Lighten Up!

I got off night shift yesterday morning and only slept for 3hrs before giving up on sleeping. The house was noisy, but I knew it would be so I made peace with it and got up for the day at 1pm. Needless to say I passed out on the couch at 2130! I had planned to get up at 0500 for the 0600 class this morning (the girls don’t have school today) and I was regretting that decision when my alarm went off! I got up anyway and made my way to the Box for this:

Source

Warm-Up: Cindy x 3 rounds (5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats)

I couldn’t get my pull-ups with just the blue band so I added up the purple band and was n’t impressed with how I was doing, but at least, I was warming up.

Skills: Handstand push-ups: 4-5 x 6-10 reps

I’ve been struggling to find the ideal “tripod” position between my hands and head and I only managed one successful round of 5  strict reps from a yoga block + 3×5# plates. I’ve done better in the past, but I just wasn’t feeling it today. I did try a kipping rep and it is SO MUCH EASIER!!! I guess I should master a strict without any scaling before I start thinking about kipping my reps though, right?!? 😉

 

WOD: Lift Up Step Down

Coach Caleb said we should aim at 75-80% for our DL. That meant I should have gone with 120#-125# for my reps, but as I was warming up, 105# felt challenging enough as it was and I stuck with that for the WOD. My DUs are still elusive and I can only manage one-at-a-time interspersed with single skips in-between. I aimed at the FG for 8 DUs + 16 SUs for each rounds.

We got going and I managed the 1st round doing all the BJ Rx. I did, however, scale it back to step-ups for the rest of the rounds as I felt my form was suffering and I didn’t want to make my sciatic angry. I know DL usually make it angry, so I wasn’t gonna push it too much with the BJ.

Here were my times for each rounds:

1:55 – 1:40 – 1:37 – 1:32 – 1:37

fastest + slowest = 3:27

Was I happy about my performance today? Nope, but at least I went and did the work. Sometimes, you have to cut yourself some slack and not allow a crappy workout to turn your day into crap. Funny enough, the Box blog post was all about scaling and how there’s no shame in scaling movements or weights once in a while!

I realize I haven’t blogged at all last week. I made a conscious decision to deal with more important family affairs and that meant the blog took the back burner. Our nanny is moving at the end of February, so I’m trying to find a suitable replacement. It feels like my days off are spent working out, cleaning, cooking and having nanny interviews. Not my idea of a fun day off and since the girls have a pro-D day today, I’m cutting this post short so I can make the most of our day together!

In other news, Béatrice drew this this morning. It’s her 1st “character” drawing where you can actually recognize the features. Apparently, I’m the one on the right because I’m “the angriest!” Lol!

Budding artist makes me so proud!

 

The one at the top reminds me of Barbapapa!

Anybody else used to watch this show as a kid?

Scary + 14 month Progress Update

I had set up my alarm to go to the 0600 class yesterday morning, but I was still getting over my cold and coughing a lot more than I wanted to so I rolled over and slept until 0640, which was heaven to me!

Both of our smoke alarms (upstairs and downstairs) went off at 0430 this morning and I got up to do a quick survey of the house. Nothing was out of place, nothing was smoking. I even checked outside and nothing. Ben barely woke up and the girls never even budged. That’s is a bit scary to me. What if it had been a real fire? I went back to bed, feeling uneasy and managed to sleep a bit before my alarm went off. I was not feeling it, but I drug myself out of bed and made my way to the box. It had been exactly 7 days since my last WOD and I realized how easy it would be to just stop going altogether, making excuses and falling out of the rhythm. Scary! I’m glad I went and got to do this for a workout:

Source

Skill: I managed a free handstand off the wall for about 3-4secs, unassisted, but I couldn’t repeat that get by doing it off the wall with my spotters. Also, I practiced my DUs during my warm-up and can now do 3-4 with only 1 jump in-between. Almost there! 🙂

WOD: Ariane

We all know how short I am and how much of a struggle it is for me to row. I was paired with Kirsten (who used to row) and Adrian. Kirsten and me rowed at the same time and Adrian was our “partner 2”. He kept all his splits very strong around 1:40 – 1:45. I don’t know what my splits were because I had programmed my rower in a funky way and it added up the rest time as well as Adrian’s time to my splits. I only know my first one was 2:12 which was 7secs faster than my 1st split last time I did this WOD. We finished in 20:12 whereas I had done it in 22:02 last time. I know I have to attribute most of this to Adrian’s fast splits, but I’m sure I must have done better too!

Another scary news:

1st Competition!

It’s official! I have registered for the Women Novice category for the Vic City Games! Please, come out and cheer us on on October 5th! You am also raising funds for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and you can donate here.

Alright! Last, but not least, another progress update in numbers and pictures. I have gained weight and inches since my 12 months progress, but strangely, I think I look and feel better in my clothes. Here’s hoping it’s because of muscle gain and not fat!

Progress in numbers

Slowly starting to see definition in my abs and my back and shoulders are so much stronger!

Better, Faster, Stronger

When I saw the WOD posted on Tuesday night, I was both excited and a little defeated. I was excited for the handstand practice because eventually, these will lead to handstand push-ups (HSPU) and they are on my bucket list. I was a little defeated because not only there was running in the WOD, it was stretches of 600m, not 400m…

I was also excited to go on Thursday as that means the earliest class is at 0700 (not 0600) and it also meant I could “sleep in”! 🙂 It was just Jessica and myself this morning and that girl is really funny and she can kick some serious butts too!

Source

Skill: Handstand 5x 20sec.

We warmed up with some wall walks and although I have a hard time getting really close to the wall when I do these, I knew I could do the handstand against the wall, no problem. I kicked up my legs… and didn’t make it to the wall. I kicked off again and, this time, I managed to make it to the wall and got into position. On the 3rd attempt, I tried to get my feet off the wall to go into a real handstand, but I couldn’t figure it out. Coach Caleb came by on my 5th attempt so he could prevent my legs from going too far back  and as much as I tried to, I just couldn’t stabilize off the wall. It was a good first practice and I was happy to get that under my belt.

WOD:  I had no idea how many rounds I would complete, but I knew I wanted to fight for them. We took off for the first 600m and as I neared 200m, I wanted to take a walking break so bad, but instead, I slowed my pace and kept going. First 600m non-stop in the bag. I came back inside to do my burpee box jumps and no-repped myself for one box jump because my hand touched the box. I did all my burpees Rx (no granny-style burped for me today). Then, I moved onto the rig and started doing my knee raises. My hands kept slipping and I couldn’t string more than 3 or 4 together, but I got my 1st round done. Off to the run again. This time, I went out a lot slower and while I was “running” I kept repeating this mantra in my head:

I’m a runner. I’m a runner. I’m a runner…

I had to keep a grasp on my mental and it seemed to work. Second 600m non-stop done. Back inside for the burped box jumps. I was slow, but I kept my rhythm. Onto the rig for the knee raises. I was still slipping and had to no-rep myself for one because I didn’t clear my heels in the back on a rep. Honesty before score!

Third round of 600m run. It was painfully slow and I kept crossing Jessica as she was returning to the gym with a huge smile on her face. Every time she passed me, she encouraged me or gave me a little “high-five”. She reminded me of this guy. The one on the left with the purple shirt. Yeah, that guy. Except, picture a girl with a bob instead, looking like a freakin’ gazelle frolicking in the early morning and you have it down to a T.

Ridiculously good-looking marathon guy

Meanwhile, there’s me, huffing and puffing like a hyperventilating rhino, slower than a turtle, but I’m still running. Ok, not sure running is the appropriate term, but I’m not walking and that’s all that matters to me. Third 600m non-stop done. Back inside for my burpee box jumps and another set of knee raises. 45 seconds left on the clock. As I take off for yet another run, Coach Caleb yells at me:” 200m Val, just 200m this time”. I probably could have kissed him right then and there, but that would have meant having to go back and adding to my running mileage and fat chance in hell of that happening. I did the last 200m non-stop. Jessica said I looked like I had the running part down. She said I looked at ease, with a good pace. Good thing she didn’t see me on my last two runs! 😉

Officially, my score was 63 (21 reps per rounds and I did 3 full rounds).

Unofficially, my score is 63.33 (3 full rounds + 200m run).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go ice my shins before heading to bed for  glorious nap before my night at work! 🙂

P.S. I think the Eat to Perform plan is slowly showing its benefits. I still can’t control my calories that well on days when I don’t work out, but I hit my macros and eat healthier overall and I’ve noticed I’m slightly doing better in the WODs… Maybe I’m onto something here! 😉