MetCon

Slow rollin’

Still in depression mode. Eating better but not 100% yet. I can feel it holding me down. I’m getting there but it’s a SLOW process right now.

I made some sweet potato noodles last night and low and behold they were different types of sweet potatoes! Made for a nice plate (of which I didn’t not take a picture of) but I recommend mixing it if even by accident. The different textures of a white fleshed sweet potato and a regular ol’ orangey one made the slightest difference and it was all for the good. Pretty – Check; Interesting – Check; Tasty – Check! As far as food and cooking go I’m back on track. It’s the snacking on stuff like chips (leftover from vacation) that is ruining me. Plus the fact that I’m still recovering from food overload last week. It takes a while to clean your system and if you’re not completely eating clean it’s not going to happen any faster :/ I’m trying. It’s hard. I just want to sleep and eat junk.

This vicious cycle is ruining my WODs at the BOOM BOX or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!!!! I mean I did PR twice last week but that was before it all the badness could build up and shut me down.

7/26/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: BAR WORK! ARGH! DOUBLE ARGH! I chose to work on Toes To Bar because I can do them but I need to do them better. I think I got absolutely NOWHERE in the whole doing them better department.

MetCon: 4 rounds – Complete at least 10 Thrusters in 30 seconds AS HEAVY AS POSSIBLE, 1 minute Plank, 1 minute REST (add weight time). So the goal was to start off at a lighter weight and work your way up to as heavy as possible with the Thrusters. I know I can do 65lb Thrusters but can I do 10 in 30 seconds?

Annie Sakamoto showing how Thrusters get done!

I struggle with this movement and to think once upon a time in a land far far away I thought Thrusters were my favorite movement. In reality THEY SUCK! But in my opinion they are probably the best OVERALL barbell movement for your body, bang for your buck movement. They STILL SUCK. I started with 55lbs and I struggled. I did 5 real quick then slowed waaayyyy down for the other 5. My knee, my shoulder, everything – ALL HURT, ACHED, ETC. Went to plank position when the 30 seconds was up and felt okay. Quads started burning halfway through plank but I was fine for the most part.

Good solid PLANK! NOTE: back is straight. Some people hinge at hips and their butt is way up in air and some people let their hips sag – Both will help you get nowhere!

So I moved up to 60lbs during our REST period and was ready to go kinda sorta. Got the 10 knocked out with 2 seconds to spare – whew that was too close! The next plank was horrible. I couldn’t control my breathing, I was hurting and my shoulders were spent. 1 minute turned into FOREVER! On the 3rd round I decided to stay with 60lbs. I don’t think Coach was over the moon with that decision but I was feeling WEAK! I still got my 10 reps and I was a little better with the PLANK. On the 4th round I stepped it up to 65lbs. Just like the first round I did 5 reps with the quickness and then BAM slowed down, I finished right on the button. The 4th plank was the worst. I dropped to a knee for about 5 seconds I think and was trying to go from elbow to elbow to relieve my shoulders. It was horrible. Our score was our heaviest round completed. I know I won’t be sitting at the top of the board today but I am learning to deal with my weaknesses and not let them get to my head. One day they will be my strengths! That’s what I keep telling myself at least! Hahaha.

I’m super sleepy and it’s all because the past two evenings I can’t get to sleep. I typically don’t have a problem with sleep. My head hits the pillow and I’m OUT but the past two nights I’ve been tired but my brain won’t shut off. Again I’m attributing this to poor eating. Hopefully that’s all it is and hopefully I’ll get back to good sleep. One more official workout for the week. If I’m feeling spunky I may try to do something over the weekend but right now lazy lazy lazy is all that is in my brain.

I’m trying to be awesome but having a hard time. So please be EXTRA AWESOME to make up for what I am lacking! Have a better than mediocre Thursday!!!

I’m here. Not willingly but I am here.

It’s true I have PVD: POST VACATION DEPRESSION. I have no will to do much of anything other than go through the boring routine known as my life! How’s that for dramatic?!? Hahahah. I seriously just wish I could have stayed on Maui. But reality is I can not. Now I just gotta get out of my funk and move on. Over a week and no blogging it’s kind of bittersweet. I have a lot of workouts to report on, not one good bit of clean eating and I could recap vacation but don’t want to bore y’all with too much. As always I write off the cuff, no planning or outlines so who knows what you’ll get today!

Maui Recap
I did manage to get an ALOHA in on two Sundays ago and pretty much we were non stop the whole time. Ernie and I were good little workers and hit up Lahaina CrossFit a total of 5 times! It was 1 Rep Max week for them and out of 4 different movements on our last day I PR’d on Push Press! 100lb PUSH PRESS!!! So stoked to hit triple digits.

Doing some CASH OUT Tire Flips at Lahaina CrossFit!

As for the rest of the time, we went ocean rafting with Ocean Riders. We took a ride around the island of Lanai which is about 8 miles from Maui. Total distance around Lanai is about 68 miles. It took up the whole day and we hit up 3 snorkel spots. This was cool for us because we hit up snorkel spots we had never seen before. I only managed to see a sea turtle, some eels and of course lots of fish. One family saw a 3-4ft gray reef shark; Ernie and Jonas saw a lobster; Jonas saw sting rays and we all saw a variety of eels as well. If you’ve never rafted on the ocean it’s something you should do. It’s fun, crazy, and gets your heart pumping.

Family Pic during a peaceful part of the trip on Ocean Riders!

We also did a zipline tour at Piiholo Zipline. I really thought I’d be more “scared” of dangling over hundreds of feet but I wasn’t. It was beautiful and really fun. I had imagined a more adrenaline pumped adventure but instead of it was just very cool and laid back.

Jakob flying high!

We also hit up a few beaches with some good surf where the kids did body surfing and boogy board surfing as well. I attempted to body surf and after getting beat up those 2 times that I “caught” a wave I was out! This mama does not find getting beat up very fun! The kids though had a blast. I opted to hang out past the break and enjoyed the show! The water was beautiful at all our spots. Chilly at first but perfect once you acclimated.

If you’ve been to Maui then you know about the Road to Hana. We weren’t going to go because it’s a long, sometimes terrifying but beautiful drive but the kids remembered the natural pools and wanted to go swimming in them again. It was rainy the whole trip and we get to the pools only to find out that they are closed to swimming! WTH?!? Guess we should have done our homework. It’s a fabulous scenic drive none the less but we did have some scary moments and were rather disappointed that the pools were closed!

The beautiful pools that we COULD NOT swim in this year 😦

One of our only “chill” moments was the Luau we attended. I had not been to a luau since I was a kid so it was fun to see the excitement in everyone else’s faces. I forgot that luau’s can be fun and the fire dancing at the end was phenomenal!

Everyone’s favorite part of the Luau….well 2nd to the Fire Dancing!

Enough about my trip, I kept it short because I really could write a novel I think and I’m hoping highlights are better than dragging it out.

COMMUNITY BOOM WOD
We got home at 5 am this past Saturday and the crazy person that I am went to the BOOM BOX Community WOD and OLY class that follows. Yup I’m a little off my rocker. Boy did we do some work at the 9am WOD. It was guys vs. girls (teams of 5) and we did sled pulls and indian runs, wall ball leap frog something else I can’t recall and 500 KB swings! It ended up that it was tied 2-2 so the KB swings was the challenge to win. Turns out us ladies won! Go US!!

OLY Class
Right after Community WOD I have an OLY Class where we worked on Snatch Push Press and Overhead Squats (OHS). I suck at both but really put some effort out there and improved overall. Bonus is that I PR’d my OHS by 15lbs! I went from 75lb OHS to 90lb OHS! After my Push Press PR and my OHS PR I was feeling pretty good. I haven’t had much luck in that dept so it felt good knowing I’m improving.

7/23/12 WOD

7/23/12 WOD

After the workouts on Saturday I did nothing but sleep and eat poorly. This added to the week worth of vacation POOR eating, I knew I was in for it Monday Morning! And I was really in for it because it was 6 week test of CINDY! Six weeks ago I posted about weaksauce Cindy and that was after one weekend of bad eating, what will 9 days of bad eating get me?!?

Well I started off with the green band and completed 3 rounds of Pull Ups, by the fourth round Coach gave me a blue band to add to my green band. Pull Ups were much easier but I was still dragging ass! I completed 11 rounds + 5 pull ups (green band then green with blue). 6 weeks ago I completed 6 rounds +4 pullups (green band only). Although I managed more rounds I felt shorted because I ended up using more bands but ah well.

7/24/12 WOD

7/24/12 WOD

See I didn’t gibber jabber on too much. I was short and sweet and now about to be caught up for the week! This morning was one of those mornings that I knew I didn’t want to show up for at all. One mile run was part of the WOD and I didn’t want to do it. Sleep sounded so much better! Like a good little (well not so little) girl I unwillingly drug my butt up to the box. We worked on Back Squats adding 5lbs to our previous weight we worked on last. I’m up to 115lbs. 3 sets of 5 and although I could do the weight I always struggled on the last rep of each set! My IT band/knee bursae is/are so inflammed from eating poorly it’s sickening. It hurts so bad but I gotta push through. Been eating better for most of yesterday and all of today. It just takes time I know and I’m not going to beat myself up mentally over it. My body feels the effects just fine and it sucks!

MetCon: One Mile Run, then 3 minute AMRAP of Dead Lifts at 75lbs. So ya running, bleh! Slowest mile I’ve run in a very long time. 10:07! WTH. The guys are way faster and I was just left to my own devices of going SLOW! I didn’t even realize how slow my pace was until I got back inside. I had no time to cry about just do Dead Lifts. 75lbs isn’t so heavy so I knew I could get a good chunk in. I did 22 unbroken then broke down to sets of 10. All this poor eating has left me winded. I can’t breath. And I want to cry! In the end I completed 63 Dead Lifts. Here’s hoping that the rest of the whiteboard doesn’t blow me away. Well I know the run sucked but hopefully I made up for it in DLs!

So there ya have it. 9 day recap. Hopefully I told enough without you begging for more and in turn hopefully I didn’t bore the hell out of you. It’s Tuesday! SMILE! Maybe? Nah… I just want the ocean around me again and nice temps. Be awesome!

ALOOOOOOHA!

20120714-212530.jpg

Just checking in. I tried getting this blog out yesterday before we boarded our plane but that just didn’t happen!

It was kind of awesome when we landed because Ernie walks off the plane wearing a CrossFit shirt and the first person he sees says “you’re in the wrong location guy, the Games are in Cali! That is the CrossFit Games for you all who don’t know. That was a low blow police officer! Turns out the guy found us at baggage claim, chatted it up with us about CrossFit and invited us to his box Crossfit Maui Extreme. We are staying a bit out of the way from there so not sure if we’ll make it out there but hopefully we can.

This morning is holy crap I don’t like adjusting to time zone changes. Granted its only a five hour difference here in Maui than from home but when you wake up at 2am ready to go its hard to go back to sleep. Managed to stay down till 4 ish then Ernie and I went outside to walk around. By 5 we were ants in our pants and starving but didn’t want to wake up the family. So we took off for McDonalds…. Gasp…. For wifi and maybe coffee. Thank GOODNESS a local coffee shop in the same center Hawaiian Village Cofee had it’s door open! The Shop doesn’t open till 6 but took us in anyways!!! The Kona Blend is quite tasty and there was a Raw Energy Ball full of yumminess that we ordered. So much better thank Mickey Ds! This place is my ideal way of living. I want this cute coffee shop!!! Laid back, chill, cool art, good music, free wifi, perfect size and a nice variety of foods. Can I get a do-over in life?

Not sure what our plans will be for today but who cares, I’m in my happy place!

Turns out I have been writing intermittently on and off to get this post finished. After our coffee and some grocery shopping we had some eggs and bacon and headed out to Lahaina Crossfit!!! Pulled up to a good size crowd. By the time we started there were at least 40 folks ready to do some work. The warm up was familiar to us as we do a lot of the same things. Also similar was a team workout for the Saturday WOD. I found two girls who needed a 3rd person and the rest was a beating! Turns out this was a first time WOD for my teammates and holy moly I’m surprised they didn’t turn around an head for the hills after seeing the whiteboard.

100 of each of the following movements divided amongst the team: wall balls, pull ups, cleans (65lbs), front squats (65lbs), kb swings, and a med ball run around the loop (which was FOREVER)!!! My team kicked ass! The new girls did awesome and pushed hard and I really think they loved it!! Time 33:30! It was a lot of work and so much fun. We’ll be dropping in all week and we got some kickass shirts too! I was amped all day and really felt good. I ran the best I think I have ever run (Thanks Coach, since I’m always hating on the running at home).

We had a great day but I won’t drag this blog out much more. My whole start was to recap my Park WOD AND Fridays BOOM Box fun. I’m passing on the park WOD So here’s Fridays recap.

Boom Friday
It was all about hanging out with the pull up bar…. Yikes, my nemesis! Skill/ Strength was Bar Muscle Ups. I used to do these as a kid all of the time on the playground but at 34 years old not so much! I had to stand Ina 30″ box stacked with three 45 lb plates and one 25 lb plate and have coach still give me a boost! I did mange to get up though with all that assistance. Whew!

MetCon: Death by Toes to Bar! Yup that’s right folks! Suckity suck suck! I managed to get 5 rounds in. I almost completed 6 rounds but just didn’t get that 6th rep. Since coach still wanted us to get more work in we worked up to round 10 on the floor. We laid down put are hands to the wall and had to lift our legs to the wall. That I can do! It was killer on the abs but I didn’t have to hang from the bar!

Alrighty then, blogging from phone sucks! And it took me almost two days to complete. Not sure if I’ll keep it up but we’ll see. Have a fabulous day, afternoon, evening! Be awesome!!
!

20120714-212611.jpg

20120714-212600.jpg

20120714-212551.jpg

20120714-212625.jpg

20120714-212829.jpg

More Kool-Aid Please!

Today is the first time in a long time that I forgot to take a picture of the whiteboard! But I can tell you I think I did alright. Only time will tell. I don’t think being the first class in the AM will ever give me the upperhand but sometimes I do get a good leap on the rest of the day.

Skill/Strength: 3 rounds MAX Pull Ups. So I still can’t do a pull up and instead of using bands, coach had us do negative pull ups. That’s where you jump and hold your chin over the bar for as long as possible then as you fatigue slowly lower yourself down until you can no longer hang on. I SUCK AT THIS COMPLETELY! We had to do this 15 times. I did it just “OK” maybe 3 times. It pisses me off so bad but I know until I start hanging on the pull up bar 24/7 this movement is probably going to be the thorn in my side for quite some time :/

This kid is way TOUGHER than me!

MetCon: 10 MINUTES of 400m run, Max KB (1POOD) Swings-Russian, 400m run. The key to today’s WOD was to know how long it would take you to run the second 400m. If you left too early then you don’t BENEFIT from the workout of pushing yourself. But if you left to LATE then you would get docked 1 KB Swing for every second you go over 10 minutes! I know I didn’t want my work taken away and I know I didn’t want to look like a scared-y cat slacker. I took off on my first run and at a normal pace for me, got back around 1:48 and started my KB swings. I did as many as I could unbroken. Then just broke them down in smaller sets the best I could. Took off for my last run and returned at 9:50! How’s that for good timing!!! The KB swings are what counted for the day. I managed 125. Yay fun!

Jonas and I hope to do a park WOD this evening. I’ll be better prepared for this evening’s workout. Tuesday’s was just a fly by the seat of pants, lets make up stuff workout. I look forward to racing against my kiddo again. He’s a fighter which in turn will help me fight harder!

In other news:
Already checked in with Lahaina CrossFit and we’re ready to do work there next week! I’m excited as I’ve only visited one other box in my 10 months of being a part of this AWESOME community. And the one I did visit was for Barbells for Boobs so it was a good size event not a drop in. I’m sure it will be a good time and I’m excited! Seriously, who says that? Who says they are excited to drop in at another box? CrossFit Junkies! That’s who!

Y’all have a great Thursday! Eat Clean, Train Dirty, Be AWESOME!!!

Is it NAPTIME yet?

I went to bed later than normal and I felt it this morning. But maybe it was just yesterday’s WOD that I was feeling. I was dragging when I got to the BOOM Box but that didn’t last long as we had a nice jog to wake us up. As much as I didn’t want to go it was good to wake up the limbs and get the blood flowing.

7/12/12 WOD

For our Skill/Strength we worked on mobility. Today’s choice was HIPS or SHOULDERS. Well I NEED to work on both but shoulders were the winner for the day. And boy did we work on those shoulders. Coach had us all lay down and put our arms out to the side of us and raise our fingers to the ceiling (L-shape). We then lowered our arms to the ground to our sides without letting our shoulders come up off the ground. We were told to remember that position. The killer part was laying on the ground next to a barbell and putting the end of the bar on your shoulder and rolling it back and forth. Then using your leg to put more weight on the bar and still roll it back and forth. MY SHOULDERS WERE DYING! My right side is much more tender/sensitive/WEAK than my left side but after doing both shoulders we re-tested getting our arms to the ground and both of my hands touched the ground easy breezy. Below is a Mobility WOD video that is similar to what we did this morning. It does wonders but hurts like a MOFO!

MetCon: 3 Rounds of 15 Burpees, 10 Pull Ups and 5 HandStand Push UPs. Not too many movements and lower reps this should be a quicky WOD and it wasn’t too long, I still struggle too much with the pullups but I didn’t wuss out as much as I normally do. And since I don’t have a RX HSPU we did a modified version. We put our heels up against the wall, bent over and had our hads at just the most uncomfortable position to do a push up. Those sucked but not as bad as pull ups. Time: 6:51

I stuck around to work on Double Unders. It was a pretty big fail as I was just off today in stringing together a good set. So I called it a day at the BOOM Box.

Last night.
I waited till the last possible second to cook dinner. Ernie works out late so I try to time dinner for when he gets home. But in my procrastination I had to come up with a plan ASAP because of course I had no plan! So with ninja like quickness I got broccoli cut up, tossed it with olive oil, himalayan salt, pepper and red pepper. Baked that at 450° for 15 minutes. Got two grass-fed steaks seasoned and going on the stove and prepared a last minute effort at some Cauliflower rice. Nothing like my faux Spanish rice or Asian fried rice. I got some chicken broth heating up in a pan, got the cauliflower shredded up in my handy dandy food processor. I dumped what ended up being a lot of “rice” into simmering chicken broth and realized I needed more broth. I don’t have measurement but it was probably a cup of broth that I used. I got that simmering and put a lid on it. While that was going, I chopped up some baby carrot and onions to dump into “rice”. I added some salt, pepper and Kerrygold butter and put the lid back and and let it simmer away. Probably for 15 minutes. Just keep checking for the broth to be absorbed into the cauliflower “rice”. I don’t know if I was just really really hungry or if it was that damn good but I loved it! I took an pic but as you know it’s nothing professional.

Tomorrow is my rest day but I’m thinking I may take a jog around the neighborhood… THINKING only at this moment but probably won’t happen, we’ll see! BE AWESOME! It’s Tuesday, wooooohoooo.

UUMMMMMMM……….

It’s not that I have writer’s block this time around, but it’s been a busy weekend and I don’t even know where to start. Do I start with today and go backwards or start with Saturday and move forwards? These are the silly little chores that burden me in regards to blogging! What’s my title going to be? Witty? Dull? Straightforward. ARRGGHHH! I’m not a great writer as it is and then to add the other things, it can make one go bonkers. But at the same time it gives me peace. A creative outlet of sorts to get my thoughts straightened out and something for me to reference in my CrossFit/Paleo/whatever you want to call it journey. Also hopefully I provide some sort of “FIT”spiration to you the readers; that if someone as plain and simple as myself can muster up the energy and discipline to work hard consistently and eat clean that you can too. You just have to want it bad enough. I know I do want it!

Which leads to me to today’s WOD. I’ll summarize the weekend afterwards ツ I was dragging more than normal this morning because we were at the Ranger game till later than expected and we left before the game got exciting! They went 13 innings. Thank goodness we left though because I was spent. So spent I almost didn’t get up in time for the BOOM BOX!

7/9/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: 3 x 5 Back Squat +5lbs from previous week. Well I didn’t do Back Squat last week so I added from the week before. Today was 3 sets of 5 at 110lbs. After working up to that weight I was already done! So I struggled on my last reps. I always feel so weak when I struggle so much at a lighter weight. I shouldn’t think that way. My max is 145 and that’s 1 REP…so ya I know but geez I still feel like a weakling!

MetCon: 21, 15, 9 of Overhead Squats (OHS) and Shoulder to Overhead (Push Press for me). The prescribed weight is 65lbs but with my weak ass OHS I went with 55lbs. And it’s weak I promise. My wrists are not made for the OHS at all. And my shoulder flexibility is worthless. I was not looking forward to this at all. And I can tell you that for me it was probably one of the worst MetCons that I have endured. We broke this down into two groups, thank goodness, so we could have a counter. Thank you Martha for counting. I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.

Not me of course, but a good example of OHS.

I don’t even remember how I broke up my OHS for the first round. I think I started off strong with a good number like 10 but then fell apart and knocked them out in 2’s. My wrists were fried and I still had PUSH PRESS to go. I struggled with the first 21 BAD! By the 15’s of the OHS I tried going in 5’s but that didn’t work out so well. I definitely felt better this round and Coach was there in my face so I had a little more to prove and push through. I did the 15 PUSH PRESS UNBROKEN!!!!

Again not me but I figure not everyone knows what all these movements are and pictures always help!

I felt like super woman because my wrists were just losing life and I just blazed through those 15. Only 9 of each to go and I just didn’t know if I could get those OHS completed. I wanted to cry. I knocked out 5, then 4 and saw I was at 9:40 on the time. I tried to get the bar up and move to make it under 10 minutes but I was 5 seconds too slow. Time: 10:05 I then laid (rolled around like a loonball) outside for a good 5 minutes, chugging water, hoping not to die. Although I struggled I felt accomplished. It was tough but it was a tough I needed. I always feel a little more badass when we do MetCons like this.

Weekend Wrap Up
Started off my Saturday morning at the BOOM BOX. Besides work this place gets a lot of my time! It was paint Kettle Bells day. The last time we did this was right before Easter and they were all cute and pastel but that got old fast! So this time we were doing Patriotic KBs, for the 4th and maybe even for the Olympics. I showed up mid painting, so I just stood around, watched and took pics.

Our Patriotic KBs ツ

Triston getting his paint on!

Josh showed up with some Spray Paint skills!

Travis and Kristen trying to find some other letters that we could could “make” look like b’s and o’s for BOOM!

Grant AKA Coach preppin the KBs.

Sherry getting the letters on before the painting begins.

Once everyone else started arriving we got to warming up. We had no idea what was in store for us but it ended up being a WOD I liked. 10 min AMRAP of Power Cleans (my fave)! For this AMRAP we partnered up and were told that we would do 5 cleans each and alternate for the 10 minutes. And then we were told that 5 cleans equaled 1 REP. I was partnered with another Stephanie AKA Briggs and we were set up to do 65lb Power Cleans. I said I love POWER CLEANS but I wasn’t sure if I’d love this AMRAP. My form got sloppy every now and then but for the most part I felt good. I have some bruises on my collar bone, chin and upper thighs. I look like I’ve been brawling. Thank goodness it’s only with a barbell! Briggs and I killed it with 33 reps which in turn ended up being 165 power cleans! And I still had the OLY class afterwards!!!!

OLY Class
We worked on Clean & Jerk and Front Squats after some much needed warm up on the PVC. For the Clean & Jerks we worked at 75% of our MAX. So I worked at 70lbs. We had to do 3 x 1 and take our time. Coach took some video of my first attempt and showed me where I could improve on form. I was already spent from the week’s work and from the power cleans but I took note and corrected. It helps to watch yourself and have someone show you EXACTLY where you went wrong. Most of the time I know something is off but I can’t pinpoint it.

After our Clean & Jerks we worked on getting a Heavy Front Squat. From there we would do 80% of the weight and do 3 x 3. I ended up at 125lbs for my heavy and did my sets of 3 at 100lbs. I was so glad when that last set was done. I was starving and ready to vegge out FOREVER!!! All in all good work put in and I feel stronger and better!

In other news:
We went and saw Savages which I thought was a good movie. I hate to say GREAT because then everyone will tell me how great it wasn’t. I liked it. I like those kinds of movies though. I was entertained! Got my pre-vacay pedicure and then I was out. I was passed out before 8pm! And I slept till 8am! That was a much needed sleep!

Not gonna lie, my eating wasn’t great the past two days. I’m on vacation brain. And it’s still not just crazy out of control but I know myself and I know I’m not sticking to what I know best lately. And that’s clean eating! Two Mondays in a row now that I’ve sabotaged my weekend!!!!! I know I will try to eat clean most of the time I’m out but I also know there are some things I won’t be able to pass up. We stay pretty active on vacation so besides maybe having some post eating ickiness I should be fine in the weight department, it’s just a horrible feeling that here I am trying to be the good example and I’m failing all of us :/

Also if you don’t watch baseball or keep up on sports you should check out the reaction to a GINORMOUS THUNDER/LIGHTNING crash that hit at the Rangers Ballpark last night. We were there and it was insane!

So that’s all folks. It was a busy weekend and I’m hoping this week flies by! Have a reMarkable Monday!

Workin the Weakness

By now all of you faithful readers should know that Running+Stephanie = crying, whining, resistance and suck. If you’re new then just know that it’s true. Since my journey of getting into better health started in February 2011 I went from running an 11:47 mile to 8:36 mile and I even thought I had as fast as 8:08 but I can’t find it recorded anywhere so I may have had a dream about it! So I’ll stick with my 8:36 mile that I recorded December 13, 2011. Now at the BOOM BOX our “mile” is full of one slow incline and one more immediate incline and I struggle even on the easier home stretch. In March I recorded an 8:49 mile and today I recorded an 8:42 mile. So I know I’m at least in the 8 minute timeframe still. It’s still better than I was almost 17 months ago. I really felt like I RAN better than normal on this mile but my time was only 7 seconds better. Thank goodness I ran with Melinda. I’m sure I would have slowed my roll if I was on my own! Ah well. I’m not REALLY TRYING to be a better runner per se because I’m not practicing running outside of being told to run so it’s no surprise I’m not jumping leaps and bounds in getting faster. I wish I could be one of those people who enjoyed running, I just haven’t found love for it as of yet. Still searching for it.

7/6/12 WOD

Our MetCon was another weakness of mine. BOX JUMPS. This is more of a mental weakness than a physical weakness. The prescribed box height was 30″ and for some reason that scares the shit out of me. I see the box, I know I can clear the height but it’s just not happening. So we put a 45lb bumper plate on a 24″ box making it a 28″ jump. I was hesitant at first but finally got up there. Now I was going to have to do 5 on the minute for 10 minutes. After running I wasn’t sure my legs would last but they did. I finished each set within 17-30 seconds a little scared the whole time. But at least I did it. And I know the repetition helps in the long run. I definitely feel more confident jumping on the bumper plates. Now if I could just be fearless when it comes to jumping on or even off of stuff in general!

My legs are fried after yesterday’s 280 lunges and I’m walking around all gimpish. It sucks. I’ve iced. I’ve rolled out. I’m just in pain 😦 I’ll get over it!

Tomorrow is a Community WOD at the BOOM BOX. Get a jump start on the weekend and come hang with us. It’s FREE! I also have an OLY class tomorrow which I really need so it should be a great morning. I foresee lots of ice and rest this evening! Not sure what weekend adventures we’ll have but you never know with us!

Have a good weekend. Don’t melt in the heat. Do something fun! And as always BE AWESOME!!!

I am SMOKED! And it feels like Monday again, WTH?

Actually it felt like Sunday but I have work so it then felt like a Monday! Two Mondays in one week?!?! Sigh! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We didn’t do much. Watched the parade, lounged around, cleaned house and ate sub-par. ☠ Below are a couple of parade pics. I’m not a photographer, just an iPhone pic snapper.

I knew I was in for it at the BOOM BOX. Our Skill Strength was 8 x 20 yd Flying Sprints. I know what sprints are but I’ve never heard of flying sprints. I know I don’t have wings so unless Coach had magic fairy dust to help us sprout some I was lost! Ends up you get about 10 yds to build up to FULL ON SPRINT, then you carry that on for 20 seconds. We did 8 rounds and the whole time really focused on good form and good starts. It was a good WAKE UP SHAKE UP.

7/5/12 WOD

MetCon: 15 minute AMRAP of 5 Push Press, 20 Lunges. RX weight was 85lbs and I’m pretty sure my max Push Press is 85lbs so Coach had me work at 65lbs. After looking through the ol’ blog, my push press max is 90lbs. So I’m sure I could have added more weight but I really felt like 65lbs was a good weight when you’re talking about a 15 min AMRAP! The real death blow were the 20 lunges. That’s 20 lunges total, not 20 each leg, THANK GOODNESS but it was still insane. You use your legs quite a bit in the Push Press and combo that with Lunges! You catch on FIRE fast! Literally in round 3 I thought HOW IN THE HELL AM I GOING TO GO MORE and in that thought and thinking of how sucky I ate, I sucked up my inner baby and just went. Somewhere around my 6th round the FIRE disappeared, well it didn’t really disappear but I stopped thinking about it. And I just charged through. 15 minutes is a long time!

Final: 14 rounds 2 Push Press. (Note: I really pushed here. Typically when there’s like 10 seconds left I struggle with getting the bar up and just sit there struggling with the bar till time expires but today I really broke some barriers by getting that bar up and pushing out those 2 presses!)

Bonus: Although it’s not the full lift recorded and it’s only one rep, I did have a video fairy catch part of my Clean & Jerk from last weekend’s OLY Class. You miss the whole “CLEAN” part and just see me coming out of the squat though. Nothing magical here but at least you can see me doing work and I’m not randomly blogging about made up crap 🙂

One week till my much anticipated vacation! And for some reason I’m a glutton for eating bad lately. Is it because I’m on vacation mode already? I have no idea. But I should be on lock down. Eating clean as possible until departure and even through most of vacation. Let me be clear, I haven’t thrown everything out the window and just on EAT mode. Instead I’m ruining it with little things but ruining it none the less. Big SIGH! I’m really trying for this week to just be like I’ve always been: Eat clean 90-95% of the time and not try to sabotage myself! We’ll see how it goes. I really already don’t want to be in swim attire as it is, I know I REALLY won’t want to be if I keep letting the little things ruin my eating!

Happy 2nd Monday folks. Tomorrow is FRIDAY and I’m ready for the weekend!! Be AWESOME!!!

OMG it’s MONDAY again? Forever, Every 7 days? Seriously?

Yup as always Monday is here for your regularly scheduled programming.
I have no food reports for y’all just a bunch of BOOM BOX fun!

This past Saturday was probably by far the most random and fun Community WOD we’ve had. After a proper warm up we had some TIRE fun. There have been two tires propped up near the door of the BOOM BOX for a few months and we have yet to use them, until Saturday. They finally got broke in and so did we! We had some relays of flipping and rolling the nasty ass tires and boy did we get DIRTY!!! It was fun though. After our relay races we did a partner WOD. One person held a handstand (wall assisted) while the other person ran sprints. I’m not sure of yardage but it was close to 100 yds. So we had to run a total of 8 100yd sprints. Once the teammate holding handstand could no longer hold, runner had to stop and wait for handstand teammate to take their position in running. The runner then had to get into a handstand before the new runner could start! I figured I could hold a handstand forever but my teammate looked like was ready to stop running so I told her we could switch. I wish I hadn’t! Running sucked! It was already getting warm for the day and wow sprinting/running/jogging was no bueno! My partner had a hard time catching her breath in a handstand hold so she had me stop. I thought to myself is it really that bad? Answer: YES it’s really that bad trying to catch your breath upside down!!! WE ended up finish 2nd or 3rd out of about 7 teams. Not too bad! Way to go Andrea!!!

And we weren’t done yet! It was time for some good ol’ RED LIGHT GREEN LIGHT action but with LUNGES forward and backward. We only went 50 yds but it felt like forever! Keeping in line with elementary school playground games we moved on to SIMON SAYS. Our first SIMON was a little ridiculous with the movements and probably had NEVER played the game so he got over-ruled. We started off doing air squats, pushups, burpees, sprinting and that drew the line. So Coach took over. We moved onto more simple things like jumping jacks, coordination tests, etc. I didn’t last long cause I’m a bad student! It may not sound like we’ve done a lot but all those little movements really started adding up.

We finished off the Community WOD with some ULTIMATE MED BALL! I’ve played this once before and it was a BLAST! This second time around was still fun but stupid HOT. If you haven’t guessed ULTIMATE MED BALL is like ULTIMATE FRISBEE but with a 10lb medicine ball. Our team lost but we I still had lots of fun. I hope everyone else did too. We were a HOT GRIMEY MESS to top it off 🙂 Fun times.

Post Community WOD I had an OLY class to attend, still at the BOOM BOX just back inside. If you have the opportunity to sign up for an OLY class then do so. It really helps just to continuously going over proper mechanics, doing warm ups just for the OLY lifts, etc. Although 65lbs isn’t a HEAVY SNATCH. For me it was a PR cause I have this teeny tiny HUGE MONSTROUS fear of dropping under the weight. I know I can lift more but I freak out mentally.

Snatch

So a 10lb PR was good for me not only just for the PR but for the confidence BOOST! We also worked Clean & Jerk some and I managed a 5lb PR which was another boost. I was hoping for more but it all comes down to the DROPPING under the weight. It’s easier though to drop for a clean than it is for the SNATCH. Baby Steps indeed!

After Saturday’s fun, we vegged for the next two days which is fine. It’s super hot out, vacation is right around the corner and money needs to be saved!!! Which in fact I don’t know how to do very well… but I’m trying!

This morning was a short and mean WOD. I had already looked it up last night and knew it would/should be quick but how quick was the question. First off was MAX REP PUSH UPS in a minute times 3! We partnered up so we could have a counter which is great because even though it’s not ending up being a lot of reps it’s one less thing to think about. My first round I busted out 31 push ups. These are full blown chest touch the ground at the bottom and arms lock out at the top push ups. Not your knees on the ground, half ass drop halfway and try to pump out baby push ups. We got a rest as our partner had to do their round but it wasn’t enough rest! Sure enough my second round was 22 push ups. And my 3rd round was 19, maybe 20, I didn’t confirm and I lost count. My triceps died on me. It sucked!

But the suck wasn’t over, we had 3 rounds of 15 air squats, 12 burpees and 9 pullups for the MetCon. We all know this will be short and BRUTAL but again how short would it be. I was really disappointed in my time of 7:13 but not being able to do pull ups doesn’t help. It takes time to get your feet in the bands and by the time you’ve done that you want to rest before you even get your first pull up in. I did my first 9 in a good time (I think) but my 2nd and 3rd rounds of pull ups were horrid. We’ve already killed our upper body with approximately 70 pushups for time and now we’re killing ourselves with burpees and pull ups! It was good though. You never realize how hard those simple movements can be when you are doing them as fast as POSSIBLE!!!

All in all it was a good weekend, good day at the box this morning and I got in a good 20 minutes of post WOD mobility! You can never have too much mobility work! Check out http://www.mobilitywod.com/ for a plethora of videos in regards to mobility.

Have a less than Manic Monday. Enjoy your day. Hip Hip Hooray for a 4 day week even though my holiday falls on WEDNESDAY! SHEESH! Thanks 4th of July for falling on a Wednesday 🙂

Be AWESOME.

Friday – You’re my BEST FRIEND

I love Fridays. Unless you work weekends I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t like/love Fridays. This Friday however I was greeted at the BOOM BOX with SKIN THE CAT….?!?!? really, what the hell is that and with 100 BURPEES for time. I was already trying to sleep in this morning by sleeping through SNOOZE and now I have this insanity to do.

Ends up SKIN THE CAT isn’t so terrifying but something I am not able to do as of yet. It looks so simple but hell if I can do it. Below is a video of what it should look like.

I even hung out after class to attempt this movement more but it just wasn’t happening!

6/22/12 WOD

MetCon: 100 Burpees for time!
Ya ya ya…burpees AGAIN. Not my favorite but I’ve learned that they will always be there and I should just freakin get through them. I started off with a slow pace knowing that I had to do 100 and I didn’t want to burn out and really struggle with the last 50. I thought I even had a decent time of 8:43. I was feeling pretty good UNTIL the 6am class blew me out of the water! It’s good to have goals or ideas of what should be expected. 5am was just hoping to finish with no time in mind. 6am waltzes in and just kills it. I know it’s not a super big deal but sometimes it gets to me. If I had a goal time to shoot for would I be better? NO IDEA cause I am in the first round of the day! I can’t complain though because 5am is the only time I can really go so at least I’m putting in work. Sorry for the little rant, just feeling a little poor poor petrie today! Hahaha.

Moving on!
No baseball, no workouts, no plans! What a weekend this will be! Unless we just turn into couch potatoes and do nothing which won’t be very good. I have a house that needs some serious cleaning but I’d rather be outside PLAYING! So first thing tomorrow I think we’ll be hitting up the Arlington Farmer’s Market. I’ve never been because we always have something going on when it’s open. And I want to get there early before they sell everything and before it gets MELT YOUR FACE OFF HOT. This time I will take pictures because our last adventure to Homestead Farms was a fail in the pic taking dept. If I don’t get pics, blame Ernie, not me!

It’s supposed to be in the 100’s already for all of next week! It just barely officially turned summer and the TEXAS HEAT is here!

Hope y’all have a FAB WEEKEND! Eat Clean, Play outside!