Wednesday August 27, 2008 - Finally Chriss' Birthday

Jerry had been posting the WODs this week as a 3-day birthday celebration for Chriss, so today was the final fire-breathing one. I went to the 6:45 class and actually got to workout with Chriss this morning. A little friendly competition. Here is the WOD

3 rounds for time
800 m run
21 HandStand Pushups
21 L Sit Pullups
800 m run
15 Handstand Pushups
15 L Sit Pullups
800 m run
9 Handstand Pushups
9 L Sit Pullups

Chriss and I ran the 800m right at the same pace and headed upstairs. Jerry said Rx'd was to complete all Handstand Pushups before moving on to L Sits, so no partitioning. I have never tried to max my reps on Handstand Pushups before but got up 18! It was here where I took a lead on Chriss. I got through the L Sit pullups with the rope and headed out for the second run. I was ahead of everyone coming back in for Handstand Pushups. I knocked out 15 in 3 sets of 5 but was starting to have a problem getting up into the handstand. I was throwing my body up and often found my self bouncing off the wall. I was not maintaining an active shoulder or a solid core (hollowed out). Since this was for time I really didn't try to fix it and even muscled my way up to a vertical handstand position against the wall. I think it was the time spent on the handstands and bouncing off the wall where Chriss caught up and he headed outside for the last run a few seconds ahead. I kept pace for the first 400-500 meters and then Chriss started to pull away. He is definitely a stronger runner than me. We went upstairs and again I had problems getting up into a handstand and I was just fatigued. I tried to get all 9 but only knocked out 6 and then got 2, and then 1. Chriss was on L-Sits and I started knocking those out and encouraging him to get done. Chriss finished 24:04 and I was right behind at 24:16. Only 6 people got below 30 and 4 below 25 minutes, Mel got 24:42 and Leslie got a 24:47 later in the day.

Chriss wanted to go back out and actually ended up doing 3 more rounds with the reps at 6. He was crazy and definitely proving a point on his 42 birthday. I did not go back out with Chriss since I had a lot of burpees to catch up on and did some ab mats.

Things learned/Need to work on:
1) L-Sits need to work on the position with my abs and lower back.
2) Keeping Active shoulder when I go into a Handstand