It takes a long time to burn 60 calories – about 4 minutes of hard rowing to (in theory) or over 1,000 m. It then takes even longer to drag your feet repeatedly from the ground to touch a pull-up bar over your head 50 times. My point is that I did not get as far in 14.4 as I thought I would, mostly because I vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take me to perform what seem like doable tasks. I knew I wouldn’t get past the muscle ups, but I honestly thought I would finish all of the cleans… that didn’t happen.

14.4 workout

14 minute AMRAP:
60-calorie row
50 toes-to-bars
40 wall-ball shots, 20 / 14 lb.
30 cleans, 135 / 95 lb.
20 muscle-ups

Score: 164

I made only made halfway through the cleans. But on the bright side, I did link together over half of my toes-to-bar and I didn’t throw up after the wall-balls like I wanted to, so that’s something.

Between it’s antioxidant properties and promise to decrease inflammation, green tea has been my go to morning heart warmer lately. While it’s not my favorite tea (it’s a tough choice, but for mornings I love a sweet, spicy chai loaded with soy milk), I reach for green tea whenever I’m particularly sore or just plain dragging in the morning. I’m particularly sensitive to the bitterness that green tea can get, so I steep for no more than three minutes and add a dash of lemon or honey to my cup.

Now that my feet are on the fritz and I can’t run, I’m channeling my focus and pent up frustrations into nearly chugging green tea. Anything to heal faster, right?

As soon as the workout was announced I started laughing. I mean honestly, increasing the weight by 40 lbs. in a single round has got to be a joke. Instead of shaking my head and announcing there was no way I was going to get very far in the workout, I just laughed.

This is what 185 lbs. looks like

One of the biggest reasons I didn’t want to sign up for the open is that I didn’t want to take it too seriously. I’m competitive and a perfectionist, and those things don’t combine well unless my performance is 100 percent spot-on and I win. Anything less than that often makes competing an extremely negative experience for me. When I race I know I focus on improving my own performance instead of trying to beat every other runner. I wanted The Open to be a similar experience.

I didn’t sign up because 1. I didn’t want to spend the money (I know, it’s not even that much money, but really, I’m fresh out of college and you don’t even get a t-shirt for competing) and 2. I wanted to keep myself focused on having it be fun. (and 3. I didn’t want ANYONE to be able to find my scores… which is ironic given that I’ve been putting them here.) For me, sometimes it’s better to just not know where I stack up against the rest of the world. I much prefer to see how I look next to previous me.

14.3 workout

8 minute AMRAP:
10 deadlifts, 135 / 95 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
15 deadlifts, 185 / 135 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
20 deadlifts, 225 / 155 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
25 deadlifts, 275 / 185 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
30 deadlifts, 315 / 205 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch
35 deadlifts, 365 / 225 lb.
15 box jumps, 24 / 20 inch

Score: 92

One of the biggest reasons I laughed is because the 4th round of deadlifts is my one rep max. And that’s when I’m completely fresh and have been building up to my heaviest single rep, not after 45 other heavy deadlifts and 45 box jumps. Given that, I’m extremely proud of how I did. Not only did I get further than I thought I would, but also got a new 2 rep deadlift pr (even if they were two of the ugliest lifts of my life).

I made it into the fourth round and completed 2 (and a half really really ugly) deadlifts at my previous one rep max weight. I had a lot of time left when I hit the third and fourth rounds, and I think I could have gotten significantly further if I had more strength. With that said, I am really happy with how I did. I think this is the only workout so far that I walked out after feeling content with how I did.

For the first time in the two years I have been doing CrossFit I did two things: 1. I actually considered signing up for the open and 2. I watched the streamed announcement of the first open workout and the “throwdown.” Despite ultimately deciding to not sign up (a topic for another time, but the short version is that I do CrossFit for fun and I didn’t want to make it too serious and suck the joy out of it), I’m still doing all of the open workouts.

This week, I got lucky. The week before 14.1 was announced we happened to do the 11.1 workout (the same workout as 14.1) by pure chance. This meant that I had extremely recent memory of doing the workout and what I wanted to do differently. Since I know there is no way I could ever even remotely be a contender to make it to regionals (another reason I declined to sign up), my goal was based on my past performance.

The first time I did the workout I was 5 snatches short of completing 5 rounds in the time cap, so all I was aiming for during my unofficial attempt at 14.1 was to get to the 5th round.

14.1 WOD

10 min. AMRAP
30 double unders
15 snatches

When 10 minutes finally rolled around I could not be more thankful to be done. The time was painfully long when trying to sprint through as many double unders and snatches as possible, but also too fast to catch your breath and hammer out more reps.

When the time ran out I was thankful that 1. I never had to do that again, 2. I beat my previous score by a full round, and 3. I made it almost to the six round for a score of 222, you know, just half of what the top women and men got.

Plan on doing the workout? Here’s what I would have done differently: I would have slowed down in the beginning and kept my breath as much as possible. I would have stayed more relaxed on the double unders and paid more attention to how frequently I was breathing. I would have broken up the first few rounds of snatches into 2 sets (8 and 7 reps) with a 3-5 second in between the sets to prevent my grip from burning out too quickly. I think it  worked well that I broke down the later rounds into sets of 5 on the snatches. It also helped that for the most part my double unders went smoothly (except for the few times I whipped myself…).

I’ve heard it hundreds of times “don’t increase your weekly mileage by more than 10 percent at a time,” and yet I’ve made the mistake more than once. This time I even read Lauren Fleshman‘s article in Runner’s World about the training mistakes she often makes, and I still did quite a few of them myself:

1. My biggest mistake: Increasing by more than 10 percent in a week (and more than that when comparing January and February. I ran more miles in three weeks of February than I did all of January.)
2. “Stick to The Plan. ALWAYS.” Check. In order to make sure I got in all of my runs this week, I forced in a run on a day I usually do CrossFit to make room for a hike on my usual easy run day. Why not just hike and count that as my easy run? Because I’m an idiot.
3. “Rest days are for babies.” See above.
4. “Be a hammerhead – if it’s not hard, it’s not doing anything.” Just when I thought I was getting better about this, I added speedwork. I did make a conscious effort to slow down my other runs so there was an actual difference in my easy runs, but a little late it would seem.

What did all of this get me? A mild case of plantar fasciitis. Time to take a few days off from running and spend all of the time I would have been running on stretching, rolling out my arches, icing (have I mentioned I hate ice?), and doing just about everything else I can to heal faster and relax the overly tight and irritated plantar fascia.

With six months to massively drop my half marathon time, I decided it was time to say hello to some speedwork. I had never done a tempo run before (or even run with a real watch, not just my phone). Any time I saw a tempo run on the training guide I was following I would just substitute it for a run of the same distance instead of doing what it said (in what seemed like another language). But this time I decided to actually click on the workout on my training plan and figure out what I was supposed to do.

The workout

1,600m easy warm-up
1,600m at or below my target half marathon pace (8:38)
800m jog at an easy pace (9:30-10 minutes/mile)
1,600m at 8:38
1,600m cool down

Total distance: 4.47 miles

Surprisingly, I actually had fun. I liked having a time to make every lap – it made my workout seem like it went really fast, even though I was seriously running in circles. It also brought me back to when I swam in high school and had splits to hit, which made me feel completely at home on the foreign track.

I made two plans before I started training, one that I thought was 100 percent do-able and another that seemed like a bit of a stretch. After being able to keep up with the second week of the harder plan without any problems, I’ve decided that’s the one I’m going to do from here on out. Hitting every split on the track last night cemented that I can knock out every workout and that my half marathon time goal is possible.

I hate being cold. It is truly awful, and it makes running in the winter an extreme challenge for me. I have always heard that you should start your run cool/cold to avoid overheating later as your warm-up, but that first .5 mile feels like pure torture. There are times where I can’t even make it out the door because of the thought of being cold, even if its only for 5-10 minutes.

When the temperature dipped into the mid 20s a couple of months ago, my appreciation for real cold-weather runners grew exponentially. I am the kind of person who balks at going outside when it’s less than 50, so learning to run on icy sidewalks was completely baffling to me (but good news, I didn’t fall). I finally learned what I meant to be chilly at the start, and thank yourself later. Here is what got me through:

1. I LOVE Runner’s World’s What to Wear Tool. Hot, cold – doesn’t matter. I use it any time I can’t make a decision on what to wear on a run (nearly every day). It’s made a huge difference between me over-dressing or stressing about being too cold. I just have to plug in a few variables and it gives me all of the answers I need. If only they made a similar tool for major life decisions.

2. Fleece headband/ear cover. Super cute, my fleecy monstrosity has made my ears toasty and makes it easier to regulate my temperature on a cold or windy run. The best part, when I get too hot I can wrap it around my wrist or toss it in a pocket.

3. I have embraced the rain. Some runs feel a bit like you are crying (can’t see because your eyes are blurry, water dripping off your face), but I’ve decided I kind of like the cooling aspect of the rain, especially when my raincoat is getting a bit too warm. It’s also wonderfully peaceful. With no one else out running, or really out at all, it’s easy to fall into my own rhythm and enjoy a great run. Check out my previous post on how I handle (or avoid) getting soaked.

4. Warm tights are my new best friend. After the skin on my legs burned during an entire run in sub freezing weather and afterward when I got into the shower, I decided it was time to invest in some winter running tights. Best. Decision. Ever. They are worth every penny.

5. I love zippers. Shirts that zip down to let in more air are an excellent solution to my chronic over-dressing to avoid the dreaded cold problem.

6. Did someone say ‘cuffin’? I know it’s a ridiculous term coined by Lululemon, but built-in mittens are great. I can flip them on and off constantly while running, and I never have to worry about losing them.

7. Hot showers and other rewards are crucial. Did you get soaked today? Did you go for a run when most people didn’t leave their house at all? Were you running before the sun even came up? Then you deserve a cookie (or whatever else you want to reward yourself with). In fact, I deserve a cookie for even thinking about running.

I heard about the SeaWheeze half marathon a week before the race date last year, and since then I have been plotting how I was going to go. Running the half in Vancouver was the first item on my bucket list this year (along with leaving the country and doing my first destination race – 3 for 1!) and I couldn’t be more excited to go.

Image courtesy of SeaWheeze

After two weeks of pure torture, I finally got in! Now it’s time to get speedy, gain some distance, and destroy some hills. Maybe I can knock of one of my PRs from my bucket list as well.