Travel and Tourism: The yunkie goes to Markham, takes a much needed break

This weekend the better half and I ventured outside of the city limits and drove ourselves out to beautiful Markham, Ontario for the afternoon.  I’ve never previously been to Markham, and taking in the scenery was pretty sweet.  I mostly marveled at the square footage of real estate, I think their garages are the size of my house.  Sight seeing aside, you will remember a little while back I attended a Level I Cert in Milton, and I mentioned in my post meeting up with some folks from the Crossfit Markham crew.  They have been running their operation from a garage out in the burbs of Markham for almost a year now.  They are looking to move into a brand new space in about 3 weeks, so I wanted to go up and check out the garage before they take off.

Check the pic above, that’s Chris Cristini, the man around the Markham box.  I first heard of him last year, when vids of his performance at the first Ontario challenge popped up.  Formerly a muay thai fighter, he placed an impressive 4th at the Ontario sectionals this year.  Due to school commitments he wasn’t able to make it out to Calgary, but let’s hope the West doesn’t get comfy yet, he’s coming next year.

The garage is fully stocked with bars, two sets of bumpers, a pull up bar, couple sets of rings, kettle bells, med balls, dumbbells and all the other Crossfit paraphernalia you can think of.  It’s a fully stocked gym, in a garage.  The vibe is very relaxed, as we pulled up a few minutes before class Chris was casually chatting up the members and greeted us warmly.  We gingerly sauntered around the place as more people rolled in, warmed up a bit.  Kristi, who some of you may remember from the old CFTO space, also came by, I officially met her at my cert, and she looked ready to rock with her sweet Union Jack chucks.  There were about 8 or so people in the class, all levels of fitness.

The WOD (programmed by Chris’ lovely mom, also a coach)
4 Rounds for time of:
20 catch and release KB swings
10 knees to elbows
10 HSPU’s
30 jump squats w/bar

It was awesome, and it majorly sucked, in that crossfitty way we all know and love.  We took our bells and bars right out on the lawn in front of the Cristini house, which was a little spotty from what I’m sure is a lot of workouts past.  Took me 15:20min, Kristi absolutely smashed it in something like 12min.

All in all, if you get a chance, I urge you all to make it out and pay Crossfit Markham a visit.  Chris made sure to introduce us to all the members in the class and stuck around afterward with us just chatting for probably an hour, just sharing his take on things.  He’s excited to be moving to the new space.  He’s in school right now doing kin and is looking to get into Chiropractics, to become what he called a “super trainer” and focus his box on all around wellness.  His passion for Crossfit was very refreshing and his openness inspiring and inviting.  It reminded me why I love our community and I love our sport.  He’s the real deal, a Crossfit stud in the making, and does not appear to have a jaded bone in his body, no chip on his shoulder, just bucketloads of enthusiasm and an incredible metabolic capacity.

Thanks Chris, and the rest of the Crossfit Markham crew, for having us.  We are very excited for your expansion and will stay in touch as you grow.  Keep up the lack of bullshit, it was great 🙂

On to training.  You probably have seen me around the gym the past week, not running because I somehow managed to get effing shin splints, and modifying my wods because I managed to somehow get super overtained again.  This was expected, I think my body is just rebelling against the training ramp up.  I took it easy this week, 3 rest days, in hopes of healing up a bit.  My muscles still hurt though, and no amount of water or sleep seem to be helping.  Back to normal tomorrow though, it’s probably largely mental.

Didn’t really get to watch much of the games, will need to catch up a bit on Wednesday.

In other news, 405.  That’s what my boyfriend deadlifts.  Let’s all go home.

Here we go…

The Goodlife half is October 17, which gives me exactly 15 weeks to get some serious training done. I am currently through 15 weeks of run camp already, which means come race day I will have 30 weeks of training under my belt.

My current training schedule, according to the books, looks something like 2 runs + 3 wods + 1 lift + 2 rest days = successful running capabilities. In reality it looks more like 2 runs + arbitrary amount of wods when not sore + not really any lifting = moderately successful running capabilities, but not really as good as they could be. Couple that with some negligible nutritional habits (as of late) and a serious case of the lazy, and you get me, call me Joe Average, on a hot day.

I have been underwhelmed with my performance and work ethic the past few months. I’ve really stuck with the running, but I don’t feel that I have used all resources available to me to make myself a better runner as well as athlete, ie I haven’t gone for a single LSD solo run that Judy told me I should be doing from the very beginning.

This being said, the new training equation looks something like this 3 wods + 2 run camp runs + 1 lift day + 1 LSD run on my own (as per Judy’s progression) + 1 rest day = from yunkie to (beefed up) gazelle in 15 weeks. This appears like a lot of training volume, on paper, so I’m guessing it’s going to feel even worse than it looks.

I’ve written down the lift progressions to play off the run progressions. I’m going to be tired as »±¥”, but if all goes according to plan and there are (god forbid) no overuse injuries to fight with, I should be a stronger athlete, not just runner, come race day. I refuse to buy into the whole sacrificing strength for endurance baloney, I’m not even close to peaking strength wise, too early to throw in the towel and join the running room. But thanks for the advice, coach.

I am looking to improve my capacity under load, and the only way to do that is to train under load, consistently, so that come race day, after I’ve tapered for a week, I will be a superstar. I take this little tidbit from Claire MacKenzie who shared this knowledge with me when discussing her own training, what with all the paddling that she does. Rob Orlando is a big proponent of training when he’s tired as well, we’ll see if any of this methodology sits with me.

What I know for certain is that I will probably be pretty depressed the first month and a half or so. I remember very well how hard running hit me when I first started, I was a complete mess. This shouldn’t be as bad because I now know what to expect from a run, but I’ve also never put my body through as much mileage, so I suppose we’ll find out.

I will let Jeff know that he needs a contingency plan should I turn into a completely miserable prick.

There you have it, my shiny brand new goal with my shiny brand new programming, oh how I love starting all over.