Some thoughts, and Grace

To my peeps -- thank you for your encouraging and ass-kicking comments.

The reason I keep bringing up gaining weight is because those 5-7 pounds are the difference between easy pullups and hard pullups. Obviously, easy is the preferred variety. :)

What you all reminded me is that I have the strength, I'm just not using it properly. What I need to focus on is improving my kipping skills so that I'm more effectively moving whatever my body weight is up and over the bar. That skill improvement will serve  me for a lot longer than just telling myself that pullups will get better once I get my food choices dialed in and I lose that 5-7 pounds of body fat.

THANK YOU.

(Side note: I just cannot go back to the using the band. Not happening. I know this problem is skill-based / MENTAL, so I will not coddle my bad attitude with a crutch like that. Not happening. And it's not ego, either -- if I truly thought I gained that much weight, or lost that much strength, I would go back to the band. But I haven't. I have just lost my confidence in myself, and the only way back to a good place with confidence is for me to do what scares me.)

Feeling like total ass is also teaching me a lesson about food choices.

I think this is probably the way I felt when I first started CrossFit -- no wonder I wanted to just quit and felt so defeated! This crap food is dragging me down, it's making my body store fat, it's making me depressed and tired, and it's absolutely killing my performance in the gym.

So, really, does the "enjoyment" of eating something like ice cream really balance out all those negatives?

We all know the answer to that question. It's NO.

Yet again Paleo wins because of how it makes us feel and perform -- those two benefits go so much deeper than a number on the scale or how our bodies look. It's not me depriving myself or playing head games with myself -- it's just a conscious decision to fuel my body in a way that improves how I feel doing the things I love.

But it's a familiar cycle... I feel bad emotionally, so I eat crap (or in the past smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol) so I will feel bad physically. The food binges that have taken place during April have been off the fucking charts people. Just incredibly bad.

But starting today I can look ahead and begin anew with treating my body the way it deserves to be treated. Treating myself the way I deserve to be treated.

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Today's benchmark WOD was "Grace". It's been bugging me that I only had a time for this WOD at 85#, so I was very happy to try it again at 95#. Most published times for female athletes are at 95, so now I'll know for sure how I stack up. (I know, I should compete against myself, etc etc etc, but I can't help it :-p)

"Grace"
30 clean & jerk (135/95) for time.

Results: 4:51

I am annoyed to report that I was not totally ecstatic after finishing this WOD. I felt like I could've gone faster. And I didn't beat my old time, even though I did do 10 pounds more today -- 85# took 4:45.

I used my iPod to video myself, and I am bummed to report that upon review I jacked up the count, and only did 29 reps. ARGH! I can't fucking count when I'm doing these WODs... I knew I was starting to screw up the count, so I handed off to a spectator, but it was already too late. I told her I was just finished with 12, when I had really only done 11. Ack.

The video also showed me that my knees were caving in on some of my cleans (ew!) and that I had totally crappy push jerks near the end. I was basically busting out a push press instead of locking out while dropping under so I could just stand the weight up.

But honestly, today was a good day in the gym. After Grace was over, I worked on my kipping swing and I was able to kip up to the bar. Whatever was going on yesterday, the best way to get over it is to just get back to practicing my pullups daily, like I used to.

Time to shower up and get out of the house. I'm going to wear my black or brown dress to run errands cause it's too damn hot for clothes (high 90's) and my sweat won't show as much. :-D

LAME-O

My performance on tonight's WOD was just freaking L-A-M-E.

I got done with lifeguard class, showered and drove over to the box right away, since yesterday I skipped the WOD after going home after class. But once I was there, I still didn't want to be there...

As a result, I totally took it easier on myself that I should have, broke up sets into smaller sets than I should have, rested more than I should have. Booooooo.

I guess the excuse is, "oh, you just spent 2 hours in the pool." But whatever. What is the point of showing up, if you're not really SHOWING UP?

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"Barbara"
5 rounds for time:
20 pullups
30 pushups
40 situps
50 squats

Results:  47:05

Despite a crappy effort, I still finished as Rx'd, and as a result I can say I completed another benchmark WOD as prescribed (not sure why I left this one off my 1Q10 goal list?). That is the redeeming element of today.

Annie, redux

Took another shot at Annie today. It made me cry. F***.

"Annie"

For time. 50-40-30-20-10
doubleunders
situps

Results: 21:05, Rx'd

I definitely f-bombed a few times and threw my jump rope down a few times as well.

However, in being forced to do so many DU's, I think I had a little bit of a technique breakthrough. We'll see if I can go further with that on a day when I'm calmer...

Hip extensions galore

Another great WOD at CrossFit KoP.

5 Rounds for time of:

• 500M Row
• Barbell Thrusters, 15 reps (95#/65#)

Results: 23:58 Rx

Had some great motivation from the coaches, and from Steph, whose blog I've been reading for a few months now. She's just as awesome in person as she sounds in her writing. :) Now that I've sent her the link to this blog, I hope that motivates me to write more about the emotional / mental side to CrossFit.

I'm still hitting my wall where I can't bring myself to do oly lifts while I'm extremely out of breath... KB swings, situps, running and some other simple movement I'm cool with just pushing pushing pushing, but with the more complex movements with the barbell I need a bunch of time to breath, prep, think, stall. This is crap, though, because how can I get my intensity up if I don't just push through it? Something to keep thinking about and working on...

One thing that I love about CFKoP is how people call you on standing over the bar -- which I do a lot. When they see you leaning over and just holding the bar, breathing heavy, they get in your face and tell you to grab that thing and MOVE IT. Steph did a "3-2-1-UP!" countdown, and I've had another coach there do that same thing. Definitely something to add to my coaching arsenal once I complete the Level I cert in March.

I'm pumped that Husbeetle got some coaching on his squats. He needed to go wider in his stance, and point his feet out more to get his hips and knees in line. He did the thrusters Rx'd with 95#, and only needed a few corrections. His time was 24:57, and he did a 10 thruster set on his first round. As usual, I'm super proud. :-D

Hoping to be back in KoP at 9am tomorrow. :)

Man makers

Was kind of a boring class this morning. My normal 8:30am workout buddy comes in the afternoon on Wednesdays, and I was the only one there. Blah. Oh well, at least I got my workout done for today. :)

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WOD

3 rounds for time:

• 400m run
• 10 DB man-makers (35lbs/25)
• 20 sit ups

Results: 27:14, as Rx'd

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See video demonstrating man-makers below. They are kind of a burpee variant. This week is really making me see that I need to make pushup work more of a priority -- that is really holding me back from good times on some workouts.

And OMG my 3rd run was soooooo sloooooow. Holy cow. This lady needs to do some major work on her cardiovascular fitness. It's really lame that I can power clean 125, but I'm slogging along so badly on the fast-paced workouts.

Throwing heavy weights around

Today's WOD was a good one. I'm overall very proud of what I accomplished. I can't believe how strong I am getting! I love it!

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WOD:

power clean 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Metcon*: 4 rounds

• 15 box jumps 20"
• 15 kettle swings (24kg / 16)

Results:

Power clean: 85 - 95 - 105 - 115 - 120 - 125 - 130 (attempted, but couldn't get it up)

WOOT! I felt like I was *truly* a CrossFitter today as I loaded 5 more pounds and 5 more pounds. I even garnered a little cheering section of a couple guys from the 4pm class. Good times in the gym. :)

Metcon: 7:42 Rx

I did awesome among the women who performed this as prescribed. I think I could've manned-up and done all sets of the swings unbroken. I broke the first set into 10 and 5. But all in all, great!

*Metcon = metabolic conditioning; in other words, a part of the workout specifically meant to be very high intensity

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While I'm feeling stronger and faster in the gym, I'm avoiding weighing myself. I just don't want to know...

Sometimes I get so discouraged when I see the scale, and see that the number hasn't moved. That disappointment about my weight diminishes my pride in the athletic improvements that I've made in the gym.

It's like my brain says: "Well, it's all well and good you rowed 2k in under 9 minutes, but you still don't fit back in your jeans, nee-ner-nee-ner-neeeeee-neeeeerrrrrr."

I really don't want to perpetuate an attitude that all that matters is my weight, or an attitude that getting stronger and fitter is not as important as being thin.

But at the same time, one way to see if I'm doing the right thing with my diet is to check in with the scale.

Steamy Friday afternoon

Ick, it got hot today!

I worked out at 4pm because this AM I was attending Jane Wayne Day on base. I got a little warm-up there -- we did a modified version of the CFT. That stands for "combat fitness test". We did the "movement under fire" portion of the test. Scroll to the bottom of this article for a graphic. Husband wasn't there, he was in charge of a different station, so I drug and fireman carried a Marine who was about the same weight as him, 170lbs. Damn that 20 yard drag was freaking hard! Fireman carry was much easier in comparison. I was surprised at how well I could do that, my legs are definitely getting strong. :)

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WOD:

4 rounds for time:

• 21 sumo deadlift high pull (95lbs/65)
• 15 hang cleans (95lbs/65)
• 9 cal row

Results: 21:03 RX weights

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I'm not a big fan of rowing for calories. It's just weird. Maybe if the calories were shown in decimal increments, but they just go 1-2-3... Kind of annoying to see 8 and be waiting for it to suddenly flip to 9. I felt like it distracted me from just rowing well.

I probably could've done bigger sets, but after the first round, I pretty much stuck with sets of 5 for the hang cleans and the SDHPs. I was really dreading doing 65lb SDHPs before the workout started, but it wasn't that bad. Maybe it wasn't that bad because I only did 5 at a time? I dunno. :)

I do have to say that I hate that no matter what, after almost every workout, I'm still left feeling a little disappointed in myself. But my time was really good for RX weight, I did great. I need to start focusing on feeling satisfied with my performance. Being a perfectionist has some good results, but mostly it just makes you feel guilty or not good enough.