Crossfit Workouts

I am currently in the process of totally revamping my gym workouts by adopting the Crossfit workout strategy. If you haven't heard about Crossfit then you should really research it. I first came across it in an old Men's Journal from 2006. The workouts intrigued me because it promised great results in a short period of time. I thought yeah right every magazine makes these outrageous claims for every article which ultimately turns out to be quite gimmicky.

The reason Crossfit can actual follow through on these claims can be summed up in one word.....Intense!! If you do this workout at the tempo and effort it is intended then you will get the workout of your life. Check out this Youtube video and also this direct link to a video.

I did a really hard Crossfit workout the other day before heading to the office and almost threw up my protein shake. It was awesome. It was the normal after workout high times 10!! I felt great all day and I was sore all over the next day.

You will quickly notice how you stand out from all of the other people at the gym who are worried about looking pretty while they workout. You will get an endless number of incredulous looks and stares as you quickly rotate between your exercises. Most people just can't handle this level of intensity.

The thing I have to be careful about is balancing Crossfit with my long distance running because this workout can really wipe you out. I have to be sure that I give my body enough time to build back up between all of these challenges I am throwing at it.

Running Goal

A few weeks ago I finished up what is so far my craziest running streak. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC the last Sunday in October, followed it up with the Ultracentric 6 hr race in middle of November, and then completed White Rock Marathon in Dallas in early December.

Now I am left with the decision of how to proceed from here. Do I go for distance or do I go for speed. Going for distance would mean training for a 50 miler sometime later this year while going for speed would mean shooting for a 3 1/2 hr marathon or faster.

In the meantime I have the Austin Marathon and Cowtown Ultra on my running calendar. These are on back to back weekends in February. The only problem I have is the entry fee for Austin which is $110. This is pretty steep compared to most of the local marathons in Texas. Considering I can and sometimes will run almost an entire marathon during a training run, it makes it hard to fork over $110 for the privilege of doing it in Austin. I can do the Cowtown Ultra for just $85. What a deal.

It is funny how when marathons were a new thing for me I really wouldn't pay attention to the price. I was too caught up in wondering whether I could finish, or about the aid stations, or how course conditions would affect me. Now I can just grab a hydration pack or fuel belt and go knock out 26 miles in pretty much any type of weather conditions on any day.

Currently I am leaning toward a focus on speed since I am still young and realize that as I age my speed will probably slow down while my endurance will pick up. If I could run like Scott Jurek or David Goggins it would take care of my problems since those guys run a 100+ miles at my 10k my pace.

Solo Night

As I type this the dog and I are chilling in bed. My WW (Wonderful Wife) is in Houston tonight shooting a wedding. Unfortunately military drill today prevented me from joining her. Bedtime is relatively early tonight because of a scheduled run with Ganda at 6:30am in the morning. I am hoping to get in around 15 miles, but we will see what happens.

Burrito Run

My morning run began and ended with a stop at the Tres Jose's Breakfast Burrito Express. If you haven't tried these things then you don't know what you are missing. The breakfast burritos are awesome and only $1 each. I am sure they are extremely unhealthy, but a lot of the reason I work out is so that I can eat and not feel guilty.

The reason I began my run at the Burrito Express was the fact that they usually sell out early. So I ran up to the guy, handed over my $3 (the wife wanted one), and told him to hold them until I got done with my run. Three miles later I finish my run at the burrito stand, retrieve my workout reward, and head home to enjoy my breakfast. All mornings should be that good.

Treadmill Test

Well the weather around DFW this weekend is pretty lousy. It has been drizzling/raining off and on for the past two days with temperatures flirting with the freezing mark. The wind is not bad, but the cold and damp don't mix well when you are training for the Cowtown Marathon coming up next month. Ryan and I had a 14.5 mile training run planned for Saturday morning, but plans quickly changed when I got soaked just walking to my car that morning. I convinced him that we should just do some mileage on the treadmill and save ourselves the misery of getting soaked the first mile of our run and then being miserable the rest of the time.

Well the treadmill was about what we expected, boring. It just doesn't feel the same when you are running and not making any forward progress at all. One of the best things about running is the little adventure you have each run. I love to just take out of the door and see where things lead me. You never know what you might find or where you might end up. A lot of the times I will end up running farther than anticipated because I just want to keep going and see what is around the corner.

The treadmill while great for a short little workout is quite monotonous for those of us who run long distances. I put around 11 miles on the treadmill on Saturday and another 5 today, but I am hoping the weather clears up and I can hit the roads again on Monday.

Lesson Learned

So today I learned a lesson in record keeping. Normally I am pretty good about keeping track of receipts and documents, but lately I have been slacking off. Maybe it has something to do with the 100+ things I have going on or maybe I just haven’t made it a high enough priority. Either way there is a huge stack of documents that I have to go through and organize soon before I get caught unprepared again. Ok, here is the story

I sold my textbooks from last semester on Amazon Marketplace this year. Overall it was a great experience and I sold all of the books within four days. When mailing the books I always buy the insurance even though I think it is overpriced. I really didn’t feel like taking the hit if the books never arrived. Well guess what. I get an email from a guy today claiming he never got his book that I mailed on December 10. First of all I don’t believe that the guy never received the book. As bad as the post office is, they usually get the packages to their destination at some point or another. The real problem though lies in the fact that I can’t locate my insurance receipt from the post office, and the postal system is so archaic that you are SOL if you lose the piece of paper. There is no such thing as looking it up electronically.

So it looks like I will be taking a $50 hit just because of some lousy record management on my part. While this does suck, it is at least motivating me to take better care of everything in the future. Lesson learned.