Category: crossfit

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Just Running

I haven’t had much blog content over the holidays.  While I try to focus on the positive, Lisa at RunWiki has inspired me to open up a little about some of the negatives I’m experiencing.  It’s important for me to say that by no means did I have a bad Christmas or holiday season in general; I got to spend great times with my family, whom I cherish more than anything, and we created some great memories to cap off 2013.  This blog, however is about triathlon, fitness, and getting outside and December has not been kind.

One of the things I don’t talk about much is how poorly we sleep.  The Lightning Kid typically has 3 wake-ups a night, and what it takes to get him back to sleep can vary, as what can what time he decides to wake up for the day can swing between 5 and nearly 7 am.  Please note, I am not asking for any advice; we have two children who both have/had trouble sleeping and know everything there is to know about good sleep habits, we research on many Down syndrome forums and are always pursuing new and increasingly exotic methods to try and turn this around.  This simply isn’t a forum where I wish to discuss sleep issues, I just want to provide background information.   Add the extra stimulation of the holidays as well as cold and flu season (with undersized nasal passages more prone to congestion) and things get even worse.

Speaking of cold and flu season, I got knocked down by the flu in mid-December.  Weak feeling, achy bones, chills, you know the drill.  When all the symptoms subsided, I was left with a nasty cough that seemed to give me a crushing feeling in my chest every time I had a coughing fit.  I mean, it felt like a Sumo wrestler sat on me.  I went to the doctor and he gave my heart and lungs the all-clear.  His theory? That I pulled a chest muscle during a sudden onset of coughing.  Nice to know you can get an athletic injury without being athletic (while I had my doubts about the theory at the time, that pain eventually subsided and was replace by one in my right rib which felt a lot more like a pulled muscle).

Which brings this post from general complaining to the more central topic: I have not been active.  Every article I’ve ever read about training vs. illness says it’s OK until it’s in your chest (one such article for example).  At the end of the season I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do next.  There didn’t seem to be any goal looming that presented something new, while being attainable based on past performance and I found my attentions scattered in all directions.

I had tried to jump start my exercise habits a little toward the end of the year.  I tried to play catch-up and use my soon-to-expire Crossfit sessions at least weekly, sometimes twice a week.  DOMS and my work schedule kept it from being more, I guess.  I signed up for not one, but two Yoga challenges on Instagram.  I bailed on all of them, and though the illness is part of it, I have to admit I wasn’t really enjoying any of that.  Every Crossfit WOD, every yoga pose had to be modified for my limited strength and/or flexibility.  While the leaders were great at providing these, I found being the “can’t” in a sea of “cans” to be a motivational black hole.

So, once the holidays started, I had a routine that involved eating, going to holiday events (Santa visits, family get-togethers, etc) and working.  Just about any free time I got, I tried to nap (though sometimes I watched House of Cards on Netflix).  The holidays are almost over, and I’m still tired, and still coughing.  I’m not sure I can wait for the cough go away before I get active again, and I really think I need to rebuild.  I also need to keep it simple, so that I don’t get distracted, or discouraged.  What I think I’m going to do is take it only a couple of weeks at a time; first step: Running, Just Running.

Why running? I think running was probably the first exercise I ever did for myself.  In a way, it’s the first exercise any of us ever do as young children – run after something.  Being slower is not as big a demotivator – there’s always someone faster anyway and every time out on my feet feels like a gain.  Running helps me mentally and emotionally; it clears my head.  I want to run 7 times in the first 2 weeks of 2014.  I’ll use this to prove my body is ready for a little more and take it from there (don’t worry, the hopper is full of ideas, and if it weren’t, there’s always people like Katie and Morgan at WildlyFit making exciting quick-start fitness programs for the new year).

Is it possible to have goal-overload? Is a back-to-basics approach the solution? Happy New Year!

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Where’s Your Head At?

I have been struggling, struggling, struggling with being able to focus lately –  in most areas of my life, but fitness and training especially.  I have had too much trouble deciding where and what I want to spend time on, so not only is my training all over the place, but I’m not in headspace to set goals, and as for blogging about it… well…

I’ll try to give you an illustration of the fitness/training part of my brain lately:

This probably plays fast and loose with the laws of the Venn diagram, but it’s the best I can do to sort through the jumble.  Let’s break this down some more:

  • Triathlon, comprised of Swim, Bike and Run.  This is still my biggest love, still a priority.  The temptation to let things slide due to the “off-season” is there, but there are also arguments that there shouldn’t be an off-season (Tridot calls it “Out-Season”) especially if you haven’t had a heavy “On-Season”.  On the other hand, maybe it’s the time of year to work on strength, like say through…

  • Crossfit.  Confessions first: with only a few months left in the year, I realized I’m in danger of the sessions I bought back in January expiring.  I’ve been even worse than sporadic up until that point, but I did manage to step it up in the last month or so, still falling short of the twice a week I wanted. What I like most is that I’m often addressing muscles in the posterior chain; easy to neglect, but very important muscles. 

    Big workouts have given me Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), which for me always sets in 2 days after the workout, which really throws off the idea of getting back in there for a WOD (workout of the day) 2 days later.
Besides that, the other problem I have is that it’s time consuming, which is a weird thing to say given that I’ve seen WODs that are 10 minutes long.  Still, I have to drive there (it’s short, but that’s still more than using the in-house corporate gym or my basement or running.  There’s the warm-up and skills portion (which I’m grateful for), yet they start when everybody is ready and there, not just when I want to get things moving along.  There’s no shower at the box, so after I drive back, I still have to shower and change.  The truth is, where there’s a will there’s a way, so these kinds of excuses shouldn’t be an obstacle if I really love doing it, but I guess I don’t.  I’d love to improve in some of the skills (pull-ups, dead-lifts, pistol squats and handstand push-ups come to mind), but I don’t get to pick what comes up in the WOD.  I recently tried (again) snatches, but I didn’t do so great with them; it just feels like flirting with injury.  Forty-somethings need to play it safe sometimes, which brings us to…









  • Parkour*.  The asterisk is for the fact that I’m forty (did I mention that already) and I don’t have the tolerance for risk that doing head-over-heels flips would entail, but I do like working on jumps, balancing and climbing during Burbathlon. What I’d really like to achieve is the Kong Vault (or at least the Monkey Vault). I just think it might come in handy, especially if I ever try an Obstacle Course race again. What I’ve been working on is getting my legs through with my hands on the ground (or any surface really). It’s an exercise in flexibility and discipline, really.



  • Nordic Skiing. This one is marked as being outside the benefit zone of triathlon, but according to what I’ve written before, maybe it shouldn’t be. At any rate, Nordic skiing is one of my favourite forms of exercise, and as they say on Game of Thrones, Winter is Coming. I got lucky finding a pair of roller-skis at a ski swap, and knowing that the snow hasn’t been reliable in recent years, I snagged them. When I get a chance to practice with them for more than 10 minutes, I’ll write up a little review, but based on my current experience, I won’t feel safe using them to commute to work any time soon.





  • Martial Arts. For reasons I can’t quite understand that myself looking through local places that offer Kung Fu like Wing Chun, and/or San Shou. I also have nostalgia for Jiu-Jitsu. The problem is I’m still in position where I can’t leave the house in the evenings. Most things that I have seen after work are right during the time when I’m helping the kids to bed, and they’re still not really putting themselves to sleep so that stuff it’s probably going to have to wait.
If I take a look at my accomplishments in October (for example) the calendar looks like this:
The Little Standing man is for Circuit Training = Crossfit WOD or Tabata Bootcamp

That could be worse. Some swims, some bikes… too few runs. At the very least, I joined a Govember Bike Challenge hosted by Jamie at From Couch to Ironwoman, and it’s gotten me on the trainer.

Are you madly off in all directions like this? Do you have “Fitness ADD” too?
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Updates for the End of the Week

Wednesday: I wanted to add a little to my workout, which was planned to be a spin on the stationary bike (since the weather was lousy).  I came across this workout in my Twitter feed from Shannon of Badass Fitness.  They say good swimming comes from the core, so doing this circuit before the bike seemed like a good substitute for a swim-bike brick (without getting wet… unless you count sweat).


Thursday: I started shoring up my race calendar for the year, especially the triathlons (I’ll have to do a Race Calendar post and page soon).  I signed up for the Bracebridge Triathlon (a redemption race from last year) and the Muskoka 5i50 (again).

I also went to SquareOne Crossfit for the WOD.  It was Snatch focused (I promised myself I wouldn’t laugh…) and that worried me a little.  I was eager to learn, but I knew it was highly technical and I had no experience.  I probably even under-estimated it, as it involved every part of the body in complex, compound movements.  I practiced with just a PVC pipe, then a bar, then a bar with 10 pound plates (for a total of a mere 35 pounds) just to get the form down.  I found I’d either do a good ‘jump’ where you rise from the first squatted position to get the bar flying up high, but not get good positioning under the bar for the latter squat, or the reverse – I’d drop nice and low, but before really fully popping my hips out.





So I don’t have much to show for the one-rep max, but for the AMRAP part I got 6 complete rounds of 10 body-weight squats and 5 burpees in 4 minutes
.

The WOD
That one guy always forgets to count…

That session was a lot like my first, where I wasn’t completely demolished by the end, because working on skill meant taking a lighter weight. I’m glad, because the snatches frankly terrified me. Lower back, shoulders, knees are all ripe for injury on that move from what I could tell… plus there’s always the chance you’ll pull the bar into your face or drop it on your own head. If I’m smart (I’m not) I’ll work on practising the moves for my muscle memory.

Friday: As of this morning, I have lost 4.8 lbs in my DietBet which puts me about 59% of the way there 8 days in. Basically, I’m counting calories. I’m an engineer, and I believe in the laws of thermodynamics. When calories burned > calories ingested, weight comes off, and every other kind of weight loss trick is merely gaming that system. It also helps me to know just how much I can get away with during the day. I don’t have a cheat day or cheat food really because this is a temporary measure (the whole explanation is here). So booze and sweets are off the menu (some of Shark Boy’s ice cream may have fallen into my mouth on Sunday) and I try to keep portions under control with small healthy snacks (cottage cheese, fruits, veggies) between meals.

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Updates for the End of the Week

Wednesday: I wanted to add a little to my workout, which was planned to be a spin on the stationary bike (since the weather was lousy).  I came across this workout in my Twitter feed from Shannon of Badass Fitness.  They say good swimming comes from the core, so doing this circuit before the bike seemed like a good substitute for a swim-bike brick (without getting wet… unless you count sweat).


Thursday: I started shoring up my race calendar for the year, especially the triathlons (I’ll have to do a Race Calendar post and page soon).  I signed up for the Bracebridge Triathlon (a redemption race from last year) and the Muskoka 5i50 (again).

I also went to SquareOne Crossfit for the WOD.  It was Snatch focused (I promised myself I wouldn’t laugh…) and that worried me a little.  I was eager to learn, but I knew it was highly technical and I had no experience.  I probably even under-estimated it, as it involved every part of the body in complex, compound movements.  I practiced with just a PVC pipe, then a bar, then a bar with 10 pound plates (for a total of a mere 35 pounds) just to get the form down.  I found I’d either do a good ‘jump’ where you rise from the first squatted position to get the bar flying up high, but not get good positioning under the bar for the latter squat, or the reverse – I’d drop nice and low, but before really fully popping my hips out.





So I don’t have much to show for the one-rep max, but for the AMRAP part I got 6 complete rounds of 10 body-weight squats and 5 burpees in 4 minutes
.

The WOD
That one guy always forgets to count…

That session was a lot like my first, where I wasn’t completely demolished by the end, because working on skill meant taking a lighter weight. I’m glad, because the snatches frankly terrified me. Lower back, shoulders, knees are all ripe for injury on that move from what I could tell… plus there’s always the chance you’ll pull the bar into your face or drop it on your own head. If I’m smart (I’m not) I’ll work on practising the moves for my muscle memory.

Friday: As of this morning, I have lost 4.8 lbs in my DietBet which puts me about 59% of the way there 8 days in. Basically, I’m counting calories. I’m an engineer, and I believe in the laws of thermodynamics. When calories burned > calories ingested, weight comes off, and every other kind of weight loss trick is merely gaming that system. It also helps me to know just how much I can get away with during the day. I don’t have a cheat day or cheat food really because this is a temporary measure (the whole explanation is here). So booze and sweets are off the menu (some of Shark Boy’s ice cream may have fallen into my mouth on Sunday) and I try to keep portions under control with small healthy snacks (cottage cheese, fruits, veggies) between meals.

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Half Marathon Training Week Recap: New Distances

Looking back at the week in training that was:

  • Saturday was the long run, in some very warm weather for the season.  To avoid mud, I stuck to side-walks so my joints and Achilles tendons took more than the usual amount of pounding, I’d have to say.  I was conservative on the way out, and more aggressive on the way back.  Going slow feels weird because I have a time goal in mind for the race, but I think the structure might be paying off…  14.3km done.
  • We were out late seeing the movie Les Miserables, and Shark Boy didn’t get to bed on time either, so Crossfit on Sunday was sacrificed.  Taking a rest day was probably smart.
  • Monday continued to be mild, but I figured it would be dry enough to run on trails.  Almost right, my shoes got wet (though my Salomon XR Missions have done some good water protection for my feet this season) and at least once I had to wipe a big, heavy clump of mud off the soles.  I hit the prescribed mileage, and the pace was slow as recommended (6:34min/kim)… at least on average.  I think I did some walk breaks and speed bursts to keep that average pace.
  • Tuesday was meant to be a Trifecta Tuesday with an early morning swim, plus strength and 1 more activity that I hadn’t decided on (maybe Yoga), but when I got to the gym, I found the pool crowded, and I had forgotten a towel; I went home and had breakfast with the family instead.  I managed to make it to the Etobicoke Olympium at lunch.  The Olympic (50m) pool had been cut in half for lane swimming, but though there were a lot of people there too, the lane etiquette was roundly observed, and it was no problem getting a good workout in.  In fact, I did my longest pool workout swim with 2.3km including drills, 4x75m intervals, 4x200m and another 4x75m.
  • Wednesday was my favourite run of the week.  The trails were dry and the sun was out.  I managed a 6:04min/km pace, and I began to see how a 2 hour half-marathon might be possible.
  • On Thursday, I did a Cross-training session in a group exercise class.  PB Freakin Fit is run by Personal Best (who manages our corporate gym) and is structured much like a Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD).  Due to the equipment available and the space used, a lot of modifications need to be made.  This workout was a warm-up of jumping jacks, skipping, jogging on the spot, then a countdown: run across the room and back then do 10 push-ups, repeat with 9, 8, 7 push-ups right down to 1.  The first main set was 5 rounds for time (RFT): 20 Frog Jump Squats, 10 Renegade Rows with Mountain Climber, and 20 Hindu Pushups.  The second set involved AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 10 minutes of 20 ski-jumps, 10 burpees with dumbbell shoulder press, and 20 wide-stance prisoner squats. I can still feel the effects as I write this on Sunday.
  • Friday was a tempo run on the treadmill; new distance (2 miles/3.2 km) at a speed of 6.8mph with a 1 mile warm-up and cool down
    • I took a rest day on Saturday, and on Sunday, in spite of freezing temperatures and 48 km/h winds, I got a new distance of 16km or 10 miles.  That’s more than I’ve run in one sitting in at least 3 years.



I took a weigh-in toward the end of the week: 200lbs. Not great progress but heading in the right direction…


This was a week of new frontiers of distance, and I love seeing and feeling the progress.

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Half-Marathon Training: Week 2


I haven’t made weight loss an explicit goal, but I figured if I followed a regular training plan (with a higher volume of exercise than I’d been doing previously) and I watched what I ate (mostly avoiding sweets and booze, with better portion control too), some weight should come off.

Oh well…


That’s pretty much what I peaked at during the full holiday craze. I was active during the holidays (relatively speaking), and I felt like I didn’t sin too much, but still I have nothing to show for week 1. Like I said, I didn’t make it an explicit goal, so I won’t get stressed out about it, but I think I’ll try to monitor it in the weekly training posts for posterity’s sake. Having a few less pounds to drag across the finish line should make me faster come race season though…


I actually ran my long (12.2km) run on Saturday rather than Sunday, because on Sunday, I tried Crossfit (see my review here).  It was clearly a beginner session, because we also took the kids tobogganing that afternoon and I was able to pull them along and up the hill.

After 7 straight training days, I took Monday off.  This was more difficult than I thought, because I was feeling really good and strong and able to take on the world – everyone was posting motivation messages for ‘Motivation Monday’ (including me!).  Still, the rest day should be observed; it’s just that the rest day is usually forced upon me by life interfering with my plans…

I moved Monday’s 5.6km run to Tuesday, and I found the missing Blackberry!  Incredibly, it still worked, which means I’ll be able to recover my contacts and other info.  Since it was Trifecta Tuesday, I also did 47 pushups from the 100 push-ups app and a Yoga workout before bed.

On Wednesday I did a 7.4km run on pavement.  I was pretty pleased with my pace.  I could almost feel myself getting faster and stronger.

Due to some early morning toddler wake-up problems and a re-scheduled meeting, Thursday ended up being a rest day, unless you count air-guitar and dancing in the living room with the kids before dinner…

I did my tempo run on the treadmill on Friday; I used an incline of 1.5 and it felt fine. A mile warm-up at 5mph, the tempo run of 1.5 miles at 6.8mph and a mile cool-down (again at 5mph).



Though I’m pleased with my running and mileage this week, I am a little disappointed with strength and cross-training. Cross-fit was tough and a great workout, and the re-structuring of the week was probably what threw everything else into disarray. I should try to figure this out since this weekend will probably also involve a Saturday long run and Sunday Crossfit.

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Review: Crossfit/Crossfit Kids at SquareOne Crossfit

Way back in 2012, I started researching where I might be able to try Crossfit.  Crossfit has exploded in popularity especially in the past year, so I feel a little silly introducing and explaining it, but here goes…


Crossfit started as a way to ‘Open-Source’ fitness.  Open Source software is free to use, and the computer programming code is free and public; not kept secret.  In fitness, the concept would be a workout that is publicly available as opposed to something you had to pay an instructor or trainer for.  Every day a ‘Workout of the Day’ or WOD would be published that could be done with fairly basic equipment you could put into your home.  Exercises were drawn from Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics to promote functional strength as well as endurance, balance, flexibility, agility and co-ordination; true multi-dimensional fitness.  Where it grew as a business was again similar to Open Source software: though anyone could do it and the accessibility was appealing, this stuff was sophisticated enough that it made sense to engage an expert.  Crossfit gyms, or ‘boxes‘ (called this, because they seem plain and spartan compared to the modern gym – no frills, just the weights and equipment you need) started springing up, and certifications were created by the originators of the movement.  Nowadays, there are competitions, and they are sponsored by Reebok which has dubbed Crossfit “The Sport of Fitness”.
The SquareOne Box


There are a few boxes locally, and they all had their apparent pros and cons (from what I could tell by web research), but besides proximity, one big advantage that SquareOne Crossfit had was a Kids program.

They run their Crossfit Kids program on Sunday mornings, and for parents who want to do the WOD, they’re able to do that in parallel.  That clinched it, since we’re always looking for ways to keep Shark Boy entertained and active.  I wanted to make arrangements for a free trial in December, but with the holidays, it took until now to get us ‘in the box’.

Shark Boy and I got there for 8:30AM when the classes for kids 3-5 take place.  We met with the Kids’ instructor Arianne, and I did the initial paperwork.  Unfortunately things weren’t yet in full swing post holidays, so Shark Boy was the only kid in class and I think he was a little intimidated.  I hadn’t built it up for him too much, since I didn’t know what to really expect, but he was game for trying things as long as I accompanied him initially (and did some of the exercises too).

It starts, of course, with a warm-up.  Arianne put an agility ladder on the floor and had him (us) do two-footed jumps over each rung of the ladder back and forth.  We then moved on to jumping in and out (to the side of the ladder) and jumping on one foot.  Though he’s very athletic, I was a little surprised to see he had no real idea of how to jump on one foot – the learning begins!

After the warm-up a class (adult or kids!) moves on to the skill lesson.  We did squats, with hands overhead.

The ‘work-out’/WOD portion of a kids class seems to be game oriented, which was great.  Shark Boy was in his element playing  Lumberjacks and Farmers (knockdown pylons or put them back upright), Tail-Tag and Simon Says were all part of the deal, and it got more fun as some of the kids from the 6+ class started to trickle in.  He was obviously having fun and getting more comfortable and needed less hand-holding from his father.

I got to meet some of the other Crossfitters and people walked up and introduced themselves; from what I read, this friendliness is part of the general culture, and I was glad to see it wasn’t just hype.  It also meant I didn’t have to figure out the warm-up on my own:

Some of these were very familiar, but I’d never heard of Dislocates (sounds painful!).  Essentially it was holding a bar with wide grip and rotating it around to your back without bending your elbows.  Good mornings are bending over (from the hips) with a straight back.

I knew I’d need help on pull-ups; I can’t do them.  I did like their method of assisting the pull-up: a resistance band looped through the foot – you end up mimicking the real movement very, very closely.  I was a little embarrassed to be using the strongest band (giving me the biggest possible assistance) and I was reconsidering using that particular one as I got through my ten reps, but by the last one, I noticed I couldn’t quite get my chin up to the bar, so it was probably the right one after all.

The workout of the day was called ‘Linda’ and it meant doing sets of three exercises in descending number of reps: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 ,1.
“LINDA”
The first exercise was the Deadlift.  Here’s where I got my skill lesson prior to the WOD.   Chris, the man in charge, showed me how to do these correctly.  The second exercise was the Bench Press; I had done these on Thursday and had a good idea of how much weight I could handle.  I shared a bench with another man who wanted to lift the same amount as me, since benches were limited and the turnout that morning was good.  Rather than do a Power Clean (which is somewhat technical and would need a little more teaching/practice), Chris had me do a Sumo Deadlift/High Pull which was a Deadlift in a wider stance (with an narrower grip) combined with an upright row at the end.

The weight to be used was based on your own Body Weight (BW)… that wasn’t going to happen.  I tried to pick weights that would be sensible for me to get the form right and not injure myself, and of course… sweat.

On deadlifts, I need a lot of work.  I’m shrugging my shoulders and/or pulling my arms to get the bar moving up, I don’t bend my knees enough for the bottom, but I kept my back straight and didn’t hurt myself.  Bench presses went very well, and I was generally struggling to get that last rep on every set.  The Sumo Deadlift/High Pulls were a little weird – maybe I should have tried a bigger weight.  Apparently the key is to really pop your hips forward and get the weight accelerating upward, but it always felt like cheating to me.  Still it gave me an idea of the kind of motion that is involved in the Power Clean.

I finished in 20 and a half minutes, making me the third one done.  I can’t be too proud of that since I know they were taking it easy on me since it was my first time. Otherwise, how could I have taken the boys tobogganning that afternoon?  I gathered up Shark Boy and asked him if he enjoyed himself… was it something he’d like to do again?  He said yes, and so help me, I felt the same way.

I spoke to Chris about options for my son and I and everything was very low pressure.  I should say, no pressure.  I was overall very pleased to note that this box focusses on form over intensity; I’d had fears that the kind of ‘all or nothing’/’pain is weakness leaving the body’ wouldn’t fit well with my history of injury.  Chris’ outlook was refreshing in its simplicity: they’re there to get people fit.  If they can’t walk the next day, how can they come back to work out the next day?

Both Shark Boy and I have packs of drop in classes bought, so I guess the cult of Crossfit can count us in.

Have you heard of Crossfit? Tried it? Loved it?  What about Crossfit Kids?