When Your Cheat Meals Cheat You!

Artsy shot I took of the sunrise on our condensation-filled bedroom window this morning

Alright everyone, enough with the artistic distractions. It’s confession time:

My eating hasn’t been on point for the past two weeks and I can definitely feel it in my performance / energy level. I have had pasta, bread and dairy, increasingly more over the past week and it showed up today.

I walked into the Box and felt like I hadn’t been there for 2 weeks. That’s how low my energy level was. Again, I didn’t have high expectations about the skills or the WOD for that matter because I already felt so drained…

I had Béatrice with me and I was a little worried about being able to focus on my stuff with her there, but the Coach AJ parted the skies and brought out the big box of giant Legos! Combined with her snacks, I had a happy, content kid and I was able to really focus on the work to do! Yay for Coach AJ! 🙂

While I was warming up, I managed a very good TTB, followed closely by an almost successful 2nd rep. Rob Black, I’m definitely coming for you! (Rob and I have a friendly competition going: 1st one to manage 10 TTB consecutively. He’s been cheating lots by doing lots of Team comps, so I don’t feel bad at all at practicing my TTB!)

Source

Skill: Back Squat 3×10 E2M

I had gone up to 100# last time on these and managed to get a little higher today with a last set at 105#. My reps were: 95#-100#-105#. The last set was hard, but I tried to keep my chest up as best I could and really keep my knees out as well on the up. I think I managed ok.

WOD: Flash

It was all women except for Mike today and I felt bad for him because we all started talking about bladder leakage and well, he couldn’t really relate, could he? To keep with the topic, I received this email yesterday. My heart always sinks when I get this email from my period-tacking app. Maybe I should just remove the app, but then, how would I track my cycle?

Worst email ever…

Ok, back to Crossfit

This looked like it was going to be easy on paper, but man, it did me in. My quads were pretty beat up from the squats and I had nothing in me. I have been trying to up my weights during the WODs to 65# (I used to do 55# all the time) and I’m not sure if it’s because I was using that weight or because of my less-than-desired nutrition, but I did not do very well on this one, at all! Here were my times for each rounds:

1:41 – 2:00 – 2:11 – 2:11

After my second round, Coach AJ told me to start again at the 5min mark so I could get some rest. It was a blow on the ego for sure, but I had a cutie who kept smiling at me and kept cheering me on with her enthusiastic “Go Maman!, Go maman! so I really didn’t have any other choices than to smile back and pick up the darn barbell back up. Ugh! Kids! Can’t fail in front of them and certainly cannot give up either, because what would I be teaching them then?!?

That’s exactly what I did, I picked up the barbell and managed through my 3rd round. Thank God Coach AJ was there to tell me to pick it back up. I’m honestly not sure I would have otherwise. That was such a hard WOD for me. 3 round wasn’t better so I took until 8mins to rest and then picked it back up for the last round. It was ugly, but I finished it and added my best and worst rounds for a total of 3:52. Before the WOD started, we were joking that I could easily bring this WOD to 10-mins, even though there was a time cap of 8min. See Coach AJ, I told you I would do this one in 10 mins! Lol! Who’s part of the special Crossfit class now?!? I am!

I cleaned up after Béatrice and came back home, ready for a shower.

Sweaty and tired, but yet, I still have to entertain this little munchkin!

Once I was done with the shower, it was time to go get Rina new running shoes as well as a mattress cover for Béatrice’s new mattress. She has now graduated to a big girl bed and we have new furniture for her room as well. I’ve been cleaning bed sheets, etc and my legs still haven’t fully recovered from the skill/WOD. I am very much looking forward to sitting on the couch and not doing anything after the girls have gone to bed. Until then, I mother on and plan on cleaning up that diet of mine (aka working on paleo)! Lol!

 

Grace

I got up at 0500 for the 3rd day in a row and got ready to hit the Box for this:

Source

 

Dark and wet

It was raining for the 1st day in about 3 months this morning and I’ve been noticing how dark it is already when I get up for the 0600 class. Back to fall weather soon, I guess.

 

WOD: I warmed up with 55#, then moved on to 65# as suggested by Tracey and Coach Caleb. I had a plan of breaking my reps into sets of 3 for the first 15, then do single reps. I got to 15 according to my plan and I still felt good so I kept going with sets of 3. I figured I would keep it up until I felt unable to do so, but it turns out I finished all 30 reps broken into sets of 3. According to Mark, I looked strong doing it too. Does that mean I sandbagged this one? Should I have gone with 75# instead? I’m not sure. Coach Caleb was very adamant that we make sure our form was perfect the whole way through and I apparently managed to do just that. I wasn’t last to finish, I think I finished in the middle or towards the end of the pack, so maybe my scaling was on point? I’m not sure. I’m so used to scaling and finishing last that I feel like maybe I screwed up when I’m not last and maybe I didn’t work hard enough. Maybe I should see it as myself getting stronger instead? I’m not sure how to analyze this, but at least, I now have a benchmark for Grace and it gives me something to go from here on out.

I paired up with Neil aka Boy and we did our 5 rounds of the Skill #2. That ab wheel was something new and it hurt my wrists for some reason.

Strap your feet in and bring your knees into a tuck or pike

I only managed to string 10 DUs once. The rest of my reps were singles upwards of 4 in-a-row. Not my best performance, but today is my 4th day of Crossfit this week and I feel beat up. I was pouring sweat after the Skill #2 and I came back home, dreading having to attempt the entire house cleaning for yet another day this week.

Walking into the house, I noticed our black “leather” couch had been decorated with gold Sharpie… I hopped back into my car and drove to the only grocery store open to get a Magic Eraser. Some of the disaster has disappeared, but not all of it. Ben thinks if we draw over it with a dry-erase marker and then wipe that down, it will lift off the Sharpie as well. We’ll try that later. That’s one of the reason I didn’t want to get a real leather couch just yet… I knew it would get ruined at some point by the girls, I just didn’t think it would happen 8 months after getting our couch! 😦 Ugh!

Ben and Nanny have agreed on a plan in order to help keep me sane today: Ben will take the girls out of the house and Nanny will help me (hopefully) finish cleaning the main floor. This way, the girls have a better chance of staying alive to see another day and Nanny and I will power through the cleaning.

She looks all innocent wrapped up in my blanket, but don’t get fooled by appearances… She’s the gold Sharpie culprit and is grounded for today!

Stress Management

So, we, as a family, have been under tremendous stress lately.

It all started last Wednesday evening, when I sent Nanny a gentle reminder that she was working the next day at 0830. Yes, I’ve had to send her reminder for every single one of her shifts with us, even though her work schedule is all entered in a Google Calendar shared with her. It’s been a struggle… She never responded to my text, nor my Facebook message. As I got ready for bed, I told Ben to get up a little early as I had the weird feeling Nanny wasn’t gonna show up the next day and he’d probably have to take the girls with him to work (I was working too).

As predicted, Nanny didn’t show up. Not only did she not show up, she never called or texted to give us a bogus explanation. I was at work and in charge and could have probably come home, but Ben assured me he could manage the girls and work. He came home exhausted that night and I was fuming. It had been the 3rd time Nanny hadn’t shown up for work without a phone call or explanation, she has been late a few times before as well and has never bothered to call us to let us know AND she has shown up to work hungover twice, smelling like a barrel of booze. The last time she did that (2 weeks ago!), I had a chat with her about the standards of care I was expecting when it came to my children and who was taking care of them and I thought I had been pretty clear that she had been sub-par and that I was expecting more out of her.

Well, let’s just say Nanny is no longer employed with us. She got back to me Saturday, asking if I wanted her to work on Sunday, she was in the hospital, her phone was dead, blah, blah, blah. Errr… First of all, check your schedule because you’re not working Sunday. Second of all, did you not read the email I sent you FIRING YOU?!? Third, you couldn’t find anybody with a phone you could borrow? Or, I don’t know, ask your nurse to call your boss WHO WORKS IN THE HOSPITAL to let her know you wouldn’t be in for work???

She was supposed to bring our keys Saturday evening, she canceled. She was supposed to bring our keys Sunday afternoon, she canceled. I told her I needed the keys today at 10am or else I would be forced to change the locks and it would come out of her last pay check. Don’t fcuk with the BabyMama Bear! Not surprisingly, when you threatened to take money away, she showed up, but was missing the key to our shed. Ben took some money out of her last pay to replace the lock (it’s the second time we’ve had to change the shed lock because she had lost the key previously).

I don’t like being angry. It takes a lot of negative energy out of me and it does nothing good for me. However, don’t take me for a fool either. When it comes to my children, I could easily tip into the rage range of emotions if you try to bullshit me.

We have been super lucky with a temporary Nanny coming out of the blue. She is the daughter of a co-worker and she will fill-in for us until we find somebody permanent or until the end of the summer, whichever comes first. She is young, but responsible, the girls love her and have a good time with her. I don’t need to remind her when she has to come in and the fact that she picked up so spontaneously and has had no issues with the girls takes some stress away from the whole situation.

Needless to say, the Nanny search is on. I really wish we could find somebody long-term, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. I have some interviews lined up for this week and for now, I feel reassured when the girls are with temporary-Nanny.

I kind of really want to go to Crossfit tomorrow, but with only 3hrs of sleep post night shift today and only 2 meals in my body, I know that I won’t be rested or fuelled enough in order to perform. I will stay home and maybe work on some KB stuff in the yard and do some DUs. Ben and I are already exhausted from a long year of work, this is something we didn’t need to deal with. We are very much looking forward to our little upcoming Cuban vacation.

I got to come home to this little darling who snuggled up to me in bed, hugging me and kissing me. I don’t care that I look exhausted (I was), no makeup on and am ready for bed, I love how real this picture is:

Best Perks of Motherhood

Béa In A Box

I was allowed to sleep in until 0626 this morning until Rina walked into my room. The husband is away and I know how to make the best of our king-size bed to myself: Find that sweet spot in the middle that smells of my husband, bury my nose in the blankets, spread out into a star shape and doze off until one of the girls get up or until my alarm goes off! (Who am I kidding, when you have young kids, you don’t need an alarm!)

I got up, made the girls breakfast and got them ready so we could drop Rina off at preschool. I had a plan. Drop-off is at 0900 and there is a 0930 Crossfit class. I wanted to go to that class with Béatrice and see how she would behave during the class. I had extra pull-ups (the diapers, not the Crossfit move), some snacks, a stuffed monkey and an old iPhone with some games on it for her. Turns out, she was just happy sitting close-by, where she could watch me huff and puff! She behaved really well and I’m hoping to repeat the experience on Wednesday. I, on the other hand, felt gassed for some reason. Between having to care for the girls by myself and having to run errands constantly, I’m falling behind in my water consumption and I think it may be why I felt like a ton of brick today.  The people at the 0930 class were all people I didn’t know and they were patient enough to wait for me to be done with the WOD before they started to pick up their stuff. Here’s what we did:

Source

Skill: Front Squat 5×5 E90S

Last time I had done a set of 5×5 front squat was back in August and I had finished at 100#. I was aiming at 105#, but it just didn’t happen. I decided to try to focus on my form instead and, since I felt like I had nothing left in me, I stayed behind on my weights. Here’s what I did:

85#-90#-90#-95#-95#

I repeated both the 90# and 95# because I wasn’t happy with my butt. I have a tendency to dip forward at the bottom of the squat which, then makes me get up from the squat “stripper-style”. Not super pronounced, but I want to correct that bad habit before I start increasing my load. It was hard to focus on these as Béatrice was sitting further at the beginning and we had a false alarm about a diaper change during my warm-up. Meh! What do you expect when you bring a toddler to the Box. At least, I got moving and that’s the most important part.

WOD: Wobble Bobble

I did this one FG with the red and purple bands. The wallballs are still killing me. I love to hate wallballs. I know they must have a purpose of some sort and we’re supposed to work on our weaknesses, but I still suck at them and I still dislike them very much. I used the 14# ball for them and on my 3rd round, I was seriously wondering how I was going to finish the round and do another one. One of the boys started cheering me on and said:

Think of all the gains! GAINS!

That made me laugh and I just kept plucking at them. I caught the ball so many times with my neck and chest, I came home with a huge black line of grime and sweat in my trachea. Super attractive, lemme tell you! (Why doesn’t anybody tell me these things before I leave the Box? I guess that’s one drawback to not having mirrors plastered all over the place)! I still had 20 pull-ups to finish off. I tried o do sets of 5 and I managed to do that, except for the last ones that I had to break into 3 & 2. I finished well after everybody else at 16:23, but at least, I finished. I wanted to quit so many times during thee wallballs that I honestly don’t care that I’m dead last. I’m just proud that I finished at all.

I then picked up Béatrice (with all her gear), rushed home to shower the wallaby grime away, switched a load of laundry, start my spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight in the slow cooker and left again to go get Rina at pre-school. We then ran some errands, grabbed lunch and came back home. My cousin was on a business trip from Ontario and I had the pleasure of his company for dinner. It was short, but it was nice to catch up with him. I always cherish these little visits, it’s nice to catch up with family and have grown-up conversations once-in-a-while! 😉

Alright, enough blogging, time for this Mama to put her feet up and relax on the couch!

 

Lifting Test Week

I was up at 0300 and never managed to fall back asleep after that. I had just mentioned to some co-workers that I was sleeping so much better since I had started my detox. That’ll teach me to brag! I finally got up at 0445 and got ready for the Skill Plus class. I forgot to take a picture of the board, but the warm-up was a challenge for me today. Here’s what we had to do, with an empty bar:

3 rounds of

• 5 high snatch
• 5 OHS
• 5 power cleans

The high snatch were so freakin’ awkward. I had the hardest time just shrugging that bar up, without dipping. It did get me warm though, so I guess that’s good!

This week was Test/Technique week i.e. we could chose to either test ourselves on our lifts with a 5x1RM E3M (starting at 90%) on both lifts or keep working on the technique with a 5×2 E3M (starting at 85%).

I chose to test myself on my Snatch and work on technique for the Clean & Jerk. Here’s what I did:

Snatch Test 5×1 RM Test

I started on my previous PR, so I guess I just had to get comfortable from there and push forward:

55#-55#-60#-60#-65#

I managed the one rep at 65, but it was so ugly, I kind of just pressed it up before going into the OHS, so I definitely no-repped myself on that one. It’s still a 5# PR on my hardest lift, and I only started the Skills Plus classes about a month ago, so I’m happy with that!

We then warmed up for our Clean & Jerk. My previous 1RM was 70# and I wanted to work on my technique towards that weight today.

Coach Caleb had me start at 65#, so once again, I just had to push through (I started at 92% of my 1RM):

Clean & Jerk 5×2 E3M Technique

65#-65#-65#-70#-70#

Coach Caleb told me to maintain contact with my thighs and I went off to the side in-between rounds to practice with a dowel. Crazy what a little muscle memory can do to your lift! I was done though. I’ve been in a fog since I started my detox on Monday and today is actually the 1st day I don’t have a headache at lunchtime. Here’s hoping I’m done with the sugar and caffeine withdrawal and I’ll be able to go about my day normally. I didn’t feel weak lifting today, but I could definitely tell I needed a hearty breakfast upon returning home. I made myself an egg-white omelet and although it wasn’t very satisfying taste-wise, it did the trick. I cleaned up the upstairs, finished folding the laundry and then took the girls to play outside. Rina is getting really good at kicking the soccer ball between my legs and Béatrice is getting better at kicking the ball period. We had a good lunch and now, they are doing puzzles while I’m blogging. They will go for nap/quiet time soon and I will go for (hopefully) a good nap as well before heading in to work tonight.

I’m angry

I may not have shared this on the blog, but (I thought) we had found a nanny to take care of the girls when I go back to work. She was supposed to start today at 1100. I waited until 1115 to call her at home (she doesn’t have a cell phone) and left her a message. She hasn’t called back yet and as the day goes on, I find myself fuming growing more frustrated. It is one thing if you’ve changed your mind and don’t want to look after my darling girls (ok, they’re not always darling, but nobody needs to know!), but I find it completely disrespectful to NOT show up WITHOUT even a phone call. I mean, come on!

I’m just glad I’m not back to work yet and it wasn’t a complete catastrophe where either Ben or myself needed to miss work. I just don’t get it. Why is it so freakin’ hard to find reliable, caring, mindful child care? If she calls me back, she better have a ridiculously good excuse for not contacting me. In the meantime, I’m still looking for a nanny if anybody knows of someone interested…