Fast 5K

Run like a bunny.

On January 15 a few of us from CrossFit Cedar City went and ran a 5k in St. George. I haven’t run a 5k for a long time. I haven’t really been running at all in fact. I did the Redrock Relay in September and that was three runs, about 5, 5, and 2.5 miles I think. So I was interested to see how I would do with mostly Crossfit training. I ran a 24:29, which I think is a personal best. What seemed the most amazing to me is that I ran under 8 minute miles. I averaged 7:54 minute miles. Knuckles to Crossfit!

It was also helpful to be running with fast friends. I kept up with a few of them for the first k and then at least tried to keep them in sight. I did get passed by a woman pushing a stroller of triplets!! She was sprinting. I think she came in the top three overall for women. A couple of women with at least a decade or two on me also whipped my hiney. I want to be like them when I grow up. I need to get the cool compression knee high socks. Maybe that would make me even faster.

Happy Insane New Year’s Resolution to Me

Here's our team. I was just cheering at this event. Now I'm dumb enough to attempt to train with them.

So I decided to join my gym’s affiliate team, the Black Sheep. Aptly named since our gym is only a couple of years old, and we are outsiders from some tiny little town in Southern Utah who have a long way to go from “weak little black sheep.” Baaa, baaa. Crossfitters have their own celebrities--names that make other crossfitters go oooh, aaaah—and we are not among those elite. We are “up and comers,” a team “under construction.” We are having a “building year.”  (A team of air quotes.) Some of the people on our team are pretty amazing though, and I think they could join the celebrity ranks. My trainer, Robin Lyons, may already be in those ranks. Have you ever heard her name at a cocktail party?

The affiliate team is made up of three men and three women who compete against other teams at Crossfit events. Don’t worry, I’m not delusional. I’m not planning on actually being one of the members of the six-person team. I am an emergency-only alternate at best, and really just someone who is willing to work out with the team and try to take it up a level. For me for now, that will mean two extra workouts a week and a sweatshirt with a sheep on it.

Holiday Treats: Frenemy

From freerangetalk.com

Help, I am losing my battle against holiday treats. Yesterday, I ate nearly an entire loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

Problem #1: In my mind, there’s no point to life unless you can have treats sometimes.

Problem # 2: If you’re going to have some treats, as my son would say, “How much is some?” It’s easier if you’re saying no to all treats. Then you don’t have to decide which treats are worth it or which are okay or when you should stop.

Problem #3: People are hand delivering the treats to my door. Homemade, warm, yummy, calling my name.

Problem #4: I can’t deny my kids treats so I’ve got treats in the house.

Problem #5: My family tradition/culture says holidays are more fun with yummy treats.

Problem #6: I’m making treats. So I have to try them to make sure they are okay right?

I can find a million ways to rationalize, but the fact is, I don’t want an enormous butt come January. We’ll see how I do, but I promise I won’t post pictures.

PRs

Rope climbing is super-dy, duper-dy fun except that you get blisters on your hands and rope burns on your inner thighs and side of your lower leg. I need to perfect my rope climbing outfit. These shorts did not prevent rope burn. I tried boot cut pants, but I would step on the bottoms and pull my pants down as I climbed. Not good. Long socks work well and maybe I need to wear soccer shorts? I'll find out at the next rope climbing fest...

Here are a few of my personal records. I’m not feeling braggy as I write this because I most certainly get my can kicked in a big way by most people, but this is pretty good for me. I’ve come a long way in the 10 months that I’ve been at crossfit. Just want to record where I am, and see if I continue improving.

500 m row 2:01 min.

2000 m row 9:35 min.

1 mile run 8:52 min (course with some hills)

max push ups in 2 min.: 47

max 15’ rope climbs in 2 min.: 3

1 rep max:

back squat 135 pounds

front squat 120 pounds

shoulder press 70 pounds

bench press 85 pounds

deadlift 175 pounds

overhead squat 75 pounds

Olympic lifts:

Clean 90 pounds

Snatch 65 pounds

Jerk 105 pounds

Clean and jerk 95 pounds

Stuff I really need to work on: double unders, wall ball

I should write down what the women’s records are for our gym. It blows my mind. I’ll have to get that info.

P.S. Today's workout was craaazy. By the end we had done 150 reps of kettlebells swings, burpees, and GHD sit ups. Ahhhhh:

Warm Up

• 3 minute Row
• Kettlebell Complex
• Dynamic Stretches

Strength

• Back Squat 5-3-1

Met Con

"Hansen"

Complete 5 rounds for time of:

• 30 Kettlebell Swings, 2/1.5 pood
• 30 Burpees
• 30 GHD Sit Ups

How to Not Stink

While chitchatting about this in the gym, I was thronged by interested people. So here’s the lowdown. If you stink, don’t feel badly. Workout clothes that are made of drifit and other wicking/polyester/groovy stuff tend to embrace B.O. and never let go. Even regular cotton clothes can smell after a while when in them, you are daily sweating like a horse/pig/ dog (Choose one as there is always a debate as to which one truly sweats the most.).

So you can wash your workout clothes in baking soda. Just throw some in the wash with the regular soap. Or you can try special laundry soap just for workout clothes, like Tide with Febreeze Sport or Win Sport detergent. My sister got hers at her local Trek store. And hang ‘em up to dry. A hot dryer just seals in the stench.

Now, what if you stink at clean and jerks? What if you don’t even know what a clean and jerk is, like I didn’t a few months ago? Well, I can’t help you with the former, but I can help you with the latter. We did clean and jerks yesterday and I kind of stunk.

Just throwin in a picture of our yoga class, which I love. I'll write about that later.

 The clean and jerk is an Olympic lift. You start with the bar on the floor, sort of jump, and lift it to your clavicles while turning your forearms up so that the bar rests in your fingers and palms, which are now facing the ceiling. Then you push the bar overhead by pushing with your legs and jumping into a squat underneath the bar. If that’s not clear, check out YouTube. Anyway, we tried to do our max weight for one repetition. I did 95 pounds but that was only 5 pounds more than I had done before. I thought I really stunk. But I guess that happens to people all the time. You can only lift a bit more than before, or you can’t even lift the same as what you’ve done before.

I was making such great strides as I progressed from nothing to having some upper body strength. Now I’m on the “somewhat strong plateau”. I’m not going to be progressing by leaps and bounds unless I get insane and start working out seven times a week, training for an Ironman, and living off nothing but muscle milk. Not going to happen. So I’m happy with a 5 pound improvement. I guess I didn’t really stink that bad.  

Pre-Holiday 24-Day Challenge

Fresh eggs. Yummy.

Tomorrow I am starting another 24-day nutrition challenge. That means a 10-day cleanse followed by a 14-day diet of paleo/zone eating. I’m not sure if the pre-holiday timing is meant to get me on the right track so that I won’t go crazy over the holidays or to help me not feel guilty for chowing down on turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pumpkin pie. Cause I’m just saying right now, that I’m going to—chow down that is. Eating well is great, but so are traditional holiday meals. Food is a huge part of holidays (and any party in general) with my family, so I will be indulging in some good stuff. I mean food is part of the beauty and deliciousness of life for me, and sometimes the traditional holiday food is soooo yummy.

But here is some healthier stuff that is also yummy: fresh eggs. Raising chickens seems to be all the rage these days, and I was genuinely thinking about it. I even took my kids down to IFA to see the newborn chicks last spring. I was on the verge of buying some feathered friends with a coop and all, when my friend told me that she has chickens and sells their eggs. So I’m getting eggs from her. They taste amazing, and I don’t have chicken poop in my yard.

If you look closely, you can see the cream at the top of the fresh milk. That's fresh, baby.

I have also started getting fresh milk from her. (She lives outside town on a little land and has a few cows, chickens, cats, dogs, etc.) My kids have never had fresh milk, and they were surprised by the taste. It is a little bit different—kind of earthy. Or as my first-grader would say, “That milk tastes like the cow’s butt.” Trust kids to be tactful. I have started mixing the fresh milk with the store-bought milk. My two-year old loves it, and the others still think I am a terrible mom for not feeding them twinkies and dino-nuggets.

Here’s a paleo dinner if you want to try one. This is what we had last night and it was yummy:

Chili lime pork tenderloin

Spinach salad with roasted pecans, peppers, and balsamic vinaigrette (I had feta too, not strictly paleo)

Steamed broccoli

PS You can roast the peppers (10 min) and pecans (1 min) on the bbq while the pork cooks.

Greens for Breaky

Photo from Crossfit Cedar City

Here’s a pic of the 6 am class doing pull ups. I am using one band because we had to do something insane like 100 pull ups, but (drum roll, please) I can do three pull ups with no bands. I think I could do more if I could just hold on. That’s half the problem. But I’ll talk about that another time.

What I really want to talk about is breakfast. I took a baby step to eating “eggs and greens” for breakfast. This week I threw onions, spinach, and sweet peppers into my eggs. I know that’s not “2 cups of broccoli” but like I said, baby steps. I congratulate myself for not eating jelly donuts at least. (Not that I ever did, but there was a lot of Life and Quaker Oat Squares cereal—basically simple carbs—going on.)

I did some prep on Saturday and that helped me eat healthier. I hit Costco and got fruit and veggies, including the small sweet peppers, the big tub of spinach, and onions. I love that Earthbound spinach. It’s cheap, fresh, organic, and already washed. I love the little peppers, too. I put them in everything: chili, tomato sauce, salads. They are a bit milder than green peppers, so my kids like them more. On Saturday night I made fajitas, and I fried up a lot of extra onions and peppers in just a bit of olive oil. I prefer them sautéed to raw. Then I put the spinach in individual servings in little baggies. It’s a lot of spinach so I froze some and put the rest in the fridge. Then on Sunday morning I just grabbed a baggy of spinach, and a scoop of onions and peppers and threw that in my eggs. Voila—a veggie scramble with greens in it. I’ll also use the spinach for shakes. If you throw a little in you can’t even tell it’s there. I just have to make sure my kids aren’t looking when I throw it in!