The September 17th St N Challenge

Starting tomorrow (September 1), Alex and I are going head-to-head in a pre-wedding Battle Royale:

Every day he does a Mobility WOD dot com WOD he gets a point.
Every day I stay away from fruit, nuts, and coconut I get a point.

Only one point can be earned per day by each person; at the end of 30 days, we'll tally the scores up and the loser has to deep-clean the sinks and the bathtub once a month for 3 months. Ew. If that isn't incentive to git er done, I don't know what is.

Monday was a work/rest day. Tuesday in the AM I warmed up the still-slightly sore shoulder well and did

Wendler Press

5 @ 52.5
5 @ 60
>5 @70*

*Finished with 8 reps.

Just got back from the 7 PM WOD, which was about 5 minutes of work on the frog position (very early progression of front planche) and then

5 rounds

Row 200 m
5 hang squat cleans (85 lb)
10 burpees
2 minute rest

Finished in 18:43; this included a good 15 seconds stripping down from 95 to 85 lbs after the first rep of the first round (wanted to cycle faster than I knew I would at 95 lb).

Saturday was a work day. Today I started the Wendler 5-3-1 program; I usually work on Mondays, which is squat day at PCF, so Sundays will likely be squat and bench days for me.

Anyhow, after a warmup, my squat sets were

5 @ 105
5 @ 122.5
>5 @ 137.5*

*Finished with 8 reps.

I then did bench sets, which were

5 @ 65
5 @ 75
5 @ 85*

*Finished with 6 reps.

I was disappointed in my numbers for each of the third sets, but it's been a few weeks since I've done either movement and my shoulder is bothering me a little so I won't get too upset about it.

Today was

OHS 2-2-2-2-2-2

I worked up to 115, then failed twice at 120. Shoulders felt tired. I then took a big fat DNF on the metcon.

Wednesday I worked all day. Today we did

Squat Cleans 3-3-2-2-1-1-1

Then

4 rounds

1 Power Cleans
2 Hang Squat Cleans
3 Split Jerks

I worked up to 115 for the squat cleans - not very good considering my PR, but just wanted to get into a good rhythm. The metcon I did with the rx'd weight (95 lbs) and felt pretty good about finishing in 6:57 despite doing 5 split jerks in the first 2 rounds (I always have lots of mental trouble with multiple compound barbell movements), d'oh!

Monday was a work day. Today we did

400 m run
10 power snatches, 65 lb
400 m run
20 push press, 65 lb
400 m run
30 KB swings, 1 pood
400 m run
400 box jumps, 16"

I finished this pack version in 14:17, which I was reasonably happy with because I didn't want another slog of a workout like Sunday. I tried to counteract my not doing the Rx'd number of reps by pushing myself on the runs, and think I succeeded on all but the front half of the last one. Still dropped every snatch from the top, which is taking up too much time.

Friday was a travel day, Saturday was a work day, and today was

Skin the cat work (I think I managed 23 pretty decent ones before giving up)

Then

4 rounds
15 KB swings (50 lb)
10 ring dips (1st round negatives, last three w/ red band)
400 m run

20:02

KB swings and run whooped me. I'm still glad to be home and back at PCF, though!

Went again to Crossfit Crusade this afternoon, did

OHS 5x5 (95-100-105-115[3]-95)

Then

AMRAP 8 minutes
2 80 yard sprints with tire connected to harness I wore
5 pullups
7 pushups

I finished 3 rounds, 2 sprints, 5 pullups, and 2 pushups. Holy crap running with a tire is hard!

Missed Tuesday's workout, but made it into Crossfit Crusade this morning. The WOD for the gym was a variation on the Filthy Fifty; since I had already done a long-ish WOD on Monday, I decided to cut this one short at about 14 minutes. It wasn't pretty or fast, and good lord it's humid here, but I did 50 reps each of squats, pushups, 1 pood KB swings, situps, box jumps, and 45 lb push presses before calling it a day.

Friday through Sunday were more days of running around and eating. Today, I

a. started a new Paleo clean, to last from today to September 17, the day before my bachelorette weekend (I'm going nearly sans fruit and nuts/coconut for the entire period) and

b. went to Crossfit Crusade in Slidell, LA, near my aunt's house. We were supposed to do DT, but because of the torrential tropical downpour and crowding instead did a ridiculous string of Tabata exercises: bottom-to-bottom squats, pushups (I did games-standard pushups, rest in plank), dead bugs (rest in hollow rock or some pathetic version of it), burpees (rest in bottom of squat), lunges with 15 lb plate, and mountain climbers (rest in plank). It was more an exercise in managing muscle failure than anything else, honestly, but I'm glad I moved around some.

Sunday through Tuesday I ate my way across Louisiana and mostly sat on my can. It was delicious. Wednesday we did

On the minute

5x60m sprint
5x40m sprint
5x20m sprint

Then Tabata pushups (Games-standard) and situps. My pushup scores were 12-12-10-10-10-10-10-10, with slightly sketchy ROM in the last few rounds. Situps I did 10 for 7 rounds and then 9 on the last round.

Thursday we ran around doing wedding-planning stuff all day. This morning I went on a run: 2.32 miles in 20:17. I didn't push myself as much as I should have, but it was humid as hell and in the end, I was happy to average an 8:45 mile after not having run at all lately.

Did Fran today before we left for New Orleans. 10:06, rx'd, which was moderately disappointing but a. my range of motion was pretty legit, and b. I'm looking forward to improving my metcon abilities henceforth after a solid 3 months of mostly SS and then a week of laziness.

Took about a week off, partly because I was busy and partly because I was lazy. Oh well. On Thursday, though, we worked on snatches and I then did Isabel (30 power snatches for time) with 65 lb in 3:36. Overall it was painful and frustrating, mostly because my already shaky snatch abilities have gotten rusty.

Friday I did the CFT at home with Alex. I ended up with

Back Squat - 175
Shoulder Press - 85
Deadlift - 225

Which totals out to 485, while not a huge improvement over the total I did last September (450, I think), still movement upward which I'll take. All were technically PRs, which was kind of sweet. I failed twice at 185 for back squat, but feel like I can totally get it soon, so that's good.