Meeting Inspiration

I am so lucky to get to work out next to people I really look up to for inspiration! Most days, I am coached by an amazing Coach, but he is also a very strong competitor, the one and only Caleb Woiwod. Sometimes, I get to work out next to Lindsay McCardle who is just warming up on the floor (no big deal, this girl makes it to Regionals on a regular basis)! I also get to tackle some lifts while Lucas Parker drops his barbell when he does DL in the corner. I try not to cringe at the noise his bar make when it hits the floor. That bar is HEAVY, let me tell you! Then, there are the lesser known (to you)  people I look up to, like Tracey, Mark, and all my buddies in the 0600 class.

This morning, I got to meet Rachel Siemens. Rachel started as a Crossfitter and is now solely focusing on weightlifting. She is mighty(!) good at it too! She is ranked 3rd in her weight class in Canada and is pretty down to earth. I’ve been following her on Instagram and her lifts are impressive and she seems pretty goofy too! I bit the bullet and introduced myself. I’m pretty sure I sounded a little star-struck (combined with the high of my new PR, more on that below!), but I don’t really care. She talked about setting up a weight lifting class on Sundays and that would be awesome!

Let me back track and have a look at what we did this morning:

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Skill: Back squat 6×3 E90s

I was a little apprehensive trying those again. I’ve been missing a lot of the back squat skills on this rotation (a girl’s gotta work!) and the last time I tried these, I couldn’t repeat my PR of 125# and had to settle for 120#. I wasn’t super optimistic about surpassing 125# today, but I was still going to try it. Here were my reps:

105#-110#-115#-120#-125#-130#

That’s right! Not only did I manage my PR weight, I ended up with a new one! I was really focusing on keeping my knees out on the “up” and even though I was shaking in between rounds, I managed to get all 3 reps! I was beaming! That means I’m only 18# away from √’ing another one of my goals: hitting a bodyweight squat! 🙂

WOD: Boulder Shoulder

Sarah Showed up for the WOD this morning. I can’t remember if I’ve ever worked out with her, but she looked really good! I think she is recovering from an injury, but even in recovery mode, she kicked some serious butts! I was mesmerized by her pull-ups! I still finished dead last, but I was happy about my work today. Maybe I was flying high from my squat PR! 😉 Coach Caleb said that the previous times were from 4-5 mins to about 10. I was aiming for around 12:00 since I’m usually a lot slower than the average.  Here’s what I ended up doing:

• red and orange pull-ups
• full HRPU
• Rx AKBS @ 35#

I was really trying to hustle on this one, but the pull-ups did me in. I broke them into 4-3, 3-4, 3-2-2, 3-2-2, 3-2-2. As you can see, I wasn’t able to keep my consistency throughout the rounds. I did manage all the HRPU Rx, but I had to take breaks throughout the rounds: 9, 5-4, 9, 6-3, 6-3. I was pretty proud that I did manage to do all the AKBS Rx non-stop for each rounds. That’s probably what stopped me from reaching my original thought of time of 12:00 and I finished at 10:27. Not stellar by any means, yet I am super happy with this time! Celebrate the little victories in life!

Overall, it’s been another great day at the Box and I was energized to come home to do my usually pre night shift cleaning, laundry, blah, blah, blah! Ben took the girls to their gymnastics class this morning, which helped a lot. At one point, the washer and dryer were both off and there was absolutely no noise in the house. It was something I’m not used to, but it was nice while I finished my coffee! Hope your day is going well too! Until next time!

Inspiration…Me? Who Knew?

Look what I got in the mail yesterday:

Class act post card from Coach Be over at Crossfit Stasis! I love the French Thanks at the bottom! 

 

Yesterday was rough. I only managed to sleep for 3hrs after my night shift and I was so relieved when I was granted the night off (without pay, of course). I swear, the night shifts are slowly killing me. I managed to string another solid 6hrs when I finally went to bed for the night and then, I was up bright and early for Crossfit!

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The warmup was Bring Sally Up where you do squats on the Moby song. Overtime he says “down” you squat down and only get up when he says “bring Sally up”. The Rx weight is 135# for men and 95# for women, but unless you have impeccable form, it shouldn’t be attempted at those weights. We did it doing air squats and Coach Caleb let us out of our misery early by cutting the song a little short. My hip flexors were screaming!

WOD: Deadlimp

I was determined to use a little bit heavier for the DL than I normally use (105#), so I went with 115# for all rounds. I was doing ok for the first few rounds, using the 35# KB for the lunges, but on round 4, my left quad started to seize up and I had to resort to stepping up the box jumps and dropped down to 26# for the reverse lunges. I finished all rounds, but I had to roll my quad during the “rest” periods. That was a tough one!

The legs failed me, but I stayed strong and focused until the finish!

When we were done, Tracey asked me if she could introduce me to her friend Lara and Kelsey showed up a little later. They have just started in the On-Ramp class. Tracey had been sharing some of my blog posts and tagged both Lara and Telsey in it so that they could see Crossfit is feasible for EVERYONE! We chatted up a bit about being moms, our insecurities and the challenges that Crossfit bring about, but I also mentioned some of the tremendous benefits. It was ver humbling to know that these two women were inspired by little old me and my little blog. Heck, I had just celebrated the fact that I didn’t come last in the WOD on Wednesday (by a mere 7 seconds, but still, I wasn’t last! 🙂 ) So, to know that even though I far from excel at this, but yet can still inspire others to take it on (and surpass my accomplishments) is extremely humbling and it made me feel good about my whole journey.

I came back home, cleaned up and took this pic:

 

 

Hello Traps! 🙂

Now, I’m looking forward to a relaxing day with the girls and Ben in the afternoon!

 

When Fran Fights You, Fight Back!

I woke up a few minutes before my alarm and felt so groggy. Béatrice was up a few times last night as she has a cold and even though I only got up once for her (thanks Babe, you’re the best!), I was really tired. Once I finally woke up, I was happy and ready to go have another round at FRAN!

There were 20 of us for the 0600 class this morning! 20! I don’t know how we magically worked it out, but there wasn’t a bar left in the Box and yet, nobody was missing a bar to lift!

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Skill: Deadlift 5×5 E90s

I went with 105# for these and decided to stick with that weight for all the reps since I wanted to work on my form. We had to do the hook grip for all reps and couldn’t drop the bar (burpee penalty if you did, but nobody did!). I also wanted to work on the hook grip with the mixed grip as I struggle with my mix grip. I know it will help me lift heavier in the long run. It was fun to see everyone just chatting in-between sets, the mood was festive and the Box felt so lively this early in the morning!

WOD: Fran

Fran is yet another 4-letter word. I was not dreading her before I started the WOD, because I’d done her a few times before. I had chosen to go with 55# (a weight approved by Coach Caleb. He said he would have recommended that weight for me had I not chosen it for myself) and I wanted to use the red and purple bands for the pull-ups since I always end up doing C2B with the red and blue ones (too much momentum). On my round of 15, Fran tried to kick me down to the ground. I had to break my thrusters so many times. I wanted to just keep going, but my shoulders wouldn’t go along with my plan. After yesterday’s Bear Complex, I had little left in me. And then, Fran got in my head. She was trying to tell me that I wouldn’t be able to finish her. I was so frustrated with her, tears welled up in my eyes and then I was annoyed at myself for tearing up. I let out a groan, bucked up and kicked that Fran right in the teeth. I kept going and went on to do the round of 9 thrusters (broke it into 5 and 4) and then really fought for my pull-ups. I finished in 12:03. My slowest time ever for Fran, but at the same time, I PR’d. I used smaller bands than previous attempts and heavier weights. I am 10# away from doing the thrusters RX and, to me, that’s a big improvement.

My Fran evolution

I may never be an RX athlete for the WODs, I’m ok with that, but it won’t be for lack of trying. I will always fight for my time, fight for my rep, fight for my weight. As long as I keep up the fight, I will be content with my results. Speaking of fighting for it, here’s a picture I took of Mark O. He’s had a shoulder surgery a few months back and I was in awe, watching him do his pull-ups. That was true inspiration for me today:

Inspiration!

I sent him the picture and we had a little chat afterwards:

My lovely hubby was telling me last night that my body has changed in the past 2 months. According to him, my bum is more defined and firm, my legs and arms have toned up and my boobs are firmer (sorry about the TMI, that was his thoughts, not mine)! He said I was starting to look like Camille! Bwahaha! I laughed at that, but I understand he was paying me a compliment and it meant a lot coming from the love of my life!

As for us, we are slowly getting ready for the girls’ birthday on Sunday. Some of you might not know, but our daughters share a birthday, 2 years apart. BeZU will turn 2 and Rina will be 4! Looking forward to their special day! 🙂

So Many Colours!

After we departed with the largest sum of money we have ever managed to save up at the lawyer’s office this morning, it felt really real… WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! Also, we’re moving in 3 days! Yikes!

I came back home and all I wanted to do was peruse Design Seeds for the rest of the day. I have many Pins on my Pinterest account from their site and find it such a good inspiration for colours! For the moment, let me just share with you a few that I really have my mind set on, now I need to work on getting the husband to agree, although I just found out today that it might be easier than I originally thought so…

Yet another reason my husband is the best!

So… for our master bedroom, I was thinking shades of grey or charcoal with a bright canary yellow. Something along these lines:

(pics taken from here and here)

I’m thinking an accent wall in the shade of yellow with the other walls in the lighter shade of grey/charcoal, while maintaining the trims white and hopefully getting the white/beige carpet cleaned. Eventually, I’d like to keep our furniture on the darker side and get a black duvet cover. I could accent the duvet cover with a knitted yellow blanket and lighter accessories in the room. So yeah, that would be my ideal master bedroom! 🙂

For Rina’s room, I’d like to keep her duvet cover the same and therefore I was thinking something along these lines

(pics taken from here and here)

I would use the second pink from the left or the second purple from the bottom as an accent wall (again) and hopefully, we could pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master and save up some money by doing so.

As for Béatrice’s room, she doesn’t yet have a duvet as she’s still in her crib, but we were hoping to get her in the toddler bed once the move is complete. She has this really nice knitted blanket that Mamie painstakingly made for her and it’s a dark grey and lime green in colour… Something along these lines would be awesome:

(pics taken from here and here)

Again, the lime green would be an accent wall and we could maybe pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master bedroom and call it a day.

There you have it, my inspiration for our upstairs living quarters. As for our downstairs, I’ll keep the hallway and kitchen the same sandy/off-white colour. The dining room and living room are a bit more puzzling to me. They are big and open to one another, separated only by a small arch. I would love to have a beach-y feel to the main floor. Tones of (again) light grey, sea foam, navy and accents of coral is what I have in mind. I saw the following ad on the Pier 1 Imports website and that’s where the inspiration is coming from:

(pics taken from here and here)

That’s where the inspiration stops. I don’t know how I would paint the walls and what colour. I think I’d like to upgrade our couch to either a grey leather sectional or navy fabric sectional, although a navy leather sectional would be my ultimate dream! I would probably put accent cushions in the coral tones. The downstairs isn’t a priority right now and we’ll mainly focus our time, energy and finances on the basement suite (changing the carpets, or ultimately, getting them cleaned to their original status), the upstairs and refinishing the deck. If we could get by with just cleaning the carpets in the suite, it would free some money that we could use somewhere else! 🙂

Down the road, we’ll need new furniture for both the girls’ bedrooms, our bedrooms, the living room and a patio set would be awesome-sauce too! All in due time. We’ll get things done slowly, but this house will be our home! I can’t wait ti get the keys tomorrow. If we get them soon enough, I might take the girls with me to go have a picnic for lunch or dinner on the floor of our new house! 🙂

Please, Let Me Die!

After a very rocky night of the girls waking up every 45-60 mins (which means I was also woken up at the same intervals), I finally got up to go to Crossfit and that’s when the girls decided to finally sleep uninterrupted. Murphy’s law, I’m not your biggest fan!

Here’s what I got up for…

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The leap-frogs were fun and made me feel like I was 4 years old again! 🙂

The Skills were a bit weak at 55#, but I had to get that bar on my shoulders and that’s why the weight is so low. I did manage to do the full clean though, so I’m happy with that.

There was nothing Minion about it. My time was 12:30. I went into it thinking I was going to do the TG with 3 rounds, but then, I decided against it and went for the FG with 25# plate floor to overhead, full push-ups and pull-ups with red and green bands. After the 3rd round, I thought I was going to die! I managed ok with the squats, but the plate floor to overhead were killers. All I could keep thinking about was: You’re lifting Rina (actually, she is now 28#, so not quite lifting her), keep lifting her! The push-ups were ugly as I had to break them into sets of 4 on the last round, BUT I did manage to do all my pull-ups unbroken FOR ALL FOUR ROUNDS! Me thinks it’s time to progress to the green and purple band! 😉

There were so many of us this morning (I,m guessing close to 20, I didn’t count) that we had to break the WOD in 2 groups and I was glad I was in the 1st group to go: plenty of time to stretch and catch my breath as I cheered on the 2nd group! 🙂

I have to say, I Crossfit with some pretty amazing people. I’m always amazed at how people perform in WODs: Jordan, Jumana, Tracey, Mark (both of them), Josh, Amrit and Michelle, just to name a few. It’s easy for me to cheer them on as I look up to every single one of them. One day, when I grow up, I want to be just like them! 🙂

P.S: I don’t know what’s going on, but I lost 3 lbs this week, not changing anything in my exercise or diet. Keeping my fingers crossed that I finally broke through the plateau I’ve been stuck on for the past 2 months! 🙂