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19 thoughts on “Tue, Oct 28th”

1. Good craic this one

   Completed 10 rounds plus the 10 overhead squats of round 11
   Jumping pullups though

2. Ed,

   Mucho Apologeto – you had a comment waiting in the q this morning and in my groggy headedness I seem to have deleted it instead of approving.

   Sorry man!

3. That Robb Wolf FAQ link is a keeper. Some very useful info in there!

4. No problemo Colm. Will had essentially written the same thing anyway.

5. Shane, yeah that’s impressive and all, but what’s his CrossFit Total? Can he do a Muscle Up?

6. That sort of stuff is amazing in it’s own way alright, but bloody hell those guys look like they’re about a second away from death.

   I can’t imagine how endurance athletics came to be held up as the ultimate model of fitness.

7. Aye, I’ve got nothing but respect for people who go out and pursue pretty much any athletic goal, no matter what it is.

   I simultaneously hold the viewpoints that: a) top marathon runners are amazing people, and b) what they sacrifice to get where they are is just insane. Lifting things is too much fun to deliberately become that bad at it.

8. 2:11:06? Wow. Quick marathon.

   I love how dismissive CrossFitters are of endurance athletes. Personally I think they’re incredible, the mental toughness those guys must have is unbelievable. 2+ hours of solid pain, I honestly don’t think I could do it. Obviously if your goal is GPP then being a marathon runner doesn’t help but this applies in reverse also. Paula Radcliffe (I think she’s retired but that Kenyan dude’s name escapes me at the minute) has no need to be able to do a Fran so is she somehow inferior to us? Hardly. Different yes, inferior, well thats a matter of opinion.

   I suppose the ability to run long distances is inherently useful and so maybe we subconsciously recognise that? I don’t know, I never thought about it too much. As Big Shane said, running is imbeded in our psyche, weightlifting not so much. Ask 5 people do they know what a clean is, then ask the same five do they know what running is. Running may not be the most beneficial exercise regime for everyone but it sure as hell beats a bag of doritos and Coronation Street.

9. This isn’t thought out as much as I’d like, but lately I can’t seem to finish long winded articles that require forethought, so apologies in advanced.

   My original comment was just tongue in cheek, given the discussions we’ve had of late. I do think it’s an amazing achievement. The rest of this is just a rambling response that addresses topics brought up in a logically fallacious way.

   For reasons I can’t fathom, people associate duration with achievement, and mental toughness. I can’t see how we measure this mental toughness appropriately. I mean, the mental toughness to push yourself through Fran, or Linda, or a 20-rep squat aren’t heralded, but a marathon is? Wherefore?

   The sacrifices required to achieve pole position in any sport, any endeavour, are amazing, even ridiculous (depending on your standpoint). Can one say that Usain Bolt doesn’t sacrifice as much as Andriy Naumov? Did Hossein Rezazadeh not sacrifice everything to become the world’s strongest weightlifter? Although his sport lasts only a few seconds?

   Is there not mental toughness required to do repeated efforts of something very hard? Don’t they say the hardest part of torture is the wait in between the physical violence inflicted on you? Yet running a marathon is a continuous, steady state effort? There’s no fear element in a marathon, nothing’s going to change. No one is going to hit you, tackle you. There’s little chance of environment inflicted death(I’m thinking race car drivers and mountaineers here) See where I’m going here?

   Last year Adam ran a marathon. From about 10 weeks prior to it I’d never seen him so downbeat and poorly, and Adam is a very happy, excitable guy. He dreaded running, hated every minute of the marathon (in his own words – the last 8 felt twice as bad as the first 18), and stayed in bed for 2 days after it. Admittedly, he was not confined to bed, just took the days off because he could. He said he’d never felt weaker than he had the weak pre and post marathons.

   Two weeks ago he started CF, and after a couple of workouts he said he could instantly feel his fitness was improving and couldn’t believe by how much. Anecdotal I know but I believe it serves against the argument that for most people training for a marathon is a good thing. I’d argue that they’d get a lot more benefit from training from a couple of 5-10K races, than a 40+ K one.

   I can’t see how running long distances is any more inherently useful than the ability to pick shit up and move our bodies around. We pull and push ourselves up from sitting/lying far more than we realise (watch old people try to move about and it becomes a lot more apparent).

   And we pick things up all day long without realising it. I’d say we do this far more than we run, unless you’re chronically late for your bus)

   I’ve ran for 2 hours before, covering 25Km if I recall correctly. Can’t say I enjoyed it.

   Rant over.

10. Man that was a rant and a half. Urgh, Nestle make Colm Angry

11. Dunno man. Cindy’s tough; a true beast of a workout to get through. However it doesn’t really compare in my mind to Murph. I say there is absolutely something to be said for mental strength to finish a long workout.

    For me a max rep deadlift does not take mental toughness to complete. Mental focus for sure, but when I’m running a 5k the only thing that keeps me from stopping is determination, and to do that for 3 hrs seems much harder than doing it for 20 min.

    I think that this whole CF vs. endurance battle rages on because endurance athletes are consistently held up by the mainstream media as the ‘fittest’ people. After all CF’ers don’t attack golfers or baseball players.

    To me, I have extreme admiration for anyone that reaches the top of their field, even if it is 10m air rifle shooting. Some I admire for their skill, some for their strength, some for their mental toughness or a variety of combinations. I have no idea if a marathon is harder than a painstorm but I do know that I can’t run one which means all of those people on Monday are better than me at at least one thing.

12. My comment on CrossFitters being dismissive wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular, its just a common theme I see whenever I look at CrossFit websites.

    I never said picking shit up was less useful than running but in people’s minds it seems to be that way. Reminds me of a conversation I had with a young lad (man I’m getting old) the other day. He stopped doing the legpress because he feels he has no need to be able to lift large amounts of weight with his legs. 99% of the time this will be true for a lad of his age. Same guy won’t deadlift because he feels he has no need to pick heavy things up. Still benches though, clearly he’s afraid of giant logs falling on him.

    It showed me, apart from that he has a bench fetish, that the ability to pick heavy things up is not as ingrained as the ability to run or move. The same guy still uses the treadmill and rowing machine you see. I disagree with marathon running being the pinnacle of fitness but then again we all know my feelings on “fitness” so I’ll leave it out.

    On mental toughness. I think how someone views mental toughness is a subjective matter, I played rugby for years and I was able for it so I don’t see it as tough. On the other hand I was never able for long-distance running so I’ve always thought of it as tough. Similarly I enjoy submission wrestling and MMA, both of which could be defined as tough, I don’t see it that way though. See what I mean?

13. Colm – Having run a couple of marathons myself, I hope I can see this from both sides of the fence

    Since I have started Crossfit, I can see and understand the menatl toughness and drive that is needed to push yourself through most of the metcons, but I also definitely think there is a fear element in running and there are a number of things that can tackle you mentally and physically….

    Sure. A lot of people complete marathons just to say they have done one and may actually walk large portions of it, but to to many others it is the climax to many months of dedication and sacrifice to achieve their PB.

    Have I trained enough to reach my target time?
    Will I hit the wall?
    Is all this running really worth it?
    Why the hell am I doing this?

    These are all questions that run through your mind, but, I would definitely say running the 2 marathons I have was worth every second of long runs in the Phoenix park by myself . The sense of achievement, The adrenalin produced by the occasion and definitely a menatl toughness that stays with you and has helped me personally get through other aspects of life… Like ‘Fight gone bad’ On my first day at CF…OUCH!

    Im not saying running a marathon is any more of an achievment than doing Fran or Cindy in record time, but like Big Shane said the running industry is big, so a landmark event like a city marathon is always gonna get massive exposure comapared to the Crossfit Games for example.

14. Great posts guys!

15. While on the marathon thing thought I’d throw this nugget out, that aerobic exercise increases insulin sensitivity in your muscles. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/17/1842
    so if crossfitters ran marathons they could eat potatoes! And yes, i did have to ruin the serious discussion. Lack of lifting relatively heavy things has made me unpleasant

16. Bobby – I’d nearly bet the dismissive comments about endurance athletes you’ve seen were coming from newbies and/or keyboard warriors who duck out on the 10k WODs. You can’t do more than a few of those without gaining a healthy respect for people who are actually good at running.

    You get a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff like Colm’s “what’s his CFT” up there too, but that kind of thing is just a bit of fun.

    All the genuine crossfitters I’ve met in real life have been extremely down-to-earth, nice people who I can’t picture sneering at the achievements of any hard-training, dedicated athlete.

17. Will you’re probably right, it goes for athletes across the board really, anyone who’s serious about his/her sport will be respectful of others. They’ll know the dedication involved.

18. Ames: 7 Rounds + 4 Push Ups (elevated Push Ups, Jumping Pull Ups)
    Shane 1.0: 6 rounds + 6 pull ups as rx’d
    Kyle: 11 rounds + 10 Push Ups as rx’d
    Lee: 9 rounds (jumping pull ups)

    R*Dawg’s Hungover Total
    BS: 110-120-125(f)
    SP: 55-60(f)-57.5
    DL: 140-150-160 PR!

19. I did the Glasgow Half marathon in 1 hour 51mins …so that guy was nearly twice as fast as me….fecker!