Albany CrossFit Saturday Smackdown!!!!

Talk about good timing. I’m in Upstate New York visiting family so I have to stop into Albany CrossFit while there. I emailed the gym asking when a good time to drop in was and the owner, Jason Ackerman, writes back that once a month they do something big and special for their gym and this upcoming Saturday, August 21st, they are putting together a workouts that mimics CrossFit Competition. SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!

I originally planned to stop in on a Thursday or Friday night but after hearing about the Saturday Smackdown I rearranged my plans to be there.

Now here is where common sense and wanting to do something can get you in trouble. I was supposed to go to the Saratoga Track on Saturday with my entire family and be home at noon. The Smackdown started at 10am, a normal CrossFit class is 1 hour so I should be good. Jason started to brief the smack down and said this will take up to 2 hours, CRAP, that means it might end when I’m supposed to be home. What went through my head next was:

1. I’m awesome……I can do the 2 hours of work in an hour or less because again, I’m awesome
2. This looks like so much fun and I really really want to do it, so it’s worth risking being late plus they probably wouldn't be that irritated (yes famous last words)

For the Saturday Smackdown they scheduled everyone to do 3 mini WODs followed by a 4th Mystery Chipper WOD that everyone will start together. So we are handed a sheet of paper with the three WODs that we can do in any order, and they are:

Event A: Max Effort Ground to Overhead (10 minutes to establish 1 rep max)

Event B: 10 Stones to Shoulder, 30 Burpees for time

Event C: 21-15-9 Prowler/KettleBell Swings

Since I can do these in any order, I was trying to figure out a strategy. I didn’t want to do the max ground to overhead first because I wanted a good warm up WOD before I got to this, so my plan was to do it second. Now I’ve never done a Prowler Push before and I’ve never picked up concrete stones to shoulder. Here is how my thought process went to selecting which WOD to do first. The stones to shoulder resemble work being done on the same muscle group associated with max ground to overhead so I wouldn’t want to exhaust myself here, plus Burpees SUCK!!!! Then I looked at the Prowler Push, I know nothing about it other than the videos I’ve seen on crossfit.com where they make it look very easy….easy enough where it looks like rest. Plus before moving to Seattle I lived in Alaska for the past 12 years where moving sleds over the ground is easy. See sleds glide across the ground and it’s takes zero physical effort to do it. After calculating what’s best I decided to go with the Prowler Push and KettleBell Swings, Hell I might not even break a sweat during this WOD.

3, 2, 1……GO!!!! I Started pushing the Prowler, wow this isn’t easy. In fact it’s damn hard. I got the first push down and back done without stopping and knocked out the first 21 kettlebells quick and unbroken. BUT, now my heart is racing like crazy and I can’t feel my legs. I pushed for the second round and made it to the turn around point without stopping but when I had to turn the sled around, I took a long walk staring at it, then pushed it very slow on the way back. Got there and knocked out the 15 kettlebells unbroken. I turned and looked at the prowler and thought to myself, “I might dislike the prowler more than rowing” and that says a lot. This push went slow with a few short rests and got back knocked out the last 9 kettlebell swings unbroken and collapsed. 4:52 was my time. I was torched after this WOD, I had Fran cough and I couldn’t feel my legs. Doing this WOD before the max ground to over head was one of the worst decisions I’ve made since saying the landing from my amazing jumping ability, resembles being thrown from a bull (full story of that here http://crossfit50states.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-to-really-cowboy-up.html ). If I showed up and only did this WOD today, I would have felt like I accomplished a lot and got a good workout but now I had 3 more to go.

I have no idea how long I laid there, I finally heard Jason Yell, “30 more minutes”, Ahhhhh crap I did the first WOD in 4:52 and wasted so much time trying to recover from it, oh well time to move on and if I suck I suck. I didn’t do bad at ground to overhead, I did it by Power Clean and split jerk, I got up 215. I attempted 225 twice, I was able to power clean it into position but I was smoked and couldn’t jerk it overhead. I was really wanted 225 too because I heard Austin Malleolo scream at one of the guys that went before me that if he got 225 overhead he’d be second overall for the day. He didn’t get it up so when it was my turn that was a goal………..Oh and if you don’t know who Austtin Malleolo is, he’s one of the trainers at Albany Crossfit and he just beasted the 2010 CrossFit Games by placing 6th overall. http://games2010.crossfit.com/blog/2010/04/athlete-profile-austin-malleolo,333/ The guys an animal and you’ll regularly see videos of him working out on the crossfit main site. Ok back on track, I didn’t get 225 overhead, I feel I could have if I were fresher but that’s bad strategy on my part, oh well.

Since I was running out of time I had to move right to the Stone to shoulder and burpee workout. This wasn’t that bad once I learned the technique. I wish wish wish I had selected this WOD as my warmup WOD. Don’t get me wrong it’s still difficult but the Prowler/Kettlebell WOD kicked me in the tool shed. I finished the stone/burpee one in 5:01, not great but not bad either.

I looked at the clock and it was noon, I’m supposed to be home to head to the track butttttttttttt this was too much fun and I had a mystery WOD yet to do. I decided to risk annoying the family in order to finish the competition. Austin briefed the mystery WOD and it was as follows:

-Run 800 Meters
-1 Max Stone to Shoulder – For every pound you pick up you take one second off your overall time, so if you lift 130 that’s 130 seconds. You only get up to 2 attempts and with the limited stones and amount of people you might be waiting in line for one, so the key here is get back soonest and go for it.
-Run 600 Meters
-75 air squats
-Run Backwards 400 Meters
-50 box jumps
-30 burpees over paralettes
-Run 200 Meters

Since I have a habit of going out too fast and gasing myself on these chipper WODs I decided to follow the lead pack and feel myself out. By time we hit the last 200 meters of the 800 I felt good and ran to the front so I could be the first one to choose which Stone to lift, I did the 130 pound stone quick and too easy so I looked over at the 150 and 175 but both had long lines so instead of wasting time in the line I decided to just hit my 600 and take the 130 lift I did. I knocked out the 600 quick and was first back again to start the 75 air squats……..here is where I hit a wall. The Prowler was still a big monkey on my back and I had no legs, I was in shock I had to break up friggin air squats, I mean they are air squats……WTF. Stupid Prowler, I’ll remember this. I broke them up enough where I was first in and had 10-15 people hit the next run ahead of me. The run backwards was slow, but it was slow for everyone. Next moved to box jumps and burpees, they are what they are just something you suck up and gut through. So I did that and ran he last 200 pretty strong, finished it in 19:51 subtract my 130 lift so final time 17:41.

I wanted to stay around and have the crew tally up the scores and see how I did overall but I saw the clock and it was 12:45, awwww crap I’m going to have some pissed off family.

I guess my family thought I was going to be home at 11am so they were freaking out, my phone blew up. I had 10 missed calls, a ton of texts and they sent my brother to Albany CrossFit to try and find me, they were worried I got injured. So I got home apologized for being late, dad was annoyed, wife was annoyed, and so was everyone else buttttt between you, me and the world wide web :-) it was worth it. I had such a great time, I wish I could do it again.



more pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9631352@N02/sets/72157624688341797/with/4929292467/

I really need to find a way to get paid to visit CrossFit gyms, that'd be sweet and the job for me :-)

Great Barrington, Massachusetts www.crossfitgreatbarrington.com

So this time my travels brought me back east to Massachusetts where I went to CrossFit Great Barrington.

As I walked from the parking lot to the gym I could already hear a lot of yelling and motivation then as I walked in it was a smaller class since it was later in the morning but Mike Bissaillon, the owner, was just as excited with the small class as he is with larger classes. Watching and talking with Mike you could tell he was very keyed up about what he did and CrossFit.

Before the WOD for my class started I talked with Mike for a little and it’s always fun hearing how people were exposed to CrossFit, some get exposed through friends, sports, just luck etc... I asked Mike how he was exposed to CrossFit and he attended a KettleBell Competition……I had no idea there were KettleBell Competitions, so Mike noticed that a lot of people doing the best at these competitions were CrossFit athletes. Since Mike was a personal trainer before CrossFit, he was always looking for the latest and greatest methods to get himself and his clients in the best shape. So when he looked up CrossFit after being exposed to them at the KettleBell Competitions he was hooked and it was a natural progression for him to move from personal training to CrossFit. Funny how so many people that come from so many different backgrounds come to the same conclusion about CrossFit after their first exposure to it.

This week I caught their gym on CrossFit Games Week. They were doing the WODs from the 2010 CrossFit Games and today’s WOD was:

Seven rounds for time of:

205 pound Clean, 3 reps

4 Ring handstand push-ups

Now when I watched this WOD during the games I thought the power cleans looked easiest but the ring hand stand pushups looked ridiculous and where everyone lost time. I am advanced but wasn’t ready to do this WOD with ring handstand push-ups so I scaled this wod to regular Handstand Push-ups on 45 pound plates and 1 ab mat for my head to hit for each rep. Since I scaled the ring handstand pushups I thought I’d destroy this WOD and go faster than the top games athletes like Graham Holmberg who completed it in 4:26 or Chris Spealler (who weighs 140ish) that did it in 4:27. Sure I’m not a top ranked world class CrossFit athlete competitor like those guys but I am an advanced CrossFit practitioner and since I scaled the WOD I should blow through it like a champ.

Now I’m strong and still this weight was humbling. I originally figured this would be an easier quick wod but what happened was I went through the first 2 rounds pretty fast but by round 3 the weight got EXTREMELY heavy. I was missing reps and had to take breaks in between power cleans. I had no idea this would be my slow area. When I watched the games, the athletes made the 205 pound power cleans seem like a nuisance time kill exercise that was easy and in their way as they went to the difficult part of the WOD. This was the complete opposite for me. The handstand push-ups I was able to blow through but had to break up and rest the 205 pound power cleans. They were heavyyyyyy, so another humbling, yet fun, WOD that kicked my butt which I completed in a much much MUCH slower time than the games athletes who did it with ring handstand push-ups.

Mike and crew were a lot of fun and have a great place, I felt bad I was going to miss their going away WOD/BBQ they were having later that night for one of their college kids heading to school. If I’m in the area again I’ll definitely stop by. I had a Great time. http://www.crossfitgreatbarrington.com/

Hello Statue of Liberty

Hello Statue of Liberty

You're welcome

No story just a picture of two really good looking guys for your viewing pleasure.

YOU'RE WELCOME!!!

Fun weekend floatin the river and one minor hiccup

What a fun weekend. A group from CrossFit Bellevue decided to put a group of people from the gym to float the river. It was a fun group of gym members and friends of friends.

It was a nice relaxing float, everyone was having a great time and relaxing. About the third hour into the trip we come to the spot where people are climbing logs and jumping into the river. It looks pretty safe, tons of drunks are doing it so two sober people should have no problem.

I go the first time and come out unharmed So i'm about to jump a second time and decide to coax Erin to get up and do it too. Erin at first says no but I start ribbing her that tons of chicks are doing it and there are drunks everywhere doing it so since she's sober, she'll be fine.

Normally this isn't something she normally does but it's my job to help her past her comfort zone, after a little bit of talking her into it she decides to jump in. We are on the log and Erin looks at me and goes "this is pretty irresponsible" I go naaaaaaaaaa it's fun. She's climbing out onto the log and as she's there a group of drunken people lose control of their rafts and float right under where she's at, so she can't jump otherwise she'll land right on them. Erin starts to lose balance and instead of jumping in on top of them she jumps closer to shore and hits a very shallow area, lands straight leg and breaks her knee(Tibial Plateau Fracture). Just a fluke and crappy timing for what was still a great day.

I was asked by other friends if I felt guilty for talking Erin into jumping off the log but the truth is I've been talking her into doing stuff she never wanted to initially do since I met her. 1. marrying me 2. doing CrossFit 3. Last minute trip to Italy and other traveling 4. getting tattoos etc.... there are lots more and they all worked out great, so Erin didn't get mad at me for talking her into it, we both agreed it was just a fluke.................I'll still think twice before talking her into doing nutty stuff where she can possibly get hurt, however i'll still jump off the nearest object and ride the baddest bull, WHAT'S UP!!!! :-)

Besides it's not a party unless someone gets arrested or breaks something :)

Trip Back to Alaska and paid a visit to Revolution Sports Training, Crossfit Alaska

Yay!!!!! I got to go back to Anchorage, Alaska this weekend for a wedding, and I was able to squeeze in two visits to Revolution Sports Training, Crossfit Alaska.

I had a busy busy weekend with being in the wedding so I was only able to go there during the days since my evenings were jam packed.

I flew in Friday and Landed at 10am, my third phone call was to the gym to see what times they had available.

Their Friday WOD:

“Going towards the Light”

10 Pushups, 20 sit-ups, 30 double unders

20 pushups, 30 sit-ups, 40 double unders

&.As many rounds in 20 min as possible

I wound up completing

Pushups Sit-ups Double Unders

10 20 30

20 30 40

30 40 50

40 50 60

50 60 70

34(time ran out)

Grand Total

184 pushups 200 sit-ups and 250 Double Unders.

Very fun WOD, this is one I plan on doing again in 3-6 months to see if I made any improvement. I hit failure a bunch of times in pushups so I can make up time and reps there. Sit-ups I stayed pretty steady and didn’t need to break them up much. I made up time on double unders, I can knock these out pretty quick and link a lot together. Towards the later rounds I did trip up more than I have liked so I could still see significant time improvements here too.

So ultimately, I was happy with how I did. I’m not going to lie, going into the gym my goal wasn’t to destroy the wod, get the top time then do some air humping while screaming out how awesome I am. I save that for back home. My goal was to “not suck” and perform in or near the top group of people. I know cf Alaska hasn’t seen me at their gym since I moved last year and I wanted to make a good showing. This is just an outstanding gym with a lot of hard core crossfitters and elite athletes training there, so even though I’m 37, the competitive ego maniac in me wanted to make sure I earned my Crossfit street credit with them, dammit.

After the WOD I had to go get ready for the wedding rehearsal dinner then the bachelor party. CF Alaska holds an Advanced Crossfit Class once a week on Saturdays at noon, so I told everyone at the gym that I’ll be in for this class no matter what time I finish the night.

So I went out for the bachelor party and we had our nails done, got a facial and consumed a lot of milk and cookies. It was a fun night. You know you’ve had too much milk and cookies when you’re outside a “Chuck E Cheese” at 3:30am and a stranger leaving “Chuck E Cheese” brushes the glitter off your shoulder that must have gotten on you from Chuck E Cheese bumping against you, then the stranger offers you a swig from their flask of milk and you say ok…..Always a bad decision.

I finally get to sleep at 4am-ish, now anytime I consume too much milk and cookies my body punishes me where instead of sleeping it off, I’ll wake up really early so I’m awake for the pain. I wound up waking up at 730am, I actually felt pretty good but that was because I was still feeling the happy effects of the milk and cookies…….as the morning went on it turned from happy Ron to this is the most pain I’ve had since got sick and blew an eye vessel from consuming too much milk and cookies.

I laid there watching t.v. wishing I could go to sleep and debating whether or not to go to the gym. I told Clay and Tony I’d make it in plus I hadn’t seen Sith yet and I really wanted to meet up with him and workout. Ok here is another thing I’m not proud of, while laying there debating on if I should go to the gym or not I tried to find reasons to dislike Tony, Clay and Sith. I thought if I could think of things they did that were mean and bad to me, I’d start to dislike them and then I wouldn’t feel guilty for skipping the gym and breaking my word. It’s dirty but I wasn’t in the right frame to make rational decisions. Unfortunately or fortunately, I couldn’t think of something so at 11am I decided to get up, take a shower and head to the gym.

Now Clay doesn’t like to announce what the wod is for the CF Advanced class until a few minutes before it starts. He announces his regular cf classes the day before but his advanced class gets something special. So I’m there hoping…..HOPING his advanced class will have muscle ups and heavy weights. I wanted to do higher technical skills and heavy weights with less reps than a lot exercises where I’m going up and down a lot.

This is what Clay broke to the crew:

“3’s a Crowd”

3 minutes to accumulate 30 seconds in a free standing hand stand.

If you go over 30 seconds then divide by 2 is the stager at the start of the WOD.

Then Perform:

Jackie – 1,000 Meter row, fifty 45 pound thrusters, 30 pull-ups

Diane – 21-15-9 Deadlift 225 pounds and Hand Stand Pushups

Grace – 30 reps Clean and Jerk 135 pounds.

You can do them in any order but must complete it in 30 minutes.

I struggled which one to start with. I dislike rowing the most of all the exercises but thought if I burned that wod hard I’d puke and be worthless for everything else. I didn’t know if I could do a HSPU in my condition, doing anything upside down could be really bad for me. I wound up deciding to do Diane first, my thought was let’s see if I can do a handstand pushups and get them over with right away then see if gravity will help whatever is left in my stomach rush out violently.

I had a 1 minute and thirty second lag before I could start the wod because of how long it took me to get the 30 second hand stand. And funny as soon as they said 3…2..1…GO for everyone else, I ran right to the bathroom and puked before my first movement. YAY me, this is going to go great. I got back just in time for me to start. The deadlifts felt really light, it could have been because I was so focused on the pain in my head and holding in the dry heaving feeling. I burned through Diane in a decent time for my condition, I don’t know how my technique was or if I had full range of motion but I really didn’t care. After I completed my last 9 HSPU I did run outside for a quick dry heave, I really wished I had something in me to come out, dry heaving hurts.

I moved on to Grace, I knocked out 10 reps in a row, I could have done more but the up and down motion was hitting my head pretty hard so I had to break them up 5 at a time after that until the gremlins stopped jack hammering in my head. Once this was done I looked at the rower and started swearing to myself. Why did I save the row for last? STUPID STUPID STUPID. Now on a normal day I’d hit a wod like Jackie and be mad if I rowed slower than a 1:50 500 meter splits for my row time(I’m not the greatest but I’m not the worst rower), todayyyyyyy I was hoping for 2 minutes or faster but wound up being happy with my 2:15 splits :-) hey it was over and that was the best part. Looking at 50 thrusters after the row and at the end of a long WOD with feeling like I did was horrible. I would normally knock all 50 of the light thrusters in a row out butttttt I have no idea how I broke these up, I know I lost count when I was in my 30’s so I honestly did somewhere in the 40’s to 50-ish thrusters. Then I moved onto the pull-ups, time was running out so I was only able to get 10 before the 30 minute cap was over. It’s a long grinding wod I would normally like for a Saturday. I don’t wish I did better, I was just happy I showed up and survived.

It was good to be back at the Alaska gym, had a great time seeing the people from before and the new he and she-studs they are developing.

Oh p.s. Way to go Sith, he was Ripped and killing the WOD!!!! I’ve known Sith for years and we partied in Vancouver B.C. together. Back then his main form of exercising was battle break dancing and playing volleyball vs. elementary school kids. He looked like a modern day bruce lee but just a different nationality with a big cheesy smile on his face………However I'm sure Sith will still battle dance against you in a second. Clay and Tony need to come up with a special WOD for Sith with a mix of CrossFit and Break Dancing, then post the video so we can enjoy :-)

p.s.s. Sorry If I wasn't very talkative Saturday but when I feel that way there is not an ounce of wit, conversation or funny in my body. All personality is gone until I'm recovered

A special Crossfit Moment brought to you today by Heavy Squat Clean Thrusters

WOD: Five rounds of 5-squat cleant thruster, 10 Chest to bar pull-ups.

weights: men 135 women 95

My time: 8:58

This Crossfit moment is brought to you today by “heavy squat clean thrusters”.

Yesterday’s WOD is one of the many reasons why Crossfit and the community separates itself from personal trainers and globo-gyms. I went in excited about the workout but already had it planned in my head that I would scale the weight. I’ve done heavy thrusters before but not 135 pound squat clean thrusters and I wanted to really burn the workout so thought it would be best to scale down.

On a regular day I’ll go into the gym and look at the white board to see everyone’s time. I’ll look through and use someone as a guide to what times to shoot for, what weights to use and who to try and beat for time and score. This guide helps me to really get that extra little push and intensity, I’ve been doing it since day one I started cf but then it was don’t come in dead last and month after month I’d pick someone higher and higher to shoot for.

You can walk into a cf gym go up to someone and ask “what was your weight or time”; you can’t do that at a globo-gym or personal trainer.

Here are a couple of conversations for you, first one at a globo-gym:

Me: Hey what did you curl over there

globo-nerd: I did 35 pound dumbbells, eight reps. My guns got a good burnnnnn

Me: Dude I’m going to totally smoke you and do 10 reps because I’m AWESOME!!!!!

globo-nerd: Get away from me dumb a$$ I’m going to work on my pecks then hit the tanning bed.

Now if you go up to someone in a cf gym and have a similar conversation:

Me: What was your time today?

Crossfit addict: It’s tough one today, I got 8:57

Me: Not bad, I assume I’ll get 8:56 or better because I’m AWESOME!!!!!

Crossfit addict: Hahahaha you dummy, not a chance you’ll gas after the first round.

The difference is they’ll stay around and watch, cheer you on to beat them, be excited if you do beat them and be just as excited if you don’t, then after you can still talk trash, have fun and grab a beer.

So back to yesterday, I went in thinking I’d scale the wod then looked at the white board and saw Levi did level 3, when I saw that I said to myself “Fu**ing levi, A$$ Face, Butt munching, pain in my junk” Now I’m not taking anything away from levi, he’s a stud, but weighs a lot less than me. I originally wanted to scale but since I saw he did level 3 at 135 pounds, I felt obligated to do it too. Which was a good thing because I had a good wod, got it completed in a decent time. So ultimately that whiteboard again helped push me to something I wouldn’t voluntarily do on my own.

Again, this Crossfit moment is brought to you today by “heavy Squat Clean Thrusters” and Fu**ing levi, the “A$$ Face, Butt munching, pain in my junk”

p.s. and yes, I beat Levi's time(cough cough by over 3 minutes cough cough), not that it's important to point that out butttt I'M AWESOME!!!!!!!

Valdosta Georgia www.crossfitvaldosta posted by Erin

I went to Valdosta, Georgia to visit my very good friend Tracy and her family. Of course my husband being the freak he is said that I had to visit a Crossfit gym while I was there for a few days. Sure I was going to do it anyway because both JT (Tracey’s Husband) and Kayla (their daughter) train at Crossfit Valdosta and secretly I love doing Crossfit too so I’d even go on my weekend of hanging out, wine drinking and gossiping with Tracy :-)

I arrived Friday morning and had some time to kill during the day. It was about noon and I wanted to burn off some energy so I decided to go for a run. I told Tracy I was about to go running and she called me absolutely crazy and that nobody goes running in Georgia during June at noon. I might actually explode into dust. I laughed it off and went anyway……….HOLY CRAP IT WAS HOT. I used to run . . . a lot! I ran 6 days a week. I’ve ran 5K and 10K races. I ran a half marathon and was training for a 110 mile team relay and hoping to do a full marathon. Needless to say, I love running but I made it about 1 mile and had to stop. . . yes 1 mile! Then I noticed that there were no people on the street. Being from Seattle you are used to seeing people biking, walking, running everywhere. I was literally the only person on the street. When I got back to the house everyone was just laughing giving me a lot of I told you so’s. They thought it was so funny that when they introduced me to other people they opened it with “this is our friend Erin from Seattle can you believe she tried to run outside at noon, hahahahahaha”.

I made plans with Kayla and JT to visit their box, www.crossfitvaldosta.com, on Saturday. Saturday is when their gym does the Hero WOD’s and longer, intense Crossfit wods. The owner of the gym, Trebor Marple, gave Kayla and JT a warning about bringing me to the Saturday WOD and emphasized this is a longer hard wod, are you sure she’s up for it. This freaked them out wondering if they were up for it. They have been in Crossfit for a year and never did a Saturday workout before. They were now questioning if they were ready for a Saturday WOD. JT was sweating the whole time worrying how wrecked he’d get from the wod.

So Saturday finally comes around and we’re doing:

"The Seven"

Seven rounds for time of:
7 Handstand push-ups
135 pound Thruster, 7 reps
7 Knees to elbows
245 pound Deadlift, 7 reps
7 Burpees
7 Kettlebell swings, 2 pood
7 Pull-ups

They started the timer with a cap of 35 minutes. I didn’t think I’d need it but it was nice to know it was there because workouts always look so much more fun and easy on the board. So we’re in the workout and after round 3 I felt my hands start to rip, normally if they get bad at my gym I’ll stop and modify my pull-ups for pushups because once their torn Im pretty worthless. I didn’t want to look like a pansy so I just kept plugging on feeling my hands get worse and worse. Plus, Trebor, the owner of the gym was working out with us and from what I know, had been severely injured when he was hit by a car while training for a triathalon and crossfit helped him recover, he’s a beast. Here is his a link to his bio http://www.crossfitvaldosta.typepad.com/trebor_marple/ . I couldn’t very well bitch about my little ripped hands while this dude is killing the wod right next to me. The time limit was coming near and JT, Kayla and I were still going, we mentally high fived each other because the workout was almost out of time. I was finishing up my thrusters as the time neared so instead of moving to knees to elbows I skipped to the deadlift because I didn’t want to just quit but I didn’t think my hands could endure any more, then I went onto the burpees and kettle bell swings. I had another three rounds to go when the timer ran out and then Trebor yells “Don’t stop, don’t worry about the time limit just keep going” ……….WHAT THE WHAT! I was trying to hide the pain on my face as my hands ripped open more and more and now to finish the round I had to do my knees to elbows and pull-ups back to back. I threw on gloves but that didn’t work. I ripped those off. One of the guys who had finished grabbed some tape and tried to tape up my hands but between the blood and sweat, that easily fell off. They were nice enough to let me finish my knees to elbows on the rings instead of the bars to help with the sliding. I was finally on my last round of pull-ups and as Kayla was standing there cheering me on a piece of my hand skin fell off and floated ever so gently passed her face to the floor. I was literally holding back tears. Everyone in the gym was very cool as they finished they hung around and were cheering us on, I have no idea how they all knew my name but I kept hearing them yell “push it Erin, go go” So no stopping now, push through the pain.

Finally I finished. I’m so happy I moved on but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a pull-up or anything on the bar for a couple of weeks. My hands were ripped up really bad.

I had a great trip visiting friends. The box was awesome, Trebor and Kate were great, Trebor was a rockstar and a great coach. After he finished his WOD he grabbed his gear and started doing reps next to the group to try and push them through the end.

Kids Bored at the airport

Northwest Crossfit Regionals and Salmon & Sweet Potato vs a Wallet left out in the open

What a fun weekend. I’m reaching a new level of “nerd”, I had so much fun watching the Northwest Regional Crossfit Games and I wasn’t even participating.

Crossfit is becoming more popular and mainstream so people are training harder each year plus more world class athletes are joining, so the level of fitness in these competitors is reaching the levels of comic book superhero’s.

I knew a few people competing in the games so Erin and I were cheering on people from our old stomping grounds in Alaska, My friend Jared who was competing with a rival affiliate team, the gym we train at, Crossfit Bellevue had an affiliate team and Matt was competing in the individual competition.

Matt had an injury within the month leading up to the games, I know he took some time off training so I’m not sure how that affected him overall. He still performed like a beast and he was very impressive even without qualifying. Our affiliate team did great, unfortunately they didn’t qualify for the Crossfit Games and the Crossfit gods messed with me because they placed one spot lower than the affiliate team I had made a bet against. It was literally one spot in the overall standings difference and now I have to take Jared and a friend of his to dinner and I don’t get my free babysitter…..uggggh. Oh well nothing I can do they performed great; I was very impressed with their effort.

This year there was some really stiff competition and it’s an eye opener for the years to come. There isn’t a weak link in these competitions. If an individual or team want to qualify for the next level they have to be a superstar and completely well rounded. There are too many people falling in love with Crossfit and getting into the games. I think this is a huge sign of its popularity and future of how strong people will be getting year after year.

Here were some highlights of the weekend.

#1. Chris Spealler………Who the Fu** is this guy!!!! I don’t have the complete collection of Crossfit bubble gum cards with all the competitors’ stats so I’m still learning who the mega studs in the sport are. I noticed him during the first WOD of 3 rounds: 135 pound overhead squats & 50 double unders. The field is full of machines and if you got a sub 5 minute time in this WOD you’re doing really good because this is a rough and heavy WOD. I’m in the stands and I see this guy throwing the weight around like it’s nothing plus I’ve never seen anyone do double unders so fast. He didn’t break rhythm at all and was running from the exercises instead of walking or taking any rest. He wound up killing that first WOD at 2 minutes 39 seconds. Chris Spealler also wound up winning 3 of the 4 individual events. If you don’t know who he is, here is a link to his profile: http://games2009.crossfit.com/competitors/athlete-profile-chris-spealler.html
Here is what caught me by surprise, the guy is only 140 pounds!!! The heavy weights didn’t slow this guy down, he crushed all the WODs, it definitely makes you go back and remind yourself there are no excuses in Crossfit. Size doesn’t matter it’s about your input into the training to get the super hero output.

#2. Tony Reishus in the deadlift. For this WOD the men had a choice of 263, 303, or 353 pounds then perform as many reps they can complete in 90 seconds. Most of the competitors chose the 263 or 303 weights and I think Tony was the only competitor to go for 353 pounds (correct me if I’m wrong). He knew going into it he had to complete 37 reps at 303 pounds or 31 reps at 353 pounds to win. Most people would go for the lighter weight and hope to knock out more reps but Tony went big. When people saw all the weight on his bar they started to crowd around his area. Tony wound up completing 25 reps and when I talked to him afterwards he sounded a little disappointed because he almost completed 26 reps but didn’t lock out his 26th rep in the time limit and that one extra completed rep would have moved him from 19th to 9th place. Plus it sounded like he was second guessing his strategy because he felt confident he could have gone the entire 90 seconds dead lifting 303 pounds without resting and keeping a faster pace. I still like the fact he went big and it was very impressive watching him deadlift 353 pounds 25 times.

#3. I wanted to point out one or two women but the reality is my wife and I were in shock at how many she-studs there were in the field. The weights they were lifting are heavy for men and they were crushing these WODs like machines. I like the barriers the women break with how they are pushing their strength, endurance and still staying very fashionable and hot :-) hey it’s my blog I can be happy for the women being sexy beasts. Crossfit women + Lulu = Very happy eyes for Ron.............not that I was looking, I'm a happily married man to a hot crossfit woman :)

#4. One of the funniest things at the games was when a member of the Crossfit Bellevue Affiliate team, Gabe Desgarennes, came running up asking if anyone had seem his Salmon. I asked where he had left it and he said the Salmon was sitting right next to his wallet in the bleachers. WTF??? So Gabe had left his cooked salmon and his wallet on the bleachers completely exposed, he left for a good hour or two in order to compete then when he got back, his wallet was sitting there but his salmon was gone. It got us talking that it was silly of him to leave cooked salmon out at the Crossfit games, however leaving a wallet or a bundle of cash in the open would be very safe because nobody will touch that. So money and credit cards left in the open are safe but if you leave salmon, cooked meat or a sweet potato out in the open …….it’s free game and doesn’t stand a chance.

I had a great time at the Northwest Regional Games, there wasn’t a weak link out there. I’m thinking of going to the Crossfit Games in California to watch and see the best of the best go at it. I’m excited for the next level and the years to come.

Northwest Regional Crossfit Games and a new bet

SWEEEEEEET!!!! May 15 and 16 are the Crossfit Northwest Regional’s and Affiliate Cup Team Competition. I’m not competing but I’m psyched to watch this event.

I’ve been training with the Crossfit Bellevue team, http://www.crossfitbellevue.com/, for the last couple of months so I got to witness the dedication and hard work they put in to get prepared for the games. I wasn’t able to keep up with the people competing but it was nice to train right along with them and get in better shape.

Today the Northwest Crossfit workouts have been announced: http://games2010.crossfit.com/blog/2010/05/nw-regional-events-announced/

I know people at various Crossfit gyms and everyone was nervous & excited for the announcement of the competition WOD’s. Now they are official and people are getting pumped and it got the trash talking started.

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts about my friend Jared, he is the person that introduced me to Crossfit. He’s an elite athlete that’s been in martial arts since he was a kid and has been doing Crossfit for the past 2-3 years. Jared is a close friend of mine that I coached for many years, we were training partners and he was a groomsman in my wedding.

Jared has won Mixed Martial Arts events, Pro TKD tournaments, National and International Olympic Style Sport TKD Tournaments too. So he has a phat martial arts resume and just this year he has focused on the Crossfit games. Jared is a stud, well rounded and just recently scored over 400 in fight gone bad. He’s competing on an Affiliate Cup Team with a competing Bellevue Crossfit gym. So we’ve been having fun talking trash back and forth on who will do better. Then when the Northwest Crossfit Games WOD’s were announced he text me.

And this is how the conversation went:

Jared: Sorry man……

Me: Sorry for what?

Jared: I’m apologizing early for how bad our team is gonna beat your team. LOL

Me: LOL, right. Have you done any of the WOD’s yet? The girls at our gym already have been practicing them and they have the clean and jerks down……and killed it. I think the women on the teams are going to be what pushes teams over the top. Our women are studs, how are your girls?

Me again: Better yet, we should make a wager. Your Bellevue team vs. the Crossfit Bellevue teams I train at.

Jared: Hmmmm a bet? Quite possible.

Me: If your team places higher than the team where I train, then Erin and I will take you and a friend to dinner, if CFBV places higher than the team you’re on then you’re babysitting my kids one weekend night(remember I have 3 kids)

Jared: Can I wait to verify that one of our girls gets over a bug she has?

Me: LOL really so this one girl is the entire life support of your team

Jared: No

Me: Sure, I’ll wait since you’re not that confident with your team

Jared: I was just Bull$hitting……..bets on

Me: LOL giddy up!

I love that I have a Crossfit challenge going on and I’m not in it :-)

I hope both teams do well and qualify for the next level of competition but I just hope Crossfit Bellevue places at least one spot higher.

GOOD LUCK TEAM CROSSFIT BELLEVUE
Jon
Gabe
Bill
Janice
Jen
Christina

You’re going to do great.

No pressure just go out and kick A$$.................otherwise you’re pitching in for dinner :-)

I can't believe I received my first "not win" sniff sniff

<------Jon L. At Washington Sectionals. Ok I’ve dragged my feet long enough, I’m finally updating my blog about my heads up challenge vs. Jon L. I’m very sad and still in disbelief that I did not win. I know, right…………………………..I didn’t win?????? This “non win” is messing with my head because I haven’t talked in third person since this happened. I’ve used “me” and “I” a lot. Here is the background to the challenge: http://crossfit50states.blogspot.com/2010/03/sometimes-im-put-into-situations-where.html

The original WOD was supposed to be:

10 rounds for time5 chest to bar pull ups5-135 pound Clean and Jerk200 Meter run

Jon is training for the Crossfit Games but I still believe that with the right WOD anyone can beat just about anyone if you use the right strategerie with WOD selection. I planned to use the above WOD but was still looking for advice to put me in the best position to win.

Dan, the Crossfit Bellevue gym owner, chopped up my WOD saying the right thing would be to do that WOD but cut it in half, so the challenge WOD was:

5 rounds
5 chest to bar pull-ups (chose chest to bar because my quickness will be an advantage for me compared to Jon who’s 6’6)
5 135 pound clean and jerks (chose this because I enjoy doing clean and Jerks and the last time I did Grace in October 2009 I did it in 2:59)
100 meter run.(for those that want to duplicate this WOD and compare times make sure you add in 2 flights of stairs because for us to run we have to run down 2 flights of stairs and back up them each round……..FYI stairs during a WOD suck!!)

So that was the thought process with the WOD selection.

I’m happy we went with fewer rounds because 5 rounds was a beast and gave me “Fran Cough” so I couldn’t imagine what 10 rounds of that would have done to me.

The First round I went as fast as I could thinking if I can get a good enough lead then when I hit that wall and gas out, hopefully it’s the 4th or 5th round and my lead will hold up because I know Jon won’t run out of gas. So I went out the first round and threw all technique out the window, instead of clean and jerking the weight I was trying to go too fast and cleaned it then pressed the weight above my head instead of jerking it. It was fast but uses too much muscle, this would come back to kick me in the A$$ in the later rounds. I knocked the chest to bar pull ups fast then went to run my 100 meters. I have a significant lead at this point and hope I’m in his head so he knows I’m a gamer and here to win…………But Because I’m an idiot, I ran past the 100 meter mark by about 30-40 yards…..so the significant lead I had built up, I lost almost all of it in the first round because I ran too far.

Going into the second round I’m not far ahead but I kicked this round in the butt and I’m still in the lead. This third round is when all the stupidness of running too far and pressing the weight instead of jerking it slapped me right in the face. I hit a wall and hit it hard. I thought I was going to vomit on the spot and my chest was about to explode. This is where Jon caught up to me and moved ahead going into the run. This was a huge mind screw because if he’s passing me so early in the WOD I’m in trouble, big trouble. I’m tired and I know he won’t get tired in round 4 and 5 so I need to pick it up or it’s over……………it was over, I had nothing left in me to move faster and try to catch up. I was in survival mode to just complete the WOD.

Dan had the entire gym do the same WOD before Jon and I went, so they stayed around to watch Jon and I go at it. When Jon moved ahead of me I heard all the shouts and cheers for me to catch up and move but unfortunately I didn’t have it in me. That really sucked not being able to pick it up with everyone being so supportive.

When I was in the last round I did my best to just keep moving and get the best time I could because I knew Jon was too far ahead of me to catch up. I ran up the last flight of stairs to complete the WOD, I was excited it was over then collapsed and laid there completely exhausted.

I laid on the concrete panting trying to catch my breathe and Jon walks up to me, gives me a high five, then says to Dan walking away, “That was fun and I’m not even tired”

If I had any energy left in me, I would have slapped him in the junk.

The final times were:

Jon completed the WOD in 8:18
I completed it in 10:30

I did get the third overall time for the day. The only other person to beat me was Matt, who is also training for the Crossfit games, he completed it in 9:16. But still I picked and created this WOD so I should have won.

I’ll also add that I love how after the WOD Challenge was over, that’s when I get great advice on exercise selection to beat Jon. It’s completed and I lost then people come up and go “you shouldn’t have done clean and jerks, Jon is just too good at that exercise”, “oooh you should have done burpee box jumps, Jon doesn’t like them and you’re fast”, “You should have done double unders you can both do them but you’re much faster at them than Jon” and “you should have done sit-ups you’re much faster than him”. They have all known of this challenge WOD for the past month and decided to give me their very valuable information now when it’s over?????………….Thanks A$$ Hats :-)

This brings my record to 2 wins and 1 loss.

My next challenge is vs. Gabe. I’m pretty sure Ron will wipe the floor with him…………….hey I just talked in third person, that must mean my swagger is coming back. Watch out world Ron’s ready to kick A$$ and take names.

p.s. I am not thrilled with how I performed. I threw away all technique trying to go too fast, ran too far in the first round and burned myself out too early in the WOD. I plan on doing this WOD again in 1-2 months and my goal is to beat 8 minutes and 18 seconds. I don’t plan on going against anyone; I just want to do it for myself. It won’t repair my loss but it will give me something to shoot for, plus this was a very fun WOD.

p.s.s. I will be posting a video of the heads up challenge in the next week or two.

WOD review and Upcoming Challenge WOD vs. the Giant

CrossFit: Three rounds of 20-box jumps, 20-med ball cleans, 800 meter run.

You’ve heard me say this before and I’m sure you’ll hear me say this again but this WOD seemed faster on paper.

I did this WOD on Friday instead of Thursday when everyone else did it. My goal for this was to be sub 20 minutes.

I attacked the box jumps and cleans pretty strong and was shocked at how heavy my legs felt when I went into my first 800 meter run. Running after linking box jumps and cleans aren’t something my legs enjoyed. My body was shocked and that first 800 meter run was rough. When I got back in for the 2nd round I made sure I didn’t break up my box jumps, I slowed down a little but kept constant motion which is something I struggle with. Same thing with the medicine ball cleans, I didn’t go fast like I normally prefer but I kept constant movement with no breaks. On the 2nd round of 800 meter run my legs were completely numb and I think I was able to push it faster. It might be I just felt fast and I was moving really slow. I wish I knew what my 800 splits were.

Then when I went in for my last round my whole body was numb so I did the box jumps unbroken again and medicine ball cleans unbroken too then went quickly into the run. Again not a super fast 800 meter split but I couldn’t feel my legs and I pushed it until my lungs burned.

I finished at 19:47, so I got my sub 20 minutes and it was a happy day for me.

___________________________
This Saturday is my challenge WOD vs. Jon. I don’t know why people think I’m the underdog in this.

If you look at the stats, I have 2 wins and 0 losses in challenge WODs. I dusted Dan in “Mess with a Navy Seal Day” and I beat Levi in the “Broad Jump” challenge. So I’m undefeated while Jon hasn’t even won a challenge WOD yet.

So you figure out how I'm an underdog.

Ron is undefeated in heads up challenge WODs
Jon hasn’t even won a heads up challenge WOD

Seems obvoius to me.

If you are in Crossfit long enough you’ll have strengths and weaknesses so when you put together a WOD for a heads up challenge you need to figure out which WOD suits your strengths and attacks your opponent’s weaknesses. So I may not win every WOD of the day but I’m strategic in picking WODs for the one on one challenges. Jons first mistake was being over confident and letting me pick any WOD I wanted for this……muahahahahaha.

RECOGNIZE I’m the undefeated champion for a reason, so EAT IT!!!!!

In case you’re curious the challenge WOD is:

10 rounds for time
5 pull ups
5-135 pound Clean and Jerk
200 Meter run

Shot quick bursts suit me better vs. Jon and I’ll get any rest I may need in the natural transition between exercises.

Another reason I’ll win this is………I have the lucky bobble head on my side, which will be watching over the challenge. Does Jon have a bobble head???? Nope. So WIN again for Ron.

I’m ready to be 3 and 0.

Gymnastics, Overhead Squats and Otter Pops

Gymnastic Skills & Overhead Squat strength day: 5 sets of 3 reps.

The first part of the workout was practicing gymnastic movements. This bothered my shoulder so I stopped doing them and went to other exercises. Erin killed it, she’s a tough broad :-)

The next part of the day was overhead squats, 5 sets of 3. Since gymnastics exercises bothered my shoulder I was nervous and started really light, actually too light. My goal was to play it safe and feel it out. So start really light then add weight seeing how much I could handle without being in pain.

The lifts felt really good and I kept going up in weight and added more sets. I wound up doing 9 sets because it felt so good. I finished my 8th set doing 145 pounds for 3 reps and on my 9th set I attempted 155 but only got 2 reps and dropped the bar on the last rep. If I had started heavier and didn’t do so many sets I feel I could have gotten the 155 and possibly more. The 155 pounds didn’t feel too heavy, but who knows if I could have actually done more. It's not “official” until you complete the exercises and reps.

Overall my shoulder felt really good and my only feeling of disappointment was because I felt I should have lifted more weight and started heavier sooner. I wanted to get into that group of people whose lifts are far above everyone else’s. It was a good lift day but not a day that make other people say "daaaaaaamn" that’s a lot of weight. I probably needed to overhead squat 165+ pounds to get into that group.

If the gym doesn’t schedule this strength in the next couple months I’ll do it on my own in the middle of June to see if I can get into that 165+ area for 3 reps with overhead squats.

Afterwards, I had more energy to burn off so when I got home I ran 2 miles. This was perfect because I got the biggest runners High I've had in a long time.

Originally, Erin and I had trouble getting motivated to go to the gym, we were tired and just not feeling it but we forced ourselves to go anyway. She did great, felt great and had a good strength day. I'm so glad I got off my butt and worked out too, it definitely helped our energy and both our moods for the evening.

Now it's time to reward myself……….I’m guessing 20-30 otter pops will do the trick. Don’t worry it’s Paleo. They are made with real otters :)

I need to fix my rowing so my finishes reflect how awesome I am

CrossFit: 400 run, 500 row, 800 run, 1000 row, 800 run, 500 row, 400 run.

I originally thought this was the same workout from February 8, 2010 (http://crossfit50states.blogspot.com/2010/03/february-08-2010.html). I was excited to compare and see if I made any improvement over the past 2 months. I attended a rowing seminar to clean up my technique so my time should improve. Now I know I had a relapse with my shoulder injury since then but I’m back and not using it as an excuse.

Unfortunately the WOD was a little different, everything was the same except an additional 800 meter run. Oh well can’t compare my time exactly but I can compare how I felt and see how my rows are coming along since that’s my weakest point.

I took off on the first 400 and like I expected I finished far in front of everyone. I guesstimate I was 15 seconds ahead of the next person, which was Jake, but he says I was ahead maybe 5-8 seconds max. I’m awesome so I’m sure it was 15 seconds which is an A** whoopin for 400 meter run :-) Unfortunately everyone is still a much better rower than me. Jake made up the 400 butt whoopin he took on the rower and was out the door for the 800 run first…………WTF that’s a lot of time to make up for a short row.

I wasn’t exhausted from the first 500 meter row so I bolted out the door planning to regain my lead. I caught Jake on the 800m run and came in the door ahead of him by a few seconds then went into the 1000 meter row………ick. Here is where everyone seemed to catch up to me. I don’t know if I was fatigued because I hadn’t been working my shoulders or back much since the injury or I just suck that much at rowing. Jake made up a ton of time on the 1000m row and was out the door probably 200+ meters ahead of me, plus Bill made up so much time on the row that he got out the door ahead of me too. I passed Bill on the run but Jake was really far ahead so catching him was tougher. I’m pretty sure I made up some time but he was about 200 meters ahead when I started. When I got in for my last 500 meter row, I was just happy it was a short distance so I could gut it out and get to a run.

During my last row Dan jumped my shi* which was a good thing. I guess I was flopping around like a fish and forgot everything I learned. I was wasting a ton of energy and going very slow. He tried giving me pointers but realized at this stage of the wod it was best to let me finish my last few hundred meters of the row then tighten up my stroke afterwards. Well I finished my row and saw that Jake was 100+ meters ahead again (stupid rower) but I had enough in me to push the run and I still thought I could catch him in the last 400m run :-)…………..well that didn’t work out like I planned, he finished far ahead of me, at least I took 2nd for that group and I was completely exhausted collapsing on the ground. I like that feeling because I know I pushed it as hard as I could go, for that day. So I was happy……..then I looked at the white board and saw I was 10th overall for the day, again my ego can’t handle that. I’m happy I got a good workout and I'm staying healthy but I need to fix some of the mechanics in these exercises so my times and finishes reflect how awesome I am.

In the end I need to get better at rowing or fake being sick on rowing days :-) After the workout dan cleaned up my row some and had me do an additional 500 meter row......yay(sarcasm)

I saw the workout for the following day…………….3 rounds for time: 1,000m row, 10 strict shoulder presses (65% 1 max rep), and 50 double unders. They should have titled that workout “Ron’s day off” And yes I did take that day off.

WOD Induced Temporary Memory Loss.

I will start this with.........No man should be held accountable for remembering anything after a hard crossfit workout. Your brain doesn't have the ability to remember important things at that time.

So with that this is your “how to” lesson for the day:

How to get into the Shi*house in less than 2 minutes with the wife.

The names and details of this story haven’t been changed, exaggerated or embellished in anyway. This is exactly how the story happened…………..unfortunately.

The other night at Crossfit Bellevue, after the workout the guys are putting together the rodeo man-cation along with myself to figure out which date to go on. So we are looking at a calendar and the best weekend to do it where everyone is free is July 10th. They ask if anyone has anything that weekend and everyone says no. Then Erin, my sweet and beautiful wife, steps in and goes "Ron you don't have anything going on that weekend?"

I say "no, no plans at all.....I'm open"

Erin again says "are you sure there is nothing important going on that weekend"

I'm nervous so I think for a second, no vacations planned, it’s not our wedding anniversary so I answer…….."yep no plans, absolutely nothing important going on. It's totally free"

Now Erin gives me another look where all the guys even look at me like I had better think hard because I’m obviously missing something………she goes "Ron SERIOUSLY you have nothing going on"

For some reason her email address popped into my head which is erinj710........7-july, 10-her birthday.......crappppppp, July 10th is her birthday.

Jon laughed so hard he had to walk away and Brian tried to help me fix the goof up with a little sweet talk…….yeah it didn't work :)

My theory is, I worked out so hard that all the blood stopped flowing to my brain so I didn't have the capacity to remember that very important date :-) I can’t be held accountable for things I say and can’t remember after a workout.

I think I fixed it, we'll celebrate her birthday the weekend before plus have Erin visit friends......see I'm a sweetheart :-) and I still get to go on the Rodeo Man-cation.

Time to really Cowboy Up!

My friends call me an extremely lucky person while other friends call me unlucky, I guess it depends on how you choose to look at the different fun/messes I seem to fall into.

I’m still on the fence with my current situation if I’m lucky or unlucky. I’m going to build up from how an innocent comment I made blew up into 8 people flying to Montana for a weekend.

In an earlier blog post I posted a video of the Onyon family games where you see me destroy the competition in a potato sack race. Because I jumped so high and so far I took a nasty fall at the end where I re-injured my shoulder.

So people at Crossfit Bellevue asked how I hurt myself and I innocently said I re-injured it riding a bull.

Now I didn’t think anyone would actually believe me but someone took it hook line and sinker and said that I’m re-injuring myself because I do crazy activities like riding a bull.

I can’t be blamed if they believe my ridiculous statements. Then Gabe was nice enough call me out for really hurting my shoulder in a potato sack race.

So I told them the truth…..and my truth is, I jumped so high and so far that when I landed it's the same height and has the impact as someone riding and being thrown from a bull…..you can’t laugh it’s true, I have ups baby.

This led to a bunch of trash talking and joking around. Then Jake at the gym says "Ron do you actually want to know what it feels like to ride a bull, I may be able to set it up"

Everyone gets instantly excited and wants to make it happen, so of course I say “Set it up”.

Next Jakes dad, Brian, steps in laughing his a** off and says he can and will set up all the bull riding and steer wrestling we can handle, if we’re serious. I definitely have more brawn than brain and have never let a little bit of pain step in the way of some glory. So I cowboyed up and said “HELL YEAH MAKE IT HAPPEN”.

So 8 of us are planning to go to the ranch in Montana and spend the weekend riding bull and wrestling steer. What makes it even better is there will be belt buckles (see actual picture above) given out to the winners of the cowboy events and if anyone can stay on a bucking bull for 8 seconds. You know that’s awesome!!!!

Sure Brian and Jake are setting this up to see the others and myself fall and bust our a** but it should be a lot of fun, get some cool stories, good pictures, great video and have fun with friends. Plus they said the ranch is in a town of roughly 300 people and the town already knows of our plans to go there to play cowboy. The town plans on being there to watch all the city boys try to cowboy up. This is going to hurt but will be a lot of fun with the chance to win a belt buckle.

See, am I lucky or unlucky? I somehow dumbed my way into riding bull and wrestling steer for a weekend in Montana in front of a town full of real cowboys.

p.s. Believe it or not out of everything scheduled for the cowboy weekend in Montana the statement Jake made while we were discussing details has me the most worried. Jake said “This trip will be fun. We will hang out play cowboy and there will be all the brandy and scotch you can drink”. It seems harmless enough but I have to drink brandy and scotch in front of a bunch of cowboys. I don’t do well drinking hard liquors. I’m afraid they’ll make fun of me if I ask to warm up with a corona with lime or a Unicorn Berry Blast™ (Zima + fresh strawberries + skittles = Unicorn Berry Blast™). Maybe I’ll just man up and drink scotch when it’s time.

I’ve been away from the gym for a week and that’s just way too long. Wife was sick, kids had baseball and other adult responsibilities getting in the way of me hitting the gym to get ripped for summer :-) I’m obviously kidding for those that don’t know me.

The week I was out I only did light workouts and light running on my own and let my body rest a little but now it’s back into high action to get in shape for my upcoming challenges. Next one is May 1st vs. Jon L.

I was back in the gym last night and was very pleased to see the WOD wasn’t timed. It was a pyramid WOD with lots of reps but the focus was on technique and not time. This was the perfect time for me to come back, I know the reps will kill me in a couple of days and I won’t accidentally slack on my range of motion trying to make up time when I’m a little out of high performance shape.

The day was even better because it was one of the trainers, Gabe(who I have an upcoming challenge against), birthday and the best way to celebrate a birthday is by Bill and Micki buying KFC Double Downs for everyone. If you don’t know what they are, it’s two fried boneless chicken breasts that are used as the bread and in between them is a special sauce, two types of cheese and bacon. It’s the perfect complement after a working out. You work out really hard so you can reward yourself eating and drinking the things that aren’t very good for you from time to time. The KFC double down is that food item that when you eat it your heart hurts a little bit. You feel guilty and go run a couple more miles and eat nothing but fruits and vegetables for the next month. So win win and IT TASTES THAT GOOD!!!!

You have to love the things trainers and customers get excited over in a Crossfit gym. Last night we were very excited over eating the KFC double downs and the new toys the gym bought. The gym purchased 3 tractor tires for the gym. Where else do adults get excited over three 800 pound tractor tires coming to the gym? I’m excited and nervous to see what tortures and games they come up with.

So I’m back in action and I need to get more posts up. My next update will be how I demonstrate that with a couple of words and me being an idiot, I dumbed my way into a trip where I’ll be riding a bull in front of some friends and a town full of cowboys.………yee hawwww!!!!!

Dates are set for upcoming challenges and new challenges are made

I didn’t want to be the only buffoon at the gym that runs his mouth and finally someone else is stepping up to the plate. Thank you, Levi. I posted a simple question on Facebook yesterday looking for distances with the Broad Jump. I saw a WOD on crossfitfootball.com which was 10 attempts to find your max distance Broad Jump so I wanted more information. I wanted to know what would be considered average, intermediate, advanced and elite distances?

Right away Levi comes on and says “That sounds like a worthy challenge, you’re on! Broad Jumps on Saturday, prepare to be out-distanced”. Thank you Levi for being the new buffoon that throws out challenges.

Once again I’m in a challenge that I didn’t start but can I back down from it…..noooooo! So I asked Levi why he was so quick to throw out a challenge, I didn’t know if he was a professional broad jumper or if he held a broad jumping world record. He said no, but he’s learning from me about perfecting the “Mindless Challenge”. I was so proud :-) I told Levi that in order to be a true Master of the mindless challenge you must be able to back it up like me……..what what!! So this Saturday April 3rd in between the affiliate cup workouts will be the contest and results of the Broad Jump Challenge.

Here are updates for my other upcoming challenges:

An official date has been set to compete against Jon L in our challenge WOD. So come out May 1st to see me make a giant cry. Jon put no restrictions on the WOD I issued against him so I’m still leaning toward:

Challenge WOD
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 400 meters
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 800 meters
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 400 meters
Plank

I was thinking of making it 20 pull-ups and 20 ground to overhead instead of 4 rounds of 5 but I stopped because I think Jon will be faster at long constant reps while I’m faster with short intense bursts. Plus I can use the transition from exercise to exercise to get any rest I may need to keep my speed and tempo going without taking any breaks. I’m not sure about having the plank at the end. I want it as a “just in case” I don’t win, but I’d hate to have it in there and lose because Jon can plank for 20 minutes. I’ll probably flip flop back and forth on the plank and decide May 1st.

I have a do-over WOD against Dan with the continuation of "Mess with a Navy Seal Day”. This really should be established as a national Crossfit holiday. Once a year at all the Crossfit gyms across the land have members challenge all the current and former military special ops people to a WOD. The winner gets bragging rights for the next year.

After that challenge, I’m in negotiations with going head to head against Gabe, he’s one of the trainers with Crossfit Bellevue. This challenge started because I innocently pointed out that Gabe hasn’t hit the top score in a WOD EVERRRRRRRRRRRR, at least I haven’t seen his name on top since I’ve been with this gym. Sure he gets in the top 3 for every single WOD, so he’s very advanced and well rounded with every discipline of Crossfit with no “weak” areas. However, I’ve won 2 WOD’s since I started training at CSBV and he’s won zero, which means Ron is Awesome and Gabe is not as Awesome. Now I just need to negotiate a WOD that suits my strong points in the few WOD’s I’ve finished ahead of him. Also, I’m establishing an important rule for our challenge, Gabe must keep his shirt on the entire WOD. He’s the only guy I know that in the middle of winter with 3 feet of snow he’ll rip his shirt off then run outside……..his man boobies are very distracting and there is no way I can concentrate during the challenge if those things are bouncing all over the place. He at least has to wear a mans sports bra.

Again I want to finish with I'm happy Levi stepped up to the plate and initiated a challenge. More people need to do that otherwise I’ll be forced to challenge people against one another in the gym :-)

The sweet taste of 3-a-days and rowing seminar taught by Olympic and World Champions

What a fun Saturday. I haven’t done three a days since 2001 back when I competed in Tae Kwon Do tournaments………and yes 2001, we get it I’m old. Erin and I are training with everyone getting ready to compete at Crossfit Regional’s and those getting ready for the Affiliate Cup. We don’t plan to be on the main team this year but if they have a second Affiliate Cup team we may do that. Our goal is to see how our body reacts and what leaps in our progression will come from doing training. Plus it’s just fun to hang out with everyone, have a reason to get into sick shape and make sure we’re in beach body shape for the summer :-)

WODS and notes::

1st WOD @ 0900 - Three rds, 15 thrusters and 100 meter sand bag run (upstairs, wall to wall). M135, W95.

It took me forever to get warm and excited to work out. It’s 9am on a Saturday but once I got into it, this was the right way to start off our day. I can do 135 pound thrusters but I can’t link enough of them together yet so it was suggested I modify and do a lighter weight, so I did 105 pound thrusters and Erin did 60 pound thrusters, Erin should have and could have done more weight but it’s our first workout of our first 3 a day so she and I were playing it a little conservative to see how our bodies will handle the extra work.

I will point out what isn’t included with our WODs times is anytime we do a run of any sort we have to go down 2 flights of stairs then run back up them, so our times seem a little slower but that’s because we’re running hills and stairs instead of a flat level surface. I say that because we ran down the stairs, picked up 65 pound sandbag then ran them wall to wall which is about 100-150 meters, then put them down, run up the stairs and hit more thrusters. This works your legs so nice it will give you serious J-Lo booty.

Doing 105 pound thrusters, stairs, sand bag run I wound up finishing in 8 minutes 36 seconds.

Erin did 60 pound thrusters, sand bag run finished in 10 minutes 12 seconds

Matt Wrecked this WOD and finished at 7:21 finishing more than 40 seconds ahead of the next fastest person.

2nd WOD @ 1100 - 2 rounds for time of: 500 m Row, 15 Oh Squats 95/65 lbs, 500 m Row, 15 Toes to Bars.

Good WOD except there is rowing in it, but not every WOD can be perfect for me. This WOD I pushed pretty hard too, the only reason I had to slow down and break up my toes to bar was because my baby hands tore during this WOD. I moved my toes to bar to the rings during the last round and was able to link them together.

My Finish 15:29

Rowing Seminar at noon:

I forgot today is the day for the Rowing Seminar taught by Bob Cummins who is a World Champion Rower and Anna Cummins who has won an Olympic Gold and Silver medal. If these two people can’t make me fall in love with the rower then nobody can. http://www.cumminschiropractic.com/about_us.html

The seminar was great, I didn’t realize how horrible my technique was and how lazy I’d let my body get during the strokes. This made me very inefficient wasting a lot of energy. I wasn’t getting the power some others were getting but after completing the seminar I am getting the same power as I was before but expending a lot less energy, so that’s a good start and hopefully more power will come. I’m not in love with the rower yet but this seminar put me on better speaking terms with the rower and hopefully our friendship can blossom from there.

We wound up rowing 5-6000 meters during the seminar, with one more WOD to go to end our day.

3rd WOD @ 1300 - Row 1000m, Run 1 mile.

The 1000 meter row was my standard time but I did notice I focused on my technique a lot talking to myself “legs, body arms, arms body legs, legs, body arms, arms, body legs….” I looked at Jon in the rower next to me, he’s still beating me by 30 seconds per 500 meters but just focus and work on my stroke. I finished my 1000 meter, before I’d be exhausted, but this time I jumped out of the rower and thought I could catch up to Jon and Matt who finished the row far ahead of me. I caught up to Matt really quick, he isn’t the fastest runner and I think his back was bothering him (note to self if or when I challenge Matt to a WOD make sure there is running in it) Then as I head down the first hill I see Jon in my site. I can catch him! He finished the row so far ahead of everyone I swear I saw him running with his arms extended to the side swerving from left to right like he was an airplane and making engine noises……vroooooooommmmm. He made the first turn looked back and saw me, that stopped his airplane imitation and he put it in Jon gear. I finished less than a minute behind him which means no rowing in our WOD challenge but running is still going to be in it.

I didn’t win the WOD but took a nice second place.

1000 meter row, 1 mile run, climb stupid stairs to finish in 11 minutes 21 seconds.

Erin did great on this WOD too, top female time of 13 minutes 16 seconds.....She has more fist pumping victory laps than I do.

First week of 3 a days and our bodies feel great, sore but great.

Functional Movement for Functional Application

One of the best things of Crossfit are the movements and exercises help build strength, speed, explosiveness and flexibility. So your day to day activities are easier and most importantly when you have to challenge other families, you can go out and DOMINATE!!!!!

This Dominating performance is brought to today by the letter C for Crossfit.

Random: Boobies is a funny word

So last night I attended a meeting at my oldest daughter’s school to receive an overview of the schools upcoming Sex Ed curriculum. This was an opportunity for parents to ask questions or opt their child out of this.

My concern isn’t about whether sex education should be taught in the school, what I’m worried about is when we were receiving the overview they showed us part of the video they’ll play in the class. It was literally made in the early 1990’s, the three kids looked like Vanilla Ice, Kid from Kid-n-Play and an early version of J-Lo when she was a dancer on In Living Color. You can’t make this up, it was RADICAL.

When I saw the kids being early 90’s cool I almost fell out of my seat laughing, but I held it together because I’m surrounded by other parents that are obviously more mature than me. The video was good, it will get the job done for what the class needs, but then they start talking about hormones. They break away from the kids, show a cartoon and when they say you’ll feel different, they had sparkles and stars circling around the cartoon boy and cartoon girls genitalia. As they showed that the first thing that popped in my head was "hehe boobies is a funny word". I started giggling like a school girl and couldn’t stop. I look around and nobody else is smiling, they are taking notes and really taking this video serious. I tried to hold it in but couldn’t so I had to fake that I’m receiving a phone call then I get up and leave the class. I giggled it out in the hall, grabbed a drink of water and regained my composure. Those other parents must be lame because that video was funny.

I do know that if I receive a note home from her school that she was removed from the class because she kept giggling during the video, I’ll try not to be too upset :-) Chances are that won’t happen because my 11 year old daughter is much more mature than me.

Another challenge on the table

Sometimes I’m put into situations where my mouth isn’t to blame. I blame Gabe this time, he’s one of the trainers at the CFBV. He posted a workout he was planning to do, from that a conversation came up regarding a previous WOD, then somehow in there Gabe say’s “hey Ron why don’t you challenge Jon to a WOD” I’m still not recovered from the Mess with a Navy Seal Day workout. But of course since he said I should challenge Jon, now I have to. I can’t look like I’m scared or look as if I don’t think I’d win…..because the truth is I’m Ron Onyon and with the right WOD I should be able to beat anyone. So I posted a challenge to Jon but never heard back.

The next day I asked Jon if he was up for it since he didn’t reply online and he said “Oh I thought it went without saying I’d accept any WOD anytime against you”………HOW IS HE NOT SCARED OF ME???? Didn’t he see my business card that says “I’m Ron Onyon Bit**”. Now I’m going to make sure this happens.

There are two criteria with this challenge:

1. I pick or create the WOD
2. I pick the time.

The truth is Jon has been training very serious for Crossfit sectionals and regional’s, he’s younger, peaking physically, he’s about a foot taller than me, at least 40 pounds heavier of pure muscle, plus he is a great athlete so I need to be more strategic with the WOD.

Jon made a good point when we talked, he said our strengths in Crossfit are similar, unfortunately that’s true and he might be better at them…….I said “might be” not he definitely is better at them. Since my strong points are similar to his and my weaker ones are similar too this is going to be a bit more difficult than I originally thought. I need to create a legitimate WOD where I can edge ahead of him rep by rep.

I think I’m faster with short quick reps. For example if we did 5 pull-ups, I’ll beat him in every set of 5 pull-ups, however if you said to do 50 pull-ups then he’d beat me. So in the WOD I need to break up reps in short fast sets. Also, since Jon is 6’6 and I’m a few inches short of 6 foot, that ground to overhead exercises would benefit me. I also think a run would be good because I can knock out a fast run and there is no chance in hell I’m rowing against him because Jon is a sick rower and the rower really doesn’t like me, so no rowing. Then I was thinking of putting in an exercise at the end that can either help me or blow up in my face. I think at the end of the WOD finish with a plank. I don’t know how long he can hold it but figure he has a lot more weight to hold up. So the plan would be to finish the WOD then however long you hold the plank position that time will be subtracted from your total time in the WOD. It can help if Jon beats me so I have a last chance to make up for it or it could blow up in my face for that exact opposite reason.

So far thinking:

Challenge WOD
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 400 meters
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 800 meters
4 rounds of (5 pull-ups & 5 ground to overhead at 135 pounds)
Run 400 meters
Plank

This WOD isn’t set in stone, it’s just a starting point but I like it so far.

Plus before I do this I have to finish up “Mess with a Navy Seal Day: the rematch”

These challenges have had me thinking of a fun fundraiser/challenge for the gym. Let people challenge others in a WOD. The challenged person has to be interested and accept, then the challenger has to pay 10, 25, or 50 just a set amount of money to do the challenge. Then the WOD has to be approved by one of the trainers at the gym to make sure it’s fair, competitive and reasonable. You can have the money go to a pool for the Christmas celebration at the end of the year. Plus we can track people’s records on the board. See if anyone can stay undefeated or who has the longest win/losing streaks.

Just a thought plus there are many people I’d like to take down in the gym, guys and women :-)