nags of a similar ilk

This morning's velocity had all of the characters from Monday with one switch, we swapped out Jennifer for a quick Asian dude I've seen at various classes. Oh, and I learned the name of the guy whose name I couldn't remember on Monday. It's Greg, not David. I have no idea where David came from. Maybe Pickett.

As we were all rolling away on the foam rollers or with the roller sticks, a beefy guy I'd never seen before came up in full Velocity gear. "Are you here to workout?" Sandie asked him. "No," he replied, "I'm here to watch." Huh?

Turns out, he was the sports something or other director, and at class today to watch Breanne. Presumably to watch us, too. When I know someone is around to watch, I know my behaviour alters. I tried to detect changes in Breanne's behavious, since this was the first time this director person was around to watch.

During the warm ups, Breanne asked me about my knees, how were they doing? They're good, no acute injuries there. The next run down, how was the achilles? Good there, too. A little while later, how about the hamstrings, are they okay, too? Yep, those are good. Didn't have the heart to tell her about my quad. Instead, I chuckled and said, "I just need to stay healthy for another two weeks. That's my goal, to attend the Speed Camp in two weeks. Body, get me there!

The Asian guy behind me laughed and said, "Yeah, my goal was to make it the whole year without another major surgery. I have four weeks left. I might make it!"

I laughed, but Darlynn on my other side exasperated, "I can't believe you are talking about it like this!"

Sister, I thought, when you've been perpetually injured for the last four years, joking about it isn't going to jinx you.

Warmups were fine. Though I intellectually didn't really want to race Darlynn, emotionally I did, because I raced her. I have to see if she'd be willing to head out to do a speed workout with me. I know she has kids, but she's nearly exactly my pace. I rarely beat her by more than maybe a step. I think we'd make good running partners. Well, sprinting partners.

Not that warmups are races. Not at all.

Today's workout was three rounds of

20 rotating ball slams
20 pass-throughs
20 sliding thrusts
6 50m runs

The rotating ball slams were done with a wide stance. Turning to one side, we slammed the D balls down, as we dropped into a lunge and tried to catch the ball on its short bounce. Not enough slam meant the D ball didn't bounce high enough to catch. The trick on these, aside from slamming hard enough, is to actually dip into a lunge with bent legs. Tipping over from the waist with straight legs pretty much defeated the purpose of this exercise.

The pass-throughs were brutal.

Two jump boxes were set about 16" apart. Placing a hand on either box, starting in plank position, we did a pushup. A deep pushup. A pushup so deep we glared into the depths of the box gap and dreamed of pushing hard enough to see the light of day again. When we reached the apex of the pushup, back into a plank position, we then thrust from our feet, keeping our hands on the boxes and picking our feet up, rotating from the shoulders until our feet were out in front of us.

Hey, look! Dip position! Do a dip. Lower. Looower. Looooooooowwwweeeeeeeeer. Now come back up.

From the sitting position, we then pushed off, jumped a little bit, thrust our feet back out behind us until we were back in the plank position. That counted as two. Do twenty.

The sliding thrusts were so much easier compared to everything else before it. With hands out, in a plank position with our feet on towels on the linoleum surface, we brought our knees to our chest, sliding our feet up so that we were curled into a ball. We then thrust our legs back out to return to a plank position. That's one. Do twenty.

The six lengths were easy. I had a good strong stride again. I think I'll go for a run tomorrow, see how long I can keep my knees up high enough for a good run.

We all finished early enough, though I was completely unable to do the pass throughs and ended up doing 20 pushups and 20 dips with the boxes instead, so Breanne continued with abs.

In particular, we had four rounds of:

40 sliding mountain climbers
n weighted V ups

The sliding mountain climbers were done with our feet on towels, sliding again on the linoleum, as quickly as we could. Meanwhile, our partner was doing as many V ups with a weighted ball as possible. I think Bill, my partner, managed 4. I managed 5 during his rounds.

The final round was 10 pike position slides while our partner did situps, followed by one legged pike position slides. Kris finished up and was next to me, heckling me while I did my pike position slides with little effort.

"First the bear crawls, now the pike position slides! Unfair! You're bioengineered for these exercises!"

If only engineering were involved, I could tweak for longer legs.

Kris and I went to Velocity this morning. I haven't been in over a week and a half. I think Kris went maybe twice last week, one of his absenses being completely my fault. Not that he wasn't happy to return to bed and sleep for another hour or so.

This morning there were 7 paying customers for a full house of people warming up. Aside from the usual suspects of Breanne, Sandie, Kris, Bill and me, we also had Darlynn, who is becoming a regular, Jennifer, whom I met just today, Joe, Kris' coworker who is good natured about my unsubtle hecking and a 7:30 regular whose name I've forgotten - maybe David?

After jumping jacks and armcircles and squat warmups, I was tempted to line up so that I was warming up in Jennifer's line. She reminded me of a high school softball or volleyball player, the way she carried herself, and I was tempted to race her in the warmups.

For about 2 seconds.

They're warmups for a reason, to warm up, not to go all out and pull a muscle so that you're out for the offseason and out for the Speed Camp coming up that you really, really want to go to.

Besides, I warm up slowly, usually taking about 30% longer than everyone else to complete the length of the track in my warmups, and prefer to be in the last line so that I don't block anyone else behind me on the warmups. Since Jennifer lined up in the second lane, my racing morning was over.

Sorta.

Today's workout was:

10 runs 50m
10 reps push press
10 reps overhead squats

8 runs 50m
15 reps push press
15 reps overhead squats

6 runs 50m
20 reps push press
20 reps overhead squats

4 runs 50m
25 reps push press
25 reps overhead squats

The runs were done on the track, running down and back.

The push presses and the overhead squats were done with the same weight, for me the beginner barbell. We practiced with dowel rods before actually starting the workout, to make sure we had good form.

Because I was sharing a bar with Darlynn, I opted to run after my push presses and squats. So, while she and the rest of the group ran their ten lengths, I was pushing and squating by myself in front of Breanne.

Can you say "one-on-one training?"

Can you say "requires perfect form?"

Yeah.

Fortunately, my squat form was pretty good ("That's the best I've seen this morning, Kitt!"), so I was only self-conscious, not self-conscious and squating poorly. The trick to good squats, I've recently realized, is to keep your heels on the ground. Tipping forward is a lot harder when your heels are firmly planted on the ground. ("Good form, Kitt! You're getting stronger. Good depth. Good squat!")

I managed the first two rounds without difficulty, but was running out of time before Darlynn returned on the third set. I cut the push presses short, doing only 10 in the 20 round, and doing two sets of 10 for the squats instead of one set of 20. I did make up the missing 10 push presses in the last round, though.

Since I was running last in each round, I was usually running by myself. Except for one point in the eight lengths running, I ran my lengths very strong. I kept my knees up, my stride long, and my starts quick. My knees were tweaking funny when I jogged, but running was fine, so I kept up the pace.

My last round of four lengths happened to coincide with Kris' running of four lengths, as he was out for a good 10 minutes in the early rounds. I was about 15 meters down the track on my first length when he started his first length, and managed to stay in front of him the whole time. I have to say that today was the strongest I've run at Velocity, with that ending proving that I stayed strong. "Just couldn't catch you," Kris muttered under his breath as he walked by me back to his bar.

Yep, much more satisfying than racing Jennifer.

I finished up my missing pushpresses and put the bar back, just in time for the three rounds of two sets each of 20 crunches on swiss balls. I managed two sets (so 80 crunches) in the time it took everyone else to do the three sets, so I stopped.

Though slower through the exercises than everyone else, I was actually very happy with how I did in this morning's workout.

This morning's workout was 20 minutes of as many rounds as we could possibly do of:

5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 squats

To say this was the upperbody equivalent of last week's lowerbody hell would be making a valid statement. I managed only 11 rounds, with Kris managing 15. Bill managed 16 rounds, Sandie and Darlynn 14 rounds.

I was (and am!) mightly pleased with my 11 rounds, as it was one more round than the fewest done in the previous morning classes. I was particularly careful to lower myself completely on the pull ups, touch my chest to the floor on the push ups (since "touching my chin" doesn't really lower my body much, I can stick my chin out a good 8" from my body), and bend my legs into a deep (bottomed-out) sit on the squats. I also used the medium-assist band on the pullups, requiring jumping only after the first five rounds. I didn't have complete pullup failure until the 11th round, when I couldn't pull myself up at all, and had to jump all five jumps.

I had given Kris some good natured heckling about his lack of flexibility on his squats, but couldn't say much about his upper body finesse. His pushups were as close to perfect form as could be expected.

Given that I'm unable to lift my arms, I think that I'll be deliciously sore tonight.

Today's workout was 15 minutes of intense "how many can you do" exercises. In paricular, we had:

5 minutes of squats
4 minutes of box jumps
3 minutes of split squat jumps (lunge jumps)
2 minutes of kettle ball swings
1 minute of jumping rope

We had a minute or so rest between each of the exercises, which isn't really enough time to recover. I didn't manage nearly as many as I was hoping to make in the various exercises, not by a lot. I did manage 150 squats in the five minutes, which was the fewest number in our group. I barely eked out those 150 squats, determined to finish that many because it was 3 rounds of 50.

Both Kris and I had problems walking out of Velocity, our legs were so exhausted. I think I will be deliciously sore tomorrow.

This morning, three rounds of

2 x 20m walking single arm overhead lunges
20 single arm overhead squats
20 weighted squats
20 squats
200 jumprope jumps

I suck at the single arm overhead anything. Paul was there.