View Benchmark

Seems like I haven't been taking my blogging responsibility very seriously.

Over a week since the last update? That's horrible!!

About a week ago I took another progress photo of my torso... If I have a 'main goal' right now it's to rip those abs to shreds so they finally look the way I want them to. They are SO close right now!
This was after last Thursday's BJJ!

The abs... Almost!

Friday I finally made it back to Crossfit - since the crazy last-day-of-November weather was at almost 60 degrees, we took it outside and had a pretty tough workout.
Run 2 times around parking garage (about .5 miles)
10 Wall Jumps
20 Thrusters (Squat Press) 2 35lb kettlebells
30 Pushups
Repeat two more times - total of three rounds of wall jumps, thrusters and pushups
Run .5 miles

Add the warmup we did before, AND the Farmer Walk with the two 35 lb kettle bells to the workout area and back afterwards - that's a pretty good workout! My shoulders were completely fatigued.

View Benchmark
Saturday morning my brother picked me up early and we drove down to Draper to run the View Benchmark Trail. View Benchmark is a wee little peak, but still the tallest peak on what is commonly known as 'point of the mountain' that separates Salt Lake County from Utah County - aka Salt Lake from Provo. There are some great views North to Draper and South to Alpine from the top, and it's just under four miles from the trailhead to the top. Total of 7.9ish miles! We had me, my brother, Craig, his brother Brent (who I finished last years Half Pregnant Half Marathon with!), and Rachel, a running buddy of those guys. I was the last one up - by just a little, and the 3rd one down behind Craig and Matt. Pretty happy that I wasn't THAT far behind, although I want to not have to walk quite so much on some of the inclines! Gotta work some more mountain sprints!
Anyway the weather was fantastic for a run, although VERY strange to be running in 61 degree weather on December First!
Here are some pictures!

Brent, Rachel and Me in back reaching the top

Go me!

Utah Lake in the distance

Weird peak structure thing

Craig Climbed up with me

My brother and I

Great run! I'm looking forward to more fun Saturday morning runs and brunch which we are going to continue throughout the winter.

Kind of hard to continue our Tuesday night run and dinner when it gets dark before 5!

In BJJ yesterday I learned some mount escapes - I need these desperately as I'm always getting caught in mount when grappling. That's NOT a very good thing. At least I'm finally learning to not turn AWAY from the other guy...
-Basic Escape (Vid1) - Trap arm to chest, hook leg, pop hips (Bridge) roll them over - the video linked is a good overall explanation of why Mount is bad, and then the first basic escape. (Here is another video (Vid2) that goes over a few of these I learned)

-Someone hold down both arms in mount. This is when somebody is sitting on your chest and holding onto your wrists, common way for kids to try to control another kid. Slide one arm down to your hip, trap leg, bridge the hips-up and roll just like the basic escape.
-Wrap up one arm while being mounted. This is kind of shown in the Vid1 - instead of trapping the arm down, you wrap it up. He says it's 'slower' but it can still work in the right situation and is good to know. Thread arm up and around to wrap their arm up.  Trap leg, bridge-up and roll.
-Shrimp out with knee push- to guard. Remember to shrimp 3 times. Push on knee. Trap with bottom leg. Turn other side. Trap with bottom leg. Then go to guard.
-Shrimp escape when you can't do above - shrimp out by hooking or scooping their leg (Vid3) with your opposite leg (vid2 also explains both the hook and the scoop)
-Scoop under arms, Pop hips, swing foot up into armpit, grab wrist and roll them forward (possible leg/ankle lock finish) - this one works best for me I think... You can almost see it in this video (Vid4) but instead of a full backwards roll, it's more sideways since we only used one leg and armpit. I like the version in this video too!
-Push on their hips, pop hips, bring legs through to butterfly guard (near the end of Vid2)



I've mentioned before that the grappling after training specific moves is the most useful way to apply... even though I don't USUALLY get to the point where I can actually implement the move - but I ALMOST pulled off the mount to ankle lock escape part! Almost ha - nowhere near the ankle lock though! When I'm rolling with Micah, I usually lose very fast. Yesterday since it was just the two of us, I was reminded again and again to protect my arms... I got armbarred very quickly by Micah many many times. Actually last Thursday I was able to submit a very strong Kung Fu guy who has started to train with us - because I had people coaching me what to do - I was in a very bad position, he had my back but he was crossing his feet - I cross my feet over his and extend my chest WHAM leg submission. Hooray!

Today I had a private yoga lesson! Kind of sad when nobody else shows up, but nice for me because I can just tune out and flow. Nice and thorough Sun Salutation A and B and Crow practice!

I'm looking forward to BJJ tomorrow, and trying to fit in some Insanity or P90X ab workouts into my schedule more often... I really want to complete that six pack!