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!

So Kochun and I brewed up a Belgian trippel yesterday and tossed it on top of the yeast cake from the Belgian singel that had just gone into secondary. The trippel itself was based on the recipe for “Third Nipple Trippel” from the Randy Mosher’s book Radical Brewing, but I really wanted to come up with a different name. As it turns out, it didn’t take too long for inspiration to strike.

Within 4 hours of pouring the sugary wort onto the yeast, insanely vigorous fermentation had begun and the airlock was bubbling so quickly that you could feel the current of CO2 hit your hand. I noticed that the frothy krausen was rising dangerously close to the lid of the bucket and it was around this time that I decided that placing a potentially explosive container of yeast and sugar water next to my couch was probably a bad idea. I moved the fermenter inside of my bathtub, and replaced the airlock with a thick blowoff tube. I recorded a short video of the setup just before I went to bed.

For several hours, the yeast strained against the confines of the bucket. At first the blowoff tube was able to handle the stress, but as the night wore on, the krausen rose into the tube and starting gumming up the works. Periodically, the tube would clog and pressure would rapidly build up inside the bucket until finally the clog was shot out of the tube in a burst that sounded like somebody sneezing through a straw into a glass of water. These eruptions grew more and more violent until finally, the bucket yielded to the caged god inside:

I like to imagine that the the beer was just trying to get back to its open fermentation Belgian roots. In any event, the violence and fury of its creation inspired the name. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Caged God Belgian Trippel.

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.