Out Like A Belly Button

I swear, the kids are adorable and all, but I sure wish they would sleep through the night. Béa was up multiple times last night which means I’m not getting the rest I need to recover from all the intensity I’ve been putting my body through lately.

She’s got gorgeous brown eyes! I just wish she’d keep them closed through the night! 😉

 

Yesterday Kathleen cancelled our mesh on Sunday and I wasn’t too sad she did so. She’s been bombarded with visitors and hasn’t had time to unpack into her new house, so she will make time for that this weekend. I, on the other hand, will use this opportunity to do nothing (workout-wise) and just enjoy the long weekend with Ben and the girls, before I head back into work on Monday.

I woke up startled by my alarm at 0500 and somehow managed to get up and ready for my last workout this week:

I saw this on Facebook as I was fuelling up before the workout and thought: Yep!

 

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I teamed up with Tracey for the warm-up and literally was biting my arm during the wallsits! The plank holds weren’t as bad and I felt like I could have held a little longer on them, but those wallsits were pretty horrible, considering I had just finished those air squats at a good speed (for me!)

Skill: Kipping pull-ups 4×6 E2M

I focused on my strict for these and used the red and blue, but maybe I should have used the red and purple instead. It somewhat easy to do the 6 reps, but I my hands felt like they were on the verge of ripping.

WOD: Snatch & Grab

I had never done this one before and since it involved the ever elusive snatch, I had to resort to TG for today. I felt like a wimp using such a low weight, but then again, seeing as my 1RM is 60# made it easier to swallow. Here’s how I scaled it:

4 rounds of

• 6 Hang power snatch @ 45#
• 8 burpee bar hops
• 10 front squats @45#

I really thought the front squats would be a piece of cake at that weight, but man, was I wrong! I had to break them into 3 sets for every round! I tried my best to keep all the burpee bar hops Rx, but had to drop to granny-style for a few reps each rounds. Jess walked in and smiled at me after one of my rounds. She was dancing and the best I could do was to give my Bitchy Resting Face. Sorry Jess! I was trying to save every calorie of energy for the WOD and smiling was impeding on that! 😉

I have BRF and I own it!

 

Oh well, not my best WOD at all. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I just wanted to be done. Done with the WOD, but also done with the intense week I’d just put my body through. Here were my times for the rounds:

1:35 – 1:45 – 1:45 – 1:34

Which gives me 3:19 for this WOD.

I can’t wait to go for my massage this morning! That’ll start recovery painfully well! I don’t go for fluffy massages. I prefer the deep tissue kind and my RMT is also a Crossfitter, so she knows which muscles we work and what needs to be worked on. She’s awesome in a dominatrix kind of way! Teehee! I find myself breathing through the pain when she works on certain areas, but I know I always feel better after!

In the meantime, don’t expect a lot of posts until next week, because I’ll be out like a belly-button for some well-deserved rest & recovery!

 

I’m Out!

I woke up at 0430 this morning and as much as I tried to fall back asleep for 30 minutes, I just couldn’t. I finally got up at 0500 and got ready for the WOD. As I made my way downstairs, I realized we were out of chicken and I had no back-up plan for my pre-workout snack. This morning was just not panning out as I had anticipated.

I made my way to the Box and warmed-up for the WOD. My hamstrings were still tight from the lifting class on Sunday and I was apprehending the front squats.

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Skill: Front Squats EMOM x 10

We were supposed to work to 85% of our 1RM (120# for me) and that meant 102# for me. I warmed-up to 105# and although it felt hard, it was only 1 rep with lots of rest in between, so I thought I could pull it off and so did Coach Caleb. We started the first round and I felt ok. On my 2nd rep, I had a pinch in my right quad. I rubbed it off once I was done my rep and was hoping the rubbing would make it go away. On my 3rd rep, the pinching came back stronger and as I finished my rep, I knew I was done for today. I talked it through with Coach Caleb, went to the foam roller, the Lacrosse ball and the Airdyne (very slow and just as a recovery), but even with all that, I still couldn’t squat more than 25º without any pain. We had to split the class in two heats and Coach Caleb asked me if I was in. “I’m out!” was my answer. I went to sit myself down and ice my quad while cheering on the others.

It was frustrating, but there was nothing I could do about it and I’m smarter than to push through the pain. Maybe my quad was just over-compensating for my tight hamstrings. Hopefully, some rest will mean a quick recovery and I will be able to join Kathleen on our planned WOD over the weekend.

I came back home and shared my frustrations with my hubby. He made things better by making me coffee. There’s no word for how such a small gesture in the morning can remind me how much I am loved. It’s not a big thing, but I am always thankful and I never take it for granted. Babe, you are amazing and I love you! Not only did he make me coffee, but he also helped me out with the cleaning and the laundry and went out to get more chicken as well! That meant I was done with my chores early and was able to spend some time with the girls and treat them to a lunch out. They were pretty stoked and making my girls happy makes me happy in return, so even though the day started on a crappy note, it definitely got better. Now, I am looking forward to rubbing my quad with some arnica gel and relax on the couch before going for my nap and heading in for my night at work tonight.

Going With The Flow

Early wake up call for another Oly lifting class this morning.

What we did today

Power Snatch + OHS + Snatch x6 E2M

This was supposed to be a repeat of what we did 2 weeks ago, but since I was at work two weeks ago, it was my 1st go at it. Now that we have the smaller plates, I was able to get closer to the exact weights I needed in order to do 75% x2 (48.5#), 80% x2 (52.5#) and 85% x2 (mine was supposed to be 55.25#, but I did 55#).

My first round at 48.5# went pretty bad when I couldn’t do the OHS. I set the bar down and started the whole sequence from the beginning and pulled it off. My second attempt went well too. I felt a little sore on my upper back this morning from yesterday’s WOD, but it didn’t seem to affect my snatch today. It is still my trouble area though and I was glad to succeed both rounds at 55# without too much trouble. Maybe, one day, I’ll feel secure about doing 1 rep at 65#. I was just glad to see I didn’t have my usual fear of commitment about dropping in to the squat on my last reps and it felt a little more natural today.

Power Clean + 2 pause jerk (2s pause) E2M

I was thinking of getting up to my 85% (76.5#) for this one, but it turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated so I stayed at my 80% (72#). What we had to do was to power clean the bar. Dip as if we were going to jerk, but before splitting, we had to hold our dip at the bottom for 2s. We also weren’t allowed to re-dip before doing the split jerk. Turns out my butt was sticking out on the dip so I chose to stay at 72# and making sure I was tucking my tail in on each pause. I was getting tired towards the end!

I took my time coming back home and had forgotten Béa had her follow-up appointment with the dermatologist this morning. Ben was kind enough to take her in so I wouldn’t have to rush. It was nice! I had a lovely breakfast and then, New Potential Nanny showed up on time (how refreshing!) in order to spend the day with me and the girls and see how our routine goes. So far, so good! I like her. She’s really sweet and energetic and it doesn’t hurt that she speaks French, this way, I’m not the only one speaking French to the girls at home! I was able to run some errands all by myself during the day which is always nice and right now, she has taken the girls to the swimming pool to give me a break. The girls were super wired this afternoon, so it was nice to get an extra set of hands to help out!

Keeping my fingers crossed it will all work out for the best! For now, I will drop to the floor and roll my sore back without having to anticipate some toddler jumping on my belly! 🙂

How Do They Do It?

I woke up and made my way to the Box for the 0600 class this morning. I was sore from my little adventures with Kathleen yesterday (Thanks for the torture! 😉 ) and I could definitely feel a very tender spot in my glutes. I looked up the WOD and was sad to see wallballs in the warm-up and squats in the WOD. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle all that squatting action with such a sore bum. Oh well, better drag that sore bum to the gym anyway.

The warm-up was ok. It was my 1st time doing wallballs in the new space on the rafters and it was an adjustment. I stopped trying after my 7th rep on the 2nd round since everybody was warming up the presses for the skill portion

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Skill: Strict press 5×3 E90s

My weights were all screwed up for this as I was looking at my push press numbers. Yeah, not doing 100# strict press anytime soon! I scaled it back down to the appropriate weight and here’s what I did. I was trying to get to 65#, but it didn’t happen:

55#-60#-65# failed my last rep – 65# failed my last rep – 62#. New PR by 2#! Lol!

WOD: Escalator 2

I was thinking of trying to do the FG1+ with 75#, but I reloaded my bar after the 1st round. It was a lot to clean from the ground and there was no way I would be able to squat that weight for 55 reps total. I lost some precious time removing the plates and settled for 65#. My SDBJ were all done at 20″, although I did a few practice jumps at 24″ and managed 3-4 without any problem. I just didn’t think I could do so after squatting and with exertion and I didn’t want to repeat a fall on my shins, so I settled for 20″. My pull-ups were all done with the red band and around round 7, I realized I could easily get back onto the bar without having to use the box or even the clip on the rig. Woot! Woot! Been waiting 2 years to be able to do assisted pull-ups with a band that offered enough resistance to help me do my reps, but without struggling to get onto the rig. Apparently, the red band or thinner is the one! 🙂 Time was called when just as I was making my way to the bar (pretty sure I was the only one left working) for my squats on the round of 9. We were to add 1 second to the 18:00 time cap for each rep missing. I ended up with 18:39 (missed all my reps for the round of 10 + my 9 squats = 39).

I was pretty bummed about my score as I felt I was totally cheating. It would have taken me much longer to finish my reps, but them’s are the rules and I did like everyone else. It’s only now that I entered my score online that I realize I, in fact, did FG1+ because FG1 was only up to 8 reps and I managed to get almost all of the 9 reps done! Yay! Not too bad after all!

I came back home and was not looking forward to the rest of my day. Ben has been leaving early everyday this week as he’s running his camps and that means I’ve been pulling extra weight with the girls. I was already exhausted from 3 WODs in 3 days and my hands have been sore and sensitive ever since I came back home this morning. I have some subcutaneous blisters from all the erg and pull-ups I’ve done this week and it means I have a hard time making a fist with my hands.

Blisters under the skin. They haven’t “popped” yet, but they are still painful

Ben must have felt something was off, he made me a coffee. The man truly knows the way to my heart. I was sad to see him leave for the day!

I managed to muster enough energy to take the girls to the playground on their scooters (that meant me having to carry both scooters and helmets back, since they refused to ride them home, lovely), make them a decent lunch and I was really hoping to be able to nap during their quiet time. I slept for maybe 15 minutes before they started screaming at one another. Nap time was over and I didn’t feel rested at all. I was sore everywhere and über grumpy. It got me thinking: how do athletes do this, day in and day out? Most of them not only train like beasts, they also need to work in order to make a living and they also have families! I had only done 3 little WODs in 3 days and my body was clearly letting me know it was done. I cannot imagine doing this 5-6 days/ week for 4-6hrs everyday! Hats off to the Games athletes!

I managed to cook some more food to prepare my return to work and I made this delicious paleo / Whole30 compliant Butter Chicken from The Primal Desire. The only modification I made was this one: dump everything in the slow cooker uncooked, set for 6hrs on high and voilà! Delicious Butter Chicken for dinner, served on top of cauliflower rice with some bell pepper.

Mandatory picture because it was delicious!

My lunch bag is packed full of Whole30 foods for tomorrow, my scrubs are out and waiting for me in the bathroom, the house is somewhat clean and I’m just waiting for the girls to be asleep before I can totally relax for the evening. Let’s pray I don’t have to wait too long!

Sorry this post is a bit late, I just didn’t have it in me to blog before now! 😉

Team Throwdown

 

Today was my first Crossfit Team Throwdown. It was an in-house team competition and was meticulously run by Coach Cam and his lovely wife Michelle. I’m always impressed at how well-put-together and on time these events are run. Today was no different. My first event started at 1215 and I showed up a little earlier to warm-up and meet my teammates (Jaclyn, Matt and Kristjan). I knew some of them from seeing them around the box, but had never formally introduced myself so once we got the official introductions out of the way, we decided to talk strategy a bit. Someone asked me if I had the girls with me today and I replied:

No, today is my me-time. Although, I’m not sure what it says about me that I want to use my me-time to come and compete in a Crossfit Team Throwdown, but here I am!

Here were the events:

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We were to do WOD 1a, followed by a rest of 5 mins and then move on to WOD 1b. Jaclyn and I warmed-up for the strict presses and then off we went. I finished with a 1RM of 70#, which is a 5# PR from my previous one. I had one very slanted attempt at 75# in which my left arm kept going up higher while the right one just stayed about eye level. I eventually gave up on that one and tried for a second attempt at that weight, but failed again. Still a PR though! 🙂

I then moved onto the strict pull-ups and although I did mine with the red and blue bands, they would count towards a tie breaker if there were such a case. I managed 11 banded pull-ups.

Then, it was onto the WOD 1b. I was registered for the event in the FG category. I was the last member of our team to tackle this one and although I was deathly afraid of slowing us down, I decided to go RX for all the moves, except the DUs, which I did TG (60 singles). We had a time-cap of 60 mins for that one and I brought the rear for our team finishing at 58:42. I even managed to keep all my rowing under 2:08 avg/500m which was really strong for me.

I then came back home to fuel up (I hadn’t packed any food with me as I knew I needed a break in order not to get in my head too much) and was unpleasantly surprised to come home to this:

Somebody used our fence as a canvas 😦

That tag is about 5′ long and about 3′ tall. We had just painted the fence back in August too 😦 I made a report with the police and then fuelled up before heading back in to the Box for our second round of Skills and WODs.

My goal for the front squats was 105#. I warmed up to 95# and that felt heavy already. My sciatica was acting up already and no amount of foam rolling would help. I was surprised when 105# came and went. I ended up at 115#. Not too bad considering I had just PR’d on my 1RM at 120# Another PR for a 3RM for my front squats! Yay!

I tried a HSPU to 1 yoga block and although I was able to get down to the block, I just couldn’t get myself back up. I then had just enough time to complete 1 wall walk.

We had 5 mins to rest (ha!) / set up for the next WOD. I decided to stick with the FG category for this one, which meant, lying rope climbs, 10# wall balls, 20″ over box jumps and 25# plate ground-to-overhead. The first round of box jumps were a bit painful as my legs were still a bit swollen and tight from my fall earlier this week, but I loosened up quickly and managed not to injure myself anymore today! Here’s what my legs looked like this morning. The blood has somehow pooled at my ankles now and it looks a lot worst than it actually is.

Never want to experience that again!

Blood pooling at my ankles

I can’t remember what our score was, but I know it was in the 900’s for that one. I know it certainly wasn’t thanks to me because I’m pretty sure I only contributed to about 15-17% of that score, but we apparently won that WOD. I didn’t stay until the score announcement as I was already feeling the general soreness invading my body and wanted to make it home before I wouldn’t be able to move anymore! My teammates just shared the news via Facebook! Go team! I came home to a take-out dinner ready to be engulfed and then this:

Another 20 mins of soaking all by myself! Well, almost by myself if you exclude creepy mermaid Barbie stalking me and my bruised up shins!

It was nice to relax my tired muscles by candlelight and soak for a bit before we were treated to meltdown #367 because Rina didn’t have her polka-dot pyjamas pants. They are in the laundry and I was too busy to wash them today. She didn’t want to wear any other pants so I settled the matter by telling her she could just wear her undies to go to bed tonight while I threw a load of laundry in the washing machine. I just didn’t have it in me to fight her for something silly like pj pants. I am currently sitting with my hot water bottle on my lower back while my lovely other half is snoring next to me on the couch. All before 9pm. We live exciting lives, I tell you!

 

Crossfit, Sparkling Toes and Hot Water Bottles With Friends = Perfect Day

I have been waiting for Saturday since I got off work on Thursday morning. Why you ask? Well, duh, Crossfit is why!

My lovely husband left for the cold Calgary on Thursday and that meant I couldn’t go to my beloved 0600 class on Friday as there was no way I would have gotten the girls ready in time for Crossfit and then manage the mayhem to get Rina in time for preschool. BUT! There’s a huge but (and I’m not talking about my back side here) in this story and my husband was caring enough to book the Nanny for this morning so I could go to Crossfit and get to my pedicure (paid for by the love of my life!) without having to drag the girls with me. 🙂

The class was huge (16 or 17 of us showed up) and I ran into Victoria and Bonnie! Here’s what we did:

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Skill: HSPU practice

We were to do 4-6 reps of progressive HSPU followed by 8-10 ring rows x 6 sets. I managed to get down to 2×5# plates + 1 yoga block on my 5th rep, but I could only muster 2 reps that low before I just crumbled down onto my shoulders. I tried again for the next set, but could only do 1 rep. I was done! I did 8 ring rows for each rounds.

WOD: DL

That was a quick powerful one. I paired up with Georgia (she must be all of 13 years old and kicked my butt royally, but in a good way!) and let her go in the first heat. She destroyed it, doing the FG2 in 4:07. She’s small, but mighty! I tried my best to imitate her, but my old and overweight body just couldn’t do it. I finished in 6:40 for the same category (DL @ 95# and full box jumps for all rounds). Not a bad feat if I do say so myself and I probably would have taken longer had I not been trying to keep up with this little powerhouse!

Then, I rushed home, showered and took off for my pedicure. That foot rub was heavenly and it’s always nice when I have sparkly purple toes! My husband truly knows the way to my heart!

Purple Perfection!

I came back home and had a lovely visit with Victoria! We were both sore and sat hot packs and hot water bottles like the sore Crossfitters we are while catching up and chatting. It was a nice visit and broke the monotony of just me with the girls! 🙂 Now, of course, Rina and Béatrice also want their toenails painted so I will oblige before we go play outside! 😉

 

 

Flashback

After my deep tissue massage on Monday, everything hurt yesterday. Seeing as my RMT had worked me good on my shoulders, back and neck because of my tension headache last Friday during the WOD, it meant that lying down on my back was actually painful. I am super sore still between my shoulder blades and when I try to roll that area out, it is too tender and bruised to tolerate the pressure yet.

I woke up sore and a little traumatized when I saw what WOD was awaiting… A little flashback to 14.5 anyone?!? The mere mention of 14.5 has me wanting to curl up in a ball on the floor and roll myself back and forth to my happy place! 😉

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Skill: Front Squat 7×1 E2M

Coach Caleb said to not work up to our 1RM (mine is 115 lbs), so I did these reps, but I felt like I still had a lot left in me when I reached round 7. Next time, maybe I should go a bit heavier…

80#-85#-90#-95#-100#-105#-110#

 

WOD: Certifiable

I tried at 65# (I can’t believe I did 65# for the Open 14.5), but it felt way too heavy on my sore shoulders today, I worked the weight down to 45#. I broke my 1st set of thrusters into 3×7 reps, 2nd set I broke into 3×5 reps and last one I broke into 5+4. I did all my burpees “granny-style” going down, but managed to jump back up for most of them. I finished in 10:32 and Coach Caleb came by and said I should have gone heavier, considering I had done 14.5 a year ago and all. He said it would have made for a longer WOD, but I still should have gone heavier. I didn’t tell him my shoulders were too sore to go heavier, but next time, you bet your little tush I will try my best to do this one Rx!

As promised, here is a pic of my new ‘do! Shot, easy to manage and it worked out well with my bangs pinned up with bobby pins for the WOD!

 

Short hair don’t care!

BeZU, keeping busy next to me while I blog!

No Time For Tea Time

So, after a very busy day of running around and more cooking, I find myself in the waiting room of my massage therapist and while he gets the room ready for my torture session deep tissue massage, he offers me some tea. Now, it might just be me, but whenever I drink tea, I can’t help but compare it to drinking dirty dishwater. It doesn’t matter which flavour it is, I just can’t develop an appreciation for it. Give me coffee or give me plain water, but none of that in-between crap. I don’t know if my massage therapist can read minds, but I’m sure he took a little too much delight in working out the kinks of my body. It’s all good though because it turns out that he does Crossfit as well and we ended up talking about Crossfit for pretty much the entire hour… except when I was grunting or breathing through the pain. 😉 Win-win if you ask me! Just don’t offer me tea. Like, ever. Unless you’re absolutely certain I will like it and it will change my mind on the whole tea thing!

Barely Mobilizing

I flip-flopped around going to the Box this morning all night, literally. Rina woke up at 0100 demanding medicine for her mouth. Then it was Douchebag Neighbour’s turn to be having arguments outside at 0230 and again at 0400. At that point, I angrily got dressed and was outside, ready to let him know that some people would like to sleep at night, but he had gone back inside his place… To say I was fuming would be minimizing my feelings…

Since I never fell back asleep and was ticked off to no end, I figured I’d go do the WOD, scale things wayyyyyy down (I still can barely move my legs from the competition last Sunday) and get some of my frustrations out. On the plus side, It also guarantees I get a good nap before heading in to work tonight. I felt a bit less enthusiastic and a little more deflated when I saw this:

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Warm-up: I picked up the women’s bar (35#) and I could have sworn it was a men’s bar (45#). I actually had to look at the weight on the side to make sure. The empty bar felt so heavy. That didn’t bode well for the warm-up… Those deadlifts and front squats got a few good grunts out of me. My quads, glutes and hamstrings are all still very angry at my tied 3rd place on Sunday. 😦

Skill: After warming up with 2 mandatory wall-walks, I was ready to go! The wall-walks are still way scarier to me than the actual handstand practice, but I feel a lot better about them, now that I have broken through the barrier of putting my abdomen to the wall when I do them.

I had a few good balance off the wall with my 2 spotters and one that was really good until something pinched in my right wrist and made me lose my focus. There’s always next time!

WOD: This was a long AMRAP and it was vaguely familiar since I had done KB lunges just Sunday. Today, however, I scaled it way down, using an 18# KB and although I went really light, I tried to lunge twice and my quads were just too sore. I asked Coach Caleb what to sub it with and we agreed on 20×18# AKBS.

That was me Sunday… I did more of these today, at half the weight! (Thanks Jenn for the pic! 😉 )

I finished with a total of 51 (3 full rounds) even though I was actually running my 4th interval when the timer went off, it didn’t count towards my score. I didn’t really mind because I actually managed to “run” all my 600m non-stop. I don’t think I will ever fly down the road when running is involved, but at least, I seem to have been able to keep the walking breaks at bay. Plus, my goal for today was to just get my body moving and mobilizing. I didn’t go in with any expectations of crushing this one, but I was glad I didn’t stop moving for those 25 mins.

In other news, the new windows are almost all installed in the house. There’s only 2 left to do and although they are new and efficient, I’m glad we went along with the same style as the original windows of the house. It keeps the character intact and increases the energy efficiency of the house. I can’t wait for it all to be done and then we’ll be able to turn on the heat in here. It’s been a chill day (only 14°C today and cloudy) and having the windows and doors open has made the house very cool! Thankfully, I have my trusted allies: hot water bottle and Padraig slippers!

 

Living Is Hard!

You know when you go to bed early, only to be woken up by your neighbour being stopped by cops and gyrating police lights outside your bedroom window?

Or, when you’re sound asleep you get woken up twice by a child who is sick and dehydrated and just wants to be able to drink water without any pain? Or, better yet, when you get woken up by the snoring love of your life?

You know, when you get up and EVERY. BODY. PART. HURTS you can barely move and showering is an exercise in flexibility because there’s just no way I will squat to go clean my toes. Forget about the circus of washing my hair or getting dressed.

I was thankful I got to go home early from work thanks to a high nurse vs patient ratio. I was also thankful our wonderful Nanny offered to go get the little groceries we were missing so I could do a lot of gymnastics to enter the bathtub without having to squat or put weight on my shoulders and soak, yet again, in Epsom salts.

I am very much looking forward to my date with Ibuprofen and my bed tonight. Don’t get me wrong. I had fun yesterday at the competition, but I am paying the price for all that hard work, those PRs achieved and the effort I put into it. I just hope I’ll be able to move slightly more fluidly tomorrow…