Fran

Thursday's crossfit class was done a little differently from the average class, in that you could choose to do any of the WODs from Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, or you could do the Thursday WOD, which was the infamous "Fran" - 21 thrusters followed by 21 pullups, then 15 thrusters and 15 pullups, and finishing with 9 thrusters and 9 pullups.  It sounds simple enough, but this WOD is infamous for a reason ... because it lulls you into a false sense of security and then proceeds to kick your ass. 

 

Only three of us chose to tackle Fran - me and two other much-more-fit looking guys.  But I liked the idea of tackling a hard WOD, and I also wanted to try my hand at the pullups because I've been trying to work towards doing a real pullup for almost a year but still can't do one.  My hope is that forcing myself to do the modified pullups will help me do a real one someday. 

 

Needless to say, I was going to need to do the scaled weight for the thrusters - 35 pounds.  And because can't do a real pullup I needed to use assistance bands.  That's right ... bands.  I used both a green band and a blue band for help doing a pullup.  I could do just a couple with only one green band, but there was no way I would get through 45 over the course of the workout with just the green alone. 

 

Fran definitely proved to be a toughy.  I took tons of breaks and ended up with a time of 13:09 for the WOD.  Not exactly stellar, but not too horrible either.  And now that I've tackled the infamous Fran and proved I can make it through, I've got a time to beat when I meet her again in the future! 

 

Even better, I made it through the workout even with my hurt elbow!  Turns out, I barely noticed it once I got going and had other things to worry about. 

 

 

When I got home from crossfit I made a protein-filled vegan tuna salad sandwich with pickles.  It was a really easy dinner to throw together, which was just what I needed when I was tired after class. 

And after dinner I treated myself to a big scoop of dark chocolate dreams peanut butter for dessert.  I've already polished off the white chocolate wonderful, so this is the only peanut butter I've got left from my peanut butter splurge at Baltimore VegFest.  And this one will be gone soon too ...