All in a Week

Looking back on my week of running and Crossfit I should be tucked up asleep in my bed.  Its been a week of running, sore muscles and PB's.

Sunday started off with my third half marathon.  This was my second one in four weeks and it was also the second time I'd run at the Brisbane Marathon Festival.  I've been fighting a bit of a cold ever since running the Gold Coast Half and I'd decided not to take it easy on this run.  All I wanted to do was complete it, even if it meant doing 21km of intervals and preferably beat my previous time at this run of 2:33:25.

In the end I ended up finishing in a time of 2:15:30.  Surprisingly enough I don't think I pushed hard enough, even with my cold, as at the end of the race I could have actually kept going.  This was in complete contrast to the Gold Coast, which I found it hard to even walk to the exit point.


Monday was a well earned day of rest.  I got tortured by Anna at the gym with a leg massage.  I didn't realise how tight my calves were until I nearly levitated off the table. This was then followed up with a session in the sauna.

Tuesday was back to Crossfit. This consisted of a 1000m row followed by 5 rounds of 25 pull-ups and then 7 Push Jerks.  My forearms were hammered after the 1000m row and even though I was using a band on the pull-ups they were still screaming for mercy.  In hindsight the 27.5kg I used for the push jerks was probably a little light.  On pull-ups 122 and 124 my right had ripped and I now have some nice war wounds that hopefully heal by next Saturday.

Wednesday I got to WOD with Kelly.  After a bar warm up and a few lifts I ended up sitting on 25kg for the WOD that consisted of 30 snatches for time.  I think I've finally got the snappy hip thing happening but I need I my arms to catch up to stop me having to push out the top of the movement.  It was a lot more noticeable towards the end of the reps. Poor Kelly ended up having to do about 10 reps extra as Em made/encouraged her to up her weight as she was pushing them out too fast.

At the end of that it was time to do a gymnastic ab program that Em has been sent by Jade at Changing Shapes.   This work out is to be done three times a week:

Dish hold x 30sec
- dish rock x 10
- swimmer kicks x 20
- cross legs x 20

Left Side hold x 30 sec
-side rock x 10
- swimmer kicks x 20
- cross legs x 20

Right side hold as above

Superman x 30 sec
- superman rock x 10
- swimmer kicks x 20
- cross legs x 20

20 x tuck sit ups
20 x v sit ups

Left Side plank hold x 30 sec
-side drop/lift x 10 (+kg if poss)

Rights side as above.

Plank x 30sec
- raise left then right arm x 10 sec
- raise left then right leg x 10 sec
- raise opposing left then right arm/leg x 10 sec

Reverse plank x 30 sec

3 body lowers x 5-10 sec

The dish rocks were interesting but the side rocks had us rolling around on the floor like beached whales.  Maybe in a few weeks we might look less like beached whales are more like this.

Back in on Thursday and I'm feeling a little sore all over but my upper body takes the take due to Tuesday's WOD however my hips are a little tender from Wednesday's beached whale attempt.  The lovely Steph choose the WOD, a 25 minute AMRAP:
5 Burpees
10 Box Jumps, 20 in
10 Handstand Push-ups
40 Double Unders

8 rounds and 3 reps later and I'm sufficiently tired.  I don't know when it happened but somewhere in the last few months double unders have just clicked.  I never thought I'd be happy to have them in a WOD and in this one they were actually kind of like a recovery part.  Now maybe one day I'll feel the same about burpees (I think hell will freeze over first).

Friday I walk, actually almost hobble into the gym.  My calves and achilles are tight from all the bouncing on Thursday.  But before I start to find my maximum back squat I've got 31 penalty burpees to complete as I'd forgotten to put away the abmat and plates I used for the handstand push ups on Thursday.

After a bit of grunting and groaning and strategically hiding for Em and her camera I find my maximum squat.  I've improved by 5kg over 6 weeks and I probably only stuck with about 50% of the Smolov program. I'm now up to 60kg so it will be interesting to see if I can gain another 4kg and squat my body weight.  The squat session was then followed by a nice and easy Zen/Yoga session and then they gymnastics ab program.

Saturday morning and it was time for parkrun.  Thanks to an offer from Ruth I was able to have a pram free run.  With heavy legs and lungs off I ran, not pushing too hard as I wasn't feeling quite right.  5km later and I'm quite happy to say that I have now got a new 5km PB and am able to run it in under 29 minutes.


In addition to all of this training I've also done an extra 200 butterfly situps, 127 crunches, 107 leg raises and 148s of planking as part of an August Ab challenge.

So after all this I think I'm due for a good nights sleep!