Time To Pause

I’m struggling…

In my personal life, in the gym, on the blog.

I am working on my personal life issues and have taken steps in order to make things better. Don’t worry, I’m not in jeopardy, but it hasn’t been easy since Christmas. That’s all I’m gonna say about it on here. Some things need to remain private and I’m drawing the line here.

I have forced myself to get into the gym for the past 3 weeks or more. I still go 2-4 x/week, but it’s a struggle to get the motivation to go. I go, I lift/sweat, I still PR and I even started going back to Oly lifting class. It’s been a while since I’ve felt the happiness of the endorphins, but I still force myself to go, because I know it’s good for me. If, for nothing else, it has had its magical therapeutic effect on me. I’m just tired of crying with almost every single workout. The physical exertion opens up the emotional floodgate and the rubber mat is on the receiving end of all I’m trying to keep bottled up. I am fully aware of that and, like I said, I’m dealing with the emotional side, no worries.

We are well into February and this is my 6th post since the beginning of the year. Whereas I normally blog 2-3x/week. Motivation has been lacking for the blog as well and it has become a rushed chore more than anything else. Blogging has been a wonderful outlet for me since I became pregnant with Rina. I have found support and comfort in your kind comments when I was struggling as a new mom but lately, I find it’s taken my focus away from my kids and I just want to live in the “now” instead of recording every little workout or PR. I want to not feel the pressure to write, the possible judgement that comes with blogging on a regular basis and instead, I want to focus on the things that matter to me the most: my health, my children and my family.

With this said, I am taking a break from the blog. Will it be definite? Only time will tell.  I wanted to thank you for reading throughout the year and for understanding. I will keep reading some of my favourite blogs, but I may not contribute as much on here as you’ve been used to, or at all, for that matter, but I’ll still here. I’m still strong. I’m still going on, one day at a time, one rep at a time, one breath at a time. It’s just time for me to take care of me for once.

So for now, I’ll say: See you around! It’s been a pleasure to write and maybe I’ll be back one day!

 

How Low Can You Go!

Its 2230, I’m dozing off on the couch after a day at work and decide to go to bed. My husband tries to get me to stick around and watch some Star Wars Clone crap. Let it be known that I have an aversion to anything Star Wars, Star Trek, space sci-fi related, almost as big as my hatred of tea:

 

Seriously!

 
I pretty much get up and tell him it’s even more of an incentive to go to bed. He then taunts me by saying: Even if I give you a foot rub?

I’m a nurse, on my feet a lot and am a HUGE sucker for foot rubs. The husband rarely offers them. I pause and say: Do I have to actually watch?

He says: yes, there will be a quiz at the end.

I tell him: I’m too tired to stay awake for that crap tonight, I would surely fall asleep on it, but maybe tomorrow.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel slightly dirty at entertaining the thought of stooping so low for a foot rub and I need to shower before bed…

New Year’s Eve!

I was dog tired last night. So much so that I think I fell asleep on the couch around 2000, woke up around 2200 only to drag my butt upstairs and crash into bed. On cue, I was awake, yet again, at 0400. I tried in vain to fall back asleep, but in the end, I got up and got ready for the WOD.

Another "different" wod - combine all the reps from each of the exercises to get your total score!  You may start at different stations than is listed below if the class is large. Enjoy!!

Part 1:  3 minutes of Back Squats @ 105/155 - please be safe with this, know how to escape if you need to and break the 3 minutes into sets!

Rest 3 min

Part 2:  3 minutes of 2 wall walks (controlled descent), 8 ttb

Rest 3 min

Part 3:  3 minutes of rope climbs

Rest 3 min

Part 4:  3 minutes of Taters (35/53)

TG:  2 min at each station, rest remainder of time.  Scale all weights as needed, lying rope climbs

FG:  scale bar weight to 65/95, taters to 26/44, lying rope climbs

FG2: scale bar weight to 85/115

I was happy we managed to beg for get a 0600 class coached by Caileigh. I had a ton of housecleaning to do and having to go at 0930 would have dragged on the cleaning until much later in the day (I really despise cleaning the house). For the WODs, I did a mix of FG+ with some Rx. Here’s what I did

Part 1: I did all the back squats Rx at 105#. I managed 23 reps in the 3 minutes allowed and I realized only after I was done that I should have worn my lifting shoes for this one. Oh well…

Part 2: I did this one FG since I can’t do a TTB. I did knees to elbows and managed 21 reps for this one.

Part 3: I did all my reps as lying rope climbs and managed 11 reps. Those were very unpleasant and I need to work on my rope climbs in the coming year (amongst other things).

Part 4: I did all my taters at 35# and even managed the proper swing of the KB. No more modifying swing for this Mama! I managed 28 reps of these.

Grand total score of 83. Meh! I wasn’t very pleased with my score, but it’s still much better than if I had stayed in bed this morning! 😉

I came back home, made breakfast and tackled the cleaning. I was lucky to have some tremendous helpers (Ben) and some, not so tremendous ones (Rina and Béatrice). It took us a good 3hrs to get the house completely clean and I am now waiting to fold the last load of laundry. I am pooped and will wish you all a very Happy New Year right now, because chances are, I’ll be drooling on the couch again at 2000 tonight! Be safe if you party it up!

Tough Day All Around

* Bloody shins and bruised forearms will appear in this post. You’ve been warned*

Who knew I was going to get up at 0500 for this:

 

Bruised forearms

and this:

 

Bloody, swollen and bruised shins

Oh Yeah! The box ate my shins and forearms before I even had breakfast this morning. And I was actually looking forward to a good WOD before all of this happened 😦

I’ve been home alone with the girls a lot lately when I’m not at work because Ben’s busy coaching season is in full swing and he’s barely home. I haven’t really seen him since he left last Thursday, even though he came back Sunday evening. I sent him this text last night before going to bed. You can see the following texts were sent this morning.

True love!

My man’s got my back (and eggs and Polysporin)! Here’s how it all went down:

Source

 

Skill: Front Squat 7×1 followed by 4x high box jumps E2M

I was looking forward to the front squats and my goal was to attempt a PR at 120#. I normally do box jumps at 20″ so I decided to go with 24″. I don’t know how I did my calculations, but I ended up at 120# on my 6th set and still had one more round to go. I managed to get up from 120#, but I struggled through the drive. Off to the box jumps I went. Everything was fine until I attempted my 3rd rep and somehow, missed the box, landed on all fours smack on the side of the box and proceeded to howl and cry… 😦 The pain was brutal and unlike anything I’d ever felt. Labour was probably less painful because, at least, you were prepared mentally for the pain. I was not prepared mentally for any of this, this early in my day! Let’s just say my shin splints were totally not happy about that intrusion in their daily pain afflicting gig. They thought they were reigning in the shin pain department! I wanted to punch back the box so bad, but just had to keep reasoning that I would just hurt my knuckles and was crippled enough as it was already. It took me a while to even get off the box and walk it off. I never finished the 7th round of squats, let alone the box jumps. Still, I’ll celebrate my little PR for my front squats! Almost body weight! Maybe I’ll bridge the 35# gap sometime this year! 🙂

WOD: Power Lunge

I probably could have done a little heavier in the weights, but my shins were swelling up nicely and getting all tingly. Plus, I knew I had to run with mangled shins + shin splints for 2km, so I went low in the weights. Once I was done with the snot and tears fest, I set up for the WOD. 35# for the bar (empty bar) was enough for me. It was a bit easy on the Hang Power Snatch, but challenging for the lunges. I was wobbly on the lunges on rounds 2 and 4, but I stabilized the bar and managed o get through. I had to rest the bar on my back for the lunges on round 3. I finished round 5 dead last, running all by myself. People stayed and cheered me on when I came back in at 20:31. Yeppers! Slow as heck, but I ran non-stop all the 400m stretches and, once again, I finished!

I came home to finish 3 loads of laundry, dusting, vacuuming and mopping, then picking up Rina from preschool. I may have cried again when I asked Ben to vacuum the staircase and he said he was on his way to work and didn’t have time to do it just then. The throbbing in my shins has slowly decreased and the swelling is going down as the bruising darkens hourly! I hope they feel better by Sunday because I registered last night for our in-house team competition! I am exhausted and have nothing left in me. I cannot wait for 1500 to come around and Nanny to get here so I can go for a nap before heading in to work tonight. I’m pooped and ready to crash. Over and out!

Did Not Finish

Not because I gave up, but because I pinched a nerve in my neck or something and developed a splitting headache from the back of my left eye, all the way down my left shoulder. Let me explain…

I was looking forward to taking a break from the MFFL and rejoining my usual 0600 class. Ben will be leaving later today for the weekend and I was very much looking for some leisure “me” time at the Box. Funny how I just described a WOD as leisure! Ha!

Source

I felt a bit sluggish, but not anymore than I usually am at the 0600 class! I mean, I did wake up at 0500 for 3 days in a row, but such is my life and I’m used to it by now. The warm-up was nice, especially the eagle dislocate. It offered a nice stretch in the elbows and forearms. Plus, Marika and I were letting out little “ga-kaw!” just for fun!

Skill: Kipping pull-ups

Things got sketchier there. I don’t know if I should have used bigger bands (I used red and purple), but I couldn’t just get the swing without any bands and I couldn’t kip either with the bands. I feel like I’m regressing on the kipping pull-ups and it’s not a nice feeling.

WOD: Khalipa Smash

I wanted to do this one at 55# with the 5 DUs and 40 singles. I started my 1st round and everything was going somewhat decent. I managed to get 4 back squats and then I started having a sharp pain bend my left eye. I took a break, with the bar on my back and a few breaths, did 2 more, took another break and finished my last 2 reps. I managed to do my 5 DUs and then my 40 singles, but I knew something was wrong. I tried stretching my neck as the pain behind my eye was now radiating down my left shoulder, but I just couldn’t shake it off. Coach Caleb came by, we talked it out and decided I shouldn’t push it any further. I started crying. That’s right, big sobs too. Not so much because of the pain, but Crossfit is MY time and that’s the only time I have to myself where I can do something I love uninterrupted. And now, I wouldn’t even be able to do that today because of a stupid tension migraine. I was not happy. I went and tried to roll my neck with a Lacrosse ball, iced it up while people were finishing up the WOD, but the headache was going nowhere. I went to the white board and wrote a big fat DNF next to my name.

I came back home and was still sniffling and frustrated about the whole thing. I still have a headache event though I took 2x extra strength acetaminophen and 2x extra strength ibuprofen. I didn’t snap a muscle or anything, I think it might just be a pinched or exacerbated nerve in the neck. The pain in my neck is almost all gone, but the headache behind the left eye is persisting. I guess this body of mine is trying to tell me to take it easy for the next few days and just enjoy my time at home with the girls while Ben is away. I plan on doing just that, so I can go back on Monday and work my butt off!

Choosing Rest to Become Stronger

I had a choice to go to Crossfit yesterday morning at 0600 or this morning at 0700 for the same workout. I chose to forgo my usual crew at 0600 yesterday and sleep in (ahem, until 0640, that is)! This meant I could also somewhat sleep in this morning, but it also meant I would have to go 2 days in a row (unusual for me) in order to make it 3x this week. It’s a choice I made and I’m totally comfortable with it. Today was a lighter skill practice and that meant I won’t be too sore (fingers crossed) tomorrow for class. As a full-time shift-worker, mother and Crossfitter, I want my workouts to remain challenging, but also fun, in a masochist kind of way 😉 .

Source

Skill: Handstand

3rd week doing these and I’m still struggling to balance off the wall or with a spotter, completely off the wall. I did, however, manage to get my wall walks with my belly up the wall last week and this week, so that’s a bonus. We did a few practices with kicking up our feet to the wall and I also managed to do a few practices with lifting one hand off the ground and alternating. This is all in order to get us ready to do handstand walks in the future. Nowhere near ready for this, but I feel strong and confident with my head inverted. I also need to keep up on this as we have enrolled Rina and BeZU in gymnastics class and I have a feeling it won’t be too long before Rina can do an unassisted handstand! 😉

WOD: KipSkip

This looked easier on the board than it was. I wanted to do FG1+ by doing 10 DUs for each round before finishing the round with single skips and using the red and blue bands for my kipping pull-ups. However, after the 1st round, I soon realized I would be there for 20mins if I kept the 10DUs for each rounds and I went down to the FG1 (5DUs for each rounds, followed by single skips). I can now string 2 DUs in a row, which is much better than none, but I get fatigued quickly and then have to add a single skip in between my DUs.

As for my kipping pull-ups, I started the first 2 rounds doing C2B I had so much momentum, but that dwindled quickly. By the end of it, I had to break my 10 kipping pull-ups in 4-3-3 or 4-3-2-1. I finished in 9:25. This is what I looked like upon returning home:

Giving Medusa a run for her money!

My husband was commenting yesterday that my wardrobe is now noticing an influx of Lululemon apparel. He’s right. It’s funny, when I started crossfit a little over a year ago, I remember saying that I wouldn’t prance around in my booty shorts and my sports bra while I was working out. Nowadays, I feel so much more comfortable in who I’ve become. Not just about my physical appearance or my strength, but I feel comfortable enough around my Crossfit family to know that nobody there will judge my flabby belly if I decide to remove my tank during a WOD and keep working at it in my sports bra. It’s not like I flaunt it around, I usually cover back up once the WOD is over, but if I’m too hot to keep my tank top on, I feel comfortable enough to chuck it on the floor and keep pushing. So yes, I have become a bit of a Lulu-whore. That’s all that’s comfortable to me and I wear it on my days off at home as well. Nothing like a pair of tight capris or track pants with a tank top! 😉 I’ve also recently ordered a couple of outfit from Fabletics and will review them once I receive them. Funny how your perspective can change in the span of a year!

It’s All A Mind Game

After only sleeping for 3 hrs yesterday (post night shift) I was looking forward to a longer night of sleep. When 0500 (aka WOD o’clock) came rolling around, it felt like I could have just rolled over and forget about working out so easily. Instead, I got up and dragged myself to the box.

Source

Skill: Front Squat 7×1 E2M

I was going into this hoping to get 105-110# (my previous PR was 105#, back in January). Thanks to my poor math skills at 0600, I surpassed that  and achieved a new PR of 115#! 🙂 I did my reps as follows:

80#-85#-95# (skipped 90# because I can’t count my plates right early in the morning!) -100#-105#-110#-115#

WOD: Intervohs

I thought I had done this WOD back in May, but it turns out I hadn’t, so this was my 1st attempt at it. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was gonna do for this one. OHS are tough and my thinking was the following: Do them at 45#, so you can snatch them and do the RKBS at 35# for each round. Coach Caleb came by and asked me what I was gonna do. I explained my logic to him and he said to go heavier. He said something along those lines:

It’s better to go higher in your weight and clean and jerk it than lower and snatch it. You can always work on the strength to snatch it later once you’re used to having the heavier weight overhead. I think you can do 55#. It’s just mind-set. Brace your core, look straight ahead because the minute you waver back or forth, the bar will drop as well. Just get in the zone and stay there.

I love how, lately, Coach Caleb has been there every time I needed him to be. He gives me good advice and pushes me without putting me in danger of hurting myself.

I started round 1 at 55#, fell on my butt after attempting the 3rd rep. I picked the bar up again and finished my 2 reps, then moved onto the RKBS I finished with only 24s to spare. I was able to string all my OHS without stopping on round 2 and finished that round with 51s to spare. On my 3rd rep of round 3, my left wrist was becoming pretty painful and I stopped with a groan. Coach Caleb came by, we assessed that I shouldn’t push it today since I don’t have wrist bands and I went on to the RKBS. We also decided to do all the other rounds with 6 front squats instead of the 4 OHS. I managed all 8 rounds and finished with a combined time of 1:42 (slowest time was 1:06 and fastest was 0:36) and we figured out that I did a modified version of TG+.

Afterwards, Coach Caleb came by and re-affirmed that I could have done all rounds at 55#, I have the shoulder strength and mobility, but I need to improve my wrist strength or try it with wrist wraps.

Here’s my question to you:

Do you use wrist wraps? If so, what brand and would you recommend them?

Now, I have to go be a mom and a landlord (yes, we have a tenant for our basement suite and she’s coming today to finalize the details!) 🙂

Little Poll

I’ve had a few people ask me why BabyMama doesn’t have her own Facebook page lately. I was wondering if it was worth it to create one on there and am asking your advice. Please take the poll below if you would like for me to create a separate page from my personal Facebook one for the blog. You would get all the blog posts on the BabyMama page instead of on my personal one. Thanks!

 

Making A House A Home Part 1

Friday morning, we took the girls bright and early to Community Park so they could spend some energy outside before their nap. We were hoping the would nap a little longer since we were going to a wedding that evening. The ceremony and reception were being held at the Tigh-Na-Mara. I won’t post any pictures of the newlyweds as I didn’t ask if it was ok to post some on here so you’ll just have to trust me that they were both gorgeous and dashing!  We cleaned up very nice too, if I do say so myself!

I had bought a simple navy dress from Bryan’s  just before leaving and had forgotten all my jewelry and Ben had no pants to wear that fit him. We made a quick dash to the mall on our way to Parksville and I got myself a nice necklace and earrings from Aldo Accessories while Ben bought a nice pair of pants from Banana Republic. Rina was originally wearing a prettier dress, but she took a tumble and blood ran from her knee onto the dress, so we changed her into a different dress between the ceremony and the reception. Still a pretty cute family IMHO!

One day, BeZU will smile when prompted!

I love that dress despite my nasty CF bruise on my leg!

Yesterday morning, we decided to pack up early and hit the road during the girls nap. That meant we had to clean up the condo, do some laundry and we had also promised Rina we would take the girls “golfing” (playing mini-golf). She was so excited about it all and we didn’t really play for points. It was more an obstacle course for us as we were trying to hit our balls around little legs and feet that kept walking on the putting green. Rina and I both managed a hole-in-one on the 18th hole which meant we won 2 free plays. Seeing as we didn’t plan on using them, I went down the line-up of people waiting to purchase their entrances, picked a family of four and told them we would give them our free plays. I figured, we might as well pay-it-forward. The parents seemed very pleased with our offer and I just said they should pay-it-forward somehow to someone else! 🙂

Upon returning home, yesterday, we dove right into Home DIY projects. There were weeds to be pulled out (still lots of thistles, but we’ll get there eventually), bushes to be uprooted and plants to be watered. We had also received a call from the Home Depot saying that the blinds for our skylights were ready to be picked up. I’m pretty happy about those as it has been hard to sleep in the bedroom with the sun shining straight on my body and temperature of around 28ºC (82F). I’m sure these will make a huge difference in the heat that seems to get stuck upstairs:

See those nice sun squares shining right on my side of the bed? They are all gone on the right pic!

While we were waiting to pick up our blinds, we also decided to get 2 more shovels (one to uproot the thistles and another to do some grass trimming along our walkway) as well as a trowel for gardening. Once we dropped everything off at home, I took off on my own for a trip to HomeSense where I bought drawer organizers for the bathroom upstairs and a rug for the front entrance (I still want one for the patio door, but couldn’t find one I liked).

New rug

I also bought a towel holder that hangs from the cupboard and a make-up mirror for when I put my face on in the morning. Miracle of miracles, I also found a duvet cover for Béatrice. I was starting to re-think my idea of having her curtains and duvet cover in the shade of bubble gum pink, but I found her curtains last week at Home Outfitters and I scored her duvet cover today at home depot for $30!

Things we are still missing are a full-length mirror for upstairs, a new mirror for the bathroom downstairs (there is currently one there, I just hate it!)new furniture for the girls’ bedrooms as well as for our bedroom, and new duvet cover for us as well.

We have also booked an appointment for someone from Home Depot to come and give us a quote to change the 2 windows upstairs (they are the original ones, from 1918, wood and single pane. Definitely not safe for what will be Rina’s room) and we will be making some phone calls today to get quotes on the painting of all 3 bedrooms. Things are moving along and I’m excited about making this house a home!

Ben also put all the doors back up in our rental suite and has re-connected the washer and dryer. Lots of little projects being crossed off our list!

Thank You! The Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Earlier this week, the awesome Meg of Less Thighs More Thunder nominated me for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award. Meg is also working away at becoming the best Meg she can be and she is swimming through life’s ups and downs with flying colours.You should go check her out and tell her I sent you! She’s pretty awesome!

I was surprised to see the nomination as I don’t really see myself as an inspiration to others, this is just my little blog so I can vent, write about who I am and let my girls know about who their mom is and the joys, moments of pure bliss and also the few struggles that were dealt my way. As I said, the nomination came earlier this week, but I was way too tired to do a post about it and decided to wait until the weekend to tackle it.

Here is how it works:

• Thank and link the person who nominated you
• List the rules and display the award
• Share seven facts about yourself
• Nominate fifteen other amazing blogs and remember to comment on their blogs to let them know you’ve nominated them and provide a link to your post.
• (Optional) You can proudly display the award logo anywhere on your blog e.g. on your sidebar and also follow the blogger that nominated you.

Here are my 7 facts:

1. My husband and I met online.
2. I speak French to my daughters everyday (it’s my mother tongue). They understand it, but barely speak it. I’m hoping things will change in due time.
3. Both my daughters were born on the same day, exactly 2 years apart!
4. I secretly wish I could be a stay-at-home mom so I could go to Crossfit on a regular basis. Sometimes, shift-work really sucks for set-days activities…
5. The only award I ever won in high school was in gym class. Go figure!
6. I absolutely love eating lobster
7. I was vegan for 15 months before my 2nd pregnancy

My nominees are: (I only have 9 because I don’t have much time to read blogs… Sorry for cutting it short!)

1. Be Silly Be Strong
2. Fat Tom Goes To Blogville
3. The Twisted Yarn
4. Xine’s Battle of Her Bulge
5. Not the Fat Kid in Gym Class Anymore
6. idrankthecfkoolaid
7. E & L Adventures
8. Corrie Anne
9. The Adventures of Fanny P.

Some of these blogs are about knitting, some are about Crossfitting, some are about family, but all of them are inspiring in their own peculiar way. Go check them out, they might inspire you too!