The family was on vacation last week. It was a great opportunity to minimize online time but not activity. So here’s a rough recap.
Sunday, June 24 — WOD — 1 mile for time.
Recently, Erin has taken up running to improve her cardio endurance for her karate. It’s been months since I’ve timed myself on a mile. It was a gorgeous summer morning, not too warm, no humidity. We had a brand new high school track all to ourselves. We talked on the way to the track and agreed that these were as close to ideal running conditions as possible.
The motto for they day was “no excuses” We figured whatever we ran. It is what it is.
Erin went first and had a phenomenal mile. She shattered her own personal best for a mile by nearly two minutes and brought her run in under 10 minutes! For someone who’s been running since Memorial Day, she’s made huge improvement. I’m so proud of her. She’s going to be outrunning me in no time.
I say that without exaggeration because after we each ran our miles, we took turns running 100M sprints. After a year of crossfit, I bested her by 5/100ths of a second. That’s IT!
As for my mile, I’m pretty sure my previous best time was a 7:36. This day, I pulled in a 7:22, so a new PR. I’m pleased I bested the old time. I do wish it had been better. After nearly a year between tests, I was hoping for something closer to, and ideally under, 7 minutes. It wasn’t there this day. Ah well.
Monday, June 25 — WOD — Crossfit Binghamton.
My first foray into crossfit tourism. Being away from home, I was looking forward to my first visit to a new gym. I tried to do this at Christmas time, but couldn’t make it work. This time around, no excuses.
I was lucky enough to get a WOD in at Crossfit Binghamton. Coach Mandy was incredibly gracious, supportive, observant and demanding. She’s a hell of a coach. Inside of 10 minutes, she identified just about every fault that every CFD coach has called me out on for over the past year. Her combination of guidance and encouragement was exactly what I needed as I was the only person at the box that morning!
Crossfit Binghamton hosted their first fitness challenge the previous weekend and it seems many of their athletes were still recovering and using Monday as a rest day.
The strength portion of the day’s WOD was Deadlifts at approx 3 RM, 3 reps rest 30 sec, 3 reps. That’s one set. Rest 2.5 minutes, repeat for 4 full sets. 24 deadlifts! I worked at 275 lbs. That was a LOT of deadlifts! Then onto the METCON!
10 min AMRAP
10 power cleans
10 front squats
10 push presses
Prescribed weight for all lifts was 115. I tried a test rep at that weight. It was obvious it was too heavy. I scaled back to 95 pounds.
In the end I got through 2 full rounds, plus 20 reps. I’m disappointed in myself for that. Going in I thought that 3 full rounds should have been attainable. Likely more.
Ever since that workout I’ve been wrestling with reconciling: a) I worked out the first two days of our family vacation. That’s a big change in mindset. B) I traveled 30 miles one way to get to the nearest crossfit gym. So no one can say I didn’t make the effort to get there. C) Still, I’m disappointed in myself that I am not able to create and maintain the same sort of discipline and intensity working alone that I normally derive working with a group.
I feel like at this stage, I should be more disciplined so that I don’t need anyone else to motivate me and make me work hard. Could be I’m overthinking it. I intended to go back to Crossfit Binghamton on Friday to work out with their full morning crew, but it wasn’t practical.
While those were the only structured work outs of the week, the rest of the week was spent at Greek Peak in upstate NY, enjoying all of the activities available at their indoor/outdoor Water Park and Adventure Center. 2 plus days of swimming, hiking, zip lines, 2 hours on an Aerial Ropes course…yeah, I’m comfortable saying I still got my workouts in those days. All in all a fantastic week.
