I PR’d this week. Not once, not twice, but 8 times. That deserves a blog post of its own. Right? Also just looking for any excuse I can to have fun in Photo Booth. Shouldn’t I be cooking or something? Yes. Oh well. The kitchen can wait.

The Week in Review:

Monday 2/25
Woke up in Arizona. Flew home to CT. Got off the plane around 5:43. Had luggage by 5:52. Spent another 6 minutes forgetting where I parked my car in the airport garage. Found it, and the rush hour traffic gods must have been feeling oddly generous. No snags, and I bolted as quickly and legally as possible to the box. I really wanted to WOD. Got there at 6:30 on the nose, pulling an outfit from my suitcase in the parking lot and all hopped up on adrenaline. Let’s do this!

First PR to go: Back Squats. I was feeling crazy and attempted 175. No dice. I got 165. Still a PR by 5.

Next stop: Strict Press. I’d like to thank my friend Jim for getting in my face and yelling at me not to give up on the lift. I hadn’t done strict presses in so long, I had no idea what my prev 1RM was. Didn’t have time to leaf through my little WOD book. Apparently I went 15lbs higher than I ever had before. PR = 90lbs. The bar was in slow mo on the way up, but it was a legit rep.

Moving on: Dead lifts. If you couldn’t figure it out by now, Monday’s WOD was the CrossFit total. Prev 1RM was 220. I tried 225, got the PR and decided you know what? That felt too easy. 20 more lbs on the bar. 245. If you thought the strict press was slow mo, it was lightning quick compared to this one. Again, thank you Jim for encouragingly yelling at me on this one. PR #3 inside of 30 minutes.

Tuesday 2/26
Annie: I had done this workout twice before, once in November and December. Both times I’d broken in the high 40’s on the first rounds of Double Unders. This time – nailed the 50. Endorphin high from there. May not have gone perfect on the other rounds of DUs, but I still flew. Old PR – 8:14. New PR – 6:35.

50 Burpees: What do you mean we have 3 minutes after Annie to rest and then do 50 burpees for time? Eesh. Managed to git ‘er done in 3:35. Back in November, my time was 3:51.

Wednesday 2/27
Hang Cleans: We were supposed to work up to a heavy 3RM. I managed to discover my new 1RM in the process. 130lbs, I’ll take it. (FYI, I got the 3 at 125. What is it about that last 5lbs that’s such a killer?)

Not a PR but worth noting, I was able to do 2 C&J’s at my current PR (125) EMOM for 3 minutes. Hoping for 135 in my future!

Thursday 2/28
Rest Day! Played trivia with my friend Jeremy. With unusually low depth on the bench, the two of us managed to place third among all the older more life-experienced groups of people in the bar. Free martinis for us next week, woohoo!

Friday 3/1
500m Row: Matt made a board of all the PR’s on some main benchmark lifts and WODs. I had the top spot in the 500m row by 8 seconds, with a 1:41. I wanted to push it and get 1:39. SO CLOSE. The little computer on the erg said 499 meters and 1:39 at the same time. It also changed to 500 and 1:40 at the same time. Grrrr. Next time. This Division I walk-on is gunning to break into the 1:30 range next time.

In other news, through this new PR board, I found out I’m only 1 second off the top time in the box on Annie. If only I didn’t do something stupid like break on the round of 40… and 30. Watch out Jenny, I’m coming for you 🙂

Saturday 3/2
Kelly: UGHHHH Kelly is how I spent the morning after Valentine’s day at CF Rancho Cucamonga. That workout was hellish. It took me 36:04 the first go around. This morning, I managed to chop my time down to 31:00 flat.

I’m happy to be home. No more takeout, normal length work days, and it’s back to the box and all its members I love, who are clearly instrumental in making me the best athlete I can be.

What’s that you say? The CrossFit Open starts in 4 days?

Bring it on.