Today my brain and body felt like they were just running in slow motion during the WOD. I did it at a slower pace than I might have on a good day but it was good to get a workout in.

It doesn’t happen that often but I walked away from a WOD out of frustration due to my vision. I can count on my hands how many time that’s occurred but it has happened rarely.

Sometimes when you look at a WOD write up you just look at it and think it’s not going to be that bad. Sometimes that’s a correct assessment of the situation but other times it couldn’t be more wrong. Usually the ones that don’t look too bad are ones with movements that you are comfortable with cycling quickly. The thing is the faster you can go the more intensity you can have which is a real killer.

I am still feeling a little wound up from that thunderstorm the other day and not well rested. That was one hell of a storm. I’ve never seen stuff flying like that. Between that and the tropical humidity from Fred I am just feeling run down. Yesterday we cleaned up the patio and back yard and organized all of the downed limbs so that they are out of the way and should be quick to chip when the tree guy gets here.

I did a WOD today. It wasn’t a difficult one on paper but it was a real struggle for me to just complete it. It was physically painful to just keep moving. So much lactic acid that the thrusters, very light ones at that since they were a sub for wall balls made my legs be on fire like they couldn’t keep moving. I completed the WOD well within the goal time.

Today I did my first WOD that included devil presses in it in some time. With my arm acting up I’ve been sort of avoiding too much of that sort of movement when I could to let it rest some. I had signed up for some street parking challenge hoping t o maybe be able to encourage my girlfriend. I find challenges to be dumb myself but if it helps her it’s worth it.

It used to happen when we went to the Crossfit gym from time to time and it happens here at home once in a while too. If I wasn’t sure about the count in the gym I would just had them put work or some snarky comment about how I am unable to count at times. It usually happens when the WOD just doesn’t seem to flow to me. This morning’s WOD was one of those cases for me where I either lost track of rounds or remembered it wrong.

Even though I was pretty sure it’s unnecessary for me to have the COVID vaccine I got it since that’s what the CDC’s guidelines recommend. I’ll take science over people just making shit up as they go to fit their personal wants. The shot was quick and easy and the whole setup was well run. Sadly there weren’t many others there receiving it but that should be expected in this anti vaxers area.

Fairly early this morning I diced to get off my ass and work on my strength for today. If I were to be one hundred percent honest I really wasn’t feeling it at all today, not even a little. The reason that I have been having so much success is that I am doing my stuff even when I don’t feel like it unless I have a truly valid reason.

Last night we had Pizza for supper. You gotta live once in a while! Pepperoni pizza from Two cousins and this time it was nearly perfect. Their pizza is almost always really good but not always great. We also enjoyed glass if wine with it while watching the vault announcement. The WOD it self looked like a lot of fun. Basically it was Kalsu but with deadlifts instead of burpees. I went with the dumbbell version today but I am hoping to perform all three.

Today I decided to do last Saturday’s WOD but with the RX 40 pound dumbbell for the snatches. I knew I could use that weight for them and have in the past but just have been slacking a bit with pushing myself in that way. Recently I’ve been trying to push the intensity with speed more so than by using more challenging weights. I’d fallen into the trap of sticking with “comfortable” weights last fall and am deciding now that at least where possible and if I am feeling it to maybe push the weight a bit more even if my speed drops a bit.

There was a hint dropped about next week’s vault WOD that it was a repeat one from last year so I looked through the old WODs. I came across one that even if it’s not the right one I wanted to do it again as a retest. Hell I didn’t care if I could even log it, it was just one that I though would be a good one with which I could measure my any improvements I’ve made.

I woke up and knew today would probably be the best day weather wise of the week to take my barbell outside and complete the running version of this week’s vault WOD. It’s essentially Isabel then run 800 meters then Grace. I did the row version of this last night at too light of a weight but it made sense to try a lighter one and complete the WOD rather than get bogged down by weight.

I’ve said it before and will say it again but I truly know that we are very fortunate to have our garage available to us for a home gym. We’re lucky that we’d started adding equipment for the past several years and have nearly everything we could want. It’s certainly not perfect though but I am thankful we do have what we have. I signed up for the Crossfit open knowing that I would do shitty and all but signed up as a way to push myself out of my comfort zone.

It’s been close to a year if not longer than that since I actually walked away from a WOD and yesterday I had to do just that. The WOD was four rounds of a bunch of barbell work (deadlifts, hang power cleans and jerks) ,row 500 then do the barbell stuff again. I had chosen to do the RX weight and it really should’ve have been a problem for me as I used to use much heavier weight for this sort of thing in the past.

I did this week’s vault WOD today for street parking. It was one I certainly wasn’t looking forward to because it had wall walks programmed in it. Those are one of those things I really wasn’t able to come close to doing back at the gym. Not even when we had a gymnastics coach there trying to help us with some of the more gymnastics type of stuff. Today I decided I would give them another try since I noticed a space inside the house with a wall that would be open enough to work if I just pulled a couple of nails we had in it for hanging stuff in the past.

I woke up feeling much better today than the past few days. I got more sleep for one. I actually slept until about 6:00 AM! I had fucked up dreams but that’s another story. It’s weird for me to be able to sleep a bit later once I have been getting up early. I’ve always been a morning person and was my dad’s alarm clock growing up. If he had to wake up at 4 for work I woke up and woke him up.

There’s more than one way to make a WOD more challenging. Lately I’ve been going for intensity but staying pretty much within my comfort zone for the WODs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach either. Today’s WOD was one with movements that are just always going to be at least somewhat slower for me due to my poor vision for one and the tight space we have to work with in our garage gym.

I’ve been wanting to, when it’s appropriate work out of my comfort zone with dumbbell WODS. The Rx weight is typically 40 pounds which I have the strength for but I am just not super comfortable with performing many movements with that weight at this point. The dumbbells are a fairly new tool and stimulus for me. Last Saturday we did a partner version of a WOD which I chose to use the 40 pound Rx weight for.

Something I’ve wanted to do for a little while now is start using the heavier sandbag for WODS again. I did well with the rep one I had until the fillers kept opening and making a mess. it had gotten to the point where I had to reload them after every WOD. I had gotten a new Brute Force one for my birthday and we’d never had any problems with the smaller one of theirs that we’d had for a year or so.

The first order of business this morning was for me to go ahead and do tomorrow’s WOD. I knew the entirety of it would be one big cluster for me with all the goblet step ups. The steps ups you were to hold one dumbbell at your chest and I knew that was going to be challenging to me. It puts it right in the space where I can glance down and see that my foot is solidly on the box.

Sometimes improvements are small little hidden details and other times they’re so blatantly obvious like today’s WOD. The WOD called for 4 3 minute AMRAPS of six pull ups and six hang cleans with the sandbag. Today It felt pretty good other than my hand wanting to rip. I forgot the granddaughter had chalk all over the tape on the bar that Molly like to use. That just made it way too grippy for me and my hands weren’t feeling great from the get go.

This day was one of those days. I decided to get off my lazy ass and do a WOD. Enough of the excuses of being tired or hot or what ever else I could come up with. I’ve been wanting to do this week’s sandbag WOD but didn’t get around to it do to being so run down the past few days. The WOD consisted of 21 lungesters and then 21 sandbag power clean and toss over the box, rest a minute than 2 rounds of 15 of each.

I have to admit that I really wasn’t feeling it today. I felt like I didn’t really have the energy to do my strength let alone a WOD. The most likely culprit for me feeling run down the past day or two is being a bit dehydrated. The heat is catching up with me and geocaching a bit in the sun on Saturday didn’t help matters nor did waiting the the car while the girlfriend ran into the store.

I will preface this by saying that I really wasn’t feeling any WODS today. I don’t know why but I was just having that feeling where I want to sit around and be lazy all day type of day. I think I am just somewhat burned out from the heat and humidity and maybe a little dehydrated. The first WOD I did was an EMOM of 4 heavy deadlifts and one lateral burpee over the bar adding a burpee each minute.

I was thinking about passing on today’s WOD being tired an it being once again hot but I gave the single shoulder squats a shot and they didn’t feel too bad. The squats were one shoulder sandbag squats. They felt a little awkward with the weight being on one side but there was no reason not to do it or go with a heavier sandbag. The WOD was 3 rounds of row 750 meters and 50 single shoulder squats with the sandbag.

Today’s WOD (well technically Thursdays' we did it early) was one that I knew I’d be slower at and knew was the perfect opportunity to try one with 100 pound sandbag. It was only an AMRAP of 5 sandbag over the shoulders and 20 unweighted step-ups. I knew going into it the step-ups were going to slow me down. That’s a visual thing. While I can become somewhat faster at them and have already improved I know I will always be limited by having to “feel” whether I have solid footing on the box.

It was humid this morning, very humid. You know when everything feels wet and won’t dry, well that’s how it felt. Sort of like when your down the shore but there is no beach here nor is there a nice refreshing ocean to take a dip in. The dew point and temperature were maybe a degree or two a part at the most. I miss having a personal weather station to see neat information like this.

I can’t deny it. Honestly this week at least WOD wise I’ve been sort of lazy. Part of it was the heat and humidity this week. I’m getting more used to it but it will take time. We just haven’t had any this week. Even if it weren’t for the heat I’m okay with having a few days here and there where I’m somewhat lazy. Well I’m okay with it as long it doesn’t become a pattern but I can’t say I can really imagine that happening since I do love to work out and push myself.

First of all, I’ll start off with the slightly disappointing part. It’s not the end of the world or anything but I wouldn’t have minded for it to be successful. I make it no secret that Bench press is a weak lift for me and one I am so uncomfortable with it that it makes it difficult to advance it but doing it in the rack with the safeties set is helping with that uneasiness slowly.

Today’s WOD was a redo of an old one and they gave the day of when it was last programmed so I was able to look it up and see what my past time was for it. Wodify is a steaming pile of shit but at least I was able to get it to work enough to find that. I through on Virvum’s Illuminance for my music choice and embraced the pain.

It got reasonably nice outside today with a temperature near 70 and the sun was shining. The WOD for today was a sort of a deadlift ladder with a 100 meter run between sets so it was the perfect one to do out in the backyard. It was nice to be able to just drop the last rep of the deadlifts. I miss being able to drop it but don’t want to destroy our garage floor or potentially annoy the neighbors too much.

Today’s WOD was one of them that on paper looked like It would be challenging but doable. 50 barbell man makers, which consist of a deadlift, bent over row and cluster complex and then some running. I was tired all day but my choices of days to do this WOD look like it would either be today or Thursday due to rain in the weather forecast. Warming up with the bar I thought today’s might be one of those that I could RX+ So I threw on tens in addition to the 25 pound plates so I could readily and quickly pull off some weight if I need to.

I’ve done it a few times this spring so far with the sandbag and with the bar once when it was sunny but in the 20s in February so we could do a WOD together. Let’s be real. A few minutes that day I was still pouring sweat. This is about today though. It rained this morning and was cloudy and cool most of the day. Around 1:00 PM the sun was starting to peak through the clouds as they were thinning and breaking up and the temperature was beginning to spike upwards from the low 40s.

We were able to do the sandbag version of today’s WOD together out in the back yard. It was just sandbag burpees and 400 meter carry for basically two rounds. The weather was decent for the winter. it was by no means warm or anything but it was mild enough to do a workout, out in the backyard and ally. The WOD itself was harder than I expected, particularly the carries.

If there is one thing I miss about going to an actual gym to work out is there is usually more options for space. We’d often try to set up near each other so we could watch each other and try to keep up with each other. We also did partner WODS together The one downfall about doing workouts in the garage is there is much less space. Stuff with barbells tends to take up to much space at least for my own comfort.

I’ve really enjoyed using the sandbag in WODS when it’s an option. I feel it’s very close to real life situations. Either way I’ve been using just the 50 pound filler in our brute for sand bag to practice with it and get used to it. This week I’ve done two WODS with both the 50 and 25 pound fillers and honestly it still felt pretty light to me. Of course it’s more draining than the 50 pounds but certainly a usable weight.

DT is another one of my personal benchmark WODS. The first time I did it it was at 95 pounds with some insane time. I wanted to quit but Richard wouldn’t let me. He said as long as my form was okay I was finishing it. My lungs really sucked back then Obviously I’ve gotten stronger since then but worked on rowing longer distances at home to improve that and today showed how it paid off

So in Crossfit yesterday preparing for the open we redid 14.1 and I noticed a world of difference this year from last.. Score of 98 vs 70 I think from last year. Back then my snatches were ugly with poor form. I was just starting to get it and double unders were a real struggle. This year the power snatches aren’t great form but I believe it’s much improved over last.