Category: Partner WOD

partner wod with the dog

How do you incorporate your dog into your workout? Sprinkle in some running circuits at the beginning and the end of the WOD: a running sandwich. It’s a great way to warm up and cool down, and if you time it right, your dog will look like this at the end.Mav conked

Since today is a rest day at CFHQ, I scrolled through the options until I found this lovely WOD below. I intended to modify it with running bookends, but it started to thunderstorm here, so we only got in one round of running as a warm-up:

5 Rounds for Time:
1-mile run
5 deadlifts
5 burpees

Men: 135 lb.
Women: 95 lb.

The dog is just about flattened, he had a good romp. Time to open the windows and let the wind blow.

training miles

This seemed like a good WOD to kick off training again. For one, I could do it RX, even if it would be a slog. Also, the running portion could be a partner WOD, and I have the best partner of all! He has floppy ears and yellow eyes and keeps a pretty steady pace even if he does trot on the diagonal. Like a boss, he’s also mastering terms like Stay and Place and Heel and Walk. It’s just him and me in our little slice of out-of-the-box garage WODs.

WOD 7-14-18WOD complete. Our time: 1:08, not that that matters much. It’s the doing that matters. As it turns out, we ran an extra mile at the end, which just makes us a couple of badasses.

It’s been almost a year now since I started cleaning out the garage and refitting it with CF gear. It’s amazing what can collect in a garage: dusty bug zappers, rusty trailer hitches, and castaway cans of leftover paint. Last summer the local dump had a hazardous waste disposal day. The mile-long line of cars on that sunny Saturday morning started lining up long before the gates opened. I drove along the queue until it finally came to an end, turned my nose around and pulled in behind the car in front to claim my spot, thinking, I can wait for as long as it takes. I had nowhere else to go, and there was no way in hell the soured antifreeze and curdled engine oil and other unidentifiable garage-type liquids stacked in the bins in the trunk of my car would be coming back home with me.

It’s amazing how something so simple as hazardous waste disposal day at the local dump can change your perspective. It was a catalyst, the beginning of something new for me. The garage felt cleaner, smelled fresher. Then I hung new curtains, put down a throw carpet and cleared away what I could from the floor. What I couldn’t store in the shed or hang on a nail on the wall, I tried to sell or giveaway. Some one’s junk can indeed be someone else’s treasure. Okay by me.

It was as if I felt like I could not start training again until I cleared out the half-used and forgotten piles of… stuff. It’s all stuff. Just stuff. So much stuff. I do not do well with clutter. My ideal space would be modern, open, white and gray with hues of blue and clean lines, minimal wall hangings if at all. White plates, red coffee pot, gingham sheets. We need so little to live well.

It’s officially 12 weeks until the half-marathon.

Now the dog sleeps and soon so will I.

Back Squat Wednesdays

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you–just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.” 
— Shel Silverstein

Because of our snow day yesterday the triple-wide was packed today. But like a seasoned Army General, Chad had us working like a well oiled machine of seasoned veterans marching into battle. BBF Carmen was my partner, and awesome partner at that, as we toiled away with the backsquats and then beat out each round of rowing, and burpees and snatches as only two BFF’s can do. Go team. Love the Partner WODs. And backsquat Wednesdays.

I. Strength

High Bar Back Squat

1 x 5 @ 85% – completed at 135lbs.

2 x 3 @ 90% – completed at 140lbs.

3 x 1@ 95% – completed at 145lbs, then 150lbs.

* Rest 2 Minutes Between Sets

II. Conditioning:

With a Partner Complete:

4 Rounds For Total Working Time of:

Row 300m

14 Lateral Burpees (Over The Bar)

7 Power Snatches (135/95)

* One Partner Is Working While The Other Rest.

Completed: 3 rounds plus, then ran out of time. Snatch at 55lbs. Chad pointed out something to remember, when you get tired you lean over at the waist, not fully squatting down to get the bar…don’t do that, you’ll burn yourself out, keep proper form. Thanks, Chad.

What’s found.

“Accept who you are; and revel in it.” ― Mitch Albom

Yesterday I received an email that began as follows:

Dear Mary,

Thank you for giving me the chance to read your work.  I am pleased to tell you that you have been selected to participate in this spring’s Writers Workshop.  Your manuscript stood out among a competitive pool of applicants. Congratulations.

If you read this blog you know two things, how much I love the following:

  1. CrossFit, and
  2. Writing.

This past week I received recognition for my hard work in each. In one week. Within days of one another. An award in one and recognition by acceptance into a workshop for another.

This kind of thing simply does not happen in life. It doesn’t! You wake up, you go to work, you go home, you spend 22 minutes throwing the tennis ball for your giant German Shedder, and if you’re lucky you make a nice dinner and watch Biggest Loser and go to bed. There’s some detours and holidays tossed in there but for the most part you hit repeat for the next day and the next and the next.

“You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger.”— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on experiencing ‘flow’

If you have enough left in the day you throw your energy into something that’s really important to you, that makes your heart sing, that warms you from the inside out and gives you a sense of calm, a sense of purpose, that fills you with unconditional love for all things near to you and far. You see beauty and feel compassion and your heart swells with possibility.

When I write, time stands still.

It’s not all pixy dust and unicorns. There are the dark days of work; the toil and getting up and getting out and putting one foot in front of the other. I talk about these days often, sometimes from the isolated moments in the parking lot at ACF just before finding that last push from within needed to get out of the car and go through the doors. I fight with this familiar voice in my head that says, ‘Just go home, you deserve a rest day, pick up a gallon of Oreo ice cream on the way, you have definitely earned it.’

There are even darker days with writing. I’ve only known CrossFit for a year and half, I’ve known writing my whole life.

Writing is not what I do. Writing is who I am. I am always writing, jotting things down on pieces of paper, typing notes in my phone, or even simply and silently in my head – telling myself to try and remember this moment for later. There’s even the token notebook by the bed. Whatever it takes. The thoughts are endless and they are usually followed by, ‘Remember this, write it down. There’s a story here.’

The drive to write comes from a drive to ultimately someday compile it all in a friendly way and get it out there, get it published. Why? Because I want to reach people. I want to be that voice that reaches through the pages to you in that single solitary moment and let’s you know you are not alone. The voice that lifts you up or makes you laugh, or helps you remember, or forgive, or finally make that tough decision. A voice of a stranger who is now a trusted friend; private and knowing.

There is a quote painted on the wall at ACF that reads: ‘No, it doesn’t get any easier and you wouldn’t want it to either.’ I think of this often. It reminds me that whatever you are going through, chances are someone else has gone through it too and may even be going through it right now too. It is in the struggle to keep going that we find ourselves. It is in the will to find the energy to dig deeper and work harder and the desire to change for the better, that we come to know who we really are, and hopefully you’re happy with what you find.

I. Strength:

3 Hi-Hang Cleans + 1 Push Jerk x 5 Sets

* Rest 60 Seconds

** Heaviest Possible

Completed: at 55lbs., 65lbs., 75lbs., 85lbs., 95lbs. Damn I like Hang Power Cleans, even with the squat thrown in. The Oly shoes make it extra awesome as they make the feet and body feel secure and stable.

II. Conditioning:

20 Minute Partner AMRAP:

Partner A) Row 400m

Partner B) As Many Kettlebell Swings (53/35) As Possible.

* Both Partners Moving At The Same Time.

** Score Is Total Distance Rowed + Kettlebell Swings completed.

Completed: with Kim, as we had a WOD date today.  Awww. 3,809 total meters rowed. The worst part being the non-stop KB swings at 35lbs. Which were not totally non-stop, as I averaged two breaks per round.