A couple climbs with sprints after each.
Warm-up
Couplet: seated climb/standing jog, seated climb/hill sprint
- The City Is At War – Cobra Starship/Glass Danse – The Faint
- Animal – Miike Snow/American Trash – Innerpartysystem
False Flat Sprint section
- Thoughts of a Dying Atheist – Muse
- Rocketship 2010 – Shiny Toy Guns
Descending resistance climb (heavy -> light)
- Talk Like That – The Presets
- Given Up – Linkin Park
- Jigsaw Falling Into Place – Radiohead
False Flat Sprint finish
- Famous Last Words – My Chemical Romance
- Sunburn – Muse
Cool down
- Fix You – Coldplay
- Be Somebody – Kings of Leon
Posted in life on 20. Jun, 2010
I’m burnt out. I’m disillusioned. I want to get back into my routine, but the thought is scary as hell. I’m tired of the concept that one size fits all, because it doesn’t. I’m tired of the guilt associated with taking a break. I know that if I quit I’ll become a pariah; I don’t want to quit. I want to change (update: I don’t want to just change, I want to evolve.)
I need to create something sustainable. The key word in that previous sentence is “I.” Not “we,” and not “my coach.” No one can give me a training plan — hell, a life plan — that I didn’t have a hand in making. It’s my goals I need to achieve. All these plans can do is hope to help me.
One thing I love about Robb Wolf is how he basically refuses to answer questions about training athletes for their sports. The short of it is… if the person is still progressing, if they’re happy, then why mess around? What’s the takeaway? The formula to get someone to continuously improve, at first, is simple. It’s when the progression stops that it’s hard. Why is that?
Training changes from physical to mental. I have a 400+ lb deadlift, but if I just don’t feel like working on that, it’s not going to get any better. I have a reliable 1:43 half marathon; if I stop running, it’ll only get worse. At some point, I’m just going to run out of steam. I’ve got a full-time job, 2 part-time jobs, I need to train for some races I want to run, and I’ve got a social life that is too hectic for its own good. In the rare time that I can balance all of this stuff, I’m a rockstar. When something gets out of balance, I’m a mess.
In the last few months, from say late February through today, I’ve been more of a mess than a rockstar. So how do I fix that?
I’ve been burnt out before, or just tired, or something. But in those times, I knew that if I got up at 5:30 and went to work out at 6:15, there would be a group of people that would welcome my return, which would fuel my desire to get back on track. More and more, this is not the case — that group of people is completely different. The community is so large that it’s hard to re-enter.
This is a different kind of burn out. This one is making me rethink everything. For you CrossFit haters that read my blog, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with that… I still believe that CrossFit as GPP and sport-specific training layered on top is way more powerful than the traditional weekend warrior training plan. Everyone should know how to clean a barbell and squat effectively.
It’s time to go back to square one, to come up with goals. I need a coach for not only my athletic ventures but for life. A confidant that knows how to motivate me, not just yell or criticize my food log (which I don’t have at the moment).
I don’t have the answer to this one… I don’t even have a good start at an answer. All I know is that tomorrow, I need to move. And how I move is going to be important.
How do you bring yourself back? Post your thoughts to comments.
Posted in life on 23. May, 2010
In my walk back from the coffee shop to my apartment, I spent some time reflecting. We spend tons of time training our bodies to do great things, but how much time do we spend training our minds? Many don’t. So when life deals a shitty hand that can’t be resolved with strength of body, you’ll need strength of will and strength of mind instead.
That thought immediately brought me to two quotes from Rip, here’s the first:
On response to a guy who had some life problems lately and afraid of sounding like a “pussy”: You don’t sound like a pussy at all. You sound like a normal human being, just like me, who thankfully has a barbell to keep him sane when things get shitty…and realize that one workout out of thousands does not affect your overall progress. Training is a process, not the events of one day. [Source]
That sounds like it was directed to me, even though it wasn’t. And if you wanted to recap the last few “personal posts” of late, that’s the general message. Powerful people are powerful in body, mind, and spirit. You must train all three.
Second quote:
There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning than the correctly performed full squat.
So that tells me how to train my body.
What are the most powerful exercises to train one’s mind and spirit?
Posted in life on 18. May, 2010
If you’ve read my last few posts (the ones that are not workouts), then you’ll notice a theme: I’ve got a lot going on. If I think back to the beginning of the year, I had an amazing string of 6 weeks of MEBB work, not much stress, good times in life, and general happiness. My diet was dialed in. Everything was good.
And then I went to Vegas. And San Diego. And Colorado. And Canada. Then there was SXSW somewhere in there.
And the list goes on…
My Type 1 personality leads me to believe that I can handle all of it. I can burn the candle at both ends. Work, train, party, race. Hell, I won my age group in a duathlon with 1 week of prep time. I’m invincible, right?
Wrong.
(aside: HUGE thanks to those who checked in with me after reading my last post. Now that I have an explanation for what’s going on, I feel MUCH better now… I’ve got some personal life repair work to do, but that’ll come in time)
In thinking about the last week or so, culminating in the last post I wrote, I spent some time thinking about what I’ve been up to, and why I would have such high highs and low lows. And then, listening to Robb Wolf, something hit me… adrenal fatigue (funny thing when you run into this listening to the Paleolithic Solution podcast
Robb ran into this situation, best described from his blog post:
For those of you unfamiliar with this condition, your adrenals begin to give out [due] to too many life demands. Sleep, stress, training can all take their toll. I think I’ve had a mild to moderate dose of this condition for a LONG time. I have always burned things pretty hard … This combo of shitty food and bad sleep really takes me down at the knee caps.
…
What my adrenal fatigue boiled down to was this: Crushing fatigue most of the day, only perking up a bit in the evening. This is a reversed cortisol profile in which I have higher levels in the evening than morning. this is about a stage or two away from the full systemic melt-down that leaves on in bed, immune compromised and generally feeling like death. Cortisol competes with testosterone for the substrate pregnenalone. High cortisol means insulin resistance, low strength and slow recovery. Excessive metabolic conditiong makes things worse. What’s excessive? You never make progress, you feel like absolute death doing anything over a few minutes duration. I’ve also had 4-5 sinus infections in the past about 8 months. No bueno.
This. Sounds. Familiar.
I’ve had similar issues with energy levels. I didn’t want to get up in the morning. I couldn’t get to bed when I needed to. My mind was constantly racing at night, and I got really bad sleep. My diet went to shit — for every good meal, I would have 2 bad ones. I was drinking way too much, way too often. And I was still trying to train hard and race. Do a google search for adrenal fatigue and alcohol, and you’ll find countless results that contain the words “emotional outbursts.” Awesome. Do another one for adrenal fatigue and emotions, and you’ll find more results that link the two. Bingo.
No wonder my CrossFit WODs have been crap, my races have been a bit slower, I’ve been constantly sore and irritable. No wonder people have asked me if I’m ok several times a week for the last several weeks. No wonder I’ve felt like I was walking on a wire for the last month or so. And no wonder the situation culminated with two emotional outbursts that I can’t explain, because the kind of thing I reacted to is not something I normally care about.
I’m overdoing it, big time, and it’s all got to stop. Yesterday.
I started my plan to recover on Sunday. Here it is:
- CrossFit WODs will be short. I’m going to lift and do some CrossFit Endurance track/pool/bike work. All of it will be short.
- I need to get back into my routines that I know work for me.
- I need to cook meals more often than not, and they need to be solid. Which also means I’m going to be food logging for a month.
- I’m going to stop drinking until Memorial Day weekend, where I’m going camping with lots of old friends. And then I’m going to stop drinking again until after my Half Marathon on June 6. After that, we’ll evaluate it along with everything else.
How will I know I’m good? When I can:
- Sleep well.
- Even out my energy levels throughout the day.
- Feel happy, constantly.
- Train well, with purpose, and with great results.
If your world is going haywire, and you’re one of the Gen X Weekend Warrior Rockstars, take a step back and read what Robb Wolf and Melissa Urban have to say on this topic. Maybe your candle is burnt out. I know mine was.
Posted in logs on 18. May, 2010
Monday
Breakfast
Lunch
- Whole foods sonoma chicken salad
- Mixed berries and pineapple
- Kombucha
- Snack: rest of chicken salad, more fruit
Dinner
- Zucchini noodles tossed with bell peppers and onions, ground bison marinara sauce, 2 teriyaki sweet potato spears
- Water
- Dessert: paleo banana bread
Supplements
- Nuun Kona Cola
- Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
- 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
- ZMA
Tuesday
Breakfast
- Snap kitchen blue corn migas, no cheese, no potatoes
- Black coffee
- Snack: Paleo banana bread
Lunch
- Zucchini noodles tossed with bell peppers and onions, ground bison marinara sauce, 2 teriyaki sweet potato spears
- Kombucha
- Snack: paleo banana bread
Dinner
- Cast iron skillet bison NY strip, roasted asparagus
Supplements
- Nuun Kona Cola
- Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
- 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
- ZMA
- 5000 IU vitamin D3
Wednesday
Breakfast
- 2 eggs scrambled with spinach and organic chorizo
- Black coffee
- Snack: paleo banana bread.
- Later on, bad snack: 2 Round Rock donuts.
Lunch
- Cast iron skillet bison NY strip, roasted asparagus
- Snack: paleo banana bread
Dinner
- Cacao nib pork chops, spinach, butternut squash with honey and cinnamon
- Water
Supplements
- Nuun Kona Cola
- Progenix recovery, growth, SRG (after CrossFit)
- 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
- ZMA
- 5000 IU vitamin D3
Thursday
Breakfast
- Omelet with double spinach and some bacon
- 2-shot Americano
Supplements
- Nuun Kona Cola
- Progenix recovery, growth
- 25 caps of fish oil (per Whole9 calculator)
- ZMA
- 5000 IU vitamin D3
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