Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bring a Friend Day

This morning was the first bring a friend day at ITF Downtown, and I brought a good friend of mine.  I would say she is my BFF at this point, but we have not mutually confirmed this....anyway
She did awesome!  Soooo much better than I would have done if the situations had been reversed!
We had to do a partner WOD that consisted of a 12 minute amrap of 20 box jumps, 200m run carrying a med ball overhead, 20 pushups, and 2 passes of lunges carrying the med ball overhead as well.  We could split it up any way we wanted to as long as we completed each part before moving on to the next.  We did 3 and 3/4 rounds Rx, which was at the top of the line for the all girl teams!  She totally kicked ass!  I told her that we need to compete in some CrossFit competitions......Why not?  We are a great team!
I have decided that I HATE running while carrying objects overhead, or otherwise!  There was much cursing on my part!!!!  But it was great.

More Snatch

As it is the season for the beginning of the qualifying for the CrossFit open games, Fridays we do whatever is required in that arena.  This week it was a series of 3 rounds of 30 snatches and whatever time you had left over you were supposed to do as many as you could with a crazy amount of weight! 
Since this is a relatively new, and complex movement, I exercised caution to nail form and confidence before anything else. My partner and I did 25#, followed by 30, then 35.  It was tough doing 90 reps total, but it was a good learning experience. With some things I am still establishing a frame of reference as to how I need to proceed.  This WOD showed me that  I know I could have done more weight, but like I have said, I want to be good and sure I am doing it correctly, before I start piling in the weight,  I don't want to get hurt. 
That being said, I do feel more confident with it now.  I understand it, and feel like I can do more.

SOTS is a four letter word

Sots press??? Who the hell has heard of that?
Not me, until I looked at ITF's WOD.
It is an awful fucked up thing. 
You have a barbell resting on your back, you come down to the full deep squat position, then you press that barbell overhead.  For the WOD, the Rx for women was 35#, and I'm thinking...ok, I can do that.....
So first we had to find our 5Rm.
Mine was 26#.  And all the while I know I made a face worthy of the AWODS "best wod face!" Not a good thing.....
So for the WOD we had to do three rounds of 15 sots presses, and 25 squats with the same bar we were using.
Man, my quads were dead.  Then we find out we had to do three rounds of 200m sprint and 20 tuck jumps!  Ouch!  At least I was able to hang with the guys on that one, and not feel like a total whimp!

Bam!

I am sure that people everywhere encounter this at some point.  People that seem...cliquish...?  Yeah.  There is a group of ladies that seem this way at my gym.  Maybe I am totally wrong, but that is just the vibe that I get. Good at what they are there to do, and totally unwelcoming to those of us that are new.
 Ok then.
 I realize that I may give off he wrong impression when people first encounter me, but I have been trying not to. For me, being quiet and insecure comes across as stuck up. But I have been making an effort to try to reach out to people here and there. For the most part, it has not been well-recieved. Keep trying, I guess...

The other night we had to find our 1RM max for thrusters.  To do that, you have to get in groups at a rack and take turns with the weight. Yeah, that can get akward when you feel like you are being excluded in general. I wound up getting 90# for my thruster, which I was pretty pumped about!  Next we had to do a WOD: three rounds of 10 squat clean thrusters, 150 ft one legged bear crawl, and 200 m run. 
For the amrap, the rx for women was 65# on the thrusters.  I finished rx in 11:36.  And I beat a lot of those stuck up people.  BAM! Small personal victory for me, I guess.  I don't want to feel like that about people, but if I was in their position, I would have welcomed and encouraged a new person, because I know what it is like. When you come in there out of 101 it is intimidating, scary, and you're not sure what to do in some cases. See, unlike them, I genuinely enjoy watching people grow and evolve with their skills.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Mathematically Challenged? Hell yes.

Well.  It appears that I shortchanged myself yesterday in my final testing for the transformation challenge.  We didn't have tons of time to go through everything, so time to find our max deadlift was limited.  I had a 55# bar already, so I added a set of 45's. I lifted my now 145# bar a few times.  Then I thought of adding sets of 10's until I reached my max, but didn't really have time to do that, so I said, screw it, and put on a set of 25's, thinking I had reached my goal of 185.  Hmmmm.....
55+90+50=195
Holy crap!  So I actually increased my max in 6 weeks by 30 pounds!  Hell yeah!
I don't know if my score can be changed for the contest or not.  I emailed this info to one of our coaches, so we'll see....either way, it is an even bigger victory for ME!
See, I'm one of those people who has to make score marks and write stuff down if the wod requires keeping up with lots of numbers.  I always have to record rounds.  I get so caught up in what I'm doing that it is soooooo easy for me to forget.  I have always been mathematically challenged anyway!

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Challenge is over!

Today marked the end of the Transformation Challenge at ITF.  I had really been feeling down on myself, and felt like I really hadn't made the progress that I had wanted to.  I am not used to failure.  In the beginning, I thought surely in six weeks I will be able to kick up into a handstand like all the other normal people.
Apparently I am not normal, because, every time I do it, it is a crapshoot as to what will happen.  But at least it is not for lack of strength.  Oh well.
I really thought I would make more progress with my pullups, but my arm injury halted some of that.  I am happy to say that I can now do 7 chin ups in a row, so that's good at least.
So this morning we got re-tested on all of the required perfomance elements. Here's what happened.
Baseline WOD: original score- 5 rounds, today's score-6 3/4
Pullups (using black resistance band. I should have not originally tested with this): original-21, today-24 Damn, that sucks.
Double unders in 2 minutes: original-20 (stop/start), today- 45 (continuous-alternating single, double)
Max deadlift: original- 165#, today 185#
Handstand hold (I wall-walked up): original- 0, today- 1:05
L-sit hold: original-1.7 seconds, today-10.89 seconds
400m run: original-1:28, today-1:19

Well, I don't think I am going to win any awards, but I am a stronger, better athlete!  I was pretty happy with the results for the most part.  It was cool seeing my other competitors pushing themselves and being really happy with the results.  Pretty damn cool.
Again, the kind of accomplishments you can experience in a situation like this- getting stronger, overcoming fears- spill over into other areas and make you a better person all around.
I hope to take to the streets again this weekend.  And the IT Band on my right side better stay the hell out of the way.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Fat Ass Tuesday

So it is that time of year again for Catholics.  The beginning of Lent. Last night I tried to be good.  I only had one glass of wine when we went to dinner.  I ordered greek salad and broiled greek snapper. My food was devoured in less than 10 minutes.
 I then proceeded to eat 3 or 4 of my 2 year old's chicken fingers, and then convinced my husband that we needed to order lemon ice box AND peanut butter pie!  Holy shit.  Someone almost had to carry me out of that place.  WTF?  Did I fool myself and think, "Well, Lent is coming and I'm going to be totally good, so I will just blow it tonight??" Obviously.
And as a result, I have a new theory.
PIE MAKES YOU WEAK!
This morning in the WOD, I did 5 sets of 5 over head presses with 55#, 37 pullups (largely unasssisted!), but when I began the 50 burpee box jumps/75 situps for time, my legs felt like they would not cooperate. Nobody loves box jumps, but after like the 10th one, I had to stop and stretch, because I was afraid I would have to scale!  I made it through, but I am still blaming it on the pie.....  :)
I told someone at work about what I ate last night, and she was like, " So you are human!"  Well, yeah! My weaknesses are, at times, as great as my triumphs.  If only I could cut that shit out...

I saw a quote today that I really liked:
" Obsessive is what the lazy call the dedicated."
 Hell yeah they do.