500 Meters

Probably I talk too much.  One of my ideas was to never talk to anyone, and to let myself be known through the blog, but I found I can blog and still talk too much.

It's been noted lately that I don't just talk the talk but walk the walk, and I deeply appreciate that observation.  That's a large part of why I ever do anything, and having one person notice is more than enough motivation to keep trying.  Of course by nature I'd keep trying anyway until I find myself dying alone of hypothermia.

And so since I tell everyone it's always possible to train, I thought I better back it up and I found myself lifting Sunday at 9am.  That's definitely not a good time, but it was the only time, and I worked up to 2 x 3 x 195 on the bench and 6 x 4 x 275 on the squat.

I then went to work because that's the kind of shit I do to avoid hypothermia.

By mid-afternoon I went to Dave's house to watch the Broncos play, and like last time I was there, I cooked an obscene amount of food, all Paleo of course.

I went to TwinFreaks CrossFit at about 4:30 since I was supposed to row a 2 x 8 minute piece, but I was full of food and devoid of motivation.  I ended up playing guitar until 5 when people came in.

About 5:45 I decided it was time to do something or concede that I was doing nothing, so I warmed up with a 5 minute row and decided to try my first real 500 meter piece of the year.  I did a 1:33.3 earlier in the week, but that was after doing a 6 x 500.  I thought that despite squatting earlier in the day I should be able to break 1:30.

I placed the erg facing the whiteboard where I wrote in large hand "1:28." 

During a 500 I am conscious of the monitor, but I am not capable of any complex thought.  All I can report is that I was rowing way too fast, and while I was aware of it, I was unable to back down.  I did the "fly and die."  While the last 100 meters was torturous, I finished in 1:27.5, a huge 1.9 second PR over last year's best.  Now that I know how to pace a 500 in 2011, I think it won't be too hard for me to get under 1:26.

Possibly my near perfect diet and my increased CrossFit accounts for such a huge PR so early in the season.

No.

It's like this guys: before I started I emptied all the barbell clips out of the puke bucket and placed the bucket on my right, dominant, side so that if needed I could grab it without thinking.

That and lately I've been in love with an ancient general's quote in Seneca which I'll paraphrase, "it's necessary to go.  It's not necessary to return."

Yes I felt the burn.

That's Flamethrower Love.