I love burpees

August 2013

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Location:

toquerville,ut,usa

Member Since:

Jan 24, 2011

Gender:

Female

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

-I'm an avid runner and crossfitter turned obstacle racer.  This year has brought on new and unexpected opportunities racing in Spartan races.  I'm in love with this new challenging part of my life.

Here is what I've come away with so far

1st - Socal Super Spartan 2013

1st - Texas Sprint Spartan2013

2nd- Las Vegas Super Spartan 2013

3rd - Arizona Sprint Spartan 2013

3rd - Atlas Obstacle Race 2013

5th - Spartan World Championships 2013

 

Future Races

October?? maybe Sacramento Beast Spartan

December - Texas Beast

 

 

Short-Term Running Goals:

I am working to become the best obstacle  racer I can be.  If that goes hand in hand with a National Championship title, than I will have met 2 of my goals/dreams.

 

Long-Term Running Goals:

Another sub 3 hour marathon

Sub 1:20 half marathon

I want to complete an ironman and some ultra races.

I Hope to be running until I'm 100.

 

Personal:

I have 2 boys (7 and 4) and a little girl (14 months) that keep me on my toes and make life worth living..  I've been married to my better half (Jim clark) for 10 years.  I teach fitness classes and am a personal trainer - my 2nd love is Zumba!  I love what i do!

I hold Obstacle Training Groups at my house on saturdays -I feel so blessed to be able to help others.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
56.003.008.003.5070.50
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.500.000.003.504.00

Track Workout - This felt MUCH better than last week, but I'm still playing catch up.  My 400s were 1:25 - 1:35 - which is quite slow for me.  My upper body was shot from yesterday's crossfit, so I made it a lower body focus for the strength part of it.  all done with a 21 lb sandbag

 

400 m warm up

40 sandbag lunges

30 plank - knee to elbow

400 m

30 sandbag squats

side plank - knee to elbow

400 m

20 bench jumps

seated leg drops

400 m

50 speed skaters

400 m

5 times run up stairs with sandbag

400 m

repeat 2 x

end on an 800 m

 

 

 

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I just did not get a chance to workout today:( 

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Today I got to run with friends - on my course - it was awesome!  Marci and Heidi came all the way over to try out the Spartan course.  It is seriously so amazing how much easier running feels when you are with people. 

So we ran the cholla creek course today, which involved sharing a sandbag for a mile up a steep hill, bucket carry, heavy rock throw, tire carry, 3 times up the rope, rope traverse, 3 x wall climb, Hercules hoist, 10 x tire flip, and spear throw.  Marci and I sped up the last mile to make it back for my training group.  I was stoked that the 6:30 mile felt pretty easy:)

Later we had loads of fun digging holes in the ground - getting ready for our monkey bar contraption:)  Gonna start building this week:)

 

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Zumba - finally my leg feels better!!! No worrying about it today - it felt great;)

Ivy slept right through my crossfit time, so I decided to just do my own workout at home.  I saw that the next days workout was going to be upper bod, so I did squats, box jumps, burpees, lunges, 1 leg deadlifts while watching the crossfit games.  So inspired (and feeling comparatively pathetic).

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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I say easy miles, but there was not one mile that was easy today - maybe mile 1.  I ran up to Toquerville Falls today trying to make it a little farther this time.  every 2 min I'd pick up a heavy rock and try to run with it up the hill.  My legs were fatigued from the previous night's workout, so this was a hard run!  I was proud of it though.  I broke through some mental barriers that had to do with protecting my hamstring.  I let go of all that and I think it helped!  I really tried picture myself winning the championship race, and what pushing through that pain and fatigue would feel like.  My ab pain started hurting when I got up to the top but then went away??

I was way tired when I got back - even to the point of feeling a bit nauseous!

I had crossfit on the agenda for the pm and hate to say it but I was dreading it.  I hate to go into a workout feeling like this, but sometimes I can't push myself hard more than once a day.

Push press - 75 lbs, 85, 90, 95 - my goal is to get to 100 by next week!

Workout of the Day

A.
4 sets of:
Push Press x 3-5 reps
R2 mins
L-Sit Tuck to Ext. x 7-10 reps @ 1212
R2 mins

B.

21-15-9:
HSPU
Pull-ups
Push-Ups

My handstand push ups were rather pathetic today.  I had did my first 6, and then I was toast for all 39 of the rest.  I just had no core strength left.  Ryan was really good about pushing me and not letting me stop.  I was frustrated and wanted to give up and go to a higher cushioning, but he didn't let me.  I was grateful for the push!

 

My pull ups felt pretty good however - so I must be getting stronger:)  Push ups sucked.

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Rest Day that is sorely needed! I'm loving this midweek break:)

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Track workout

added 800s into strength routine today

added 2 miles on road after

knees and hamstring were not doing great

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.000.000.000.0011.00

I ran down into cholla creek and wanted to do lots of hills - knee was swollen by it band? and it killed to do hills.  so i settled for flat today. grrr -getting frustrated

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Zumba - am

crossfit - pm

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Even though knee hurt I got in 8 miles around water tower loop with lunges and burpees

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rest day

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crossfit

deadlift 3 rm - 180 lbs

wod -

7 box jumps

7 burpees

7 kb swings

7 minutes

 

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Ended up canning salsa today and my knee was killing me!  I didn't go on my planned run

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Today did not go as planned.  I actually wanted to get 11 to 12 in, but my left hamstring for some reason hurt from the get go.  don't even know where it came from?  I did my course on the second half but cut it short because leg was hurting and didn't want to push it.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Easy 3 with running stroller with burpees

Hamstring hurt!

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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Wrapped left hamstring to test on run.

 

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Virginia Super Spartan

I'm not tagging this as a race because after about halfway, I had to treat it as a training run.  It was so awful.  I'm coming off of a hamstring injury.  It took me out for 2 months - 2 months of no running.  Your fitness goes fast.  I was still able to do some cross fit, but nothing that kept it up.  So I've had 4 weeks to try and get it back before this race.  It wasn't enough.

The amount of things weighing on me at the beginning of this race was overwhelming.  I had had a stressful, drama crazy week to begin with.  And then my body had been rejecting my push to go hard.  2 weeks ago I struggled with knee pain (quad tightness). - this week my other hamstring was on the verge of straining.  I decided to go to the race on wed night (i left thurs) which is crazy for me.  I had no mental preparation, and still wasn't sure if my hamstring was going to be ok.  On the plane ride there, my hamstring insertions were burning under my butt.  My leg just ached.  I had ran 3 miles on tues - very slow - and hamstring was definitely not good.  i wrapped it wed and ran 5 miles - handled it ok but hurt by the end.  It was a pretty crazy decision to go run this race.

so I spent all day fri babying it in the hotel.  I massaged it, and used my scraping tool to dig in.  I was thinking if it hurt bad enough, i'd just accept a DNF - I didn't want to deal with another hamstring strain.

So this was my mental state at the starting line.   Not ideal.  I was hoping for a win, but I don't think I  was in right vicinity to do so.

I got to the starting line and they were ready to go.  I had lost track of time and didn't get a good warm up in.  So once they started, I wasn't in front and had a hard time seeing the front ladies.

Immediately we started heading up hills.  Unfortunately, I start feeling the burn early on.  This was so foreign to my body - my legs love the hills!

Let's stop and explain what this race was.  It was the hardest spartan of my career and had elevation changes in the 8000 ft range (4000 feet of climbing) in 8 miles.  The previous day's rain had made everything wet, muddy, and very slippery.  We were basically running up and down a ski hill the entire time.

I didn't even see where the front ladies were.  I had wrapped my hamstring and was so focused on that that my mind was not even in the race.

Obstacle #1 over walls, under walls, through

My other downfall was my shoes.  They were not trail shoes, and were slipping and sliding all over the place during the entire race.  Definitely will have them next time.

Obstacle #2 over small walls

The downhill was steep, grassy, and very slippery wet.  I would catch the girls on the uphills, but couldn't be as ballsy as they were on the steep downs.  It was extremely frustrating.  We were running down the open hill, not on any sort of trail.  At times we would wind through the forest going through the brush and through whatever we could.  Not my favorite.  I guess i'm just too cautious.

Obstacle #3 long hill slide - fun! into a nice water pit at the bottom

Obstacle #4 monkey bars

About 3 miles in I'm starting to get really annoyed at how much I'm slipping and sliding.  I hate that I can't break out and "run".

Obstacle #5 log flip - new flip long log down and back - really easy

So basically if we weren't going downhill, we were going uphill.  Steep uphill.  There is already a lot of hiking going on.

Obstacle #6 spear throw -I MADE IT TODAY - first time in my spartan career - the one bright spot

Obstacle #7 really long uphill barbed wire crawl - hard to roll under

Obstacle #8 mud pits - more barbed wire

Really long downhill in the stream through the forest that it just annoying and slow

and it's about here that my ankle bobbles and its sprained - again - same one as always.  i can usually get it to calm so I tried to walk it off.  It took about 10 min for the pain to die down.  I knew my race was gone at this time - CRAP!  It's so hard to get motivated.  I convinced myself to use it as training for the next months race (which is going to be exactly like this).

Obstacle #9 hugely long uphill section - over a mile - everyone is walking - I try to run/walk it.

And then I slip and fall and my ab pulls.  Seriously any drive I had to do well at this time was gone.  I try to run but the pain was taking my breath away.  It was going under my rib cage (i've had this prob before) and any downhill running is making it worse.

I get bit by something but don't know what.  It was on my ankle but the guys around me don't think it was a snake.  so I'm going with bee sting.  another min lost on my race.  I'm in about 5th or 6th at this point.

Obstacle #10 Hercules hoist - there's a gate around the roped part.  I haul my up easily, but it pulls me forward a bit when it comes down so that I touch the gate.  Volunteer tells me to do burpees.  WHAT?  I guess he had been telling us that when we got there not to touch the gate, so ask to do it again.  He agrees.

Obstacle #11 7 ft wall that I weirdly have trouble with.  I couldn't run up the wall like I usually do, and try to use the women's helper bar.  It seems to be lower now and I can't just grab the top.  some girls come along and I let them go.  They try to help eachother and i nip that in the bud.  no helping if you sign up for elite.  I eventually get over and go over to the log carry.

Obstacle #12 steep hill log carry - over 400 m down and up - not too bad but again really steep

more uphill

The downhills are just agonizing and i'm barely running down them

Obstacle #13  8 ft wall - again more trouble on something I don't normally have trouble on

I know I have things out of order and there may have been more obstacles.

we are getting near the end and it's one freaking long drive up another forever hills

Obstacle #14 Inverted wall - new -fun!  no probs

up to rope climb

#15 rope climb - my legs are exhausted at this point and makes it more challenging

more up to the

#16 traverse wall

#17 mud pit / rope climb up muddywall

#18 fire jump

Lessons i learned

Wow where do I start

Pay attention to hydration and fuel - we were out there for 3 hours and I had 3 half cups of water and 2 gels

My mind will either make me fail or succeed - so much of our racing is in our head.  I was not there that day

Get better shoes!  Learn to trust them going down hills

Have a better attitude no matter what.  Start thinking positive thoughts about the things I struggle with

 

 

 

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rest day

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Honestly cannot remember what I did all week, but I know i took it slow and recovered.

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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
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