The first day of classes

So I'm seriously starting to freak out about the races I have coming up because I have not been working out nearly as much as I should be. Races are a blessing and a curse because they are so much fun, but the lead time can be stressful (a blessing in disguise, I suppose, because it gets my butt off the couch).

Anyways, due to my schedule it's looking like I'm going to have to go the gym at 8 AM on MWF. I have an 8 AM class on Tuesday/Thursday so it would be nice to maintain a consistent schedule (we'll see if I can pull it off). I've also decided to bike to and from school as much as I can. This morning was day one and my bike basket broke and my bike chain slipped. Not only did it add several minutes to my bike time (making me almost late to the gym), but my stuff spilled into the street and a nice gentleman had to help me pick it up. I was very thankful for that kind stranger. Anyways, the ride to the gym took about half an hour and the ride home took around 24 minutes. We'll see if I can get that time below 20 (no I'm not competitive!).

The workout today was pretty awesome. We started with a crossfit warmup, which I won't go into, and then overhead press (5 x 40 pounds, 5 x 45 pounds, and 6 x55 pounds). My trainer gave me some excellent tips to improve my overhead press. As I got tired, my back started to arch so he told tighten my abs and squeeze my butt. He said something like "protect yourself like a prisoner in a shower." A bit crass, but it definitely helped. After that, we worked on form for the olympic squat (aptly timed, given some of the more recent posts). It's amazing how much form really matters. I love my gym because we focus on different aspects of form each week. Little things like grip, bar placement, and timing. It seriously makes a difference.

Then came the workout. The workout was in two parts. The first part was the baseline. The baseline consists of a 400m run, 40 air squats, 30 situps, 20 pushups and 10 pullups for time. My previous time was 5:32 and I got it down to just over 4:50. a 40 second improvement! I was happy with that, though I felt like crap. The second part was one minute each of burpees, sumo deadlift high pulls, american swings (16 pound kettlebell), push press (45 pound bar), and double unders for max reps. I lost count of how many reps I did at about the halfway point, but it was a killer workout.

We closed with 3x10 overhead press at half maximum and 3x10 sets of up GHD sit ups. It was a good day at the gym! :)

I'm going to try and run 13 miles this weekend and I'm planning to run 7.8 on Thursday with a group of people. I'll try to squeeze some other runs in as well. We'll see!