Swimmers, CrossFit Whistler, Grace

Spent the week of May 3-7th up at Whistler with some of our top National Team swimmers, including Beijing 08 Olympians Ryan Cochrane (bronze medal) and Alexa Komarnycki. My purpose up there was to warm them up pre-swim, watch and learn at their swim sessions, then challenge them with some outdoor adventure activities...

As you can imagine, the latter task was the most fun and gave me lots of insight into how fit these athletes actually are. Tuesday dawned bright and crisp and the chosen activity for the afternoon was mountain biking. I had a trail map of the lost lake trails and info on rental bikes (although Michelle had brought along her awesome specialized fsr-xc and I had my trusty RM Fusion). I wasn't sure what to expect on the trails but once the gang had hooked up their brand new specialized 2010 rentals, we were all in for a real treat.

The start of the ride on the day was Tin Pants - Donkey Puncher - Tommy Moore - Hooktender... and boy were those trails sweet. Usually you wouldn't hear me praise crushed-gravel trails but these were/are the sweeeeetest crushed gravel singletrack trails you would ever wish to see. There were some vicious climbs but the gravel allowed for pure expression of fitness as very little skill was required... no scrambling over roots or rocks to get in the way of steady pedal cadence.

Of course when you have a pack of athletes used to 4+ hours a day of aerobic and anaerobic interval training breathing down your neck, the focus is just on keeping the legs moving to stay ahead! Fortunately the gang didn't have a whole lot of technical riding experience so I was able to get some separation on the flowy twisty downhills :)

At the end of Hooktender, which is a massive descent, the choice is to either head back to the village via paved flat trails, or turn around and head right back up from where we came... this being a "fitness" activity, I selected the latter, so we pointed our bikes uphill and started to hammer. This time, Ryan Cochrane was on my rear wheel and let me tell you that bastard has capacity!! All the way up the grind I could feel his front tire about 6" behind my back tire and in spite of screaming quads and heavy breathing, I pushed and kept ahead to the top of the climb (in hindsight he probably could have passed me easily but seeing as I was the "guide" I think he held back haha). From there a nice up and down then descent to Lost lake beach via Molly Hogan ended the ride for the bulk of the gang.

On a $100 bet, one of the swimmers stripped down to his Aspen style biker shorts and swam out to the dock and back... bananas! A few of us, Michelle included, headed back up to try a few more trails, and in spite of severe fatigue through the legs and sore crotches all around, we made it up Tin Pants and then down some slightly more challenging routes.

All in all a great ride and if you're in whistler, an activity not to be missed. I will mention also the power of crossfit in that context - Michelle and I were both able to keep up with some very talented athletes and the lactic acid tolerance and leg strength we always work on through crossfit is one of the major reasons why we could do so... yeah budday!

The other activities included indoor rock climbing (terrible gym up there, sucked except for the boulder routes), Wildplay adventure course (absolutely awesome while scaring the crap out of me, we should do a crossfit trip to this), and two visits to Jordan G's CrossFit Whistler.

Jordan's gym is tucked away under the marketplace in Creekside and is a sweet little box that is so emblematic of crossfit roots. Imagine the same floor space as at the zone but arranged in one long corridor about 12-15feet wide. Interesting space but nicely arranged with in-ceiling pullup bars.

Jordan is an awesome guy and was really accomodating and helpful in getting the swim group in there to crush some wods. I trained at CFW myself on their open gym night (Thursdays) and met a few members who were all cool people. Anyone who is up in Whistler and wants to train should look up Jordan and CFW... on a side note, Jordan competed really strongly in the BC sectionals and will be out in Calgary cheering on and supporting a friend of his, Steve Howell, a legitimate contender for a spot at the games.

lastly, I programmed Grace in for Monday of this week as part of the process of moving towards WODS that focus on a high rate of work as we approach regionals. I've been feeling a bit out of it training-wise recently with some disruptions to my regular routine and have even had a few "why bother" moments... you know those moments when you think about how tough the competition is going to be so why bother training hard since I'm not going to be able to compete with the top dogs. It's a bad way to think and I'm not proud that I had those thoughts but I'm getting through that and re-focusing on the task at hand.

Sometimes the best way to get rid of those thoughts is to lay down a super-solid, legit time on one of the big WODs. Grace was an opportunity then for me to show myself that I belong with the big guns that I'll be facing at the Regionals. I set my goal at getting under 2:30 for the 30 floor to overheads (i.e. power clean to push presses) that I would complete in the workout. I knew the rep splits I needed to achieve and I had a decent enough warm-up. Blasted away out of the gate but unfortunately missed my first rep target of 15 consecutive without letting go of the bar (got 13). From my research, anyone who hits 20 in a row is going to go about 1:30, so I figured 15-17 would be in the 2-2:30 range.

I got a bit herky jerky through the late teens and early 20 reps and reduced down to doubles to finish, 2:35. A PR by 38seconds, which is a big jump in such a short workout, but I have more in me. The good news is (besides it being a PR) that I wasn't all that tired overall, it was just the muscular endurance in my grip and shoulders that kept me from going faster.

With that time under my belt, I feel better and although a faster time would have been awesome, I know that I'm sitting in a decent position going into the last two and a bit weeks of training.

Here's a summary of the last 10 day's workouts:

Tuesday May 4: 2.5 hour (hard!) mtb ride in tha whis - killed us all off for the rest of the afternoon/evening and even into the following days!

Wed May 5: Clean+J 3’s then singles up to 100kg/220lb (105kg/230 x miss x 2). 2 x 80kg c +3 jerks. BS 3’s 80,90,100, 120/264lb, 110kg, BP 3’s 185, 205, 225, 215

Light climb in evening

Thursday May 6: at CFW: Snatch to daily max: 95, 110, 120, 132, 143lb good and easy.
4 x 10 hang squat snatch and 10pullups back to back, 90% recovery between pairings (3-5 min), 1 x 14 hs snatch and 12 pullups to finish. Felt really good on the snatches, dropped into the groove consistently well throughout. Grip was the limiting factor.

Friday May 7: 60 min mtb ride with Michelle - some tough bits but we were tired!!!

Saturday: rest

Sunday: Row intervals: work/rest - 1min/1min, 2/1, 3/2, 2/1, 1/2, 3/1, 2/1, 20 max srokes to finish.

Monday: CFZ - work up to heavy single power clean + pushpress/ jerk: 165,185, 205, 215lb
Grace: 2:35 PR!!
Pull-ups: 10, 15, 4x20 (full rest) - 105 total, added up quick
OHS: 5x5 up to 2x5 @ 115lb

Tuesday: Wts at PISE - Front Squat 5’s then 3’s 40, 50, 60, 80, 90kg/198lb x 3reps x 4sets BP 3’s 165, 185, 205 x 3 x 4, GHD 4x12 (worked on speed), GHR 4 x 6 assisted

That's it for now gang, hoping to double tomorrow with some rowing and a really tough heavy metcon at the zone in the evening...

Cam