Coach W12D1 - 2x Metis (Strength)

 2x Metis (X), 00:35:57  

I decided to pull the plug on W11 without completing all the workouts the Coach had assigned for me, and move on to W12. I left pending some loose exercises: 2x 100 burpees, 2x 25 High Jumps and 50 Squats, and also a whole WOD; Apollon. I trained on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, so I had the whole weekend to complete the missing exercises. The thing is, I went again (see here for the first trip story) on a weekend trip to the countryside, this time with both my parents and my GF. I asked permission from my boss to miss Friday and she said I just had to pay back the missing hours by staying late all week, so that was cool. We left on Friday morning and I drove around 4,5 hours to get to the countryside. We had lunch at my dad's cousin's farm and then went on a quest to buy local honey, which took another couple of hours. My parents stayed at the countryside while me and my GF drove another hour or so to Pichilemu (the beach). I was not going to miss the chance to take my third surfing lesson, being that close, right?! On Friday night I was extremely tired from the trip and all the hours driving, so I was not about to begin training. 

On Saturday morning we went to a beach called Punta de Lobos, which is a 10 minute drive from Pichilemu. That beach is considered one of the best in Chile for surfing, and they often organize championships there. I decided  while I take my lessons I might as well try out different beaches, so I took a 1 h private surfing lesson there with Kotaro-san, a Japanese surfer who's living 2,5 years in Chile. He turned out to be a great teacher and we got along super well. I had a blast in the water and learned quite a bit from him! My surfing skills are improving every time I get on the board, which makes me very happy. The waves and currents at Punta de Lobos are a lot stronger than in any of the other places I've surfed before, so it was much more physically demanding than other times (also a bit scarier). I had some lunch, took a little nap and then went back in the water for another hour or so of solo practice. During my lesson in the morning we were a handful of people in the water. The day was gorgeous and when I got back to the beach around 5 or 6 PM there were surfers everywhere. It turned out to be a not-so-good first solo experience. I had to jump at least 5 times from my board to avoid collisions, mainly with some of the younger surfers out there. There was a group of 4 or 6 kids, around 14 years old, who jumped in at any wave and didn't look much in front of them until they were coming straight at you, full speed... Also the tide was very high so the waves were even bigger than in the morning and the currents stronger. Note to self: until I get really good, only surf in the mornings and avoid the crowds...

After all that time in the water I was of course exhausted, so I didn't train on Saturday either.I woke up on Sunday morning with a few bruises in my hips from the board, and with very sore biceps. We slept in a little bit, packed our bags, and drove 1 h to the countryside to have lunch and pick-up my parents. Then I drove another 4,5 hours back to the city. You can imagine the last thing I wanted to do when I finally got home was to train. Monday came along and to be honest I just didn't want to stay stuck on W11 any longer, so I told the Coach the week had been too hard, and that I just wanted 3 training sessions on W12. I'll try my best to do the missing exercises at some point during the following weeks, but for the time being, it is new week time.

The first training session was 2x Metis, strength version. That meant Burpee Squat Jumps, Froggers and High Jumps, which I did with a smile on my face on Tuesday night, well rested and ready for the action. I've been struggling a lot with my breathing and heart rate lately. I know I should be taking paced, deep breaths, but I can't physically do it for a long period of time. With the higher intensity training sessions, I've been noticing that my lungs get obstructed, just as when you have bronchitis. My airway tightens up and I have to cough several times to "loosen-up" and "make room" for the air to come in. With all the coughing and shallow breathing, my heart rate goes up the roof a that of course slows me down (and is not fun). I've never suffered from asthma, but I've been researching a condition called Exercise-Induced Bronchocospasm (EIB), which fits perfectly with all my symptoms and conditions (you can read for free a short but complete paper on the subject of the American Family Physician's here, remember I'm a Biochemist!). If things continue this way I might be paying a visit to a MD soon and ask for a pulmonary function test coupled with an appropriate exercise challenge to see if maybe I need to take some bronchodialator drug prior working out... We'll see. In the meaning time, I messed up the high jumps again, so no star for me, and I did well but not great time-wise.

Funny thing is, the Coach instructions this week were finger-on my problem: 

Week 12! This week it is time to work on your breathing. With the right breathing you can increase your performance. The higher the intensity, the shallower you will breathe. Make sure to switch smartly from shallow breathing to deep and steady breathing and the other way around depending on the intensity of the exercises. The goal of the week is to set at least one new PB using a smarter breathing technique.

Coach W8D2 - Metis (Strength) + loose exercises

 Metis (X), *00:18:48 (PB) 

Loose Exercises (PBs)

The second and last day of training of week #8 was a special feature. Good old Metis –but the strength version, which I’m doing for the first time- plus some loose exercises: 10 pushups, 25 squats, 50 situps and 10 Froggers (also the first time I have to do loose exercises to complement a WOD… if I recall correctly).

I could “hear” the Coach saying: “You’ve got Burpees under control? That’s cute; let’s try Burpee Squat Jumps (BSJs) then!” The strength version of Metis has BSJs instead of regular Burpees, Froggers instead of Climbers and High Jumps instead of Jumps; all nice little changes to push you a bit further –and you can feel those little things add up and matter a ton!  BSJs start like regular burpees but when you go from the ground forward and up you have to first get in a squatting position with the hips below the knees and from there perform a high jump (knees above hip line) instead of the usual small jump forward and up. It was a bit challenging to modify the movement pattern I’m already used to, but once I did a few reps and got the hang of it was good.  I got tired a lot faster than with regular burpees though because, let’s face it, during regular burpees I jump just high enough to make both feet lift the ground but not any higher to save as much energy as possible.  I liked the strength version of Metis. Doing Froggers is easier for me than Climbers. I always struggle with the Climbers, keeping the hips below the knees and the shoulders, hips and knees aligned while moving one feet forzard, then the other…  I think the problem there is that I’m still short on strength in my upper body and core so I can’t keep everything tight. Jumping forward with both feet made things simpler. Also I was already doing pretty high jumps during standard Metis, so nothing much changed there. The only thing I can point out is that I think I performed particularly slowly. The adjustment to the BSJs was very noticeable and I stopped to catch my breath probably more often and for longer periods of time than I really needed to. Lately I’ve been feeling this a lot, like I’m giving in to what my mind says more than what my body says. I felt it during Aphrodite (the previous WOD) too, like physically I could have gone faster but for some (mental) reason I just didn’t. I’m going to pay more attention to that in the next WODs, to make sure I’m pushing myself into giving my all at every rep.

I did this WOD at 8 AM on a Monday, during my holidays, while my GF went to her CrossFit class because we were leaving –just the two of us- for 7 days to the beach afterwards. A lot of people train early in the morning on empty stomachs and I think that’s a terrible idea. I’m in the process of writing a post about nutrition on morning  training sessions, so there will be more explanations on why I think it’s a bad idea there. I’ve been wanting to try one of the recipes of the Nutrition Guide to make high protein snacks for these type of situations, because if you eat a whole breakfast you’d have to wait a couple of hours to digest before dropping to the floor.  In the meaning time, we bought commercial protein bars that provide 15 g of protein a piece. We ate those (they tasted a bit funny so we do not think on eating these regularly) with a small cup of coffee and then trained about a half an hour later. The coffee decided to pay me a little visit during the first round of burpees, but other than that it was all good. I didn’t feel hungry or fatigued, so it was a good call to eat that prior to the workout. After training my GF came back to the apartment and we ate a proper breakfast with fruits, a bit of bread with turkey breast and tea with milk.  Then OFF TO THE BEACH we were!