3 more weeks until the Prairie Dog Half!

Where does the time go? We only have three more weeks of training to go. That's two more long runs - a 10 miler and another one.

Last weekend we ran the Heart and Sole 10K. Not exactly a long run but that's ok. We ran it quite slowly too. But, that's ok too. The after party was great! The race was at the Boulder reservoir, the same location as the Dash and Dine series. That's the series where we really started to focus our training. It was nice to get in a run there and feel comfortable. My sister had a moment at the end where she felt like she couldn't go anymore. But, she sucked it up like a champion and finished strong! My moment came closer to the start. I felt like I couldn't get loose. It took me a good 2 maybe 2.5 miles to finally feel warmed up.

The race shirt was a neon pink tech shirt. Awesome!

This weekend we will be running our 10 miles on the Fremont Trail. It's dirt and an out and back. We'll need to carry our water for the full distance. That might be difficult since we run for so long, we'll need lots of it.

CrossFit - Deadlift PR!

Today's workout was Deadlift 5-5-5-5-5 then 5 x 250M row with 1 minute rest. (We ran out of time and only did 4 x 250.) The deadlift, to find your heavy set of 5, included some built in rest time as well. We did the lifting in pairs, except for my group which was three of us. The one and only other time I've done this workout was back in February. I was still very new then. My On Ramp class was in January. Back then I lifted 120 pounds. I remember feeling strong and being quite sore after. I don't remember if we did anything else that day, like the rowing today, but I don't think we did. One of my crossfitting friends told me back then that I'd deadlifted like a whole person. That made me feel really good!

Between now and then we've done deadlifts as part of our WOD but hadn't revisited the heavy 5 sets. I think we did a heavy set of 3 at some point.

Today was a good day. I didn't know what we had planned. We've been doing the same WOD as the rest of the gym lately and today, the other classes were doing rope climbs and clean and jerk. I can do those so I was looking forward to it but didn't get my hopes up. We had a sub coach today. And by sub I mean, the owner of the gym was our coach because our regular coach is on vacation. So, absolutely no slacking was to be had on this Friday. Not that Coach Ali ever lets us slack off either but, usually a sub implies that you can get away with a little slacking. Not so at CrossFit Roots. It's why I love it so! :-)

The idea with the 5 sets of 5 reps is to add weight each set. We built up to a starting weight after reviewing the proper form and such. Then each team had 3 minutes to do their lifts. We had to wait for the time to finish before starting the next set. Coach Nicole kept an eye on us and gave us our jumps after each rep. For our group, it went something like, "Next set add 20." Each time our eyes would get larger and we'd shrug and grab more weight. The three of us ended up lifting the same weight. We finished our 5th set at 165 pounds!!

That's a 45 pound PR! That's CRAZY!! Over 5 or 6 months it doesn't seem that huge of a jump. But, considering we don't really deadlift or do this 5 rep max check up on a regular basis, it's crazy to think all the work we've been doing could result in such a big jump. And, of course, Coach Nicole thinks I could have gone heavier. No, I think I'll bask in the glory of those 45lbs. It certainly felt heavy enough to me today. But, noted.

I love CrossFit!