Today was day 3 of officially following The Outlaw Way. I have to say that I have a love hate relationship with it. Designed for elite athletes Rudy’s program constantly reminds me that I have a long way to go before I can call myself elite. But I can already tell that I’m feeling stronger in my Olympic lifts and that I will need to scale for a while. Two days of Clean and Jerks and a day of Snatch has me excited for the program. Heading into the gym I’m sure that I’m the weird guy already. The place I’m a member of here is not exactly Crossfit friendly, in fact in the next couple weeks I’ll have a decent size equipment order on stuff to bring in with me just to do pretty basic movements. The absence of bumper plates also has caused me to get a few weird looks. You try doing snatches with the little metal 25# plates and seeing what people do when they walk into the room. Overall though I feel like I’m hitting my stride here. This was my last full week of training and other than some specific sessions for the job in the next two weeks - Log Hewing, Rope Making, Stone Cutting, and Historic Weapons (Black Powder) I’m in the swing of being a full time Ranger. I love my job, and truly feel blessed that I can put on the green and gray and go to work everyday. Now to expand my social circle. When you life revolves around time at work or the gym or sitting at home it’s not exactly the most exciting way to live.
WODs
Tuesday:
5x2 Clean & Jerk @ 80%
Strength
15 minutes to establish a 3RM Back Squat.
Conditioning
Tabata:
Pullups
Notes: Alternating sets between strict & kipping (butterfly or glide). 8 rounds total work, beginning with strict.
*Rest 5 minutes.
3 rounds for total reps of:
90 sec. ME Rope Climbs 15′ (Sub Towel Pull ups)
90 sec. Rest
90 sec. ME Burpees
90 sec. Rest
Wed:
1) 7X1 3 Position Snatch (low to high) – rest 60 sec.
Strength
1a) 3 X ME Bench Press @ 95% – rest 60 sec.
1b) 3 X 8 Good Mornings – heavy, rest 60 sec.
Conditioning
4 rounds for time of:
30 Front Squats @ 115/75#
15 T2B
15 Lateral Box Jumps 24″
Friday
10 Mins to get to a heavy Clean & Jerk
7 Mins EMOTM 3 Power Cleans and Jerks
Strength
4x5 Heavy 1 1/4 front squats
4x8 HSPU
Conditioning
10 Min AMRAMP
100’ Overhead Carry
5 Muscle Ups (Sub 5 strict chin ups, no rings)
25 True Vertical KB swings
This week started out with massive amounts of cooking for the week. Sunday i cooked ribs, a ham, stuffed peppers, and a big batch of coconut flour pancakes for breakfast. This week will be filled with some great meals thanks to my efforts. Also this week I joined a gym here. After searching a bit I joined a place called the summit and while its missing some stuff it has a good amount of equipment and even has a pool to do some laps in. I’m pretty excited about having a place to call my gym again and looking forward to progress this summer.
SUNDAY:
warm up 1k row
KB swings, pushups squats 5/10/15
Strength wendler bench 5/5/5
WOD Jackie Rx’d
Cash out Max handstand hold - 2:30 cumulative in 10 mins.
MONDAY
warm up 1k row
Two armed KB swings, pushups 25/15-15/10-10/5
Strength wendler dead 5/5/5
WOD donkey Kong Rx’d
No heavy KB to use so subbed two 35# and did side by side single arm swings. It made a huge difference in making it suck more.
Cash out: 5 min wall ball situps 86
It’s been less than a week but I think I’m settling in. I’ve been doing WODs at home thanks to wodshop.org and today I may have found a gym. Its a bodybuilding place but they have bumpers, don’t care about me doing oly lifts and there’s 10k pounds of free weights. Only issues I have are that there’s mirrors everywhere and no rower. Guess its bring on the SDHP for a while. Talking to the owner about membership tomorrow. Today while there I did my strength and followed it up with the following.
5rds 60 sec rest between
3 min AMRAMP
3 power cleans (155)
6 pushups
9 knees to elbows
3, 2+3+6+2, 2+3+6, 1+3+6+6, 1+3+6+8, 1+3+6
Knees to elbows continues to escape me. One day ill figure out how to kill the swing and do them faster.
Thanks to instagram I’ve been uploading tons of pictures of ranger life. I hope you like them I’ll try to put up more of the other park I’m at tomorrow.
This has been a great and yet sad week. I’ve said goodbye to many people, done WODs at the box at various times and did some packing. It has been a week where I’ve been able to let go of a lot of stress try to get some closure and even spend time with people that have been very special in my life. I can honestly say that I’m ready for what comes next and that my memories of this week have been almost all positive. In terms of working out it’s been a good week too. I worked out with people that I haven’t been able to because of work in a while, spent time remembering what it’s been like for the last eight months and then I hit some new PRs. A front squat of 275 has been the highlight in that area. Tomorrow morning will be my last regular WOD with the amazing people at Capital City Crossfit and I can’t thank them enough for all the encouragement. As to my friends here in town I love you all and can’t tell you how special you have been to me. To the people that I got to spend some time with in person this week I hope that I was able to convey that to you. And to those of you that we didn’t catch eachother I hope you know that I have been blessed by knowing you and that I hope to see you again sometime soon.
This is it, my last week in Springfield.
It feels weird to say it but in just a few days I’ll be leaving town and starting on a new adventure. In this last year my life has seen a huge amount of change.
-started the paleo diet
-started crossfit
-ran my own classroom
-Lost 125 pounds
-Graduated College
-Licensed to teach Social Studies 6-12 in Illinois
-Bought my first gown up car that cost more than $2000
-Made an amazing group of Crossfit Friends
-Competed in the open
-Did my first pull up, strict pull up, learned to do all sorts of crazy and fun strongman stuff
-Got two awards for my work as a Park Ranger
-Lost a job at a park due to budget, but found a new job at a new park.
-Worked for a short time at Starbucks.
-Spent New Years in NYC with some amazing people
And way too much other things to list.
I’d like to thank all the great people that I’ve met here, and I hope that we will see eachother again soon. I guess sometime soon I’ll have to change the name of this page into something that reflects what I’m doing now until then thanks for keeping up with me and I hope that you will use this to see how my journey continues in the rest of 2012 and beyond.
