Speed Saturday: Intervals and Crossfit

I woke up, and it was 24 degrees with white stuff all over. No, not cocaine. No, not Barry Manilow groupies (that was a failed “white person” joke). I’m talking about snow. I got down to the track, and you couldn’t even SEE the track:

Jeremy showed up when I did. Jen (a different Jen than the one last week) showed up a few minutes later. And Borsch came jogging in just after that. I THOUGHT we might have 9 people, but the snow made half of them wuss out (just kidding you 5). So it was just the 4 of us:

We couldn’t see the marks on the track, so Borsch and I made a new "starting line" with our shoes:

I took off to do 3 1600s. Jen was going to do the same. Here she is with 800 left in her final interval (she averaged around 7:20!!):

Borsch was finishing a longer run. Jeremy sometimes ran with him, and sometimes with me. Here they are with a lap or 2 to go:

I ran my 3 1600s with 90 seconds rest between. My first one was my slowest mile interval ever, but then I picked it up (but still not as fast as I’m used to - there was a fair amount of slippage on the snow):

6:01
5:47
5:48
5:52 average

Here I am all sweaty after the last one:

THEN, I had this great idea for a Crossfit-style workout.

- Run through the bleachers: 336 stairs
- 15 push-ups
- 10 sit-ups (all the way up)
- Repeat

So this is what the route looked like:

I started at mid-field in the circle, ran through the bleachers (up and down and across), ran back to mid-field, dropped to do push-ups and sit-ups in the circle, and started over again.

Jeremy and Jen did the first one with me. Here’s Jeremy and I running down a set of stairs (it looks like we’re not moving, but we are):

I did that "Twenty-One" workout last weekend, and a few of you mentioned how poor my push-up form was. And you were TOTALLY right. I didn’t realize that I dropped my head so much. This week, I totally rocked my push-up form. Borsch held down the shutter and created this sequence of me doing a pushup during my first or second set, and it’s (nearly) textbook:

Then I flipped over to do some sit-ups. Jeremy was with me:

I took off and did the whole sequence again. Here I am running from finishing the stairs to the place on the field to do my push-ups and sit-ups:

I looked a little more beat-up the next time through:

I did that sequence 5 times: 4:03, 3:49, 3:46, 3:46, 3:50. That’s a total of 1680 stairs (840 up, 840 down), 75 push-ups, and 50 all-the-way-up sit-ups. Not a bad way to spend a chilly 24 degree Saturday morning!

Afterwards, I offered rolls to everyone. I brought them to celebrate the “blog of the year” award. Being there were just 4 of us meant that I was bringing a lot home!

No problem. I’ll take care of them...

Anyway, it was another great Saturday morning of intervals! We won’t meet next week (Thanksgiving weekend), but we hope to meet up again in 2 weeks! Happy Weekend everyone!!