About Pete Hitzeman

Pete Hitzeman

A 30-ish runner, rider, racer, cyclist and Air National Guardsman. And, as you may find here, a sometimes-writer.

359 – Christmas Brunch

Dec 252013

Bacon, eggs, bacon fat hashbrowns with sriracha, all washed down with a mimosa. Is festive, no?

Christmas Day is a funny thing, as a married adult with no kids. Just about everything is closed, and our families typically get together before or after the day. Katie and I usually end up with the day to ourselves, which is never a bad thing, but it’s not as if we have much reason to gather around a tree and open presents, either. After church, we usually just spend the day watching movies and relaxing, enjoying eachothers’ company with an uncharacteristic and refreshing leisure.

One year we went to Waffle House for brunch, for lack of a better option, but this year we decided to make our own greasy spoon meal at home. Our house may lack the distinct atmosphere of Awful Waffle, but the food was several times better.

This is one Christmas tradition I wouldn’t mind continuing.

358 – WODing at Work

CrossFit 1 Response »

Dec 242013

Use this stuff…

Christmas falling in the middle of the week this week complicated my workout plans a little. But being unable to make it to class is not an excuse for doing nothing, so today I decided to improvise.

The workout on CrossFit Dedication‘s site was called “Merry 25,” and it was basically half of the benchmark “Filthy 50” WOD. The gym at my work is nicely equipped, but I still had to make a couple substitutions. I replaced the wallballs with thrusters, and since the only jump rope I could find was too short and heavy to even try double unders, I figured I’d do a boatload of singles instead.

I got my equipment laid out, set up the stopwatch app on my phone, and got to it. As has become the trend for most of my CrossFit workouts to date, the first few exercises went well, and I thought I might just breeze through it. I banged out the push press and back extensions in no time at all, before running to the hallway for the walking lunges. I was surprised at how easy those felt, given that I usually hate lunges. I guess I’m getting a little stronger, after all.

Back in the weight room, I… er… jumped right into the jumping pull-ups, completing them unbroken before turning to do box jumps. After my first ten, I finally ran out of breath and had to stop for a second. The jumping pull ups had revved the motor, and now the box jumps were pushing it toward red line, but I was managing.

I turned back to the pull up bar for knees-to-elbows, but had to break them up into 10-5-5-5, just because they hurt my shoulders a little. I was happy to move on to kettlebell swings, but was shocked at how little juice I had once I started. I had only done 10 when I found myself sucking air, and had to break up that set as well.

… to do this stuff.

It got a little ugly on the the thrusters. I had chosen 20 pound dumbbells, thinking that was conservative, but not realizing that it was also twice the weight of the wallball I was replacing. I thought that set would never end, and I kissed my impressive completion time goodbye.

Oh yeah, and then burpees. I had almost forgotten them, reaching for my jump rope before seeing the paper and remembering. I did ten good ones and felt okay, but had to stop after eight more. Then I did two more. Or did I? Did I only tell myself I would do two more? I couldn’t remember three seconds ago, so I did seven more just to be sure I was getting at least the required reps.

Double unders were out of the question for the aforementioned reasons, so I picked up the rope and told myself I’d do 75 singles. Oddly enough, the singles came easily, and I was banging them out unbroken, something I can’t always do when I’m just warming up. I lost count as I clicked past 50, and decided to just keep going until I messed up. I think that was somewhere in the 70s, but whatever it was, it was good enough for me.

I walked over and stopped the stopwatch on my phone, finishing my adapted WOD in 15:40. Not too bad, for having to improvise! It’s not quite as good as being in the class for it, but it’ll do in a pinch.

357 – Thundering Power

Life in General No Responses »

Dec 232013

The Mad River, living up to its name.

What do you get when you cross five rivers, a foot of snow, a random 60° weekend and two days of torrential rain? A freakin’ whole lot of water, that’s what!

All of those elements combined over the past weekend to make the Miami Valley as wet as I’ve seen it for a long time. There was some localized flooding, not least of which was seen at Innisfree on the Stillwater, which very nearly became Innisfree in the Stillwater. I’ve crossed the Huffman Dam countless times this year on training runs and rides, but I’ve never seen the river quite like this.

I stood at watched for a long time before I took this picture. Fast-moving water is fascinating in much the same way as fire, and maybe the only earthly thing more powerful.

356 – Winter Weight

Training Philosophy No Responses »

Dec 222013

Geez, that didn’t take long.

Maintaining my body weight through the offseason might just be impossible. Okay, not impossible, but I certainly lack the willpower to do it.

For all the training I’m doing this winter, it’s not going to be anywhere near enough to burn the sort of calories I burned training and racing through the warmer months. I’m not burning a few thousand calories at a time in a race every other weekend, but my appetite hasn’t gotten the message. It’s a challenge I face every year, and I’m only a little better at it than I was in the past.

Sure, a little bit of the weight I’ve put on in the last month has been from getting back into lifting, so I’m adding back some muscle mass that I lost during the height of the race season. But 12 pounds of it? Yeah, not likely.

That said, experience shows that I shouldn’t sweat it too much. January and February have historically been good months for me leaning out, as my supply of Buckeyes and Christmas cookies dwindles, and celebratory dinners with family and friends are mostly over with.

Besides, it’s psychologically important to have a break now and then, to avoid burnout. Some people may be able to keep their diet on lockdown all year long (they clearly haven’t had my Mom’s bean dip), but I’m not one of them.So long as I can limit the damage through the end of the year, I shouldn’t have any problem heading into next season light, lean and strong.

355 – The Twelve Days of WODmas

CrossFit, Weightlifting No Responses »

Dec 212013

It’s even more fun if you sing them in your head.

Saturday WODs are always fun. They’re not so much about serious weightlifting, or focused training, as just goofing off on the gym and having fun with friends. Don’t misunderstand, they’re still lung-busters most of the time, but I always feel more like I’m in a grade school gym class than an adult fitness center.

And that’s a good thing. Who didn’t love gym class?

Today’s WOD was a special, Christmas-themed edition, variations of which pop up at boxes all over the country at this time of year. CrossFit Dedication’s version is at left, and was billed as a partner WOD, with one person working at a time.

I partnered up with Katie again, and we quickly gathered our weights and divvied up the exercises. I’d do the cleans, she’d handle the snatches, then I’d go do pull ups, and we’d divide the rest on the fly, based on who was more out of breath.

The 12 Days of Christmas workout has the added complication of mirroring the song, a detail we promptly forgot when the clock started. I did my power clean and we started marching down the list of exercises, instead of doing 1, 2-1, 3-2-1, like we were supposed to. We got all the way to burpees before we realized what we were doing, and backtracked to catch up.

Once we were past that mix-up, we got into a rhythm and started really busting it out. It might seem like working with a partner would lower the intensity, but with the low rep counts per exercise, we were still both flying all over the place. With an eye toward speed, we started breaking up even the low rep exercises to get through them faster, clapping and yelling encouragement to each other.

The whole gym was happy chaos, with weights and athletes flying everywhere, barbells slamming to the ground and music blasting. It was hard work for Katie and me, but a couple people took it another step toward crazy and were doing it solo! Maybe next year…

Katie and I finished up in just under 29 minutes, which is longish for a CrossFit WOD, but still short enough that we never got to the misery stage. I was laughing before I even caught my breath, just at the childlike fun of the whole thing!

A sweaty Christmas tree.

If we do the same workout next Christmas, it’ll be fun to try it solo, or do it again with Katie and compare our results. But even if they change it up, I’ll look forward to it!

354 – The Couple That WODs together…

CrossFit, Weightlifting 1 Response »

Dec 202013

The harder the work, the better we work together.

Matt and Melissa, the couple who own and run the CrossFit gym Katie and I go to, celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary today. Instead of shipping the kids off to the sitter and going out for a candlelight dinner, they decided to celebrate with their favorite thing, and do a special Couples’ WOD!

Okay, so it sounds a little campy, but I thought it was really cute. And it ended up being a bunch of fun! The workout was, in keeping with their years of marriage,

16 partner wallballs (I throw, she catches and throws, then I catch, etc.)
16 partner pushups (her legs on my legs, we do pushups simultaneously)
16 tandem deadlifts (pictured)

As many rounds as possible, in 16 minutes.

It wasn’t the hardest workout we’ve ever had, but it was fun to work with Katie to get it done. For workout nerds like us, things like this (or the Mud Ninja) end up being some of the better bonding experiences we have together. It’s nice to know that other couples are the same kind of weird!

353 – “No WOD”

CrossFit No Responses »

Dec 192013

Walling some balls. Er, balling some walls? Wallballing?

One ritual for every CrossFitter is checking their box’s website or Facebook page each evening to see what the WOD will be the next day. This becomes especially important if you’re training for other sports, as you don’t want to do, say, Karen (150 wall-balls, for time) the day before a race.

It’s not very often that there isn’t a WOD, but it does happen. Usually that means a skill day, or a strength day, or a day to PR a chosen lift. Or a natural disaster.

Today’s “no WOD” was a skill day, athlete’s choice. I was excited for it, since my skills on a few of the core CrossFit exercises are pretty crummy. I want to learn double-unders most of all, so I was pretty jazzed to go in there and have a session just to work on them.

My buddy Kelly led the “warm-up.” Except that it wasn’t a warm up, so much as a mini-WOD. It consisted of stations for shuttle runs, box jumps, kettlebell swings and burpees, and we did two rounds. I initially lined up with Melissa, one of the coaches and co-owners, and my competitive streak had me blasting through the shuttle runs like my life depended on it. She caught up with me, then left me behind as we progressed to the rest of the exercises, as I blew up and she just chugged away, seemingly unphased.

I went hard enough on the warm up that I was a little tired when it came time for the skill work. Oops. I practiced double unders and did some pull-up supplement work, but found that I was wearing myself out just doing that. Then came the auxiliary work.

No WOD, right? HA!

We did wall-balls, 10 shots, every minute, on the minute (EMOM). Bearing in mind how I keep blowing myself up by forgetting the effects of volume, I selected a 14 pound wall ball. But after a few rounds, Kelly decided he’d had enough of that sandbagging, and switched me to a 20 pounder. It was rough, but it was fun, and I finished my reps between Katie and Melissa, grinning through dripping sweat.

So much for no WOD, eh?

352 – Other Accumulation

Training Philosophy No Responses »

Dec 182013

That is a lot of racing.

What a year 2013 has been. I’ve checked a lot of boxes this year, for times and distances and weights. I got under my time goals for my 5k and half marathon, completed 6 hour races on both my road bike and my mountain bike, hit my PR goals for overhead press and deadlift, completed a road century and a dirt metric century, and dropped my bodyweight to the lowest it’s been since 2005. I raced and competed in a half dozen different disciplines, including some that were new for me this season, and have recently jumped into two new sports.

In the grind of an individual race, in the singular focus of 100% effort, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture. For me as a racer, I can get so tunneled in on how a certain race went, or even how a certain portion went, that I forget how far I’ve come, and all I’ve accomplished so far. I’m a competitor. I always want to get better, and so I spend most of my time working on the areas that I need to improve. But it’s important to have perspective as well, and that’s why I hold on to all this stuff.

All the bibs and medals I accumulate through the year might not mean much for a lot of racers. Many of them will toss this stuff as soon as the race is over, unless it’s something really special. But I keep every one. I like to be able to look at them and remember each event, the trials they represented, the training that led up to them, and the triumph of bringing them to the finish. Sure, bibs only mean participation, and most of my medals are just for finishing, although there are a few podiums in there.

But it’s more than a pile of cheap ribbon, wrinkled paper and imitation metals, to me. It’s the physical representation of the thousands of miles of training. The gallons of sweat. The searing legs and heaving chest. The stinging trickle of blood. The hope, the despair, the rage, the pain, and the euphoria. It isn’t just the things I’ve done, it’s what those things have done to me, and for me. The bright flash of memories so vivid that I can still taste the salt and hear my heart pounding in my ears. It is the exhibit of what I’ve worked to become. It is the detritus of my newfound identity.

All of this will hang on the wall with the relics of other seasons past. I’ll pass by it most days without pause, but it will never fail to serve as a reminder of what I’ve done, and a catalyst to go out, work hard, and get more.

351 – An Appropriate Brew

Food No Responses »

Dec 172013

This might just be the IPA that gets me to like IPAs.

Given how this winter has started, it would seem that New Belgium has picked an appropriate name for this year’s winter seasonal.

I don’t prefer IPAs, as a general rule. I like all beers to some extent, but the smack-you-in-the-face bitterness of most craft IPAs has never really appealed to me. But lately, I’ve had the pleasure of sampling several labels that take a step back from the ledge of ultra-bitter, and instead focus on the dimension and flavor that the right amount of hops — rather than the maximum — can lend to a beer. Accumulation is one great example, a White IPA that I found crisp and refreshing. White IPAs blend the strengths of a Belgian Witbier with the hop profile of an IPA, adding equal measures of bitterness and tartness.

The result is delicious, and endlessly drinkable. As a winter seasonal, Accumulation is a departure from the accepted norm of heavy stouts, porters, and other beers you can’t see through. New Belgium chose to buck the trend of heavy beers for the cold season, and I think it was a winning decision.

350 – Clean & Jerk

CrossFit, Weightlifting 3 Responses »

Dec 162013

They told me to explode up through the bar, so… Boom.

I got to start working on a new movement at CrossFit today. And not just any movement, but the king-daddy of all lifting movements, the Clean & Jerk. It’s the burliest thing you can do in the weight room, moving big weight from the floor, to over your head, with all the explosive grace of a ballerina shot out of a cannon. It is the movement you think of when you think of an Olympic weightlifter, and I’ve wanted to learn it for years.

The clean and jerk is not something you teach yourself. There are so many elements to doing it right, and such dire consequences for doing it wrong, that I would advise anyone wanting to learn it to seek out professional coaching. If you dork up a deadlift, you might throw out your back. If you mess up on a heavy clean and jerk, you might just kill yourself.

Now, that last bit won’t be a worry for me for quite a while. I have a long way to go before I’m putting up enough weight to be truly dangerous, but that’s fine. For now, I’m working on the push-jerk, rather than the more dramatic (and arguably more effective) split jerk, until I master the elements of the more basic form. I have a long way to go until it starts to look and feel right, and I have to have that before I can start adding much weight, but I’m excited to finally be learning it!

349 – Eyes Up

CrossFit, Cycling, Life in General, Mountain Biking, Running, Training Philosophy, Weightlifting No Responses »

Dec 152013

If you’re looking at the trail in front of your tire, it will only slow you down. All the rocks and roots and hazards will overwhelm your vision and exaggerate your sense of speed. Keep your eyes up, and feel your lines and flow get smoother, and your speed and confidence rise.

If you’re looking at the ground in the weight room, your shoulders will follow and your form will collapse. You’ll be working just to stay upright and balanced, and the weight will seem impossibly heavy. Keep your eyes up, and the weight will stay centered, allowing you to use all of your strength for power.

If you’re climbing a hill, looking at the ground only makes your misery seem indefinite. You end up inside your head, inside the pain, enduring instead of attacking. Keep your eyes up, and pull the summit back to you with your mind, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you get there.

When life gets difficult; when you’re struggling, distracted and stressed by the problems lying all around you, it’s hard not to get discouraged and look down, defeated. The details and petty periphery of day to day life can infiltrate and demoralize even the most motivated people. But keep your eyes up. Focus on your goals and your progress, and keep working, keep grinding, keep fighting. The only way to fail is to look down, get discouraged and quit. You’re better than that.

Eyes up, and go get what’s yours.

348 – Expectation Management

Food No Responses »

Dec 142013

There’s a new submarine sandwich place in town, perched on a prime corner lot by Wright State. DiBella’s is a small, regional chain sandwich shop based out of New York. And as you can see, they have a rather high opinion of their product.

Ever since Subway decided to become the WalMart of sandwiches, there has been a bit of a void in my culinary life. Quizno’s is okay, but a little bit heavy, and disappointingly inconsistent. There are a few local sub sandwich places that are excellent, but I seldom find myself near one. The new DiBella’s location is along a route I travel with some frequency, so I stopped in the other day to try them out.

I was back the next day. And the next day. I’ve eaten lunch from DiBella’s more times in the past couple weeks than I really care to disclose.

It’s good. It’s really, really good. They have a fun and friendly staff, sure, and the décor is pleasing enough, but the sandwiches are delicious enough to stand on their own. DiBella’s is short on gimmick and heavy on quality and flavor, and their staff actually pays attention to what they’re doing, which is a nice change (I’m looking at you, Subway).

But there’s a problem. You can see it just over the sandwich in the picture. DiBella’s decided to use a rather lofty slogan, and in doing so, set the bar impossibly high. As most men, I consider myself something of a connoisseur of big, sloppy sub sandwiches. I’ve had a lot of them from a lot of places, big and small, and there have been a handful that changed my life. The Super Italian from Submarine House comes to mind.

So when I read a slogan like that on the wrapper, my expectations are high. Felix Baumgartner high. And while the sandwiches I have sampled from DiBella’s (the Godfather, the Italian, the Tuna and the Old Fashioned, so far) have been totally acceptable, they haven’t blown me away. At least, they haven’t risen to the level set by their catchphrase.

Hey, maybe it doesn’t matter. I’ll certainly be back, and I’m happy to recommend them if you’re looking for a great sub. But I can’t help but feel a little let down, after getting my hopes so high, based on their marketing. Perhaps a wiser choice of slogans would let their sandwiches do the talking.

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