Whining

Tonight’s workout: 4 rounds for time of 12 clean and jerk (barbell), 10 pull-ups, run around building. I lifted 65 pounds and took forever (26-plus minutes) to complete this. The suggested warm-up was to jump rope for three minutes. I happily grabbed a rope, as jumping rope is one thing I’m good at… and then felt my left shoulder seem to tear as I opened my shoulders after my first crossover jump. Why can’t I stop having problems with this shoulder? I thought it had healed and was solid. Anyway, I continued jumping rope with a lot less confidence and then was so gingerly on the clean and jerks that they tired me out quicker than they should have. On top of that, I realized later that I probably wasn’t adding a “jerk” to the “clean” but was actually finishing each lift with a push-press. What’s the difference between that and a jerk again? Let's try a search... hey look, there's a band called the Olympic Lifts.... Okay, here's the difference: to execute the jerk (although I don't believe in capital punishment), you dip a lot lower to get yourself under the weight than you do in the push-press. Also there's that split stance. I've practiced a barbell jerk in only one training session, months ago. Probably too advanced a move for me to have done tonight without more previous experience. I’m just frustrated. I want my shoulder to be solid so that I can make progress with these lifts. I feel like the highest weight I can lift overhead is going to be 65 pounds forever. Like last Friday, I did my first set of 10 pull-ups unassisted and kipping in two mini-sets of 5. I want to work up to more of those, but when there are multiple rounds of them in a prescribed workout, I’m more concerned with keeping some strength in reserve for the next rounds. Maybe I shouldn’t be. Either way I’m slow. So I could just decide I’m going to do all pull-ups unassisted and too bad if I’m slow. Just last week I was feeling like I’ve made progress in both strength and skills. Today I feel like I haven’t made any progress at all. Maybe I’m still affected by the exhaustion of yesterday’s migraine and drug side-effects. Normally I would have gone to the gym last night and taken tonight off, but after taking my prescription migraine pill yesterday morning I was still exhausted from it when evening came. I hardly know which is worse, the pain of migraine or the day-killing tiredness from the drug. I made a doctor’s appointment to talk about other medications for the headaches. I’ve been on this one for 7 years, taking it at least once a month, and many new drugs have been developed since then. Sunday was the Chilly Hilly bike ride, a huge organized ride around Bainbridge Island. More than 5,000 people rode the ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge (a beautiful 30-minute ride that was shrouded in fog that day) and rode the 33 miles. Tom and I completed the ride in just under 3 hours pedaling time—closer to 4 hours counting rest stops. Bainbridge is such a pretty place, you might as well stop and enjoy it. In spite of our very few recent bike rides, we felt well prepared for the hills (2700 feet of elevation gain) because of our CrossFit workouts. The sun came out when we were half through and that made the rest of the ride seem even more fun.