Noticing a lot of leg work this past week, and today was a lot of met-con.
5 rounds
400m sprints
30 boxjumps
30 wallballs

My time was 39:23. This one was pretty tough as I didn’t get much sleep last night; my running speed just wasn’t there. I think my box jumps are pretty darn good, but they are still slow (although I rarely stop once started). The wall balls were really tiring, and as I write this I’m a little annoyed that I didn’t push myself harder.

Funniest thing happened today. I was on my fourth round of box jumps, and Charlie the speedster was on his fifth round next to me. Randomly, as he approached the boxes he started singing the IU fight song. Now I wasn’t wearing any IU gear, so I was impressed that he remembered. So here we are, doing box jumps, and taking turns singing the IU fight song.

Charlie: Indiana, oh Indiana!
Me: Indiana, we’re all for you!
Charlie: we will fight for
Me: the cream and crimson
Unison: and glory of old IU…

Too funny. And I have to say, it helped take my mind off of the exercise.

It seems like I’m officially now an a.m. crossfitter, being that this was my second 6:45 class in a row. My body/mind is still having a tough time adjusting (like realizing 10pm is late), but hopefully if I just keep waking up early I’ll get to bed early.

The morning classes seem to have quite a different personality, although I’m not if I could pinpoint the differences or the reason why. Perhaps morning people have different personalities than evening people?

Besides the constant pangs of hunger, working out in the morning has been a little more challenging physically, albeit more satisfying mentally. I tried doing a little research, and there is a massive, massive amount of opinions out there, but here are the two that I like the most.

A Dr. in this cnn article states:

"The best time to work out is in the late afternoon," Zee said. "The reason for that is your muscle strength is at its peak, its highest. You're going to be less likely to injure yourself. It's also a time when people are most awake and alert."

However, there is an advantage to working out in the morning on an empty stomach if you’re trying to lose weight, as this Forbes article states

May recommends it for people whose main priority is losing weight. Working out, doing cardio especially, on an empty stomach will burn more fat calories because your carb reserves are almost used up. That causes the body to turn to fat stores for energy first. (Many fitness experts warn, however, that running on empty isn't the most efficient way to work out.)

I always try to have at least a little snack before heading over to CFOT in the morning to make sure I have the energy to push myself.

Honestly, I think working out in the 5p class would do the best for me physically. I feel like I don’t really need to concern myself with losing fat (although I really do want to lower my fat % some more) , but I do need to work on my explosive strength. I also wonder if working out with depleted carb reserve goes against the spirit of the zone diet. However, I’ve always wanted to be able to get to and leave work at normal hours, and just trying to get to work early doesn’t cut it.

I also want to shake up my routine a little bit. …I feel like I haven’t been as hard-core as I once was, this week especially. Now that I think about it though, I think that’s mostly due to sleep deprivation as my body adjusts to working out in the morning. I also haven’t been following the zone as near as much this week, but I’d like to make that a separate post, soon to follow…