back in the saddle

Saturday was a FANTASTIC day!! We did one of the all time funnest workouts ever, yes, that would be  the redneck fantasy workout of  Yoke walkin' car pushin' & tire flippin'!!  Pure fun! After playin' around a bit, and testing each one out, we did the course for time!  Before going into how I did, let me mention a couple things: 1. The yolk walkin' course is longer and 2. Although you can't see it, there is definitely more of an uphill on the car pushin', and I believe it might be a hair bit longer.
Believe me or not about the uphill and distance, fact of the matter is, I as well as everyone else, added a good 2 minutes to our previous times. Yoke walkin' I did with a 24kg kettlebell attached to each side.  Although the distance was longer, I think my time for that was still ok, probably a little over a minute.  Then came the car pushin'.  From the post to the last cone - first direction - not so bad, a bit long, but not terrible.   Then the other direction. This is where the shoe drops, and those very large hills, invisible to the naked eye, come out to play.  Car pushin' is where I spent the vast majority of my time.  I actually had to push the opposite way, with my butt on the car  for a while. OY! It really was a sleeper hill - you don't know it's there until it jumps out and grabs ya!  Tire flippin', I did the girl tire -2 up 2 back - not a huge issue.  Total time was 5:04.  Yep, just checked, at the old place, I finished in 3:02 - that is definitely a full 2 minutes added, not to mention, that I only had to do 2 tire flips each way this time instead of 3.  I'm telling ya - the level of difficulty was much higher on the car push!!  Either way - this workout still rocks!! 

Monday - Heavy Helen.  I LOVE this version of Helen. The weighty girls are so much better!
Heavy Helen is 200m run, 15 KB swings 24kg, and 9 pullups weighted (ok, for me in the bands, go figure!!)  3 rounds for time.  I did this using a mini and a red, probably should have gone a bit lighter, I just wasn't certain about my strength with the tail end of this cold and not having done pullups in a week.  The run was ok....my heel/plantar fascitis (my diagnosis) thingy was hurting a bit so I was running like a lopsided fool.  But I did it, then I powered through the swings - on these, I went to my happy place, so that I could just get through 15.  Then came the pullups. I did them in sets of 3 or 4.   I ended up finishing in 9:25, taking a minute off my last time.  So this was good - but I think I need to take some of the bands off for the pullups next time.

Today was Powercleans.  The uber frustrating powercleans.  I started slow on these, because form is always an issue.  I concentrated pretty hard on the "keep  your arms straight" part, trying to avoid the whole "you're pulling too early" thing that I usually hear.  I started at 75 - and heck if I didn't get a "pretty good"...huh?  really?? ok - so that was a light weight.  Next 95 lbs.  What did you say?? Do I need to clean my ears out? because that sure didn't sound like "too early"....Holy moly, what is this wave coming over me?? This fabulousness that says "by George, I think she's got it!!"???  I knew that feeling for a fleeting moment tonight.  Then we added weight, and I jumped right into 115.   Apparently my first one was ok - but it was heavier than I anticipated, and I acknowledged that weight.  That's when the weight beat me.  It got in my head and after several attempts, I managed to knock out 2 more really messy ugly ones.  Next round - went back down to 100 - these were good.  Then back up slowly - 105, I got in one decent one, the next two, I did some weird landing.  I think I need to start working these at 105 now.....since that seems to be where I lose form.   On the plus side, all of the 95 lbs Thrusters, Cleans and everything else I've been doing seem to have helped the form overall.  So that's good!!