7/20/2009 – Bring the pain hardcore!

Good team workout tonight… Row for calories, slam ball, pull-ups, box jumps, 30-20-10.  Couldn’t move on to the next exercise until your teammates were finished with the exercise, so I ended up donating some pullups to keep the ball rolling.  Other than that there’s not much to write about fitness wise, personal life wise, there’s a ton…

Heartbreak Hundred

The Heartbreak Hundred Century ride marks the third and final installment in the King of the Mountains Century Challenge.  KOM is just over 310 miles with about 30,000 feet of climbing.  The last ride is the easiest on paper, with just over 8500 feet of climbing and 100 miles even, but it’s far from that.  Mulholland challenge was pretty easy for me as the route is in my “back yard” and I know every climb.  I’ve completed Breathless Agony and I knew what to expect.  Hearbreak Hundred was 100% new to me and I had a knee injury walking into the event.  About 30 miles in I started to notice some pain in my right knee, but decided that I will complete the ride as I didn’t want to wait one more year to complete King of the Mountains.  It was a stupid decision in hindsight, but now I know that I really need to pay attention to my body more closely.  It sounds so cliche, but I’m not young anymore, I’m getting older and I need to be wiser and more receptive to smaller hints. 

Here is the elevation profile…

The rolling hills at the end really grow on your nerves, and that’s when you realize why it’s called Heartbreak Hundred.  With this completed, it off to the next challenge.  That’s finishing off my six pack abs by end of summer and then attempting some body weight overhead squats before the end of the year.

05/12/09 – 20×100m

Back to the track..  Ran 100m sprints with 45 seconds of rest between runs.  Lap times are listed below.

14.4, 15.7, 16.3, 16.7, 17.5, 22.8, 17.7, 17.7, 18.1, 18.6
18.0, 17.9, 19.1, 18.1, 18.9, 24.2, 18.5, 18.7, 18.8, 16.5

Min: 14.4
Max: 19.1
Avg: 17.6
Mode: 18
Median: 17.95 

I’m actually surprised at how little fall off there is in my times.  The 20+ second laps are becauuse I was timing myself and the button didn’t press all the way down after I crossed the line.  I just remembered that my HRM can do a watch to chest “tap” to start a new lap.  I will be switching to this method at the next track workout.

Afterwards we headed over to Zelo’s Pizza and I ate somewhat sensibly… but in no way was it the best choice for my goals, but I have reset mentally and will have renewed energy to continue counting grams, and making portioned meals.

05/06/09 – Back squat Tower of Power

Had a really awesome day at CrossFit tonight.  Warm up was some running, KB swings, pull ups, 2 rounds.  Actual workout was a ladder of 1 minute max back squats with 2 minutes rest between rungs.  

65lbs x 33
95lbs x 24
115lbs x 15
95lbs x 24
65lbs x 31

I partnered up with Chris, a very strong fellow and we are exact opposites, his lighter squats were fewer, heavier squats were more.  He’s like a Diesel where I’m like a small displacement turbo charged Wankel.

I’m still eating like crazy, the Pizza challenge must have stretched out my stomach.  Need to get back into the routine.  I want to be at 140 for Heartbreak Hundred so I can kill the climbs.

05/02/2009 Breathless Agony.. not really breathless or agonizing

First off, the ride is challenging, but not as challenging as I remember from last year.  This year, I’ve been taking a drastically different approach to training.  Cycling one or two days per week, with the majority of my training focused on CrossFit.  This switch in training methodology helped me shave 1:26:xx off my 2008 time with plenty of energy reserves left.

Here’s a nice comparison:

Year	Start Time	Rest Stop 1	Rest Stop 2	Rest Stop 3	Summit
2008	6:21	8:40	10:23	12:29	15:17
2009	6:38	8:29	10:04	12:06	14:18

In 2009, the 2nd and 3rd rest stops were about 30 minutes long, where as in 2008, they were about 10 minutes long. With my new found speed and efficiency, I was able to lounge more, which is a good thing.  The whole time during the ride I was at ease, I knew what was ahead, the efforts needed, the check-in times looked good.  The climb to the summit took me 1:47:59 and I felt great, passing people left and right, keeping my heartrate below 160, climbing in my 23.  I’m honestly amazed at my pregress from one year ago, when I was pegging the rev limiter in my 27 gear, just chugging along wishing for the end.   CrossFit and the very special training that they provide, is the number one factor in the success of this ride.  Next ride is Heartbreak Hundred, which should be an easy ride, it’s the easiest of the three in the King of the Mountains series on paper.

04-28-2009 The hills around the Rose Bowl

Ever watch The Biggest Loser on TV?  They have this thing called a last chance workout before the weigh in, that’s what today was, our last chance workout before Breathless Agony. 

No real warm-up other than riding to the northwest end of the bowl, climbing out and then hitting up Sacred Heart, Down Figeroa to Linda Vista, Up Chevy Chase, and then back up to Sacred Heart, down, and then up Lida to finish the climbing.  

 

Lots of climbing!

After the ride, I was feeling very confident, so confident that I proclaimed that I will eat a whole pizza from Zelo’s on Saturday after we finish the ride.  The anticipation of the ride is great, I can’t wait to see what I can do compared to last year.

4/26/2009 – Mental fortitude training with Angeles Crest

7500 ft in 58 miles.  As preparations for Breathless Agony, I decided I needed a little change of pace.  Most training rides have been pretty short climbs, albeit steep, and at sea level to 3000ft max.  With Breathless Agony ending at 8443ft and an average elevation near 4000ft, I thought it would be good to ride The Crest to Newcombs Ranch for training, and also to surprise some Motorcycle buddies in my spandex.

From Bikely... Not sure if the 7500 is correct, it didn't feel like 7500ft

Ride took me 2:45:xx from Pro Italia to Newcombs Ranch, as you can see from the profile, it was an out and back ride, with lots of awesome downhill at the end. This ride very accurately replicates the finish to Breathless Agony… long, gradual, and high.  Was a good day, feeling very prepared for BA in a week.

A man’s got to know his limitations…

Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood is a wise man.  Apparently my limitation is 95lb thrusters.  Today (4/25/2009) was the first ever workout that I could not complete.  As Rx’d..  Trusters with 1.5 pood KB swings 10,8,6,4,2.  

Now that I know what my limitations are, I will be working on my 95lb thrusters.  Keep in mind that this is 2/3 my body weight and I have so move that weight quite a distance.

Who likes pull-ups? I do.. I do!

This week is turning out to be a pullup fest, seriously.  I did Nicole (400m, max pullups for 20 minutes) on Saturday and ended up with 90 for the WOD, plus I was fooling around in class and did 30 while warming up.  Tuesday was a 50 pull-up finisher.  Today we worked on kipping pull-ups.  I’m kind of good at these already, so I did some kips to warm up, but worked on my butterfly.  I can get 5 in a row, but they are not chest to bar and it takes a lot more explosive energy at my skill level, but they get done in 1/2 the time vs a kip.  Something to think about…  

Workout today was a pretty good one: Box jumps, wallball, Kettlebell swings.  Too many new(ish) people in class today for the original power cleans.  

I’m taking crossfit to another personal level…  When other people finish their workout, I will choose to do more.  During today’s warm-up, I did steam engines until the 2nd to last person finished, I probably did 30% more than prescribed.  On the run back to the gym I ran to the front of the line, putting in more work.  After the workout, I finished off with 25 yards of lunges with two 36lb kettlebells, and then a Farmer’s walk back.  I’m probably crazy, but you need to be a little nuts to Crossfit, ride a motorcycle every day, and road bike in the mountains.

Team Crossfit Woodland Hills

I stopped by for a workout yesterday.  Every Wednesday is a named workout, and they repeat every 8 weeks.  It’s a pretty good idea as a student can track their progress a little easier.  The facilities are brand new and James is a good guy.  If you’re in Woodland Hills, check him out.

Warm up was jumping rope forward and back, practicing double unders, work on cleans with the Bergman progressions.  Very promissing results.  WOD was Annie.  I can’t do double unders, so I had to sub 4x regular rope, should have done tuck jumps instead.  Abs are very sore.  Finished the night with 50 kipping pullups.

http://www.teamcrossfit.com/