I Am CrossFit

Back in January, I started the I Am CrossFit Challenge at CrossFit Central: an 8-week program designed to force clients to focus on some short-term goals of fitness and nutrition. From my original post, I set some goals for my time in the program:

• Log every day of eating.  Every day. (This is actually a requirement of the program, but I’m going to make it a goal of my own, because as you can see from this blog, I suck at it)
• Improve my overhead squat so I can reliably put 95 lb overhead.
• Improve my pull-ups: I want butterfly pull-ups in 8 weeks.
• Incorporate CrossFit Endurance into my training schedule.
• Test my nutrition and CrossFit training twice: at the 3M and AT&T half marathons, where I want to PR on each.  My current PR is 1:45:51.  This is in addition to benchmark workouts we do as part of our regular CF workouts.

So how did I do?  Here’s the lowdown:

Over the last 8 weeks:

• I lost about 5 lbs in weight and 4.5% body fat.  I’m down to 174 lb and 10% body fat!  check
• I logged just about every day of eating.  This is a tough one, because it’s hard to write things down that you don’t want the world to see… but accountability is a big part of food logging.  we’ll say check, because whileI definitely missed some days, I did way better at this attempt than I have in the past.
• Overhead squat: haven’t had a chance to try this out, and I’d like to see if I’ve gotten anywhere with it.  fail.
• Butterfly pullups: I haven’t gotten there just yet, but I’m close… I’m definitely way faster on pullups than I used to be.  check-minus.
• CrossFit Endurance: I’m have a CFE cert now, and I’m practicing my Pose running.  I’ve incorporated CFE elements into my spin classes and have done several workouts on my own.  resounding check.
• Races: I had 2 half-marathons since we started.  I ran 3M in 1:43:16, which is a PR.  I ran the Austin Half in 1:4511.  Both races were below my previous half-marathon PR, and the Austin Half was about 20 minutes faster than the same race last year!  resounding check.

Now that the challenge is over, there’s no reason to stop the momentum.  This feeds perfectly into my race training for this year, and I’ve learned so much about what people can achieve in such a short time.

As a result, I’m now committed for my race season to the following:

• Crossfit 4-5x per week.
• Crossfit Endurance 2x per week per sport.
• Continue Advocare Supplements.
• Continue food logging.
• Building a community in Austin around Crossfit Endurance training for duathlon and triathlon events.

I’m excited about this… I’m getting close to turning 30, and I’m in the best shape of my life, surrounded by a ton of motivated and positive people, and I can only imagine getting better.

A couple pictures from the final I Am CrossFit WOD…

3 rounds of 400m run, 15 pullups, 7 hang cleans @ 135lb.  9:53.  In January I did the workout with 95lb in 9:50… huge improvement!