WallBalls… ‘Nough Said!

Béatrice has fallen back into her old patterns of waking up in the middle of the night and it’s taken its toll on this Mama… My alarm woke me up at 0500 for this:

Albert said it best!

 

Source

Skill: Those we new today and it was fun to learn new technique. I teamed up with Marika, Tracey and Telsey and we got to learn the different techniques. We worked up to about 105# for the trap bar and that was enough for me. As for the axle bar, I think Telsey and I were working with around 60# and my grip was definitely challenged with this weight, even with a reverse grip.

WOD: Money Ball

The last time I had done this one was back in December 2013 and I had scaled it with 10# wall balls. Today was my first attempt RX and I teamed up with Telsey. I had forgotten that 14# wallballs were RX for women and I thought I was still scaling it down. Telsey stuck with the 14# ball even though she had been off for 6 weeks for an ankle issue. I realized mid-WOD that we were both doing RX and the rowing was killing me slowly. I tried to break down the wallballs in sets of 5, but the erg was just sucking the life out of me. My pace was beyond crap and I was hanging on to the handle for dear life.

Telsey had to drop the erg on the second go at it because her ankle was bugging her too much and she switched to the Airdyne and pushed through the wallballs. She managed to finish her last stint on the Airdyne, but had to leave, so Tracey was kind enough to finish the wallballs (unbroken, such a BAM!!!) after I was done with mine.

Overall time: 25:43 RX! Pretty happy to add another RX next to that one because that means a new PR for me!

I came back home and kept going with the deep cleaning of the house. I finished the upstairs as well as the staircase and Nanny was nice enough to help me sort out the girls’ crap toys while they were in their quiet time upstairs. 1 full garbage bag of crap was pulled out and will be going to the dump (toys that are useless to other kids, missing parts, broken, etc…) and we can now close the lids of the window boxes. On the books for tomorrow, vacuuming downstairs and then, resting a bit before tackling the downstairs! I’m pretty optimist that I will manage to clean the entire house before I head back to work!

Intense

Intense. It’s been used to describe me at work by a co-worker earlier this week. I believe his exact words were: “Watch out for her, she does Crossfit and she can be a little intense.”

The day before, I was giving report to a physician and she was sitting in a chair while I was standing. I didn’t feel comfortable “talking down to her” so I just squatted down so we would be eye level. People stopped and said: “OMG! You’re a freak! Only kids can get this low to the ground!” Apparently, squatting below parallel is freaky…

My response to that is, maybe I am a little intense. You know what though? Being intense about functional fitness and fitness in general isn’t such a bad thing in itself. There are worst things to be intense about, like alcohol, partying and drugs. If being able to squat below parallel and proudly wearing my Crossfit hoodies at work make me intense, then I guess I’m intense AND proud of it! 😉

Intense could also be used to describe today’s WOD:

Source

Skill: Lying/standing rope climbs 5×3 E2M

These were actually not rope climbs. You had to either start from a standing position, lower yourself almost to the ground and pull yourself back up OR starting on the ground, pulling yourself up and then lowering yourself back down all the way to the ground.

I paired up with Linda and Karen and did 2 rounds of the 1st version until I crumpled and fell to the ground on my last rep. My last 3 rounds were done doing the 2nd version.

WOD: Runball

Our gym will be moving to a new location soon and the move has slowly begun. The rubber mats are mostly all gone and that meant an extra inch or so of height for me to push those wallballs up the wall. I was not a happy camper.

I knew this was going to be a hard one for me. Lara and Telsey were joining us from the On-Ramp class today and I tried to give them tips (i.e.: break the wallballs into sets of 10 if possible), although I did mention that I would probably do less reps myself since I can’t seem to strained more than 3-5 reps of wallballs in-a-row. My forearms were burning from the rope work. This was going to be unpleasant!

Our Box has recently bought new med balls and since I planned on doing this WOD Rx, I grabbed the only 14# ball of this kind, just to challenge myself a little bit more. Like I needed added challenge for the wallballs!:

Wall ball

We lined-up outside and 3-2-1-Go!

I managed the first 400m in 2:15 or about and then set out for the 40 wallballs. Those were brutal. I finished that first round in 6:51. I then had to rest for 2 minutes before setting out for my 2nd round.

300m and 30 wallballs. I went into this thinking the 2nd interval would be the hardest for me, I was wrong. I finished this one in 5:22 and then had to rest for another 2 minutes before heading out for my 3rd interval.

I was happy it was only 200m run, my legs were getting really tired.

200m and 20 wallballs. I came back in from the run and stared at the ball on the floor. I didn’t know how I would manage to do 20 more wallballs with that monster. By that time, everybody had been done for a little while and I was the last one working. Linda came by and reminded me that it was “all mental now”. Truer words had never been spoken. I no-repped myself on 2 reps out of 20 because I didn’t reach the 9′ line and the ball didn’t touch the wall. I could hear Lara and Kelsey cheering me on, telling me I was so inspirational. I didn’t really feel like an inspiration, but I also wanted them to know that it is do-able, so I kept at it. I threw up the ball one last time, turned to look at the clock and fell on all fours. My hips were so tired, I couldn’t stay up on my knees and crumpled into the frog position:

Source

 

Even though I finished well after everyone else, I was pretty happy with my workout today. I know I pushed it on the runs and tried to push it as best I could on the wallballs and that’s all I can really ask of my body. 😉

Playing mind games with myself and trying to convince my brain that I love wallballs

After we were all done, I had Bambi legs and noodle forearms. I felt like I needed someone to push me down the stairs in order to make it to my car!

I came back home, showered and made breakfast. I just have to show you BeZU wearing my new trucker hat. I don’t know that I look as cute as she does wearing it, but it sure helps with keeping my hair tame when I don’t feel like blowdrying after a shower! 😉

Cutie in a trucker hat!

When DNF = PR

I haven’t blogged in a bit because I needed some time off. I’m back now and I have some catching up to do!

I went to Crossfit on Saturday and brought my two lovely ladies with me since Ben was out of town. Here’s what I did:

Source

Skill: Back Squat 6×3 E90S

I was really hoping to go up to 130# on these, but my body had other plans in mind. I managed to do the round at 120#, then went up to 125#, managed one very ugly rep and had nothing left for the other two. I decided to rest (this was my 5th set) and try again on the last set. Again, I managed the 1st rep, and couldn’t get out of the bottom on the second rep. I bailed out and dropped the bar. 125# was my previous PR and I had to settle for 120# on Saturday since my body just couldn’t do 125#. That means I’m 25# away from a bodyweight back squat. Something to work on this year! Rina and Béa were cheering me on with some “Go Mommy!” and “You’re doing so good Mom!”, it was pretty cute to hear them cheer me on!

WOD: 1K row

The last time I attempted this one, I finished in 4:38.4. I knew I wasn’t gonna improve drastically on this one, but I was hoping to drop below 4:30. I managed to barely do just that with a final time of 4:29.0. Just made it! Rowing is miserable when you’re short and although it was a tough one, it wasn’t as tough as I anticipated. I just stuck to my game plan and it worked!

Ben was coming home last night and I was very much looking forward to seeing him. Even better was the fact that I got the night off from work, so that meant that not only would I get to see my man in the evening, I also get 7 days off from work! I slept well during the day after my night at work and got a good night sleep once I went to bed. I felt good when I woke up this morning for this WOD:

Source

WOD: The Incredibles

The previous 2 times I had attempted this one, I had done FG with a 10# and less reps of everything as well as only 600m runs. Today, I was in the mood to try it Rx. I knew I probably wouldn’t finish in the time cap, but I was willing to try my best. We set out and I had a few goals I set for myself:

• run the 800m non-stop on each rounds
• break the wallballs into sets of 5 reps, but not break the form while I do them
• do the box jumps in 2×10

That’s it. We set out and even though misery loves company, I was quickly left in the dust, trailing behind everybody on the run. The sidewalk where we run the 800m in an out-and-back goes on an incline for the first 400m, getting progressively more pronounced on the last 200m up. I could really feel it and although I slowed down to a crawling pace, I managed to not stop moving. The first set of wallballs went according to plan and I had to pause a bit for my box jumps, so my strategy didn’t work for those, but I managed to keep proper form on the burpees. I set out for the second run.

It was brutal, my legs were done and my hip flexors were protesting heavily. The last 200m up the hill were laughable I was so slow, but again, I didn’t stop moving. I came back inside and went on to the wall balls where my plan worked somewhat. Some reps I had to break into smaller sets, but I managed to do all 25. I then moved onto he box jumps and managed to stick to my plan this time around. I broke the burpees into sets of 5 and managed most of them true-to-form. I looked at the time and it was past 21:00 when I set out for my 3rd round of running. I was spent, my hip flexors were furious and if I thought my legs were tired on the second round, it was nothing compared to this one. I kept crawling my way uphill and Tracey came out to run the last 400m with me (Thanks Tracey!). Coach Caleb was waiting for me outside and cheered me on to finish strong. I went back to the wall and started on the wallballs. I managed 22 before the 30-min time cap rang through. Even though I didn’t finish it this time around, I still consider this a PR since I attempted it RX. It was way harder to run the 800m stretches than I had anticipated, but I managed to “run” all 3 rounds without stopping. Also, I used a heavier wallball and did 10 more reps/round of them, as well as 5 more reps of box jumps/rounds and 10 more burpees/rounds.

It truly is amazing to me to see my progress. Yes, it’s slow, but I am not nor will I ever be an athlete. I am a mom who just wants to keep pushing myself and I did just that today. When I’m by myself and I get in my zone, I find myself thinking about the silliest of things. Today, I was wearing shorts and I was amazed at seeing my quads whenever I looked down on the running intervals. I have quads! Visible ones! I couldn’t see them a year ago! I also couldn’t do that many burpees true-to-form until very recently. Yes, I still resorted to doing some granny-style, but whenever I would catch my breath and feel somewhat recovered, I went back to doing them Rx. Celebrate the small victories, focus on the positive and keep being impressed by your progress, that’s the only way to go about it!

Reverse Psychology

I was desperately trying to fall back asleep at 0430 this morning, but poor Ben kept coughing next to me, so that was that for my night. I got up and got ready for the Box:

Source

Skill: Deadlift 5×3 E90S

I based my weight on my 5×5, but I should have gone heavier. It still felt really easy on the last round. I’ll know better for next time!

100-105-110-115-120

WOD: Ballox

Yay! Wallballs! Said no short person ever! However, I was determined to do this one Rx and I even managed to use some reverse psychology on my whiteboard:

It got wiped out and so did I!

I’m really trying to convince myself that I Luuuurve wallballs. Don’t know that it worked today, but I think I only no-repped myself on 3 or 4 out of 60, so that’s not too bad! I broke the wallballs into sets of 5. The push-ups were equally as hard. Surprisingly, the step-down box jumps were where I could recover a bit and catch my breath. I didn’t break any time records by any means, but I managed to finish under 15 mins… Barely! I finished at 14:59! I did all my push-ups standard, but I have a hard time doing them consecutively. I broke them into 5 and 3, would rest a bit, and pick it back up. I was just happy to be done, really! It’s always the WODs that look like they’re not going to be too bad that kick you in the gut! Kevin came to me after I was done and said something really sweet:

Skinny Val is way tougher than bigger Val!

I take that as a compliment, my friend and thank you for the encouragement! Speaking of skinny, I know I have to do my body shots, they will come later this week, when I get off work.

I came back home to have a long hot shower, and then hug and kiss the girls. Then it was the whirlwind of breakfast, pre-school, laundry, dishes and now I have to go clean the upstairs, before folding laundry and hopefully, napping before work tonight. I’ve had 2 busy day shifts and I’m hoping things settle down today… Or maybe, I should hope for things to pick up so that they really settle down?!? Does reverse psychology work on patient assignment? Lol!

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!

 

Feels So Good

I was finally able to go to the Box this morning and it felt so good to be back in my happy place after an exhausting set at work. I even warmed-up on the death bike Airdyne, willingly! I also worked on my DUs and to my amazement, I strung 4 in a row! Go me! It’s not much, but it’s twice as much as my previous PR! I swear, I should be somewhat good to go for the Open!

Once we were fully warmed up, I got ready for this:

Source

Skill: power clean + hang power clean + thruster EMOM x 10.
I started at 55#x5, but it felt like I was sandbagging it. I upped it to 60#x2 and upped it again to 65#x3. That felt good for the cleans, but challenging for the thrusters.

WOD: Twintrix

WOD 1: I scaled this one with red and blue CTB. I managed 4 full rounds + 6 burpees before the 6 mins were up. I was doing jumps over box burpees before Coach Caleb set me straight and said they were just burpee box jumps. Oops! I corrected my reps and kept on going. It was tough, but I was surprised at how little “granny” burpees I was doing. Most of my reps were full ones and I was pretty happy with that improvement!  We then had 2 mins to switch stations and try to catch our breaths.

 

WOD 2: I did this one Rx (wallballs at 14# and RKBS at 35#) and paid the price for it. Those wallballs are so hard for me. I’m still struggling through them and I may have dropped an F-bomb at some point. I was doing them single and couldn’t seem to catch the ball. I would have to reset it on the floor before picking it back up and wasted so much energy doing so. Still, I managed 3 full rounds + 5 RKBS for a grand total of 89 points for this WOD.

I came back home to have breakfast, shower, throw some laundry in the machine and headed on out to get my hair done. It feels good to get pampered once in a while. I took advantage of being by myself downtown to go pick up my new necklace

My Unicorn In The Forest

Here’s the description that came with it:

This handcrafted talisman necklace features a unicorn, which is a mythical creature with healing powers that is said to be fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary but always mysteriously beautiful.

I thought it was a good representation of the woman I am: healing powers (NICU RN), fierce yet good (Crossfitter mom), selfless yet solitary (I give so much to my family, but I still relish those quiet stolen moments for myself and for knitting).

The girls love it just because it displays a unicorn! 🙂

I came back home and made a fresh batch of egg muffins for breakfast tomorrow. They smell so good, it’s very hard to resist eating them now!

I will now sit and relax a bit before I fold the laundry! Just another typical day at home with my girls, but to me, those are the best days!

This Will Be My Year

Yep, that’s right! I have officially declared it and will make the most of it. I feel so motivated this morning, it’s incredible. It all started with getting my eating under control. I’ve been eating clean for 17 days now and I feel better than ever. I still miss my morning coffee, but I now realize it was hindering my water intake as well. I just need to find the balance between the two. Also, this morning, I stepped on the scale and saw that I was below 150lbs (149.8 lbs, barely made it, but still). I cannot remember the last time I was there. Probably after I gave birth to Rina (when I was vegan). That was one early celebration because I weighed myself before heading in for my WOD.

Last night, a fellow Crossfitter posted on Facebook that she had a new DU PR and it inspired me to finally get my act together and work on them consistently. I watched a few Youtube videos and set out to work as part of my warm-up this morning. I managed to string 2 consecutive ones x3. It’s not many, but to me, it’s double what I used to be able to do! 🙂 I was so excited and Tracey witnessed it as well and she was just as excited as I was! Lol! She’s such a good cheerleader!  I tried a few more times and could only manage 2 at a time, but I was pretty stoked with that!

Then, it was time to team up for the WOD. I teamed up with Neil and because there wasn’t enough ergs, we were on the Airdyne. This WOD consisted of many of my nemeses, but I didn’t mind, I like working on my weaknesses. I had to scale down to FG with the following:

Source

WOD: Rowsie Glow

25 min AMRAP :

• 0.7 on the Airdyne
• 10 burpees
• 10 TTB (I did hanging knee raise)
• 10 SD box jumps
• 10 wallballs (14#)

Partner 1 worked on the Airdyne while partner 2 did the other movements. You couldn’t switch until both partners were done. I started on the Airdyne and got going. We finished with a score of 793 (I was responsible for 393 of that) which puts me at 49.5% of the total score for my team. Very close to being equal effort put out by both of us and I’m really happy with that! I never stopped once on the Airdyne and although I didn’t get any rest between the rounds, I just kept moving as much as I could. It was a hard one, but a fun one and I was still beaming from my DUs. That has put me in a really good mood for the day. I hurried over to the grocery store to get what I was missing to make these delicious egg muffins for breakfast. I got everything ready and popped them in the oven while I went to have a shower. They were the perfect celebratory breakfast for today and I got more food prep done since I have to be at work tomorrow. I am now cuddling BeZU on the couch and I have to say, this day is setting out to be a good one!

 

Rx-ing My Inner Demons And Nemeses

Yesterday was a hard day at work. I received a bit of bad news first thing when I started my shift and then, someone asked me when I was due… As in pregnant due… Yeah, I brushed it off and just let it slide, but I really wanted to rip that person’s head off. It’s not the first time I get asked (last time though, was upon my return from my maternity leave) and I’m sure it will happen again. I have worked my butt off over the past year and I know what my body is capable of. I have a very specific goal for next summer: Our family will all vacation together somewhere tropical and I’d like to be comfortable in a bikini by then. I know it’s a very shallow goal, but it’s my goal and I’d like to make it happen! 🙂

So, after that emotional roller-coaster day at work, I was ready for a mind-numbing WOD. You know the kind: you grunt through every rep, struggle through it all and feel absolutely drained physically when you’re done. Usually, those WODs are an open floodgate for me emotionally as well and that’s when I let the tears flow free. Yeah, it was exactly what I needed to do today.

Source

Skill: Push press 10×2 OTM

I think I probably could have gone for 85% (75#) of my 3RM (90#), but instead, I chose to focus on my form and not throw my butt back on the dip and did all my reps with 65#. I’m really loving my wrist wraps. I love that I could tighten them up so easily after each round and it definitely helped with my wrists.

WOD: Block Rock

This one had been recurring at the box, but I had never done it yet. Coach Caleb said the times were running between 7-12mins and, although I knew I would be much longer than that (I finished in 19:39), I planned on Rx-ing this one. This WOD consists of pretty much my least favourite things in a WOD: running and wallballs. Can you say nemeses?!? Bleh! It doesn’t matter, I was going to chip at it anyway, like I do any other day! 😉

The wallballs were definitely killing me and I could not, for the life of me, do more than one rep at a time. I wish we had a 12# ball, but we only have  10#s or 14#s. 10# would have been sandbagging it and although 14# was Rx, it was a struggle. I finished my 1st round when pretty much everyone were finishing their second one. I ran my 3rd round all by myself and chipped through my wallballs. I kept having to no-rep myself because my ball was either missing the mark on the wall or not touching the wall at all. I had to no-rep myself on my very last rep, I wanted to scream at that silly ball to JUST. TOUCH. THE. WALL. ALREADY!!! I know I had no one else to blame but myself and when I was done, the tears just came flowing freely. Every emotion I had bottled up from my crappy day at work just came out in a snotty blubber. For once, I didn’t try to stop it. I let it all out on the mat. I didn’t care about people being around me. I just sobbed and cried for a few minutes.

As a NICU nurse, we celebrate successes with our patients and their families and we also share their frustrations. We are there with these families for 12hrs on end. We get to know them on a personal level, get to know their habits, their likes and dislikes. We connect with some of them more than others. Some stay on our unit for a few hours, others, for months on end.  In a day’s work, we can celebrate a tremendous achievement as well as feel incredible frustrations and a deep sense of loss. We are not robots. I don’t care how much we are supposed to put our feelings aside, it’s not always an easy task. We are also not allowed to discuss our cases with anybody outside of our unit for fear of legal reprimands and I get that, confidentiality issues and all. To add to all of this, we have our own personal load of crap that we deal with everyday, whether it’s at home or at work. Which brings me to this point. When I struggled through the WOD this morning, my discomfort was nothing compared to the struggles some of my patients’ families are going through. One more wallball is nothing in the greater scheme of things. So I kept going, kept pushing, kept fighting. And I broke down once I was done. Not because it was such a tremendous physical challenge, but because breaking through that physical pain opened the door to let go of all these bottled up emotions. Some people choose therapy. For me, Crossfit IS my therapy. Now, I’m ready for my last night shift before I get to enjoy my family over the Christmas break. If you can, have a special thought for all the nurses (doctors, RRTs, cops, EMTs and firemen as well) working over the holidays. We sacrifice celebrating with our families so we can look after yours…

Cherish your loved ones, I know I will cherish mine over the holidays!

Easy Gives Nothing

What a busy two days it’s been.

It started off at 0700 yesterday morning for this:

Source

Skill: HSPU Practice (I did 5 sets of 5).

I started off with a yoga block and 5×5# plates, then I slowly decreased it to a yoga block and 3×5# plates. It was hard to do the reps and I need to remember to push my head through at the end of the push.

WOD: Mindy

I had done this one back in March and I had done so much better back then. I’m not sure what happened yesterday, but I did poorly. Maybe it was because I did 4x strict pull-ups with the red and blue bands for each round instead of 6 kipping one. Anyway, I finished with a score of 183 (6 full rounds + 3 box jumps) whereas I had done 209 back in March. It seemed like I was keeping a good pace too, conscious about not taking too many or too long breaks. I was a bit disappointed, but I still felt good about getting out there and moving.

I came back home to this:

Rina had gotten up to no good while Ben was still in bed and decided to cut Béatrice’s hair. This is what she used to look like:

and now, she looks like she’s sporting the hairdo from Dumb and Dumber. I was lucky enough that  fellow Crossfitter who is also a hairdresser had some free time to try and arrange BeZU’s hairdo today. Her fringe is still very short, but it doesn’t look as bad as it was before. I miss her longer soft hair though!  😦

Then, I had to rush home, shower, stuff my face and take the girls to their gymnastics class, grocery shopping, lunch and nap, followed with play time outside, dinner, shower and bedtime.

This morning, I was up at 0400 and I tried to fall back asleep to no avail. I finally got up at 0500 and got ready for this:

Source

Skill: Tempo Front Squat 6×2 E2M

I paired up with Emily and I worked up my reps like this:

65#-75#-85#-90#-95#-100#

The last rep was hard to get up from the deep squat after 2 seconds at the bottom with 100# on my front shoulders, but I managed to do it and I was quite happy to get 100#.

WOD: Jeepers

I had done this one back in August and I had scaled it like this:

• 10# wallballs
• 35# AKBS
• 200 single unders
• finished in 17:30

Having re-read my post entry for it, I knew I had to challenge myself more today. I did so by doing these modifications:

• 1000m row
• 14# wallballs (all broken into sets of 5. I had to “no rep” myself so many times! They were hard!)
• 35# AKBS (I failed 2 reps and felt like giving up altogether, but I kept at it)
• 20 DUs and 80 single skips (I managed the 80 singles unbroken).
• I finished in 19:52

We had to separate into heats and I was into the second heat. I was still chipping at it by the time the 0700 class started. I then came back home to this:
Rina had been up to no good again and decided to do some wall art with SHARPIES!!! She also decided to put “makeup” on Béatrice and it was all over her face and arms. Ben cleaned up Béa while I was attacking the wall with a Magic Eraser. I had nothing left in my arms after the WOD and it felt like a workout!

 

Bearded Béa

Sharpie wall art. It was about 2 feet long on the wall.

Once I was done and Rina was ready to go to school, Ben gave me the present of taking both girls with him for Rina’s drop-off while I got cooking on this Chili

I made a few modifications by using

• 1lb extra-lean ground beef
• 1 lb lean ground turkey
• only 3 jalapeños peppers
• I added 3 carrots 1/2lb mushrooms and 1 medium green bell pepper and 1/2lb crisp bacon

It smells delicious in the house right now and I can’t wait to eat it topped with some green onions, a dollop of sour cream and some grated cheddar cheese! It hasn’t been an easy 2 days, but then again, easy gives nothing!

Technical Difficulties

Yesterday, I was super excited about the WOD. Today, I woke up and all I wanted to do was roll over and go back to sleep. It took a lot for me to actually get out of bed and get ready to go to the box. Once there, I couldn’t stop yawning while I was warming up, not a good omen… (Technical difficulty #1)

Source

Skill: Deadlift 7×1 E2M

I have just PR’d at 155# on this lift on July 28, so I wasn’t expecting a big increase. I wanted to try 160#, maybe 165#. The game changer today was that we also had to control the descent of the deadlift, we couldn’t just drop the bar once the deadlift was completed, we had to lower it slowly and safely. I managed to get the bar up at 160#, but I couldn’t hold on to it on the way down. Technically, it’s still a PR for my deadlift today, but I didn’t complete it Rx (technical difficulty #2).

WOD: Wassup

This was a repeat WOD, but I had never done it before, so it was my 1st attempt at it today. Knowing that I had just started to do wall balls at 14# and had to do buy-in for the DU, I opted to do the FG1:

• 5 attempts at DU before I could go for the 2 x Rx number. That means I had to attempt 5 DU before I did single skips, but I went after double the amount of DU. My rounds were 100-80-60-40-20 single skips, but I could only start the single skips after my 5 attempts at DU. I got anywhere between 2-4 DU for my 5 attempts and that was ok.
• 15 x 14# wallballs for every rounds (total of 75 wallballs)

I finished in 15:14 and I’m pretty sure I could have done a little better with my own rope (I ordered it and am anxiously awaiting for it to arrive!) as I had to switch ropes in the middle of my 1st round. The rope I had kept twisting on itself and making it impossible to skip at all. I lost some time getting a new top and tying knots in it to shorten it to my ideal height (technical difficulty #3).

After I was done, Coach Caleb told me I had some decent welts on the back of my legs. At least, it shows I really tried for the DU! 😉

Not an easy feat to take a selfie of the back of your legs! See those whip marks? DU, I will conquer you!

By the way, those short shorts used to be tight on me, but nowadays, I can’t wear them at the box anymore because they fall off all the time and they have become my “fat shorts” (the ones I wear when I feel bloated)! 🙂

I can’t wait to see if having my own rope will make a difference in my quest to achieve DUs! Only time will tell, I guess!