Friday, March 30, 2012

Friday Fun and last night's dinner!

Today I completed my second week of pulling myself out of bed at 5 am everyday (except weekend, obviously) to get my butt whipped at the box. I mean that literally because with DU practice, I really am getting my butt whipped... I have the lashes to prove it!

Looking back at my workout log, I've come to the realization that we do partner WODs every other week. Cool, I like partner WODs. I think I push myself just a tiny bit harder when I know someone else is depending on my performance. Although, sometimes I feel bad. I'm just not as fast a runner and rower as others. Working on that though, but it's not instant perfection. More like slow and steady progress.

Anyways... here we are for today.

Hooray for Friday partner #wod! Getting in work all week long.


There were three girls in class this morning. Myself, Hillary, and Melissa (first time meeting! yay! I love new people.) so we all grouped together. They rowed while I did the air squats and manmakers.

If you don't know, manmakers "make a man out of you" or so they say. I've done them once before and didn't think they were entirely awful... but at that time I didn't complete a whole week of mostly shoulder work as well. It's essentially a pushup-dumbell row-dumbell thruster all put together. Christa makes it look much easier than it is during the WOD. I'm also sure I don't look as pretty as her doing it either.

Hillary and I grabbed a set of 12# db and 10# db. After this week's work, 12# was optimistic, but I would try any way and see how it felt. Yeah, that only lasted for the first round... the other two were with the lighter weight and I still had to do a little push press motion to get them up by the end.

My shoulders will definitely thank me when this week is over. On the bright side no running around the block! Ha!

3 rounds: 17:18

Not bad. That's less than 6 minutes for a total round and about 3 minutes per person for a round. Sounds about right because I timed my second bout of manmakers and those took me about 2 minutes to get through. And props to Melissa who worked hard the whole time too! She's awesome.

On to other things... dinner last night.

AMAZING. seriously. Breakfast for dinner can't get better than this.

Ok, maybe it can, but only with more bacon!

Here's a look before I devoured the whole plate.



I saw this on Nom Nom Paleo earlier this week and it looked soooo good, but I was still finishing some kinda-sorta-paleo sinigang I had. Finally, yesterday while debating what to do for dinner and realizing that I hadn't defrosted any meat, I remembered the sweet potatoes I had and this recipe popped back in my mind. Perfect.

I don't own a food processor (this recipe is reason number 5,342 that I need to get one) so I put the sweet potato in my little food chopper instead. Worked for me.

I seasoned the sweet potato with whatever was in my cupboard: garlic salt and pepper, paprika, and dried ground cilantro. Then, I chopped up some bacon (cause bacon goes with EVERYTHING) and sauteed onions. Threw in the potatoes and let them cook and fried a couple eggs.

While I was doing this I remembered the asparus that had been chillin in my fridge all week as well. Into the oven that went with some olive oil, salt, and pepper.

When it was all cooked and plated, I held back long enough to take a quick picture then stuffed my face.

I mean really... I stuffed my face. There wasn't anything left afterwards.

And it made me feel like a superstar in the kitchen... which I, most certainly, am not.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Scared? Me?

Um... yeah, a little today actually.

This picture came to mind.


Here's today's WOD (sorry, I forgot to take a picture):

Thrusters 2-2-2-2-2
Go heavier each time with plenty of rest in between

I don't know what it is about thrusters that just makes me feel a little shaky. I get excited about every other lift, except really this one. I think it's because I have too much time at the top to think about what I'm doing and what is (in theory) supposed to happen.

Squat down. Press overhead.

Seems simple enough, right? Except that while I'm standing there at the top waiting to start the squat, I'm thinking all these things. "What if I get stuck at the bottom? What if I don't use my momentum to get the weight up? My wrists hurt, my shoulders ache." Ggggaaaahhhh!!!! I drive myself nuts sometimes. Eventually, I would get over my fear, take a deep breath and bust out a rep.

It wasn't always pretty. I meant to go until failure and with Laura coaching today, there wasn't another option. (She's always convinced that I can lift more, which is a good thing because usually she's right). My final two reps were at 90#. It went up once, but not the second time and I had to ditch the bar. After her encouragement, I took a rest and finally pushed that last rep out.

I'm not gonna lie, every time I walked up to the bar for another round, I was scared. My shoulders still ached from the push presses earlier this week and I had lashed myself pretty good practicing double unders during warmup. Seriously, I looked in the mirror afterwards and my behind is not pretty.

Ultimately though, I learned to not listen to the voice of fear. I didn't get to 95# like I wanted to, but that's ok. I'm impressed with what I got up. Maybe later this week, I'll try 95# again after my arms have had some rest.

Until then, I'll be washing my hair upside down until I can lift my arms over my head again.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Get it!

That's what today's WOD was called... Get It.

This #wod didn't look so bad on the board... once I got stared it was hell.


Doesn't look that bad, right? That's what I thought too. WRONG! After starting, it was like hell. You don't really notice how quad intensive flutter kicks and burpees are until you have 75 walking lunges to do afterwards. My legs were all sorts of shaky by the time I made it on to the lunges.

My lunges, instead of being something like lunge. step. lunge. step. were more of lunge. stand. step. lunge. stand. step.

On the bright side, the 25 pullups were I piece of cake. Probably because nothing else involved arms except the wall balls during warmup. I strung 15 kipping pullups together (yeah, still with the blue band). I was pretty proud of that. Brings me a step closer to eventually getting off the band. Which I did try, by the way, after the WOD was over. Nope... only got about half way up. So much for thinking I was some kind of cool.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Saying Goodbye to Mark

We started off today's class with Mark announcing that this would be his last morning class because he's getting ready to move to Portland, OR. Wait... what? When did this come about? No more torturous mornings? But I like your torturous mornings! Sadly (for CFEV) but great for Mark, he just got hired by Nike as a Social Media Correspondent. I don't really know what that job entails, but it just sounds awesome. We were all sad to see him go, but happy that he's taking advantage of this amazing opportunity. Good luck Mark! You're gonna send free stuff back to us right? ha!

So to celebrate, he left us with this parting gift that he thought up for this morning:

27mar WOD


Um... you did know that we did push press yesterday right?! Ugh, here we go again. On the bright side, at least it wasn't straigt press.

Those 10 secs of rest in between rounds were nothing. Barely time to put the bar down and then you had to get ready to pick it back up again! On most things I averaged about 5-7 reps per round. Mostly because I was getting set when the time started again, by the time I started doing reps we were usually about 4-5 secs into the round. Only the ball slams and box jumps I was able to start reps on time.

You know what though????

THIS WAS MY FIRST RX WOD!! Yeah baby!

You should congratulate me or something.

I know that doing things Rx'd isn't everything, but I was happy that I could get through these weights. It lets me know that I am progressing further every time I walk into the box. It lets me know that I'm becoming stronger. And that is what gets me out of bed every morning at 5 am to get my butt kicked. It feels good. Emotionally and physically. Well, maybe it doesn't always physically feel good, but you know what I mean.

From my first Foundations class to my first Rx WOD. Thanks Mark!

Bye Mark!

Monday, March 26, 2012

The Shoulder Killer (and some goals)

Well, at least there was no egregious amount of pounding pavement today. On the other hand, my shoulders are done.

Yay for Mondays!

Today's #wod aka The Shoulder Killer.

I checked my log for the last metcon that we did push press in and I used 55#. Didn't seem that bad, so I grabbed the bar and did some 45# warmups then added on two 5# plates. 15 reps of these? The last time I did this the metcon was 2 rounds, totalling 20 PP. Multiple rounds of 15 reps @ 55# was not going to happen, especially if I wanted to get through more than 2 rounds. I was already dreading the knees to elbows. Back down to just the 45# bar I went.

That turned out to be a good decision, because knees to elbows sucked the life out of my shoulders. It's one thing to get your knees up there (and no, I haven't mastered toes to bar yet so this was not the easiest task), it's another thing to hang on while doing a semi-kip to help get your knees up there. I'd say my knees made to my elbows about 30% of the time. The other 70% of the time, they got pretty close. It's a horrible feeling seeing your knees so close and yet still so far away. At my best I was getting five reps in at a time. Then after all that to get down and do pushups! Holy freakin' canolli! The only time to catch my breath was the situps. The only non-shoulder intensive exercise of the entire WOD. Thank goodness I stayed with the 45# bar, I might have died otherwise. Not really, but I would have had horrible form and that's never a good thing.

15 min AMRAP: 4 rounds + 11 PP (45#)

I'll take that.

And now for the other part... a couple of weeks ago, I decided on some goals to set for myself. Long term, I'd like to participate in next year's open. Short term, I have to master the skill sets first. Which leads to my first couple skills to tackle: kipping pullups and unassisted ring dips.

Goal date: June 9th (my birthday!)

That gives me a little over two months to get these down. And while it may not be a strict pullup, I'm fine with kipping. I've never been able to do any sort of pullup in my life. It's been a goal of mine for a long time and I've done work before to get me to a pullup but I've always been discouraged and given up. Not this time, it's gonna happen and hopefully by June. I've been practicing after almost every WOD (couldn't today because my shoulders were shot) and I've gotten to the point where I'm off the green band and able to kip with the blue. I'm working up in the reps, right now I can consistently do 5-8 kipping with the blue band. Next is to transition to the red band. Hopefully, that will happen by the middle of April.

Unassisted ring dips is going hand in hand with that. Right now, I'm using the blue band to do these in wods. Which, I'll admit, is a little easy when I start... but after about 20 or so reps... not so easy. I've been doing negative ring dips (jump up and slow lowering to the bottom) to build my lat strength up. I've done these before on parallel bars, so I know that I can do this, but the rings add a whole other dimension of unstability. Still, it's gonna happen one day.

Until then, I'm gonna keep practicing.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

backlog

Apparently, days off from work equals days forgetting to post my WODs. Here's the backlog from the past couple of days. Even though I haven't had work, I still got my butt out of bed at 5 am in order to keep up with my regular 6 am class. That's some dedication in my book!

Here's Thursday. Not too bad, mostly a WOD to get a 1RM for clean:
22mar WOD

My weight progression and chalk logging on the mat:
Clean reps

I know I started really light, but that's 55 reps when you add everything up. I didn't want to burn myself out too early.

Clean 1RM: 80#

I tried to get 85# up twice, but didn't make it. Oh well, something else to add to the list of goals. Luckily during the DU warmup I didn't whip my legs too bad. I can't wait for Rx Jump Ropes to open up their San Diego store! I figure if I get properly sized for a rope, it'll make the DUs that much better. I can't quite get them sequential right now, more like every other. Practice makes perfect!

Now here's Friday:
23mar WOD

I woke up to my alarm and checked the website... that was what I saw. I seriously almost rolled over and went back to sleep. I blogged earlier this week about my aversion to running and that was only 600m! This was a whole mile. Not just once either, twice! I couldn't let it get in my way though. I pulled myself up and went in. I set a goal of finishing in under 40 minutes. I'm not a very fast runner, especially when I don't specifically train for it. Ugh, was a dreading getting started.

Off we went and yep, I got lapped by a couple of the guys. No matter, at least I was still trucking along. Finished the first mile right at 10:00 and got to the rowing. My pace was pretty much 2:30/500m, not a very good time, but I was consistent and that's the best pace that I could keep without burning out. Got that done at was out the door for the last mile at 21:15. Oh boy, my
quads were not happy to be running again. After a lap (a mile is 5 laps around the block) they seemed to be ok again and I was focused on just keeping one foot moving in front of the other. By the time I got three laps done, I was the only one still running. I had my goal to meet and I was doing my darndest to beat it. Pushing myself for those last two laps and back in the door. Finished. At last.

My time: 30:34!!!

Yes! Ok, so yeah. I was the slowest... but I exceeded my goal of 40 minutes. And the even better part? My second mile was faster than my first! I was shocked. So glad that I got up and pushed myself this morning. It was definitely worth it, even if this wasn't my favorite WOD to see on the board.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Hump Day Blues

I despise running. There was a reason that I played sports like softball and volleyball growing up. No long distance running. At one point during a summer, some coaches tried to recruit me to the high school team as a goalie (really? who wants a 5 foot nothing goalie?). I asked them how much they ran during practice... 1 mile warmup then everything else. No thanks! My short legs just don't like to go fast and I hate when people yell "stride it out!" How far to you think these things go? 5 foot nothing remember? They don't stride far at all!

I had some hump day blues this morning. I didn't want to wake up. Add to it the fact that I checked my phone and saw 600m runs in there, now I really didn't want to get up. Still, some sort of workout guilt/CF addiction pulled me up and into the car. When I got there, everyone else was feeling the hump day blues too. At least I wasn't alone.

Here's what we had:

21mar WOD

I went a little light on the deadlifts: 75#. I wanted to be able to get through them unbroken. That weight was just right. I was tired at the end and really had to push through, but my sets were unbroken.

Then two laps around the block. This part I hate. It's uphill on the first leg. Not a ginormous hill, but enough that you can feel it. I felt like I was dragging a$$. I pushed myself, but the laps still seemed to take forever. I wanted to get in four complete rounds. I knew after the first run that wasn't going to happen. Ok, at least three and some then.

I didn't wuss out to the green band on pullups. I decided that I needed to put my kipping practice into play and would try to kip with the blue band. Success! The first round I managed to string 5 kips together and the second round 8 kips! That's a record for me. I haven't quite got the rythm down yet and I usually look like I'm doing some awkward flailing motion. The third round I got two sets of 5 kips in. Yeah, I'm still using the band but this is the best it's been for me ever. Ever. In my life. I'm pretty sure I was smiling when it happened.

Final tally for 20 min AMRAP: 3 rounds + 10 dealifts + 300m

Almost the four rounds I wanted.

On a side note... I love spaghetti. It's one of my go-to-favorite-comfort-food type meals. I was very distraught when I learned that Paleo/Primal eating doesn't support wheat. There goes spaghetti. A sad, sad day. My body feels so much better since I've begun I mostly Paleo diet that I'm not giving up on it. Then I discovered a solution: Spagetti Squash! You bake it and string it and voila! spaghetti noodles. I admit, they are a little crunchier and sweeter than pasta noodles, but they were good. I love it! Spaghetti is back in rotation!

Paleo spaghetti
You can't even tell those aren't pasta noodles!

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

35#? I don't think so!

Woke up to the lovely sight of this posted on facebook:

20MAR WOD

Hmmm... the reps increase in this WOD... must mean that Mark is opening up shop this morning.

Made my way in and standing there in front of the kettlebells I was weighing my options, literally. Ideally, I'd like to be able to do this with the 35# but who was I kidding. That was not going to happen. Maybe, MAYBE if it was only the one round of 15, not this whole workout. For time? I could def get an awesome time if I used the 15#, but that's only cheating myself. I resigned to choosing the 25#. I knew that the first round wouldn't be a problem and boost my confidenct, at least until I got around to the last round. That round I knew would suck. And it did.

The first round went smoothly, no problems. Second round, not so bad... I busted out the pushups again, but had to break up the squats into 15 then the remaining 10. Kb swings... managed to power through that.

gasping for air at this point

Third round. Pushups got broken into 10, 10, and 5. Same for the squats. Followed by more gasps for air... My mind is trying to tell my body to keep going, while my lungs vehemently protest. Kb swings... 10 done, rest, 10 more, rest... the last 15.

My time: 8:18

Thank goodness, I stuck with the 25#! There's always room for improvement.

I stuck around for a bit afterwards to work on my kipping pullups and ring ddips. Some of the guys stuck around and did another mini-WOD consisting of rounds of box jumps.

Crazy people

Post WOD box jumpers

Jumps

I apologize for the less-than-stellar photos... I took these with my phone.

Monday, March 19, 2012

My First Drop In!! CrossFit 757

Last week I was on travel to Virginia for a couple days. It was the first time that I was going to be away from my local box since being bitten by the CrossFit bug. I knew that I wanted to do a drop in and figured that my schedule would allow it.

You must understand that the thought of doing a drop in terrified me. First, I have a horrid sense of direction and I hate driving very far in new places, so I had to find someplace close (within a half hour drive). Second, I have an innate fear of going to new gyms and boxes. I'm always intimidated by everyone else and even though I consider myself moderately fit, I've only been CFing for about a month and haven't quite got everything down yet.

I emailed a friend who CrossFits out in the area and she suggested a take a look at CrossFit 757 in Norfolk. I stalked their website, facebook, yelp accounts for everything I could find out and they seemed like a good box to try out. I emailed the owner about my intention to stop by for a WOD and to my surprise he emailed back. He was very encouraging and even knew a trainer at my box in SD! That was a relief. I drove out there and only managed to get minimally lost. The entrance was actually around the block from where the directions took me, but I figured it out and got ready. Once again, everyone was super friendly. Charlie got me all set up and even introduced me and another drop in from Colorado to the class before we got started.

This box was huge. I'd say about double the size of CFEV and it's all wide open. They have a lot of equipment and a small lounge area that a lot of people took advantage of. They even do CF Kids, it was really awesome to see kids around and having fun getting into fitness.

We got started with our WOD.

10 min AMRAP:
10 sumo deadlift high pull (53#)
10 pullups

rest 2 min

5 min AMRAP:
Box jumps (ugh... I despise box jumps)

I was on the floor after it was all over. The best part was that because I took the 6 pm class, there were people from the class before and the class after that were cheering us on the whole time. I know at least for me, I work a lot harder when people are encouraging and watching.

Overall, it was a great experience and I'm so glad that I went. I met a lot of great people and I can't wait until my next visit!



Charlie and the guys with me after the WOD


CrossFit 757


License anyone?

Monday, March 12, 2012

the travel dilemma

I'm traveling for few days for work and while being away from my box is scary enough... how am I supposed to follow a primal lifestyle without kitchen access or spending tons on eating out? Luckily, it's only for a couple days. I packed what I thought would be helpful. Here's what went
into my bag:

Shaker bottle and four servings of protein powder
Lara bars (yes, it's processed but I figure better than grabbing a Snickers bar)
Small ziploc of almonds mixed with pistachios

Once I checked into my room and found that I had a fridge and a microwave, I stopped by the store and picked up some other things. And I know it's still not strict paleo or even primal, it's still better for my body and my wallet. You can't be perfect all the time, but doing what you can is better than doing nothing at all.

My travel paleo dinner:

Travel paleo


Tomorrow it's another body weight WOD. Gotta keep it up!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

You know you're crazy when...

...the trainer opening the box is late and you decide that you are going to make up your own workout to do on the sidewalk. Complete with 100m lunges, uphill.

Who does that to themselves? Well, a bunch of us did this morning. We decided that, "hey, we're already here... might as well do something." So we took a lap around the block and commenced lunges. Good thing that our trainer made it after only one length of lunges. I was already dying and my legs shook to whole jog back down the street.

At least we were already warmed up and ready to go for today's WOD!

07Mar WOD
**We subbed 250m row for the run because they started powerwashing the sidewalk outside. I don't know about you, but I don't want any of that sidewalk nastiness being sprayed on me. I hope the homeless guy got a good shower in though.**

AMRAP: 7 rnds + 10 step ups + 10 rings dips + 50m row

After all those lunges, I opted for the 15# kb for the step ups. Glad that I did because the last couple rounds were tough. I was desperately trying to get 8 full rounds done, but as much as I hurried and tried to keep the pace up I couldn't make it. I'm happy with my effort though.

And today was a normal class size again. I don't know what happened yesterday, but A LOT of people decided Tuesday was the day to WOD in the morning or something. There were almost 20 of us! On any normal day the average is maybe about 7. Makes for a pretty good dynamic. We all expect to see each other and get along well. It helps motivate me to get out of bed at 5 am everyday.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

2 in 1

Happy Tuesday!

I forgot to post yesterday's WOD, so this will be for yestserday and today. I made the decision over the weekend that since my body has (seemingly) gotten used to the beatings a bit, I felt that I could start going to classes everyday. I may regret this decision later, especially because now I'll be getting up everyday at 5am and I don't know how I feel about that yet.

Anyways, here we go. What a way to start the week:

04Mar WOD

Mind you, the date does say 04MAR but I think it's because our brains weren't working properly yet.

I got through it deadlifting 95#. It was a bit heavy, by the last round I was only getting about two lifts unbroken. It's cool, this was supposed to be a heavy WOD. The pullups though! Those are the bane of my existence. All my life I've never been able to do an unassisted pullup. It's not happening yet, but one day. In the meantime, I'll stick with using the bands. By the end, I was so tired that I had to rig the green band. I was only getting about halfway up with the blue. Did I mention that I hate pullups? Thought so.

Not a super horrible time of 10:52... but there's always room for improvement.

Then there was today. It's a little surprising that we haven't been doing as much running around the block lately. Not that I'm complaining! I hate running, almost as much as I hate pullups. When I walked in and saw Mark, I was a little frightened. Last time Mark opened in the morning, I swear he tried to kill us. Not today though, phew! Today was shoulder day:

06Mar WOD

Me and Hilary started at 35# then worked our way up to 65#. I needed help at the end. It was tough getting that up. More so, because you naturally want to to a push press and use your legs to help get the weight started moving, but you can't. Big no no for shoulder press. This WOD I will definitely be feeling later.

I'm sure tomorrow will be the biggest struggle to get out of bed. Looking forward to it.

Friday, March 2, 2012

TGIF

My first partner WOD. I was nervous thinking that eventually I would have to do one... still being new to CrossFit, I wouldn't want to be the person slowing someone else down. Brooke immediately asked me if I wanted to join her. Such a relief! Not so many options though because we were almost the only girls there today. We are also the closest in size.

Here's today's WOD:

02MAR WOD

First time for get ups and manmakers. I think I might actually enjoy manmakers. Get ups... not so much.

In the end, we finished first (even with our momentary lapses to figure out if we counted right).

Our time: 15:58 with 10#db/15#kb

Not bad for my first partner WOD. I'm gonna be ready for the next one!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Fuel

The day that I signed up for my foundations class, I noticed a sign next to the counter that was "advertising" Paleo snack kits. Intrigued, I googled it when I got home. The hunter-gatherer diet seemed very interesting, but at first glance it also seemed very limited. No beans, wheat, sugar, processed or dairy? What was I supposed to eat? Constant salads would surely drive me completely bonkers. So then I googled some Paleo before/after photos of people to see if this really made a difference (apparently so) and I found a couple of real people blogs about eating and living Paleo. I say real people because there are some bloggers forget about the budgets and schedules of people with jobs and families. I'm talking to you PurseBlog... how do you afford all those designer bags and nail manicures? Do you just walk around all day eating and taking pictures of your purses?

Enough ranting, sorry. Back to Paleo. My trainer friend, Lea, also suggested some blogs and that I also look in Zone. I did and at first was really excited about it. The restricted food list isn't as large. It's more of a balanced-everything-in-moderation type diet focused on macronutrition. Then I was faced with the daunting task of figuring out how to zone my meals including measuring and weighing the foods. In the end I think I just got a little too freaked out about the "if I eat an apple, I have to find some fat and protein to go with it" mentality.

So, I gave Paleo a shot. I got some great recipes from Everyday Paleo and also Pinterest.

side note: I LOVE Pinterest... I just searched "Paleo." Not a whole lot, but some good ideas.

My first Paleo meal was a warm bacon and spinach salad with avocado. I baked some porkchops too. The salad was amazing! Hmm... maybe this wasn't going to be so bad afterall. The next day I made some garlic and cinnamon sweet potato to go with the rest of the porkchops. Also very very tasty. During this time, I didn't eat any wheat (shocker for someone from Hawaii) and stopped snacking on chocolate and freezer pops. I could immediately feel a difference in my body. I didn't feel bloated all the time and I wasn't immediately exhausted after getting home from work.

I've been taking things slowly. I couldn't do the no wheat at all thing for long, I was craving it, but I did make the transition to whole wheat when I do crave it. I don't eat much of it and slowly it'll make more of a permanent exit.

For now, I'm going to keep exploring all things Paleo.