Week one of maratón training is just about complete. I’m debating whether to get my 8-miler in tomorrow or attend the Church of the Long Run on Sunday.

Monday: 4.08 miles
Friday: 4.10 miles
Saturday or Sunday: 8 miles (projected)

Even though I’ve kept up a consistent running schedule since the half-marathon, it’s good to feel back in training mode. It’s a 14-week schedule plan from RunKeeper for first-time marathoners. The main goal is to keep the body to start burning fat while running (which is crucial for this newbie Caveman) and gain confidence while running.

Rock Creek Park is one of the best places to run in the District and I made a nice detour through the National Zoo. I was hoping to stop by and ask the Red Panda to took off toward Adams Morgan this week about any cool places to check out, but alas, the exhibit wasn’t open yet.

This week were easy runs and the sprints start next week. My goal is to average about 10:30 speed for the easy runs.

Monday CrossFit: Mobility (Jumping jacks, burpees, mountain climbers, drop squats)
Snatch work, (got to 65 lbs from the power position)
Chest to bar pullups (doing better with bands) 4×6
Metcon (5 min AMRAP): 30 lbs dumbbell lifts (15x), Turkish sit-ups (5x each side).

Wednesday CrossFIt: Mobility (Bear Crawl, spiderman stretch)
Clean work (Got to 95 lbs on clean lift!)
Romanian deadlifts (50 lbs)Metcon: 3×1 min burpees and plate pinch pass. They wanted men to hold 45 lbs for the pass but yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

Ah, Turkish sit-ups. Currently the new bane of my existence. It’s halfway to a Turkish get up, which seems that more difficult. Don’t believe me? Have a look yourself.

See what I mean? Anyway, I’ll get there at some point.

Otherwise, I finished my LivingSocial month and really am excited to continue with CrossFit in with the running. I feel challenged (and completely gassed) every time I leave, so I consider that to be a rousing success.

I got in two sessions of CrossFit after returning back from the homeland Monday evening and they both felt great. I feel myself getting slightly better at this or at least not filling like a complete dumbass going through the workout. There are still some exasperated folks who help me get the weights off the bars (Did I mention I have a master’s degree?) but that’s not much at all.

When I first signed up for the 7:15 am class, I thought this was going to be difficult for me, a perpetual and professional night owl. But you know, it’s been a real joy. Seriously. Granted, my first thought in the morning being how much are my arms going to hate me later in the day isn’t that great, but again, the alternative is my arms loving me because they are too weak to feel. However, it being 7:15 am, I can never find my CrossFit notebook. It’s probably staring me in the face screaming, “RIGHT HERE, DING DONG!!!!!” But again, my advanced degree allows me to be distracted easily.

Wednesday’s workout

Warm-up
Side shuffle
Spiderman stretch
Dirty dancing drill (which helps in getting all the strength focused for clean lifts)

Clean techniques

8×3, catch and lift (I was able to lift about 95 lbs, which I’ll take as I haven’t attempted lifting since high school)
Level 1: Power position (bar at thigh level, press, clean lift)
Level 2: Knee to thigh to power position
Level 3: Floor to power position (This one is really tough because it requires different variations of technique as you move the bar up to clean lift properly.)

Barbell finger rolls: 3×10

Metcon: “In the Slammer”
8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Single dumbbell renegade row (In the push up position, you alternate lifting the dumbbell)
Medicine ball slam (jump, slam the ball down)
Time: 4:10 (35 lbs for renegade row)

I’ve been trying to focus on learning technique and since I don’t have a good barometer of how much weight I can lift, I’ve been using a little lighter weights to get through the reps in a timely fashion.

Friday’s workout

Lat ball workout on the bicepsBand stretch for the triceps
20 jumping jacks
10 PVC dislocates
5 inch worms (which is a great stretch)

Gymnastics and balance!

Handstand work: down dog, from the box, on the wall (I did my first handstand ever from the wall and it went a lot better than I thought it would. I’ll take it!)

Balance work: Crow pose (which is REALLY tough. I don’t trust my balance as much as I think I do, so it’s a real area of improvement)

Super set: Hanging Scapular Retraction, 5×5 sec hold (Much harder than it appears.)
One-legged squats: 5×5

Another super set!:
Dips 5×5
Barbell rollouts: 5×5 (Holy shit, these are hard! Part of my initial fear is falling on my face and hitting the bar. Then I realized that my abs need A LOT of work. Another area for improvement.)

Conditioning
(With partner) Med ball toss/burpee, 25x.

I have gotten a lot better in doing burpees, which I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not.

I love Daft Punk. LOVE them.

Thanks to the good folks at LivingSocial, I am doing my first month of CrossFit at Balance Gym: Foggy Bottom. Located in the Fairmount Hotel in the West End, it’s a great gym and full amenities (!) and it’s been a real blast.

I undertook the Foundations course at the end of May and attended one session before my trip to the home land. CrossFit is grounded in technique and precision. As much as the commercials of muscle folk running around with 200 lbs like it’s a sweat towel might be the initial draw, CrossFit emphasizes the sport of fitness. With that, you gotta learn how to be sporty.

The biggest component is strength training, so most of our foundations time was spent learning Olympic-style weight lighting (yeah, that image of that huge German guy dropping 200 kilos on his elbow during the last Olympics was firmly planted in my brain for the first two hours).

After training, we did a brief workout. Most of the CrossFit workouts are named after soldiers who lost their lives serving our country. So, our first was the “Baby Fran.”

15-9-3

Thrusters (squats with a press lift, I did 35 lbs bar because, well, that image of the German guy was still in my brain at this point)
chin-ups.

My Foundations class at CrossFit Foggy Bottom. Photo by CrossFit Foggy Bottom

All in all, really good. Jim, who runs the Foggy Bottom gym, took a photo of us beginners (that’s me in my Rock n’ Roll half-marathon shirt which is going to get DESTROYED by the time this is all done).

The following Tuesday, I got in a CrossFit workout at 7:15 AM. That’s right, night-time newsboy got his foggy ass up to do CrossFit. (Air-breathers, particularly those of you who have known me well: I’ll wait while you pick up your jaw from the ground. Go ahead.)

This session focused on snatches.
8×3 air squat, press squat, power press squat
4×5 pull ups

Then, the metcon:
7 min, no rest
10 dips
Russian-style dumbbell thrusts (I used 30 lbs)
pinchers (having 25 lbs weights in each hand and holding them as you walk up and down the court eight times)

I did 4.5 rounds in 7 minutes.

I arrived back from a wonderful trip back to my homeland to celebrate my sister’s college graduation. It must have been either jetlag or whatnot because I decided to seal the deal and sign up for Maraton de Buenos Aires tonight. So, without further ado…

With that, this crazy odyssey continues.