Snatch- 5/40, 3/50, 2/60, 1/70, 1/75, 1/75
Clean and Jerk- 5/70, 3/80, 1/90, 1/95

Circuit, as many rounds as possible in 10minutes:
6 Cleans at 55kg
12 Pull Ups
24 Double unders
Total: just fell short of 4 rounds. I’d just commenced the double unders of the 4th round.

This session didn’t start well. My legs were tired. I probably should have known something wasn’t right. My left knee has felt tight and like it’s need to crack for a week now, despite my best efforts of rolling and stretching and getting the occasional rub from Jos. Anyway with about a minute to go on the double unders my knee did crack. In fact my immediate thought was that I’d popped something (I was even thinking ACL which I did 12 years ago and then had the reco). Anyway after I rested it overnight, I didn’t ice or put any anti inflamatories on it as I wanted to see if it would swell. It didn’t it was tender and unstable but no swelling. We shall see!

10* Mounstfield Park Hill

I managed 10 of these bad boys today. So things feel like they are improving on the running front. I’ll try a track session and a steady state session later in the week- woo hoo!!

Squats- 5/5/3/3/3
Clean and press thruster and Pull ups- 5 rounds of 5 and 10

This was the second week of my 5/3/1 strength focus and today was squats. So I managed 5/90, 5/110, 2*3/127.5 and 4/127.5. This was tough, the 3s at 127.5 were a real effort. I only just got 4 out on the last one.

The 5 rounds of 5 Clean and Press Thrusters at 60kg and 10 Pull Ups were a real effort too. I think they would have been easier if I hadn’t have squatted first, but not much. I managed to do this in just on 11minutes. Again the Pull Ups were the things that slowed me down, but I think they’re improving!

I was planning on trying a 2hour plus run this morning, but realised I didn’t have enough time as I had to be on a train to Manchester at 1:20pm. This was on the Crossfit mainsite so I thought why not?

The workout was 6*400ms and 25Burpees, which means you run 400m then do 24 burpees and repeat this 6 times! I did this at Finsbury Park Track- I’m loving this Park!

The Burpees meant that the 400s were run under fatigue, which meant I had to really focus on my running technique, which was kind of the same response I had hoped for if I had of done the long run. This was tough but worthwhile.

Isabel and Kettlebell Snatches

Isabel is 30 Snatches at 60kg as fast as you can. This took me 4:40. I also learnt a lot. I learnt that you can almost always squeeze out another rep! I did it the studio too which meant I wasn’t dropping the weight, you end up losing a lot of energy lowering the bar each time rather than dropping it after a bunch of reps. Ah well the extra work on the eccentric can only be good for me!

I then did a 6minute Kettlebell Snatch with the 24kg bell. It was tough after the above Snatch work. I managed 54/54 which wasn’t too bad, but I was technically poor!

Today was time to apply 5/31 to my standing press. As I only managed 65kg last week today was time to perform 3 working sets of 5 at 85%. I did this at 55kg. I managed 8 on the last set- this is still quite poor, yet obviously a weakness that will only improve!

Next was a 5km. I did this around the walking path at Finsbury Park which is 2230m, so I did 2 laps plus approximately 500m. This took me just on 25minutes. I was pretty happy with this as when I did this back in May it took me 28minutes and I wasn’t able to run for a couple of weeks due to my calf, so onwards and upwards!!

Squats – 5*5
Roy- 5 rounds of 15*100kg Dead Lifts, 20Box Jumps, 25Pull Ups

Today was the first time implementing the 5/3/1 plan with my squats. I hit 140kg last weekend so today I was scheduled to perform 3 sets of 5 at 85%. I did a couple of progressive warm up sets at 100kg and 110kg and then did the work sets at 120kg. I managed to get 7 reps on the last one.

Then it was time to give “Roy” a shot. I got through 3 Rounds and then had to finish as I had clients. Again I need to improve my Pull Ups!! Very metabolic and great fun!

35min run on the Isle of Wight.

I came down to the West Bay Club to meet with them about the possibility of running some courses and to look at their gym. As I was on this beautiful Island I decided to have a run around. This was the first steady pace run I’ve managed since I hurt my calf- I survived! The course was reasonably hilly and the terrain varied so I was was pleased. The marathon is on the 26th September so I feel I’m back on track.

Following on from yesterday I decided to do another Crossfit workout from the mainsite. Today’s workout was Angie which is 100 Pull Ups, 100 Push Ups, 100 Sit Ups and 100 Squats. For this I took myself to Finsbury Parks outdoor gym. It took me 40minutes!! People have done this in 10minutes- I’ve got plenty of work to do! The Pull Ups ruined me. I did them in 25 then 10, the rest were in blocks of 4 and 5. I really need to get to better grips of Kipping Pull Ups, and yes grip is a problem!! I think once I nail the Pull Ups I should be able to get this under 20minutes. We’ll see…

This had been brewing for a while. After much deliberation, contemplation, conversation and even some hesitation I bit the bullet. I was going to start on Monday but when the Crossfit Total came up on Saturday I thought it was time to see where I was at.

The Crossfit Total is a maximal test of the Squat, Press and the Dead Lift. In some ways I was disappointed with my numbers, however when I thought about it I wasn’t too disappointed. I’d just had a big training week and I hadn’t done any single testing in ages, so the numbers were OK I guess.

Squat- 140kg (I probably had 145kg, have hit 165kg in the past)
Press- 3/65kg miss/70kg (I think this was down to fatigue. I’ve done 5′s at 75 before)
Dead Lift- 180kg miss/190kg (225kg is my best to date ’06)

After this I’ve decided to follow a Wendler based 5/3/1 template for Squats and Presses.