....And Carnac the Magnificent Says:

That tomorrow the stock in Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, Flexeril, etc. will all jump about 5 points each. For me, it'll be the Advil and Aleve, with a small dent in my Flexeril stash.

Why?

 ----- woo! -----

[Just heard one of our Air National Guard F-15s go screaming overhead, afterburner in full burn.  Damn...I will NEVER get tired of that sound!]

Ahem.  Back to our regularly-scheduled programming. 

Well, there's something called the "Memorial Day Murph" that's done in honor of a SEAL who died during a mission called Operation Red Wing (or "Wed Wing" as my tired fingers almost wrote); it was a mission that had the greatest loss of SEAL life in the history of the SEALs -- since World War II.  Those who know me know I enjoy military history, something I inherited from my father. 

I am also fourth generation Air Force; beginning with my maternal great-grandfather who was in the Army Balloon Corps in WW I, my maternal grandfather who flew a B-17 at Guadalcanal (he also witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor) and then my father who served stateside during the Vietnam War.  I served during the First Gulf War at Carswell, AFB, as an Air Crew Life Support Specialist.

"The Murph" as the workout is called, consists of:

• 1 mile run
• 100 pull-ups
• 200 push-ups
• 300 squats
• 1 mile run

There are lots of people all over the nation today doing that, many of whom (like me) who are new and going to be sore...but that's weakness leaving the body, right? (Yeah, um...right! :-)  )

I had my doubts about really chipping off much of that, due to my brand-spankin'-new-car-smell status off CrossFit, even though I've been a pretty avid gym goer for awhile and have been in pretty good shape lately.

Actually, the thought of getting through most of it made me do this (especially the thought of 100 pull-ups):

I did donate $25 to the "Memorial Day Murph" Fund, which also gifted me to a neat t-shirt (which didn't come in time to wear this weekend, sadly); the funds go to three charities: The Michael P. Murphy Scholarship Fund, The Wounded Warrior Project, and the Lone Survivor Foundation (started by Marcus Luttrel, the only man to survive Operation Red Wing).  However, I have to say I felt a little funny wearing the shirt if I didn't attempt to do anything.

So my thought was to come up with something I could do.  Most of yesterday was spent watching Generation Kill, and today I started The Pacific, as part of my Memorial Day tribute (excellent programs, by the way), and so about 1:45 I started my version.

My plan was to do two hours of challenging yoga, but about an hour into it I got inspired as I looked at my flag that I have hanging out on my terrace for today.  I had already done 35 push-ups towards the end of my yoga, and so by then I was pretty warmed up.  I decided to keep going, and did, at that point:

• 200 squats
• 25 push-ups 
• Break to get some much-needed Gatorade-laced water

• 10 push-ups
• 25 squats
• 10 push-ups
• 25 squats
• 10 push-ups
• 25 squats
• 10 push-ups
• 25 squats
• 10 push-ups

[Scramble to get out of my yoga clothes and into my running shoes, shorts and top]

• 2 mile run on treadmill downstairs, using hill profile (alternated between #1 and #2), finishing in 22:14
• 25 more push-ups (after a cool-down walk outside on what became a beautiful afternoon!)

So, that was a total of:

• 300 squats
• 125 push-ups
• 2 mile run
• 1 hour of challenging yoga

The "Murph" part took about 50 minutes, so overall, though it was about a 2-hour workout when you factor in the yoga I did before. I feel pretty damn pleased with myself, and I'd like to think he'd be grinning as well.  It was really more a tribute to myself than to him, which is how I think he'd perhaps more likely want me to view it. 

My thought is that if I can manage all of that now, that maybe I can do a full one next year.  That's what I'm going to strive for, at least.  I know I couldn't have done 100 pull-ups, even if they were assisted (well, maybe on a Gravatron machine with all but about 10 of my own pounds assisted...) and I sorta wish I'd tried that today. 

Next year: A full one
Year after: With the suggested 20lb vest (more likely to find that than the other option: body armor).

Well, I can always try throughout the year, too.  Use it as a litmus test for fitness, if you will.  But I do know that, come tomorrow morning, I'm going to be feelin' the Tin Man's cry:

Oil can!

Still, this weekend has left me feeling rather sad, both from my own personal reflections about what Memorial Day means, and as I think about Michael Murphy's family, friends, and the fiancee he left behind, who has, if you ask me, the best name ever: Heather.  :-)

I understand what's behind the charities and the workout itself, but it seems like handing someone with a starving 15-person family 1/4 of rice.  There's a part of me that thinks of him, of the fellow on the MIA bracelet on my wrist, and of all the headstones at any cemetery like Arlington or Punchbowl, and I think, What a waste of life of good men and women.



At least I feel like I earned the "privilege", if you will, to wear the t-shirt when it comes.

MUSIC:
     Yoga: Meditation music through an app on my iPhone
      Running: Crystal Method, Vegas

P.S. Bite me, upcoming "milestone" birthday in July! :-)

Today Definitely Needs to Be a Rest Day

I had bizarre dreams all night, and I woke up feeling just like that fellow in my first post, the fellow in the Far Side cartoon.  But that's good!

Besides, I have a Timbers soccer game to watch later and there's going to be beer.  I have to rest up for that.  Yes -- this does get me to my goals!  Beer has minerals and vitamins and probiotics (craft beer, at least, the kind we get a-plenty here in Portland), and has been shown to help promote recovery after a workout.

As if we Portlanders needed another excuse to drink beer -- but what a good one!

-- H

28MAY11

PROJECTED:

• 1000m run (on a treadmill, using the hill program)
• 22 Burpees (squat-jump thingy, not gardening with Burpee seeds)
• 1000m run
• 22 assisted-weight pull-ups
• 22 weighted lunges with a 25lb disk weight (or a scrounged kettlebell, if I can)
• 22 thrusts, since I don't have wall balls there, either

WHAT I DID:

• 1100m run @ 6.5 mph on the hill profile
• 22 burpees, modified with knees on ground
• 1000m run @ 6.5 mph on the hill profile; for the last 3 minutes, down to 5.5
• 25 lunges (I believe I'm supposed to count a lunge with the right and a lunge with the left as one).  So first 10 was with 20lbs (2 10lb dumbells), small rest, another 10 with 20lbs, then last 5 with no weight.
• 44 assisted-weight pull-ups; 40/30/20 for assisting weights (Gravitron).  Used widest placement possible for my hands.
• 22 thrusts with 25lb barbell, then another 22 with an 18lb bar
• 11 burpees/rest/11 burpees (modified both times)
• 1000m row xoolsoqb @ 7:02 (as I was typing all of this with one finger on my iPhone, which was strapped to my arm, I believe that was supposed to be "1000m row cooldown").
• Stretch

TOTAL TIME for the main workout (not including the "xoolsoqb"): 50 minutes
MUSIC: Metallica -- classic (Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets).  None of that St. Anger crap.

I think I smell a nap on the air, kind of like smelling rain on the wind.... :-)

I'd Say Bring on the Pain, But I'm Not a Glutton...Yet

I am tired.  But, then, I didn't go to bed early enough last night, I don't think.

(Note: My mother emailed me about the above sentence, and I proved the last part right: no, I don't think.  Given I used a double negative.)

Here's to you, Mom:  But, then, I didn't go to bed early enough last night, I think.

Is that better?  Heehee.

If you're family and you're reading this, then you know I've started CrossFitting, as they say.  I've spent the last year getting healthy again after being under the weather, apparently due to a clunker of a gall bladder.  So far, it's been a year, and I've come down about 26.6 pounds (a caloric deficit of 93,100!) and I was shocked last Monday to discover a summer skirt I could comfortably wear last October was too big.  I left early for Fred Meyer (those of you who aren't local, it's like Target-meets-Safeway, as there's a big grocery area, but also clothing, electronics, gardening and so on) and found I'd lost four sizes over the winter!

Not that the weather's been all that cooperative.  It's cloudy, cold and about 50 degrees outside right now.  But who am I kidding?  It is only May 28.  Way to early to expect some warm weather....It seems someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that it's not November anymore.

Anyway.

My grandmother kindly fronted me the money to pay for my first 20 CrossFit classes, and now that I have a doctor's letter saying that it's his opinion I need a gym membership for my general well-being, I can charge them to my medical flex card.  But I'll need to leapfrog -- my own pocket, then the card, my own pocket -- and so on.  I use the card for prescriptions, too.  Then, next spring, when I re-up on the card, I can put more on.  I opted for a lesser amount this year as I struggled to use up everything I'd budgeted to it (for those of you who don't know what a medical flex card is, it's this card where you can up to $3000 on it, and then you pay back the company over the course of the year, with money that comes out of your paycheck pre-tax).

Before I'd used it all up as I was going to acupuncture and the doctor more often because I was so under the weather (didn't know it was the gall bladder), and I just didn't use it all up this past year as I was healthier.  I ended up buying four pairs of glasses and four pairs of really nice sunglasses (can I just say that Oakleys are the best ever?)  So this year, I got less money put on the card, thinking I'd have the same trouble.  I wasn't thinking in terms of CrossFitting yet.

But next year will be different.  Besides -- I can take 2-3 classes a week, then just use their WOD (workout of the day, for you non-CFers) as a guideline for what I can do at the gym.  Yesterday was my first official class, and I did lots better than I expected as it was easier than I anticipated (always nice to find out you're in better shape than you think), but I could also feel myself getting pushed when it came to the run and the row.  An image of trying to move through Silly Puddy comes to mind.

I need it, though.  I'd hit one hell of a plateau with my normal workouts, and I feel like I'm starting over in some ways.  Or am brand new.  I was a former "gym rat" until I kept getting sick all the time and wound up putting about 40 lbs back on over three years of the 60 I lost initially back in 2000-2001.

I'm definitely going to have to scale down what I can do (obviously), and there's some things I have to really learn how to do (handstand pushups for one; I have enough trouble with my balance on my own two feet sometimes :-)  ).  I also have a tendency towards fatigue.  I always have.  It just seems to be me; nutrition I'm told is fine, my sleeping habits are good...I just go through phases where I get really tired.  Sometimes, in the early times of PMS it can be debilitating.

However, with the exercise I've been doing in recent months, it seems to be improving.  I just also have a tendency to get all gung-ho and over-confident.  I can confuse pushing myself to keep improving and over-pushing myself beyond what I can really do.  It's not quite burnout...it just leads to fatigue.

The workouts:

My first workout was a week ago yesterday (May 20) where they put me through a "new athlete WOD", and I was pleased by how well I did, given I was exhausted due to a long, long week that was enormously busy (the busiest week in two years).  The exhaustion was mental, emotional and physical (I'd also worked out harder a couple of days that week), and it was nice to see what I could do on a low day.

Yesterday was my first class.

I ran a mile in 9:02 out doors with  hills (my running is usually done indoors on a treadmill), so that was pleasing.

I did 30 Clean and Jerk with 30 lbs total; I struggled a little towards the end, but I seriously felt like I could do more, especially since I upped the total number to 35 in my head so I didn't start cheating around 28-29.

2000m row in 10:44 (I had to rest for a minute or two at 1000m).

I got laughed at towards the end when I said, "Is that it?"

A classmate grinned and said, "You want more?"

I was both expecting a little more, but I was also making sure that I wasn't skedaddling out of there before it was done.

But better to be easier, rather than ending up like this the following day:

So today I'm going to attempt a scaled-back WOD from the Beaverton CrossFit site:

Theirs:


1600m Run
44 Burpees
1600m Run
44 Pull-ups
44 weighted lunges w/44 lb kettlebell
44 wall balls


Mine (planned)

1000m run (on a treadmill, using the hill program)
22 Burpees (squat-jump thingy, not gardening with Burpee seeds)
1000m run
22 assisted-weight pull-ups
22 weighted lunges with a 25lb disk weight (or a scrounged kettlebell, if I can)
22 thrusts, since I don't have wall balls there, either

I wish Bally had kettlebells I could use; maybe if I buy a few they'd let me store them there.  They have some, but not for the general public's use...but maybe since I've been a longtime member there (10 years), I could borrow theirs.


I can tell, nutritionally, I'm breaking through a plateau as I feel hungrier again...I've also been doing Weight Watchers, and I think I may need to pull a bit more from my 49 freebie points than I have been.  But it's also an adjustment, forcing my body to start using up its own stores.

I have to say I'm really excited about all of this!  I'll post my results later.  Right now, I'm going to go play some Borderlands.

-- H