Seven Minutes of Heaven

Holy moly. That was no joke.

I'm not exactly in love with burpees, but I was looking forward to the first CrossFit Games Open workout nonetheless. A seven-minute AMRAP of burpees was a perfect way to start the Open -- a super-accessible, no-equipment, bodyweight-only test of conditioning.

At CrossFit Palo Alto, about two dozen of us showed up this afternoon to tackle the WOD. We took turns judging, counting, and cheering for each other, and a number of spectators came to show their support as well.

Some of the firebreathers in the group absolutely killed this one. My partner, LaHo, tore through his reps like a beast on fire. So did a number of others, including Graeme and Trish.

Shane busted out 121. Insane.

Me? I shot out of the gate, and was happy to match Blake rep-for-rep for the first 80 reps or so. But then the wheels inevitably flew off, and as he peeled away, I stumbled and slowed. Usually, when I do burpees, my chest and arms are wrecked -- but today, my quads caught on fire and stayed that way. Jumping up to touch a bar just six inches beyond my outstretched arms turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected, especially given my jelly legs.

Result: 93 burpees.

After we were done, Big-O and Lil-O got in on the act, too. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to think this workout was a big deal at all.

Overall: Awesome fun with some awesome folks.

New Year's Murph

For weeks, I'd been looking forward to revisiting Murph, the CrossFit "Hero" WOD named for a Navy lieutenant killed in Afghanistan. I've done Murph twice before -- on New Year's Day and Memorial Day this year -- and developed a special love for this grinder of a WOD:

For time:

• 1 mile run
• 100 pull-ups
• 200 push-ups
• 300 squats
• 1 mile run

The one-mile runs must bookend the workout, but the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats can be broken up in whatever manner you choose. I've typically done 20 rounds of Cindy -- 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats -- and intended to do the same today.

CrossFit Palo Alto was packed this morning for New Year's Murph -- so much so that the 9 a.m. session had to be split into two heats so that there'd be enough pull-up bar space for everyone. I was in the second heat, and paced impatiently while the first wave took off running.

When I finally got going, I took off on a dead sprint. The first mile felt great; I hadn't exercised in a few days, and I enjoyed stretching my legs. Likewise, my six or seven rounds of Cindy flew by without any problems. My pull-ups and push-ups were fast and fluid, and I was cranking out air squats as fast as I could.

My pull-ups and squats remained strong throughout the workout, but my push-ups broke down sooner than expected. I'm used to being able to get through a good 10 to 12 rounds of Cindy before my arms turn to jelly, but before I was halfway through the WOD, I hit a wall. Suddenly, I couldn't perform more than a handful of push-ups at a time, so I ended up changing my approach. Instead of doing 10 consecutive push-ups in Cindy-like fashion, I started breaking them up: 5 push-ups, then 15 air squats, then back on the ground to finish the push-ups.

I need to be more like this little guy:



When I got back on my feet to complete my final one-mile run, my dead arms dangled loosely at my sides. The last half-mile was painful -- I had a side stitch (which I never, ever get), and stopped to double over a few times. Ugh.

Result: 41:30 as RXed -- three minutes slower than my previous effort. I still love Murph for its bodyweight-focused movements, and I had a fantastic time working out with some of my favorite people at CrossFit Palo Alto -- but I'm a bit disappointed in my time.

Thankfully, there's always next year. And next year starts tomorrow.

Fight Gone Bad 6

Yesterday, CrossFit communities across the globe participated in the sixth annual Fight Gone Bad fundraiser.

Our affiliate, CrossFit Palo Alto, did its part by hosting a blowout event, complete with prizes, food and even a mini-version of FGB for the kids. Eight heats of athletes -- from pre-schoolers to grandparents -- took part in the competition to benefit The Special Operations Warrior Foundation and the CrossFit Foundation.

The event -- expertly organized by Trish -- hummed along like a well-oiled machine, with assigned heats and starting stations.

M was in the second heat of the morning. Fueled with coffee and sporting her 4505 Meats tee, she tore through all seventeen minutes of the workout and managed to keep smiling through it all. (Except when she was grimacing.)

I wasn't slated to go until the second-to-final heat of the day, and watching everyone bust their butts getting through all the wallballs, sumo deadlift high pulls, box jumps, push-presses and rowing put me on edge.

Right before my heat was called, I applied more tape to my ankle (which, frankly, was feeling more decent than it had in the past couple of weeks), and got situated between Cesar and Vinny at the wallball station.

In the first round, despite babying my left ankle and going painfully, frustratingly slow on my box jumps, I managed to hit two of my targets: 30 wallballs and over 100 total points. (I busted out exactly 30 wallball shots in the first minute, and at the end of the first five minutes, had acquired 101 points.)



And then, I hit a wall. In the second round, I cranked out only 16 wallball shots -- half of my total from the first round. Everything else was just as bad. My legs turned to jelly, and even with my wife and kids cheering me on from the sidelines, I felt like there wasn't enough air in the room to breathe.



Result: 229 points as RXed -- the same as my previous FGB score in January.



Not terrible, but not stellar, either. I wish I could chalk it all up to wonkiness from my ankle sprain, but honestly, I just bit it in the second and third rounds. I was probably a little more careful with my ankle than I would have otherwise been, but it didn't hurt during the workout. Or maybe it did, but the rest of my body was in too much pain for me to notice my foot.

Still, this was hands-down the most raucously enjoyable event I've attended at CrossFit Palo Alto. Families and friends and even folks from other gyms were on hand to cheer and compete, and to share an excellent potluck lunch afterwards.

And did I mention the kids' mini-FGB? Because it was awesome.

A few more photos from Fight Gone Bad, after the jump...

Saturday's Workout

Here's how I know I'm addicted to this stuff: I woke up this morning at 6, and my first thought of 2011 was "I can't wait to do Murph."

"Murph," by the way, is a CrossFit workout named in honor of twenty-nine-year-old Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy of Patchogue, New York, who was killed in Afghanistan five years ago.

His story is an incredibly harrowing and tragic one. In the summer of 2005, Murphy led a SEAL team on Operation Redwing, a mission to kill or capture Ahmad Shah, a Taliban leader. While on the mission, the four men on the team -- Murphy, Marcus Luttrell, Danny Dietz and Matthew Axelson -- were discovered in their hiding spot by local goat herders. The team initially detained the herders, but after some debate about whether the herders might betray their location, let them go. But within the hour, the four SEALs were pinned down in a fierce firefight against upwards of 150 Taliban fighters. The herders, it appears, betrayed their location.

During the firefight, Murphy exposed himself to enemy fire to reach higher ground to call for backup with his cell phone; he was successful, but was shot in the abdomen during the conversation. He returned to the fight, but did not survive the night. Dietz and Axelson were also eventually killed in the course of the next two hours. Luttrell was the sole survivor. Despite severe injuries, he managed to evade capture and crawl and walk seven miles until he was taken in by Pashtun tribesmen who protected him from Taliban forces until he was rescued by U.S. forces a week later. (Luttrell later wrote a book, "Lone Survivor," recounting the battle and its aftermath.)

Murphy was the first person to be awarded a Medal of Honor (posthumously) for actions in Afghanistan, and the first member of the Navy to receive the award since Vietnam.

According to the CrossFit main site, "[t]his workout was one of Mike's favorites." It's now one of mine, too.

For time:

• 1 mile run
• 100 pull-ups
• 200 push-ups
• 300 squats
• 1 mile run

You have to start and finish with the running, but you're allowed to partition the pull-ups, push-ups and squats however way you want. (Optional: Wear a weight vest or body armor -- Mike Murphy-style.)

I decided to break up the 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 squats into 20 rounds of Cindy -- which, as you may remember, is a 20-minute AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 squats. Although I've not yet encountered a full 20 minutes of Cindy, we've done a 1/2 Cindy (10 minutes) and a 3/4 Cindy (15 minutes) in class. Each time, I'd managed to crank out about one round per minute.

Figuring I'd lose a little steam as the workout progressed, I estimated that 20 rounds would take me approximately 22 minutes to complete. I'm not a speedy runner, so I assumed my two mile-long runs would take 8 minutes each. And 22 + 8 + 8 = 38 minutes.

So how close was I to my guesstimate? Ten seconds off. I finished in 37:50. (Or thereabouts. The clock actually said 38:05, but I'm subtracting the roughly 15 seconds it took me to haul myself up off the floor, stagger over to my stopwatch, fumble with its buttons and finally stop the time.)

Nothing like a long metcon to kick off a brand new year, right?

Saturday's Workout

Because I'm a masochist, I decided to cobble together a pre-lunch metcon workout and get sweaty in my garage.

For time:

• 25 Pull-ups
• 25 Plyo Box Jumps
• 25 Push-ups
• 25 Deadlifts (135-pound barbell)
• 20 Pull-ups
• 20 Plyo Box Jumps
• 20 Push-Ups
• 20 Deadlifts (135-pound barbell)
• 15 Pull-ups
• 15 Plyo Box Jumps
• 15 Push-Ups
• 15 Deadlifts (135-pound barbell)

Result: 13:47, and flat on my back.

Saturday's Workout

Yesterday, at the end of the 5 a.m. workout, our coach casually mentioned that the Saturday morning class would be doing "Angie" -- one of the original CrossFit benchmark workouts:

For time:

• 100 pull-ups
• 100 push-ups
• 100 sit-ups
• 100 squats

It looks like this:



Well, hell. I didn't want to miss this. "Angie" is a bodyweight-focused WOD, and therefore totally up my alley. But I'm playing suburban dad today -- shuttling the boys to martial arts class and a soccer game -- so there's no way I'm going to make it to the gym.

Thankfully, the only piece of equipment required for "Angie" is a pull-up bar, and I have one in my garage. And the kids weren't going to get out of bed until 7:30, so...

It was a no-brainer to start the day with "Angie," right?

Not so much. The first dozen or so pull-ups went off without a hitch, but then it started to really, really suck as my forearms started to cramp up. Soon, I found myself unable to string together more than three pull-ups in a row without dropping off the bar. It took me almost ELEVEN MINUTES just to get through the pull-ups.

Thankfully, the other three exercises in "Angie" are solidly in my wheelhouse. I cranked out all 100 push-ups in 3 minutes, and the sit-ups (my favorite -- not kidding) took even less time. My plan of attack with the squats was to break them up into five sets of 20, and just fly through them. It worked.

I finished "Angie" in 19:47.

If I can manage to improve my pull-up time (and, say, cut it in half), I might be able to one day complete this workout in less than 15 minutes, which would be awesome.

Of course, even then, I still wouldn't come close to Chris Spealler's 10:11 "Angie" time. I mean, the guy started by stringing together 70 straight pull-ups, fer cryin' out loud.

Saturday's Workout

I normally rest on weekends, but this morning, when my wife started getting ready for her kickboxing class, I felt like a slacker. So I trudged into the garage to give the "Tabata This" workout a try:

• Tabata Row
• Rest 1 minute
• Tabata Squat
• Rest 1 minute
• Tabata Pull-up
• Rest 1 minute
• Tabata Push-up
• Rest 1 minute
• Tabata Sit-up

Each exercise is performed as a Tabata set: 8 intervals of 20 seconds of work, followed by 10 seconds of rest. After doing all 8 intervals of one exercise, rest for one minute before moving onto the next exercise. The entire workout (including breaks) takes exactly 24 minutes.



Your "Tabata This" score is calculated by totaling the least number of reps you were able to crank out in any of the 8 intervals (or, in the case of the row, the least number of calories burned during any of the eight intervals).

Results: Hoo boy. Here's how I did, round by round:

• Tabata Row: 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5

• Tabata Squats: 18 | 19 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18

• Tabata Pull-Ups: 11 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 3

• Tabata Push-Ups: 20 | 20 | 18 | 14 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 13

• Tabata Sit-Ups: 16 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15

My score: 5 + 18 + 3 + 13 + 15 = 54

The row and squats made my legs burn, but the pull-ups and push-ups were the moves that really did me in.