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Got lucky with scheduling. MRI today; follow-up appointment is on Thursday. :)

5/19 Rowing Intervals

WU: Row 1km

Workout:
Intervals 2:00 work sets / 2:00 recovery X 5 sets
20:00 total time; 4358 m rowed; 133.6 watts (avg); 2:15 avg pace

Cash out: Row 600m

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Monday May 20, 2014

Adventures in the Hotel Globo
5:20am in Bellevue Washington
The hotel has a beautiful gym, 10 treadmills, 10 exercise bikes, a rowing machine, an AED, a pool, lots of mirrors, lots of television, a dozen cybex machines, and a full rack of dumbells and even barbells with plates welded on in increments of 10# up to 120#.

At 5:20 am at least 30 people are already in the gym, walking, doing curls, doing tricep extensions, doing 3" crunches, everything you're used to seeing at the hotel globo. But over in the corner, away from the mirrors, there's a woman who obviously knows her way around a WOD, doing rounds of burpees, kb swings with a dumbbell, pistols, and walking lunges. The walkers and lifters have gravitated to the machines and equipment as far from the crazy lady as possible. I step on one of the last open treadmills and do a half mile at a steep angle to get warmed up. Then I grab a dumbbell and get into a goblet squat and hold it. The women doing the WOD catches my eye and nods her understanding. The walkers and lifters squint their eyes, not understanding what is happening. I get into and hold an OHS. More unknowing glances from the walkers etc. God bless them, they are down here exercising, but they just don't understand what that woman in the corner is doing, and they don't understand what I'm doing. I grab one of the welded barbells and do some squat clean thrusters to get al the way warmed up for the morning WOD I've devised.

One of the guys doing curls gets annoyed. I don't know why. I didn't drop the weights, I didn't grunt, I didn't stare at him, I was just doing a movement he hadn't seen before. "You'll hurt your knees and back doing that," the skinny/fat curl-machine with well defined biceps says. We've been down this road before. I get the 100# welded barbell and schlep it over to the dark corner where the woman is still grinding away on her burpees/swings/pistols/lunges. She's been at it for at least 20 minutes. I get a good look at her and think that I recognize her from last year's Masters at the Games. She nods again.

I start in on my WOD. 5 burpees, 5 squat clean thrusters, 20 second front plank, 10 second right side plank, 10 second left side plank, repeat, for 10 rounds. I am trying to move as perfectly as possible, channelling my inner Rich and my inner Julie. At about round 3 the woman finishes her WOD, I think she did a half hour. There's a modern art mosaic of sweat in her area. She goes and gets a towel and some gym wipes and starts cleaning it up. On round 4 she positions herself squarely in my line of sight and asks "can I say something about your squat clean?" I nod yes. While I'm doing my planks she squat cleans 100# welded barbell and gets into the bottom and stays there. "If you try to get your toes here and your heels here, and then try to screw your feet into the ground like this, you'll get more power and it'll be easier on your balance." Yes, she's been to a box before, and it sounds like she's read Supple Leopard. I nod. I get back to the squat clean thrusters. She positions herself at the right spot for coaching a CrossFitter. She cues me on the toes and heels. She cues me on rotating my feet into the ground. This is good. This is very good.

The walkers and lifters are paying a little too much attention.

"Okay, on the next two rounds go as hard as you can and then wrap this up," she says. I recognize her fully now. Once again the coincidence magnet has struck gold. Who could say 'no?' I pick up the pace. Sweat flies from my face, grunts erupt from my mouth. At the edge of my consciousness I perceive the walkers and lifters paying too much attention. I finish the last round and collapse to the floor, as post-WOD as I've been in a long time (Oly lifting doesn't generate this metcon response). I am sprawled out panting. The master's athlete is in a full squat near my shoulder, talking technique. Someone misunderstands. They pull the AED from the wall and rush to my side. Before I know it they have opened the pack and are trying to figure out how to apply the leads. The master's athlete stops them. "He'll be okay in about five minutes, and he'll likely do it again tomorrow," she says. I nod my head. The walker returns the AED to the wall.

"Thanks," I manage.
"Anytime, I loved the Flats," she says. "Can I get a picture with you?"
"I was just going to ask you if I could get a picture with you!" I say.
We share a good laugh, and realize neither of us has a camera.
Sometimes things work out okay in the hotel globo.

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Nice job Guys!

Hope the MRI goes well Alden.

JT, Awesome story!! (BTW, I've got a new BOD POD session on 9 June!)

[B]19 May:
WOD:[/B]

[URL="http://www.mapmyfitness.com/workout/575779221"]6.06 mi walk[/URL]

~1:30:00

[I]This was not planned. The bus to my work was leaving the downtown terminal just as my bus was pulling in. I thought it would be better to walk some steam off rather than wait downtown for the next bus. :ranting2:

My feet hurt![/I]

[B]20 May:
WU:[/B]
400m run
60+ SUs
10 leg swings
10 Push Ups
10 Pull Ups [I](Did 'em straight in a row!!)[/I]
10 45# Presses
10 45# OHS
10 PVC pass throughs
Mobility work

[B]WOD:[/B]
Open 13.2
10 Min AMRAP:
5 115# Shoulder to Overhead
10 115# Deadlifts
15 24" Box Jumps

4 rounds and 4 115# Shoulder to Overhead

[I]I did 40% less then my last attempt, 17 Mar 2013. Though then I used 95# and a 20" box. 115# seemed easier than 95#. My feet are still sore from my walking WOD, though I was able to do the first few rounds in under 2 min each. [/I]

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Wednesday May 21, 2014


Another 5:30 in another hotel in another town on the left coast in this tour that is nearly over. Yesterday's Seattle sunrise is replaced by this morning's low hanging peninsula clouds and mist. The small but clean gym is empty except for a man reading the New York Times while walking slowly on the lone treadmill. He might be 60 or might be 85. He takes no notice of my entry.

A boxer must run this small hotel. There's a heavy bag in the corner, a speed bag nearby, and a crinkled leather jump rope hanging from a peg. I do a couple hundred singles and eek out a dozen double unders. There's an old-fashioned leather medicine ball against the wall. I heft it, and take in its polished surface, its irregular shape, its uneven surface. An untold number of old-school movements must have been done with this implement.


I hold my goblet squat then launch into Karen. The old man never looks up from the paper. I don't know how much the ball weighs, I don't know the height of the smudge on the wall I'm aiming at. I don't care. I am alone and working hard in the lonely morning. My mind flits to a soldier on a patrol in some far away place, working much harder, much more alone. I table my growing self-pity.

There's no TVs, no beautiful people doing beautiful things, no odd looks, and thus no incident. There's just some time to think, about what a long strange trip and tour it's been. Mercifully it's over tomorrow. I finally get to go home and stay home. Home, where my eight reasons to CrossFit live.

I can't describe how happy I'll be to see my Oly friends at 4:30 in Grafton on Friday, and to sweat in the Shed 'o Pain on Saturday, to climb at Kendall Cliffs on a Sunday, and to see my old friends and coaches at CTown CrossFit on Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30, and to see my coach at noon:thirty at Rubber City Weightlifting. Because you see, in this gym, and all the other hotel gyms and globos in all the cities and towns and countries and places I've been on this interminable tour there's been no community. There's been people exercising, in their bubbles or cocoons, but inevitably alone. There's no expert CrossFitter motivating me by moving effortlessly and efficiently while doing impossible things. There's no newbie CrossFitters figuring out the most basic movements but hungry for more. There's no cadre of Wod-hardened friends struggling together, through constantly varied movements in a constantly accepting community of friends, and like minded people, who get what we're doing in this thing we call CrossFit.

It'll be good to be home, all my homes, in every way imaginable.

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great work as usual everybody

thank you for the morning entertainment JT. great reads both of them

survived the queen victoria day long weekend and back at it last nite

7 rounds

65lb saftey squat bar good morning
3 mega bow bar bench press....10lb plates and 2 sets 5/8" chain on a side

2 minute rest

5 rounds

500 m row
30 sit ups

26:11 total time

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5/21 WOD
Skill Session: Advanced Pulling Gymnastics
Ring muscle ups.

Surprise element, max pull ups.
24, disappointing.

+
EMOTM, 15:00
1- 10 Russian KBS
2- 10 Box Jumps, step down
3- 3-5 Weighted Chinups
Note: For weighted chin-ups, use Dumbbells held b/t legs

2 pood bell except for last set used 3 pood. 20# dumbbell on weighted pull ups.

Claw

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Great write-ups, JT. Enjoyed both of them immensely.

5/20 Hike Mt. Esther trail. 6.5 miles; 1820' climbing; max elevation 9343'

5/21
WU: Row 1km; halos 25, 35X20; walking lunges X2X20

Workout: 4 RFT
KB swings 35# X50
Row 500 m
17:56

Cashout: Row 600m

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last nite


2 Board Bench: 1RM (red bands) 185lbs

T Bar Row: 12-10-8-8-8 55-90-110-110-110

Close Grip Bench: 3x8 95 lbs

5 rounds of:
5 Pin Press (11 pin) 95lbs
10 Ring Rows
15 Squats

Ext. Rot. Band Pulls: 4x20/s single red band

keep up the great work everybody!!!

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5/22 WOD
A. 1-1/4 Backsquat, 3-5 reps, 5 sets, rest 3:00
135-155-155-175-185

+
4RFT
20 Walking Lunges
rest 30sec
10 Power cleans 135/95#
rest 30sec
10 Push Jerks, 135/95#
rest 2:00

18:22 @ 115.
Holy crap this one was hard! Only one set of PC's and one set of PJ's went straight through, otherwise broke up to 5's and then 5-3-2.

Claw

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5/22
WU: Row 1km; halos 25, 35X20; walking lunges X20 yds; air squats X10

Workout: 5 RFT
Deadlifts 90# X15 reps
KB swings 35# X40 reps
11:28

Cashout: Row 600 m

Follow-up ortho appointment today. No requirement for surgery. 4 bulging disks in neck and spondylolisthesis at C-4 but not bad enough for surgery. Resume activities as tolerated; gabapentin for nerve pain. Hurrah!!! I asked about why the KB snatches and C&P were so bad. Apparently, in those exercises, trapezius overpowers neck muscles and pulls things out of whack. This all started when I ramped up C&P and snatches so makes a lot of sense. I'll do presses instead. ;)