Hammerhead Games Part III

Oh, I'm sad that the Hammerhead Games are over.  It was so much fun! Competing at 2-week intervals is the perfect way to stay amped up but not disrupt your big-picture training.  Crossfit Dewitt held the last event in the three-part series on Saturday, February 9th. I wrote a piece about our gym's results here.

Split snatching 95# because I still don't like to squat

As for myself, I was very pleased with my performance, and to be honest, pleasantly surprised at my results. The first event was a 10' AMRAP of 7 hang snatch at 95#, 25yd plate push on the turf (25# plate), 25yd plate drag, and 50yd sprint. On every round, I would fall behind Jess and Meghan on the snatches and then catch back up on the plate drags. Fall behind, catch back up. With 1 minute to go I was in 3rd place, chasing them on the plate drag (which is a funny sight, because it's a race in super slow motion.) When the clock buzzed, I'd managed to eek out the win by less than a foot. The best part of that workout was that my sister and her boyfriend, who came from Binghamton to watch. Thanks guys!

Me and Anna

Plate drag-- wherein feet are on a plate and you just wheelbarrow yourself forward

The second event was a 500m row followed by 21-15-9 of deadlift (145#, low plates), recessed push-ups (hands on 25# plates), and GHD sit-ups. Lucky for me, I was in the lane next to the fabulous Meghan Kelly, so I was able to chase her. The two of us managed to finish 1-2: her first and me second. Word.

Meghan and me at the chalk-trough pre-workout

Lining up to start the row- Jess, Meghan, me

21 deadlifts with the short plates.  Steph's caption on this picture was "North-going Zax and South-going Zax." I love Dr. Suess! 

Me, Erin, and Meghan happy to be DONE! Thanks Steph for the pictures!

Second-place overall in this event bumped me up to third place overall for the series.  Who would have thought!?

A couple people have wondered to what I attribute this improvement. Legs, legs, legs. As I've written about before, when I started crossfit in 2010, my max bench was 150lbs and my max back squat was 115lbs. I could do 25 strict pull ups in a row but I couldn't even deadlift my body weight. It has taken a LONG time, but my legs are starting to catch up.

Next question people ask: "Will this help your kayaking?" Well, I don't think that being a quadzilla (with, say a 280lb back squat and large leg muscles) would help my kayaking, but I believe where I am now definitely will help.  Strength-to-weight ratio in a kayak is paramount, and since my body weight is the same as when I was kayak racing, I know that I have gained muscle mass and lost body fat.  Even though most of that strength gain is in my legs, I can always use some more hip drive in the kayak and push-pull on the footboard!

I will be focusing on CrossFit until I graduate from college (May 18), so I am going to continue to drill the legs until then-- and maybe even after that! It feels surprisingly good to be a more balanced athlete. My body can do a wide range of movements now (not just shoulder and core!)

Hammerhead Games, Part II

I'm a little late on this update; I blame school. Crossfit Rochester hosted round two of the Hammerhead Games on Saturday January 26. The lack of max squatting included automatically made it fun in my book.

The first three workouts were rapid-fire.

1.) 3 minutes to max snatch
--1 minute transition time--
2.) 3 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) burpee box-jump/ chest-to-bar pull-up ladder
--1 minute transition time--
3.) 3 minute AMRAP wall-ball (14lbs)/ toes-to-bar ladder

I was a bit disappointed with my snatch (I ended at 120lbs), but the other two workouts went well.

Later in the afternoon, we completed the fourth workout.

13-minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:
5 push-ups, each push-up traveling on and off an atlas stone
7 front squats with the stone (75lbs)
9 shoulder-to-overhead (95lbs)
11 box jumps (24 inches)

I was able to fight through the final workout well enough to tie for third place in the competition overall. It was, as always, a fantastic day competing against fantastic athletes. I can't wait for the last round this weekend.

Push-jerking

Snatch progression at  105lbs, yeah not perfect

Stone squats. Look how much fun I'm having

Andrew, Nick, and me hamming it up for the camera

Push-jerking during the last WOD

Women's podium: me and Jess McNabney (tied for 3rd), Jennifer Lesniak (2nd) and Meghan Kelly (1st)

P.S. I wrote up a report specific to the Crossfit Rochester competitors on our gym's blog.  Did you know I am writing the Crossfit Rochester blog now?  Check it out!

A Sad Story

You'd think I would have recovered from the childhood sadness of Frosty the Snowman's fleeting seasonal presence, but now I have global warming to thank for a renewed sense of futility in the face of melting snow.

Helplessly as I watched as day by day the igloo melted into oblivion. 

I Have A Badittude

Tuesday morning was my last first day of school, and thus my last first day of melancholia.  Here goes 14 weeks of doom and gloom.  Isn't it terrible that I complain about the privilege of higher education?

To assuage my sense of dread, I decided to go for a morning run.  The fact that I actually made it out the door surprised me, as  A.) I positively do not love running and B.)  It was 6 degrees outside, with a windchill of -16.  Note to self: pairing something you dislike (school) with something you do not love (running) doesn't make you feel better.  However it did give me a proud sense of entitlement to my morning shower.  My work towards liking running has been a lifelong process. refuse to give up! Maybe if this cold snap brings some precipitation, I can go snowshoe running.  Now that I do enjoy!

Hammerhead Games, Part I

It feels strange and insignificant to post about CrossFit competitions instead of kayaking. I'm not that good at CrossFit yet, so my experiences are mostly local and probably fairly mundane to most. Oh well, it's my blog. Read at your own risk!

On Saturday, Crossfit Buffalo hosted the first round of the Western NY Hammerhead Fitness Games.  It felt so good to get back into competition mode. Autumn in the gym was productive and fun, but for me CrossFit is not just a kayak lifting program anymore. It's a sport in itself, and I absolutely love going head to head with the girls from other gyms, especially because no one knows what the events are going to be ahead of time.

There were three workouts.The first was a 7-minute muscle-up/clean&jerk ladder (115# for women). I was excited to try out my muscle-ups for the first time in competition, and I was stoked to get 9 total during the workout.

C&J and MU

The second workout was a front squat ladder. Uh oh, leg stuff. I've been doing everything short of Sam's suggested gomad diet to strengthen my legs this autumn. Since progress isn't instantaneous, neither my squat nor my patience is yet close to adequate. The squat ladder started at 105lbs and went up incrementally by 15lbs, ending at 205. You had 30 seconds at each platform, and if you failed a lift you had the remainder of the time to do as many box jumps as possible. I ended up PRing at 135, which tied me for last place. No complaints, just facts. (Facts that will change.)

Box jumpin'

The third workout was 40-30-20 reps of 1-arm KB snatches and double-unders. There was no alternating arms, i.e. you had to snatch 20 on the right, then 20 on the left. Women's weight was 35 pounds, which was amazing compared to the guys weight of 70lbs. The women's workout was snappy. I think I finished in 5:38. The men's version was almost painful to watch, and took them much longer.  I give them a lot of credit!

KB snatch

Double unders and KB snatching in a heat with Melissa, Anne, Erin, and Alicia

It was a great day overall: fun as always. Oh, and the weather was wacky: 60 degrees!!! They opened up the garage doors to the gym and it felt eerily like springtime. Thank goodness it's not, though. For one thing, I want to ski a lot more, and for another, I need more time to work on these kayaker legs before the big competitions come around!

Some of the CF Rochester female contingent:Lindsey, me, Erin, Alicia, Isabelle. Missing Meghan and Beth

Look at the little baby kettlebell I found!

Erin and I are number one at napping.  If we don't beat you in the workout we'll crush you in recovery

Mickle and Fem's Winter Adventure

If you do something two years in a row, that automatically makes it a tradition, right?  So, it's a tradition for me to hate school. It's tradition to re-read my favorite book every January. Tradition to not go skydiving on the first of every month. You get the idea.

So basically I'm declaring it a tradition for Mickle to visit me around New Year's every year. And traditional for us to have a great time. This year, she flew in on New Year's Eve.  Remember that snowstorm on my birthday? And how we had about 18 inches of snow?  Mickle and I wasted no time getting in to the winter spirit.  And what's more spirited than an igloo!?

Champagne.  Champagne is more spirited than an igloo.

My parents' backyard has plenty of space; the weather gave us plenty of snow; and we bought plenty of champagne, so naturally, we started construction on an igloo. Pretty simple in theory: you pack snow into recycling bins and spiral them upward. However, because we are total igloo rookies, we only started angling the blocks after the 4th row. The result was a nearly 10-feet tall and somewhat triangular structure, which we decided looked like a snow teepee.

The first layer

The seventh layer

Igloo spaceship and space martian dog

COMPLETE!  And yes, we have a mailbox.

It took about 30 hours total between Mickle, myself, and my mom, to finish the igloo.  Have you ever been inside one?  It's so much fun!  Warm-ish, and unbelievably quiet. When we were bored of hanging out in there by ourselves, we called Katie and Steve and told them that we custom-designed our ceilings for Steve's 6'8" frame, and therefore they must drive in from Buffalo immediately.  They did!

Mickle, me, and Katie. . . reunited!

Mickle and I also did lots of xc skiing, snowshoeing, and CrossFit. It snowed almost every day!

On a snowshoe adventure

I wish I had more action shots of the whole week, but I just upgraded from a 3-year-old flip phone to an iphone, and I'm treating it like a porcelain doll, or a bag of raw eggs, or both.  However, the iphone is eventually going to work out great for anyone who still cares about reading my blog, because I'll have more pictures to share!  I'm such a techno bot now. Did you know I even have a twitter?  I don't really understand how to retweet or reply or anything, so I just write my own posts. (Plus I'm somewhat wary of twitter because I'm afraid of birds.) But the occasional tweet is practically a tradition so I guess I have to keep doing it.
 

Le Blog is Not Dead

Hello, internets! Nice to see you again. For 2013, I am giving you a requiste catch-up post of the last 5 months. Life has been crazy/awesome/sad/stressful! I completed my penultimate semester of school (school=barf), got a gorgeous puppy with Matt, set some PRs, lots of fun with friends, lots of crossfit, helped host Thanksgiving, and then went through a mutual (but nevertheless sad) ending of my relationship. Breakups suck. But school kept me busy pulling my hair out and screaming. Not to mention as I was studying for finals I also had to find a new place to live, deal with bronchitis (that is still going strong after 9 weeks and 2 rounds of antibiotics!), work, start a new [winter] job, deal with a minor but annoying knee injury, and get ready for the holidays. Yikes, when I write it all down like that, I honestly have no idea how I managed to make it to 2013. One thing is for sure: when it rains it pours. And life is finally starting to calm down a bit. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

We adopted Stanley at the end of August from Pitty Love Rescue, an amazing pit-bull rescue in Rochester, NY.

I competed in Voodoo Fitness's Pump and Run, which is the coolest concept ever.  After a weigh-in, you perform max number of reps on bench press at a percentage of your body weight. Each rep counts for 30 seconds off of your finishing time for a 5k, which you run the following morning. I love bench pressing. I wish all 5ks had a bench press element.

This is little Stanley, doing the two things he does best since the day we adopted him. . . snuggle, and sleep!

I wasted no time in getting Stanley out in my canoe. He did pretty well, although he was more interested in trying to drink the creek water than staying still.

In early September, I competed with Jess at the Triathawod, which was fun except for the running part (and the lack of bench pressing).

In early October, I competed in a 5k kayak race at the Erie Canal Boat Company, and afterwards swapped my sprint boat for the most bathtub-esque kayak available so I could take Stanley!! My relatives were visiting from Chicago, so my cousin got to go out too.

Stanley was amazing in the kayak. After a few minutes he laid on my lap and went to sleep. No kidding. 

In October I participated in Kalsu for a Cause at Crossfit Boomtown, which was the breast cancer fundraiser we subbed for Barbells for Boobs this year. It was a much harder workout, mostly because my baby kayaking legs can't handle 95-pound thrusters. I think I embarrassed myself.

Here are all the dumb books I read this semester. You know where I put them?  In a box that I won't open for  a very, very long time.  Fair warning: my bitterness gets worse every semester. Sorry for not being sorry.

To my delight, Stanley LOVES the snow! We got a storm on my birthday that delivered 18 inches of glorious powder.  The only thing better than snow= a puppy going berserk experiencing snow for the first time!

I found Rich Froning at Crossfit Rochester!! I thought it was Andrew. . . but then when I saw the back of his shirt I realized it was indeed the legendary Froning. Crazy town!

I finally got my muscle-ups to the point where I can do more than 1 per day.   Woohoo, that only took 7 months!

Love love love this photo of Stanley. . . thanks for the antlers, Adrienne!

I am, of course, a Christmas baby (almost).  This year in lieu of a cake  I  did sushi.  Which is extra awesome since my family doesn't even like sushi. Win!

Julie and I planned a CrossFit kids party at the gym, which was a great success. . . Santa even made an appearance!

Family Christmas photo 2013