Fran kicked my ass, but then we were friends

Momentous last weekend: I worked a table (Gazzy Parman was my ref) for the Grapplers' Quest at the Pyramid in Long Beach. Stressful, but fun. When you're sitting at the table, it doesn't really look like you're doing much, but during a match, you have to watch the ref the whole time to make sure you catch every call. You keep score and you keep time, and you organize the competitors so that they are ready to go when it's their turn. You fill out the brackets. So I was a little distracted when people tried to talk to me. But I heard that our mat was very efficient, so that's kind of cool.

And then on Sunday, I went to Paradiso CrossFit (http://www.paradisocrossfit.com) and did the Fran. For those of you who don't know, the Fran is an iconic CrossFit workout that causes even the bravest of people to quail in fear. It is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBgKB4Gnsw

21-15-9 reps of thrusters (95lbs for men, 65lbs for women) and pullups. As you can see from this video, those people finished in faster than 4 minutes. The fastest Fran time is under 2 minutes. My time, doing the workout as prescribed for women, was 6:52, and I writhed on the floor in pain and discomfort for about 10 min afterward, getting up only about twice, and then just to my hands and knees, to crawl outside and hack up a lung and spit it out. It is a KILLER workout, both physically and mentally/psychologically.

I had had a mental block against Fran for over a year. We had done a Fran challenge at CFLA, and I actually got a SLOWER time (by maybe 3 seconds) over the 8 weeks from the baseline to the "training" time. And I hadn't done Fran since. So I was freaking out about it. Had all kinds of excuses about why I couldn't do it. And then my friend Zeb, who was teaching the class, started the backwards countdown, and off we went. And my 6:52 was almost a minute faster than my times from that challenge.

Maybe it's the Paleo (day 17, by the way, though I cheated today, with a hoagie from Jersey Mike's. No cheese, but a pretty big roll. And yet, no adverse effects--so far. I keep hearing that going off the Paleo just kills your insides. I must have a cast iron stomach.) Whatever it is, my Fran problems are solved, for now.