Fenrir 2018: From the Judge's Side

I think I had a little too much fun as a judge this year, although I do prefer to compete... until I see how much gymnastics or Un-F*** type skills are involved.  I love the barbells, but I don't like hanging or going upside down or face-planting.

Silver River Field Trip 2/n

Manatees are a real treat on the Silver River because it's so far inland, and from what I understand of manatees, they typically prefer more brackish waters.  The Silver River flows into the Ocklawaha River, which flows into the St. Johns River, which then empties into the Atlantic Ocean.  There's some debate about why manatees would be found so far inland given the existence of a dam with locks and the distance from more typical manatee habitat.

Silver River Field Trip 1/n

Most of the pictures involve kids, so I'm omitting them, but the ones without any distinct humans involved, here they are.  Silver River is a beautiful park, but unfortunately, I got stuck on the social studies trip.  The most exciting parts of the social studies trip were the outhouse, the chamber pot, and the cow patty / pine needle mixture used to repel insects.  The natural history was much more exciting, as were the more medieval / Renaissance weapons, but most of the social studies was about as appealing as oatmeal. 

Battlebots Memorabilia: Bale Spear

Killer Parakeet is super happy! E. Pancoast of Forge & Farm Combat Robots, builder of Bale Spear, sent me a pair of free stickers! 

There was very little of Bale Spear on TV, but this was a bonus rumble with Bale Spear vs Predator vs Valkyrie. 

Yokes and Kettlebells

Three really good friends of mine convinced me to actually come out of my shell after retreating into the depths and wrestling with demons in my mind.  

There was the attempt at the overhead yoke carry, which was a definite no go for me. I love overhead squats, but not so much the narrow grip of the overhead yoke carry.

I'm much stronger doing front rack type of carries, although I did drop the rack relatively quickly because it was getting pretty slippery.

And then there was the kettlebell fun.  This was just a little practice round just to see if 25 lbs was an appropriate weight for me.  It was, at least for the single arm side of things.

Environmental Science Center at Central Park

There was a little park with an amazing environmental science center in the Daytona Beach / Ormond Beach area.  Of course, the coolest part of the adventure involved models of scat.  There was also a cute red rat snake, but my camera also decided to take a complete dump on me.

Experimentation with OSMO

I spent part of the past month doing a summer school enrichment program and had the opportunity to explore OSMO on the school iPads.  One of my favorite components was the Masterpiece, which allows me to trace pictures on the screen.  It was certainly a coordination challenge for me as well as a great way to fry my eyeballs, but it was a worthwhile trial.

It's Wednesday, Therefore Barbell Day (tm)...

... until a wild-goose hunt combined with the Inquisition inconsiderately interfered with my meticulously planned schedule. I ended up doing the Un-F*** Yourself class, which was still a challenge that will translate well to everything else I do with weightlifting and Crossfit.  Photographs from class courtesy of A. Gray-Baker, who made my load look relatively piddly despite being smaller than me.  I actually pulled the same load as the little kid in the group... I definitely need to get my performance up!

Hobbit Brigade

It's scary when I'm the tall person in the group, post-Murph. We all survived and completed it! Photo courtesy of R. Carmona. 

Murph 2018 Group Pictures

These photographs are courtesy of I. Ramirez of Valkyrie Photography. This was prior to the actual WOD after our fearless Alpha Wolf gave us the rundown and we had a moving performance from the Dunnellon High Color Guard.

Murph 2018!

More pictures will be arriving I'm sure, but here are the ones I have accumulated thus far.  This was a very difficult and daunting workout - 1 mile run, 300 air squats, 200 push-ups, 100 pull-ups, and another mile run, with appropriate scaling as needed.  I didn't have a weighted vest, but it was brutal enough without one! 

I didn't do all the math yet, but my overall completion time was 61:40, which is pretty solid for me. My initial run was just shy of 9 minutes, and it was pretty comfortable - deliberately took my time and held back knowing what was ahead of me.  The "meat" of the workout was partitioned into a 5-10-15 scheme (5 ring rows, 10 pushups, and 15 air squats) to minimize my downtime, and for the most part, I was complete my 20 rounds either unbroken or really close to it.  The second mile was much worse because of a significant muscle cramp combined with a mild plantar fasciitis flare-up, but I completed it!

Part of my crew that worked out in my vicinity and kept me moving forward when I was entertaining thoughts of curling up into a little ball next to the toilet. 

Pre-Murph

Killer Parakeet is a bit uneasy about this... I have no idea how long this will take me to do: run a mile, do 100 pull-ups (ring rows or banded), 200 push-ups, 300 air squats, and run another mile.  Depending on the weather, I may be rowing instead of running, but I suspect that I do run longer distances faster than I row... That being said, I want to make sure I am NOT making long pauses or run into failure, so I will be partitioning the three movements.   Most likely, it will be either 5-10-15 or 10-20-30, with a slight bias towards the 5-10-15 to reduce the odds of a vomit episode during the air squats, muscle failure during the push-ups, or blister formation during pull-ups.