30 Days of CrossFit: Day 2

Today's workout at first seemed like it might not be so bad, but by the end I was seriously struggling! All that running and squating yesterday didn't help I'm sure, but I figure it's building my endurance and muscles -- and just for good measure I'm going on a 30 mile bike ride in a bit! (Wish me luck....)

For day 2, we did the "day 1" WoD (Workout of the Day): five rounds of 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, and 10 air-squats. I also did a half mile jog as a warm-up. For a while I was doing push-ups almost every day, and I was at the point where I could do about 40 in a row. Perhaps I was focusing more on my form, or perhaps the other exercises just took more out of me, but five sets of 10 push-ups felt a lot harder than one set of fifty push-ups!

Anyway, while my legs are a little stiff right now, overall I'm not feeling too bad. I didn't bother weighing in or anything like that, as I figure I'll do that once a week. Just keep plugging away, try to eat reasonably healthy -- and no overeat! -- and you should see some good results. That's my plan, and I'm sticking too it. Now I need to go fix the flat tire on my bike, which I apparently acquired at the end of my last ride. Bummer....

Update: So the bike ride was... long and rather difficult, relatively speaking. I was dogging it the whole time, and every little hill saw me dropping down to 10 MPH or so -- hills that I would have normally taken at 14-15 MPH. My legs were just not giving me the normal push, as all the air squats and jogging of the past two days took a lot out of them. But, despite being tired, I did manage to do a 40.5 mile ride with some friends, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Next scheduled ride: Friday, where we'll shoot for a 60 miler most likely -- we're looking at doing a century on the 10th (Lewis County Historical Ride, if you're wondering).

CrossFit: Rebooting My Fitness (Fatness?)

I don't know that anyone is following my Slight Edge Diary any longer, which they probably shouldn't considering that I haven't updated the blog in close to a year! Needless to say, I'm not a very good planner and I'm still trying to find that groove that leads to success in life -- in areas of family, spirituality, fitness, social life, and work, roughly in that order of importance. But since I already have this blog, I figure I'll repurpose it for now as I apply Slight Edge principles to my fitness.

Last year, I did the STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride for the first time. It's a grueling 204 mile ride, start to finish, and I did it with some friends -- and about 10,000 other riders, though I don't know how many actually finished -- in about 12 hours of cycling, and three hours of rest stops along the way. You might think that sounds crazy, but it was such a fun experience that I managed to talk three of my brothers into signing up for the ride with me for this July.

That of course means I need to really get going on my preparations for this year, and so last month my wife and I took a one month Crossfit class. It was certainly a good workout, but I have to be honest: the price is rather steep in my opinion: $75 each for three workouts a week is what it costs (though we had a coupon for the first month so it was only $50). It's also always a bit of a pain to work something into your schedule when you have to pack up the kids, get over to the class, then come home again.

Long story short, as much as my wife and I enjoyed the classes, I was looking for other alternatives. We still might buy a family pass to the YMCA, but for this month we found a 30 Day At-Home CrossFit Challenge that looks promising. We started with the first workout today, though technically I skipped to the second workout just because I felt like starting the week with some running. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm going to use this blog to track my progress for the next 30 days. Fun times, right?

So the workout of the day (WoD in CrossFit lingo) is three rounds of a half mile run followed by 25 or 50 air squats. Today we had our two boys wanting to follow along, which meant my wife and I alternated running with the squats. I started with the run, she started with the squats, and we both finished more or less at the same time. There was a bit of a delay at the end of the squats while we would wait for the other to finish the jog (so that they could keep an eye on our kids), so the time taken on the squats is perhaps a bit longer than it would otherwise have been. Here's how my workout went, on each leg of the WoD:

1. 0.5 mile jog: 5:14.20
2. Air Squats: 5:26.68
3. 0.5 mile jog: 5:56.35
4. Air Squats: 4:28.71
5. 0.5 mile jog: 6:11.33
6. Air Squats: 3:16.16

You can see that each half mile jog took a bit longer, which is what I'd expect, but I did manage to improve my air squats time each round. Part of that was simply getting the kids to settle into the routine, and the last round I was able to just do the 50 air squats and then hit the stop timer. Total time for the workout: 30:33.46. And in the interest of full disclosure, I currently weight 210 pounds, I'm 6'3" tall, and I'm looking to lose about 25 pounds before the STP ride in July. If you're wondering, this is what I look like after the first workout -- still smiling! :-D