Jul 22 WOD: Ladder

People are still talking about last Saturday's box party, or what they remember about it anyhow. With the way Coach Bets was handing out shots, I'm pretty sure not a few went home hammered.

But today is Monday. Although it was difficult, I managed to convince myself to work out this morning.

A. SWOD

Overhead squat 5 x 3 (70%) with 3-second pause at the bottom

B. Metcon

Ascending ladder of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10...

Burpees
Double unders

I didn't want to go heavy with the OHS so I went with 45 lbs. It was a good exercise to practice not just the OHS but also the snatch. During the metcon, it was with the burpees that I struggled with. Surprisingly, I was able to do most of the DU sets unbroken. Whew!

My score: 45 (OHS); 16 + 5 burpees

Before the mayhem

Jul 17 WOD: Tabata style

The site said that today's WOD was Hope, but when I got there the WOD on the board was different. And Nickey said it was worse than Hope!

Tabata style:

Thrusters (65/45)
Tuck jumps
Hang squat clean (65/45)
Sumo dead lift high pull (65/45)
Snatch balance (65/45)

When you do a tabata workout, you do each movement for 8 sets of 20 seconds working/10 seconds rest, so that's a total of 4 minutes each movement. Since there were 5 movements the workout was 20 minutes long. That's 20 freakin' minutes of intensity, because you don't really get to rest during the 10 seconds in between. You're still catching your breath when the coach yells, "Next round! Get ready!" And you're like, what??

I used the prescribed 45 lb weight. Tuck jumps almost killed me. This is one of those WODs where a pinprick of self-doubt creeps in while you're doing something that hurts, and it makes you want to throw in the towel. But I found out that those voices could be silenced by picking up the bar and just going back to work.

Thanks to Rhona for the photo

Post-WOD, we rewarded ourselves with the shepherd's pie I'd brought and the assorted cheesecakes that Greg brought. He's the guy behind Cheesecakes by Guy and he brought chocolate, blueberry, and layered apple spice cheesecake. He had us road test the blueberry and apple spice cheesecake he'll be introducing soon, and we were his happy guinea pigs.

My score: 234 total reps (Rx)

Jul 12 WOD: Dead lift couplet

As if yesterday wasn't bad enough, another challenging WOD was in store for us today.

For time (15 minute cap):

21-15-9

Dead lift (235/155)
Overhead squats (135/95)

If you think about it, it's just 45 reps of each movement. But I started to feel my back muscles tightening about halfway through the second set. On the third and last set, I made myself do both the dead lifts and the OHS unbroken. I just wanted to get it over and done with!

After the WOD, we were rewarded with Nickey's spaghetti (her birthday treat) and Albright and Maig's chocolate Guinness cupcakes with vanilla bean Irish cream cheese frosting (whew!).

My score: 11:29 (125/55)

Apr 29 WOD: Nate

I'm experiencing another holiday hangover. I went to the beach again with some others at the box. We went to Smacky's place again and although there were a lot of people at the beach and by the pool, it was still good fun.

The view from our balcony

With Anton, Amie, Albright, Rhona, Gigay, Benjie, Maigirl,
Smacky, and Ken (I grabbed this photo from Rhona)

And now, back to regular programming.

It was benchmark day at the box and I had no idea because the WOD wasn't posted at the site. We did Nate again, which is:

20 minutes AMRAP

2 muscle ups

4 handstand push ups

8 kettlebell swings (32/24 kg)

I did sitting muscle ups, pike push ups with feet on the box, and used a 16 kg kettlebell.

My score: 11 rounds + 1 sitting muscle up

The last time we did Nate I scored 12 rounds, but that was an even more scaled version so I'm quite happy with today's workout.

Oh, and happy news: Coach Matt announced that "due to popular demand," there will now be a 10 am class every Tuesday and Thursday starting in May, and we couldn't be happier!

Feb 11 WOD: Overhead squats with a side of weekend hangover

Some of the people from the lunch crew decided to go to Hamilo Coast during the weekend, thanks to Amie's mad organizing skillz and Smacky, who offered his Pico de Loro unit...

Beach dreaming with Isabelle, Rachelle, Coach Jordan, Marix, Smacky, his cousin Glen, Johann, and Amie

... so it was understandable that we didn't feel like working out much today. You know that feeling when you had a great weekend or a great day and you just want to hold on to that? Sigh. But we all must go through the bad in order to appreciate the good. In life, at work, and during the WOD.

On to the WOD. We worked on heavy hang power snatches for 15 minutes, with emphasis on form and technique. I did only up to 55 lbs. After months of working on the snatch, I feel like there's still something missing in my snatch. These are the few times when I wish we had mirrors in the box.

The metcon was 7 RFT:

- 7 overhead squats (95/65)
- 7 burpee box jumps (18" for both ladies and gents)

I used 45 lbs for the OHS and did the burpee box jumps as prescribed. Before the WOD, we were talking to Coach Raf about burpees. We watched him doing burpees seemingly without effort and asked how we could improve on ours. He told us to throw our bodies down chest first instead of slowly lowering the chest to the floor (it taxes the shoulders and tires you more quickly). Well, I tried it during the WOD and I did notice a small difference in terms of efficiency.

My time: 12:43

Dec 19 WOD: Team WOD

Team workouts are always fun because you get to work with other people, and there's always the added challenge of competing with the other teams. I got teamed up with Gerard and Rach, and we had to do 20 minutes AMRAP of:

- 7 kettlebell swings
- 3 laps shuttle runs
- 7 burpees
- 1 lap shuttle run

We used a 16 kg kettlebell, and in the end we did 23 + 2 laps shuttle runs. It was awesome. After that, we had the seafood buffet lunch that Amie had ordered from Dampa. It was supposed to be our Christmas lunch party, as we'd all agreed that the noon crew should have its own "party".

Good food, good people. Like the song goes, it's always a good time.

And, oh, I just want to share this:

From yesterday's paper (18 Dec 2012)

It's our very own Tere in the paper! It's amazing what paleo and CrossFit have done for her. A few months back, she was telling me she's lost so much weight that one of her patients (she's a dermatologist) even had the gall to assume that she'd had liposuction. We had such a good laugh when she told us about it. She's had to work her butt off to look the way she looks today, and it's an insult for someone to imply that she didn't put work into it at all.

I've been doing CF for a year now and it never fails to amaze me when I see people around me getting stronger, healthier, and better-looking (a fortunate side-effect).

Nov 21 WOD: Couplet

We were given a 10 minute time cap to do:

5-10-15-20-25

- Kettlebell swings (no Rx, but as heavy as you can)

- Box jumps (Rx: 24")

I used a 16 kg kettlebell and a 24" box. I. Felt. Like. Death. And I DNFed again. I was 6 box jumps short, and I know that if I hadn't rested as many times as I did, I would've finished. Shoulda woulda. Boo hoo.

Post-WOD, we celebrated Rhona and Amie's birthdays, and bade farewell to Chester. There was pizza, KFC chicken, and custaroons (which are like little bites of heaven). I guess everyone's cheat day fell on the same day. :)

Sep 28 WOD: Isabel and lunch with the moms' class

It's another benchmark day! We met Grace's best friend, Isabel today. We were given a time cap of 15 minutes to do:

- 30 snatches (Rx: 95 lbs)

I set up a 45 lb bar and practiced and decided that I was going to stick with that. Then Coach Jordan encouraged me to add a little more weight since he said I got the technique right (aww, he's so nice). So I did, and worked with a 50 lb bar.

My time: 5:38.

For the cash out, we did Turkish get-ups. Well, more like practiced doing them. I got the lightest kettlebell (8 kg), but I couldn't do the step-by-step movements so Jordan had us practicing the movements instead. We balanced a shoe atop our fist, and we had to make sure that it stayed balanced.

After that, we all hurried to get to Pao's house, where he had the most sumptuous (non-paleo) lunch prepared for us. He served asado, beef brisket, poached salmon, chips with homemade salsa, and teppanyaki ice cream (vanilla ice cream with fruits sautéed in butter). Sooo good!

Teppanyaki ice cream

The "moms' class" with honorary moms Dorothy, Tin, and Pao
(photo grabbed from Tin)

What a great way to end the week!

December 26 WOD + dinner

I'd been gluttonously gorging on almost everything I see on the dining table the past couple of days and that made me dread going to the box today. I was expecting a benchmark WOD since CFMNL posted that Libis will be doing "Jumbo Jackie" today. But when I got there we did a running WOD instead. I think it's because the floor was newly painted that's why we had to do the WOD outdoors.

Today was 15 mins AMRAP of:

- 5 kettlebell presses
- 100m run
- 3 tuck jumps
- 100m run
- 3 long jump burpees
- 100m run
- 6 lunges (per side)
- 100m run

The kettlebell press is supposed to be done using one arm but I did a variation using my 2 hands and a 12 kg kettlebell. For the tuck jumps, I couldn't do it right so I just did squat jumps. And even then the coach kept shouting at me, "Squat lower!" Ah, well. I was able to do 3.5 rounds.

From the box, I went to dinner with high school friends plus Neil. We had some good laughs talking about our memories of Tin. Neil took it upon himself to give Christmas gifts to Tin's godchildren, and it makes me want to cry. We miss her. The priest at her funeral mass hit the nail on the head when he said, "We are sad because we know that nobody will love us the way Tintin did."