Wine Country CrossFit

This Saturday, April 6th at 7PM we will hold The Century Club at our gym. Not sure what that is, or if you qualify to participate??? Can you drink a shot of beer and do one pull-up on the minute for 100 minutes? Come to the gym at 7PM on Saturday to test your mettle. Please bring a designated driver, or have the taxi’s phone # programed into your phone. Please RSVP to beth@winecountrycrossfit.com so that we know how much beer to buy. Finally, please bring shot glasses and a beer pitcher if you have them lying around.  This is a really fun event and you are welcome to come simply to socialize, point, and laugh at your fellow CrossFitters!

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In my life as a kayaker and raft guide I spent a lot of time in BIG rapids. A turning point occurred for me in the middle of a certain class V rapid called Helicopter on the Middle Fork of the Feather. (it’s called that cuz the only way to get around the rapid is if you have a chopper. There is no portaging, no scaling the walls, and the only way downstream is through the rapid.) It was a particularly high water year, and I was terrified of the churning maelstrom that this previously manageable rapid had become.  I knew I had to find a new route and I scoured every inch of the rapid from the shore upstream, looking for a line I thought I could make. I found it, in the middle where I’d never been before cuz there were normally dry white granite boulders that were now covered with water out there. I paddled out into the middle of the river telling myself I could do it, paddled over the top of a big rock with water pouring over it, hit a big hole that pushed me right, bounced through a giant wave and through a tight shoot, and landed safely in the pool at the bottom. I couldn’t believe that I had made to the bottom in one piece, and I couldn’t believe how out of breath I was. In fact I think I had been holding my breath since I pushed off from shore 30 or 40 seconds before. It was right there that I learned that breathing lessens the impact of fear, so I started singing in big rapids. I did that for years cuz it made me breathe.

How does all this relate to Xfit? I’ve noticed many of you holding your breathe while you do hard things, whether it is working on double unders, or kipping pull-ups, or what have you. Today when I asked people to breathe while they were doing ___, their movement immediately improved, substantially.  Moral of the story: check-in on yourself, and see if focus on your breath doesn’t help you be a better CrossFitter.

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I announced last month that we would start the Paleo Challenge next week on April 11. We are going to hold off on starting the Challenge for a few weeks until we complete setting of the new gym. Please forgive the delay, and I will announce the date very soon.

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Hope to see many of you on Saturday night. Don’t afraid if it seems like a daunting amount of beer, or pull-ups for that matter. 100 pull-ups is surprisingly easy when you rest 55 second between each one, and you can scale the beer consumption. It’s CrossFit, so everything is scalable!

-Beth

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Thursday’s WOD:

Power Clean – Find 3rm

21-15-9
Power Cleans (135/95)
42-30-18
Abmat Situps