Hello, Delhi!

This morning, as I peered out my window overlooking the city, I knew this was going to be a good day. Know why?

Because I had plans to go break a sweat at CrossFit Himalaya after work. I'd reached out to Piyush Pandey, the head trainer at the box, and arranged for my visit. I'd printed out the address for my driver and asked him to be ready to ferry me through rush hour traffic. It's been five days since my last workout, and I was getting antsy.

And as luck would have it, my evening workout would, in fact, coincide with the 6 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto half a world away -- the one I'd be attending if I weren't on another continent.

Despite my plans, I was thisclose to missing the class tonight. After leaving my office, I had quickly changed into my workout clothes and headed straight for the gym, but the chaotic jumble of cars and buses and pedestrians and bikes and three-wheeled taxis had already choked the  dusty roads. By the time we made it to Chatturpur Hills -- just a few miles away! -- it was dark.

And my driver was lost.



It took another half hour and a couple of phone calls for him (actually me) to locate CrossFit Himalaya. Located down a flight of stairs from a busy stretch of 100 Foot Road, the box is a true basement gym, with equipment that Piyush proudly described as being entirely sourced from right here in India.

I'm a big fan of all different kinds of CrossFit gyms, but those that strip everything down to the essentials are among my favorite. CrossFit Himalaya has a whiteboard, a clock, pull-up bars, barbells and weights, kettlebells and jump ropes -- nothing cutesy, nothing extraneous to the mission of improving fitness.

Today's workout was a doozy. After a quick warmup, and skills practice (double-unders and wall balls), it was time to jump right into the metcon:

For time:

• 100 wall ball shots (10kg / 5kg)
• 100 double-unders
• 50 plate overhead walking lunges (15kg / 5kg)

That's right: One hundred wall balls -- two thirds of Karen! -- was just the start of the workout. By the time I finished heaving that damned medicine ball up the wall, my legs were fried. With numb legs, I stumbled and tripped my way through the double-unders. It wouldn't be accurate to say that I couldn't feel my legs anymore, though, 'cause I sure felt 'em during the walking lunges.

Result: 15:36.

Okay -- so my less-than-blazing time isn't going set any records, but I had a blast anyway. Plus, my goal of sweating buckets was achieved in spades. Can you tell?

[For more about my time in India, check out this post on Nom Nom Paleo.]

Lazy Saturday

I'm proud to be raising two budding nerds. Wait -- I mean FILMMAKERS.

(By the way, this is the iPhone app the boys used to make their little stop-motion LEGO snuff film.)

Workout, Interrupted

Wondering where I've been?

I've been up to my eyeballs with work these days, having recently shifted my responsibilities to cover international markets at work (on top of my existing workload). Practically speaking, this means my days are spent emailing people in the Middle East at 5 in the morning, tackling my U.S.-based workload during the middle of the day, rushing home to take calls from Hong Kong in the early evening, and talking late into the night with business partners in India. My free time's devoted to daddy duty and helping Michelle with Nom Nom Paleo-related stuff. Meanwhile, this blog has gotten the short end of the stick.

I'm still heading to CrossFit Palo Alto in the wee hours of the morning to work out, though my day job has managed to intrude upon even my sacrosanct exercise time. The most stark example came this morning, when my WOD was interrupted by an unexpected (and unexpectedly frantic) 45-minute cell phone call from overseas about an urgent work matter. Fun times.

This was particularly frustrating because I'd been looking forward to getting back into the gym this morning. This was likely my second-to-last CrossFit class before heading off on a three-week business trip to Asia, so I was hoping to get my sweat on. The first half of the class delivered, with a workout of 10 strict ring rows every 2 minutes for 10 minutes, interspersed with max height box jumps.

The ring rows felt fine, though the fatigue set in by the final couple of rounds. It didn't help that I'd gotten four (count 'em: FOUR) shots in my shoulder in preparation for my travel to India. I'm used to feeling sore, but not this kind of sore.

And then: The metcon. It involved rowing, which meant I automatically hated it:

• Row 1000 meters
• Rest 5 minutes
• Row 1000 meters

"Go all out," Tim advised. I did, and it hurt. The first 1K took me 3:47 to complete, and my stubby little Asian man legs were on fire. I logged my time into my iPhone, gritted my teeth, and stumbled back to the erg. Let's get this over with, I thought. My five minutes of rest were almost up when I heard my phone start ringing. It was an urgent work call from Egypt.

Being on call at all hours of day can be...challenging.

As much as I detest rowing, I wasn't exactly a fan of delaying the inevitable, either. Instead of resting five minutes between the two 1K rows, I ended up with over an hour in between. After a lengthy phone conversation, a short drive home, a half-hour spent making breakfast for the kids, and a few business-related emails, I grabbed my water bottle and headed into the garage to (finally) finish the workout on the rower in my garage.

"How was it?" Michelle asked when I staggered back into the kitchen a few minutes later. "3:58," I said. "I sucked."

But at least I finished it.

And then I showered, popped my typhoid fever vaccine pills (yum?), and went to work. Whee!

Back on the Horse

Other than going on a run* every other day while vacationing in Hawaii, I've been laying low to give my wrist the time it needs to recover. It's still not 100 percent, but there've been signs of improvement, and I've been slowly reintroducing some light barbell work in the past week. Last Friday, I did a workout at CrossFit Palo Alto that involved overhead squats (I used an empty barbell), and yesterday, I practiced light (very light) split jerks before cranking out "Helen."

For what it's worth, the OHS workout consisted of:

• 50 reverse lunges (or jumping lunges)
• 20 overhead squats
• 20 toes to bar
• 50 reverse lunges (or jumping lunges)
• 15 overhead squats
• 15 toes to bar
• 50 reverse lunges (or jumping lunges)
• 10 overhead squats
• 10 toes to bar

It was my first workout in a couple of weeks, and I felt a bit more sluggish than usual, but was happy that I was able to get a barbell overhead without discomfort. Result: 13:03.

Yesterday's "Helen" was an eye-opener, though. Helen, as you'll recall, consists of 3 rounds of a 400-meter run, 21 kettlebell swings (24kg), and 12 pull-ups. In August of last year, I completed this workout as RXed in 10:14 -- a new PR. No such luck this time around. Instead, I finished in 11:23 -- more than a minute slower. I'd like to blame my less-than-healthy wrist, but the truth of the matter is that I'm de-conditioned right now -- I was out of breath sooner than expected and got a side-stitch for the first time in forever.

This doesn't feel good. I need to jump back into the saddle.

*One time, I went running with Michelle. Before heading out, I asked her if she wanted to grab a pair of earbuds and listen to music while we ran. She said no. "I want to talk to you while we run," my wife said. I shrugged and we began our run through Kilauea. Michelle spoke throughout our run, but the only words that came out of her mouth were: "I HATE RUNNING. I HATE RUNNING. I HATE RUNNING."

The Need for Speed

I know nothing at all about rugby sevens, but this Carlin Isles guy is fast.

[Source: Kottke]

Heavy Eyelids

This is what weightlifting with your eyelids looks like.

[Source]

Not Fast Enough

My wrist is improving, but not fast enough.

During our warmups in class this morning, I managed to do a few push-ups from my palms for the first time in months (huzzah!), which made me think I could join the rest of the class in practicing barbell cleans.

No dice. A single rep with an empty bar was all I managed before my wrist started screaming bloody murder at me. (On the plus side: It's not screaming quite as loudly as it did just a couple of weeks ago.)

So: I practiced kettlebell cleans instead. Again. (I'm tired of kettlebell cleans. Can you tell?)

I had to lay off the barbell for today's metcon, too, which consisted of 7 rounds of:

• 7 thrusters (75lbs / 55lbs)
• 7 sumo deadlift high pulls (75lbs / 55lbs)
• 7 burpees

I used dumbbells and did the push-up portion of the burpees from my fists. Happily, I still got my butt kicked.

Result: 11:38.

I'm not happy that this wrist is taking forever to heal. But I recognize that my recovery's taking longer than expected because I've been stupidly trying to do more than I should. I only have myself to blame. Argh. Self-knowledge drives me crazy.

Scoreless

I don't think I've ever done a workout at CrossFit Palo Alto that hasn't been scored -- until today.

Here's what we did:

4 rounds of:

• 3 minutes to complete a 12-calorie row, 10 overhead kettlebell swings, and 10 ring dips; and
• 3 minutes to complete a 12-calorie row, 10 wallballs (I did thrusters instead), and 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

The faster you crank 'em out, the more rest you get before the 3 minutes are up. And going balls-to-the-wall obviously yields a more intense interval workout. But after the first couple of rounds of this 24-minute workout, I finally figured out that it probably made more sense to pace myself, and to strike a better balance between speed and form. Knowing there was no score to target made it easier for me to focus on what I was doing.

But to be honest, I was still trying my damnedest to finish as fast as possible.

Gone Fishin'

I came down with a cold on Sunday, but with a steady infusion of bone broth and a couple of long stretches of sleep, I got (mostly) better in record time. This morning, when the alarm went off, I was ready to go.

After a relatively long break from the gym, it felt good to be back -- and it was also a relief to learn that the workout wasn't a grinder, but rather a skills-focused session that brought us back to basics.

Post-warmup, we worked on handstand holds and hollow rocks. Specifically:

8 rounds of:

• 20 seconds handstand hold
• 10 seconds rest
• 20 seconds hollow rock
• 10 seconds rest

Ow. I'm kind of terrible at hollow rocks. I'm no Carl Paoli, sadly.

Next up:

Kettlebell swing practice, followed by band-resisted kettlebell swings. Band-resisted swings look like this:


Amazingly, once the bands were removed and we did regular old swings again, the kettlebell felt like it was floating up in the air. Seriously: FLOATING -- almost like there were enormous helium balloons attached to the bottom of the kettlebell.

Last but not least, we pulled out the ergs and played some Fish Game.

I'm not very good at Fish Game, but when I play, I forget that I'm rowing. And that's a very, very good thing. I got a score of 795, which is a new high score for me.

Naturally, I went and rang the gym's PR bell.

Happy New Year

Okay -- I’m back.

New Year, new commitment to logging my workouts (at the very least). Yes, it’s been busy, but I really have no excuses. It's been a while since I popped my head in the gym, but I've been doing stuff at home. Sort of.