I wonder how many of these accidents ended in death… I hope at least a few.

Why do I always look like an idiot in pictures? I suppose I could develop some theory involving facial reflexes, JPEG compression and optics. Unfortunately, I think Occam might have something to say about such a theory.

In any event, the photo there is from the CrossFit Championships held last Sunday. The whole gig was graciously hosted by CrossFit Seattle and held at Carkeek Park. The weather was perfect and there were lots of great people/competitors there. The actual competition felt a little bit hokey to me as it was overwhelmingly biased towards runners, with the run component taking approximately half of the total time of the 6-station workout. A couple of the stations (the tire-drag and the d-ball ‘chuck-and-run’) were just flat out silly and too easy.

It was a lot of fun, though, and getting to meet some of the other CrossFitters in the area made the trip well worth it.

On Monday at CFES, we did 1RM deadlifts. My back was sore from the workout on Sunday, but I gave it a shot anyhow and came away with a big PR of 165kg (~364 pounds). That’s 20kg over my previous best, and it lets me check off one of my year-end goals: a 2.5 x bodyweight deadlift. Huzzah! Now I’ve set my sights on a 400 pound deadlift by the end of the year. Wish me luck!

Last night at the gym was “Karen.” As workouts go, Karen is frighteningly simple to describe. You take a 20 pound medicine ball and hit a 10-foot-high target 150 times, making sure to squat down with the ball upon every catch (CrossFit calls this activity ‘wall-ball’). While “Karen” may be simple to describe, it is stupid hard for me to do. I’m short — I can admit it. My license says 5′6″, but in reality it’s more like 5′5″. In addition to just being short, I also have proportionally short arms. This is great for stuff like push-ups and overhead press, but it sucks for wall-ball. In fact, it’s almost as if I was engineered to suck at wall-ball. Here’s a list of things that make wall-ball suck:

• I have to jump with every shot to have a chance of getting the stupid ball to the target. After about 50 jumps, my calves began a very angry dialog with my brain.
• When the ball finally returns to my outstretched hands, gravity has had enough time to accelerate it to approximately Mach 0.98. It takes force of will to fight off the leading pressure wave.
• The only part of my body that seems capable of consistently slowing the medicine ball upon re-entry is my face. My face feels like I pissed off Mike Tyson last night.
• Once I’m actually holding the ball, my short arms and big head make it impossible to rest the ball against my chest. Instead, I end up holding it aloft in front of my face, burning my shoulders out throwing off my center of gravity.
• My altered center of gravity makes it hard to squat on my heels. Instead, I end up coming onto my toes, making even more work for my angry calves and causing my quads to do a whole lot of work that my hamstrings should be doing.

The end result of all this is me whining on my blog… At least I finished the workout – a first for me. I was hoping for under 10 minutes, but in the end wound up with 10:23.

I’m drained… I’m tempted to say that they’ve been “putting the wood” to us at the gym, but the tone of this post is intended to be upbeat and celebratory and the combination of the two might skew slightly homoerotic. So instead, I’ll just say that this week has been one hell of an ass-pounding.

• Monday: Max Squat & Overhead Press (2 PRs: 115kg and 67kg)
• Tuesday: Cindy (PR: 21 rounds)
• Wednesday: 5K run (PR: 19:54)
• Thursday: Diane (first attempt & PR: 9:05)
• Friday: 5-round Fight Gone Bad (PR: 402)

In general, things have felt a lot easier at the gym since I stopped losing weight. It’s amazing how different it feels when I’m not operating under a caloric deficit. It’s been a little over a month since I started eating to gain and I’m up from a low of 137 pounds to about 145 pounds. I figure I’ll just keep going up until I either look like a fatty or feel like the additional weight is hindering me, neither of which is the case yet.

It’s been about 8 months (and 35 pounds) since I started working out at CrossFit Eastside in Redmond. I’ve managed to become completely addicted to it. When I started I would go three times a week for the (typically more laid back) morning classes. Now I’m there five nights a week working with the so-called fire-breathers. At first, I definitely didn’t belong in that class. I’m sure that Michael and Carrie were (and probably still are) irritated with having a newbie in the advanced class. Typically, they suggest that newcomers spend some time in CF Eastside’s ‘elements’ classes to gain familiarity with the movements and the routine. I basically bypassed those – electing to just jump in to the deep end and either sink or swim. The patience and restraint that Michael and Carrie showed in not kicking my ass was substantial.

It’s only been recently that I’ve started to feel like I’m not a total newbie chump during workouts. I now feel like I can do pretty much all of the workouts ‘as prescribed’ (i.e., without reducing the weight/reps/distance) and it’s been a while since someone stopped me in the middle of a workout to prevent me from killing myself. I’m still near the tail of the pack on a lot of things, but at least I can generally keep the pack in sight.
My list of CF goals for last year was fairly conservative. I wanted a muscle-up, 30 pull-ups, and a sub-10-minute time on Fran. I managed to get 2/3 as I was only able to get to 26 pull-ups. This year’s list is going to be a bit more ambitious:

• 2.5 x Bodyweight Deadlift
• 2 x Bodyweight Squat
• Bodyweight Overhead (Clean & Jerk)
• 30 Pull-ups
• 5 Muscle-ups
• All CF Named Workouts ‘As Prescribed’
• 6:30 Fran
• 750 CrossFit Total Score
• 5 Freestanding Handstand Pushups

I’m close to some of those goals (bodyweight C&J, for instance) – but some of them are going to take some real work. At the very least, I’ll have fun trying!

I finally got to participate in a CrossFit Total. The folks at CrossFit Seattle took on the task of managing the event while the CrossFit Eastside crew took on the task of populating it. It was a great time all around. Lots of inspirational lifts and more personal records than you can shake a stick at.

If you’re that sort of person, you can peek at the results (as a CSV if you’re nasty.)

One could interpret the data in any number of ways. As an egotist, I lean towards interpretations that move me higher on the list. If you use the Schwartz-Malone formula to adjust for bodyweight or just use a pound-for-pound (weight lifted divided by bodyweight) approach, my score looks marginally better. No matter how you look at it, there’s no denying that there are some crazy strong CrossFitters about.

CrossFit has kicked my ass on more than a few occasions, but last night was definitely a new experience for me. We definitely run from time to time there, but running in CrossFit is typically a high speed and low/medium distance affair. Every now and again, they’ll throw a 5K run at us, but that’s generally where it tops out. Last night when Michael said “Do you guys want to try something we’ve never done before,” I don’t think many people expected to be running 10K.

Fast forward one hour and five seconds later to find me crossing the finish line, covered in sweat and suffering from an irritating, if not bloody bout of runner’s nipple (CrossFitters don’t jog – they run). As I walked around trying to shake off my post-run jelly-leg syndrome, I was surprised at how fatigued and tight my calves felt. Let’s just say that the drive home was one of the few times where I really wished that my vehicle had an automatic transmission. But I made it home and I figured that after a little massage, a nice hot soak, and some sleep I’d be right as rain.

Now fast forward to the next morning as I turn off my alarm and begin my AM pilgrimage to the bathroom. This journey is pure muscle-memory at this point and is generally executed without any assistance from the conscious mind, which is a good thing since my conscious mind isn’t usually around to help out anyhow. But this morning was different. My legs swung out, my feet hit the ground, I stood up. It was at this point that things diverged from the plan. Instead of taking my first step, there was this ugly, stumbling, foot-dragging lurch that nearly ended in a faceplant into my dog’s dog bed. Apparently, my calves had decided to take the morning off, because they were stubbornly refusing to move, and when they did move they unleashed a wave of discomfort that made me briefly consider how the day would go if I just walked on my hands everywhere (If only I had the ability).

With a little willpower, I can approximate a human gait now, but if I don’t focus I slip into a ridiculous stiff-legged simian strut that I’m sure will be oh-so-humorous when I head back to the gym tonight. I’m really looking forward to it. No… really.