Working On Technique

I’ve been lucky enough to have had a “girls’ night” on Monday with some lovely ladies from Crossfit and the good it has done on my soul is tremendous. It was so relaxing to meet with beautiful, strong women who share so many similarities with me. We had all groups represented: working moms, retired women, women with older kids and childless women as well. We talked about our families and Crossfit (and no one to tell us to shut up about it already)! Not to mention that everyone had brought and cooked Whole30 compliant  delicious food, which made the whole evening that much more relaxing. I came home and felt rejuvenated for my days at work. I’ve slept a little better since and I’m hoping things will keep improving now that we have met with the dermatologist for Béa’s eczema. Maybe her new skin-care protocol will help her (and me) sleep through the night! Fingers crossed!

I woke up this morning and was very much looking forward to another Oly class. You know you’re at the Box early when you are there to witness the sprinklers go on AND off before anyone else shows up. #truestory #keener

I think there were 8 of us who showed up for the 0600 class and it felt like it was a big class! Jeff also was in attendance in order to assist Coach Caleb. I think he’ll be with us for a few weeks. Here’s what we tackled:

Snatch grip DL with 2s pause 6×3 E2M

I felt comfortable doing these as I had done them with Coach Rachel 2 weeks ago. I knew what to work on (keep my butt down, invert my wrist on my grip and keep my shoulders over the bar). Coach Caleb wanted us to work up to our Snatch 1RM (65# for me) by the 3rd round and increase from there. I started very light and here’s what I did:

45#-55#-65#-70#-75#-80#

It felt good and I really worked on my grip, which, it turns out, really helps to keep my shoulders over the bar!

OHS with 5s pause 6×3 E2M

Coach Caleb wanted us to keep the weight light on these and not aim for our snatch 1RM. I figured I would aim to finish close to my 1RM on the last round, only if I could keep my glutes engaged at the bottom and not struggle too much. I paired up with Ryan (who counted my pauses for me) and go going with very light weights:

35#-40#-45#-50#-55#-60#

The 55# and 60# were challenging. Coach Caleb wanted me to speed up my glutes on the up. Overall, I was pretty happy with how it went, considering I really worked up to my 1RM (I have achieved a snatch at 60#, failed the 65#, but Coach Caleb wants me to use 65# to calculate all my percentages in order to, hopefully, progress).

Barbell love

That got me sweaty and I rushed home to shower. Although Rina has officially “graduated” from preschool yesterday, I still had Béa’s appointment early this morning, which meant I couldn’t just stay behind at the Box.

Kindergarten next year!

I didn’t even have time to finish breakfast before we left, but like I said, it was for a good cause! I came back home, got into my comfy clothes to clean the upstairs, turned the music up and got to work.

 

When it’s 25C outside early in the morning and you have to clean the house, you gotta rock the booty shorts. Any tips to get rid of my inner-thigh bulge are welcome! 😉

Ben helped out by keeping up with the laundry and I was done a little earlier than usual, which gave me time to go for a walk with the girls before lunch and get some groceries.

I am very much looking forward to my nap this afternoon before my night at work and even more so, to our special Beach WOD on Sunday. Ben said he would come see us and bring the girls as cheerleaders! I don’t know what the WOD is, but I’m pretty excited to go for another WOD outdoors!

Béa, showing me her muscles and her ponytail!

 

When A PR Disappoints

We had a busy weekend, spent family-style and running around. Saturday, we got up early and did our errands. We had intended to go to the Quadra Village Community Celebrations, but we had so much running around to do that we ended up missing the festivities. That’s ok, we ended up planting our herb garden and I was reminded that gardening, sometimes, feel like a workout:

Burpee… Why you gotta haunt me so?

 

However, after Friday’s WOD, my sciatic was brutally letting me know that it was angry with me and things didn’t improve much over the weekend. 😦

We went out for breakfast for Mother’s Day. Who am I kidding, we went out for breakfast because it was Sunday! LoL! Afterwards, we decided to bike downtown and Ben hooked up the stroller to his bike. The girls traveled in style with the Jambox speaker in the stroller with them and music playing while poor Ben had to pull them through town. We parked the bikes and stroller while we strolled around. Rina got a blister on her toe from her plastic sandals and took them off. Béatrice didn’t want to be left behind so she copied her big sister. Their feet were filthy when we came back home! I thought the bike ride would help with the sciatic pain, but it didn’t. It didn’t make it worst either. It was just a constant throbbing, burning pain in my left buttock. We came back home to a late lunch and I took the girls to bed with me. Nobody slept, but it was nice to get some cuddles and relaxing time together. Ben also made me a stand for my iPad Mini and, although it wasn’t the costliest of Mother’s Day presents, I was really thankful for it. He had made one for himself a few months ago and I kept hogging borrowing it when he wasn’t using it. Now, I have my very own and don’t have to steal his! 😉

I was excited to see the WOD last night. Funny enough, I had been thinking about Baseline lately because it was my 1st WOD ever and I was curious to see where I stood compared to my humble beginnings. Well, here it goes:

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Skill: Back squat 5×5 with HSPU 5-7reps E60s

Since I could feel EVERY butt giggle (not in a fun way, but in a “my sciatic is painful” way) on the warm-up run, I decided to avoid the squats today. Coach Caleb suggested I try some deadlifts instead. I chose a low weight to not irritate my sciatic even more, but even at the low 85#, I had to stop on the 3rd round. It was burning and pulling and hurting, so Coach Caleb said to just rest during the squats and keep working on the HSPU. I managed those with 1 yoga block and 3×5# plates. I did them strict and they were hard. During the back squats, I stretched and tried to do some active release in my glutes and hip flexors.

WOD: Baseline

I was ready for this one. Tracey and I paired up in order to score one another. I had a strategy and was ready to tackle it. I really wanted to get the most of my row and I extended back and reached forward as much as I could which resulted in me keeping my average stroke per 500m around the 2:10. Unheard of for me. I went above that towards the end as I fatigued, but I was able to bring it back for the last 50 metres. So far so good.

For the air squats, I wasn’t overly fast, but I only stopped twice if I remember properly and for only a few short seconds.

Then, it was onto the sit-ups. Again, I wasn’t overly fast, but I only took 2 short breaks before completing the 30 reps.I also no-repped myself for a rep because my hands didn’t touch the ground behind me on one rep. I was honest and corrected Tracey on her count! Accountability, people, accountability! If you cheat on a rep, you only cheat yourself! 😉

The push-ups were hard. I had a hard time stringing them along at the beginning, but managed to do 5 in-a-row towards the end. I did them all RX though and didn’t need to drop to my knees. Onto the pull-ups we go!

I had set-up with the red band and only managed a max of 2 in-a-row. They were mostly done singles and I think that’s where I lost most of my time. I never looked at the clock during the WOD (and waste precious seconds turning my head around?!? No siree!, Not me!) and I was expecting to finish around the 8:00 mark. I was incredibly disappointed when Tracey called out 8:37. Yep, even though it was a PR, I was angry. Yes, I had done the push-ups RX and my band for the pull-ups was the smallest I’d ever used for Baseline, but I was still mad that I wasn’t closer to my goal. Below is my progression for my multiple attempts at this WOD (The most recent on top):

Baseline progress

I tried to shake it off, came back home showered and did my hair. I was still upset:

Not a happy camper

Then I thought: You have your lovely cozy yellow hoodie on and your freckles make you look good and you’re wearing funky leggings that show off your hamstrings and quads. Turn that frown upside-down and celebrate the fact that you can pull off wearing a banana-yellow hoodie and rock the rest of your day, even if it’s grey and chilly outside!

Mindset is everything! Focus on the positive, let go of the negative!

I took my own thought to heart and decided that even though I wasn’t close to my goal, my score is still progress and I can only achieve progress with some failures thrown into the mix. Failure is growth and growth is progress!

Now, if I could just get rid of my sciatic pain, life would be just peachy, cuddling on the couch with my little Béa! 🙂

Shin Guard Musings

Lately, I have been using my shin guards a little more, whether it’s for box jumps or simply for deadlifts (I have shin splints and even just brushing the bar along my shins is painful) and although I have perused the sayings on them, I really paid attention to them yesterday, when I took them out of the wash. Here’s the ones I have and I will elaborate on the motivational quotes that are on them:

Source

 

Here are the quotes on them:

• The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender
• Life doesn’t have a dress rehearsal, make it count
• A goal is a dream with a deadline
• Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet
• The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire
• Work will win when wishing won’t
• Discipline is remembering what you want
• When it’s all over, it’s not who you were. It’s whether you made a difference
• Pain is weakness leaving your body
• It’s not the will to win but the will to prepare that makes a difference
• Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm*
• Pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit

I was wearing them again for the WOD this morning (deadlifts) and I felt so at peace. I don’t know if it’s because I was inspired by the quotes or whatnot, but I’m feeling a ton better than I was last week, both physically and mentally and I like where I am right now!

Since we didn’t have any skill work today, we had a longer warm-up and the WOD was pretty much all skills.

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Deadlift 5×3 EMOM: When I had looked at it at home this morning, I was thinking 135# for the DL, but I settled for 105#. I didn’t have time to warm-up for a higher weight and although they felt easy, I was happy with my technique.

Hang power clean + push press 5×3 EMOM: For this one, I chose 60# and I think it was a good weight for me. I wanted to pay more attention to having quick elbows and pushing the elbows out on the hang power clean and the press felt good, yet somewhat challenging towards the end. Maybe I should have gone to 65#…

Hang power snatch + OHS 5×3 EMOM: For this one, I chose 55# and really wanted to take the opportunity to work on my snatch. At 55#, the snatch is challenging and so were the OHS. I really needed to remember to brace my core and block my breath on the squat. The snatch was a bit only for the first 2 sets, but I think it improved on the last 3.

I like barbell work. I like feeling the control needed in order to get the bar to move the way you want it too. I like that it is much more than just lifting the bar, it engages your core, glutes, quads, shoulders, traps, etc. It is so much more intricate than just “lifting the bar overhead” and although I still very much struggle for most lifts, I like the challenge it offers.

A few days ago, the sun was shining bright and I wanted to put my favourite shorts on. To my surprise, they were way too big and I couldn’t locate the only belt I own (which is also too big now):

That only meant one thing: Shopping!

I ended up going to Old Navy with the girls and managed to find a few tank tops and 4 pairs of shorts (shorts that have nothing to do with Crossfit, that is ;)!) To my dismay, I went from a size 12 / large last summer (in the green shorts above) to a size 8 / medium. As for the tops, I went from a medium to a small. I was so happy with the progress! I also realize that my favourite Lululemon shorts and crop leggings are getting too big. I need to cinch the drawstrings to the max and I still have to pull them up all the time. Oh well, I will replace those gradually as they are quite costly $$$!

Last, but not least, Béatrice asked for pig tails this morning and she is just too darn cute for me not to share a few pics with you all (as you can see, I am making the best of my week off with my girls!):

Dancing in the wind

Cuteness overload!

Roar!

 

* Having failed A LOT, this is probably my favourite one!

Enough Already

So, this household has been quarantined since last week. It all started with Rina getting an ear infection with fever galore. We then had to stop her antibiotics because she was developing a rash and was getting itchy all over. Ben then got a nasty cold, which I caught as well, but it turned into a sinus infection coupled with a laryngitis for me. Antibiotics for me and no work this week as I could kill the wee babies I work with if I spread that stuff around. Now, the girls both have diarrhea to different degrees which means, laundry to no end and cleaning toilets multiple times a day. Seriously. Enough already. I’m going stir crazy from doing nothing but sitting on the couch and knitting all day and today is the first day I have a faint tone to my voice back. I miss going to work out and I have booked myself a massage for later today, hoping to work some of the toxins out.

Thank goodness I have this little cutie to brighten up my days! I gave her pig tails for the first time earlier this week and she has now been asking for them everyday since! Today, she was wearing her pink shirt and she reminded me of Boo from Monsters Inc. If you have young children, you’ll get it, otherwise, here’s a comparison pic!

BeZU aka Boo!

Feels So Good

I was finally able to go to the Box this morning and it felt so good to be back in my happy place after an exhausting set at work. I even warmed-up on the death bike Airdyne, willingly! I also worked on my DUs and to my amazement, I strung 4 in a row! Go me! It’s not much, but it’s twice as much as my previous PR! I swear, I should be somewhat good to go for the Open!

Once we were fully warmed up, I got ready for this:

Source

Skill: power clean + hang power clean + thruster EMOM x 10.
I started at 55#x5, but it felt like I was sandbagging it. I upped it to 60#x2 and upped it again to 65#x3. That felt good for the cleans, but challenging for the thrusters.

WOD: Twintrix

WOD 1: I scaled this one with red and blue CTB. I managed 4 full rounds + 6 burpees before the 6 mins were up. I was doing jumps over box burpees before Coach Caleb set me straight and said they were just burpee box jumps. Oops! I corrected my reps and kept on going. It was tough, but I was surprised at how little “granny” burpees I was doing. Most of my reps were full ones and I was pretty happy with that improvement!  We then had 2 mins to switch stations and try to catch our breaths.

 

WOD 2: I did this one Rx (wallballs at 14# and RKBS at 35#) and paid the price for it. Those wallballs are so hard for me. I’m still struggling through them and I may have dropped an F-bomb at some point. I was doing them single and couldn’t seem to catch the ball. I would have to reset it on the floor before picking it back up and wasted so much energy doing so. Still, I managed 3 full rounds + 5 RKBS for a grand total of 89 points for this WOD.

I came back home to have breakfast, shower, throw some laundry in the machine and headed on out to get my hair done. It feels good to get pampered once in a while. I took advantage of being by myself downtown to go pick up my new necklace

My Unicorn In The Forest

Here’s the description that came with it:

This handcrafted talisman necklace features a unicorn, which is a mythical creature with healing powers that is said to be fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary but always mysteriously beautiful.

I thought it was a good representation of the woman I am: healing powers (NICU RN), fierce yet good (Crossfitter mom), selfless yet solitary (I give so much to my family, but I still relish those quiet stolen moments for myself and for knitting).

The girls love it just because it displays a unicorn! 🙂

I came back home and made a fresh batch of egg muffins for breakfast tomorrow. They smell so good, it’s very hard to resist eating them now!

I will now sit and relax a bit before I fold the laundry! Just another typical day at home with my girls, but to me, those are the best days!

Feeling Good

So, I started this 28-day detox last Monday (from Haylie Pomroy’s The Fast Metabolism Diet). It’s pretty much a paleo kind of diet that allows for legumes. It splits the week in 3 phases according to the days:

• Phase 1: Monday and Tuesday
• Phase 2: Wednesday and Thursday
• Phase 3: Friday, Saturday, Sunday

You eat certain foods according to the phase of the week. Some days are high carbs (sprouted grain and fruits), some days are heavy protein and some days are a combo of carbs, protein and healthy fats. You have to cut processed sugars, gluten, dairy, soy and caffeine and I did that cold turkey (cold cut just for you Krista if you happen to read 😉 ) I had a massive headache for 3 days at the beginning of all this last week, but I’m now fine. I still miss my coffee though and that’s one thing I plan on re-integrating when I’m done with this.

So far, I’ve lost 4.2lbs in a week, so yeah, the detox is working. I also feel more energized and felt like I had more stamina this morning during the WOD. All bonuses if you ask me! It takes a lot of planning and prep, but it’s giving me results so I’m going to stick with it and re-assess at the end of the 28 days.

Here’s what I had stamina for this morning:

I worked on my DUs and managed to slow down my speed on the jumps in order to have the same speed when I do a single and when I do a DU. I managed to get 10, not in a row, but in a much smaller time than before, so I guess it’s slowly working. I just have to keep at it! (Thanks Linda and Mark for the inspiration and the tips)

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Skill: Push Jerk 6×3 E90s

Those felt good at the beginning and I found myself struggling with 70#, but I kept going and managed a new PR at 80#. My shoulders were definitely feeling it!

55#-60#-65#-70#75#-80#

WOD: Escalator

There were a lot of us so 7 of us agreed to do the front squat from the ground instead of from the rack. The one perk was that if we clean squatted it, that squat counted towards our reps. I scaled with these modifications:

• HSPU: I did those from 2×5# plates + 1 yoga block stacked. I did a mix of strict and kipping reps
• C2B: red and blue bands of those. I managed to string 5 in a row
• Front squat: 65# from the ground

I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to finish all rounds within the time cap, but I was pretty happy with where I ended up: 8 full rounds + 5 HSPU.

All this HSPU gave me quite the hairdo and I only realized once I got home:

Instant pompadour!

I got a chance to talk to Coach Phil (sub-ing in for Coach Caleb) about the Open coming up and I think I will register in the scaled category in order to be able to do more of the workout and enjoy myself!

Alright, I have to leave the computer in order to cook some meals in advance for this week since I’m back to work in a few days!

Beetlejuice Hard At Work

I woke up this morning and dragged my feet to the bathroom in order to get ready for the Box. I turned the lights on and this is pretty much what I saw staring back at me in the mirror:

 

Beetlejuice hair!

I had a bad case of crazy hair going on! I did a half ponytail which helped little to make matters better, but I honestly couldn’t care at this point. It was 0500 and I was heading in to workout. Nobody expects me to look my best when I do a WOD. Another perk of Crossfit! 😉

Jumana showed up for the early morning class and I hadn’t seen her in a long time! It was nice to see her again and to goof around with her. I paired up with her for the skill.

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Skill: Push Press 5×5 E90s

Those were hard and Jumana was crushing it like they were nothing. I was struggling a little more, but I still managed a 5# PR with my last reps being at 85#.

My reps: 65#-70#-75#-80#-85#

There was a lot of us gearing up for the WOD and it made finding a spot on the rig to do my pul-lups a little challenging, but we all figured it out and then we were off.

WOD: Chups

14 min AMRAP of:

• 6 pull-ups (I scaled mine to the blue and purple bands, kipping. I’m sure I could have done the red and purple bands, but all the red bands were being used by other people)
• 8 HRPU
• 10 AKBS (35#)
• 12 reverse lunges (6/leg)

I remembered to keep my feet together for the HRPU and I was able to do 3 rounds without taking any breaks for those. I wasn’t moving very fast through the rounds, but I kept moving for the most part. I tried to use the reverse lunges as a recovery as much as I could. I have come to the conclusion that I’m really not a fan of the American kettle bell swing. At 35#, I can do them, but they are a challenge and I just don’t feel comfortable when I do them. I managed to do 6 rounds even (216 reps total) I was happy with that because, like I said earlier, I tried to keep moving as much as I could throughout this one. I remember looking at the clock around the 6-min mark and thinking I wasn’t gonna make it. I looked at the clock again around the 8-min mark and felt so discouraged that we weren’t further into this one that I just decided to keep working and not look at the clock anymore. It worked! I finished and I was happy with what I’d done!

Rina is back in preschool today and I’m just blogging on the couch with  little Béa snuggled up to me! It’s raining pouring outside and once I’m done folding the laundry, I plan to just rest and relax before heading in to work tomorrow! Wish me luck, I’m on a 28-day detox and that means no caffeine, no sugar and no gluten. Sounds like fun, but I have goals and this is a means to get to my goals!

 

 

A Quick One

After deciding to switch from a crochet pattern to a knit one, I’ve finally finished Rina’s Frozen hat. She seems to like it so that’s always a bonus too!

Roomy enough for a pony tail!

Of course, it is purple!

It was my first time doing two colours at once and stranding yarn as well. This project is ideal to teach yourself Fair Isle knitting and I’m super happy of the way it turned out. Not too shabby if you ask me. You can see all the details of how I modified this pattern  on my Ravelry page for this project here and the original free pattern  (Norwegian Star Earflap) can be found here. I probably could have finished it even faster, but work got in the way! 🙂

I didn’t do the earflaps as Rina didn’t want any on this hat. The fit looks a little weird on the pictures, but it’s because Rina had a pony tail underneath it. I’m glad it is roomy enough for pony tails though! That means it will fit her for the winter, I hope!

A Good Day

I went to bed last night in the middle of a pretty intense windstorm. Nothing unusual for the island in the fall/winter. The pattern is usually rain for a few days, windstorm, sunny day, repeat. Ever since we moved into our new house, the windstorms make me very uneasy. I don’t know if it’s because we’re not on the lower level of our house and I feel/hear the wind more, but I just keep having to reassure myself that the house has been here since 1918 and it has seen plenty of windstorms. It’s probably sturdy enough to weather a few more! 😉

Once again, I was up way before my alarm (set at 0500). I stayed in bed, trying to fall back asleep and got up in the end to go to Crossfit. I really wish I didn’t have to see 0430 on the alarm clock some days! Sleeping has become a luxury and I long for the days I used to sleep in until 1000-1100!

 

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Skill: Kipping pull-ups 5x20sec E2M

I was determined to challenge myself with this today and I decided to forgo the red and blue bands and used the red and purple bands instead. I was happy to manage 5-7 reps/ rounds with these and I really focused on working on the follow-through at the bottom. I managed to do a max of 3 in a row and that was good enough for me!

WOD: Grunt

As we were warming-up for this one, Coach Caleb came by to assess our Hang power snatches and I had planned on doing the TG with the empty bar. Doing 5 reps with the bar alone was challenging enough, let alone 8 reps x 5 rounds. Upon Coach Caleb’s examination, he suggested I added weight to my bar because I looked “very powerful”. Dave got into it as well and I was convinced to add 10# for a total of 45#. I did the first round unbroken, but had to break them into 2×4 reps for all the other rounds. I did all my rounds with the TG modifications:

• 8x Hang power snatch @45#
• 10 Hand Release Push-ups (all on my toes)
• 10 double crunches

I finished with a time of 13:14 and was pretty happy about this. The Hang power snatches were a real struggle for all my second sets (#5-8). I was afraid of dropping the bar on all my last reps, but I pushed through and managed to do it all! Thanks to Dave and Coach Caleb for convincing me to go heavier! 🙂

Before we started the WOD, I jumped on the rig and attempted a few T2B. I’m not quite there yet, but I,m getting so close, I can taste it!

I came home to shower and decided to do my hair. When I came back downstairs, Rina was staring and saying: “Wow! Beautiful hair mom!” LOL! The girls are not used to me taking time to pretty myself up!

All dolled-up and nowhere to go!

Then, I guess Béatrice was inspired to doll herself up as well because she kept asking for a “ponytail”. After Rina had butchered her hair earlier this week and fellow Crossfitter Jordan fixed it up for her, I was skeptical about my ability to pull off a ponytail, but she seemed happy with the end result!

Cutie with a fringe!

Now, I get to spend the day with Ben and the girls and enjoy this beautiful sun with the family! 🙂