Thursday, March 12, 2009

Traveling man

Finally got around to posting up a banner picture. In retrospect, it was an obvious choice. This photo was taken more or less from the spot where I decided I needed to go back and check out that CrossFit website again. I was 7.5 miles into a 9 mile, 5,000 vertical-foot alpine tour on skis that took us up Mount Washington. We came up from the left just to the near side of the second-to-last summit visible, headed out of sight over the ridge for ~1,200-foot ski descent into the Great Gulf, climbed up to the summit (the descent into and climb out of the gulf are pictured here), skiing across the west face you see - including a 500-foot descent down the little gully in the center left (which ended in a melted-out ice/waterfall), and climbing to the summit of Mount Monroe (just above where I'm standing), before descending 2,000 feet back to where we started.

It remains one of my absolute best days ever. It started out rough, though. The 18-year old kid, and 45-year-old mountaineer I was travelling with positively dogged me on the first climb. Sure, I was carrying the extra safety gear (some of which got put to use by necessity), but the fact of the matter is that I was at my typical early-Spring lull in fitness and those guys just about disappeared over the hill on me. They yo-yo'd me a few times on this ascent and the trip to the summit, but by the time the day got to here, my natural stamina (accumulated from years of bike riding, I'm guessing) had me feeling the strongest of the lot. Still, it was painfully clear that I needed to broaden my fitness, so I looked up that strange website that another ski mountaineering friend had pointed me to a couple years previous. (At the time, the mainpage had some chipper of exercises of which I'd never heard, so I ignored it but saved the link.) This time, it was something understandable, if brutal - Angie. It took me over an hour, but I was hooked.

The rest is more or less history. CrossFit is what I do. I've missed several ski days to get in a workout. (I'm not sure this is the best prioritization, but it is what it is.) Today, I figured that if CrossFit is my thing, I should make like a real CrossFitter and get in a workout with out a gym, so this morning, I moved the furniture about in my hotel room and got after it.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warmup
CFCC dynamic mobility drills
Hip mobility drills
3 rounds:
    10 squats
    10 pushups
    10 supermans
    10 situps

Metcon
AMRAP 20:

    10 burpees (two hands touch ceiling at top)
    10 reverse burpees (hold FS handstand for a 3-count)
5 rounds + burpees and 3 reverse burpees

I like this combination of skill and metabolic conditioning. Next time, it will be 20 burpees though. Handstand holds got easier in rounds 2 and 3 and started fading toward the end of round 4, although I did manage a good 10-second hold as the timer was going off.

No comments: