happy friday!

FUEL
7am - coffee, banana, almond butter, milk
10am - cabbage, red/orange pepper, thai chicken breast, avocado
2pm - small piece of pizza
3pm - big pork chop!
8pm - good veggie snacks, a few crackers, and more than a few beers :/

Hill said she doesn't think I was eating enough. Just to clarify, when I report something like my 10am meal above, this is what I mean:



My portions can be pretty serious! Ideally I'd like to be eating about 21 or so zone blocks with correct proportions, but for now I'm working on getting very solid with the types of foods I eat rather than portions. A GREAT article on the zone diet for athletes is found in the CrossFit journal [pdf!]


BURNING
5 rounds for time ---> 17:52
5/5 one arm db snatch to left & right lunges @ 35#
15 knees to elbows
1 bear crawl down the gym/back

long, slow training = pointless and harmful

Jack Blatherwick, the conditioning coach for the Washington Capitols and conditioning coach for six American Olympic Ice Hockey teams including the 1980 “Miracle Team” talks about the ineffectualness of base training with long, slow distances.

This question comes up often: is it appropriate for young sprinters and athletes in sprint-interval team sports to establish an aerobic base with long, slow distances?

With few exceptions -- perhaps professional athletes recovering from an intense season -- the answer is "NO," for the following reasons:

Read the rest on Functional Path Training

I really liked the following bits:

If marathoners do too much long distance training, they establish a comfort zone, running below their anaerobic threshold. To improve times, they must run faster, of course, above their threshold -- and there are quite severe respiratory and cardiovascular consequences. This is a physiological habit, not a psychological one, and "speed" work must incorporate intervals to elevate the comfort zone.

Patterns of slow strides are imprinted just as "permanently" into our neuromuscular memory as the quick strides that a sprinter would like to record. Just as a golfer would not intend to include repetition after repetition of "bad" swings when he practices, neither would a sprinter.

...

the mistake made by many fitness coaches is to "compartmentalize" the training into separate workouts -- aerobic endurance, anaerobic power, anaerobic endurance, skill, agility, strength, etc. etc. etc. Of course in a game, all of these attributes are required at the same time, so we should be looking for more ways to incorporate the various elements into "integrated workouts."

Compartmentalizing the metabolic training is analogous to isolating each muscle separately in our strength workouts, and it is just as non-productive.

...

Furthermore, anaerobic interval training is highly aerobic, and can be a more intense cardiovascular workout than what fitness gurus would call a "cardio" workout. College hockey players doing six weeks of dryland training composed of "anaerobic intervals" for quickness and power made greater gains in aerobic and cardiovascular measures than if they had trained with aerobic distances for the same period

CrossFit for the win!! Don't abuse your body with LSD training. Go hard!

rest/cheat day

FUEL
8am - banana w/ almond butter
12pm - grass fed sausage, 3 eggs, artichoke, spinach, red pepper, olive oil
5pm - BURGERVILLE!!!!! including fries and shake.
6pm - coffee
7pm and beyond - cabbage, olive oil, balsamic...maybe a cider.

Interesting thing about my Burgerville is that it didn't fill me up for very long. Probably the carbs!

BURNING
nothing besides some good stretching and joint mobility while i led my crossfit class. and some rope turns. here's what it looked like:

nerves

What's with me? We're going to do a mile run test today and I'm already getting nervous. I'd like to beat my previous PR of 6:29. I think I'll aim for a 1:34 quarter mile pace which will result in a 6:16 mile. TIME TO SUFFER, but not for too long, really. Then we'll have our workout...

FUEL
8am - 3 eggs, coffee (forgot to eat the avocado!)
2pm - small carne asada burrito, no rice
3pm - almond butter, one slice whole wheat bread
9pm - chicken breast, grass fed sage breakfast sausage, broccoli, spinach, artichoke hearts, little sweet potato, 1/2 avocado, olive oil, spices. GOOD POST WORKOUT RECOVERY MEAL

BURNING (7:30pm)
-Mile run test ---> 6:14 !! (new PR). I can't believe I know what a 1:34 400 pace feels like. I'm pretty sure on track, during a dry day I could get a :58 400m and 6:00 mile, though not in the same effort.
-pretty easy deadlifting 5x5 @ 185#
-stick stirs with the 45# bar and 25# plate. CORE BUSTER.

double under madness

FUEL
7:30am - coffee
10am - 6oz chicken breast, small head broccoli, 5 big kale leafs, pine nuts, olive oil, 2 small shamrock cookies (damn you nice people brining treats to work!), coffee!!!
3pm - more coffee!!!!!!
6pm - HUGE omelette (6 eggs, sausage, asparagus, artichoke hearts, orange pepper, bit of cheese, hot sauce) that was so good
7pm - one beer

BURNING - 8:30am (worked out on a fast)
Four rounds for time: ---> 16:30
100 double unders
10 standing two arm russian twists
10 uneven pushups

I've had a few workouts with double unders recently. They've improved quite a bit partially because of practice and partially because of a new wrist technique and some coaching from XX. My first set today I linked 50. Why the double unders? It would be cool to do all jump rope workouts with double unders instead of single turns. Also, I need to be prepared just in case triple unders become the new double unders. Kinda like 135# being the new 95#. OUCH.

I'm starting to feel within reach of where I was before my forced time off this fall. Would like to test pullups soon.

happy b-day bill

BURNING




Also, Overhead squats. YES! A personal record:
195# at 180 body weight.
155# for 11 reps. ROCK.


FUEL
9:00am - 3 eggs, a bit of cheese, coffee
2pm - various fruits, veggies, string cheese, almond butter
5pm - big rice krispie treat (BILL'S BDAY), salami + one slice bread

Another not so good fuel day :[ There's always tomorrow!

black diamond!

BURNING
-active recovery day at skibowl. the snow was soft, the sun was shining and i made my way down my first black diamonds. nice!

FUEL
9:30am - leftover salad, coffee
7:30pm - half cookie, hot chocolate (in the skibowl warming hut!)
8:30pm - handful tortilla chips
9:30pm - raw broccoli, almond butter, banana, milk

not a very good fuel day.

CrossFit Triathlon!

Pretty beat from yesterday. Today was going to be active recovery but this workout seemed too good to pass up. Feeling sore and will have an active recovery hike tomorrow.

BURNING
"CrossFit Triathlon" --> 19:02
3 rounds for time
400m run
500m row
50 double unders

Running felt like a recovery. Double unders came pretty quickly. I had a few sets of 25 linked, and some of 30. Rowing, like usual, was difficult.

FUEL
9:20am - coffee
9:30am - half german pancake w/ real maple syrup
2:00pm - big head of broccoli, grass fed ground beef, pine nuts, cashews, spices
6:00pm - spinach salad with nuts, bell peppers, thai curry chicken breast
evening - rice krispie treats and various beers, and steak


I think I want to wear this all of the time and try to get my heart rate higher each workout! Sounds dangerous! I was a bit sluggish from yesterday but feel pretty good about this:

max HR = 178
av HR = 162

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

more heart science!

There was a special new partner in bed last night. My heart rate monitor! I gathered 9 hours of resting heart rate data. Around 4:30 I got up to go pee and the spike is obvious. Otherwise, my average resting heart rate for the night was 59 bpm. I don't know if I'll be ble to get it much lower than this. I wonder what it was a year or so ago. I'll retest in a few months.

Speaking of spikes, I thought this graph would be a lot smoother. What do I do in the middle of the night?

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

countdown of destruction

BURNING
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 ----> 20:50
-hang snatches @ 95#
-pullups
**after even rounds = 5 sprints to the end of gym and back
**after odd rounds = 20 double unders

i've never recorded heart rate information for a crossfit workout before for some reason. i did today. click through for bigger

i was scared of this workout and i had every right to be! check out how nervous i was. i started off with a 114bpm heart rate!



max heart rate = 183bpm. awesome.
average heart rate = 170bpm. sustained for nearly 21 minutes.

the arrow signifies the end of the workout. i kept it going to see how fast my heart rate returned to normal.


FUEL
8am - coffee
9:30am - 1 banana, handful of nuts, 1 celery stalk
10:30am - coffee
12:00pm - bok choy, grass fed ground beef, curry paste, coconut milk, orange bell pepper
8:10pm - 4 celery stalks
8:40pm - big head of broccoli, grass fed ground beef, pine nuts, cashews, spices
evening - 3 beers

greasing the groove with one arm pushups

i can do a few one arm pushups but i want to be able to do more. i don't really care about the cool party trick aspect of OAPUs (though it is pretty fun to bust them out) but what i do care about it is the big blast a set of OAPUs give the core. i don't feel normal pushups in the core at all but OAPUs rock it.

my training protocol to achieve more reps is to do 5 OAPUs with each arm (on an incline such as a desk) every hour for 8 hours. i'm in the middle of my second day doing it and my triceps are FRIED.

and i'm sure my staff wonder why i'm going to the bathroom on the hour every hour.

inspired by bagel fight 2008

What can I say? Steve's output has been incredible. He's followed through like I've never seen him follow though before.

I've tried various times to log my eating and training via various ways. Time to give Blogger a try even though I know that the problem is with the operator and not the tools!

I need to get back on track recording things. And I need to stop my granola habit! I figure if I go public about it I'll face ridicule and shame if I eat what is now my daily cup of granola. Why am I freaking out about granola? Pretty much empty calories/carbs/sugar. No good.

FUEL
8am - coffee, 1 orange bell pepper (raw), 3 egg omelette with a sprinkle of cheese, 4 slices of bacon
1pm - half bag of spinach (raw), big bunch of broccoli (raw), chicken breast, 2 fun size reese's PB cups
6pm - 2 slices salami, 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 bunch kale with 4oz grass fed ground beef
6:45 - 1 apple


BURNING
5 rounds for time - 12:50
-200m row
-10 pullups
-10 overhead squats (95#)

(downward dog, med ball leg lifts, :30 tuck planch and tuck front lever holds)