It’s Friday!

Happy Friday, everyone!  I’m still preparing the next part of my recap for the Reach the Beach Relay from last weekend, but I wanted to write a quick post of this past week’s workouts.  Here’s a summary of the last few days along with the goals for the rest of the week:

Week of May 20 – 27
Sunday: Harpoon 5-Miler
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: CrossFit (ring dips, pull-ups, elevated push-ups, double-unders)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: CrossFit (“Helen“)
Friday: CrossFit (snatches, box jumps)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Run to Remember Half-Marathon

Flashback to Sunday…

The Harpoon 5-Miler was awesome (and hot) as usual!  I’ve run this race almost every year since I moved to Boston in the fall of 2007 and it’s always a fun time!

I was determined to run it despite being tired/sore from Reach the Beach.  I was part of a “6-pack” team, which ended up being a 4-pack so I didn’t want to let my team down.  Here I am with my teammates Ro, Nigel, and Chris:

The Harpoon Brewery in South Boston was packed with people.  In fact, the race has become so popular that a lottery is now in place to gain race entry.  My friends and I entered as a team, and we were lucky to get picked!

As I mentioned earlier, it was another hot day so I just wanted to have fun and take it easy after the relay.  I was surprised at how well I actually did, so I’ll take it! :)

Official 5-Miler Results (average pace of 8:55 min/mile)

After the race, we hung out for a couple of hours to enjoy the beautiful weather.  We drank delicious Harpoon beer and took photos!

One of my other favorite things about this race is that they have food after.  They served Bertucci’s pasta along with Kayem sausages…yum!  I was still very hungry due to the relay so the food tasted so good.

A little bit later, I hung out with Katie, who is a friend from my CrossFit box, Forever CrossFit.  Yay for CF friends!  Check out her yoga studio when you get a chance.  At this point, my face had already turned red from 2 beers.  Yes, TWO beers!  Jeez, I really don’t have enough alcohol dehydrogenase in my body…(nerd alert!).

After we ran out of beer tickets, we decided it was time to go home.  I proceeded to take a nap for the remainder of the day.  No kidding!

I needed a rest day on Monday, but I really wanted to get back into CrossFit after being gone over the weekend.  Tuesday’s class was really tough for me, mainly because it involved a lot of skilled movements that required upper body strength.  Pull-ups are so hard for me…I really hope I can continue to improve.  I’m making it my goal to practice a bit after class…I wanna get stronger!  Tuesday’s WOD was:

“Superfly”
For time:
* 4 Muscle Ups (substituted 3 ring dips and 3 pull-ups PER muscle up)
* 8 Handstand Push-ups (substituted 16 elevated push-ups, using a box)
* 20 Burpees
* 100 Double Unders
* 20 Burpees
* 8 Handstand Push-ups (substituted 16 elevated push-ups, using a box)
* 4 Muscle Ups (substituted 3 ring dips and 3 pull-ups PER muscle up)

Wednesday was another rest day for me…I was definitely still in recovery mode.

As for yesterday’s workout, we had one of the classic benchmark WODs: “Helen.”  It looks so harmless on paper, but wow, it was a butt-kicker!

My legs felt so tired during the runs and the pull-ups were killer.  I can’t do strict pull-ups yet so I used a medium blue band for assistance.

However, I am proud that I managed to do all 21 KB swings in a row for each round.  I kept telling myself that I only had to do 3 sets of 7 so that I wouldn’t be tempted to stop.  Breaking things up into smaller steps (even when running) really helps me.  It wasn’t my best performance, but since this was my first experience with Helen, this gives me a baseline for improvement!

Photo below courtesy of Coach Rick at Forever CrossFit:

I’m taking a rest day tomorrow to:

I’ll return shortly with more RTB Relay recaps, but for now…have a great Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

Patricia