Wow, I really need to come up with some sort of schedule for getting these things out. Either that or I need to take much better notes, ’cause a week’s worth of stuff is hard to remember. So here’s a recap, random-style!

Our high school team really seems to be digging our CrossFit workouts. Thursday and Friday we started them off by teaching cleans, specifically hang power cleans, power cleans and squat cleans. After the skill work was done, it was outside to the field for… TIRE FLIPPING. Dan decided that since I had attended Rob Orlando’s Strongman Seminar back in April that I should teach the kids how to flip a tire. Of course, he tells me this as we’re all gathered around the tires looking at each other.

Even though my brain was scrambled, I’m pretty sure I hit all of the important points. I showed them how to flip it once in one direction with no problems, since it was probably only a 400 pounder. Flipping back? Let’s just say that rubber tires on rubber mats handle differently than rubber tires on artificial turf. I got about a quarter of the way up and the bottom edge of the tire broke loose from the ground and slid, thereby cracking my chin on the tire when it smacked back onto the ground. “And there you see how NOT to flip a tire,” I said, while pretending that I wasn’t seeing sparklies everywhere. I may not be quick, but at least I’m quick on my feet.

For the workout, we had them in two lines behind the two tires, flipping them in teams of two. They’d flip 20 yards, then sprint eighty. My team destroyed Dan’s team. Though, to be fair, Dan might not have realized we were racing each other. We did the same workout on Friday with the other half of the team and my guys came from behind to win again. The best races are the ones where your opponent doesn’t know it’s a competition.

I did a lot more shadowing at Milford and Jay officially introduced me to one of the classes, so for a few people at CFM I’m no longer that creepy quiet guy who’s watching everyone work out. Jay also told me I might be leading some warm-ups and cool-downs this coming week.

Saturday was the big four oh. I’m slowly creeping up on Master territory, depending on whose age ranges you’re looking at. CrossFit’s definitely given me a reason to look forward to getting older. The older I get, the less chance there is I have to compete against the young whippersnappers. Started out the day with a Thruster Gauntlet, which gave me a 60 pound PR for my birthday. Of course, that’s primarily because I’ve never done a max effort thruster and my previous high was 115, but I’ll still take it. I skipped the metcon part of the workout because Barb let the cat out of the bag the night before and told me my big Birthday Surprise. We were going up to the Catamount Aerial Adventure Park to do some rope climbin’ and ziplinin’. I still had to do my forty birthday burpees thanks to Whitney. Oy.

Holy crap, this place is awesome. We’re already putting plans together for a larger CrossFit outing to this place in July for my fifth re-birthday (the day I got my stem cells back and was officially cancer-free). There’s a video in the upper right-ish corner of their site that gives a pretty good rundown of the place. A word of warning – don’t wear Merrell Trail Gloves when you go. They seem like a good idea when you think about it, but there are a few different obstacles that consist of walking across steel cables. And holy hell, do they hurt when you don’t have stiff soled shoes. For that matter, you’ll probably want to leave your Vibrams and Inov-8s at home too. Another tip – don’t do a max effort thruster workout before you go. Or maybe it was the wall balls a couple of days previous. Just make sure you’re prepared to squat-walk across things occasionally.

The rest of the evening went well, with dinner at Prime 16 with some CrossFit couples and a follow-up at the official CFNH watering hole, Christopher Martin’s. Mark tracked down some candy for me (more on that in a later post) and Barb, in addition to monkey time in the trees, got me a sweet poster that has pretty much been the theme of this year.

 

I’m fully underway in Intern mode now and, since one of my rabid fans has been insisting, it’s time to bring you guys up to speed.

Friday was the last day of work with very little fanfare. It occurred to me in my last couple of weeks that I had approached my last job almost like a reality show villain: “I didn’t come here to make friends.”

Not that they were necessarily bad people, mind you. But most of them lived close to the office, meaning they lived close to me and, most importantly, they weren’t CrossFitters.

Saturday was my first official intern day, which worked out a lot like before – shadow time! We didn’t have any late seminars this time, so I was only at Milford for the first half of the day. It was an action-packed day, being our second annual First Responder Throwdown. Each class in the morning did the same set of workouts, and a LOT of work was done all through the morning. By the athletes, that is. The way Jay set up the workouts, there wasn’t a real need for setup and breakdown people, as those tasks became part of the workouts. Now that’s some genius programming.

Sunday was our first Purge Morning, trying to whittle down our possessions to better fit into our eventual apartment. Barb’s a purging machine when it comes to this stuff, but I can only do it a little bit at a time. I start off detached and ready to ditch things, but the sentimentality starts to build up after a bit and I have to stop where I’m at before I become totally useless and overwhelmed. I did good though – in addition to setting aside quite a few big boxes for Goodwill or eBay, site unseen, I also did an item-by-item search through eight other “Stuff” boxes. Those are generally composed of random things that happened to be near each other which all got thrown into a box during one clean up or another. In the end, I had narrowed the eight boxes down into one and a half keep boxes, one eBay, three Goodwill and half of a big trash bag.

Sunday night was party time – one of the owners of our box, Eric, was having a 40th birthday shindig. This makes him so much unbelievably older than me, since I don’t turn 40 until Saturday.

This brings to mind one of the really wonderful things about CrossFit – the Family. The next time the owner of your box is throwing some kind of shindig, mention it to someone who doesn’t know what CrossFit is. I did that one time at the dentist. “So, wait. The person who owns your gym is having a party, and you’re going to it?” What seems so perfectly normal to us is completely foreign to everyone else. Put yourself in their shoes – can you really imagine hanging out with anyone else who goes to your Planet Fitness? Can you imagine hanging out with the owner too?

Monday was a happily full day of wandering. I started with Ye Olde Six AM class to get my WOD in, then I was due at Milford by 9:00. It’s amazing what a difference a half hour and a shorter commute makes. The old job was at 8:30, and I had to race home from the box, shower fast, then hit the road to try to make it on time. Yesterday I came home, took a loooooong shower (stupid kettlebell swings) and actually sat down and ate breakfast. Hot damn!

Got to Milford and caught the tail end of Jay’s class then followed Adam around for his class. Adam’s a great coach and entertaining to watch. I’ve trained with him before, but that was back when he was still new to coaching and figuring out what’s what. Now he’s got it down and really connects with his athletes. Seeing his easy rapport and confidence keeps me going, since I knew him back when he was more like I am now.

 

During the class, I received a text from Dan, another one of our trainers. He has a gig doing strength and conditioning training at an area high school and wanted to know if I wanted to tag along and help. I checked with Jay and since he didn’t need me again until the next day, it was all systems go for high school football in the afternoon.

I had a few hours to kill at that point, so I gave Carla, Eric’s wife and our box’s webmistress (that’s sure to turn up on some interesting Google searches) a holler to talk to her about our current site. It is, shall we say, less than optimal. It’s great on the front side of things, but the back end is the very model of user unfriendliness. We agreed that I’d meet up with her after her noon class so she could point out all the things that drive her crazy. Since that gave me a couple of free hours, that meant I had plenty of time to do Highly Important Work.

 

Yes, it was time for lunch and a nap, then off to CFNH. I watched the last half of the noon class with both O’Briens, then sat with them to go over the current site. To say things could be better is an understatement. I can see a lot of areas we’ll be able to make it much easier for the folks posting things on the site, and hopefully I won’t have to keep my Web Developer hat on for too long to get us there.

Dan arrived after that and it was back to school. This team has fifty kids on it, all working out in a room about a quarter the size of our box. It definitely keeps you on your toes when you’ve got a lot of kids throwing around weights in there. Dan’s been working with them for a couple of weeks and takes half of them one day and the other half the next. Monday and Tuesday, we’re teaching them deadlifts and sumo deadlift high pulls.

 

It was rewarding to see just how quick most of these guys picked up the techniques. The only deadlifting they had done up to that point was using a trap bar:

 

It was great watching Dan work through a large number of people in a short period of time in such a confined area. I also learned one of the important lessons of being a coach: only one cue at a time. Being Dan’s Little Helper, I had to correct the form of the guys near me and the first couple were more than a little overwhelmed as I tried to correct ALL of their shortcomings at once. “Pull your knees back. Pick your hips up. Think like you’re sitting back into a chair. And pull your shoulders back. Think like you’re trying to put your shoulderblades in your back pockets. And keep your focus in front of you on the floor over there. And keep your core tight. And get a haircut. And yellow’s really not your color.”

Luckily I have a lot of experience confusing people, so I recognize the symptoms when they appear. I narrowed down my cues and kept them as simple as possible. In the end, it went pretty well. I’m going to go over there with him again today before I have to rush over to Milford for my next bout of shadowing.

When we got back to CFNH, the 4:30 folk were just starting to arrive, so yeah – I stuck around and shadowed for a couple more classes. Plus, I got to be Designated Camera Boy for awhile as well. Good Times. One more full day of following and watching in the books, which led me to my current, hectic morning.

 

Not a tremendously eventful week, at least right until the end.

Around midweek, I signed up for my Level 1 cert. I’m taking it up at Reebok at the end of June, so if you need your Level 1 and you wanna hang out, sign on up and we’ll lift things.

Friday was Trivia Night for CFNH at St. Rita’s and of the many tables there, we had two full of thirsty CrossFitters. Naturally, our table (composed of celebrity couples Maylor, Marin, Carlic and Brarb) was the victor. Of the two CrossFit tables, that is. We wound up coming in third due to a surprising lack of religious trivia knowledge in the last round. But hey, we were the top CrossFit table there, so that counts for something, right?

In keeping with the “Hey, we were there at least” theme of the weekend, the CrossFit New Haven Honey Badgers attacked the Metro Dash in New Jersey on Saturday. I was racing as an individual/scout and Barb, Maylor and Dags were racing as a team. This was my first real race of sorts, at least on foot.

 

It was definitely… interesting. Above all else, it was deceptively difficult. As we walked around the edges of the track, watching the earlier heats go through the obstacles, we were convinced that the organizers had told everyone they had to walk – no running allowed. From what we saw of the track, there was no other plausible reason for all these people taking their time everywhere. Sure, they were breathing hard, but come on.

I was the first of our group to experience the beast that is Metro Dash. The first obstacle out of the gate was a rope ladder climb.

Looking at a rope ladder, it seems really easy. I’ve climbed ladders. I’ve climbed ropes. This should be a breeze, right? It wasn’t necessarily hard in a physical sense, but exceedingly difficult in a “where in the hell are my FEET” sense. Right off the bat, all I can think of is how I have no idea where my body actually is in relation to everything else. Clever setup here – I think they have some kind of evil psychologist working on the order of these things.

Next up, you pick up a medicine ball, race it back and forth, climb a wall and run through some tires, football training montage style.

 

Then you climb another wall, slide through a tunnel and hit the killer – the big ass cargo net.

 

Aside from it being way the hell off the ground and held up by a lighting rig from one of Def Leppard’s tours, it was a gigantic mental and physical energy suck. The physical part’s pretty obvious – you’ve got a big ass cargo net to climb up and another one to climb down. The mental part, though – the rope ladders have already proved to me that I don’t know where my feet go when I put them places. Now suddenly I have a LOT of places to be putting my feet. I’m concentrating on my feet so much that I’m not thinking about breathing. Or relaxing. Or pacing. Or any of that other stuff you’re supposed to be doing when you’ve got over twenty more obstacles to get over.

Guess who started walking right about now.

At the end of it all (15:50 after I started) I was as impressed with the Metro Dash as I was disappointed in my endurance. Regardless of the Navy Seal stamp on their site, you can tell CrossFitters had a hand in this thing. This was so much like one of those oh-so-deceptive WODs where you look at it the night before and think “Oh, it’s just power cleans, wall balls and a run. Easy!” Then you show up the next day and get your ass handed to you.

Team Honey Badger made it through later as well. We have no idea where they finished team-wise, as the results are really screwy for teams and there’s not much of a way to figure out where the team placed if you’re not in the top three.

Like everything this past year, it’s one more learning experience on the board. We’re already making plans for the Boston Metro Dash (once they actually decide where & when it will be) and we’ll make sure to have a full complement of Honey Badgers at this one. There has been talk of a bus. Hell yeah.

 

Okay, so this one time I have a good excuse for going undercover. There was a coach’s meeting on Friday and Jay (my boss/mentor/leader/trainer) wanted to surprise everyone with the announcement of me being the latest victim newbie entering the intern program. So I’ve been keeping low out here and being vague about what’s happening in person. An awesome plan, if enough of the coaches had been in town for us to have the meeting. D’OH!

Since I had already saved up the time off for Friday, I went in to do some 1RM back squats (15# PR, thank you very much) and follow Carla around the floor. She even made me the demo boy for the last WOD to ease my transition into the whipping boy interning world.

So Saturday was my first day with my new identity: The Shadow. I spent all day hanging out at CrossFit Milford, watching coaches, lurking in the background and occasionally shouting out seemingly random numbers. It was a Fight Gone Bad day, so I got to be the “THREE, TWO, ONE, CHANGE!” guy a lot. Yelling is fun.

In all, I got to follow around three different coaches during WODs (Jay, Andrea & Adam) and then stalked Colin during a powerlifting seminar. Aside from each coach being different, each class was as well. Jay’s class was large and varied, with most everyone having some kind of CrossFit experience, if not Fight Gone Bad. Andrea’s was smaller and mainly experienced athletes. Adam had both a regular class and the “free intro to CrossFit” folks. I think what impressed me the most about all three was their innate sense of the time elapsing while still paying attention to the athletes and correcting form where need be. If I’m not focusing on the clock, I still get lost in whoever I’m watching/helping at the time.

Toughest part of the day: listening to Adam describe the proper wall ball technique. “…and when you catch it, I wanna see balls in your face…” One of these days, he’s going to catch on to what he’s saying. Until then, I’m going to hurt myself trying to keep a straight face.

While the first three classes showed me what I have to learn about class management, Colin’s seminar let me see how far I have to go on picking out issues with form. He covered deadlifts, back squats and bench presses and with each one I found I knew about 75% of what to look for. My “something’s wrong here” radar is pretty acute, it’s just a matter of figuring out what’s setting it off. For instance, in the deadlifts, I always think of shoulders and lower back/butt position, then knees/shins. Quite a few folks set off the radar with those set up correctly though. Turns out, it was often a feet-in-the-wrong-place thing.

One last great thing – we had an odd number of people in the last FGB workout, so I got to count for someone. While I counted, I also tried to give her some cues to help out with a couple of the more obvious things that were making my CrossFit Sense tingle. In addition to (honey)badgering her in the last round to beat her middle round reps, Adam told me afterward that he noticed a huge change in her push press form for the better by the end of the workout.