Readiness

The last week has been of (for me) high volume for various reasons. Mostly planned. I am trying to cultivate a mindset of being ready for anything, anytime. This is of course primarily athletic, but, again, it seems to be creeping into my regular life, in a good way. Ramping up for the Affiliate Cup, I have added both volume and intensity to my training and that of the Affiliate Cup team. I really pushed myself to the ragged edge last week. More on that in a moment, but first let's look at what I did:

Monday: Off
Tuesday: 2 mile hill run
Wednesday: Deadlift 1-1-1-1-1-1-1


325-375-385-395-395-400 (fail, moved it)-400 (fail nailed to the deck).

This was a major math fail. I somehow failed to put 400 on the bar, and I got just insanely pumped up to do it. I did 395 twice. It came up easily, and, on the plus side I BELIEVED it was 400, so I may be over my metal problems with 400. I am certainly going to try this again next week.

395 is tied for a lifetime PR, and I have not lifted this much since 2007.

Thursday:
Run One Mile
100 Squats
Run 800 Meters
75 Push-Ups
Run 400 Meters
50 Burpees
Run 200 Meters
25 "GI Janes"
Run One Mile

Time: 41:25

Friday:

Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
75 pound Sumo deadlift high-pull, 21 reps
75 pound Thruster, 21 reps

Time: 25:20

Finisher:

15-9-6

Ring Dip
Burpee

Time: 7:59

Saturday:
Olympic Lifting Seminar (3 hours in hot sun)
C&J 175, tied for lifetime PR.

Grace:
Time: 7:30, far off of PR

Sunday,
Affiliate Cup WOD "A"
15 minutes of very hard work

Affiliate Cup WOD "B"
90 minutes of slog

+25 plus hours of training others.

By the time we got to WOD "B" I was cooked. I tried to get myself psyched up, but I simply ran out of energy. I could not get any intensity going, no matter how hard I tried. What should have been a 45 minute workout took me 90 minutes. I have never hit the wall this hard and not DNF'd. Whether this was a good idea remains to be seen. I have, for a long time, considered volume for the sake of volume to be akin to "junk miles". However, I committed myself and my team to this course of action, and I never considered not following through. I realized pretty quickly I was going to be Dead Fucking Last, and I just plodded through it. I really enjoyed the 50 penalty burpees at the end. Thanks Gita.

So: what is readiness? Committing to a course of action and following through no matter what. Will this yield the results we are hoping for? New strength, capacity and intensity PRs this week for most should tell the tale.