Monday WOD

Monday evening around 9pm I did the WOD I call the Shoulder Trifecta...

• Press (strict, no bend, bouncing, jumping) 1-1-1-1-1-1
• Push Press (you can bend but no jumping) 3-3-3-3-3
• Jerk (you can jump, split jerks are ok too) 5-5-5-5-5

I had a shitty workout, starting with a shitty warm up...my shoulders and chest are toast for some reason, even the push ups during the warm up were hell. Surprisingly my pullups were a redeemer. Knee pain and swelling precluded my doing any OHS (overhead squats).

Loads are lousy and my shoulders felt like dog poo:

• Press 65-75-85-95-100
• Push Press 100-110-120(f)-120(f)-115
• Jerks 120-120-120-120-120

I have an 11:15 appt today with my knee surgeon to see WTF is up with my latest symptoms. I have some trauma from banging it several times on my recent rides, but even before that I have felt like I have another tear or a tear that was not repaired. To top that off, I have a burning feeling in my left patellar tendon!!! During rides, my lefts has compensated for my right at times, perhaps that added stress has caused a minor tear (a major tear of the patellar T would have me crying like Liberman).

Sunday morning ride

Up at 7:45 this morning, had a protein shake (Pepto-Pro with Choc Soy Lite Milk) and a Clif Bar and then headed out. Started riding just before 9, rode Slinky. I rode solo again, since my friends are wussies and cannot get up early on Sunday.

I put in a little over 4 miles in 2 hours. I had a rough start, couldn't find my rhythm - I decided to start the lower section, but I inadvertantly took it in the opposite direction as intended - this made is a very difficult ride. Most of the 'features' in the lower section are intended to be approached from one direction, when you go in the opposite direction, many of the features are impossible to ride. Within 20 minutes of my ride I started bonking already, I was seeing spots, blood sugar tanked. I had to sit and have another Clif Bar (all out of Gu and the wife didn't find it on Saturday's grocery trip). After I collected myself I headed out of the lower section ASAP. It's hard to explain, unless you have ridden there you won't understand, but going the wrong way is a buzz kill bigtime.
Highlands and West - much better! The 'rule' of this trail is always go LEFT, as long as you go left and don't cut across these sections are great. I ran into (caught up with actually) 3 other riders. To my surprise I blew by them and saw them a few times, since the trail turns back on itself frequently. I took the trail all the way to City Park road and looped back. The 3 riders obviously turned back, because I caught up and passed them again. It feels like the way back take 1/4th the time that it takes to get to CP road, it's clearly a more direct route back, even though you join back up with the same trail for a while.

Path Track

• ~2 hours
• 1837 calories burned (seems insane, but my Timex HRM is consistent and when Nixon uses his Polar our burn is very comprable when we weigh the same)
• Peak HR 173
• Ave HR 127
• Shoulder is achy - caught myself falling by grabbing a cedar and uprooting it ;) also caught myself palm to the ground
• Knee is achy - I really think I kneed to go back to my ortho to check it out - same symptoms as when I had to be scoped - with the exception of the major stiffness after sitting
  

We have a Bday party to go to today, but I plan to do a Strength CrossFit workout today, and perhaps if the family (Wife) makes time, maybe a family ride at Brushy Creek.

Slinky again

My workout today was a ride at Slinky again. Around 4 miles all of it on the dirt! Calories burned = 1440!
http://pathtracks.com/users/7654/paths/44200
Good ride, ran into one another rider (that's rare on the trails I chose to ride). I helped him with some technical difficulties he was having - loose crankset.
Got a new cassette and had my rear derailleur tuned - it made all the difference in the world. Riding is always better than not, not lately my rides have been full of chainsuck, ghostshifting and just plain lousy drivetrain performance. Today was a fluid and funfilled ride, I was able to stay on the bike a lot more.
OK, off to feed the kids before Trick or Treating!

Oh, if you bike, you owe it to yourself to check out www.HammerHeadBikes.com - Cody, Matt, Josh and the guys there are awesome! Good guys, great value, work you in when you're in a pinch.

Bike Ride and Crossfit

Rode at Slinky today, a 'hidden' trail. Good ride, but got 1 flat late in the ride and decided to road ride it back. 2 hr ride with lots of elevation changes, 5.5 miles including a killer climb at the end from 2222/360 up to Courtyard and up Shepherd Mtn.
http://pathtracks.com/users/7654/paths/44028

CrossFit
5 rounds for time
25 deadlifts 135#
20 sledgehammers (10 each side)
50 reps jump rope

Time 18:49

Felt good to finish a longish CrossFit, especially since it was just a couple hours after my ride. Felt decent, but weakish on deads in the end.

CrossFit (kinda) and bike ride

Monday was a very scaled CrossFit workout. Being very sporadic is not very good, I am not feeling strong or confident in 2 of the most basic exercises - push ups and pull ups. I was excelling at these prior to my injury - capable of repping out a hundred of either in just a few minutes. Now I am doing 5 at a time and pull ups are not looking good. Push up - feels like my right side if doing all of the work. Doing to hang cleans, deads, jerks and the massive tractor tire workouts I feel fine, but the little ones - push and pull ups are pysching me out.

Monday's Crossfit - it went pretty quickly, especially when my 4 year old walked into the garage with his whistle in hand, shouting "Lift harder Dad!" between whistle bouts - it was classic.
5 rounds (not timed)
5 push ups
5 pull ups
5 hang cleans (95#)
5 jerks (95#)

Tues - Rest

Wed (today) - 1 hour 7 mile ride at Walnut Creek - check it out, I use my iPhone with Path Tracks to track my rides: http://pathtracks.com/users/7654/paths/43835

I think tomorrow will be high rep deadlifts.

Pitbulls and Stupidity

I own a Pitbull, this is my second one and both have been completely adorable and friendly dogs.

They have both been protective when one of the family is being threatened, but not 'aggressive' at all. Dax, my current Pitbull, I will admit is very instinctive and his 'inner animal' comes out when it comes to "game". "Game" being birds, squirrels, possums, etc...but some how Dax knows that dogs, even tiny dogs are not food. He definitely knows that people are not food.

I took Dax to St Eds Park and to Bull Creek (dog park) today. I had one guy comment that he looked like he had been in a few fights. I said, he has never been in a fight or bitten a person or dog in his life. Dax has bad allergies, so bad that his skin has flarred up enough to have left many scars on him. Stupid people assume the worst. Intelligent Pitbull and Boxer owners in the past have recognized his scars and pet him.

Another guy scooped his daughter out of the water when Dax entered the area. I just laughed...thinking from a temperment standpoint the Pitbull traditionally has a much better temperment that the majority of the dogs that were there - specifically the Jack Russell, Border Collie and Weimeraner (back to this one in a moment). If these other dogs had the strength of a Pitbull, Boxer, Doberman, or Rottie they would been know as terrors, they bite people and other digs much more frequently, but they are the worst biters - fear biters. They also simply do not possess the strength or gameness to do the damage that the other breeds have.

Unfortunately, I do shy away from taking Dax out with others because of the general public's ignorance. Anyway, today was great, up until the Weimeraner came along, Dax had been extremely friendly with all the dogs and the people that were nice enough to pet him. The Weimer attacked Dax. No Dax was not threatening in anyway, Dax was not near the owner of the dog or even between the Weimer and the owner. The Weimer bit Dax a couple of times before I intervened a separated them. I was seconds from tossing the Weimer in the water, but his owner finally strolled up to scold him. No apology to me, not even a word...I just said, "And Pitbulls are the bad ones?" Because of this Weimer, I put Dax on his leash for HIS protection.

Rant over and out.

I'm back....I hope...

Well, that was quite a break.
I have been piddling around with working out since my knee surgery back in August. I have a significant bit of scope work done:: 4 meniscus tears and a large condyle tear (femur cartilage).

I have been mountain biking (MTB) quite a bit since late August, but not much else...my MTB rides do consume mega calories though, usually 1000-2000. I do a few pull ups here, push ups there, spinning, keeping up with my boys. Heather (wifey) finally got a bike and we have a trail-a-bike for for Gavin/my bike and a trailer for Gavin/Heather's bike. We try to ride as a family a couple of times a week.

Anyway, today is the first workout I care to post. I did a similar workout without tracking or timing it last week.

3 Rounds
5 jerks with 90lbs
10 tire flips (not sure what it weighs, it's huge and heavy)
10 sledgehammers each side
10 12lb wall balls (squat to a high throw 10' on wall)

8m 58sec

I'll workout up to 5 or more rounds as my fitness improves.

Then I did 100 sledgehammers each side 9 min 1 sec

Only 311 calories burned, but I did hike a couple of miles with my boys and dog before this workout. Doing overhead work (presses and jerks) I can really feel the weakness is still plaguing my left side.

I am going to do several workouts around the tire, I really enjoy them. I'll incorporate some heavy bag work, jump rope, dips, chins, push ups and more.

I am going to try to get some Kevin or maybe Jacob over, for some 2-man drills I have in mind with the tire, med ball, rope, heavy bag for starters - med ball throws, flip tire back and fourth, tug-o-war, bag work...sounds gay, but it will be a great workout.

It's Always F'ing Something...

I am 6 months post neck surgery (multiple discectomy with titanium plating) and 2 weeks since tweaking my left knee. Most likely the knee is hating life since I jumped right into running and training for a sprint triathlon.

2 weeks ago my ortho put me on PT. Pending PT outcome I may have an MRI. I predict I get an MRI, my knee feels worse.

Training, eh...no, not much. Since the knee tweak I biked a mere 7 miles and have only done some push ups and dips. Of course having a wild 4 yo and an 8 yo I do get a bit of a workout just from playing. Especially teaching my 8 yo how to skid and ride wheelies ;)

I plan to get back into the pool this week and start back on my lousy upper body circuit. Since discovery Crossfit about 2 years ago I don't much care for going to a gym or doing conventional "gym workouts", but I am limited to that. I cannot do any ballistic/dynamic/compound/plyometric/olypic type workouts until the doc says my fusion is 100%.

Out for now.

Check out Jacob's blog
http://pliebfitness.blogspot.com

Space

Just throwing out my first blog to take up some space. I'm not really a writer, but I am definitely very vocal and opinionated. I imagine I will blog mostly about fitness.

I am in recovery mode from a cervical injury I sustain Nov 3rd 2007 playing rugby for the Austin Huns. I suffered multiple rupture discs that eventually led to my surgery on Jan 23rd 2008. I was without exercise for the better part of 6 months from the time of the injury.

As of 3.5 weeks ago I am training for a triathlon. I will post a summary of my workouts to date and add my work outs as they progress. I believe in the 18 days since beginning my Tri training I have taken 2 full rest days.

More later...