Pullup Update

I've done 4 weeks of body weight rows 3 times a week using my state-of-the-art in-office broomstick over chair backs set up. 3 sets of 8 reps, alternating between overhand and underhand grip.

I think I've gotten stronger with this work, but I don't feel any closer to doing a pullup than before.

I went to a workshop last Saturday for pullups and I now have a formal plan for getting my chin over the bar. Unfortunately, the plan includes some movements that I can't perform in my state-of-the-art in-office broomstick over chair backs set up...

So I'm going to keep working on it. Keep sliding my feet farther away as I do the body weight rows and try my best to do the program work. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Because I want to do a pullup. Not only would it be totally badass, but it also improves my ability to do other strength movements without injury. A strong back can hardly be bad for a backpacker, right?

Getting Back Up

When we have to run at Crossfit, we run outside. And, whenever I do run outside, in the back of my mind is a little worry, especially when it isn't summer. I mostly go to classes at 5:30 in the morning. It's still dark, and I worry that I might trip and fall.

I guess I can stop worrying about the possibility now, because yesterday I did trip and fall.

We were doing the metcon first, and the first round of it required a 600 meter run. I hadn't done the 600 distance before, so I was glad that there were people close enough in front of me to follow and see where they turned. But they weren't so close that anyone could see me lose my footing in the transition from sidewalk to street and sprawl to the ground. A little scrape on my right thigh and calf and a gentle bounce of the back of my head on the pavement. I yelped as I fell, but I couldn't stop the tumble.

I took a moment to make sure I hadn't done serious damage.

And then I got up and kept running.

There was a twelve minute time cap for the workout, and I finished in 11:59.

(It was 5 muscle ups (which I scaled as kips), 20 thrusters (I did 55lbs, rx was 65), 600m run, 4 mu, 10 thrusters, 400m run, 3 mu, 5 thrusters, 200m run).

I didn't let the fall, which wasn't, after all, very serious, derail me. And I am proud of that. It's the kind of skill I need to cultivate for backpacking.

After the metcon, we did a series of pause front squat sets (3 second pauses at the bottom of the reps). I'm not sure what my previous 1 rep max was for a front squat, but I'm pretty sure I beat it today - even doing the work after the metcon. In the last rounds, I tried 115lbs and failed. So I scaled back to 110lbs. And failed.

But the coach was convinced that I had it. That I just had to keep my knees from collapsing, stay vertical and point my elbows up.

When I failed on my reps, I reached a point where I felt like I had no strength. As if there was nothing more I could do to shift the weight I was trying to life. It's like I've run out of strive in my muscles.

But on the last round, my last chance, I reached that point, about halfway up and I just kept going. I don't know how. I didn't feel like I had the strength to keep going.

But I did it. I completed the rep. Something the old me would never have had a chance to do, because the old me would have quit after falling down.

Headwind Both Ways!

Is it that when I ride my bike into a headwind, it feels harder than riding into a corresponding tailwind feels easier? I often feel that way. The wind was quite blustery yesterday, trying to blow me backward as I rode into it and over when I rode crosswise.

Really, the crosswind is the worst - to a point. A lower rate of speed on the crosswind might blow me and my bike over, while it takes an extreme and unlikely gust in my face to stop my forward motion enough to topple me.

I rode to work in the morning, huffing and puffing as the wind tore tears from my eyes. There would be moments when the wind took a break and I would almost catch my breath before it whipped up again, finding every place where my skin was not covered by clothing and sliding up the legs of my pants.

Midday, I made the sojourn to the Rec Center, again on my bike, again blown about, despite riding in the opposite direction. Pushing through the wind, I did make it there and did a nice little run on the track. But on the way back, I had to change my gears, downshifting until I could push through while staying upright.

And as I rode home at the end of the day, it seemed that the wind was blowing me back to work again. How could it be blowing me away from work and away from home? Did the wind change direction from morning to late afternoon? Or was I gaining a story to tell when I become a crankypants old woman?

"In my day, we rode bicycles to work- into a headwind- both ways!"

Turn the Run Around

Before yesterday, the last two times that I ran, and the last few times I did Crossfit, I had started to experience wheezing and lightheadedness. Finishing the open in that condition was an exercise in discipline, as I couldn't go out or I'd risk fainting. (Puking during Crossfit is a badge of honor, fainting, not so much...) I was wondering if I were getting a lung infection or maybe the pollen counts were way up since I'd been running outside.

But Sunday, I decided to start a test of eliminating soy from my diet for a week to see if I started to feel better without it. And, the early returns are, yes, I feel a heck of a lot better.

Where before, while eating two soy sausages every morning and drinking soy milk regularly, I'd started to not only experience wheezing after aerobic exercise, but also an increasing level of fatigue. My legs would feel leaden as I ran, and I couldn't find a pace that felt good. I only forced myself to keep going so that my leg wouldn't stiffen up painfully.

But yesterday, running felt good again. Absurdly good, considering it was 30 minutes on a treadmill. I took it slow, doing 2 miles at a 5mph pace to start. When I finished that without wheezing, I did a quarter mile at 5.5, another quarter at 6 and then finished out the 30 minutes at 7 (only 40 seconds). I walked until my heartrate fell down close to 100 and then used a foam roller on that right leg for a few minutes.

I did break my rule of doing the rowing machine for 5 minutes every time I go to the Rec Center, but I didn't want to push my luck. Plus I didn't have my bike, which makes the trip from Rec to office a lot longer and I wanted to have some time to eat lunch.

But I felt good. I smiled the whole time I was walking back to my office. I'm clearing up whatever infection was making my lungs act up, or I'm allergic to soy - either way, I'm happy.

The Open: Aftermath

Usually when I talk about the open, I'm thinking about the great wide open, the incredible vistas that reward a sweaty hike carting gear on my back. The views that few will get to see, because few take the effort to get out there.

But in this case, I'm talking about the Crossfit Open - an entirely different beast.

I signed up for the Open in a last minute fashion, finally convincing myself that, like a 5K race, it would be something fun. The point is not to win, but to participate, to strive, to mark my name down as one who worked.

And I did. I participated in all five Open workouts, albeit scaled. No, I did not merely participate, for that would mean something akin to just showing up for the workouts, just doing them. And I did not just do them.

I competed.

I was judged. I submitted my scores and was ranked against every other athlete who did the same.

I guess that makes me an athlete, officially.

Not because I was not ranked last (though I was not last), but because I put down my name and I competed in an athletic endeavor.

A girl who was cut after the first day of try-outs from the only high school sport she ever tried out for, a girl who barely made it through the mandated two semesters of gym class, a girl who used to believe, deep down, that her brother was right when he lashed out and called her a fat slug... finished the CrossFit Open.

Hells yeah.