Friendship through sport...

That is the official motto of CISM, the international military sports council. And this weekend has absolutely lived up to that motto. It still amazes me, how friendly and coorperative, not only our norwegian friends, but all of the nationalities are, even though we are competitors. No one is keeping special training secrets to them selves and willingly shares them with others. But that off course doesn't change the fact, that at the end of the day i still wan't to kick their ass in competition. This friendly and sharing culture is somewhat simular to what i have found in crossfit.
I will try to recap what we have done this weekend, and let me start by disappointing those who were waiting to read about the walk under water WOD. I didn't do it and i will tell you why later.
Friday i arrived in Oslo a couple of hours earlier than the rest of my team, so i decided to squezze in a strength session before swimming in the evening. We were staying at the norwegian olympic training center and things were great. For a guy who likes lifting heavy, walking in to the weightlifting room was like a wet dream. 5 or 6 lifting platforms, various boxes and bars and a 40m track for short sprints. Nice! I did some snatch technical work, up to 80kg (176lbs) followed by frontsquat sets of 5, ending at 120kg (264lbs). At the end i followed my Jim Wendler routine for some deadlifts ending with 2 reps @ 200kg (440lbs) for my 1+ set.
First in the evening i met up with the norwegian team to do a swim session. My teammates didn't make it in time because they apparently are analfabetes and failed to read my directions. Getting from the airport to the hotel took me roughly 1,5 hours. It took them at least 5. Enough said about that. I have been picking on them the whole weekend. I'll put it to rest. ;-)
Saturday morning we did another swim session around 3500m with a lot of finswimming followed by a mobility, stretching and jumping/explosivity session at noon. Even though we didn't do a lot of work at the noon session, it was extremely taxing on the neuro-muscular system.
In the afternoon we drove in to Oslo, to run intervals at a facility i would wish i had at home. Right under the national track and field stadium, Bislett, there was a 500m indoor track, available for public use. Since it was cold and icy outside, it was perfect.
Below is the interval program:
3x (3x500m r. 1.00) 5min rest between sets.
Since this was my 10th training session this week, it was really hard. Not that it wouldn't have been earlier this week, but mentally and physically i was pretty wasted. I manages to stay below 1:40 on all intervals except the last one. I believe my average was about 1:37-1:38. I was pretty satified with that. After the running we went to eat some dinner altogether in Oslo. During dinner i wasn't being very communicative, since i was totally trashed and feeling like shit. I'm sure nobody was blaming me. Needless to say, i slept like a baby last night.
The weekend ended with another swim session this morning. I decided to take a rest day (i already made up my mind friday evening). If i was into new years resolutions, mine would probably be listening to my body and taking more rest days. Since i am not, i would probably just say that i am growing up (at age 28...). So, that is why i didn't do it. I'm sorry and i'm sure that i will die a slow and painfull death. I will try to make up for it later. Anyway, i volunteered to do the programming and be the coach for the morning, hopefully contributing with some new inspiration for the norwegians. The program was a little shorter than 3000m and with a lot of sprinting and underwater work. Everybody seemed to like it and i'm sure it was hard enough despite it's shortness and long breaks. Or maybe everybody was just happy that i had made a program that was about 2000m shorter than what the norwegian coach had planned. Who knows...
That will be it for now. I will try to post a new WOD in the following days. One not including as much breath holds. Feel free to comment if you have done some of the previous WOD's or if you got some good ideas for future ones.
Be safe!
/Kasper