so guess i don't still have it...but i could get it...

So this past week I travelled to New Jersey and Pennsylvania to visit family.  And while I haven't been the happiest with how much of a fatty I have been, nothing quite food you can get in Jersey, so I make sure to eat things I can't get here.  Friday night we started with Spanish food at Spanish Tavern as there are no Spanish/Portugese restaurants that I know of around here.  I had paella which could be a meal for two or more, but took a bunch home and ate leftovers for the rest of the weekend.  Throughout the rest of the weekend, I also had carrot cake my grandmother made in honor of my visit (though she told me not to eat too much), half a pizza pie, belgian waffle at a diner, and egg and chese on mish mosh bagels.  Then I got to my stepsister's house, where their motto is paleo schmaleo.  I usually fill up on my pb&j fix while I am there as they always have it because of the children.  I ate my fair share of pasta, and also made smore cupcakes which were pretty good.  I did no sort of workouts aside from helping my nephew be a spider monkey, and tickle fights, but magically came back a pound lighter.

Yesterday was my rude awakening back to workouts.  I decided to head to crossfit, cause I missed it, and the wod was only strength work which I enjoy.  We did press 5 sets of one, push press 5 sets of 3s, and push jerk 5 of 5s.  I failed some on my presses, so I kept it conservative for the rest of the workout, but got to 78 on press (former pr 90), stayed at 83 for push press and jerk.  I hate sets of 5s and dropping the bar on my chest.

Last night I also went for master classes at my friend Deez' new studio.  I was excited as I don't remember the last time I have gotten to take dance classes, which is on my list of things to do in the new year.  I had the perfect well rounded line up of jazz, contemporary and hip hop and was ready to go!  I started in jazz class, and the warmup still felt good, but some strength work I struggled with.  The combination was to a ke$ha song which was super cute, and I had fun with it, though picking up choreography is hard if you haven't done it in a while.  We practiced a few times, and then while walking through (not even dancing) i took a wrong step, over extended my knee and heard a snap.  Yes a snap. gross.  I walked through the rest of the routine and class careful not to bend my knee, but somehting was not right.  I even took the next class which was more of a struggle as the warm up was largely technique based, which requires a straight leg and pointed toes.  I also walked through across the floor and tore skin on my foot (I may be too old for this), and some of the routine, which in hindsight was most likely a huge mistake.  I sat out the hip hop class, hung out for a bit and then drove the 2 hours home.  I got back to my house and found that my leg stiffened during the drive. 

I don't know what this is, but it is ill-timed.  I am hoping that a couple days of rice will help it out, and it will be nothing.  I have heard that people injure knees all the time and keep walking on them unknowingly injured.  This hurts bad, but in my 27 years this is my first structural inury.  I am hoping for nothing, as I have goals and dreams for the new year, and cute heels to wear, and pies to bake....

it's been a while...again...

So part of my lack of posting is not having worked out, the other part is laziness.  Saturday I competed...or shall I say participated in the Carolina Fitness Challenge...  I really enjoyed cheering for all my friends, my performance was another story.  The first wod, 12 min amrap 12 burpees, 12 kb snatches (35#) farmers walk 100 m with kb in each hand.  Looking at this it seemed manageable, burpees I thought with the competitive mindset would go by okay, I am medium with kb snatches, and farmers walk is what it is.  When it came to game time it was super cold...like super ridiculously cold, which I don't enjoy, so I bundled up.  This seemed to work to my detriment.  John and I have decided that my hands freaked out about being so cold while the rest of me was so so warm... and I could not push through, and straight up lost that event. :(  The next event was a 3rm front squat, which is right in my wheelhouse.  Front squat is one of my favorite lifts but this was not one of my better days.  After being in the cold for so long, it was a challenge to warm up.  I procrastinated a bit, and then went to do some warm up sets, but the bars were all taken.  When I did find one available, the plates to make my warm up weights were not available, people didn't want to move out of my way, I was overwhelmed.  I knew I needed to make up a bunch of ground, but I don't do that great with squats under pressure and that is all I could think of.   I decided to start at a lower weight, than originally planned (135 instead of 145).  135 was easy peasy.  A cfdurham member was volunteering and said that looked too easy, and I should go up by 20.  That seemed reasonable.  First rep I thought was a bit too high, so second rep I got lower...and got a no rep. I stood up, cursed a bit, and got defeated, and couldn't imagine doing two more reps... Said cfdurham member came up to me after and said that I was cheated, and I felt he was speaking the truth as he is not easily riled, and we are not best best friends, and looking at photos after I noticed someone seemingly staring at my crotch...and it was the head judge. My day ended there, which I was not the happiest with, but was okay with my performance kinda but not really. 

The next day as I didn't do too much exercising I went to workout for a hopper deck workout.  I made a disclaimer that I would not run or do anything outside, but it was in my favor that nothing pulled went outside.  We did in fact pull a card that was air squats and muscle ups.  Stew made the mistake of telling us that it was muscle ups, as then an argument ensued, he then changed it to chest to bar pull ups.  I used a blue band, and trucked a long, took me twice as long as my fast friend Paul, but I finished, yet couldn't walk for then next couple days without the threat of leg lock. 

We traveled for the next couple days so missed workouts.  Today I came back to one of my least favorites, filthy fifty.  I had a plan to finish within 30 minutes, with 2 minutes for the first four exercises, 3 minutes for the long exercises.  That plan didn't work after the first exercise but I still had high hopes.  When I got to kb swings and couldn't do more than 10 unbroken, and started freaking out my breathing, I just hoped to finish.  I did just shy of an hour, mopped myself up, and got a fat burger with fries for lunch. 

My diet has been out of control lately, as I just eat whatever I want.  I will be starting the whole 30 plan on December 29, and until then, or at least this weekend, I am carbing out.  I am traveling to the home of glorious bagels and pizza, and plan to take advantage, but then I need to get it together.  Eating poorly is hindering my athletic performance, and everything else, I don't sleep that great, my joints don't move as well, I don't heal as fast, and I am fatter than I need to be.  I have a closet full of wonderful clothes to wear, some brand new, I just need to get into them.  I am bringing a jump rope, but am not making any promises that things will get done.

that trick helen

Friday I woke up feeling like I got run over.   After my yoga/workout back to back on Thursday I went home and then went to the endurance wod.  It was 3 rounds run 1000 m rest two minutes.  I went hoping to row, but there were many of us and I didn't feel like throwing bows.  It was a bit chilly out, and I am not really a fan of running in the cold.  Allison didn't keep track of our times as there were many of us and she timed rest for each one of us, but she told me my last round was completed in 6:46, which is slow, so hopefully my first two rounds were much quicker. :/  

Friday I started my day with yoga again, hoping to do back to back workouts.  I however forgot a towel, and didn't think it fair to my fellow crossfitters to go as sweaty as I get in yoga, so I just went home.  I took a glorious glorious nap, and then was considering skipping as the wod was my nemesis, helen.  John however called and wanted to go workout.  He had to take care of some work stuff and we ended up tardy to class, so I wasn't as warmed up as is ideal, we started with clean and jerks which I was not feeling, and therefore only worked up to 80#.  Then came the wod, we did it in two heats as to not fight over pull up stations, and of course I opted for second heat.  My run is slower than most, so I ended up behind, but still managed to eek out a pr as my last two helens were ridiculously slow.  I was happy that I got all the kettlebell swings unbroken, but my pull ups were broken in to many sets.  It was not quite the sub 15 minutes i was going for, but a pr is a pr...at 17:01. 

I took Saturday and Sunday off  as the wods were outside, and we did things that I wanted to look presentable for (so Bikram was out as it does my hair no good.  Today we worked on back squats for strength, with 3 sets of 5.  5s for me are the worst.  I worked up to 125, for depth's sake, and maybe could have gone higher, but the last set my shoulders couldnt' make the best shelf so I stopped.  The wod was also a leg burner, 3 rounds of 25 box jumps and 25 overhead lunges with 35.  It was rough...but I did it. 

Now I am off to yoga!

Car pushes... for time.

I had a fitnessy morning today.  I woke up, hydrated and then headed off to bikram.  I have decided that mornings work better for me, because I don't have to fight off hunger to make myself not eat, and it seems to be less humid in the room.  I managed to make it through all poses today in some form or fashion (YAY ME!)  The one I struggle with, and tend just to sit out, (fixed firm pose) involves moving your legs and knees out of the way to make way for the hips (for me that is wide) and then laying back on the ground.  The sitting part alone hurts bad, and then forget trying to lay back.  The instructor came over to help me modify, and my pose is just sitting, with my knees out way wide and I am okay with that.  On the other hand my standing bow was pretty excellent in my opinion, I got my leg over my head, just don't think you are supposed to cheat the hips like I do.  I showered quickly then headed over to crossfit.  

We started out chatting about gyms and jobs etc.  Dave and I both happened to look out the window, and saw what I thought was a car pulling out.  Dave yells "oh s#*@*!" and runs outside.  It takes a couple seconds for me to realize what I saw, and I yell "My CAR!" and run out to find Dave holding the runaway car.  We take over for him, and he runs inside to find the owner.  It was one of the more eventful days, and goes to show that there is something to this preparing for the unknowable. 

Today we worked on snatches.  I felt really really warm today which felt good, but I wasn't quite able to get back to my pr.  I worked up and failed on 83 kinda.  I was able to power snatch it (not sure how I ended up in that position) and then overhead squat it, but couldn't get it together.   The wod was 21-15-9 dumbbell thrusters and burpees.  I used 15 instead of the prescribed 25 just cause.  It still took me a while. 

i should be working out right?

I started at Crossfit Durham in the early days.  There were often times in the beginning when I was the only one in class, due to my unpopular class time preference and the fact that there weren't that many of us to begin with.  Now that our community has grown so much, our classes are usually pretty big.  Monday's class we had the rare luxury of a tiny class, as there were three of us.  So Coach Ashley was able to give everyone extra special attention in class, (which she is good at even with a big class).  Our skill work was overhead squats.  I was excited to work on these, as last week I snatched my previous overhead squat max. 
Ashley told me to work especially on getting to full depth, and we worked on getting the bar position right.  With feeling uncomfortable I worked up to 65 pounds...  We then did the snatch test, 10 minutes one armed kettlebell snatches.  I tried this during one open gym and got 75 so I was working for 100, and fell shy at only 77, as form on my right hand was poor. 

Tuesday we did a ridiculous warm up, then worked on weighted pullups.  For me that meant working on dead hangs.  I used a skinny band for a lot, and then managed maybe 3 unassisted.  Jarrod had a great idea to put the little weights in his pockets to get one, I look forward to being able to add any weight at all....  The wod was then a 15 minute amrap of 7 deadlifts and 7 box jumps.  I tried a dead at 95 pounds and felt pain shoot down my leg, so Ashley had me sub back squats, and amazingly picked the perfect weight to keep me moving.  I used 75 pounds and ended up with 11 rounds and 7 back squats.  Today I woke up with sore legs, which I don't remember feeling in a while.  I gave myself a rest day because I couldn't get it together, but will do day one of our 30 day handstand pushup challenge.  :)