CrossFit

Christmas DIY – SNOW GLOBES

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This strays from my typical Boom Box beatdown posts. Today is my rest day so I thought I share something to spread the holiday cheer. So if this is not up your alley, I’ll be back at my normal routine tomorrow! Last year I kind of just threw it in at the end of my posts… oh by the way look at these ornaments I made. And looky there she made cakeballs too! So today you just get Christmas fun!

I don’t know if I had seen these out of the corner of my eye and somehow my brain absorbed it or what but I had the idea of making my own snow globes. I’m not super ORIGINAL when it comes to crafts, I know this, but I had no idea homemade snow globes were plastered all over the interwebs. Nonetheless I decided I wanted to pursue this project for teacher gifts because A. I like doing something personal and special for teachers. B. I had several mason jars lying around. C. Who doesn’t love a snow globe?

It’s one of the easiest craft projects I’ve done, it just takes a couple of days because you have to let the glue set for 24 hours. So here’s what you need:

Jar (any jar, pasta sauce, pickle, mason, etc.)
Distilled water (important otherwise water stains/mineral deposits may form)
Glitter/Snow
Figure (plastic or glass, something that won’t fall apart or rust in water)
Glycerin (I tried it, didn’t like it, didn’t use it but feel free to experiment)
Clear Acrylic Spray (optional – I used to spray the ornaments I bought just in case they weren’t so waterproof)
Glue (glass bond, locktite, hot glue, something WATERPROOF!)
Ribbon (option – to tie/glue around lid)

So for me, waiting till the last minute of course, I was hard pressed to find plastic or glass Christmas-y figures. I opted for poly resin like ornaments. Not sure if they would hold up in the water, I went ahead and sprayed them down with a Water-Resistant Clear Acrylic. While those were drying I glued my mason jar lids since they were the kind where the middle of the lid pops out. After my ornaments dried I glued them to the mason jar lids. And now the waiting. The glue package said to let the glue set for 24 hours.

Ornaments have been sprayed down and glued down.

Ornaments have been sprayed down and glued down.

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I was very generous with the glue.

In that time frame I decided I wanted more than just glitter but not sure what. I wanted to personalize it. So I printed Merry Christmas, teacher last names, and the year on transparency sheets. Cut those out and had them ready to put in the jar when it came time to fill the jars up.

Part of the "confetti" I created to part of the snow globe.

Part of the “confetti” I created to part of the snow globe.

Glitter with added homemade confetti.

Glitter with added homemade confetti.

After the 24 hours you are ready to assemble your snow globes. Fill your jar up with the distilled water. Make sure to leave some room for when you put the lid on with your figure. Add glitter. I probably used about 1 tbs. It will be to your preference. Add 1-2 tsp per cup of water of glycerin. NOTE: THE GLYCERIN MADE MY GLITTER CLUMP UP SO I USED ONLY WATER. I TESTED WITH BOTH AND THERE WASN’T MUCH DIFFERENCE IN HOW IT LOOKED OR THE WAY THE GLITTER FELL. I THINK IF YOU USE SNOW THEN GLYCERIN MAYBE NECESSARY BUT NOT WITH THE GLITTER.

I then screwed the lid on the jar, checked to see if I had enough water, shook it up to make sure it’s what I wanted then took lid off. Dried off the inside edge of lid and the outside rim of jar.

Checking them before sealing them up with glue.

Checking them before sealing them up with glue.

I added glue to the edge of jar and then put lid back on. I left the jar upright so that glue could set overnight. While that was drying I went ahead and glued some ribbon to the lid as well. By the morning these snow globes were ready to go. As you can see in the final picture, I NOT SO CRAFTILY wrote Merry Christmas and my kiddos name on the bottom of snow globe (lid).

Finished Snow Globes!

Finished Snow Globes!

There you have it, easy but takes more than one evening. It’s fun too. The kids loved them and hopefully their teachers will as well! Have a MERRY WEDNESDAY! And you know the drill be AWESOME!

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I HURT … EVERYWHERE!

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Yes boys and girls the ACHE set in and it’s so much more than an ache. My body was glued to the bed this morning. It was crippling and probably pretty hilarious (if you were watching me at least) as I got out of my car this morning! My legs are fried. And when I sit down at my desk I try and support myself by holding on to my desk but that’s a mess because my shoulders are dead. I’m a mess folks. I even went light weight yesterday, but squats and GRACE did me in! Was the little fat girl in me telling me to sleep in this morning? She sure was but the slim and trim imaginary girl was telling me I better get moving if I was going to get back on track.

Skill/Strength: Press 6, 6, 6, 6
Of course the idea is to push ourselves here and being all weak and pathetic I still gave it a go. I worked my way up to 65lbs for my last set of 6 and I was doing so well until the 5th rep and I just bailed. I think my brain just quit on me. I know I had more in the tank but I didn’t push. Overall I felt much better at press than I did squats yesterday… and press is my weakness! Just patiently waiting for that PR that’s due on this movement already!

12/18/12 WOD

12/18/12 WOD

MetCon: Fight Gone Bad Style 3 Rounds – 1 minute DUs, 1 minute HR Push Ups, 1 minute Plate Burpees, 1 minute Lunges, 1 minute Rest
As I have proclaimed in the past, double unders are my superpower. A weak superpower but it’s the one movement I know I can do with success. I still have a long way to be badass at them but I can knock a few out rather quickly. My whole upper body is dead from Grace yesterday so Push Ups and Burpees sucked. Burpees were extra sucky because we had to jump on a plate which isn’t as bad as burpee Box Jumps but still not fun. I was quite slow in that minute. Because I did suck so much on push ups and burpees, I really tried to pick up the pace with the lunges. I could only do so many before my legs were on fire each minute but I did the best I could. Total Reps: 305 (thank goodness for DUs!)

Now I sit here typing away and every inch of my body aches. Part of it, I know! Welcome back to the JUNGLE right?!?

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Please take this advice and NEVER EVER take more than a week off EVER. Unless of course you are injured, then heal up. It seriously feels like I’ve been off for months. Hopefully I bounce back stronger than ever but for now I still feel weaksauce! Tomorrow is a rest day…woohooo… but I have a Christmas DIY project that I hope to share with y’all. Until then continue to be AWESOME.

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I’m Baaaaccckkkkk!

Even though I kind of sort of don’t want to be back! Is that bad? Being off for over 2 weeks is definitely sucky and now a big NO NO in my book. But dang I’ve slept in for 2 weeks straight! Hopefully I don’t ever have this long of a break again. I believe in rest I really do but this long just makes me feel so mentally defeated. My apologies to all of you who actually take the time to read my long and rambling posts. I’m sorry I’ve been away. And I also apologize to all you bloggers I follow regularly. There has been ZERO blog reading on my end. I plan to catch up and check in with you all. Please know I have not abandoned you!

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Let me recap for you how it all went down. Arlington Thunder Jr. Pee Wee football earned their way into the National Championships. My middle kiddo plays with this team. This was HUGE and an amazing accomplishment. So we travel to Florida.

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We stay in itty bitty rooms with no microwaves, kitchen, NO MONEY, etc. Fortunately we knew this ahead of time, so we packed our own microwave. Our first night in we are starving and the trailer carrying all of our stuff is still in route, so after we order in room service pizza costing us $60 we knew we had to make it to Wally World ASAP. Being on limited time, money and limited cooking capabilities we went all out on the easy to eat, junk food junkie route. I’ve never eaten so many PB&J sandwiches in my life. Add hot dogs, cheap ass burritos and a shit ton of cookies and chips and we’re good. We also ate your basic fruits – apples, bananas and clementines but really what are those going to do for us?!? Clearly our dietary habits were going to hell in a handbasket. With the way the scheduling of practice, games and study hall we didn’t have time to hit up a very close and nearby box, so there goes any WORKOUT. I mean we could have done something around the hotel….but we DID NOT! Hopefully walking around all the Disney parks helped out a little… but I can feel my waist, hips and legs expanding and at a very fast rate. Two days before heading home, I get slammed with the ugliest stomach virus I’ve ever had. It was bad. And it didn’t help that I didn’t have anything resembling nutrition coursing through my body. I was pretty much dead for 1 1/2 days. I truly thought it was food poisoning but turns out I was wrong as my youngest son proved that while we were in the airplane flying home! I felt really bad for the poor soul that had to sit in the same row as him. Fortunately we were close to landing when his sickness kicked in. Unfortunately it was a domino effect and all but 1 of us got the virus. I’ll spare you the disgusting details but it took me until end of last week to really feel BETTER in general. What hasn’t been helping is that I still haven’t really given my body the proper nutrition that it needs. Paleo? what’s that? Hahah, we are so far removed from paleo right now it’s not even remotely funny.

So here I sit in my doom and gloom of my own little world feeling fat and worthless. And please believe me when I say that I KNOW there is no DOOM and GLOOM. In light of what happened on Friday, I KNOW my world is great and life is good. Please know this is my creative outlet, for fun, for shits and giggles, for griping. Not for exacerbating my already heartbroken feelings of what happened in CT. I’ve shed many tears over the tragedy and am sure to shed more. But for now, I keep true to my silly adventure that I share with you all regularly.

11/17/12 WOD
I seriously almost didn’t get up AGAIN for the BOOM Box. I knew I had to get back in it whether I thought I was ready or not. It was very apparent I was not ready this morning! When the warm up is kicking your ass, you know you have problems.

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Skill/Strength: Back Squat 4 x 8 @ 77.5% of 1RM
Did I mention it sucked getting back at it already? Hahah. Just in case you didn’t catch that earlier, let me say it again. THIS SUCKED! Just warming up with no weight was a butt whoopin. I didn’t even get close to the 77.5% for 8 reps. That number should have been 110 or 115lbs. I couldn’t even complete 8 reps at 105lbs! I ended up doing really really light weight at 85lbs. At least I could finish the reps out. The internal defeat was now sinking in BAD!

MetCon: Grace
I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna! Can I go home now? That’s all I could think. RX is 95lbs and for some reason I thought I did RX at B4B in October but looking back, I only did 85lbs. Either way, this morning I did 75lbs and it took me longer this morning than it did in Oct. Just put me out of my misery now! I quit! Time: 6:32! I will say even though I was dragging ass. I feel that I jerked the bar better than EVER! Coach you would be proud. Well of that only. Good thing Grant is on vacation I could already feel his eyes a disappointment and he wasn’t even there. Travis is much more tolerant of my cry baby behavior!

So I ended my return WOD with “hopefully I show up tomorrow.” My hips already feel the squats and I’m sure by tonight I’ll be filled with achy-ness. I need to get back on the AWESOME train ASAP! I hope in my absence you all have continued with the awesomeness. I need to catch up! Have a blessed day! Love your peoples and tell them you love them! And Be AWESOME while doing it!

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Playing Catch Up

Sorry I’ve been MIA. With the holidays and the crazy busy madness of our NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP BOUND football team, I’ve been busy! I did manage to stuff my face properly over the long weekend and then proceed to try and kill myself while visiting Pflugerville, TX and drop in at a nearby box. With the excitement of the weekend, the hustle and bustle of trying to plan a trip to Disney and working, I’ve neglected my lil blog! To you, all my readers, I apologize! I’m not slacking out of laziness, I promise!

So let me recap for you the past few days. Like I mentioned I should win awards for how much food I took in on Thursday alone. Not to mention road trip eating the night before and the day after. Seriously, GLUTTONY awards should all go to me! In the middle of all of that I told my chunky butt self I should drop in at DEFIANT CROSSFIT in Round Rock, TX for their 9am post Thanksgiving WOD.

11/23/12 WOD

Boy oh boy what was I smoking? I showed up to a fairly nice sized group. Warm ups weren’t much different from what we do at the BOOM BOX so that was a good start! We then proceeded to do BANDED Sprints. Thankfully only in short distances. Then we worked on wall sits and plank holds. 3 – 1 minute rounds of each movement. That was a butt whoopin! It was the AFTER banded sprints and static holds that concerned me though. It was EVA for the WOD! Thank goodness it was a PARTNER WOD, well thank goodness for me, not my partner. Little did she know I suck at running and pull ups, YUP that’s me, suckaroni! So EVA is 5 rounds for time of 800m run, 30 KB swings (HEAVY) and 30 pullups. Being a team WOD we could split up the work. My partner Angela and I each ran a 400m run together to make up the 800m. We then split KB swings evenly and Pull Ups NOT SO evenly. Coach at the BOOM Box doesn’t allow us to use kipping with banded pull ups and I stayed true. My partner had a little more gas in the tank than I and pulled us through the pull ups. Good thing was I was swing 50lbs overhead in good form. It wasn’t easy but I made it through. Seriously thought I would throw up half way through just from all the foods I had ingested the day before! Overall it was fun hanging out at this box. If you’re in the area, check them out! When I’m back in town I will be sure to drop in again.

Football News

One of my kiddos football teams is going to DISNEY for the Pop Warner National Championships! Wooooo. The boys played in the Cotton Bowl on Saturday and low and behold have a come from behind win of 19-12! They were losing in the first half 12-0 but came back in the 2nd half with a fire in their bellies to play. The reward – 8 nights at Disney World and the chance for the Super Bowl! For those of you following along, I have been asking for donations, and I still am asking. So if you can donate anything to assist our boys with travel funds and food funds you can click here. Thank you for your support! Let’s GO ARLINGTON THUNDER!

Jr. Pee Wee Division II Jefferson Regional Champions – ARLINGTON THUNDER!

11/26/12 WOD
It was all about the SNATCH. Technique, technique, technique! Then it was 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1. I feel like I’m good with getting the movement down, it’s when I go past 65 lbs that I’m not good! I know I can get the weight up, I just don’t DROP! It’s like I hit a brick wall and just forget what I’m doing! I managed to get up to 65lbs.

11/26/12 WOD

11/27/12 WOD
Skill/Strength: Kipping
I find that I do kipping well. Just not the pull up part. Today my hands were extra sensitive and hurt like a mofo. Maybe it’s just that it was COLD, my hands were dry and the bar was COLD! I was no bueno this morning on the bar.

11/27/12 WOD

MetCon: EMOM for 10 minutes, 6 burpees, 1/MU or 3 CTB or 6 pullups. If you don’t complete a round then it’s a penalty of 10 HR Push Ups! WOOO, I know how this is all gonna go down. LOTS of PUSH UPS for me! I got through the first 3 rounds before losing all the juice. I was managing 4 pullups per minute instead of the mandated 6. It was horrible! So my penalty 70 HR PUSH UPS! My shoulders are jelly jelly!

My apologies again for the blogging delay! Busy Busy Bee over here. Thanks for sticking with me and waiting patiently. I can’t promise you much the rest of the week or next week. If I get a workout in tomorrow then you’ll hear from me then. So if I’m quiet it’s not because I’m hiding, just taking care of business! You know the drill, have a good day, week, etc. and BE FREAKIN AWESOME!!!

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Where oh where has this year gone? I am truly Thankful for just surviving day in and day out. That I’m blessed with my GREAT family and even you might think I’m just too whiny on this good ol blog that I’m really not that much of a downer! I enjoy everything and everyone in my life. I hope everyone does take the time to reflect on their blessings whether they be small or large. Happy Thanksgiving!

Now onto my BOOM Box morning of which I am thankful for as well. Being a CrossFit Junkie is made much easier when you love your box and the people in it. It’s not a chore to get up at 5am and get my butt whooped. I look forward to it unless of course my muscles are dying then I’m a little scared!

Skill/Strength: Press 5, 5, 5
Goal here was to get close to your max by your last set. I know my max is 70lbs… been stuck here forever and not sure why! But it is what it is. So after warming up I started at 55lbs. Not so bad. Moved up to 60lbs and still not so bad. Went for 65lbs for my last set and even then I only struggled on the last 2 but still “knew” I would get it up. Now I’m curious as to what my new PR could be!

11/21/12 WOD

MetCon: 100 KB swings (1POOD), 75 Jumping Air Squats and 50 Hand Release Push Ups
Seriously?!? My hips and legs are smoked from KAREN and 1.5 miles of running…errr… walking/jogging. We did work on some hip mobility but after doing the 100KB swings I was definitely fatigued. I knocked out 55 UNBROKEN, then started losing the forearms. Took a small break, knocked out 5, 15, 25. Don’t even get me started on the Jumping Air Squats. I was smoked. My legs are dead, my hips are dead and now my back is chiming in. Took me a lot longer than it probably should have if I were feeling 100% but I chipped away. Finally got to the HR Push Ups. I feel like I knocked these out alright. About halfway through my right shoulder started shouting at me but that’s gonna happen! Time: 11:14

On another note: Some giveaways may be on the horizon so there’s something to be excited about! Wooooo for free stuff!

Have a fabulous Holiday Weekend! Be AWESOME and support Pop Warner Football Team Arlington Thunder if you can… right here!

Tore Up!

From the FLOOR UP! My apologies for being MIA. With that said I should have taken another REST day cause I am SMOKED! So I didn’t post anything for y’all on Friday because I didn’t hit up the BOOM Box till that evening. And my weekend was swamped. I also didn’t get to BOOM yesterday morning cause my body was still trying to recover from Friday! It’s a short week I know, no time to be missing but I hope to make Monday up tomorrow! And what was waiting for me this morning was pure insanity. I should have stayed in bed!

Let us first recap FRIDAY! In my slackerness I forgot to take a picture of the board. Well it wasn’t so much slackerness, the Metcon just wiped me out and I was a bit delirious and TORE UP! I can’t express in words how beat down I was mentally and physically!

11/16/12 Skill/Strength: Floor Press 1, 1, 1, 1, 1
Since I was working out in the evening I was definitely awake and not dragging as much. Whenever we do singles like this Coach definitely wants us to push our 1RM. I’ve never really recorded a 1RM. After looking back I had a 5RM at 75lbs at some point managed to get 85lbs in. On Friday I wasn’t sure. So I started at 75lbs and worked my way up. By my 4th round I was at 95lbs. That wasn’t so bad and now I know that’s a PR. My partner Jennifer, who is crazy strong, jumped up to 105lbs for her last rep and encouraged me to jump up too. For a second I thought I had it but I just couldn’t muster the bar up. I don’t know if I would have got 100lbs but that was my last rep. I know next time I will get it!

MetCon: 15 minute AMRAP of 1 Power Clean (115lbs), 5 Deadlifts (115lbs)
Same thing here not knowing for certain what my 1RM was for PowerClean. I know it’s less than 115 and Coach wanted us to go heavy. After warming up, I worked my way up to 105lbs. AFTER looking it up today, I’ve documented myself in an OLY class at 105lbs so that’s what I got. I did attempt 115lbs but that didn’t work out!

I was stoked for the AMRAP to start. I got that bar up, 105lbs for the Deadlift is pretty light and then the 2nd round was WOMP WOMP! I struggled for the first 4 rounds trying to clean the bar and wasted a lot of time freakin out in my brain. So coach had me drop to 95lbs and that was much easier but by then I’d wasted so much time I was mentally DEFEATED! And my back was smoked and so was every other part of me! I ended up with 19 rounds. That my friends is 19 Power Cleans and 95 Deadlifts! Little did I know this would slowly kill me all weekend.

It didn’t help that I had to drive to Oklahoma City the following morning at 5am and back after our football game on Saturday. SITTING is NO BUENO for the back. On Sunday I wasn’t feeling much better at all and by the time Monday morning rolled around it still hurt to much to roll out of bed.

11/20/12 WOD
This morning it wasn’t painful to get out of bed but I knew KAREN with some added running was waiting for me. I mean really KAREN, I don’t know anyone that wants to do that. 100% of me wanted to call it a day and not show up but I know better and I drug my pathetic self in. Before KAREN we worked on Power Snatch. Mostly we worked on technique. If you know anything about this lift then you KNOW it’s all about technique!!! I think towards the end I was feeling good with it but I only stayed at 55lbs.

11/20/12 WOD

MetCon: Red Gate Run, 150 Wall Balls, Red Gate Run
Post WOD Coach made a comment about my 10lb MED BALL. YA I probably should have used the 14 pounder but have I told you I’m TOAST?!!?? My back, my legs, my HIPS! So if I was going to survive the RUNNING and the WALL BALLS then 10lbs it was gonna be! My run sucked. I could feel every step in my back. Then my hips, then a side stitch! I felt pitiful. It took me about 9 minutes to go about 3/4 miles! That is HORRIBLE! Then we gotta chip away at wall balls. It took about 4 rounds of 10 before the side stitch went away or maybe I finally blocked out the pain. I did 15 sets of 10 with the wall balls. It took me a little over 10 minutes, I’m not sure on the exact time. Then the RUNNING! My legs were dead, my back is more dead, my hips are on FIRE. I’ll be honest, I walked most of that last run. It was terrible. Time: 32:25 SUCKY but hey at least I showed up despite all my desire not to show up! Not sure what tomorrow will bring but I’m guessing it will be brutal.

In other news: It’s kinda sorta my 1 YEAR BLOGGING BIRTHDAY! I started this bad boy on Nov. 18th, 2011 and looky looky I’m still here. Sometimes a bit boring or a bit cry baby and sometimes a bit BAD ASS AND AWESOME, whatever it is you all have shared my journey and I THANK YOU ALL for sticking with me. Hopefully I’m some sort of inspiration or even comedic entertainment to everyone. Even if I’m not I’ll still be here, typing away day in and day out! Let’s hope I get better at this in the next year!

Food News: I SUCK. The end.

I hope everyone has been doing well. I feel lost not being on my best blogging behavior! We are swamped with football which by the way is going great! WE are 1 game away from the National Championships in Florida! Wooooo. GOOO THUNDER!!! You can donate here if you are in the giving spirit! Other than that just BE AWESOME and have a beautiful day!!!

Pistols, Dead Hangs and Burpees

Will I ever be able to do a Pistol (ONE LEGGED SQUAT) with ease? I feel that will never happen. My right leg is my most hopeful and I aspire to be a PISTOL-PRO one day but I don’t know that my left leg and more importantly my left IT band will ever allow me to do so. We worked on Pistols and the progressions that go with it this morning. And it’s not like pull ups where I DREAD working on them, it’s just frustrating that it’s not an easy movement for me! You can google Pistols and CrossFit and see people all over doing them.

They do them with a barbell overhead, they do them balancing on things such as kettlebells and they are done balancing on kettlebells with a barbell overhead! Seriously? My feet would die. My body would just collapse! Anyone else in my boat? Probalby not! Y’all are all a bunch of PISTOL freaks aren’t ya?

MetCon: 10 minutes of 3 Burpees EMOM and Sit Up Holds and Dead Hangs with remainder of minute alternating minutes.
I really wasn’t sure how to gauge this workout. 3 burpees at a time, not a problem. Probably the only time I’ll think burpees are just fine. Sit up hold on odd minutes, not a problem. DEAD HANGs – Houston we have a problem! I’m not the best at hanging from a bar. My hands are delicate like a flower.

My grip is at best laughable. I was worried. Scores were based on drops. So in this case LOW score is good, HIGH score is bad! 5 minutes of Dead Hangs though, I should have this in the bag. Plus there’s burpees so it’s not even a whole minute right? Well I really had to work the whole mindset and just try to find a happy place and I did just that for the first 2 Dead Hang minutes, then on the 3rd I had to drop about 20 seconds in. My hands were dying. On the 4th round I went strong and held on for dear life but my brain left me stranded on the last round and I dropped probably 15 seconds in. I’ll have to admit this was probably my best in regards to pushing out pain and just finding a peace. It still hurt like a MO’FO though. My score was 2. I’m alright with that.

11/15/12 WOD

Food News: Still eating good but still eating like crap as well. I’m really blaming this on the time change, cooler weather and football wearing me out. I have been cooking good foods but also making poor food choices in the evenings. It’s so damn hard mentally for me right now. Feel free to come pop me in the back of the head and tell me to straighten up. It’s a necessary evil!

It’s be Thursday and almost the weekend! Hope y’all have been enjoying your fall! It’s the perfect time to take long walks, play outside with your kids or friends. Go play Disc Golf or a friendly game of football at the park! And you know it …. Be Awesome!

I’m done with the COLD already

And it’s only just begun! I know it’s only the second morning with temps in the 30s but it makes it really hard to get out of bed! And it makes it really hard to want to go hit the box early in the A.M.!

Skill/Strength: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 Back Squat
The goal was to start heavy and work towards a PR. If any of you recall I had an “accidental” PR with my squat cause I’m a dingleberry who used her DEADLIFT max to base her SQUAT %! Who does that? Yup that’s right – me :/ So I got a 10lb PR at 155lbs. This morning I set up my attempts so that 150lbs was my 3rd squat. That was fine so I decided to go for 160lbs on my 4th rep. FAIL-EO! I still felt like I had it in me so I went for my 5th rep at 160lbs again. Coach had to give me like an ounce of support for me to get up. I know I can do it without that but today it didn’t happen! Finally I’m making gains, and I LIKE IT!

11/13/12 WOD

MetCon: FRAN (collective sigh, grunt, etc.)
If you have no clue about CrossFit then you don’t know how brutal FRAN can be! FRAN is a dirty girl workout and a well known benchmark for CrossFitters all over. It’s 21-15-9 of Thrusters and Pullups. And it’s a go balls to the wall kind of workout! The really great folks have this workout COMPLETED in the 2 minute range. I don’t even think I can DREAM of such achievements anytime soon. For me it’s band assisted pull ups that I STILL suck at and typically I can do the RX 65lb Thruster but I’m still having shoulder issues so I was given 15lb dumbbells. I was able to do all the Thrusters unbroken, if it were otherwise then I think something would seriously be wrong with me. Unfortunately I was not able to do Pull Ups unbroken, those are miserable and the BAR was FREEZING! Time: 7:50

It’s a REST DAY tomorrow. I’m hoping I can catch up on some cooking/cleaning that needs to get done. I know I’ve been slacking at the posts but we’ve been so busy and I don’t have any wonderful INSPIRATION or RECIPES for you at the moment. And I feel I can only tell everyone to SUCK IT UP, TOUGHEN UP and DO SOMETHING GOOD for YOURSELF like EATING CLEAN and LIFTING HEAVY SHIT before you all run away cause you are sick and tired of those kinds of posts. At this point I wish I could just hibernate till Spring! Until Thursday…. BE AWESOME!

Dear Airdyne,

I do not like you and I do not wish to be friends with you. You are a cruel machine. Anything that looks like a bike should not be torture like the torture that you are.

Kind Regards,

Stephanie

So this morning at the BOOM Box we worked on mobility then had a MetCon that was described as being FUN! Let me tell you it was no where near FUN! It consisted of 3 rounds of 1 minute Airdyne, 30 sec rest, 1 minute Rowing, 30 sec rest, 1 minute of Shuttle, 30 sec rest. It’s been a while since we have used the Airdyne in our workouts and I got on that thing ready to go. 30 seconds in I hit a brick wall reinforced with steel bars! I had no more UMPH! It took everything I had to strap my feet in for the row. I suck at rowing in addition to sucking at the airdyne! I can’t find the rhythm or the technique. Walked over to do the shuttle but once 3, 2, 1 GO and you take off running you realize your legs are JELLO! The second and third rounds of the Airdyne left me on the verge of puking my guts out. I got a little better on the rowing and I gradually slowed on the runs. Overall it was a complete butt whoopin! We counted calories burned and shuttle lengths for score. Grand Total: 139

11/12/12 WOD

In other news: Still eating like crap, well over the weekend! Today was good. Played some Whirlyball which is a blast. If you don’t know what it is GOOGLE it. And some laser tag. I haven’t played laser tag since high school well because I sucked at it the one time I played. I learned this weekend that I’m a NINJA laser tag player! It was very AWESOME!

In personal news: One of my kid’s football teams has been doing really great in playoffs and we are headed to Florida for the National Championship! We are not rich people and it costs a lot so we are fundraising the best we know how as a team. We have a team website and if you can/will/want … I’m begging, seriously begging … then please click on the link and donate. I know I ask for a lot from you all and I get it if you can’t help out. But I figure it doesn’t hurt to ask 😀 PRETTY PLEASE! http://www.gofundme.com/1h3lh0

That’s it for today! Sorry for the late post! Been a busy bee! Hope your day was AWESOME! Stay AWESOME! See you tomorrow!

Thrusters+Burpees May Cause Death PART 2!

I’m telling you putting those movements together is a freakin BEATDOWN! Thrusters in general takes every ounce out of you mentally and physically and well burpees are just no fun! Back in May we did a Thruster/Burpee combo and it was bad! Make it TABATA like we did today and sheesh you will be lying down in a puddle of sweat at the end.

MetCon: TABATA Thrusters, TABATA Lateral Burpees, Rest 5 minutes, REPEAT
We didn’t have a Skill/Strength portion of the morning but we did work on Mobility. We did some painful things to our shoulders with the barbell though. It was well worth it too. In our quest for ridding pain by causing pain, I realize my right shoulder is just not feeling much better. I work on some other banded torture and although it got a little better I was still having issues with the bar overhead.

11/9/12 WOD

Coach brought me some dumbbells to use instead of the bar for the Thrusters. They were only 12lbs but considering my shoulder was killing me this was the best idea. The way my arms/shoulders are positioned holding dumbbells vs the bar was less stress on the shoulder which was fantastic. But don’t let lighter weight fool you.

THRUSTERS are an ass kicker. By the time you get to Burpees, it’s just a relief to throw yourself on the ground. But that relief fades soon because Burpees are life draining! We took total count of our reps and for the first round I hit 83 reps total. My whole body was JELLO! I was happy for our 5 minute rest! I knew I’d have to best or equal my reps so I went as hard as I could for Thrusters. About half way through I lost power fast! I still managed to come ahead in rep count for this second round. With Burpees I really tried to just keep moving. It was hard by the last two rounds. I finished the 2nd round with 97 reps! WOOOHOO. Total of 180. Remember I only had 12lb dumbbells vs the RX 65lb barbell. I’m sure I would have a much lower count otherwise.

I was definitely WODdrunk post workout. Good way to end the week! I’ll be MIA for the Community WOD that is tomorrow @ 9am. But if you’re free and want to have some BOOM Box fun then just show up! There will be plenty of friendly folks there!

Have an AWESOME weekend with your AWESOME self!