Hahahahahah…I’m not mad at this at all.

I haven’t been posting up my CrossFit workouts for a while, mainly cause I do ‘em so often, this blog would be nothing but workouts and wack lyrics.  Plus, it’s a little weird to keep strangers up to date with my personal workout log, but ehhh.  I felt like I did well on “Christine” tonight, so I figured I’d post.  Sue me.

Christine: 3 Rounds for Time

500m row
12 deadlifts (bodyweight)
24 box jumps

My dude Mikey suggested this one, and since we did a lot of arm stuff the day before and I’d never tried Christine, I was all for it.  The rowing felt great (one of my better exercises) and the box jumps were fairly easy (except for the final few when your legs are shot).  We used Mikey’s bodyweight, so I only had to lift 135lbs, 20 less than my own BW.  It’s still a decent lift and you feel it on the final round.  I finished in 12:32.  Blaow.

Try this one if you have a rowing machine at your gym.  Or if you’re in Seattle, you could always man (or woman) up and come to a free workout at Foundation CrossFit with us on Saturdays @ noon.  Or you could be lame and get fat during the winter.  Your call.

Damn, a sad day for one of my all-time favorite players.  This is the kind of news that makes me feel old as hell too:

Los Angeles Clippers point guard Jason Williams announced his retirement from the NBA today, ending his 10-year career. Signed by the Clippers as a free agent on August 7, 2008, Williams did not appear in a game for Los Angeles.

Williams enjoyed a 10-year NBA career that saw him take the court for three different teams, (Sacramento 1998-2001, Memphis 2001-2005 and Miami 2005-2008). A member of the NBA Champion Miami Heat in 2005-06, Williams started all 23 playoff games and averaged 9.3 points and 3.9 assists for Miami in helping to win the organization’s first title.

The West Virginia native leaves the NBA with career averages of 11.4 points, 6.3 assists, 1.3 steals, 2.4 rebounds while shooting 39.6 percent from the floor, 32.5 percent from three-point range and 81.6 percent from the foul line in 679 total games. Williams finishes his career with a 2.77 assist-to-turnover ratio.

He enjoyed his best statistical season in 2001-02 when he averaged 14.8 points, 8.0 assists and 3.0 rebounds for Memphis. In his four seasons with the Grizzlies, Williams became the club’s all-time assists leader and all-time leader in three-point field goals attempted in addition to being named the NBA’s Most Improved Player for the 2002-03 season by Sports Illustrated when he finished tied for second in the league in assists per game.

Originally drafted with the seventh overall selection in the 1998 NBA Draft by Sacramento after one season at the University of Florida, Williams was named to the 1998-99 NBA All-Rookie Team following an electrifying first season that saw him average 12.8 points and 6.0 assists. Over the next nine seasons, Williams emerged as one of the most dependable point guards in the NBA, averaging double-figures in scoring and at least five assists per game in eight of his ten years in the league.

After seeing this news on a messageboard, I noticed someone also posted up a little J-Will highlight reel.  If you’ve ever talked to me on AIM, now you know where the “55″ in the name comes from…

I watched that last highlight in person at Key Arena and I’ll never forget it.  He had just pulled off a great play and followed it up by freezing Gary Payton (at that time, the NBA’s best defender) and kissing it high off the glass.  Even the Sonic fans went crazy for that one.  R.I.P. Seattle Supersonics.

In case you haven’t heard, in light of the recent economic crisis, John McCain has decided to suspend his campaign to try to help solve the problem.  Sane people will look at this maneuver and realize it’s a fairly desperate attempt to avoid pwnage in Friday’s debate, but McCain clearly hopes that his campaign can spin it positively.  Expect to hear a million surrogates talking up the idea that “McCain is showing he’ll put his country ahead of his campaign.”  That sounds nice, but unfortunately, it’s patently false.

McCain’s inability to get any sort of grasp on economic issues (remember: this man has admitted multiple times that he doesn’t understand how the economy works) has lead to an awful performance on the campaign trail the past 2 weeks.  With the Palin bounce fading quickly, and even beginning to negatively affect the ticket, they were increasingly desperate.  The idea that if McCain returns to Washington to sit in on some meetings and provide his voice, this $700 billion bailout will be hammered through is absolutely laughable.  Whether it happens or not, it will not be because of John McCain.

So why did he insist upon suspending the campaign and ducking the first debate on Friday?  Simple: he’s getting hammered on the economy.  As I’ve blogged about before, anytime an actual important issue or policy is talked about, the Republicans lose.  That’s why they want you to worry about flag pin lapels or pigs with lipstick.  Once the economy became the main focus, McCain’s campaign went down quicker than his plane dur– no…wait…I’m better than that.  Anyway, he’s losing ground all over the place and in order to stop the hemmorraging, he pulled this stunt.  It’s akin to calling a timeout when the other team is racking up points, only in this case, you were already out of timeouts.  Shouldn’t this be a technical foul?  Where’s Chris Webber?

This is not a legitimate reason to suspend your campaign and try to postpone the beatdown you’re going to receive at the first debate.  Now, Barack handled this as professionally and stately as possible.  He knows exactly what McCain is doing and his remarks above could not have been better.  Thankfully, I’m not running for office, so I’ll say it:

For a “war hero,” where is your vaunted courage Senator McCain?  Take your beating like a man and go to the first debate on Friday.  You’re running scared, but it’s understandable.  Barack has Ali-like swag right now, and you’re about to be on the receiving end.

I’m breaking this out at the next opportunity, no question.

Swiped from HHU.

Alright, I’ve been slacking on my crossfit posts, but I swear I’ve been killing the workouts lately.  One of the best parts about crossfit is that it’s really easy to see your improvement and I’ve been increasing damn near all my scores lately.  Saturday’s “Rainstorm” over at Foundation CrossFit started with 200m walking lunges to get our legs nice and jelly-like before we got into “Tabata This.”  From the CrossFit FAQ:

“Tabata Intervals ( 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times) is applied in turn to the Squat, Rower, Pullups, Sit-ups, and Push-ups with a one minute rotation break between exercises. Each exercise is scored by the weakest number of reps (calories on the rower) in each of the eight intervals. During the one minute rotation time allowed the clock is not stopped but kept running. The score is the total of the scores from the five stations.”

Relatively simple, right?  20 seconds on, 10 seconds off…for 8 times…at each of those 5 exercises…and count only your lowest round.  I got my PR of 47 with 6 pull ups, 12 sit ups, 6 calories on the row, 12 squats, and 11 push ups.  Seeing as how I was able to knock out 8 calories on my last round of row and 15 push ups on the final round there, I’m guessing I didn’t quite push myself as hard as possible.  Next time I’m shooting for (at least) 7, 13, 7, 14, and 13.  Let’s get it.

For time. Complete all reps of each exercise before moving to the next.

100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 air squats

Blew my PR out the water by 45 seconds and finished in 18:01.  “Yep yep” - Teddy.  In related crossfit news, I’m thoroughly obsessed with handstand push ups.  Shout to Foundation.

Even though it was a holiday, this was one of the busiest weekends I’ve had in a minute.  Thanks to the fine folks over at Foundation Crossfit, I was able to squeeze in two bad ass workouts.  First up, from Saturday:

Tabata bottom to bottom squats (8 rounds of 20 secs on, 10 off, hold for the ‘rest’)

then as far as you can go in 20 minutes, in order:
100m sprint
25 burpees
30 pull ups
40 sit ups
50 kettlebell swings
60 second L-sit
70 push ups
800m run
90 second active hang
100 box jumps

I got through 700m of the 800m run before time expired.  I love these kind of “checklist” workouts because you get a real sense of accomplishment as you’re flying through the exercises.  Next up, tonight’s workout was “Tabata Fight Gone Bad” (see the video above):

8 rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, with 1 minute rest in between exercises.  Take your lowest score in each round and that’s your score for the exercise:

Sumo Deadlift High Pull (75lbs)
Box Jumps
Push Press (75lbs)
Wall Ball
Row (count calories burned)

I finished with 38 (in order: 10, 8, 6, 9, 5).  Probably could have bumped that up by one or two, but this is a hard workout.  Very fun though.  Try it, or if you need some help getting started, hit up the Foundation fam!

There isn’t a Seattle Nike+ Human Race event, but I may have to get out there and do some running on Sunday.  Anyone up for “Murph” after the Keyshia Cole/T.I. show at Bumbershoot?

This one doesn’t have a snazzy name, just the workout of the day posted on the official crossfit site.  For time:

30 handstand push ups
40 pull ups
50 kettlebell swings, 1.5 poods (~52 lbs)
60 sit ups
70 burpees

Aight, this one was a bit more than I could chew.  I’ve never done handstands in my life, so I just did 30 ten second stands against a wall to get used to being upside down.  I was able to knock out a few push ups like that too, but I’ll need to practice a LOT to be able to do that freestanding.  That would be bad ass though, so that’s the ultimate goal.

After the handstands, I did the last 4 exercises for time and subbed a 35 lbs dumbbell for the swings.  Pull ups, swings, sit ups = fairly easy.  70 burpees = a bitch.  Finished in 16:43.  Try this one.

Shout to Foundation.