Cross Fit Workout #1

I managed to combine two of my favorite things on Thursday night - a first shot at Crossfit and Slacker Bookclub.

Myself, Lott, Wu and Sarah gathered at 15th and Pike to do a fairly common, and unusually tough Crossfit workout - sprint one mile, do as many sets of 5-10-15 pull ups, push ups and squats in 20 minutes, then sprint another mile. I think that everyone enjoyed it :) Running the first mile was fun. We created a single loop course between Union and Columbia and between 15th and 19th. Sarah almost broke 7 minutes (7:01). I was able to run about 5:45, on a somewhat hilly course, with Lott and Wu close behind. This is reasonable enough for a mile, especially one with streets to cross and pedestrians to avoid. Then we jogged to a play ground for the middle part of the workout. Nobody could do the exercises for a full 15 minutes. After 3 sets I could no longer do 5 pull ups. After 5 sets I could barely do 1 pull up. So I did assisted pullups on a low hanging bar on the playground. After 16 minutes I'd done 8 sets of this, and decided we would push on and start the last mile. This was hard. I did a good job of keeping my pace high, not cruising too much, and came around the corner for the 2 block uphill finish. Brian cheered me on. I pushed up the first block and was ready to keel over. I shuffled across the street and struggled to stride through to the finish, at about 6:05. A pretty sweet workout, one that I need to do again sometime soon.

Incidentally, for bookclub we discussed "Player Piano", Vonnegut's first novel, a dystopia not dissimilar from Brave New World. I believe that everyone enjoyed the read, and it provoked good discussion. I thought it was fairly poor - with simple stiff characters. We ate corned beef and cabbage. That, I loved.