Huaraches are a minimalist shoe worn by the Tarahumara indians of the Copper Canyon in Mexico, a group of traditional-living people known for their incredible capacity to run 100 miles or more in a day... just for fun! The shoes are a thin piece of leather lashed on to the feet with leather cord - No arch supports, no orthotics, no spring loaded, gel cushioned heels, and NO INJURIES among the runners who cover vast distances while wearing them.

The Tarahumara have gained a lot of attention in the last few years with the release of Chris McDougall's book Born to Run about his time spent living with the Tarahumara to discover their secrets. The popularity of barefoot running has exploded as people are finally coming to their senses enough to realize that those $199 "running" shoes are doing more harm than good.

And the people at www.invisibleshoe.com have come out with a modern version of the huaraches with a vibram rubber sole and a nylon cord. They sell the materials and provide all the instructions on how to craft your own custom sandals in the videos below...

 How to make your own huaraches:

Check out parts one and two for more on tracing and cutting the sole

WOD:

AMRAP in 20 minutes of:
Run 400m
40 Wallball shots, (20/14)

The weather forecast for Saturday says 10 deg and sunny. If that's true, come prepared to run outside. If the weather sucks, we'll sub 20 burpees instead of the run.

Kana nails some single leg squats during "Mary"

WOD

Three rounds for time of:

30 Double-unders
25 L-pull-ups
20 Barbell cleans (135/95)

Intermediate

3 rounds for time of:

30 Double Unders or 150 Single Skips

25 Pullups

25 Hanging Straight Leg Raises (to L-Sit Position)

20 Barbell Cleans (95/65)

Novice/Rookie

3 rounds for time of:

90 Single Skips

25 Pullups

25 Hanging Knee Raises

20 Dumbbell Squat Cleans (25/15)

Endurance: Tempo Run

85-90% Rate of Perceived Exertion. If you're training for:

Short Course (5k, 10k, or half) run 5k

Long Course (marathon) run 8k

Ultra Distance (50k or more) run 15k 

Endurance WODs are posted for our athletes who are training for an upcoming race and CrossFitting an average of 4-5 times per week. To slant the CrossFit program for an endurance event, complete 2 of these WODs per week, a minimum of 3 hours before or 3 hours after the regular CrossFit WOD. 

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Shirts Shirts Shirts!

Have you ordered yours yet? If not, what's wrong with you??

$5 off ends Sunday Mar 21

WOD:

Ten rounds for time of:
15 Deadlifts (135/95)
15 push-ups

Intermediate: Use (105/75) for the deadlifts and drop to knee pushups

Novice: do 10 reps of each exercise in each round. Use (95/65) for the deadlifts and drop to knee pushups.

...and now for something random

Cold Hard Mary

Five rounds for time of:
15 foot L-rope climb, 1 ascent
5 Parallette handstand push-ups
45 pound barbell One-legged overhead squat, 10 reps

Doesn't seem humanly possible?? We though so too, but here are at least two humans who did it...

Laurie Galassi and Dave Leys from CrossFit Santa Cruz "Cold Hard Mary"- video [wmv] [mov]

All but the bravest among us will be doing:

Scaling options include handstand pushup progressions, assisted single leg squats, and band assisted pullups.

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Celebrities do CrossFit too! Here's a little eye candy for the ladies of a shirtless Nicholas Gonzalez (who?) from The OC and Melrose Place (what?) at last weekend's CrossFit SoCal Sectional.

T-Shirts are coming! T-shirts are coming!

You asked and we listened. Custom CrossFit BRIO shirts are on their way. The shirts are super soft 100% ring spun cotton and we have a manly mens cut and a girly girls cut available.

Pre-Order your very own CrossFit BRIO shirt by Sunday Mar 21 and save $5!

Click Here to Purchase Online

Pay just $25 from now until Sunday. The price will be $30 after that.

Shirts should be in stock by Monday Mar 29.

These are the t-shirt styles: 

Laurie's Birthday Pick

If you don't know Laurie, you're missing out. She turns 53 today but you'd never know it working out next to her. After triumphing over some serious health scares, she now regularly kicks ass 5 days a week and is in by far the best shape of her life.  

"Just wanted to thank you and David for all the great work you do to inspire us along. I went from the gym to Costco to stock up on my paleo food, and was struck by all the overweight people buying really bad food. As I watched them, I thought about the gym, and was so grateful for your blogs, crossfit, pictures, paleo and all you do to make fitness an interesting, always varied, challenging, and yes even fun experience."

...but in fact Laurie has it backwards- It's people like her that make this gym a fun and interesting experience and David and I consider ourselves among the luckiest people in the world to do this for a living!

53 Fran

23-18-12 ----> It adds up to 53!

Thrusters (95/65)

Pullups

For those of you with a Fran goal for 2010, you can do a regular rep scheme to see your progress thus far in the year.

Intermediate weight is 65/45. Novice is 45/30. Choose a weight and a band that allows you to complete this WOD in 8 minutes or less.

Strength

Clean 5-3-3-1-1-1

WOD "Helen"

Three rounds for time:
Run 400 meters
21 Kettlebell Swings (1.5/1 pood) 
12 Pull-ups

Were running outside today (yipeeee!) so come prepared to get your shoes muddy.

Endurance

15 Min Time Trial

Cover as much distance as possible.

 Jon Gilson at AgainFaster.com writes something wonderful about beautiful women.

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Epigenetics is the study of how lifestyle and environmental factors control the expression of genes. Time to stop blaming our genetics and start controlling them!

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And from the silly side... What If Everybody Flushed At Once?

Sometimes when snapping hundreds of photos, we catch some funny faces...

Thank you Garrett for being good-humoroed enough to let us post this!

WOD

5 Muscle-ups
15 Back squats (95/65)
10 Muscle-ups
30 Back squats (95/65)
15 Muscle-ups
45 Back squats (95/65)
10 Muscle-ups
30 Back squats (95/65)
5 Muscle-ups
15 pound Back squat (95/65)

Intermediate: Do Muscle Up Progressions and Back Squats with 65/45

Novice: Do Muscle Up Progressions and 10-20-30-20-10 Back Squats with 65/45 (ie, less reps)