Crossfit Total

Your total in Crossfit is the combination of your 1 rep max for the squat, overhead press and deadlift. Yesterday at my Elements class, I did 225, 135, 225, respectively, for a total of 585. This places me just below a novice. I was taking it easy so I didn't re-injure my back. I was a little intimidated by the idea of a 1 rm deadlift. It was not nearly as bad as I though it would be. I wasn't even sore the next day.

I think I have a lot of room for improvement, in form and strength. I haven't been in a gym since May, and previous to that most of my training was hypertophic. I have enough muscle, I don't need to be any bigger. I anticipate gaining about ten lbs over the winter. I am 195 right now, but I was 207 at the beginning of last season. I need to get a lot stronger in my upper body to do some of the W.O.D.s as prescribed. I should be realistic and focused with Crossfit and what I want to get out of it. Focus on core strength, high intensity metabolic conditioning and olympic lifting. I want to do muscle ups and kipping pull-ups, but really, that will take a while.

I certainly feel that the training makes my back feel better in the long run, even if it gets agitated in the short term. I am going to to continue lifting through the season next year, just to maintain my lover back health.

Crosfit Elements

Luke Stiles and I signed up for the Crossfit Elements class. We did our first class tonight and it was fun. It was a pretty basic intro class. We did tabatta squats (14) and push ups (1!). I can't wait to get into my first WOD!

Doin the Snatch!

I went to Lost Battalion Weightlifting last night. The coach that is there early does not like me. Maybe it's tough love. I did some snatches and front squats. It was a grimy Queens experience. These are some true freaks compared to the gym rats that I am used seeing at the gyms I have worked in Manhattan.

Fight Gone Bad

Fight Gone Bad Explained & Demo from james hobson on Vimeo.
I did this today. I was one of two people who showed up for the Sunday free class at Crossfit Brooklyn. I had a blast and thought I was gonna puke twice. Totally burned off my hangover. I am gonna be sore for a minute.

Chicago NACCC Part 1

The North American Cycle Courier Championship was held in Chicago last weekend. Since I was recently given heaps more spare time I decided to go. Austin Horse hooked up a free van through Redbull. We drove out in one 14 hour marathon. I compare this to touring in Bill's cargo van and it is a whole world of difference. Seeing the country while you are driving gives you an experience with the environment that you travel through that the windowless cargo van deprived you of. 

We stopped every 3 hours or so to let one or five of the seven people pee or to eat. That was nice. It added a couple of hours, but made the trip go faster. Flemming drove in the states for the irst time. He was stoked on experiencing the rural truck-stops  that reminded me so much my hometown of Weed, CA. I got a huge kick out of pointing out the "America" in everything we came across.  "Look Flemming! That's America! Riding motorcycles shirtless without a helmet. Yeah!" "Flemming! Now that's America, a pickled sausage!" 

We rotated music pretty nicely too. We got a chance to listen to Biggie Smalls, Fela Kuti, Profuse 73, and even some Digable Planets. 

When we got to Chicago we took a few to Eric's house on the southside. I hadn't seen him since he got whooping cough and almost died. I saw him right after and he looked sickly skinny. This was years ago. I guess he cam back for a few months last winter, but we didn't run into each other. He looked way better now, had a little vegan beer belly.

The Essex Inn was nice. They had some Herman Miller furniture in the lobby that 

got Flemming all stoked. It was an old fancy hotel, a little rundown but still fancy. It was funny bringing all the bikes into the place. 

Friday was registration. We spent the day meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones. Sarah and Ian from SF, favorites of mine were hanging out with Casey from Portland. We drank some beers at Cal's, a bar I visited when I had an canceled flight and a day to kill on my way to KyotoLOCO 2005. It was this dingy old dive in downtown, right below some elevated train tracks. It was a remnant from a ancient era, dirty, wino infested, beautiful.

We rolled over to registration and put away 4 pitchers. Fergus Tanaka showed up. He had a fire in his eyes. He was hungry for this race, I could tell. I had heard that he had cleaned up his act and trained for this really hard. I was well on my way to wasted, so I went with some people to the Blue Frog, a bar and grill right next door to a larger messenger company. They we doing karaoke. I sang something, drank something, smoked something, then puked then sang something else. It was time for some other party to start and I followed some randoms over there. There was a bunch of people.  I was sobering up a little. Mike Dee was there slapping people for stupid shit and generally kicking up dust. Roxanne Steffek was there all pregnant and radiant. I has talking to her, holding a half drank warm tall-boy. I told Roxy, "Get away from me!" I shook the beer out all over me and a bunch of other people. I guess it pissed some people off.

The next morning I realized that all of the fluid that I had ingested the day prior had been booze. I was a little rough around the edges to say the least. We headed out to the race. I casually rode the course stopping to say hello Kevin from Cog Magazine. I found out that the qualifier was an  hour and a half long, two manifest ordeal. No thanks. It wasn't clear if sprints were to be that day or the Sunday. I hung out drinking water and smoking weed, shooting the shit with a bunch of friends that I hadn't connected with in a while. Eventually they announced that sprints were to be tomorrow and that meant I could relax.