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Review: 5.11 Rush MOAB 10 Shoulder Pack

I recently had the good fortune to demo some gear from 5.11 Tactical, an apparel and gear company that primarily markets to law enforcement, military, and firefighting professionals. They makes tons of quality stuff, though, and regular civilian types like me find their gear useful for everyday purposes. If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, you may recall I used 5.11 Tactical base garments for the GoRuck Challenge, all of which performed admirably.

For this review I’m rocking the Rush MOAB 10, a shoulder bag. Let me disclaim right off the bat, I can’t test gear from a tactical perspective…in other words, I don’t own a gun and I don’t have any AR-15 mags laying around to stuff into the mag pockets. With that being said, I find it strangely appealing that my bag has mag pockets.

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Review: Swamp Monster 2.0

I competed in my fourth CrossFit competition over the weekend, the Swamp Monster 2.0 at CrossFit 305. Check here for final results. Swamp Monster featured over 100 competitors in four categories: Beginner, Intermediate, Masters, and RX for men and women. I did the intermediate.

Let’s cut right to the chase. Swamp Monster 2.0 was hard as hell, even for the intermediates. I figured I would dominate this category and instead I got body rocked. (The RX was downright impossible except for the serious heavy hitters.) The WODs were fantastically hard and a significant factor was the heat and humidity…the temps flirted with triple digits and the humidity made it feel like 108. Not only that, but going full bore inside of a packed gym with no air conditioning and wall-to-wall sweaty bodies did nothing to ease the extreme nature of the competition. In my long and illustrious sporting career, this was one of the most challenging competitions I’ve ever done…certainly one of my toughest days of CrossFit.

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Keith McGuire Is Going To L.A.

Here’s an interview I did with Keith “Old Skool” McGuire at CrossFit Firebase. Keith qualified for the 2011 CrossFit Games by placing 16th in the Open in the 50-55 masters category. Check out his stats on the Games site. I’ve […]

Costa Rica es lo Maximo

I vacationed in Costa Rica and it totally kicked ass. Don’t read this post unless you want your head to explode from jealousy.

Here’s the logistical bullcrap. I found tickets that flew through Miami on American Airlines for just under $400. A bunch of my pals flew Jetblue, which does a direct out of MCO, for like $500+ each. This is not a bad way to go. It’s about a 3 hour flight from Miami to San Jose. Once in San Jose, we took a shuttle from the airport to Jaco (1 hour 15 minutes), which is a coolass beach town on the Pacific side. Jaco is fairly built up and tourist friendly; everyone speaks English and there’s plenty of restaurants, bars, and clubs. It’s very easy to navigate for gringos. In fact, there was a disconcerting number of gringos and especially folks from Texas and Florida. My comment was, “You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a gringo in this place.” So, if you’re looking for a remote location where you’re the only non-Tico, Jaco is NOT the ideal choice.

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GoRuck: Interview with Lauren O’Leary, Class 029 Boston

Think GoRuck Challenge is just for the guys? Lauren O’Leary is hear to tell you otherwise. Nicknamed “Scrappy” for her toughness, Lauren recently completed GRC Boston. Standing at 5’0 and weighing 115#, Lauren had mostly globo gym, distance running, and recent CrossFit experience prior to signing up for GRC. Lauren was the only female athlete to participate in Class 029 and she nailed it with flying colors. Keep in mind, these guys and gals are rucking 30-40 lbs for 10-13 hours and doing hours of bear crawls, pushups, and carrying heavy “coupons.”

In this interview, we talk about her decision to sign up for the Challenge, what her experience was like, and her past and present training. Lauren is a member of CrossFit Fenway and is planning on attending GoRuck NYC on 9/11.

Ladies, sign up and earn your Tough patches. Video interview after the jump…

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Review: Metro Dash with a GoRuck Pack

Here’s a description of MetroDash from their site:

“…We combined 30 elements into one insane obstacle course that will surely push your physical and mental limits…The Metro Dash course is set up in an area the size of an NFL football field. Competitors will sprint a total of about 600 meters while climbing, crawling, jumping, swinging, and scaling their way through 30 challenging obstacles. The fastest time wins.”

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GoRuck Training: Robocop Legs

Here’s a quick training post for those guys and gals preparing to rock out a GoRuck Challenge. In one of my past posts I recommended strengthening hips, knees, and legs in preparation for handling the loads of GoRuck, which is a crapload of running with a weighted pack. If you’ve never run with weight on your back before, you’re in for a surprise, because the weight does weird things to your body. Expect extra stress on your joints, your stride going to hell, and quicker muscular fatigue.

Here are two workouts you can try together or separately that will go a long ways towards forging those Robocop legs you’ll need.

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Getting Old Doesn’t Have To Suck

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvgj02fanO4[/youtube]

I just turned 36. I get busted on a lot by my athlete pals for being old, but to be honest I don’t feel old. I say that, at the risk of coming off as athletically snooty, because I’m in the best shape of my life. But when you’re staring at the backside of your 30’s, these are the things you think about.

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Review: Tough Mudder SoCal (Saturday)

Tough Mudder is the king of the mud runs, let’s get that out there right off the bat. I’ve done three other obstacle course races: Warrior Dash and Rugged Maniac, both in Central Florida, and Super Spartan Race in Miami. All three were fun and had their merits. Super Spartan was especially badass and a real athletic challenge as my group traversed 10 miles with most of them on technical mountain bike trail at an aggressive pace. So, I thought I had a good idea of how tough Tough Mudder would be.

Wrong. Tough Mudder was legit, and it may be the hardest one of these races out there. My pal Brian has done Tough Guy in England (which Tough Mudder is reportedly modeled on), and he thought Tough Mudder was a bit tougher, while Tough Guy was colder and wetter. Pick your poison, but I like the idea of only having to fly across the country for an obstacle course, or go as far as my backyard like I’ll be doing for Tough Mudder Tampa, as opposed to overseas. Brian has also done an Iron Man and he made a comment about comparing Tough Mudder to Iron Man, which I’ll talk about below.

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I Beasted It At CrossFit Invictus and SealFit HQ

I did a kickass 5-day trip through Southern California as part of Memorial Day holiday that culminated in the Tough Mudder SoCal event. Tough Mudder was truly epic and I’ll give a full review in my next post.

In the meantime, I checked out two CrossFit gyms and got my WOD on prior to Tough Mudder. I love visiting other gyms to see what the setup is, what the athletes and instructors are like, and what the vibe in general is. I wasn’t disappointed.

First, there was CrossFit Invictus in downtown San Diego. I drove there straight from the airport and did the 6:30 pm WOD. They have a very cool space and great instructors. The instructors and athletes couldn’t have been more welcoming. We went through an extensive warmup that included dynamic stretch exercises and some mobility work with bands, all very welcome after spending the day on airplanes.

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