Happy Birthday to Me! "52" workouts, the first of a month long theme :)

Yesterday was my 52nd birthday!  Can you believe it?  Gosh, it really didn't hit me until this morning, a second before I started my first rep of my special B-day workout.  I had a fabulous day that started out with macaron experiments for 3 hours, starting at 5:00am!  After I journaled my results I went out and ran some errands that I wanted to do, like going to my favorite store, Grocery Outlet, Bargain Market! I love that store!  I found some really killer snack bars that are actually made for kids!  (Clif Kid Z Bar, honey graham flavor, $1.99 box of 6)  Next I went for a nice long walk and listened to a book on tape, "Soul of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman.  Came home, took a nice long nap with Mark, got up and went back in the kitchen to cook! (with a glass of wine of course!)  Kissed and hugged on Mark and had a great night's sleep.  What a great day!

The only thing that could have made it better, other than spending time with my kids and granddaughter would have been to have done a killer workout! But I don't kettlebell on Wednesdays, it's a recovery day, so the killer workout had to wait until this morning!  Maribel walked into the Lioness's den at 5:30 and joined me in the first part of my "52" themed workout.

Lucky me the 24kg weighs about 52 lbs, so it stands to reason that double 12kg's is the same weight. Thursday is usually double kb day, so double 12 kg's it was.  This year was like no other, in the fact that it wasn't just swings (today, but that's coming, don't worry!).  I wanted to do all of the kb skills (minus Get ups, but that's coming too!).  52 double 12kg reps each, swings, presses, squats, snatches, clean, and....pull ups! (assisted)  I had absolutely no idea how long this would take or how I was going to break it up, but I decided on the order I just listed, done in 4 rounds of 13 reps per.  This video demonstrates my first two rounds, minus the pull ups because the rack is on the other side of the gym and I wanted to video at least two rounds.  After I stopped this video I did my first set of 13 assisted pull ups, and then I dispersed sets of 5 and 6 throughout the rest of the workout.

I was able to do the first round in continuous sets of 13...but that was it!  Swings, snatches and cleans, no problem, all 4 sets of 13 were done continuous, but I had to break down the presses, squats and pull ups.  I'm not sure what Maribel's strategy was, but she finished in about the same time.  Gosh, it was fun!  Now I'll have something to measure next year when I have 1 more rep of each skill to complete, fingers crossed within the same amount of time :)

So, we started the workout at 5:30am. did a 15-20 min warm up, finished in 30 min, had 10 minutes left in the hour.  I started the next part of my workout, which was 52 sets of 10 double 12kg swings (520 reps, 26 min), and Maribel finished with a 10 x 10 w/24kg. I think it's been a while since she swung the 24kg, but it's my birthday and that's what was required :)

After my 52 sets of 10 double 12kg swings I did three last snatch sets.  The first w/12kg, the second w/14kg and the last w/16kg, all 52 R/ 52 L with a comp bell, done GS style.  Here was my entire workout:

52 dbl swings
52 dbl presses
52 dbl squats
52 dbl snatches
52 dbl cleans
52 assisted pull ups
30 min

52 sets of 10 dbl swings
520 reps, 26 min

12kg snatch 52/52 on hand switch, 5 min
14kg snatch 52/52, 26 x 4, 5 min
16kg snatch 52/52, 13 x 8, 5 min
312 snatches, 25 min, I took 5 minutes between sets.



BUT...my workout isn't over!  My good friend Emily has the same exact birthday as me! And she was 36 yesterday! (gosh, I hope I don't get in trouble!)  Soooo, I've got 36 sets of 10 w/36lb bell in order around 10:00am this morning....  And then last, but not least an hour long ruck walk with Mark at 1:00pm, my favorite part of Thursdays now.

Happy Birthday to me!