Author Archives: crossn81

07252019 – CrossFit

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Today was retest of the cycle’s baseline workout. I have not done a good job of doing all the work in this cycle, even though some of it matches with what I need (single leg work especially). If you remember the cycle started the week of my off-road triathlon and it took a few weeks to really get into it. But, I still improved on the baseline by 10 reps! My last effort was on June 15.

It took me awhile to decide to actually do the workout instead of laying on the coach, but I’m glad that I did! To refresh – the PSE PRO Cycle U baseline MetCon is a 9 minute AMRAP with 3 movements – 10 pushups, 20 swings, and 200m run. I decided to do the workout exactly as I had last time to actually see how much I improved. I thought about trying the pushups from the ground, but didn’t.

I did the pushups from the second step on our front steps, used a 35# kettlebell and ran to the corner and back. I completed 4 rounds and 12 reps (so all 10 pushups and 2 swings). As I noted this is an improvement of 10 reps! Not too shabby!

I pulled some weeds to recover and then did 3×5 per side of front rack barbell step ups with 65#’s and 3×5 per side of hamstring bridges. Then I pulled more weeds!

07222019 – Bike

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I brought my Motobecane hoping to get a good ride in and knowing there weren’t any mountain bike trails and no obvious loops I decided to ride the road we were staying on and then next one over that kind of goes by the lake we were on. It ended up being a great ride almost all on gravel.

I rode to the end of Hungry Jack Road and there is a YMCA camp parking lot. To get to the actual camp you have to take a boat across the lake!  That seems kind of cool, they offer 8-40 day camp programs! I turned around and rode the 3 miles back to the paved Gunflint Trail and then rode east until I got to Clearwater Road. This was about a 5 mile road and it was quite hilly!  Several of the climbs almost brought me to a standstill! And one was quite long. I was pleased that I didn’t have to stop at all due to the hill. I stopped to take some pictures along the way. This was a beautiful ride with lots of lakes to look at.  The only animals I saw were some dogs!

When I got to the Clearwater Lake Entry I took a short break and some food and then turned around. On the way back I stopped less for pictures.

I climbed for a total of almost 1,300ft and did 19.59 miles in 1:51.

My at Clearwater Lake entry point

YMCA Camp Entry Point

A view of Bearskin Lake from the YMCA lot.

Bogheno Lake

07212019 – Run & Canoe

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The Caribou Rock Hiking trail starts just outside of the campground where we were staying. It was so close in fact that Hungry Jack Lodge & Campground put a little trail from the campground to the trailhead! I figured I wouldn’t make the full almost 3.5 miles to where the trail connects to the Border Route Trail, but I figured I would get closer than I did! I also had a time limit that ended my run earlier than I would have liked. On the off chance I made it to the Border Route trail I was hoping to do the short extension to see Rose Falls, which we would later come back to via canoe. Leaving the trailhead the trail is pretty easy to follow as it climbs to an overlook of West Bearskin Lake.

There is a nice overlook to see West Bearskin Lake, it would be a nice hike. The trail continues following between some lakes and pops out with this nice view of Moss Lake before turning inland. The trail has some steep drops and at one point I was running downhill through a bunch of brush and couldn’t really see the tread of the trail. Some parts were rocky, not quite Superior Hiking Trail rocky, but pretty close. And a few times you needed to hold on to climb down and back up! I crossed a stream on rocks and eventually ran through the portage between West Bearskin Lake and Duncan Lake.

I didn’t see any wildlife on the trail unfortunately. Shortly after crossing the portage and after climbing up a hill I got to an intersection without any signs. I was already past my turn around point time so I knew I shouldn’t really do any more. I went a short bit towards the left (which would have been towards the falls) and realized that I wasn’t actually going to make it. So I turned around – this was just over 2 miles in but definitely over 45 minutes.

The run back felt faster, I didn’t stop as much for pictures which helped. But I think knowing the landmarks helped too. Running 20 minute pace isn’t ideal, but it was a fun run!

4 miles in 1:17:58 with 1,200 feet elevation gain!

Moss Lake

Here are a few pictures of the trail!

After breakfast we got ready to go for our canoe ride. We were planning to go to Rose Falls and to see Canada! The 5 of us loaded up into the canoe and made our way out on Hungry Jack Lake. It was super easy to find the first portage and it was relatively short so we didn’t have any problems getting into West Bearskin Lake.

I should have taken a picture of the map as we had trouble finding the portage into Duncan Lake. We were actually really close at one point, but I thought we had missed it. We paddled along the shore and found a campsite and then ran into some people who were staying at Hungry Jack that we had met and they helped us get to the portage and gave us some pointers for the rest of our trip. The portage into Duncan Lake actually brought us officially into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. This was a little longer portage. Once we got into Duncan Lake it was easy to find the spot for Stairway Portage/Rose Falls.

I thought it might be fun to portage the canoe and paddle into Canada, but I’m glad we didn’t. It would have been a long portage with a ton of steps! It was a good little hike though and we had lunch next to the falls. After lunch we climbed the stairs down to Rose Lake and played along the edge and gazed at the far shore which was Canada. Rose Falls was pretty too. After playing around for awhile we climbed back up and over and headed home. The kids wanted to help paddle and they did all the way back.

We didn’t have any trouble finding the portages on the way back and had a nice calm paddle. It was a fun day on the water! I estimated we paddled about 8 miles for the day.

Entering the BWCA!

Top of Rose Falls

Rose Falls

Rose Lake looking at Canada

07202019 – Kayak

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We took our Kayaks with us while camping at Hungry Jack Lodge. On our first day we decided to kayak from the lodge to Honeymoon Bluff which you could see across the way. We unloaded the boats and blew up the SUP, packed a lunch and headed out. Pretty quickly, one tired kid got tied onto my kayak. Heading towards the Bluff wasn’t too bad. We had a good wind to our back. Hiking to the bluff wasn’t too bad either. From the landing spot it was maybe 1/2 mile to the trail and the trail was 3/4 miles with a little bit of climbing, but nothing too steep. We enjoyed our lunch on the rocks, took in the views, saw a bald eagle, and headed back down.

View from Honeymoon Bluff

Heading back to the lodge was a struggle. The wind was basically coming straight at us and would be the whole time. We tied up the second kid to the SUP and paddled. And paddled. We took a little break behind one of the peninsulas. But after that, there wasn’t a clear spot to get to. We tried going mostly straight across to the other-side to get a little bit of relief. It was a lot of work in my flat water kayak, so you can only imagine the work on the SUP. At one point we did switch out a kid kayak paddle for the SUP paddle to make it a little easier. We finally made it back to the beach and relaxed and swam!

Playing before paddling back

It was approximately a 4 mile paddle in total (depending on how much the wind blew us around!

07182019 – CrossFit & Swim

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Made it to the 6:30am class today. It is always nice to be back at the gym. Its nice to have all the equipment, programming, and of course supportive people and coaches to cheer you on!

Today was a shoulder press day. I’ve struggled with this movement in the past. Its not surprising I guess. I have trouble getting the bar out of the front rack, especially. We did a few kettlebell presses and then an arm bar press, which was a lot like a Turkish Getup, except you rolled over (with the kettlebell locked out overhead) instead of getting up.

The plan was to get to a heavy 5 and then do 4 sets of 4 with that weight. I used the 35# bar to give myself an extra warm-up set. So I did the bar, 45, 55, 65, and ended on 75. The sets of 4 were not terrible, but definitely were not easy. I probably couldn’t have done any higher weight than that.

Following the shoulder press, we did a relatively short, 2 movement metcon that had box jumps and sit-ups. The rep scheme was 18-15-12-9-6-3. I used a 24″ box which was Platinum and finished in 6:12. I only missed the box once and fortunately did not scrape my leg!!

It is shaping to be a great day out and the swim was with a nice sunny sky. My shoulders were obviously tired from this morning so I decided to do a more endurance type swim. I jumped in and did 4 x 200 with about a two minute break in between. The 200’s were consistently around 4:12 so that felt good. I did the first 100 yards of each with bilateral breathing and even did the first one with almost 150! That felt good. A few times I also tried to switch to bilateral in the last 50 just to see if it was possible. I think some of it is that I get oxygen deprived and need more air in my lungs! I was definitely happy with the workout! Those were also my longest consistent intervals.