Sometimes Everything is a Challenge…

Friday (August 7) – Everybody faces them, you know those
little hurdles that life unexpectedly puts in your way in the hopes that you
will pack it in and call it a day. The situations where You (as in Me) are
expected to remain calm or things escalate (for those that know me, I live with
my emotions firmly planted on my sleeve). The flat tire when you’re already
late. Hold on there Alanis. Let’s just stick to the facts. Sometimes you run
across a WOD so gross that you have to try it, just to see if you can bare down and
do it. The Bergeron Beep Test comes to my mind as one of those ugly tests that
we like to measure ourselves against. Today wasn’t Bergeron, today we got @katieandrien’s
favorite. Today we got the Matt Chan Challenge.

Warm-up
Row
Pull-up
Push-up
Squat

After watching my 6am class hammer through this one
(@ajhughes77 you are a machine), I had severe reservations about even showing
up at the box before the scheduled Canuck Lite. I mean, I wasn’t scared bro, it’s
just it’s a lot of Pull-ups and my posterior hasn’t been shrinking at nearly
the rate I would like. Plus with the two-a-days three times a week, not all my
movements are feeling 100%. There was a row though, and that was encouraging.
Is it International Rowing Week and no one told me?

Now in its original form this challenge is 20 calories
(doable for me without Cindy), but if I wanted to be able to go the 30 minutes,
I knew I had to modify. Pride goeth before a fall and I’m clumsy enough without
doing something dumb. Even with the scaling, I missed 4 rounds of the even
minutes to try and recover enough breath and feeling to keep going.
Surprisingly I hit all the Rows. Wait, not surprising. Still when you add up
the time on the Rower, I spent 11min, covering 225 calories and 3,046m. That
and the 33 Pull-ups, 66 Push-ups and 99 Squats. In any case, you only have to
look at the photo to see the aftermath.

Warm-up
Run
I’m sure there was something else…

I was cooked. For some reason tonight I felt every pull on
the Rower, every Pull-up and certainly every Push-up. Oddly the Squats felt
good. Still, I had a sneak peek at what we were in for in Canuck Lite and I was
scared. Do you see the theme of today? Overcoming fear and obstacles (or
whatever else) that stand between you and where you want to be. I’m still not
at the weight point I want to be at and some days the clothes feel a little
tighter than others, but I won’t stop and certainly I won’t give up.  You have to be single-minded to reach your
goals sometimes. You have to get past I’m tired or this is too hard. Anything
that is worth having (including your health) will be a fight to get.

Interval (2 minutes at each station, 90 seconds rest)

1A
200m Run
20 Box Jumps (24”)
ME Kettlebell Deadlift (@70lbs)

1B
200m Run
20 Kettlebell Deadlifts
ME Box Jumps

2A
20 Burpees
ME DB Shoulder to Overhead (@25lbs)

2B
20 DB Shoulder to Overhead
ME Burpees

3A
12 Goblet Squats (@50lbs)
ME Push-ups

3B

20 Push-ups
ME Goblet Squats

4A
90 Single Skips (too gassed for DU attempts)
ME Wallball (@20lb)

4B
20 Wallball
ME Single Skips

5A
30 Kettlebell Swings (@50lbs)
ME Box Dips

5B
30 Box Dips
ME Kettlebell Swings

Crazy right? Well scoring for tonight was for all the Max
Effort movements. There was a lot going on, but it was one of those WODs where
you can put your head down and just work. Don’t worry about anything else, just
go. There was one exception. 4B. After all the Push-ups in the Matt Chan
Challenge and in the proceeding modules, I could not make my arms move. I
tried. Really. My arms wouldn’t bring the ball up. It was weird. I did manage
to get 128 total reps as my score and after the day and the 2 WODs I was pretty
happy with that.

Stay frosty my friends…

There will be rest this weekend and some birthday fun for
@gfenton_25. It even goes to show that no matter how tired you, are even after
a long week, when you need to find a way to chill your drink, there is always a
way. HBD!

Beez