Crossfit and personal journey into healthy living

Archive for the ‘Crossfit’ Category

Our Crossfit Trainer Rocks

One of the best things about Crossfit is that every day it is something different.  Our trainer comes up with some of the best WoD’s.  I know that if he if tells us that he is using us as guinea pigs for a WoD it is going to be a fun one.

Those are usually Will’s favorite ones as well, because you are constantly moving, doing something different, and they are also kind of hilarious, too.  Bear crawls and broad jumps often turn into bear crawls and bunny hops which are pretty funny after a certain point.

Our trainer came up with one WoD where everything we did was a surprise.  Basically, he had us get the equipment out for a variety of exercises, but did not tell us how many of what we were doing, or in what order.  He would let us know right after we completed one exercise what the next was.  It was a fun WoD and one where we did a million different exercises.  He said that normally WoD’s focus on a specific muscle group but that occasionally it was good to do a variety.

Another one we did was 15 dips, bear crawled across the indoor field at our gym, then we did 15 hand stand push-ups (I kneel on a box for these to prevent breaking my neck or taking twenty years to complete), long jumped back across the field, did 15 push presses, bear crawled across the field for 75 sit-ups and then long jumped back for 150 jump ropes.  Round two was the same only with 10 dips, hand stand pushups, and push presses, 50 sit-ups, and 100 jump ropes.

There was one he had us do that was really cool.  Again, set up on the field, instead of going across, he had us go around.  At each quarter of the field, we would do a different exercise.  To get to that part of the field we would bear crawl, do walking lunges, run, or something else pretty fun.  The “station” type of work out is usually interesting enough that you don’t realize how much it is kicking your butt.

Yesterday we did a partner Fran.  Fran is named workout, which is usually a sign that it will be difficult.  You do 21-15-9 reps of thrusters and then pull-ups.  For the partner WoD of this, I did 21 thrusters, waited while Will did his, then I did 21 pullups, waited while Will did his, then I did 15 thrusters … you get the idea.  It was very fun and our trainer said that we probably worked harder this way as we knew we were getting a rest in between.  I know that I worked harder because I knew I would have a bit of a breather in between reps.  You can push yourself pretty far if you know in advance that you will get time to catch your breath.  Well, almost catch your breath.

I think part of the reason Crossfit works so well for Will and I is that we never get bored.  Sometimes I look at the board and see what we are expected to do and think, “Seriously?!” but we always manage to do it, so that incredulity has worn off for the most part.  Partly because when I look at the board and think that it is going to be a simple one, it tends to be a real challenge.  I have no real gauge on these things, yet.  Fran looks easy as it is only two movements 21-15-9, but your arms start to noodle, and if you do them quickly, which is part of the point, you can really end up feeling it.  With Crossfit, if it looks easy, it often isn’t.

Category:

Crossfit

Stupid Feet

Today, doing very short sprints in Crossfit, I fell.  I don’t know exactly what happened – I have stupid feet.  I don’t know if my foot landed wrong, or if it twisted or skidded, but something happened that pitched me forward.  I tried to just run faster – I figured if I could just get my feet out in front of me faster than I was falling that maybe balance would return.  Alas, it was not to be.  I fell forward, somehow turned it into a roll and got up and limped the rest of the way back.

Since the workouts are timed, I was pretty happy that the roll was more or less forward moving.

Of course both our trainer, Scott, and Will were facing me during this time so they got to watch me fall.  Good times.  I don’t know how Will manages to be looking right at me every time I do something stupid or self injurious at Crossfit, but God love him, he does.  Scott asked if I was ok and I was mainly embarrassed – who trips over AIR for God’s sake?  I did assure Scott that I was ok.  Nothing sprained or broken or twisted.  He asked what happened, and I think my right foot landed wrong – like all of the weight on the outside rim of the foot which caused the ankle to buckle and topple me forward.  However, this is just a guess based on what was hurting immediately after the event, because what I was mostly aware of was “Oh, crap, I am going to fall on my face!” Which is not really helpful to analyzing what went wrong in the first place.

Currently, the top of my right foot hurts, which makes no sense to me, but whatever.  Stupid feet.

One of the things I plan on doing when I get some extra money is buy some different shoes.  I think I want to transition to the types of shoes that are more like having bare feet, as everything I’ve read says that this is beneficial and helpful.  Scott recommended this to Will because of Will’s back issues and said you can basically just get a pair of converse or “skate shoes” as most of the brand name shoes are super expensive.  A lot of people like vibrams, but I hate having anything in between my toes so that rules them out.  I don’t know if different shoes will prevent me from tripping over my own feet in the future – I kind of doubt that it will help in that regard, but they should be helpful in other areas.

In good news, I am getting better at double unders.  Today our warmup consisted of 30 double unders, or double under attempts.  Scott has me doing single, single, double under as this seems to help me get into the rhythm of the thing.  This morning the first set I did without stopping.  I also think I did more than 30, because I was so amazed that I was doing it without tripping on the rope that I lost count again and had to start the count over after several had gone by.

Will, who is not as good at jumping rope as I am, was less pleased for me as I finished while he was still working on his third or fourth one.

“Meanwhile, this is going to take me forever, so are you going to just stand there and talk to me and distract me from getting this done?” he said.

“Yes, that is exactly what I am going to do and you’ll never finish the warm up, bwahahaha.”

Luckily, he has a good sense of humor.  I really think that one of the things that is most beneficial in a spouse is someone who can laugh when tense or irritated instead of just getting more irritated or tense.

Once we were done with the workout, he blamed the stupid feet/falling incident on a lack of sleep the night before.  I went to bed on time, but I slept very poorly for no real reason that I can see.  Maybe he is right.

Other than that, nothing earth shattering to report.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful day!

Category:

Crossfit

Crossfit for Hope Results

A few weekends ago I participated in Crossfit for Hope at Crossfit Simple.  This was a fundraiser for St. Jude’s Research Hospital and I was happy to support a good cause.

I was not happy to be working out in a gym full of people as I still have a lot of garbage in my head that is tough to shut up.  The Naysayer has yet to be completely quelled and sometimes that bitch is loud and annoying.  Also, she is not particularly nice to me.

Will and I work out with a personal trainer three times a week.  While there are other people working out at the same time, and occasionally we do the same WoD’s, for the most part it is just Will and I with our trainer doing various things.  Crossfit is not glamorous.  I sweat, I strain, I sometimes work to not pass out or throw up.  I know when I leave there I feel good, but I usually do not look particularly good as my hair is falling out of my ponytail, I’ve sweat through my clothes, etc.  With Will, I do not feel shame or embarrassment when I am sweating and making horrible faces – this man thinks I am completely irresistible whether I am dressed to the nines or if I am in stained sweats with my hair askew.  There have been times when I’ve been sick with the flu, just crawled out of bed, and look awful where he hugs me and tells me how pretty I am.  I am always baffled, but at least this insanity of his works in my favor.

With our trainer, I am not self conscious about that kind of thing any more because after working out with him for over a year I just kind of got over it.  It helps that he has a way of making you feel comfortable, is really encouraging, and cares about proper form so we do not injure ourselves.  I doubt he cares about my ill-fitting clothes or sweaty face.

With all of that said, I am very aware that even after a year of working out there and with 50 pounds lost, I am probably the heaviest person at the gym, or at least the heaviest person I have seen working out there on a regular basis.  Over the past year, I have seen a couple of people who are heavier than I am from time to time, and I am always so happy to see them – I want to hug them and tell them that Crossfit will change their life and bring them joy, but by the time I get over my social anxiety/awkwardness, they seem to have disappeared.  Also, when you are working out, the last thing you want is a crazy Crossfit Evangelist hugging you and preaching to you about how great it is.  Usually you just want water and to be left alone.  I always hope that they are there, working out during times I am not at the gym, but I worry that they leave feeling inadequate, or because it is too hard, or some other reason that time would help them overcome.

The men and women at Crossfit are all at different levels of fitness, but I find them all so inspiring because they do such amazing things – the sense of inspiration I feel looking at all of these incredibly fit people can easily be turned to intimidation if you flip that lens around.  I keep in mind that I am a work in progress and that I am leaps and bounds ahead of where I was a year ago.  I try to focus on comparing myself to me and not others, as we all have different backgrounds, skills, strengths, and ability but sometimes I do feel that insecurity, that bite of being fat.

Which was pretty much what I was feeling prior to the Crossfit for Hope workout.  When I am nervous I tend to be grumpy.  Poor Will had to deal with me yelling at traffic, being grumpy and nervous, and basically being unpleasant all morning prior to the workout.  I have little experience with performance anxiety, as I can pretty much be told of a topic 5 minutes before I have to go speak about it in front of a large audience and be fine.  I do not embarrass very easily, but I have never really been in athletics or the athletic realm.  I played soccer as a child, but quit around the age of 12.  I had definite performance anxiety the morning of the workout.

And it was crowded.  Unbelievably crowded.  I wanted to back out and go home, but one of Will’s friends from high school had pledged to donate $1 a rep for each rep I completed and another friend of mine was donating a per rep amount, too.  I really believe in and support the work of St. Jude’s so I honestly felt that I couldn’t back out primarily because of that, but also because of my own self respect.  Not doing something because I feel momentary insecurity is simply not acceptable as an excuse.  It is a cop out.  It is being a wuss.  I am not going to be a wuss because I want to like me and I want to respect me.  If I’d left due to irrational anxiety, I wouldn’t have liked or respected me.

The scaled workout was one minute of each of the following: Burpees, 35 pound power snatch, 12″ box jump, 35 pound thrusters, and jumping pull ups.  Someone follows you and counts your reps for each exercise and writes it down.  After one round, you get to rest for a minute then you do the circuit again, rest a minute, and complete a third circuit.  So altogether it is a 17 minute workout, and the first group to go was very crowded.  It was organized chaos.

One of the things I love about Crossfit is that you cannot maintain a feeling of self consciousness when you are actually working out.  The workouts are usually too intense for those self-absorbed, petty thoughts to hold sway.  Heck, the main reason you have someone following you around counting your reps for you is it is hard to even count when you are going all out with these kinds of exercises.  The first round I still tried to count.  I wanted to make sure I averaged a certain number of reps so that my donation pledges for St. Jude’s were good, but after the first round I gave up.  I simply couldn’t keep track of what I was doing.

The self-consciousness that had plagued me all morning was gone by the third rep – and honestly, it is ridiculous that I was even worried about it.  Everyone is so focused on what they are doing, that no one is really thinking about what you are doing, except for trying not to get in each other’s way.  When they do notice what you are doing they shout encouragement and praise at you, or they help you get your form right to prevent injury.  It is pretty easy to feel silly about my fears going into this because this gym is always so supportive, so encouraging, and so very nonjudgmental that it is a bit insane that I was worried at all.

Round scores:

1st – 11 burpees, 14 power snatches, 13 box jumps, 9 thrusters, 7 pullups

2nd – 12 burpess, 17 power snatches, 16 box jumps, 9 thrusters, 10 pullups

3rd – 11 burpees, 12 power snatches, 18 box jumps, 18 thrusters, 11 pullups

The third round I doubled the amount of thrusters I completed.  From a different spot in the gym, our trainer saw me staring blankly at the barbell in the third round and shouted encouragement at me.  I honestly do not remember what he said, and he could have even been talking to someone else and it just looked as if he was looking at me, but it helped me go all out on that round.  Each round I did I got higher scores, and it usually goes the other way around.

My overall score was 187 and for those who did the #2 scaled workout, I was in overall 4th place (at least the last time I checked the scores) which made me happy.  I also beat Will by 30 reps as he got 157 overall.

We stayed for the next two rounds of workouts.  I wanted to see how everyone else did, and during the second round I was counting for a friend of mine going through the workout.  It was awesome to see so many people go through something I just went through.  To see how different people attacked the workout.  It really made me feel a kinship with everyone there, because we all worked hard, we all got tired, we all sweat, we all made faces showing strain, we all did it together.  I also enjoyed watching some of the trainers and the Crossfitters who are just in great shape work out because it is always so inspiring.

Really, once I can get The Naysayer to shut up, things go along just splendidly.  Luckily, she can’t catch her breath to talk when I am working out.

Category:

Crossfit

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My Brain Lies to Me

I have had this week working out where I see the WoD and I think, “Nope.  I do not think I can do that.”

I want to quit or go home.  I want to just say, “Hey, I am not feeling up to this today.”  Anything to get out of it because my brain keeps telling me that I cannot do it.

But I do it anyway.  I figure that our trainer goes to the the trouble to be there, come up with something for us to do, listens to us bitch and in addition I go to the trouble to go to bed early, eat well, and push Will out of bed and out of the door in the morning, therefore I should at least try it. It has been really a challenge to not just say that I feel sick and want to sit this one out.  I do feel slightly sick this week, but considering that my brain lies and I have yet to actually BE sick, I think it might be mental not physical.

Self respect won’t allow me to simply not try it.  And lately, self respect has been this huge motivating factor.  If I plead off will I be happy with myself?  No.  My thoughts this week have been that I should at least try the WoD and if I feel like I am going to die, THEN I can see about pleading off.

Thing is, I haven’t died yet.  All week long I look at the WoD on the board, I struggle through the normally not too bad warm ups, and by the time I hit the WoD I am doing ok. I am too in it to think about quitting.  After you’ve done a round or two quitting seems like such a stupid idea because you’ve already done part of it, of course you can do the rest of it.

Also, I like to complete WoD’s faster than Will.  I am not keeping score or anything, but it is wonderful to win, even if it is by 4 seconds or 1 rep or whatever.  Today he beat me by 4 seconds and I was killing myself trying to row faster than him.  Stupid long arms on that man…

Point is that my brain is a liar.  My brain is lazy and wants to go back to bed.    My brain is kind of a wang, truth be told.  There is a part of it that really doesn’t want to achieve change.  But screw that part of my brain.  Every time I finish a WoD that I thought would be too hard, that I thought might kill me, or that I looked at and thought that there simply was no way I could do it, I feel fantastic.  Because I kicked the WoD’s butt and my own in the process.  Because something that looks easy any one could accomplish – it is accomplishing the things that look hard or impossible that really matter.

My sister, who is always timely with messages whether she knows it or not sent me the following Nike ad about running:

Reincarnate Nike Free Ad

Basically, the message of this ad is to (of course, buy Nike) but leave your old self behind.

That is what I felt like I have been doing all week.  My old self knows that it is getting left in my dust so it spent this week trying to convince me that I couldn’t do it.

Screw you, old self.  New self can do this shit.

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Crossfit

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Crossfit Warping – Running is Fun

We’ve been working more on running both at Crossfit and on my own.  Since I told our trainer that I wanted to do the Spartan Sprint in 2013, he’s been giving me homework.  The first bit was to hike a creekbed, the second was to jog.  I am jogging around three times a week now, unless the Crossfit WoD is particularly heavy on running.  I ran 6 laps (ok ATTEMPTED to run 6 laps, it was more like 5 with some walking) on Monday so I didn’t run on Tuesday but did go for a lengthy walk.

Yesterday, prior to going to yoga I ran in my neighborhood.  After yoga, Will kidnapped me to help him deliver papers on campus.  We got this done pretty quickly as we divided the work up between the two of us.  For several of my legs of delivery I just ran them.  Because it seemed like fun.

I never thought just running somewhere would be fun.  It was though.

This is how Crossfit warps your mind.

It is not that I liked running, I liked that I could run.  I am by no means a distance runner and by the standards of people who run for long periods of time or for long distances, I am still in the land of the wussy.  But for me, compared to MY all time best running ever, well, that was yesterday.  I am going to be running again this weekend, and I am betting that the next time I run will be my all time best running ever.

Improvement is addicting.

Our trainer is confident that in two or three months I will be able to run a mile.  Never in my life – as in the history of my ENTIRE life – have I been able to run a mile.  They made us do that in school, and even when I was a kid I couldn’t run a mile.

When I do run a mile, I may throw a party.  Then the time after I run a mile, I will run a bit farther than a mile.

I doubt that I am ever going to be a runner.  I love Crossfit, and running is part of the challenges of Crossfit, so I want to be good at it, but it isn’t really my thing.  However, it will be a thing I can do.  Another tool in the toolbox, so to speak.  Because let’s face it, when the zombie apocalypse comes, running is going to be a useful ability.

Other things I can do since Crossfit:

Catch things that are thrown to me.

Toss things and have those things hit their target.

Walk up and down steps without pain.

Carry more groceries inside, including large bags of cat food and bird food without help.

Sleep better.

I am sure that this list could be longer, but I have to go to work now.  Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Category:

Crossfit

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Fun and Anxiety

Today at Crossfit was a lot of fun.  It was a WoD that mostly played to my strengths and I beat Will’s time by 3 minutes-ish, so I was pretty pleased with myself on that front.  I really like weights, so most of the WoDs involving weights are going to be ones I like, as was the case today.  After last week being difficult, it was nice to know I hadn’t lost my Crossfit mojo.

Mondays are my day off.  I have a pretty flexible schedule as a freelance writer and as a tarot reader (I have like 50 jobs currently).  I realized early on that I needed to set aside one day for myself where I didn’t deal with work.  I still sometimes end up conducting interviews, checking emails, making appointments and other things here and there on a Monday, but fundamentally it is my day off.  Downtime.

Sometimes I deal well with downtime, and sometimes my free floating anxiety attaches to whatever it can and makes for a miserable day.  Today has been when one of those days where my brain is spinning out on me, worried about things that either do not matter or are out of my control.  I’ve meditated, I’ve tried reading, and I’ve tried a few other tricks I know, but to no avail.  The worst thing for me is having to wait to move on things.  There are a lot of things I could do, but most of them have to be done tomorrow.  I need to have something to think about, something to do.  I finally decided to bug Will with it – his own fault, he asked me what I was up to and I was currently up to making myself anxious over trifles.  He suggested we go for a run.

Well, yeah.  Duh.  I think this is part of why I need him around (don’t tell him that, though, it will merely feed his rather large ego).  He thinks of things that are obvious and good solutions, but that I would not come up with myself as I am sitting in the throes of anxious-over-nothing.  Do I know that doing something physical will help me?  Yes.  Is it one of the things I try to do when I am dealing with a misbehaving brain?  No.  The exercise thing is still too new a concept for me to apply it to my daily life readily.

That is going to change.

We didn’t run far.  Basically we did a loop around the half block here, so not very far at all, however the anxiety is gone.  Will kept pace with me, walked when I walked (although I did run over half of it), and generally had me laughing by the time we got back home.   Running around the block has been his go-to exercise for a few weeks now for when he is sleepy, bored, annoyed, or whatever other unpleasant emotion is plaguing him.  I think that I am done talking about maybe joining sometime (I could make that vaguer, right?) and at the point where I am just going to go with him when he goes.  It does not take long to run (or run/walk) around the block.  Also, I will be able to chart my progress as I know our block very well.  If I do this often enough, maybe running won’t be such a huge ordeal.  Today it was kind of fun.  First the half block, then the whole block, and as I get one section down to running nonstop, I can add more.

Depression and anxiety are two things I am very familiar with dealing with as I have had both since high school, maybe longer.  I have a made the conscious effort to do Crossfit three times a week and yoga twice a week because that is a good pre-emptive strike at depression and anxiety.  On days where I do physical activity that is strenuous, I tend to be happy and less prone to anxiety.  Considering today was a Crossfit day, I should not technically even be having the anxiety issues, but there are always exceptions.  I have a whole bag of tricks that I use to nullify their influence in my life, but I just realized that most of those tricks are sedentary in nature.  Exercise is a new trick that works really well and almost instantaneously.  I just need to remember exercise and use it more often.

Category:

Crossfit, Depression, Yoga

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Goals and Nature

I have to set goals for myself.  I need something to work towards, something to accomplish.  I set both large and small goals, short term and long term goals.  Each week my small, short term goal is to go to Crossfit Simple to work out three times a week and do yoga twice a week.

Part of the whole exercise thing for me is that I need to be constantly accomplishing something.  Even if that just means that I showed up and did the best I was able to do that day.  While I want to lose weight, if I concentrate on weight loss being my goal, it is not going to work out well for me.  Been there, done that.

I was very successful with Weight Watchers several years ago, lost around 40 pounds, but by the end of my time doing Weight Watchers, I seriously had some self-hatred, body hatred issues.  I felt bad about how I looked, about the weight I still had, about the fact that it was so hard to get the weight off.  It became this whole narcissistic endeavor in achieving thinness – and even when I was in high school, I did not have a body that did thinness.  Too much hip and chest to be model thin.  I’ve talked with others who have done Weight Watchers – including several friends I consider to be pretty skinny – and all of them eventually felt the same way about it.  Towards the end you just end up feeling fat, even when you are succeeding.

So, while I want to lose weight, right now I want to lose weight because the more weight I lose, the more likely I will be successful in doing a strict pull-up.  I think if I was pulling up less weight, it might not be this impossible, horrifying task.  Really, that is what a lot of my weight loss is about right now.  I am sure if I was moving less weight around, I would run faster, squat easier, push-ups would be easier, and my performance would be overall much better.  I want to perform better and do much better at the things I am already doing at Crossfit.  I want to consistently beat Will at timed WoD’s (although, he keeps getting better, stronger, faster, too, so that may just be something I am always working on).

To keep on track with getting better, I have to set goals.  Will doesn’t like to plan tomorrow or next month, so me telling him that in a year and two months I want to do the Spartan Sprint in Indiana with the Crossfit Simple team is just too far off of a goal to think about much.  But I need the long-term goal.  Will and I both kind of thought that maybe I would do better if I mentally prepped for 2014, instead of next year, but the people at Crossfit seem to think that in another year I should be able to do it.  Our trainer, Scott, said if I really wanted to do it that we could work towards that goal, but that he’d be giving me homework for over the weekends.  I was cool with that, as I would really prefer to be active for some period of time every day of the week.  I have five days of the week planned out, so homework for the weekend filled things out nicely.

Will balked at homework.  Said he didn’t have time. (he lies)

The homework Scott gave me (since Will didn’t have time) for this weekend was great.  He wanted me to go walking in a creek.  Check out stones – how they fall, which way they tilt, that kind of deal.  This sounded like a lot of fun.  I figured that I would get wet and/or muddy, but that seemed like it would be fun, too.

Will made the time.  I think he is worried that if I go out in nature by myself I will somehow manage to get irrevocably injured.  Or have a really great time without him.  He told me once I could not go hiking in Giant City alone because there were bears (for those of you unaware, Southern Illinois is NOT a home to bears – it was hilariously ridiculous).  He then told me that in winter, I couldn’t go by myself because the animals were hungry and might eat me.  I could not go in spring by myself, because that was mating season and too dangerous with animals in rut.  I could not go by myself in summer because it was too hot and that made animals cranky and likely to attack.  With fall, he said, the problem was right there in the title – too many things fall in the fall and I could be easily injured if out by myself.

I apparently cannot walk a creek alone, either.

Scott said to go slow and be careful, and we did.  Well, I did.  Will is pretty at home anywhere outside, so he could have gone 5 times the distance without me.  We only managed to walk a mile in the creek, although that alone took around an hour and a half.  Although, a good amount of that time was Will instructing me on how and where to walk, what types of rocks are slippery (most of them), what poison ivy was and wasn’t (I already knew this one, I mean, come on I’ve known poison ivy since I was a kid in the woods), how to cook and eat pokeweed (don’t if it is purple, double boil) and other things of that nature.  We also saw a snake that was curled up in a fallen down tree.  It looked like a copperhead, but Will discerned it to be just a water snake.  Several skinks – I love lizards and skinks are super cool.  The highlight of this was seeing a scarlet tanager – had no idea what this bird was when we saw it , just finished looking it up in my bird book -  but it was beautiful.  This bird is brilliant shade of red, with black wings.  It looked almost like cardinal who was confused about its coloring.  Very vibrant in color, and the red head had eyes that looked like the bird had applied black eyeliner for a very dramatic look.  Simply stunning.

I waded in water up to my read end.  After being hot most of the day, the wading in water was really nice.  I almost wished that the creeks were fuller.  It would have been nice to swim today and I am short enough that wading can turn to swimming pretty easily.

The thing about hiking in a creek full of slippery rocks is that it really does tire you out pretty quickly.  Will could have gone on endlessly – the man has the footing of a goat.  It is rare to see him lose his balance.  I am getting better at balance with regular yoga and the various Crossfit exercises, but it still is not my strong spot.  I only fell once and managed to catch myself on my hands instead of my knees, but I slipped around a lot.  Wet rocks are very slippery.  I know, the sun is hot, too.  Captain Obvious over here.

Will and I decided that regardless of future homework assignments from Scott, we are going to hike that creek more.  Further next time.  We did not have a great deal of time today – Will and his dad were working on the front porch so time was an issue.  However, I am going to make time to do it again for many reasons.  First of all, it was super fun and super pretty.  I love nature and I love animals.  The more I am out and about the more I see.  I am even chipping away at my irrational fear of spiders.  There was a wolf spider today that I thought of as merely pretty instead of frightening.  Knowing which ones are poisonous actually helps.  Why be frightened of something that fundamentally cannot hurt you?

The second reason I am going to do it again is because it tired me out.  The more often I hike with Will the better and stronger my footing will be and I will have more stamina with it.  The third reason is that Will is just so happy when he is outside.  He smiles all the time.  He is chatty.  He is just happy to be outside.  It is miraculous how pleased he is when he is in nature.  We were doing a good job of hiking a minimum of once a week before the tornado hit Giant City.  We kind of lost our rhythm then, in part because the weather was surreal, but I think I am going to try to get back into the swing of it again.

My long term fitness goal at this point is the Spartan Sprint.  This means that I will need to just deal with running in order to get proficient at it.  This also means that I am motivated to deal with the running.  My goal for the end of the year is to climb the rope at Crossfit.  I figure that I should be able to tackle that easily by December.  I am also hoping to run the Turkey Trot – a 5K – with my sister in November.  I may only be able to run part of it, but I will consider it successful if I can run at least half of it while walking half.

If I focus on goals that celebrate what my body can do, instead of focusing on goals centered on what my body isn’t, I am happier overall.  Part of why Crossfit has stuck where other things have not is that I am constantly improving, beating old times, lifting heavier weights.  The improvement is proven and constant.  Being at war with my body is what caused me to be out of shape in the first place.  Celebrating and enjoying what my body can do, what I can do, is what has helped me enjoy getting into shape and what keeps me working at it even when I have a hard time.

Category:

Crossfit, Yoga

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There’s No Crying in Crossfit

One of the movies of my youth, “A League of Their Own”, has a very annoyed Tom Hanks telling one of the female baseball players, “There’s no crying in baseball!”  I would like to say that there is no crying in Crossfit – it has a nice ring to it, but for second time in a year, I had a difficult time not crying in a WoD.

The first time I cried during a Crossfit workout was on the first year anniversary of my father’s death.  I was determined to be fine that day, but after running laps (there seemed to be an endless number of them) I just started crying uncontrollably.  I am running and crying, probably looking ridiculous, feeling even more ridiculous.  My trainer was ready to just let me out of the WoD at this point, as I was crying and taking forever as running is not my strong suit, but luckily, Will – who knows my mental make up better than anyone – said that he should let me finish the WoD.  After all, the only thing worse than crying in front of people during a WoD would be if that meant I was unable to finish to a WoD.  Crying in front of people + not finishing = ruined day.

Yesterday’s crying had no reason to it, which is why it was weird.  We did two WoD’s, and the running laps as the exception, they were pretty fun ones. I kind of felt like I was slow and lethargic, but that has been the week of working out for me.  I can only hope that next week is better, as lethargy is not something I want to bring to my workouts.  The second WoD is one I should have rocked the socks off of – 200 jump ropes and 200 sit-ups – two things I am actually really good at.  The jump ropes were pretty easy, although I can normally do over a 100 before I trip myself up, and I tripped myself up a few more times than usual, but I figured I was tired from the previous WoD.  The sit-ups were just torturous.  By the time I hit 75, I was struggling to keep my composure the entire way.  I simply was not going to cry through one of my favorite exercises.

I tried to concentrate on not letting Will beat me in time on this WoD.  I am better at jump ropes and sit-ups and he had kicked my ass in the previous WoD.  This worked to get me through to 150.  After that, it was mainly me focusing on math to keep from crying.

I finished the WoD (ahead of Will, ha!), put my abmat away, and went outside and just cried.  It felt more like release crying rather than sad crying, but it was just weird and annoying.  The one saving grace was no one was in the parking lot, so I was able to feel the breeze on my face, watch the many birds that seem to live in the parking lot, and cry enough that whatever was needing to be released got the hell out, and regain my composure.  I was left kind of feeling hollow, but not in a bad way.  Just like something that needed to move on finally did so.   Hopefully, I cried out the feelings of lethargy of the week.

I was left feeling like the best thing in the world would be some booze (Will thought I said boobs, so obviously next time I am going to call it “hooch” just to see what happens), but opted out of that impulse as well.  I am on day 6 of no sugar or carbs not found in fruits or veggies (i.e. no bread, potatoes, rice, crackers, chips, etc.), and I do not want to mess that up with alcohol at this stage of the game.

Because I am a nerd, I then spent time researching crying after WoDs online.  I am not alone in this apparently, although most of the tears I read about seemed born more of frustration there were quite a number that were just releases like mine was.

But still.  Super weird.  This exercise thing is a whole new world of experiences I am unfamiliar with.  I am getting familiar with them, though, and I like new experiences.  I am just hoping most of them will be tear free, because man, I hate crying.

Category:

Crossfit

Crossfit: Killer Week Thus Far

I go to Crossfit Simple about three times a week for Crossfit and twice a week for yoga.  This week has been totally kicking my butt.  First off, I gave up sugar so that has been a drag.  Then the first Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD) this week was hugely fun, but kind of insane.  I really enjoy the insane workouts because I feel pretty accomplished after.  The insane workouts are the ones where just finishing feels like I have accomplished something great and wondrous.  In this workout, we ran a lap with a weight (I had 25# and Will had 45#), bear crawled the length of the field, ran back.  Then we did 21 alternating box jumps (super freaking fun!), 21 kettle bell swings, and 21 cleans.  Then we did this again lowering the number of box jumps, kettlebells, and cleans to 15, then again to 9.  The running and bear crawl in between each set were particularly killer for me as I am not a good runner.  (Yet.)

About midway through this, I am thinking to myself “I do not know if I am going to be able to finish this one.”  My vision kept graying out to that tunnel right before you pass out, which is annoying.  My lungs were furious with me.  However, once I got past that point, it became easier again.  It is like once my body knows I am not going to cave in to it, it figures that it might as well finish things up because then I am not torturing it anymore.

The next workout was a partner WOD.  The funny thing about partner WOD’s is they always seem to come on mornings when I am ready to kill Will.  He was complaining about my driving, asking if I had caffeine that morning (I haven’t had caffeine for two years now except in cases of emergencies), and then just generally gaslighting me.  By the time we walked into Crossfit Simple, I just wanted to choke him.  His version of these events center around me being terribly impatient as a driver and grumpy to boot, and some other valid complaints I tuned out.  At any rate, for some reason on days I want to kill Will we have partner WOD’s.  Partner WOD’s involve having to work together – something Will takes very seriously.  As far as he is concerned, we should work well together as a team and partner WOD’s are just practice for real life teamwork.  He wants to strategize with me.  Come up with a plan of attack.

I like partner WOD’s because they usually allow for some down time or a little bit of rest in between doing things.  For some reason, this particular one just kicked my butt.  It was three rounds for time of 15 pullups (my scaled version was jumping pullups), 25 knees to elbows (or in my scaled version, knees to as high as I can get them, Scott calls them frog kicks), 35 burpees (burpees are a tool of the devil) and then 4 laps.  Scott said normally the numbers were even but he wanted to add a little tension to the WOD – since I was annoyed with Will I was more than happy with this.  In partner WOD’s he tends to do more than I do.

For some reason, my brain thought this would be fairly easy.  I knew the running would be hard – it always is for me, but the rest seemed fairly straightforward and I got to split it up with Will.  In May, I will have been doing this for a year, but I still do not have a good idea of what is easy and what isn’t.  I think I need to just assume that everything is going to be harder than I anticipate that way I am pleasantly surprised. While the previous day was challenging, the partner WOD was even more so.  By the time I got home, I needed to curl up in a fetal position for a little while simply because my abs were so mad at me and most of the rest of my body was equally shaky and displeased.

This was the second WOD in a week where midway through I was afraid I was going to have to quit.  The graying out thing was happening, but it was weirdly worse and I had a harder time breathing (one night, ONE night where I didn’t take my allergy medication – what gives, lungs?).  I actually went outside at one point as I was afraid I was not going to be able to catch my breath or that I might pass out.  The graying out on this day became a bit narrower of a tunnel, so I knew I needed to get my breathing evened out and my head between my knees or I was going to hit the ground in an embarrassing thud.  However, I was able to get both back to normal and go back in and finish.  Again, the victory was in completing the WOD.

On the way home talking this over with Will, he was irritated I went outside where no one could help me.  What was there to help?  I know what I feel like and what I see before I pass out because I’ve passed out enough that I recognize it.  You breathe as evenly and deeply as possible, put your head between yours knees, and then you simply make yourself not pass out.   Mind over body.  Easy peasy.  As for breathing, no one can really help with that.  Someone standing by, hovering, would have just made things worse.  It is harder to get your body under control when you have someone nearby who is being worried at you.

Two workouts in a row where I wanted to quit midway through is not the norm for me.  I was a bit worried that we had somehow fallen through a weird vortex where we lost skill points or something.  Were we regressing?

I asked Scott if we were regressing or if the workouts were harder.  Thank God he replied that he was giving us more cardio since we tend to need work in that area as we are good on strength and form.  It was a relief to know that he was just helping us get better at something we are not particular great at (yet) and not that we fell behind somehow when I wasn’t looking.

One of the joys of Crossfit is that it is always hard.  By the time I get something down enough that it becomes easy, I then level up the scale to a harder version.  I feel like this means that regardless of anything else, I am always getting better, getting stronger, and getting more physically fit.  The first few WODs after leveling up are a bit demoralizing, but pretty satisfying as I feel like I am one step closer to being where I want to be.  And I want to be kickass.  As long as I finish the WOD’s, I think I can be.

 

Category:

Crossfit

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