Row, Row, Row

I had missed the Met Con workouts a little bit as Oly lifting became more of a focus for me. You do what you love I think. Well today it was back in the saddle for a serious blaster at metabolic conditioning. I confess I was a bit worried because although I keep up with my workouts, I only visit the box three times a week and keeping myself conditioned between workouts is tough. I've added rowing to my lunch hour since it's so easy to head downstairs for that but it's too early to reap the benefits of that work yet. So when we started today's WOD it was with that old-time feeling of Do or Die. Dying being the metaphorical death caused by rowing. Does anyone else picture themselves aboard a slave ship rowing to save your life? Am I the only one? My mind goes funny places during Crossfit.

I work out in the morning and before that I make sure I eat a good zone breakfast of oatmeal, cottage cheese and nuts. This can be a double edged sword. If it works out fine, then I have plenty of fuel in the tank. If its too close to the WOD, it becomes an oatmeal anchor in my belly which threatens to introduce me to Mr. Pukie. I have running to thank for that. But today I was happily surprised to find I had tons of energy and "gung ho". Our mission was simple - row 400 metres, lunge 8 steps, and box jump 8 times, for a total of eight rounds. Everything looks so wonderfully achievable on paper.

We got into it and by the third round I knew I was going to have a great WOD. I was keeping my rowing pace at just over 2:10 which is a good speed for me and I was still breathing well. The lunges were okay and I found that if I just committed to doing eight in a row, the pain was tolerable. By number eight I had to shake my legs out before box jumping. Last Saturday, I spent some time jumping the tall box from a seated position. Because of the confidence I gained from that, the little boxes today were a piece of cake. I kept my pace for the seven rounds and gave 'er guns during the last. In my mind, I was rowing furiously, driving incredible power with my legs, then taking moon-walk strides for the lunges. From the outside I'm sure it looked like a man walking through molasses. No matter, I Rx'd this WOD in 21:35.