What a year it has been. I moved to CA, joined CF Sunnyvale, resolved to try to qualify for the CF Games, and got myself into the best shape of my life. I had fun going through my workout journal and seeing some of the improvements I’ve made:

  • Squat: 315 –> 405
  • OH Press: 165 –> 195
  • Deadlift: 405 –> 455
  • OH Squat: 165 –> 205
  • Power clean: 215 –> 265
  • Snatch: 135 –> 195
  • Consecutive kipping pull-ups: 30 –> 40
  • Consecutive air squats: 50 –> 100
  • Consecutive sit-ups: 60 –> 100
  • Fran: 5:58 –> 3:20
  • Murph: 40:01 –> 32:29
  • Cindy: 22+ rounds –> 28 rounds
  • Angie: 22:04 –> 16:28

2009 goals: how did I do?

Looking at my 2009 goals, they can be broken down into 4 categories:

Success

Squat 365, deadlift 455, press 195, 1000lb CFT, OH squat 205, snatch 185, clean 275, 40 consecutive pull-ups, 100 consecutive sit-ups, 100 consecutive air squats, 3:00 Fran, 28 round Cindy

Did not attempt

315 bench press, 100 consecutive push-ups, split jerk 250, 150lb weighted pull-up, King Kong

Failure

Run 400m in 1:00, run 800m in 2:30, run 1600m in 5:45, run 5000m in 20:00, Murph in 30:00

Looking at the above, the pattern is pretty clear: my CF strength/power hybrid routine did a great job of developing strength, power, muscular endurance and conditioning in interval/circuit style CF workouts. There were a few items that I never attempted due to a shoulder injury (bench press, push-ups, split jerk) or a lack of equipment (don’t have a dip belt for weighted pull-ups and I was supposed to try King Kong this week, but don’t have access to bumper plates). Finally, I failed on all the tasks that involved primarily monostructural cardio—in particular, running.

Treadmills are evil

I think a lot of my troubles with running can be attributed to over-reliance on treadmills, which caused a number of issues:

  1. POSE technique on a treadmill is different than outside so I have a lot of form errors to fix. This is probably the biggest issue.
  2. I never learned what different running speeds “feel” like since the treadmill controlled the speed for me and now I often run too fast or too slow outside.
  3. I never developed the mental toughness to maintain a difficult pace and often slow down without the treadmill’s constant speed to keep pushing me.
  4. I thought my times were better than they really were as running on a treadmill is a lot easier.

Looking to 2010

The good news is that my weaknesses are now clear and I know what I need to do in the coming year to eliminate them. I should be able to run outside a whole lot more in CA, so I’m going to try to fit in more monostructural cardio (running and rowing) a few times per week until my technique, pacing and mental toughness improve. Given how much I hate running—which, of course, is probably the biggest reason of all why I suck at it—my workout plan for the next few months can be summarized as:

Beatings will continue until morale improves.

Will I improve enough to stand a chance at the CF Games sectional qualifier? Meh, probably not, but it’ll be fun as hell to try.