March 24 - Living Up to Our Name

Tonight we got another chance to disguise our exercise as play time, and yes, I'm talking about another soccer game.

I think that is one of the things I love most about soccer. It's a heck of a workout. Running, turning, kicking, and even falling. It becomes a full body workout the way we play. So unless we're playing against teenagers, it doesn't FEEL like a workout. It's just running and laughing and enjoying some time with friends. :+)

OK, so that's not exactly true. It most definitely feels like a workout. We're not exactly spring chickens any more, but it's still the best kind of workout - the kind where you have fun the whole time! And tonight we actually got to play against another team that falls into the same age range as we do for a change.

Despite that, they had a number of speedsters (who barely made the 30 year old cut off) and they ran us pretty ragged. To top it off, a cool front came through with some serious wind and made it down right COLD out there tonight.

But I'm not complaining. I had fun. I made a couple of nice defensive stops and I didn't get hurt. For me that's a win (even if the score sheet says our team lost the game)!

One downer though ... we are missing a few key players due to injury. And as of late, it seems like at least one of our guys goes down hard in each game. When you're as "mature" as our team, you can't take too many of those hard falls before you can't get up any more. *sigh*

Our team is called 'the Injured Reserves.' I hope we can stop living up to our name long enough to field a healthy team before the season is up.

March 23 - WOD

We made what has become a rare appearance at the gym today to get in our WOD. We decided to try our hand at the 13.3 open WOD and it called for wall balls (here's an example). We don't really have the set up for wall balls, so we thought we'd use our gym membership for a change. :+)

The 13.3 Open WOD calls for the following:
As many reps of the following as possible in 12 minutes:
150 - Wall Balls (14# ball, 9' target)
90 - Double-Unders
30 - Muscle-Ups

Now, I'll be honest, I have not yet worked up to double-unders. So for that part of the work out, we substituted regular jump rope revolutions. I also cannot do muscle ups. For that, the plan was to do pullups and/or dips. But we need not have worried as we didn't get to the muscle ups. (*sigh*)

I managed to do the 150 wall balls and then 35 turns of the jump rope in my allocated 12 minutes.

I know I say it ALL THE TIME, but that just doesn't sound like much when I see it typed out there. But it was TOUGH! And I spent the whole 12 minutes that Wonder Dad was doing his set laid out on the gym floor. The Wall Balls were a lot more difficult than I had thought they would be. It wasn't a matter of getting the 14# ball high enough - I really didn't have much trouble with that part. But catching the ball was very jarring. My shoulders were NOT happy with me. And let's face it, 150 squats, even without any added weight are always tiring.

So ... my thoughts on 13.3?

Well ... it's another killer WOD but I am really happy with myself for pushing through as far as I could.

Now to head to the soccer field to watch Wonder Boy play! Should be a beautiful day!

March 21 - Chasing Youth

My title for today's entry probably should have been "chasing youths." *sigh*

As I mentioned yesterday, we had a soccer game on the schedule for today. But before I go any further, I should tell you that we play in a "special" division of the local leagues. Our division (D-VI) is set up for "mature" players, women, and novices. Our team in particular, is exclusively in the "mature" category - though some of us qualify for the "women & novices" categories as well.

But the team we played last night .... let's just say I'm not sure many of them could even drive themselves to the soccer fields! I'm serious! One kid admitted to being only 13 years old. And watching them dribble the ball at break neck speeds, doing their Lionel Messi impersonations ... well ... let's just say they are not exactly novices either. *sigh*

So we chased a bunch of teenagers all night. We managed to hold on for a 1-1 tie, but that was due to the sheer brilliance of our goal keepers. The rest of us wore out pretty quickly, huffing and puffing while trying to keep up with those kids, so it was a miracle we didn't get totally blown out again.

Oh well ... I guess I shouldn't complain. We actually held the lead for most of the game. And we had a chance for the go-ahead goal late in the final half of play, but it just didn't quite bounce our way. And while I know those kids didn't go home feeling quite as worn out as we did, at least they didn't get to go home with a win under their belts.

March 20 - WOD

In an effort to get back on track with our workouts, etc, we decided to skip any kind of a run today and do another crossfit WOD. We have a soccer game tomorrow and Tues/Thurs are "supposed" to be cardio days.

It may seem a bit nuts after yesterday's WOD, but we picked a WOD for today that was all about the clean and jerk. You might think after all those shoulder presses and dead lifts from yesterday we would shy away from a workout like this, but we figured we'd give it a go.

So here how we broke down our sets of clean and jerks:

set 1: 3 reps
set 2: 3 reps
set 3: 2 reps
set 4: 2 reps
set 5: 1 reps
set 6: 1 reps
set 7: 1 reps
set 8: 1 reps

For my weights I used 75#, 85#, 90#, 95#, 100#, 95#, 95#, 95#.

Before today, my ORM (one rep max) was 95#, so I set a new PR by hitting 100# in my 5th set. I tried and tried to hoist up 105#, but it just wasn't happening today. I think I tried at least 3-5 times trying to get it up. Finally, I had to drop back down to 95# and just finish up the WOD.

I think that, if we hadn't done the shoulder press/dead lift workout yesterday, I could have pushed my ORM a bit further. And that makes me feel good all over (even if I am nice and sore now).

March 19 - WOD

It's been hard to get back into the swing of things since we hit it so hard over the weekend. I woke up Monday morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I literally couldn't pick out just one area that hurt - pretty much anything from the ribs on down was achy and begging to go back to bed. So we ended up taking an unplanned rest day on Monday.

I am glad we gave it a day. But today it was time to get back on schedule so we decided to do the next "Crossfit Open WOD" (13.2). I have been itching to try this one as the moves were some we routinely train on and I was hoping that would mean a more impressive performance this time around (yeah, right).

13.2 Open WOD looks like this:
5 - Shoulder Presses (75# for women)
10 - Dead Lifts (again, 75# for women)
15 - Box Jumps

The goal is to see how many rounds of this you can do in a 10 minute time frame. I managed 4 complete rounds and then an extra set of shoulder presses and dead lifts. My "score" for that would be 135 (4 complete rounds = 120 points plus 5 shoulder presses and 10 dead lifts).

While I was not as sore as I felt on Monday, I can tell you that I was still not at 100%, so to say. My legs felt like dead weight from even the first box jump. I am happy to say that my shoulder held strong though and the shoulder presses didn't start to get hard until my last set.

The "masters" (the nationally ranked crossfitters) were knocking out in the neighborhood of 10-12 complete rounds. I was foolishly hoping to do about 7 rounds. But taking on this WOD so soon after the Warrior Dash, etc was a bit of a hindrance.

In the end, I'm not unhappy with my results. I pushed through the WOD even though I was tired and still a bit sore. And each day, I am feeling a bit less tenderness in my old bones, so hopefully tomorrow's WOD will go more smoothly.

March 17 - Ug

UG. That's the word of the day.

I have barely moved from the couch today. And when I have moved, I have regretted it.

Case in point, the soccer game. This was a make up game for the one we had where the ref never showed up. So the only time they could work in a make up game was on the Sunday at the tail end of Spring Break. And yes, you guessed it, that means most of the players and their families had plans for this weekend that did not include soccer.

So despite my legs screaming at me every time I even twitched, we crawled off the couch and made our way to the soccer pitch. Only a handful of players from our team were able to make it. So by the time the game started, we were lucky to have 1 substitute to spell weary players.

The game was ugly. There's just no other word for it. We got stomped. Everyone seamed as worn out as we were feeling. And we looked true to our team name (the Injured Reserves).

Oh well. The next game isn't until Thursday, so we've got a few days to shake this one off and hope that the rest of the team makes it out for the next one.

March 16 - Warrior Up

I'd like to report in that I am feelin' fine and resting easy after my second run of the Warrior Dash today. But alas I have to confess that I feel more like the conquered rather than a Warrior. LOL.

But even through the scrapes, the bruises, the cramping muscles, and the mud that seems like I'll never be able to wash it all off .... I'm a happy camper.

I survived another Warrior Dash. My better half (& favorite work out partner in the whole world) & I ran our first WD back in November. And we had such a good time doing it that we immediately signed up for the next one scheduled once we were done.

The first time around, we really didn't train much for it. We stuck to our normal workout routine, but we really hadn't gotten into crossfit yet. And aside from our soccer games, we were only getting in about 1 neighborhood run per week (at best).

This time, we really have been hitting it hard to get ready. We are doing crossfit workouts about 3X/week and running about 3X/week as well. We've upped our distance to around the same distance as that of the WD (which is somewhere near a 5K distance, depending on the exact course). So honestly, I felt good going into this one. I felt like I should be able to perform a little better than our fist showing.

I was W-R-O-N-G.

But saying that, I'm still fairly happy with myself.

The course was fun. We scaled walls, hopped through a tire course, pulled ourselves through and out of soupy mud pits, and ran up and down the rather steep hills of the Rocky Hill Ranch mountain bike park. In the end, we had managed to make it through 12 obstacles spread over about 3.5 miles of the Ranch.

I must confess, those hills are much more thrilling on the back of a mountain bike than they are on foot. ;+) But the park is a really great spot for anything 'outdoorsy.' And I would go back in a heart beat to do it all again (though I would like a month or two for my poor aching body to recover first).


Maybe next year I'll see an improvement in my time. But honestly, I'm not too fussed about it.

I had fun. I trained hard. And I was able to do every single obstacle without assistance.

I'm good.

Now to go find a spot on the couch until tomorrow (soccer game!).