Wed & Thursday

Wednesday 4/16

Rest day!

After three hard days of either double WODs or Hero WODs, it was a much needed rest day. Camel back mountain was about a 15 minute drive away, so we headed up early in the day to get in some active recovery.

 The hike started at 1600' and was a pretty gradual path to start out. At about 2400' it got pretty steep and even a few parts where you had to scramble on the rocks to get to the next part of the trail.
Once on top, you had a great 360 degree view of all Scottsdale.

 Rest day and active recovery, complete.

Thursday 4/17

Last day of WODs in AZ. Brady had a "great" idea of what to do for our am WOD. Yoke walk and farmers carry... partner style, switching off as needed. I thought it sounded kinda easy, but I had never done that before so I thought sure, what the heck.

We decided on an empty yoke, the set up is 190#, so its not nothing. We used 53# KBs for the farmers carry.
OH and one last detail... we are going 1 mile. One full mile.

WOD
Farmer carry 53#s

Yoke Walk 190#

1 mile, for time

The first round went good, we walked about 200' maybe more. I was on the yoke and felt great, but as we switched and I grabbed the kettlebells I realized how wrong I had been about this WOD. The yoke sits right on top of your traps and you have to use your delts to keep the yoke from slipping off. As soon as I picked up the KB and started walking I felt my traps engage to hold the weight and my delts and traps start burning with pain. I started to doubt if we could make it a mile with all this junk.

We tried to hold on as long as possible before making the change. But each round got shorter and shorter. There was no easy way to move, everything hurt and the rest didn't seem to relive the pain at all.
Once we made the half way point, I knew there was nothing to do but grid it out.
With about a quarter mile or so left, we found out that going for 20 seconds and then doing a quick switch was far more effective than going as long as we could holding on to the KBs.

We shuffled back into the drive way at 23:05. Like I said, WAY harder than expected.

-
With bradys pull up rig in the back yard, we decided on an impromptu final WOD. Swimming and pull ups, very similar to the workout last year in the CrossFit Games.

PM WOD

2-4-6-8-10 Lap swim

20-16-12-8-4 Pull ups

Brady was really good in the water, he is a strong swimmer, I knew if I wanted to beat him I would have to do it on the pull ups. He finished in 10:15

My sets of pull ups went fast. But the swim.... I know I'm not a great swimmer, but when I can slow down and focus on my breathing, I can do ok. 

Well, when I can't breath, I cant get my head in the water so I swim with my head up. Extremely efficient and slow. 

I linked 14/6, and then got 12/4 and then unbroken, but the last set of 10 laps, that is what did me in. I climbed out of the pool and did my last 4 pull ups, time - 10:46.

So, I have a WHOLE new respect for the Games WOD last year with swimming and muscle ups. That one must have been awful!

It was a fun day of new workouts I had never attempted before. Im glad we got to try both of them, as painful as the both were.
Can't wait until the next week of vacations WODs to see what other stuff we can come up with.