Meet Eva

Eva is one of the more brutal CrossFit workouts, named in honor of one of the more badass CrossFit women, Eva Twardokens (http://www.skievat.com/). Eva is an Olympic alpine skiier (skier?) and an all around fitness inferno.

The workout is:

5 rounds
-800m run
-30 2-pood kettlebell swings
-30 pullups

A "pood" is a Russian unit of measurement; one pood is 16kg or 35lbs. So 2 pood is, obviously, 70lbs. The story goes that when CrossFit central was trying to decide what workout to name in Eva's honor and they asked her which workout she liked, she said the Helen, which is 3 rounds of a 400m run, 21 kettlebell swings with a 1-pood kettlebell, and 12 pullups. So they just supersized the Helen, basically, and called it Eva.

Yes, this workout is brutal. I logged a DNF (did not finish) when I did it sometime in late October or early November; at the cutoff point of 45 minutes, I had just finished the 5th run. And I used a 1-pood kettlebell. My hands were torn up pretty badly by the end, but I did not use salt--see the end of the video below:

http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/004384.html

You can see me for a couple split seconds, though, doing pullups and swingin' my kettlebell in the first minute and a half. I'm wearing a green shirt. You can also see my teachers Andy, Becca, Jonesy, and Dawn, as well as some of my fellow students Zeb, Eddie, Kathryn, Devlin, Shirley, and tons of others!

Sitting here watching the video, I'm all motivated to work out. But then I stand up and hear things creak and feel things ache, and I think maybe a second rest day would be a good idea. I rested yesterday except for my 74 burpees for the 100-day burpee challenge--I was due for a rest and I also spent the day traveling to Illinois for the holidays, where it is SEVEN degrees outside. There oughta be a law.

So we'll see. I have to do 75 burpees either way, but the question is whether to add them to a full workout or just to do 10 every hour or something. I probably won't be training for the week I'm in IL, but I will be thinking about it! I have been playing with some closed guard stuff, and it seems to be working. So we'll see how some time off affects my game when I get back next week. Meantime, I'm sure I can find many ways to kick my own ass. Thanks to Petranek Fitness for helping me develop that skill set!