Mechanics before consistency ...

Thursday night I went to the 7pm WOD: snatches. Having never really done them before, I looked and felt rather clumsy with them. Brian (the owner) helped me with some stretches (close to an "adjustment") since my shoulders weren't opening up enough, and though I never got much weight on I slowly got better (I think). Alison was helping a lot with the form, though I'm sure I'll have to do it a lot more to really be able to add reasonable weight.

I was paired with Mark (a 3-year CF veteran) for the snatches. He took it a little easy on himself (shoulders), which made it easier on me as I didn't have to remove a lot of weight each time. He was helpful and supportive, a good combo for me as a freshman in the program (those in the foundations class are still plebes, is that the right analogy?).

Break, break: my wife has been training to get back into running for her health. Years ago we used to run 5Ks together, and we really enjoyed it. We've let it fall off in the last few years (10?), so we're picking it up again. Her "repatriating" program (Couch to 5K) has another two weeks before she's running a full 5K. Well, schedules are meant to be bent ... she ran a 5K this morning (in Pensacola) and only missed her final goal by 20 seconds! Woo hoo! I'm so proud of her! I chose to run a sympathetic 5K around the block here and missed my modest intermediate goal of 27 minutes (I got 27:30) but really want to beat 25.

I tried something new in my running today, on the recommendation of Chris (a friend in my pashto class): Motion Traxx. It's a podcast from "Deekron, the fitness DJ" who has made 60+ minute long tracks of music mixed up to 128-180 steps per minute. Many experts claim that the ideal running pace (depending on health level,  etc) varies, but is typically in the 160-170 area (up to 180 for harder runners, down to 150 for slower joggers, etc). I think I've not always kept my pace when running, so this encouraged a consistent pace the whole way. Today's music (episode 3) was interesting, but I really just used it as a musical metronome. (A true metronome would probably bore the bejesus out of me!) I wasn't certain the mileage of it would work out, but as I'm rounding the corner at around 2.9, he comes up and says we should be nearing the 3 mile marker. Granted, I had another 45 seconds to go but  I had started the music well before starting to run, so it paired up well for me. Nice! I think I'll continue using it. (BTW: it's completely free, though if you like the music then he encourages and facilitates buying the full un-remixed tracks.)