Max effort hill sprints

A couple of weeks ago I went on a beautiful hike. My friend and I hiked to the top of Bear peak. Along the way I noticed this large hill with a steep trail going towards the summit. My friend and I talked about coming back and running up that steep trail for a workout. Today I set out to do just that. This steep hill is about a half mile from the trail head. So I spent that half mile getting warmed up with shorter sprints and drills. I had on plenty of clothes so my core temperature was up and I was ready to go when I got to the start of the steep trail.

3 x max effort sprints up a steep hill. When I say steep I mean really steep. Like you sometimes have to use your hands to help you along. After a warm up lap I knew I was not going to be able to run to the top of this thing. So I figured I would just go full tilt boogie until I had to stop. That is what I did. 3 full effort sprints until I hit failure. My efforts got me close to the summit but not quite. I would end up in just about the same spot each time. between 1 min 10 secs sprinting and 1 min 14 secs. I wanted to throw up every time. Even though I couldn't run to the top I would still walk or crawl my way to the top. My legs were like Jello after this.

I cooled down for a bit on the walk back to the trail head with some light stretching. As I returned to the trail head I was starting to feel better.

I added a little progression ladder at the trail head. 10 air squats + 1 to 10 of handstand push ups. So 10 squats 1 hspu, 10 squats 2 hspu, 10 squats 3 hspu's and so on until I got to ten. I found a couple of stones to use to help make the handstand push ups elevated. I used a tree for balance. This lasted about 12 minutes. I was totally wrecked after this workout. Ready for food and football.

Progression Ladder and "Annie"

Every minute on the minute perform 1 pull up.

In the first minute do 1 pull up, in the second minute do 2 pull ups, the third minute 3 pull ups and so on until you are unable to perform the required reps in the one minute.

I finished with 12 rounds + 7.

I woke up this morning not feeling so great. I feel a cold coming on. So I just wanted to take it easy a bit today. I like these sort of progression ladders. You get a nice warm up in the early sets and get blasted in the end. Not my strongest effort in this sort of workout. I was doing the pull ups on a bar that was about 6 inches away from a wall. So this made my pull ups very strict. I could not get any kip out of them.

After the progression ladder I wanted to have a go at "Annie" a crossfit wod that is short fast and effective. 50-40-30-20-10 reps for a time of Double Unders and Sit ups. I have only done this one time before and I think I did it in a 7 min and some change. This time I finished in 6 min and 47 secs. A bit faster. I did not even think to anchor my feet for the sit ups. This would have made it way faster. The double unders were pretty easy. I did every set unbroken. No problem there. I think the best way to improve on this is to have my feet anchored for the sit ups.

I am just going to rest up the next couple of days and hopefully I will feel better by turkey day. I hope to get a good Thanksgiving day workout in. Then I wont feel as bad about all the food and beer I am going to consume.

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We were blessed with a beautiful, sunny day here in Tahoe. My friend Mike was anxious to try out my rope for a workout. So we walked across the street into a beautiful alpine meadow. We quickly found a place to hang the rope from and got to work. The w.o.d. was two parts and went like this The first part I borrowed from an amazing athlete Blair Morrison of http://crossfitmobile.blogspot.com/

Rope progression ladder, Climb 17 ft of rope: Every minute on the minute perform one rope climb. In the first minute climb the rope one time. In the second minute climb the rope two times. The third minute climb the rope three times , the remainder of the minute is your rest. Continue until you are unable to perform the required reps.

I finished with three full rounds plus one full rope climb in the fourth minute. This was so much harder than I had expected. For some reason I thought that I would be able to cruise through five minutes. Ummm No! In the fourth minute I knew I would not be able to finish , so I just tried to steal one more rep before my time ran out.

The second part of this w.o.d. was a great one as well. Three rounds for a time of 50 double unders and 25 overhead lunges with a 15kg log. I finished in 6 min 9 secs. The double unders were kind of an issue. I am still dealing with the altitude. So I got tired really fast. I did the first round unbroken, and the last two rounds only broke set once at the same mark of 28. The lunges were great. My legs are pretty sore from the sprints and bear crawls in the sand. But 25 was just about right. The over head portion of the lunges was a great addition. My shoulders were really getting blasted from the double unders and holding this log over my head.
Over all I had a great time training outside with my friend in this beautiful alpine meadow. The w.o.d. was a good one as well and I expect to be plenty sore in the morning.