Danish Bird Flu

Thanks to everyone who has sent me words of encouragement and gratitude about the blog.

I want to back up a little in time and talk about some of the events of the past few months. Specifically the Spring RKC in MN and the RKC in Denmark.

Over the course of 12 days, I spent 6 full days on the field with RKC instructor candidates, SrRKCs, Team Leaders, Assistant insructors, Dragondoor staff and Pavel. It was incredible.

I also spent a lot of time NOT sleeping, blundering around Copenhagen trying to beat jet lag, talking to people with a lot more knowledge than me and somewhere in the neighborhood of 28 hours on airplanes. And of course one night with Will Williams and Kenneth Jay trying to kill me with Guiness and vodka.

Returning home after running non-stop on caffiene and enthusiasm, I had a sudden crash and burn that ended up in a bronchitis so severe that I would go into a coughing fit and nearly pass out just from answering the phone. I insist on calling it the Danish Bird Flu.

After a week of antibiotics, decongestants and cough syrup that contained hydrocodone, I was beginning to resemble my old self. This was two weeks ago.

I picked up a 24kg kettlebell and it seemed ponderously heavy. I decided to snatch it anway and in 10:00 had knocked out a mighty 140 reps, SSST style. By “mighty” I mean “mighty embarrassing”.

So….what to do? For me it was back to Program Minimum. Last week Monday, Tuesday and Thursday it was 24kg get-ups for 5:00, rest for 2:00 and then 24kg swings. Monday sucked in that special way that comes only from lungs still holding phlegm. I did a total of 150 swings with a little jogging/walking between sets of 25. Tuesday was better and Thursday better still, 6 sets of 50 swings with about a 200 yard jog between each set.

Friday, I decided to SSST again. I got 180 in 10:00, which is better, but normally I can get 200 on any given day and my PR is 230. I continued until I reached 300 total, with a time of 27:28.

I am feeling MUCH better. Monday I did 140 snatches total with 32kg, not pushing hard, lots of rest between sets. Total time was about 40:00.

This week: more program minimum, playing with 32 and 40kg.