Monday, January 24, 2011

Do It To The MAXimum

Last Friday I did a Hero WOD that I wrote for Marine LtCol Max Galea'i who served in Iraq with one of my friends and one of CFS's great coaches, Captain Andy Koch. LtCol Galea'i was killed on June 26, 2008 while supporting combat operations in Karmah, Iraq. While serving as the Commanding Officer of Hawaii-based, Second Battalion, Third Marine Regiment, a suicide bomber dressed in an Iraqi police uniform detonated an explosive belt during a meeting of tribal sheiks opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq. In addition to LtCol Galea’i, two Marines, two Iraqi interpreters, the local mayor and over twenty key tribal figures were killed.

Friends remembered Galea’i as a dedicated husband to his wife Evelyn, father to his four children, a natural leader and a caring buddy who would never burden others with his problems. LtCol Galea’i served at posts in Virginia, California, Okinawa and elsewhere. His service awards include two Bronze Stars (one for heroic action in the first Gulf War), the Purple Heart and five Meritorious Service Medals.

Andy asked me to program a WOD that would fittingly honor this man who was said to be both large in physical stature and in personal character. After reviewing all of the hero wods to date, looking at the rep schemes, number of modlities used, and movements of each, I worked on creating a simple, straight forward, yet severely challenging Hero WOD called "Max". What I devised somewhat resembles "Murph" in that the WOD is for time and the repetitions may be partitioned in any way you wish. But what makes this WOD real nasty is the combination of 3 dynamic movements two of which that are extremely anerobic at the RX loads and 1 calesthenic movement that crushes the will of even the fittest of athletes. The WOD is:

"MAX"

For time- partition the reps as you wish:

150 KB Swings, 70lb
100 Burpees
50 Thrusters, 155lb

My initial strategy was to perform 10 rounds of 5 thruster, 10 burpees, and 15 kb swings. That lasted all of three rounds until I realized I needed to just finish all of the thrusters and then move on to my 7 remaining rounds of 15 kbswings and 10 burpees. Whether it was a good strategy or not, it's what I did and my time ended up being 28:07. It was one of the most mentally and physically demanding WODs I've done in a while- proof enough to me that it is worthy of bearing the name "Max".

On Saturday, I headed to St. Louis with Jenny and Vin to take my re-validation test for my CrossFit Lv 1 Cert. I had a blast getting to spend time with the two of them. It snowed a ton in STL on Sunday morning which made for some pretty sketchy driving conditions but, thank God, we made it- and also thank God- I passed my exam!

After getting back to town late last night and still having to post the CFS WOD, I finally crashed at around 11:30pm. Today I peeled myself out of bed at 5am and coached a great CFS bootcamp and then came home and took a good long 3 hour nap. It felt awesome.

When I woke up, I grabbed a bite to eat and then trained with Grant, Melissa, and Brian in a 15 min AMRAP of:

9 Front Squats, 135/95
9 Pull Ups
9 Ring Dips

Shouldn't have eaten so close to gametime! I was gettin' the pukie-pukersons by round 5! I managed to hang on and finished with 9 rds + 9 fsquats + 6 pull ups.

A couple clients and phone calls later I trained with Meggin- hitting a midline flexion/extension WOD of 5 rounds for time of: 10 Deadlifts @ 235/135lb and 10 Toes to Bar. My time was 5:15. Tough little gasser. CrossFit HQ announced the start date for the 2011 CF games open sectionals (March 15th). Now it's do or die time: Eat right, train right, recover right...or lose, right?

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