Life..lately..

Oh, how I have let my reader down.. Well, I'm making another attempt at getting back to blogging. I really do like to write.. and since I'm terrible with taking pics and forget about any video documentation of anything.. so this is kind of my only shot at keeping any sort of track of things. So. I'll try to be succinct in recapping the last couple months.. maybe I'll do separate posts to catch up.. let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. First thing worth noting, I suppose.. Running! Or the lack thereof.. I still run. Yes, I do. I ran the Hospital Hill Half with my sister back on the 1st of June and it was actually much more successful in a 'that didn't feel like death' kind of way. I pretty much backed off my whole 'advanced running plan' thing, which included hills and speedwork and such, when training for CrossFit Regionals kicked off. It was just too much and, if I've learned anything over these past few years, if you really want to do well in something, you need to focus on it.. So since I wanted to do well at regionals and it was going to require a new level of commitment to picking up heavy things, I decided I couldn't also focus on getting faster. My new plan was to maintain distance to keep up endurance, but not really worry about improving speed right now. I've kept up running, but just short stroller runs during the week and then, while I was maintaining distance for the half, a long run sunday mornings. You know what only running slow does to your pace? You guessed it! But it was fun to run with Abby. I let her determine the pace and we chatted comfortably the whole time. It was a beautiful day and I still, for some reason, love that darn, hilly coarse and will most likely do it again next year. Abby wanted to start super slow and easy and aim to pick up the pace later and that's just what we did. We steadily picked up pace throughout the run, but kept feeling good. We finished just over 2 hours.. and that was that! It was nice to finish the distance feeling so good and left me feeling optimistic about my endurance life again.. though since then, I've been shorter and shorter on my endurance stuff.. Now I'm aiming for a sprint tri or two before summer is up. Actually the first one, if I bite the bullet and sign up, already!, is this saturday! I've been getting about 1-2 rides in a week and 1-2 swims, along with continuing the usual running, except subbing part of the 'long run sunday' for a brick (usually run 5-6mi, ride 20mi, then a short 1-2mi run). So I think that's all I have to say about my run and tri stuff. Hopefully I'll check in and let ya know how my illustrious sprint tri career goes! I can tell you this.. it is going. to. hurt. Of this, I am certain. BUT. I'm no stranger to a little discomfort.. hopefully I'll remember how to go hard out there! Now.. CrossFit stuff. So Regionals has come and gone. It was a lot of fun and a great experience, for sure. The training for it was fairly intense, as there was a lot to improve on in a short amount of time. I could go on and on about the training, because it is very fun and new and exciting to me, but perhaps another time. Basically, the Cliff's Notes goes a little something like.. squat, snatch, clean and jerk daily, then a workout that will push your limits daily.. repeat. I loved it!! I really love the olympic lifts and it is a lot of fun to increase my max lifts, usually simply by improving technique. The workouts that our coach came up with for us were often more like 'skill work for time' for me, especially when it would include several lifts all at what had recently been my 1 rep max (ie: 10+ hang cleans at 135#..which was my 1 rep max prior to that day.. Just FYI, now my 1 Rep Max for the Clean is 150#.. See what a little pushing the limits and regular training can do?..and still so much room for improvement..have I mentioned I enjoy this stuff?), but it was always fun and exciting for me to take on something that I maybe previously would have backed away from, but, with the 'if this is at Regionals, you can't scale it' mentality.. I just had to figure out a way to get it done. So we trained like that for the weeks leading up to the announcement of the workouts, then the real fun started! We tested some things out and then were assigned the workout that gave us the best chance for the best outcome.. and then we practiced those workouts like crazy until the big day! Again, that part was fun, too, because we had a specific goal in mind and knew exactly which skills we needed to work on. For example, there was a workout with rope climbs and squat cleans at 135#.. that 135# barbell became my best bud for the next couple weeks. My workout was deadlifts and box jumps.. so I picked up heavy things (AND put them down) and jumped on boxes many, many times. So how did it go? Well.. it went.. OK. Like I said, it was a great experience and I hope to go again next year.. I even hope to do some more competitions leading up to regionals this year.. But I had a few rookie mistakes, which, I suppose by nature of myself being a 'rookie', was bound to happen. Things started off strong and I hit a PR for my 3 rep max Overhead Squat.. so I had that going for me.. Then we did our 'burpee muscle up' workout and had no misses and everyone was feeling good! Then.. the next mornings' workout.. I don't even really want to talk about it. Silly mistakes that I have no excuse for, so there's not much to say.. I kept missing the wallball target. I have no idea why. Never had a problem with it before. Haven't had a problem with it since. Just an off day, I guess.. Everything else, for me, in that workout was fine, but the frustration of the wallball/target debacle kind of bummed me out. Later that day was my deadlift/box jump workout.. Again, another silly mistake. I had to switch out the weights after my partner went and, for some reason, the weights on one side were STUCK. So annoying. Finally got 'em off and did my workout just as planned.. almost caught a gal or two, but the damage had been done. On the plus side, we made the time cap, which when we first started practicing, was a concern.. All in all, aside from the sticky weights, that workout went as well as it could have. The last day started off kind of exciting when our team got first in their heat and, I think, 2nd overall for that workout. All we had left was one more with the whole team.. and it was one that we knew wasn't exactly our best.. the rope/cleans. I think we all did our parts as planned, so we were able to finish feeling good.. but also hungry to train hard and come back even stronger for next year! Which is where we are now.. I've decided to really dedicate this next year/season/whatever to CrossFit and really see where I can get with a full, solid years training. We've kicked off a 'competition' style training cycle.. whatever that means.. It's similar to what we did for regionals training (so see above Cliff's notes explaination), but a little less 'sped up', since we have more time to build.. The workouts and strength is still all very fun and exciting, so I'm having a good time with it! Maybe I'll start posting the workouts and results, since I don't keep a training notebook.. I don't know what it is with me, but I've never been good at keeping logs or calendars, etc.. So maybe I'll just document it here? It's my blog.. I guess I can write about whatever I want.. Kids, you ask? SUPER LOUD at the moment.. Mason is, at least.. He's "playing rock n' roll", you see.. He'll start kindergarten in just a couple weeks.. turned 5 a couple weeks ago.. His party was at the Indians game, which he was excited about. Then we finally took him to Chicago.. kid has been talking about Chicago for months now! So we went to the aquarium and then to the White Sox/Orioles game (yay!). We only made it to about the 3rd inning..it was cold?! He got to see warm-ups and got a ball and snacks.. all the important things. After the game, we set off to continue our journey out to vacation-land USA. Not sure where that is?? Iowa.. obviously! We went to Clear Lake, which is actually a nice, cute little Iowa town and had a lovely time visiting some family friends who were celebrating their wedding. So that was a nice little trip. Miles is 10 months and crawling around everywhere..of coarse. I've recently noticed how much more 'interactive' he is.. He'll crawl over to his highchair when he is hungry, or pull off his bib when he's done eating, things like that. He has FIVE whole teeth..and they are so darn cute. He is eating mostly finger foods, so chopped up versions of what we eat..and the kid loves, like LOVES black beans?? and cheese.. But then again, I guess, who doesn't, amiright?? So kids are good. Mason is obsessed with baseball..watches 'highlights' any chance he gets, looks up on the computer ALL the games and needs to know who is playing who, what the score is, etc. He always asks.. do you want the Padres to win? or the Blue Jays.. and, apparently "I don't care" isn't an acceptable answer, though it's the one I give him just about every time.. Anyway. Want to know what my workout was today? Here goes: 5:30am-enter JoCo CrossFit to finish my warm-up (which I start at home to help me get started faster so I can finish on time to get home and let my husband get out the door and off to work) Strength: Squats: 4x115#, 4x130#, 4 sets of 4x150# (off a 1 rep max of 185#) snatch with 3 sec pause below the knee: 4x75#, 4x80#, 3 sets of 4x85# (off a 1 rep max of 120#) Clean and Jerks with a 3 sec pause below the knee: (4+1) at 90#, (4+1) at 100#, 3 sets of (4+1) at 105# (1 RM of 150#) Snatch extension: 4 sets of 4x110# Jerks: 4x110#, 2 sets of 3x120#, 2x125# Whew! Now the workout..was supposed to be: Every Minute on the Minute (EMOTM) for 10min: 2 Muscle Ups (MU), 20 Double Unders (DU), then with rest of the minute, do clean and jerks at: 10x95#, 10x115#, 10x125#, 10x145# So that was the plan.. After the 1st minute, I realized that my connecting muscle ups weren't happening, which wasn't going to leave me enough time to complete everything and get any clean and jerks in, so I went to just 1 MU with the 20 DUs and the clean and jerks. At the end of the 10min, I only got through 10 at 95# and 5 at 115#. Just ran out of time. It took time to swithc the weights out. I was getting tired, so was more out of breath each round, making it tougher to get through the MU/DUs fast enough to get much more than 1 or 2 clean and jerks in the minute.. It was fast and furious and didn't quite go as I had planned or hoped, but it was a good workout and I gave it my all! After that we did 'Glute/Ham Raises', which we used to do back in the day in gymnastics.. always fun to kick it old school and remember the good ol' days! So that was crossfit for today. Usually I would have walked Mason to school and then run a short run with Miles in the stroller before we head in for naps, but since I didn't get my swim in yesterday, but DID do about 7-8mi run and 20mi bike.. I thought I should try to swim a bit. I didn't have much time, but got in the water and did a lil swimmin.. and that's it for today! Except I might do some sort of abs/core and some stretching later.. just because I'm on a personal hunt for my mid-section. I don't know how it's possible with all the strength training I've been up to lately, but my abs are purty weak.. on some things.. Basically on L-sits.. hanging L-sits and parallette L-sits to be exact.. I've gotten much better at seated L-sits on the floor and can plank like nobody's business.. but picking my feet up in mid-air? Not so much.. So feel compelled to work on that.. it's probably important, right? Maybe not. But I'll try to improve on it, none-the-less. Holy Moly, this is a lot of info.. I'm done. Plus I'm needed to "play a little game of basketball", despite the fact that it's dinner time.. And I need to make dinner.. Kids..