I have always loved to swim. I was swimming before I could talk, and it’s one activity that has always been calming and fun for me, whether I am swimming competitively  to stay in shape, or just to catch up with all of my thoughts. I’m never bored in the water, and I rarely, if ever, pass up on the opportunity to swim.

Today felt like a great day to swim, especially since the weather has been nice and I upset my knee a bit last night (I had poor form on a max weight squat clean and tugged on something in my knee. It’s fine, just a little swollen and tender, but I’m going to give it at least a week of rest before I squat even body weight). So instead of going for my typical run, I pulled out the bathing suites (yes, I am one of those swimmers that wears two suites, a weird habit I picked up on the swim team) and slathered myself in sunscreen.

Unfortunately I spent so much time cleaning up the kitchen that my swim was seriously rushed. Due to some car trouble (my driver’s side window gave up on ever coming back up, leaving my car breezy and open for the taking) I only had 30 minutes to get my mile swim in. Yikes.

I definitely have not swum that far, that fast since I had a swim coach yelling at me from the deck. I know I will probably be sore tomorrow and I will be annoyed with myself for doing a miles worth of sprint sets when I have to work on only my arms at CrossFit tomorrow to keep resting my knee, it felt absolutely amazing today. I feel graceful and powerful in the water. It’s the one element where I can’t trip and fall over and no one can see all of the weird faces I make. I also love not being able to hear anything except for the water moving past my ears. You can’t beat a great swim, even if it was brutally quick.

Strength:
Find your new three rep max back squat

WOD:
30 box jumps
then 4 rounds every three minutes of:
30 second L sit
30 second flex arm hang
50 air squats

At first glance this workout doesn’t seem so bad, but how sore I was the next day certainly changed my mind. Back squats are not super fun, but being able to squat 20 lbs. more than I weigh three times is empowering. That and I sure do love box jumps.

Since I was home for spring break my schedule had to change a bit. I didn’t get to go to CrossFit three times this past week like I normally do, but I was able to squeeze in a quick drop-in at the gym I was at over the summer. With the sudden spring showers and my lack of equipment, getting a work out in has been difficult. But this is one that you can do from anywhere without needing anything more than your running shoes, or not.

WOD
21-15-9
Hand release burpees (lift your hands off the ground every time your chest hits the floor)
Between each set run 100m, 200m, and finally 400m
(so 21 hand release burpees, 100m run, 15 HR burpees, 200 m run, and finally 9 HR burpees and 400 m run.) If you can’t measure out exact meters just stagger your run. Maybe you run half a block, the full block, and then two blocks in your neighborhood instead.

The entire workout is for time and should push your heart rate. For six minutes of work, it sure did leave an impression. Best of all, you don’t need a gym or anything fancy. Too bad I wasn’t running on the beach.

Photo courtesy of Coach Manny.

I am not competing in the CrossFit Open. After a year of CrossFit I just started being able to do some workouts at RX, and if today’s workout was any inclination, I am far off from ever being able to compete.

Instead I scaled the workout to my less than stellar ability.

CrossFit Open Wod 13.1 Women’s:
Proceed thorugh the sequence below completing as many reps as possible in 17 minutes of:
40 Burpees
45 lb Snatch, 30 reps
30 Burpees
75 lb Snatch, 30 reps
20 Burpees
100 lb Snatch, 30 reps
10 Burpees
120 lb Snatch, as many reps as possible

My scaled version:
40 Burpees
35 lb Snatch, 30 reps
30 Burpees
45 lb Snatch, 30 reps
20 Burpees
10 (it was as many as I could finish in the time) Snatches at 55 lbs
Score: 160

I was so sore coming into this workout that the warmup had me cringing in pain. The burpees made my tight, aching glutes very angry. I felt completely pathetic sliding on the 1 lb weights to make the women’s bar 35 lbs, but I think I did scale it well to my ability. Overall, I also did pretty well pacing myself. For the most part I kept up with the people in my gym who were actually competing, just at a much lighter weight.

But really, the biggest reason I got up this morning was to eat breakfast with my friends after CrossFit. I really, really wanted waffles, but I got a tofu scramble instead to help my aching muscles and keep me on track with my goal of reducing my sugar intake.

Today inspired me to get stronger and cook some tastier meals for myself.

I meant to only run 3 miles to take it easy on my shin, but I felt great and I was desperate to do my favorite run to the ballpark.