Pushing The Envelope

Well, actually, I’ve been pushing weights, more than an envelope, but you get my gist, right?

After a restful night of sleep where NOBODY woke up in the middle of the night (Whoot! Whoot!), I woke up at 0500 again for the Oly class.

I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it there as my gas light turned on, on my way to the Box, but I managed to make it and there’s a gas station across the street so my plan was to fill up after class. Worst comes to worst, I knew I would be able to push my car to the station! 😉 BAM!

Today marked my 8th training session in 14 days. I’ve never trained this much in my life! It’s my last week before my month-long vacation comes to an end and my plan was to squeeze as many workouts as I can before I go back to my usual 2-3 sessions/week. I am definitely starting to feel it though and combined with it being my 1st week back on the Whole30 and all the cloudy/rainy weather we’ve had this week, all I want to do is sleep. Unfortunately, I have 2 cuties that have other plans for me:

Every time I tried to nap on the couch, they would come bother me!

Who needs sleep, right?

Anyway, back to Oly class, here’s what we did today:

I wonder if those Forehead Jerks made me look as stupid as they made me feel??? Those were weird!

C&J EMOM X10 @85%

That meant 76.5# for me. Coach Caleb told me I had soft elbows on my jerk during my warm-up to that weight, but apparently, I corrected once I reached my target weight. Maybe I just needed more weight in order to really lock my elbows? I was trying not to pause between the clean and the jerk all while keeping the lift smooth and I was tired by rep 7. I started to take a few breaths in the transition and I was glad when we were done.

OHS 6×2 E3M

I teamed up with Linda who saved my hair crisis this morning. You know the drill: you go to put your hair up and your elastic just breaks in your hand and you realize you don’t have a spare one? Well, Linda gave me one of hers and my life was perfect again! So, we teamed up together and we started low (I’m not strong and Linda is recovering from a back injury.

I knew I could do 65# since I had done that weight for 15.2 during the Open. Looking back, I should have aimed for 70# or 75#, but I’m sore everywhere and my wrists have taken a huge hit with all the freakin’ cleaning I’ve been doing lately. Here were my reps:

40#-45#-50#-55#-60#-65#

My wrists were hurting on the last set, but I felt stable in my core and getting out of the bottom of the squat felt relatively easy. Oh well, my previous number for OHS was 6×3 @60# so I think that’s a new PR for me. I’m amazed I can still have PRs this week as I’m feeling so sore everywhere! I can’t wait for my massage Friday!

I came back home and did some laundry with the hubs (OK, he did most of the laundry while I cleaned and vacuumed the upstairs).

Look Mom! I’m hiding! (Typical Béa on laundry day)

I also did some food prep for the Whole30 since I had nothing but eggs and avocados left (I had thawed some chicken thighs and ground turkey) and I feel better now that I have healthy options in the house.

I managed to close my eyes for about 10 minutes after lunch and I tried to cuddle to the girls on the couch while they watched Frozen (I may have turned the TV on with hopes of napping next to them. Don’t judge!) but they kept poking me, pulling my hair and staring at me. Major fail, but we still watched the movie! 😉

I just have to make it through tomorrow’s class and possibly a last training session with Kathleen on Sunday and then I can go back to slacking off my regular training/work schedule.

 

14.5 Or The True Meaning of Sweat And Tears

It’s done! I have officially survived my 1st ever Crossfit Open Games and managed to score on every workout. That in itself is way more than I was anticipating when I registered so, already crushed one goal for those games.

I went into today feeling nervous, slightly nauseated and with the goal of finishing within an hour. I had come to the conclusion that if I couldn’t finish in an hour, I would just DNF and I’d be ok with that.

I took Kevin on his offer to judge me and I was glad to see cheery and smiling Victoria there to encourage me on! 🙂

Here were the requirements for the workout:

After a quick chat with Coach Cam, I  registered for the 1st heat, explained that my goal was 1hr and that Kevin would be using his phone as a timer since we didn’t want to hold anyone back from the second heat. Coach Cam was in agreement with this plan and I was good to 3-2-1-Go!

I did al my sets of Thrusters in groups of 3 reps, then I would drop the bar, pick it back up for 3 more and repeat. 21 was hard, 18 was harder and 15 was about the same. As for the burpees, I did them all grandma-style (very slow to the ground, jump back up and jump over the bar).

Early in the WOD. Can’t believe how strong I look!

I know I need to work on keeping my elbows up, but I’m still happy about how low I’m getting in the squat!

Thank you so much Victoria for taking these! 🙂

I think that by the time I got to the sets of 9’s, I was the only one left working at it and Coach Cam was nice enough to let the clock go and let me finish. I was shaking all over and had to control my breathing. That’s when I started to struggle mentally. I just had to remind myself that some of my little patients go through a lot more pain than I was in at that moment and I also kept thinking about my mom. My mom is an awesome fierce woman. She beat breast cancer, went through chemo and radiation therapy without ever complaining. She is one tough cookie. I wanted to be strong for her, to remind her that she is an amazing inspiration to me in my everyday life and an exemplary role model. At the beginning of this WOD, I knew I would be dedicating this for a special little patient and my mom. Those were gonna be my lifelines when the going got tough.

And boy did it ever get tough! I lost it on my round of 6’s and managed to get through all the remaining rounds while bawling and crying. I kept up with the thrusters in sets of 3 until the round of 3’s when I just couldn’t get the bar up for the last one. I dropped that bar, picked it back up and finished my last thruster before moving on to the last 3 burpees. I couldn’t look anybody in the eye, but I had done it, I had finished a WOD I was dreading (65# used to be my 1RM for thrusters and I had just gone through 84 of them!), a WOD I was seriously debating not even showing up for because I didn’t think I had it in me to do it. Not only did I finish it, I crushed my 1hr goal with a finish time of 38:53! I’m so so so thankful for Kevin and Victoria for encouraging me to actually show up and give it a try. It took a lot out of me, but you both were right: I’m so proud of having completed this one!

After I took about 30 minutes to let my wrists recover (so I could drive myself home safely), it was time to do another challenge: The Winter Challenge. It’s a challenge that has been going around on Facebook amongst our little Crossfit community where you have to go and jump in the ocean (or a lake) before passing it along to other people. Even though it’s not winter anymore, I thought I was in the clear until Josh nominated me last night. What better way to go cool off after 14.5 than to jump in the frigid Pacific Ocean?!?

I have video proof that I did it, but am not going to upload it up on here because I am giving out full names of my nominees and am not sure they would want that on my little blog. I’ll edit the video and post it up later!

Time for a quick nap before I head into work for another challenging night!

Post Bath Time Craziness

And that, my friends, is a daily occurrence at our house. Rina has a massive case of the giggles while BeZU is being a goofball! Sometimes, it’s the other way around. Fun times all around though! 🙂