Saturday and Sunday turned into rest days. On Sunday I spent 14 hours in the car, and while I tried to at least stretch a little during our rest stops, sitting for that long certainly didn't do me any favors.

Today I was pleased to get back to the gym. Did a scaled version of Cindy's Got Gas, which for ease of remembering's sake turned into

AMRAP 10:00

3 Power Cleans (100 lb), then

3 rounds

3 pullups

6 pushups

9 squats

I ended up doing 2 full rounds plus cleans and 27 reps through the third round. Hadn't done cleans in a bit, so I was happy to be able to get 9 of them done (a few were a little ugly). Next time I'm going to do the full 5 pullups, even if it takes me a bit longer. Chest to bar is another matter entirely, though. Pushups and squats were all unbroken with the exception of one squat set, when I zoned out. Then later, while watching football (go Saints!) I did

Tabata handstands

Managed to stay up for all 8 rounds, which was pretty exciting...

Today was another day in New Orleans. I did

250 lunges for time

Took me about 14 minutes. I did it outside on the patio next to the pool, and so had to do each lunge pretty slowly to avoid banging my knee on the pavement. I then played around with headstand tripods a little - handstand ones proved way out of my reach for now.

Tuesday and Wednesday were rest days, on account of school and travel. This morning before the turkey fest began Alex and I did

4 rounds

25 squats

25 m run

4 rounds

25 situps

25 m run

4 rounds

25 pushups

25 m run

Took 16:30, which included at least 15 seconds knocking fire ants off my back. Both legs and arms are still pretty sore from Monday, so squats and pushups were brutal.

Tonight was "Elizabeth's Purse," which consisted of

21-15-9

35# single DB clean

ring dip (on toes)

8:09

I followed it up with 25 knees to elbows. Felt good on the cleans, but really wish I could get real ring dips...I was happy to get 28-30 pullups in the warmup no problem, though. Need to work on kip form.

Thank Goodness

After nearly 2 weeks of not being able to do much of anything, I am now cough free and was able to get into the box - finally! Tonight we did a 3-person team WOD called "Three," which consisted of 3 rounds of each person rowing 3 minutes. My team of Erin and Jenny got 5550 meters; I didn't keep track, but I guess I was responsible for about 2200 of that. I felt pretty good, considering my situation, and was pleased to be able to stay pretty steady on my 500m rate (a little less than 2:00 for round 1, and between 2:05 and 2:12 or so thereafter). I upped the damper setting to 5/6 for the last 2 rounds, which was harder but helped me keep my stroke smoother.

Yay!

Also, I forgot that last Thursday (the 12th) I did manage a little something before succumbing to my cough:

Back Squats 3x3 (140)

Shoulder Press 3x3 (70)

Deadlift 1x5 (180)

Monday was a self-imposed rest day; I was ready to head to the gym after my exam, but my cough was still so wicked that I could barely move without coughing hysterically for a couple of minutes.

This afternoon I did

Pullups 4-4-3-3-2-2-1-1

Nearly coughed my head off after each set, but oh well. In any case, I've found that one key to being able to do multiple pullups is to keep active shoulders and try to cycle as quickly as possible. The longer I stay at the bottom, the harder it is for me to get going again.

Tonight before cleaning I managed

Ring Dip Negatives 5-5-5-5-5

Nearly peed myself while coughing after my walk to the gym; that pretty much discouraged me from doing anything else this evening. Color me frustrated.

Today was

Shoulder Press 3-3-3-1-1-1

55-65-70-75-80-85(f)

Got some good cues from Ryan and Liz which helped me PR at 80 - push head through once bar is over my head, clench butt cheeks (helps me keep my core tight), and start with the bar off my chest and my forearms more straight up and down.

I then wanted to do the metcon team WOD, but my stupid cough prevented me from moving at any speed faster than a slow walk. Extremely. frustrating. Anyhow, I did a little bit of ring work before spending some committed time stretching (something I should probably spend more time doing anyways). Sigh.

Felt a little under the weather yesterday, but worked on

Pullups 10x2

Half-Tabata (4 rounds) hanging from the bar

Tabata Squats (17-17-16-16-16-16-16-18)

Half-Tabata (4 rounds) hanging from the bar

One of my biggest issues with pullups (especially with the big bars) is grip, so I figured working on that would be a good alternative way to attack my pullup deficiencies.

Did the push jerk workout from Tuesday. Rep scheme was

5-5-3-3-1-1

and I think my loads were

75-85-100-110-115f-105

Was a little disappointed, but had a lot of trouble keeping my torso upright and tight, which is what made the really heavy stuff go to hell. Afterward, worked on double unders and handstand pushups (really just negatives, but full ROM). At the end of the skillwork session, we did

5 rounds

1 minute double unders

1 minute handstand pushup negatives

My double under performance went bad quickly once my arms were tired. Then I got frustrated and that didn't help either. Boo.

Ok, so Tuesday didn't quite happen - felt a little under the weather and friends were in town. Wednesday wasn't looking great either, but I was able to skin my cat in lab quickly (seriously, I skinned a cat - it was oddly fun) and get home to lift. Did:

Back Squats 3x5 (135 lb)

Bench Press 3x5 (75 lb)

Power Clean 5x3 (75 lb)

Put simply, back squats weren't fun to come back to after a 10 day break. Bench presses were hard but not unpleasant. Power cleans were fun, which obviously means 75 lbs is too light.

Also discovered that I can do pretty decent dips on the bars of my GHD. I'm going to practice on that every so often just to get some ROM practice in my quest to get ring dips.

Nationals

So it's been a whirlwind week. Before I could leave on Wednesday with my ultimate frisbee team for our national tournament in Sarasota, Florida, I had to take 1 exam, 1 midterm, and 2 quizzes. Tuesday and Wednesday as a result turned into rest days, both because I had no time to work out but also to rest my body for the long weekend.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was chock full of frisbee frisbee frisbee. We ended up breaking seed (13th) and ended up placing 11th in the tournament, which I'm pretty proud of, even though I feel that we did not necessarily play to our potential at times. All three days were hot as Hades (sunny, high 80s/low 90s, and high humidity), though, which negatively impacted my own play along with the play of everyone else. My lower body felt terrible, partly because of all the running (I hadn't done much with cleats on in the past month) on the progressively harder fields, but I for the most part enjoyed myself throughout the weekend.

Sunday was a rest/travel day, and today will likely be one more rest day as I catch up on schoolwork and life.