty cautious.

Even once I start skating again, though, I'm sure the blog will be a bit CrossFit-heavy this summer.  Summer is off season "base" work for skating, which is necessary and fun but, let's face it, not as exciting as preparing for a competition--especially a big competition in a sport that's new to you, in which you've never attended an on-site competition, and in which there are about 100 different skills to work on.  So for the balance of the summer, I expect The Long Track Life to look more like The WOD Life.  And despite the fact that, as I type, my forearms are so sore and tired that I really don't want to move them and my legs are still so sore, post-pistol, that going downstairs requires some serious thought and effort--I couldn't be happier.