Camera Dump

I misplaced my memory card reader at some point between vacation and now. As a result, I've had a lot of iPhone pictures on here, and a lot of pictures building up on my (real) camera. Still no sign of the reader, but I did track down the data transfer cord that came with the camera.

And, yeah. Lots of pictures.

Like from when we climbed a lighthouse in the Outer Banks.










And when PhillyGuy and I took the pups to cheer on runners (and bloggers) at Broad Street.






Cosmo wasn't the biggest fan of the crowds.



Sophie wasn't the biggest fan of the walk. A two-mile round trip is a little much for those short little legs.



"Oh ma. I quit."

Still weeding through these pictures. I wonder what else I'm going to find on here.



Looking forward to my second CrossFit class tonight. According to the website, tonight's skillwork is Russian kettlebell swings. I'm pretty pumped, even though my legs are STILL sore from squatting a piece of PVC pipe the other night.

CrossFit, Take 1

Work has been kicking my butt lately - I'm going to end up billing close to 190 hours this month AND I spent the first week of it on vacation. Today was just a big ball of stress and anxiety, and so I was particularly glad that I had scheduled my very first CrossFit session for tonight.

I headed over to CrossFit Center City at 13th and Walnut right after work for my first "On Ramp" session. Before you can start taking normal classes, you have to complete six "On Ramp" classes, which focus on the basic moves used in CrossFit's WODs. (For a great primer on CrossFit, check out Fitbomb. His blog is what first got me interested in CrossFit.)

Tonight's class focused on overhead squats. We used sections of PVC pipe (i.e. - pretty much zero weight) instead of bars to put together the mechanics of a proper squat, overhead squat, and finally a one-armed overheard squat. And then came my very-first-ever WOD ("workout of the day").

Tonight's WOD was the "One Armed Jeremy:" for time, 21-15-9 sets of single-arm overhead squats and burpees. What that means is 21 overhead squats with the left arm, 21 overhead squats with the right arm, followed by 21 burpees. Repeat with 15 and 9. So, for those of you playing along at home, that's 42 squats followed by 21 burpees followed by 30 squats followed by 15 burpees followed by 18 squats followed by 9 burpees. (Here's a link to a video of some Crossfitters doing Jeremy with standard overhead squats.)

I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE. FROM SQUATTING A FREAKING BROOMSTICK.

My time? 7:58. I was the third person to finish, with sweat dripping from my face...FROM LESS THAN EIGHT MINUTES OF ACTIVITY. The first finisher was done in less than five minutes, which makes me think that he may not have been doing all of the squats, since the next fastest finish was 7:51.

I freaking loved it. I mean, I hated it, especially when I had just finished my first 21 squats and I was nowhere near finished. But I loved it, and I think I'm going to do well with this, and I can't wait to go back on Thursday.

All I wanted when I got home was something cold and easy.

Chicken with Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute.

And my favorite salad dressing - drizzle of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and the best rice vinegar in the entire world.

My quads are ALREADY freaking sore. CrossFit is going to be awesome.

Gettysburg Produce

PhillyGuy was out in Gettysburg for work the other day, and hit up a farm stand on his way home. I asked him to pick me up some cherries, which he did. He also told me I had a couple of surprises waiting for me in our fruit & veggie basket for when I got home.

And...yes. I had a bunch of peaches, which was great - my first of the season. But a little more noticeable was this.

I can hear you. "Um, okay. It's an onion, Chrissey. What's the big deal?"

But that's just it. It's not JUST an onion. I've been trying to figure out how to really showcase the fact that this is an onion the size of my head.

I thought a Diet Pepsi can would be a good comparison, but it didn't seem to do it justice. So I tried an overhead angle.

Still no good. How about I put it on a half sheet pan?

Then PhillyGuy had a good idea.

I've used that onion three times so far and haven't even gotten through half of it. Gettysburg, thanks for your Chernobyl onion.

Realization

I miss regular blogging, but once you get out of a habit, it's tough to get back into.

I've been in a nice little routine recently. Standard eats:

Fage 0, berries, peanut butter, side of loan documents.

My new favorite delivery food: chicken kabob salad (chicken, red peppers, sweet onions and tomatoes, grilled on a skewer, over a standard salad with romaine, cucumbers, peppers and fresh tomatoes), add feta cheese, with a side of hummus. Old Town Pizza/Sanna's has unexpectedly good hummus...plus, online ordering lets me be supremely antisocial, and not have to actually speak to a human being in order to obtain my hummus and salad.

Salmon burgers, crumbled feta, champagne dill mustard, side of roasted broccoli, pile of olives. I'm almost out of salmon burgers - time for a Costco run.

I've come to a realization: I don't really LIKE running longer distances. I had a lot of fun training for the Philly Half with Stephanie, but I dreaded any long runs that I had to do alone. They dragged, I was miserable, and I spent half the run wondering exactly WHY I was doing this.

I've also long since come to the realization that I don't like running shorter races, either. I hate 5Ks. You go balls to the wall for 25 solid minutes or so, and by the time you get warmed up, it's over, so it's never really fun.

But I do like RUNNING. I love, love, LOVE running shorter intervals. Mile repeats are fun. 800 repeats are fun. Fartlek-style "hmm what do I feel like running this time" workouts are fun. I dig speedwork, not so much tempo runs (though they're more palatable than long, easy distances).

But, like so many people, I got sucked into the idea that I had to race to be a "real" runner, and that I had to race double-digit distances. Um, not so much. I've been much less injured and much, much happier for the past couple of months, where I've been running once or twice a week, 3-4 miles of intervals at a time. I'm happier during the workout, I'm happier outside of the workout. I don't have any real times to speak of, and I can't hang a race bib from those workouts in my office...but...SO?

Not to say I won't ever run another long race. PhillyGuy has mentioned a few times recently that he'd like to run Broad Street one year, and I'd certainly run it with him. But I'm shifting my focus, I think. Running will just be fun and recreational, the way it was when I first started running in college. I'm hemming and hawing about forking over the chunk of cash to join one of the CrossFit gyms in the city - I dig lifting, and I'm starting to get bored with the same P90X routines I've been doing for the past year.

I'm hoping to visit a gym this weekend to see what the story is. For now, it's time to head out to Philly Power Yoga for class with my favorite instructor (Steve - I really dig his teaching style. it's the right mix of normal talk and "yoga talk" that helps me focus on my practice without rolling my eyes).

Happy weekend!

Is this Thing On?

I took a bit of a break from blogging.

Partially because work was making me nutty, but mostly because I just wasn't feeling it. And I didn't want to post for the sake of posting.

I've been doing a lot of this:

- Lifting 2-3 days a week (always a two-day upper body split, either back/biceps and shoulders/chest/triceps, OR back/chest and shoulders/biceps/triceps, and I've been trying to add in a day of legs as well)

- Running 1-2 days a week (shorter intervals - anywhere from 2-4 miles, always with a half-mile warmup followed up some sequence of intervals, ranging from half-mile repeats to shorter, faster intervals to pyramid-type speed buildups)

- Other cardio, typically the recumbent bike on the "random" program, 2 days a week

- Hot yoga once a week

Eats have been boring but generally good for me. As I've mentioned before, I don't mind eating the exact.same.thing.all.the.time. So it's been plenty of grilled meats and roasted veggies, and plenty of plain Fage 0 and berries, and about once a week I make a grilled cheese using two pieces of fat free cheese, one piece of whatever amazing full fat cheese we have around (usually some type of sharp cheddar) and ham, and top that with an over-easy egg. That's my go-to dinner the night PhillyGuy has class.

We got in around 9pm last night from a couple days in Vegas. We were out there for a friend's wedding and make an extended weekend vacation out of it. I had booked myself a 10am hot yoga class this morning, but decided after waking up to switch it to 4pm so that I could spend more time with these guys:

(Cosmo is not ready to get up yet, either. We went for our usual morning walk and he immediately jumped back into bed afterwards. I tried to take his picture and Sophie was like "HEY MA! WHAT ABOUT ME!")