I haven’t crossfitted in a couple of weeks, but decided to do yesterday’s workout.

“Cindy”
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats

I’ve done Cindy before and did six rounds, so last night I decided to just do six rounds.  It took me 16 minutes so I probably should have done one more round, but I slacked.

The theme this year for my Christmas gifts was cheese. Last year I got interested in cheese-making, even going so far as making my own feta, but didn’t have the real equipment and bacterial cultures to do it. For Christmas, Hillary gave me a cheese press, Hillary’s parents gave me a copy of Ricki Carroll’s “Home Cheese Making”, the bible for the amateur cheesemaker, and my brother gave me a beginners cheese-making kit which included cheese wax and bacterial starters. Last week, I gathered up my new equipment and a gallon of fresh organic milk from Rebecca’s and turned it into cheese. I just bought a dorm fridge from a co-worker where the cheese sits to age for 2-3 months. I’ll post an update when I cut it open.

Hillary and I used to go to La Taza every now and again for weekend out-of-the-apartment studying, but we haven’t been there in maybe a year.  Today we had planned to go to Feast for lunch, but after seeing that their parking lot was overflowing with cars , I remembered cozy ‘ol La Taza and we decided to detour over there.  We’re definitely glad we did.

The first item on their menu caught my eye and I went with it, the Cuban Sandwich, and a Guava Jarritos soda.  Hillary had several items she was deciding between, and went with the Pollo Burrito.  My sandwich was oozing melted cheese and every bite included a little bit of sour pickle.  It was great.  We were both very happy with our dishes and will be going back to La Taza for lunch.

I seem to always be doing pull-ups.  Today was a rest day, but I haven’t been working out much, so I did yesterday’s workout.

With a continuously running clock do one pull-up the first minute, two pull-ups the second minute, three pull-ups the third minute… continuing as long as you are able.

Use as many sets each minute as needed.

I was able to do six sets, plus one pull-up.  That’s five more pull-ups than last time.  I like seeing progress.

Most of the workouts on crossfit have female names, but there are a small number of men’s workout and they are tough.

“Michael”

Three rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
50 Back Extensions
50 Sit-ups

I didn’t think I could even do 50 back extensions, much less a total of 150, so I scaled it down to 35 back extensions and sit-ups. I skipped the back extensions on the last round too. Total time: 32:31 or so.

Another new workout.

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats

I made it through six rounds.  The pull-ups and push-ups killed me but I was able to keep up on the squats.  I was able to walk to the car without feeling like I would fall over after every step, so that’s a positive thing.

Another successful crossfit workout.

Complete 32 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest where the first 8 intervals are pull-ups, the second 8 are push-ups, the third 8 intervals are sit-ups, and finally, the last 8 intervals are squats. There is no rest between exercises.

Post total reps from all 32 intervals to comments.

My reps were

pull-ups: 5/5/2/1/1/1/1/1 total 17
push-ups: 7/7/7/7/5/2/3/2 total 40
sit-ups: 11/12/12/7/5/5/6/6 total 64
squats: 5/15/10/10/10/10/10/13 total 83
overall total: 204

Someone posted an mp3 mix with beeps at the 20 and 10 second intervals, and another sound that signals to switch to the next exercise. It helped me a lot to not have to always be looking at my watch. I hope when this workout comes up again that I’ll do a bit better at it.

Kate B. is back in town for the weekend, so Bart wanted to surprise her with a dinner out. He planned this elaborate deception and surprised Kate with a bunch of her friends at Charlie’s Smokehouse in Crozet. A High School band was playing there, I don’t know their name. I tracked down the twins who play guitar and drums as Thomas and Andrew Fickley, but google didn’t come up with a band myspace page for them. The band’s music was good, covering some Dead, Counting Crows, and Wilco, and playing lots of their own Phish-style jam-band music. They sounded really good. The keyboard player could loosen up a little though. Everyone else in the band was moving and grooving to the music while the keyboardist stood in the back all stiff.

On to the food. I ordered the 1/2 rack of rib with a jerk rub. It came with two sides, so I chose the slaw and baked beans. The food was good. Not knock your socks off good, but if I were in the area for something, or wanted to hear a band there, I’d check out some other things on the menu.

Update: The band is named Help On The Way.

I grabbed some carry-out from Asian Express tonight. I’ve never been there before and was quite happy with the food. The crispy chicken caught my eye, so I got that along with a spring roll.