PhillyGirlRuns

BCCC Round Two, Done

2012-02-09T13:36:00.004-05:00

I feel like butt today.

I weighed in on Tuesday night, marking the end of my second CFCC BCCC. I felt fabulous - lean, hydrated, happy, all that jazz. And I was! All of that, despite chintzing out on my sleep for the first few days of the week, getting to work at 6:30am to finish up a massive project, and all that good stuff.

So, first, the good news. My second challenge was just as successful as the first. Major changes I made this time around included limiting cream in my coffee to weekends only (Saturday and Sunday), no nuts or nut butters, no chocolate whatsoever, introducing a leptin refeed on heavy workout days, limiting bacon to weekends only for the last two and a half weeks, and towards the end, eliminating any midafternoon snacking and eating chicken and seafood only, which meant cutting out the red meat I generally have about four times a week. (This is all in addition to the cuts I made in the fall, including no soda or artificial sweeteners, no fruit, very little dairy, no more daily Larabars, and no grains whatsoever.) A typical day included eggs, raw spinach and chicken sausage for breakfast, maybe a half rotisserie chicken or a salad with spinach, chicken, avocado and tomatoes for lunch, and some kind of meat and green (usually kale or collard greens) cooked with a slice of bacon.

Results? I've lost another few pounds (7, by the gym scale, but I think my weigh-in number was a little inflated, so let's call it 4 or 5) and another inch off of my waist and hips.

Get this. Since October, I've lost FOUR INCHES off of my waist. FOUR. I'm down to 29.5" from 33.5"...while eating steak and bacon and a whole lot of greens. And that doesn't count the weight I lost before I got measured in October - which must have been at least an inch or so from my waist and hips, simply based on how my pants fit.

Seriously? Back in September I wrote about how a specific pair of chinos was fitting me really well. They'd been wearable but snug, and then after a couple months of sorta-consistent paleo, they were fitting nice and loose. I put those pants on about a week and a half ago, and you guys, they slide off my butt completely while buttoned. I bought pants at J.Crew last week in an emergency 9:30 am trip when I realized I forgot to bring my skirt to work (rode there in sweats). They're a size FOUR. I know, I know - J.Crew and its vanity sizing - but guys, I was buying tens there. Vanity-sized or not, I'm down three sizes.

Anyway, gloat gloat gloat gloat gloat. I'm getting pretty jacked and my performance at the gym is improving significantly. And I may or may not have committed to doing a strongman competition in a couple of weeks.

But back to today. So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - up at 5, at work and billing by 6:30. On top of that, last night was a major client entertainment event that kept me out until about 10pm. I was able to cobble together some largely paleo options from the buffet - a few slices of red meat (I think it was beef, but might have been a leaner cut of lamb), a square of white fish, some eggplant. I had a chocolate hazlenut truffle for dessert (it was really kind of gross and super-sweet).

This morning I felt like total ass. So tired, so draggy, so dehydrated. I've been chugging water all day, plus a coconut water around 10:30, and I'm finally starting to feel semi-normal. I have no appetite, but ate a salad for lunch anyway, which I think helped. And my gut is not happy with me. Whether this is just from lack of good sleep or from some flour sneaking into my dinner last night, I don't know - but it's a really, REALLY good reminder of just how craptacular I feel when I don't take good care of myself.

But...at least I'm getting jacked.

Home Stretch

2012-02-01T11:09:00.004-05:00

And we have officially entered the last week of this season's CFCC BCCC.

Like last time, it's now time to crack down and eat only the cleanest crap imaginable. Lean meats and greens only, baby, other than my up-to-thrice-weekly leptin refeed. No more snacking in the afternoons (this will save me about $20-30 in buffalo jerky).

What's a leptin refeed? To borrow a great explanation from Mark Sisson:

"The purpose, as I see it, of carb refeeds is the restoration of leptin levels in the dieter. As we know, caloric restriction reduces leptin levels. With lower leptin comes increased hunger and reduced adherence to a diet. Cravings arise. Energy wanes, immunity suffers. The lack of leptin elicits the cascade of hormones that down regulate metabolism and energy expenditure. Your muscles use less energy and become more efficient – but weaker and less effective. Menstruation and fertility become issues. Dropping calories even more just makes the problem worse. You need to restore leptin, at least for a bit, to right the path. A carb refeed can help you achieve this."

The rest of Mark's post and the comments are very informative - I highly recommend you check it out.

Anyway, what this translates into for me, at the recommendation of my oh-so-wise coach, is to have something starchy on the same day as a longer metcon - over ten minutes. Usually, this is a sweet potato with cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chili powder, paprika and salt - no butter necessary, and it's goddamn delicious. Last night, I had about 3/4c of baba ganoush (eggplant, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, paprika).

(Incidentally, I had that baba ganoush, together with chicken shwarma meat over a salad, around 9:15 after a 24-hour fast AND a 12 minute metcon that kicked my ass. Nothing has ever tasted so good.)

So, here we go. Until next Tuesday, I'm suspending my love affair with all kinds of red meat (steak! lamb! ground beef! pork [no, contrary to what the Pork Council's ad campaign would have you believe, this is NOT white meat]) and replacing it with plenty-o-smoked salmon, fish, chicken, shrimp and scallops (most of which I have in my freezer). My love affair with collard greens and kale will continue. Bacon...I'll miss you this weekend, but we'll be back together soon.

And you better believe I'm going on a bender at Sweet Freedom bakery when I'm done.

Workouts:

- Monday, January 30: greasing the groove with pull ups. 2 strict pronated grip pull ups, with mini band, every minute on the minute for ten minutes. 20 pull ups, easy. Next week, bodyweight for these. Back squat, peak of 20 (yes, 20). I did two sets - 115 was really fast & easy, so I took my second set at 125. Still pretty fast, and while it got tougher for the last 3 or 4 reps, I didn't see Jesus, so if we ever do this again I'll start higher. Doing 20 reps with 66% of my max doesn't suck.

- Tuesday, January 31: strict muscle-up skill work. Couple false grip ring pull ups with mini band and with no band - not there yet unassisted. Couple band-assisted muscle ups - these feel REALLY weird. Light + mini easy, light band less easy but still up. Metcon: 12 minute AMRAP of 3 forward rolls, 6 burpees, 12 double-unders, 15 air squats. Lesson 1: when you do a lot of squats Monday, air squats on Tuesday are kinda painful. HOLY CRAP. Lesson 2: my double-unders go to crap when I fatigue. 5 rounds + 6 burpees, as RX'ed.

Burgers & Greens & Whining

2012-01-30T09:04:00.005-05:00

First some pictures of something delicious, and then some whining.

I had been neglecting the 10ish pounds of ground beef that came with my cow share - it was a lot more exciting to make, say, a t-bone steak, or a roast, or fabulous green curry with beef cubes, than it is to start something with ground beef. Especially when you ALSO get 10ish pounds of pre-shaped burger patties, which are tremendously convenient.

BUT, rumblings have started about it being high time to get a second cow, and so I need to be more diligent about using up what I have so that I can re-up when everyone else does. So, the other day, I pulled out two pounds of ground beef in the morning before work, so that I'd be forced to make something with it when I got home that night.

I settled on burgers. First, I sauteed up an entire onion in some grassfed Icelandic butter.

While the onion cooked down, I seasoned the ground beef. There's no fat percentage on the cow share labels, but I'd guess it's around 80-20, maybe 85-15.

My old go-to burger recipe called for soy sauce and brown sugar...neither of which are among my current nutritional choices. So, I scoured my favorite new cookbook...

...and used the spices from their recipe for buffalo burgers. I tried to keep the patties relatively small, and I ended up with more than ten burgers. I cooked them in the same pan I sauteed the onions in, after taking out the onions. Didn't need to add any extra fat - the first round of burgers may stick a tiny bit at first, but they'll release more than enough fat to cook in without an issue.

I set the burgers aside to rest while I sauteed collard greens in the drippings.

Tasty. Two pounds of beef yielded dinner for PhillyGuy and I, plus three or four leftover patties for lunches and dinners that week.

And now, as promised, the whining.

This round of the CFCC BCCC is a little draining. It was discouraging to not perform to my expectations at the Total last weekend, and I reassured myself by trying to focus on the fact that I'm going to cut the last bit of body fat. However, as I'm entering my fourth week of black coffee, no dark chocolate, weekday salads without that handful of bacon bits or avocado, and rationing my sweet potatoes to long metcon days...it's getting a little old. Other than the occasional 30 minutes of cravings here and there, I haven't felt too deprived, and it hasn't been HARD...but I'm struggling because I'm not seeing the results I feel that I should be seeing.

Part of this is because I had so much success with the first challenge. Fat seemed to just melt off - the scale consistently went down, and by the end of the challenge I had lost two inches off of my waist. Two inches! In 30 days! The first challenge also wasn't as restrictive for the entire time. I had chocolate a few times a week for the first two weeks and had cream in my coffee until the last ten days.

This time around, I'm just not seeing that same progress - and I understand that it's a different ballgame to lose pure "vanity pounds." This time, the scale's just not moving. I'm consistently within a 151-152 pound range, having started the challenge at (by my scale) 153.X. I don't actually care what I weigh, but I'm definitely not putting on muscle mass (as evidenced by my inability to PR two of my three lifts at the total), and I still have enough body fat that the scale should go down as I lean out. I took a quick measurement of my waist last night and I think I've gone down about a half inch - but I'm not sure, since I didn't take my first set of measurements.

All this to say - if I'm going to keep NOT eating that bar of Green & Black's 85% dark that's been sitting in my pantry, I want to see something from it. I try to keep reminding myself that my bodyweight stuff is getting stronger - pull ups continue to improve and all that - but damnit, if I can't have cream in my coffee 5 days out of the week, I'd really like to be a size 0 for my troubles.

Whining over. Workout recaps:

Monday, 1/23: Squat Elizabeth. 21-15-9 squat cleans (135/95), ring dips. No option to scale dips with a band - if not RX'ed on ring dips, sub push ups. 19:06 with RX'ed weight and pushups. My squat cleans continue to improve, in that I was able to actually squat clean most of these instead of power cleaning and doing a front squat, which is SO.MUCH.HARDER.

Tuesday, 1/24: strict muscle up work. False grip ring pull ups with mini band; close w/o band but still not there. Metcon: 10 rounds for time, 1 muscle up/5 handstand pushups/10 pistols/15 unbroken double-unders. 25:05 with strict pull up (bodyweight), inverted pushups from a box, single leg squats to box, 15 unbroken DU's. Shit, this was hard.

Wednesday, 1/25: intro to oly. Spent the entire 90 minutes working on my snatch (FNARR FNARR, as Modern Paleo Warfare would say). Lots of drills, followed by sets of 2-3 at 53 and 60lbs. Snatched from blocks at 53 and 63lbs. Drilled the overhead squat at 53-73lbs. Not my strongest performance ever.

Thursday, 1/26: split jerk, singles. 45x3 to warm up, then 65-80-95-115F (oops, this was supposed to be 105)-105. 2lb PR from prior max of 103. Metcon: 10 handstand pushups, 20 pull ups, 30 kettlebell snatches (1.5/1pood), 40 wallballs (10'/8'). Option was to RX everything or scale everything - I don't do HSPU's yet so I chose to scale. 6:25 with inverted pushups from a box, pull ups with mini band, American kettlebell swings and regular wallballs. I went through the first three movements very quickly and then took the wallballs unnecessarily slow.

Sunday, 1/29: gymnastics followed by intro to oly. Back extension rolls to plank; bridge work; handstand limber. Skipped metcon to save my shoulders for oly. Snatch drills; back and overhead squatting; snatch balance; hang snatch. Snatched from boxes the entire time and worked with kilograms for most of class. 53lbs/24kg up to 66.2lbs/30.2kg. Clean, also in kilograms: 66.2lbs/30.2kg up to 45kg/99lbs for doubles, then singles at 49kg/108lbs, 51kg/112.4lbs (2.4lb PR over prior max of 110 and VERY easy). I tried 55kg (121.25lbs) three times and was SO CLOSE - first shot my elbows were too slow; second try I got under it, but got stuck at the bottom; third try my jump was huge and I should have had it, but those slow elbows get me. Next time I'll get this.

A Little Disappointed

2012-01-22T10:34:00.003-05:00

PR'ed my back squat and my overall total.

Hit my current PR for the press.

Not even close to PRing my deadlift.

187.4/245/80 for a total of 512.4.

Primary goals were 185/275/85 for a total of 545. My secondary deadlift goal was 260, for a total of 530.

But let's rewind a little bit. I woke up around 7:45 to plenty of snow and some ongoing freezing rain, which Cosmo and Sophie were not happy about. My lifting slot started at 10:30, so I decided not to eat breakfast, which is standard for my morning workouts. After standing around waiting for.e.ver for my dogs to pee, I came back in, had some coffee with cream (! THIS IS SO GOOD) and starting planning out my outfit.

(Not joking. I wanted to be colorful, and I have so many options. Eventually I settled on a bright blue t-shirt, neon pink socks and headband, and my new orange chucks.)

PhillyGuy came with me, so I have some pictures of myself looking (moderately) strong. When we got there, I was delighted to see Maddox keeping warm.

My glutes and hamstrings were ridiculously sore from Thursday's dynamic lunges, so I spent a ton of time with a foam roller and a lacrosse ball during my warmup. When 10:30 rolled around, we headed downstairs to warm up for the back squat.

Taking a warmup set with the bar.

I'm not completely sure where my warmups ended and my first attempts started - mainly because we were working with kilos and I had zero idea what was on the bar at any given time. I know I made a jump from about 170lbs to 187, bottomed out and failed - and then, when I tried to stand the bar up, it slipped off of my shoulders and right into Tim's hands. Um...oops. Sorry buddy.

At Tim's suggestion, I added a belt, which I've never used before, and backed off for my next attempts. I hit a couple more heavier weights (seriously, NO idea) before attempting 85kg again - or 187.39 pounds.

Want to know what my PR face looks like?

Yeah buddy.

I pulled it off - and it wasn't too slow, either. I was REALLY happy with this, since my squat was what I was most unsure of. After PRing my back squat by 12.4lbs, we headed back upstairs to warm up for the deadlift.

Right about here is where my day started heading downhill. I warmed up with a few reps - 115, 165, 195, 225. Things were feeling good, and I was planning to open with 260lbs (this would be a PR, but I figured it was a given, based on how smooth it felt when I doubled 250 a couple weeks ago), then jump to 270 and 275. So, based on that, I went to take my last warmup lift at 250.

In case you're wondering, THAT is what it looks like when I can't get 250lbs off of the floor to warm up.

And THIS is my "well, fuck, now what" face, as I watched Dorcus take 4-something and tried to figure out what I was going to do.

I decided to open at 245. And I couldn't move it. Opening with a fail is really not good for my attitude. Liz and I chatted briefly - I could NOT figure out what the crap was wrong with me and why I couldn't move a weight I'd pulled for three before. Maybe the soreness from the lunges affected me more than I initially thought?

"Are you cutting weight right now?" she asked.

....oh. "yeah. Yeah, I am." Well, that'll do it. So, I took my next rep at 235 so I'd at least put up something I knew I could do.

And then took my third and final attempt at 245.

245, locked out and totally nonplussed.

Disappointed, I went over to PhillyGuy, who decided we should take a picture of the mini-tear over my callus that popped up while moving 1.65x my bodyweight. (Not 1.82x, like I planned.)

From there, it was time to buck up and warm up for the press.

I took my first attempt around 80lbs - my PR and a given.

I took the next two attempts at 84lbs, both of which were fails. I thought nothing was going to frustrate me more than the deadlift - until I got home and saw this picture of my second attempt.

WHY COULDN'T I PUT MY DAMN HEAD THROUGH AND LOCK THAT SHIT OUT??? GAAAAAAAAAH.

Oh well. So, it wasn't my A+ goal of 545, and it wasn't my secondary "safe" goal of 525, but 512.4 is not too shabby - it's still a PR of 42.4lbs over September's total of 470. And I'm happy to be leaning out, because while my nutrition these past few weeks hasn't been great for my deadlift, it's been killer for my pull ups.

So, I've got plenty of time to finish out this BCCC and make a hard push to drop the last of my body fat so I'm at a happy, sustainable level, and then turn my focus back to my performance. I still have five and a half months to meet my next big set of goals (deadlift 300, back squat 200).

More Beastmode

2012-01-20T16:55:00.003-05:00

Things that prove that I am awesome:

- Last weekend, I hit up Sammy's gymnastics skills class to spend some time refining my kip and learning to string kips together. I sort of succeeded - I can kip with ease, and I know what I need to do to string them together. I definitely need to practice, but soon I'll be Franning with the best of them (or, to be more accurate, I'll be Franning with the worst of those who can complete Fran RX'ed, but whatever - huuuuuge improvement over Franning with the worst of them who could NOT go RX'ed, which is where I started just a few short months ago).

This is less awesome, but still one of those weird things that crossfitters tend to brag about, so I feel like I should save this for posterity:

My first hand tear, which I got while practicing kips. I lost my grip with my left hand, which led to me pivoting around on my right hand. And ripping up a big fat chunk of callus while I was at it. It's pretty much healed now.

- Last night, we did weighted chin-ups (supinated grip). For the first time ever during a class, I (i) did an unassisted deadhang pull up, and (ii) did unassisted deadhang WEIGHTED pull ups. I am embarrassingly proud of that little 5lb change plate hanging from my weight belt. BAM. REMEMBER THAT TIME THAT I SUCKED AT PULLUPS?

- I found these convenient containers that come with tiny cups that snap into the lid. This means I can have my favorite olive-oil-rice-vinegar combo on my lunch salads without worrying about sogginess.

See?

- I HAVE AWESOME ORANGE SHOES.

I figure between my hand tear and orange chucks, I am GUARANTEED to put up some big numbers at tomorrow's total.

Recent workouts:

Saturday, 1/14 - Gymnastics skillwork only. Worked on kipping pull ups with great success. Had planned to stay for fight gone bad right afterwards, but frankly, I was tired, not feeling so great, had a party to go to in AC and just wasn't feeling it, so I used my torn hand as an excuse and headed home.

Sunday, 1/15 - Gymnastics. Kipping handstand pushups and skin-the-cats. I'm getting much more stable in doing headstands (starting from the floor, yoga-style, as opposed to kicking up to handstands from a standing position), and much stronger in punching up with my hips. Skin-the-cats felt SUPER weird at first, but got more comfortable after a few reps. Kept the rings low so I could land on my feet at the back. Metcon - AMRAP 10 minutes, 3 kipping HSPUs, 3 skin-the-cats, 5 tuck jumps. HSPU to plank position; 5 rounds + 4 HSPU attempts (couldn't get my feet up, let alone back down and out).

Monday, 1/16 - Back squatting for an easy peak of 3. 95 - 125 (not low enough on the first 2) - 135 - 145 - 155. It's feeling much smoother and easier to triple 155, so I'm hopeful for my performance this weekend. Metcon - tabata box jumps (24/20). 67 total, plus 3 or 4 no-reps where my hips didn't get fully extended at the top.

Tuesday 1/17 - Strict press, easy peak of 3. 45-55-65-70 (very slow)-75 (ugly - went up on toes on my third rep). Felt kind of slow and grindy, but meh. Metcon: 21-15-9 kettlebell snatch (1.5/1 pood), pull ups. Subbed russian swings because snatching really irritated my hand rip. even taped up. With mini band, 9:38. Couldn't even remotely rep pull ups after the first five or so. Grip: annihilated.

Thursday 1/19 - Weighted supinated grip pull ups, easy peak of 1. Mini band - micro mini band (seriously, that thing is pointless) - bodyweight - +2.5 - +5. SO HAPPY with this. Metcon: AMRAP 10 minutes, 60 sec renegade rows, 60 second dynamic lunges (out and back in to starting point without moving your non-lunging foot). With 12kg kettlebells for the rows and a 25lb bumper plate for the lungers, 204 total...I think. It might have been 214 or 224, because I THINK I counted the 140s and the 160s twice (like...when I got to 149 reps I think I started back over at 140...). I really suck at counting reps.

Brief Whining, No Pictures

2012-01-13T13:19:00.003-05:00

you've been warned.

Today is day 5 of the current CFCC BCCC. After today, I have 25 more days to go. I know - intellectually, at least - that it will fly by, that I will be strict and consistent, and that on day 31 (or whenever I measure and weigh in), I will be really fucking happy about it.

BUT.

Today is day 5. And on day 5, I am not happy. And it's ridiculous - this is only day three of no cream in my coffee, for chrissake. (Somewhat coincidentally, it IS day 5 of no chocolate.) But...gah. My little Sophie has been sick since Saturday - I suspect it might be because I gave her a piece of fat off of the edge of my t-bone steak, which may or may not have wreaked havoc on her otherwise-cooperative little puppy digestive system. Anyway, last night she woke me up at 12:30, 4:30 and 5:45 to go outside. Poor girl. And poor me, because I was really feeling it when I got up for good that third time.

Standing there in my kitchen just before 6am, ALL I wanted was cream in my coffee. I had no interest in drinking it black. I was miserable and bitter about it (not to mention miserable and bitter about the fact that I am a much lighter sleeper than PhillyGuy, who snored right through all of Sophie's emergencies - I woke him up and sent him out with her the first time, but it just felt mean). Not surprisingly, actually DRINKING the black coffee made me somewhat less miserable and bitter...especially when I added some cinnamon and nutmeg.

An hour and a half later (grumble), when I was making my breakfast, I opened my pantry to find TWO precious, unopened chocolate bars staring me in the face. One is my usual favorite - Green & Black's 85% - and the other is a new one to try - Theo's 70% with mint. I'm not throwing them away, since that's about $14 worth of chocolate, but GOD am I bitter that I can't have them.

BAH. This too shall pass (and quickly, since a good 95% of the time I feel perfectly content without these little indulgences). Eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize. Eyes on the prize, dammit.

Training:

Wednesday, off - I had planned on going to class to push cars (!!!) but didn't feel comfortable leaving Sophie stuck in her crate with her questionable tummy any longer than I needed to. Did a couple pull ups and called this one a night on the couch.

Thursday - back squat. Yes, again - this time for a peak of one, so heavier than Monday's set of three, without maxing. 85x3 to warm up, and then 105-125-145-160-170. I was still a little sore from Dae Han, but felt pretty strong. Feeling better about my goals for the total next weekend. Metcon was "Diane" - 21-15-9 of deadlifts (225/185) and handstand pushups, with a 10:00 cap. If it weren't for the time cap, I'd have done the RX'ed weight, but I knew my pushups would be slow and I wanted to finish the workout. 8:00 even, with 155lbs/regular push ups. Repped the first ten or so deadlifts and then started dropping them from the top to keep my pace consistent.

training note...I hope we focus on HSPU's soon, because I'd like to start doing at least partial ROM in metcons. I feel like it might be easier for me to do partial ROM HSPU's than regular push ups. I'm much stronger at pushups than I was six months ago - I'm happy that I managed to rep out ten to start with, and that I only failed two pushups in this metcon, both in the last round - this is a huge leap from when I first started and had to do them on my knees.

Whining over. Back to work with me.

Lazy Chicken and Some Goals

2012-01-11T20:19:00.003-05:00

First, the lazy chicken.

This is really, really lazy. Everything you need:

Chicken thighs (that's 4.5 pounds or so - about 15 thighs)

Herbs de Provence

Yellow onion (this would be really good with a Vidalia, too, but this is what I had around)

Package of dried mushrooms - I like shiitake for the smoky, bacon-ish flavor, but you could use whatever

Couple cloves of garlic

Unpictured kosher salt

...that's it.

Liberally coat your chicken thighs with herbs de provence and kosher salt. Use lots of seasoning and a decent amount of salt, and use your hands to really get in there and make sure the chicken is coated thoroughly and evenly.

Smash a few cloves of garlic and peel off the skin - I used four or five.

Slice onion into rings and arrange in a single layer on bottom of crockpot. Dump mushrooms over onions and toss in garlic cloves. Pour in chicken. Cook on low for 4.5 hours (yes, that's all).

And that's it. No liquid - the chicken generates more than enough juice by itself. If I had skin-on, bone-in thighs, I'd probably have browned the skin first, but I didn't...so it was a season-and-crockpot meal. This would be a great candidate for something to make in the morning before work, IF you have a crockpot that will shut off after 4.5 hours - it's really easy to overcook chicken and dry it out.

When there were about 15 minutes left on the chicken, I tore up some collard greens and cooked them with a slice of bacon, kosher salt and pepper.

Lazy chicken, completed:

Easy, lazy, and very tasty with collards on the side.

And with nothing on the side. I picked at that chicken for an entire week, between lunches at work and extra-lazy dinners (sensing a theme here?).

So, this past Monday started another CFCC BCCC. This time around, my goals are to be stricter with my eating to really lean out, and then to (probably through trial and error) figure out what I need to eat in order to maintain that level of body composition.

Ideally, I would lose enough fat to drop at least one more size and about an inch and a half more off of my waist. At that point, I think I'd be satisfied, and it would be something I could sustain without being incredibly restrictive all the time.

Performance-wise, my goals for this 30 days are to continue to improve my deadhang pull ups, to master kipping pull ups, and work on bodyweight skills (pistols, push ups, handstand push ups). Leaning out is definitely going to help with this. Longer term goals are still a 300lb deadlift (or 2x bodyweight, which may come first if I keep dropping weight).

Tuesday night I had my first meeting with Erin to review my food log and discuss my goals. She warned me - and I in turn warned my husband - that I was in for a cranky 30 days. This week's dietary changes: no nuts (not a big deal at all), no chocolate (gasp! not even on weekends!), no cream in my coffee (except on Saturday and Sunday mornings...SUPER GASP!), and experiment with making bone broth and substituting that for my usual afternoon snack of buffalo jerky (iiiiinteresting). I'm also under strict orders to be IN BED by 10pm, which is going to be a challenge, since at least three nights a week I'm at CFCC until 8:45 or so - right now I'm usually home by 9, walk the dogs, make a quick dinner, play with my pups and then in the shower by 10, asleep by 10:30. We'll see how this goes.

After our meeting, I stuck around for the 7:30 class. Foolishly. On the plus side...I climbed a rope (not all the way to the top, but a good 10 feet or more). That was an achievement. And then we did a hero WOD that I'd never heard of before - "Dae Han." 3 rounds for time of 800 meter run with a plate (45/25), three 15' rope climbs, 12 thrusters (135/95) - with a 25 minute cap. I scaled the rope climbs to 15 strict pull ups with a light band and used 65 pounds for the thrusters - in retrospect, they didn't feel too tough and I probably should have done 75 or 85.

So how did it go? Well, let me tell you something about running with a bumper plate. There's no good way to hold it. As soon as we started the run - within 15 seconds - we were all like "AW CRAP." I started with it behind my head, over my upper back, but it kept hitting me in the back of the head. I yelled "THIS IS STUPID" before switching it to over my chest...and then tucked under my arm...and then back to my back...repeat ad nauseum. Or for the six minutes or whatever it took me to run 800 meters. The pull ups were slow, but legit, and the thrusters were pretty easy - I was able to do 4 or 5 at a time without any issue. But that run. OH, that run. 2 rounds in 21:57. I could have gotten another 400m run in but I just did NOT want to.

My back is killing me tonight from those runs (or awkward shuffles, whatever). Time for a little more foam rolling, shower and then my 10pm bedtime.

Fran.

2012-01-09T21:28:00.005-05:00

Fran is pretty much THE crossfit baseline workout. 21-15-9, barbell thrusters/pull ups. RXed weight for women is 65lbs, for men it's 95. Ridiculous people do this in under three minutes. Really jacked people do it in under 5. Most others are somewhere in the 6-11 minute range, with appropriate scaling and all that jazz.

Before tonight, I had never done Fran. I've done Sandy Fran, which was an unmitigated disaster (over 13 minutes with an average band and a 40lb sandbag). I've done Heavy Fran, which was...well..heavy (15-12-9 of thrusters (135/95) and deadhang pull ups (+45 for men, bodyweight for women).

Since the last time we did any variation of the deadly thruster/pull up combo, I have been working REALLY hard on my pull ups. Every single day, I do at least one or two pull ups on my guest room closet door mounted bar. At first, all I could do were jumping pull ups. They got easier and easier, and I started messing around with my grip. Now, chin ups are almost easy, and I can do a couple pronated grip pull ups. And that, my friends, brings us to today's Franathon.

This may not be the most flattering picture anyone's ever taken of me, but it's fast becoming one of my favorites. In my last couple reps of thrusters:

YOU SEE THAT TIME?

10:24, 65lbs/mini band. MINI BAND. That's over three minutes off of my Sandy Fran time - and I used a substantially stronger band for Sandy Fran. I am so happy with this. Fran, you and I are going RX'ed next time. Promise.

Post-Fran, I was ravenous. (OK, PRE-Fran I was ravenous. The last of my BCAAs staved off the "I'm going to barf" hunger headache, but that shit is NOT food.) Observe the laziest dinner ever: 4 ounces of smoked salmon and an entire avocado (halved and sprinkled with kosher salt and pepper) over a "salad" comprised of the last of my container of baby spinach, a bunch of grape tomatoes, a little handful of crumbled bacon, delicious olive oil, rice vinegar and granulated garlic. Served right in the container, so as not to dirty a dish.

And after I inhaled this and I was still hungry, I ate a leftover pork rib. CFCC BCCC, day one down.

Yesterday's stuff: gymnastics (! hooray), followed by intro to oly (frustrating!). Gymnastics was freestanding handstand practice followed by iron cross ring work. I'm getting much better at ring support, and was able to move my hands out the tiiiiiniest bit. Skipped the metcon to conserve energy for oly, where I spent the entire hour and a half working on my snatch. (I don't even have the energy to make a joke there, because the third pull of the snatch is such a source of frustration for me. it's my latest nemesis.) Couple sets at 53lbs, a whole bunch of sets at 63lbs, and then a lot of drills (snatching from blocks and snatch balance) with 53lbs.

Cow Share Beef Green Curry

2012-01-07T16:13:00.005-05:00

Back in October, a bunch of us at the gym split a cow.

No, really. I thought I posted about it, but I skimmed my posts and I guess not - but there's not really much to it. A fellow CFCC'er organized a cow share through Philly CowShare. For just under $350, I got an eighth of a cow - about 50 pounds of beef total. I'd estimate half of it is ground beef, whether in patties or in one-pound blocks. The rest of it is a split between roasts, steaks, and stew meat.

I will definitely do this again. I was worried initially about freezer space, but once I got rid of a lot of the freezer-burned shit I had in there (ancient steam-in-bag veggies, a sad caving-in box of Dr. Praeger's veggie burgers (incidentally, as much as I WANTED to like those, they were really kind of gross and soggy no matter what I did to them), a Costco-size bag of bagel thins from god knows when), I had more than enough room for everything and then some.

But the best part is that it's forced me to have a lot more variety in my diet. Which is not something that comes easily to me.

The other night, I took advantage of something I'd normally never have - beef cubes - and made something I'd never made before - Thai green curry.

I got the inspiration from Modern Paleo Warfare (by the way, if you don't read him, you absolutely need to). Since I had pretty much none of the necessary ingredients on hand, I perused a few other sources (Nom Nom Paleo and good old Google) and added a few things to my shopping list.

Not all of this is new to me - fish sauce has been a pantry staple for me since the first time I went to Vietnam (the restaurant, not the country) about five years ago, and I've been using coconut oil since sometime in October. However, this the first time I've ever bought coconut milk, and I recently swapped out my dusty bottle of soy sauce for this new, shiny bottle of coconut aminos. And, of course, the star of the show: green curry paste.

And the fresh stuff: about a pound of cow share beef cubes, red pepper, snow peas, and (lazy) pre-shredded cabbage.

This is only the third or fourth time I've had the chance to use my beautiful Le Creuset 5.5 quart dutch oven, but holy crap do I ever love this thing. I snagged it at the Le Creuset outlet, and it's worth every penny of the seriously-reduced price (about $130, I think).

I browned the beef in coconut oil with some salt and pepper.

Once the meat was browned, I put it aside and added a tiny bit more coconut oil to the bottom of the pot. I fried a couple tablespoons of green curry paste in the coconut oil and beef drippings for a couple minutes ("until fragrant" - or at least until MORE fragrant, since I think this stuff's pretty fragrant to begin with). I added the coconut milk and whisked thoroughly until it was completely combined, with no chunks of cream or curry paste, before adding the fish sauce and coconut aminos.

Once the sauce was mixed, I added the veggies (including half an onion that's not pictured), except for the cabbage, and the beef back to the pot.

I combined everything well and ended up adding about half a can's worth of beef broth so that there was sufficient sauce to cover. Next time, I'd probably get a second can of coconut milk and just make more. I brought the entire thing to a boil before covering and popping into the oven for an hour at 300 degrees.

When there was about ten minutes left, I pulled the curry out, dumped in the cabbage, and put it back into the oven. The remaining time was enough to soften the cabbage without it getting mushy.

Dinner is served.

This shit was BANGIN'. And so, so easy. I ate two bowls, which was just about half the batch. I just got done eating another bowl of leftovers for lunch, and let me tell you, it (like most soups/stews/chilies) just gets better and better as it sits.

Recent workouts: Not too much.

As I mentioned, Wednesday's classes were cancelled for a nutrition seminar. Thursday my office was incredibly stuffy, and I was just dragging and exhausted. I ended up deciding to skip deadlift night (!! my favorite!) in favor of this curry, which was clearly a good choice.

Friday, January 6: Strict press, peak of one. 45x3 - 55x1 - 65x - 70x1 - 75x1 - 80x1 - 85F. So frustrating, because 80 goes up without TOO much trouble, and then 85 I just can't get past my nose. GAH. Still shooting for this at the total. Metcon was 21-15-9 American kettlebell swings (1.5/1pood) and burpees. This flew by, though I wish my burpees were a little faster. 4:52 as RX'ed.

Saturday, January 7: some skill work on the squat clean and the ab wheel rollout. I was lucky and snagged one of the good ab wheels - with actual handles, not just a bunch of electrical tape wrapped around a thin piece of metal. Metcon - 21-15-9 squat clean (135)/ab wheel rollouts. I used 85pounds, which blew. Or, to be more specific, my oly technique blows. Since I have SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. pulling under the bar, I ended up power cleaning and then doing a front squat...which is pretty much twice the work. So my 21 cleans took for-freaking-ever - I was the last one still going. I decided to switch to power cleans for the 15/9 rounds, which I (as usual) now think was stupid. I should have just finished what I started, even if it meant being the last one moving. Oh well. At least I can do ab wheel rollouts now, which I couldn't do without band assistance before. Anyway - 16:33.

Got measured in this afternoon for the next round of the BCCC. While my weight was back up a couple pounds (to 157.4 from my recent low of about 152), I'm very proud to say that my waist is down another inch from the end of the last BCCC, and three inches total from October 1. THREE GODDAMN INCHES. DO YOU HEAR ME, PEOPLE? EAT PALEO!

...and on that note I'm off to get ready for a birthday dinner tonight. Happy weekend! And do yourself a favor and MAKE SOME CURRY.

Too Cold to Bike

2012-01-04T08:35:00.004-05:00

I don't know how I managed not to mention this on here, but last month - after five and a half years of living in the city - I FINALLY got a bike.

(Pictured: the bigass Victoria's Secret freebie bag my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas two years ago, since it came for free with the multiple pairs of sweatpants she bought me. It's the best grocery bag I have.)

Recently, I'd started to feel like my digs in G-Ho were just too freaking far from everything. I work at 18th and Market, I work out at 13th and Locust, I go to the grocery store at 9th and South. You get the picture. The worst was rushing out the door from work around 6pm to rush into the house, walk the dogs, rush them back upstairs, rush to change my clothes, rush to get them fed and back into their crates so I could rush right back out and make the 7:30 class at CFCC...and then either walk home (getting me in around 9pm) or cab it home (getting me home closer to 8:45, but at $10 a pop).

This is life-changing. I don't love the hot pink handlebars, but whatever. At first, it was a little weird getting used to riding a bike regularly for the first time since I was about twelve. For real, on my first ride, I had an overwhelming sensation that I was supposed to be wearing a seatbelt (um...what?). And it was a little freaky to get used to being passed by cars. But I got accustomed to it pretty quickly, and WOOHOO! It no longer takes me 25 or 30 minutes to walk from home to CFCC, or 20 minutes to walk to work.

However, there are certain things I'm still learning. Like my regular winter gloves, which do a great job of blocking the wind, don't really do a great job of actually keeping my fingers warm when I can't put my hands in my pockets. Last night, when it was about 25 degrees, I thought my fingers were going to fall off on my ride home. Note to self: buy puffy gloves for bike riding, even if you look like an asshole.

So, when I woke up to walk the dogs this morning and saw that it was 14 degrees, with a zero degree wind chill, I made a very quick and easy decision NOT to ride my bike today. And to go out at lunch and buy some puffy gloves.

Cosmo was not pleased with his morning walk in the cold, and immediately jumped back into bed when we came back in.

Recent workouts:

- Sunday, January 1: couple of pronated-grip jumping pull ups in my guest room. My forearms and elbows were REALLY sore from Saturday's toes-to-bar/clean & jerk extravaganza, so these HURT.

- Monday, January 2: one pronated-grip guest room pull up to start the day. Elbows still sore, so I left it alone after that. I went to the 4:30 class at CFCC, which was a fun change from my usual late evening sessions. Started with some box jumps - Amber and I made it to 30", which I'm happy with. Would have liked to get higher, but mentally I have issues jumping onto a single plate - the surface seems too small, so I get all weirded out. Back squats for a peak of 1: 85x3, 115x2, 135x2, 155x1, 175x1, 180F. Got stuck just out of the bottom. I suspect I may need to push harder. Still sticking with my goal of 185 for the total in a couple weeks. Metcon was really embarrassing. 3 rounds for time of 15 box jumps (24/20), 30 double unders. 11:43. FAAAAAAAARK. I don't know what happened to my double-unders - I had gotten pretty good at them (easily able to do 10-20 unbroken), but the last couple of times we've done them in a metcon, I've barely been able to eke out one or two at a time. I was incredibly frustrated with this one, but whatever - I finished it.

- Tuesday, January 3: weighted pull ups! light band x3 to warm up, followed by singles: light band + 5lbs, LB+7.5, LB+10; mini band; MB+2.5; MB+5, MB+7.5, MB+10. I sort of regret not just going for a bodyweight one at the end, but since I can JUST manage to do one, I was worried that the lighter sets beforehand would have been enough to tax me out of it. Metcon was tough but enjoyable: "liquid cocaine." 5 rounds for time of 5 clean & jerks (155/105), 10 chest-to-bar pull ups. 13:11, with 85lbs/light band. I should have warmed up with 65 first, because that first 85lb clean felt REALLY heavy, but I'm happy with my time (and with the fact that I can do 50 chest-to-bar pull ups with the light band, even if most of them were one or two at a time).

Happy Wednesday. No gym for me tonight - evening classes are cancelled for a nutrition seminar. I wish I could go, but there's no chance I can make it there by 6:30...so instead, I'm spending the evening coming up with some specific goals for the next CFCC BCCC, which starts on Monday.

Training Log Dump

2012-01-02T11:33:00.004-05:00

New Year's was great. PhillyGuy and I got all snazzed up and had dinner with some friends at Osteria. And I loved our sparkly dresses so much that I made my friend pose with me in front of our TV.

Sad that you can't see my fabulous 5" black platform heels, but such is life. Afterwards, we all came back to my place for sweatpants, some beers, a wild game of Clue, and general mockery of the Times Square scene while watching Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve.

True story: I never even drank that beer. All told, on New Year's Eve, I had maybe 2.5 glasses of wine, two or three sips of champagne to toast, and a whole bunch of water between 6:45ish and 2:30am when we finally went to bed. I just didn't feel like drinking, so...I didn't. Crazy, huh.

(hangover-free) Sunday was chill. I took the day off of training aside from five or six guest-room pull ups throughout the day, and we did our usual New Year's dinner at my mom's house, where I gorged myself on roast pork and asparagus and sauteed mushrooms (AMAZING) and one too many Lindt "extra dark" (60% - laughable) truffles. Now, I'm enjoying the last day of my fabulous five-day weekend.

I bought a new notebook for my 2012 food and training log, so I wanted to dump my recent gym sessions here before I forgot. I tend to flip through here (rather than the notebook itself) when I'm looking for, say, prior times for benchmark metcons, or prior weights for certain lifts, to gauge my progress. Without further adieu (or any sense of narrative whatsoever):

Tuesday, 12/27: weighted pull ups, set of 2. light band, light + 2.5, light + 5, light + 7.5, lights + 10, mini, mini + 2.5 (1, failed on 2). Metcon: AMRAP 12 minutes of 4 chest-to-bar pull ups, 4 ring dips, 4 handstand pushups, 4 kettlebell snatches each arm (1.5/1p). 5 rounds + 1 pull up, mini band (dips and pull ups), regular pushups.

Thursday, 12/29: deadlifts, set of 2. 115-155-185-205-225-240-250. FIFTEEN POUND PR - for two. Yeah boy. Metcon: tabata pull ups followed by tabata pushups. 70 total - 41/29, with mini band.

Friday, 12/30: strict press, set of 2. 45-55-65-75-80F-80-85F-70x6, fail at 7. This gets so hard so fast (TWSS), but i'm still sticking with my goal of 85 for the total in a couple of weeks. Metcon: row 1k, rest as needed, row 1k. I fucking hate rowing, though I'm starting to suck less at it. 4:06, 4:18.9 - I was TOTALLY gassed afterwards and my quads were seizing up.

Saturday, 12/31: 3 rounds for time of 30 toes to bar, 21 clean & jerks (95/65). Screwed up the first round and did 21 toes to bar and 30 C&J. After the first round of TTB took me 40 years, I subbed knees to elbows/tucks for the second rounds, though in retrospect I wish I'd just let it take forever. 19:34, grip and forearms wasted. (Fun fact: this WOD gave me my first ever hand tear. AWWWWWWWWW.)

Time to take the pups for a long walk and get Sophie's nails trimmed (yes, I could do this myself, but it's $10 well spent).

Gearing Up

2011-12-31T07:55:00.003-05:00

for another year, another set of goals and (in a few days, anyway) another CFCC BCCC.

Lots of good stuff to get me there, like this.

What is that, you might ask? Well, that's what happens when you poke a fork into this:

Braised lamb shanks from Make it Paleo. These were incredibly simple (sear meat, deposit into slow cooker with beef broth and herbs, come home to falling-off-the-bone lamb) and a great change-up for my otherwise very repetitive (though very delicious) diet.

Like my regular weekend breakfast of Whole Foods dry rubbed black forest bacon...

...which generates the fat for cooking my eggs AND an entire bunch of kale.

Mmmmm, greens.

And last night, we reinstituted Friday-night-steak-night for the first time in a good month:

Steaks cooked in our new ginormous Le Creuset cast iron pan, sweet potatoes and green beans roasted with a little bit of the most incredible olive oil on the planet, from Kasandrinos Imports. (GO BUY SOME NOW. I got a three-liter can for myself and a couple bottles to give away as Christmas presents. It's light and lemony and oh holy shit.)

I'm not going to recap 2011 too much, except to say that over the last six months, I've made some incredible investments in myself. In late June, I joined CFCC. Sometime in July, I started eating paleo, at least 80-85% of the time, and started to drop a bunch of body fat. In October, I did my first CFCC BCCC and really cleaned up my diet - and REALLY got some results.

As of October 1, these were my goals:

Sitting here on December 31, I'm so proud to say that I've achieved them all (I think). I'm down a whole lotta pounds (at least 15-20), several sizes (at least 2) and am much, MUCH stronger. I never do knee pushups anymore and I can do one or two REAL PULL UPS. (To be established with video evidence this morning.) This week, I deadlifted 250 pounds (a 15-lb PR) for two reps. Last night, I pressed 80lbs (a 5-lb PR) for 2 reps. I have yet to back squat 185, but I feel confident that I'm going to put that number up at the total in January.

Not much more to say but - WHAT NOW MOTHERFUCKER. I'm still formulating my goals for the next six months, but I know they involve a 300-lb deadlift, continuing to chip away at deadhang pull ups and learning to kip so I can do more metcons RXed, and (for the love of christ) mastering the pistol/single leg squat.

Time to get dressed and head to the 9am class. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

A Very iPhone Christmas

2011-12-27T09:14:00.004-05:00

back to work on this post-Christmas Tuesday...

(note: I managed to WAY oversleep, by a good hour, to 7:12. between my scrambling and my husband being kind enough to drop me off at work, I made it in by 8. and then not a SOUL was to be found in the office besides me until at least 8:30. oh well. I gots things to do, you know?)

I hope everyone's holiday weekend was fabulous. Continuing my trend of never using my DSLR anymore, here's how ours went:

Packed up the pups and some gifts into the sleigh to head up to the in-laws' on Saturday morning.

We went to a seriously packed Christmas Eve mass. And PhillyGuy and I MIGHT have sat in a corner on folding chairs and played Words with Friends. MAYBE. After that, it was back to the inlaws' house for Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchanges.

PhillyGuy's awesome aunt and uncle got us this adorable wine and cheese picnic basket. I told him we were going to take it to the dog park.

Same awesome aunt and uncle also got his parents the most ginormous box ever. Cosmo DID NOT trust it. I think he thought there was a great dane in there.

After we did the extended family gift exchange, PhillyGuy and his sister drove his grandparents home (they live a few streets over) and spent a few extra minutes setting up their new TV in their bedroom. It was late at this point - they didn't make it back until almost midnight - and Cosmo, overwhelmed from the excitement, passed the f out in my lap.

(Those are my preferred Christmas pajama pants. I picked them up during my 2L year of law school and they've served me well for the last...ugh, SIX years. They replaced a pair of flannel pants with Christmas trees on them that I had for all of college. I am nothing if not a creature of habit.)

We were up late doing the immediate-family gift exchange - we didn't go to bed until about 1:30am, which is pretty much the latest I've been up in years. Everyone woke up super-slowly on Christmas morning and lazed around. Like Sophie with her braided bully stick.

PhillyGuy's parents were far too generous with us, as always, and we headed home yesterday afternoon with a new crockpot, TWO pieces of Le Creuset cookware, and a new flatscreen for our bedroom (!!!!!!!!).

He set up the new TV while I was at the gym last night, and we spent the rest of the evening in bed playing Words with Friends on our phones watching CSI: Miami on demand with the dogs curled up between us. It was the perfect way to end a weekend.

Fitness-and-health-related recap:

- I managed to avoid going off the rails completely over this holiday. I didn't work out Friday, Saturday or Sunday, which was not ideal - I had planned to do a quick workout at least once over the weekend. I figured 50 burpees for time would be fast, inconspicuous (well, if I did it in the basement, anyway) and require zero equipment...but then, well, I just didn't do it. Oh well.

- I didn't have enough jerky stores to bring some with me. I should have, but in a pinch, I got through with a couple bags of the gas station stuff (which is SO not as good as my favorite buffalo jerky) and a bag of salted cashews. That served as my breakfast and lunch on Saturday (everyone else ate pizza when we got in), and my lunch on Monday on our way home.

- When questioned by PhillyGuy's mom as to whether I was "still watching my carbs," I just told her I wasn't eating gluten anymore. Which is true, though not the whole story. I don't like being scrutinized about my diet, and I don't like to debate stuff like that with other people lest they think I'm scrutinizing them. So, no pizza or pasta or breaded tilapia or broccoli casserole with cream-of-something-soup and a couple sleeves of crushed saltines on top. LOTS of prime rib and roast pork and salad and antipasto. I did eat more cheese than I usually would, but PhillyGuy's uncle always has the hookup with this incredible sharp provolone and I am NOT going to avoid that.

- I DID, however, indulge in some christmas cookies. My usual favorites are the peanut butter ones with the hershey's kiss in the middle - I had two or three of those over the weekend, and frankly would have had more but this batch was a little bit dry. The real crack for me was these hairy ball looking cookies that his mom makes. They're basically like a Larabar, but with rice krispies mixed into the date and nut "dough," and rolled in shredded coconut. She said something about frying them in butter too, but I'm not sure if that was a joke. Regardless...I ate like eight of those. Over three days, I understand that 10 or 12 small-ish cookies is really not that much, in the grand scheme of things, but holy CRAP was I (really, AM I) feeling it.

- Monday afternoon we made it back to Philly in time for me to make the 5:30 class at CFCC. I knew this wasn't going to be my finest performance, but I was feeling so sluggish and blech that I really needed to do SOMETHING.

Back squats, peak of 2: 85-100-120-130-140-150-160. In retrospect, I would have started heavier, made bigger jumps and done fewer sets. 160 was stiiiiiiiiicky through the middle. This doesn't bode super well for my goal of 185 at the total, but we'll see. Metcon was half Mary (15 minute AMRAP of 5 handstand pushups, 10 pistols (5 each leg), 15 pull ups). 5 rounds + 6 SLS, subbing regular pushups, single leg squats to a box (some assisted, some not - "assisting" by grabbing a pole doesn't really "assist" me, so I just kind of suck at these no matter what), light band. My pull ups have improved SO MUCH. I can rep at least 10 with a light band now - this is leaps and bounds better than where I was at the beginning of October.

and now back to work....

Seriously

2011-12-22T19:58:00.004-05:00

I mean - seriously.

I have made some ridiculous gains in the last three months.

So...I've lost about 20 pounds, give or take, since late summer - at least 15lbs since October 1. In short, I've gotten a whole lot LESS fat by eating a whole lot MORE fat, which is pretty damn good. That has a lot to do with things like, say, how much progress I've made on my pull ups.

But then there's my major lifts. Last Friday, we did strict presses for the first time in months, and I did my previous max - 75lbs - for four reps, and came really close to a fifth.

Today? Today, we deadlifted. My previous max was 235 - 230 at the total in August, and then during the next cycle, I hit 235 sumo. And today - in bare feet, since I forgot shoes - TODAY, I did 235 for three.

Yeah, I tripled my previous max. WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!?!

The next total is January 21. I'm shooting for 525 -- 55 pounds over my last total score of 470. I'm thinking deadlift 255, press 85, squat 185. I can do it.

Does this sweatshirt make me look strong?

Workout log:

Skipped Tuesday & Wednesday - had to work late.

Thursday: DEADLIIIIIIIIIIFTS. Peak set of three. 115-145-175-205-225-235. WHAT NOW BITCHES. Metcon: 3 rounds for time of 15 deadlifts (135/95), 30 air squats, 15 pullups. RX'ed for the deadlifts (and holy shit 95lbs felt light that first round), light band for pull ups. I was way slower than I needed to be on the air squats. 7:25.

So Much

2011-12-20T08:53:00.006-05:00

to post about (sort of). So little time (totally).

I have a bunch of great stuff backed up, like the amazing lamb shanks I made last week from "Make it Paleo," which I picked up when Bill and Hayley from the Primal Palate joined us at CFCC for our Halloween party/WOD.

And this weekend's Rittenhouse Run, where I did a bunch of double-unders and turkish get-ups in public, in 30-degree weather, while wearing red lululemon shorts and green knee socks (this is seriously a fabulous combination of a lot of the things that make people want to punch crossfitters, I think).

(Thanks to CFCC and Mike Mackintosh for the pic! Which I stole. Without permission.)

BUT since it is December 20 (HOLYCRAPITISDECEMBER20!!!!) and I have a lot (a LOT) of crap to finish this week, I will just leave you with some workout logging and promises to make more fun posts later on.

Saturday December 10 - little WOD named "faceplant" to get me moving before Mama PhillyGirl's wedding. AMRAP 5 minute row for calories, 4 minutes of squat cleans (155/105), 3 minutes handstand pushups, 2 minutes box jumps, 1 minute kettlebell swings (1.5/1p). Scaled with 95lb squat cleans (and WOW those are a WHOLE LOT HARDER after rowing like crazy for five minutes) and regular push ups (by the way, I rep these "for real" now!). Score: 138, though I suspect it may have been a bit higher since I found myself very uncertain of my rep count on at LEAST three different occasions during the workout.

Sunday December 11: intro to oly. Didn't drop a bar on my foot this time (woo!). Snatch: 53x2 (hey where's your pull?), 53x2 (what third pull?), 53F/53, 58x2 (OH, right, PULL UNDER), 58x2, 58x2 (landed super high, but whatever), 63x1 (muscled up, dumped at top), 63x1. Clean & jerk: focusing on that goddamn third pull and putting my feet where they belong in the jerk. 63x2, 73x2+2j, 73x2+2j, 83x2, 93x1, 98x1, 103x1. Some pull up work - 2 unassisted chins, ALMOST one unassisted pronated pull up.

Monday December 12: back squats, peak of 5. 75-85-105-115-125-135-145. Dear body: why do you insist on folding in half when you squat? Metcon: 2 rounds, AMRAP 2 minutes each of back squat (185/135), burpees to plate, row for calories. 11/28/25/4/26/26 = 120 total, as RX'ed.

Tuesday December 13: weighted pronated pull up, peak of 3. Last time I did this was over the summer and woo boy have I improved. At that point, peaked at average band + 7.5 (maybe 10). This time - average band, average + 7.5, light band, light + 7.5. Metcon: Angie (100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats). I did half-Angie using a light band and otherwise RX'ed. CRAPFEST, those push ups killed me - took me more than 8 minutes to complete the push ups, but glad I chose to do them legit. 20:34.

Thursday December 15: I am putting this in here because I am so sad. I've been looking SO FORWARD to deadlifting...but Wednesday night I gave Cosmo a rib bone and let's just say it was too rich for his blood. SO, instead of deadlifting for 5 on Thursday night, I washed my dog. And all of his bedding. And fed him pepto-bismol.

Friday December 16: Strict press, peak of 5. Um, I have gotten a WHOLE LOT STRONGER. Previous max, from the last CF Total back in August, was 75 - and that was a true max, since I failed at 80. This time: 45-55-65-70, and then 75 for FOUR. Yes, I did my previous max for a set of four, and came SO CLOSE to getting it for five. BAM. Metcon: 3 rounds for time of 250m row and short loop run, with option of subbing 30 double-unders for short loop run. I foolishly chose the double-unders since I haven't run on my foot since busting it. BAD choice. Would have been faster for me to walk the short loop. 11:05 (everyone else finished in like...6 minutes. and cheered my on during my last round of jumping rope. wherein I subbed 90 singles because I did not want to be there until midnight).

Saturday: couple pull ups, followed by a brutal partner WOD. 3 rounds of 50 wallballs (20/14), 50 overhead squats (95/65), and 50 pull ups. Each round for time, rest between rounds as needed. Mel and I went RX'ed, except that I used a light band for the pull ups. 10:38, 10:31, 10:38. Um, and during the third round I sort of dropped a barbell on my face. I...I just have no excuse.

Sunday: Rittenhouse Run. Will explain later.

Monday: some pre-class pull ups (3 or 4 with mixed grip, 1 pronated with some serious kicking). back squat, peak of 3. 85, 105, 125, 145, 155 (baaaaaaaah). 155 didn't count, because while I did get the weight up and down, I did that thing where I fold in half and then on the third one didn't get anywhere near the right depth. Metcon was fun: 5 rounds for time of 5 back squats with 50% of your peak set, 60' bear crawl, 10 russian kettlebell swings (2/1.5p). 6:20, as RX'ed (73 pounds), immediately collapsed on to the floor next to my bar afterwards.

And now I leave you with a picture of my dogs, sharing a dog bed that I set up next to me in the kitchen while I was working. They were great officemates.

Tell me a funny story.

Achievements and Not So Much

2011-12-09T10:28:00.003-05:00

First of all...Mama PhillyGirl is getting married tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow is my mother's wedding. I took today off so I could get last-minute errands done, and join my mom to get our nails done. Probably going to pick up a couple little splits of champagne on the way there so we can really class it up.

Anyway. I took advantage of my day off by hitting up CFCC for the 8am class, which I've never done before - weekday mornings are a completely different group than my usual 6:30/7:30pm bunch. Today was front squatting.

Today was disappointing.

My front squat max is 140. This week is "peak week," which means that everyone who's spent the last four weeks working on their lifts is PR'ing all over the place.

Not me. The fact is, between my workload and my foot injury, I just haven't been spending time in the gym, and it showed. My squats:

Yup, that's where I failed my prior max twice. TWICE. So frustrating. I understand why and all that, but frankly, it sucks and it's disheartening.

Metcon was a little more fun.

The focus was on being fast. At the beginning of class, I tested my 50 double-unders and it did not go fabulously - I did the first 20 or so unbroken, and then couldn't string together more than one or two after that. So, with 100 singles (completed mostly unbroken), 1 pood kettlebell swings (completed first round unbroken, second round 23/7), and 15 pull ups with light + mini bands (5, then 4, then doubles and singles), 3:43 and 4:17. That didn't suck as much.

Last night: handstand walking skill work. Meh. This is another source of frustration, since I'm good at handstands but for some reason find it difficult to get all the way up (TWSS) on the mat, so I never end up actually walking. Metcon: AMRAP 60 seconds each air squats, strict pull ups, row for calories. Scoring 1 point per squat, 1 point per pull up, 3 points per calorie. 50/11/20 = 121. That wasn't bad.

I figured I'd recap all of this as I sit here icing my foot and getting ready to get moving on my errands.

(If you're wondering, that would be an ice pack tied around my foot with an undershirt. It ain't fancy but it works.)

The fact is...I don't like not working out. My performance suffers and I get very frustrated very quickly. I'm frustrated that I've been working so much, and I'm frustrated that I hurt myself in such a silly way (really? bruised foot bones from warming up with an empty bar? and WHY am i not healed yet? the doctor said i'd be almost 100% better after a week or 10 days, and it's going on three weeks now).

And it takes away from my accomplishments. Like last night, when I was working on pull ups before class, and I got TWO unassisted, legit deadhang chin ups (palms in) and came SO, SO close to a legit deadhang pull up (palms out). This is huge progress for me, and yet - having to dump the bar twice at 140 this morning completely deflated it.

BAH. Time to get a little cleaned up and out the door. Back soonish, with pictures of my fabulous mom's wedding!

um you guys

2011-12-07T20:05:00.003-05:00

seriously, fuck work.

but anyway.

I don't have much of anything interesting to blog about. I've barely been making it to crossfit four times a week (which I do not like) and I'm eating the same thing day in and out (which I do really like).

I did try Rotisseur for lunch last week and was hooked.

Half chicken.

Kale chips.

SO MUCH HOT SAUCE.

Good stuff.

More crossfitting:

- Friday: front squats, peak of 2. Um...after nutts, this was not so pretty. 65-85-105-115-125F-125F. WHAT? my max is 140. Metcon: 3-6-9-12 of thrusters (95/65) and deadhang pull ups. 9:16 with light+mini bands.

- Saturday: Crossfit Endurance. I suck at rowing. I mean, really bad - I'm very uncoordinated. So, you know, I guess I need to do it a whole lot more until I don't suck at it. 1:00 on, 1:00 rest, 3:00 on, 2:00 rest, 4:00 on, 3:00 rest, 5:00 on, at 90% effort for max distance. Total: 3041 meters. Not awful, but plenty of room for improvement.

- Sunday: My foot is STILL not 100% healed and was pretty sore, so I opted out of intro to oly and did a bunch of jumping pull ups throughout the day on the door frame bar in my guest room. That goal I had of doing a bodyweight deadhang pull up by year end? Yeah, that's coming up FAST.

- Monday: couple sets of pull ups before class - 4x1 with mini band; 3 or 4x3 with light band. Squat cleans: 65x2 + jerk, 65x2+ push press, 65x2, 75x2 + push press, 85x1, 95x1, 95x1, 105x1. I am FINALLY starting to figure out the third pull. Metcon: Grace. 30 clean & jerks (or ground-to-overhead however) for time, 135/95. Last time we did this was on Halloween - I started that with 85lbs and dropped to 75 after failing my third rep three times. This time, I started with 75 and finished in 4:47 - more than THREE MINUTES faster than my prior time of 7:58. Um, time to start doing this one RXed, I think.

I missed the last two nights due to work and I'm feeling it. Life was a little easier when I was able to get to the gym six days a week - while that's kind of like "duh" - if you have enough free time to spend most of your evenings working out, of course that'll be less stressful than those nights you find yourself working until after ten - there's also a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing there, too. Would I be a little less frantic and working a little more efficiently if I took he time to sweat? Probably.

Meh.

It's Christmastime Bitches

2011-12-02T08:44:00.004-05:00

I LOVE decorating for Christmas.

And every year, I insist on doing it the weekend after Thanksgiving. It puts me in a good mood. Most years, I also insist that we watch "Love Actually" while we're decorating, but this year I was feeling the Muppets.

Our tree is nothing special - a prelit special from Target a few years ago - but it's easy.

This year, I added lights in the kitchen, on my new(ish) shelves.

I'm pretty sure at least half of our ornaments are dog-themed.

Even though the dogs are really not impressed by the tribute.

...at all.

(She spent half the evening wigging out about the tree, the lights, the boxes of ornaments, etc., and then, when she had exhausted herself, laid on the floor looking depressed.)

Later in the week, I crockpotted a London broil from my cow share. Since London broil is a fairly lean cut of beef, I figured it would do well with a low-and-slow cooking time, but I was having a tough time trying to come up with just what to braise it in. After my initial google search turned up a disturbing number of "recipes" including ingredients like canned cream-of-something soup and packets of ranch dressing mix (or italian dressing mix or brown gravy mix), I just decided to wing it. I chose not to brown the meat first, covered it with salt, pepper and granulated garlic, and put it on top of a layer of sliced onions in the crockpot. I added a couple cups of beef broth, topped it with mushrooms, and called it good.

Hours later, it looked promising. My house smelled amazing and the meat fell apart to the touch. I paired it with some kale sauteed with a slice of bacon and eagerly dug in.

Meh. The flavors were delicious, but because the meat is so lean, it was kind of dry and stringy despite all the broth and juices. I think it either needs to be browned first OR to be cooked in something a little fattier. Or just not crockpotted at all. Le sigh.

Like I said last week, work has been insane. I went two solid weeks without my usual evening crossfit sessions, and it's been taking its toll on my sanity. Even though my foot is STILL not 100%, I'm getting back into it this week, slowly but surely:

- Tuesday: strict muscle up skill work. Practicing false grip hang; did about a billion false grip ring pull ups, starting with a light band and working up to two mini bands. Tried one mini band and just hung there like a fish, so there's that. Metcon: AMRAP, 3 rounds of 1 minute ring rows, 1 minute push ups, 1 minute double-unders. It's freaking hard to do double unders after two minutes of ring rows and push ups. 120 reps total (tried for the last 15 seconds to get JUST ONE MORE double under and couldn't).

- Thursday: hero WOD. "Nutts."

Things I cannot do with my bum foot: box jumps and weighted running (non-weighted running, too, for that matter). While I probably COULD have done the required wall balls and double-unders, my wise and logical coach advised me not to tempt fate with more jumping. As scaled for my foot: 10 push ups, 15 deadlifts at 165lbs, 25 russian kettlebell swings at 1.5 pood (24kg/52lbs), 50 pull ups (light+mini bands), 100 goblet squats with a 1pood (16kg/35lbs) kettlebell, row 1k. Fuck rowing. By the official 25 minute cap, I had rowed something like 450 meters, maybe less. To complete, 27:32. Worst part mentally was the goblet squats. Getting to 80 reps of something only to realize you still have 20 more? GAAAAAAH.

Tonight we're front squatting and I can't wait. This strength cycle has been really fun (lots of pulling and lots of fun squatting variations - front squats, overhead squats) and I'm so unhappy that I've had to miss so much of it. On the other hand, DTE tells me on I'm on track to bill over 2200 hours this year, so, you know, there's that.

(I read recently that trying to make partner at a law firm is like winning a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie.)

Happy Friday!

It's Funny 'Cause It's True

2011-11-28T08:38:00.000-05:00

...that is all.

My Nuts Rule

2011-11-26T12:17:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving break has been kick ass.

I started my turkey day with my standard (and killer) weekend breakfast (over-easy eggs, Whole Foods black forest dry rubbed bacon, wilted green of choice - this was spinach) and an iced coffee with grassfed heavy cream.

Sophie and I watched the Macy's parade during breakfast (she loved the Rockettes, and loved the AKC dog show afterwards even more) before it was time for me to get down to business with my Thanksgiving contribution: baked bar nuts.

This is OhSheGlow's recipe, which I've made before. It's become my go-to contribution when I'm not sure what to make and need to bring something to a dinner party. I needed enough nuts for two Thanksgiving dinners, so I started with about four pounds total of raw, unsalted almonds, cashews, walnuts and Brazil nuts.

I spread the nuts out on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and baked them for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees. While they were baking, I started to assemble the sauce.

Butter, maple syrup, dark brown sugar, a little cayenne pepper, lots of fresh rosemary, and kosher salt. Melt all but a couple tablespoons of butter together with the other ingredients and whisk together. When the nuts are done toasting, let them cool for a couple of minutes while melting the rest of the butter.

Pour the nuts into a large bowl and toss with melted butter to coat before adding the rest of the sauce and tossing well with a wooden spoon.

Yeah, these babies are amazing.

After everything is coated well, spread the nuts back out on the parchment paper-lined baking sheets and put back into the oven for another 10 or 12 minutes. At the risk of stating the obvious, whatever you do, DO NOT try to taste them as soon as they come out. Hot sugar is REALLY hot. Don't ask how I know this.

These are delicious while they're still warm, but are just as good later on once they've cooled off. And they are addictive. They're definitely not paleo, but they ARE fabulous. And they provide so many opportunities for people to make "that's what she said" jokes. Which we all know is the real goal at Thanksgiving.

Between my gimp foot and my insane work schedule, I hadn't made it into the gym since Sunday's ill-fated intro to oly class. Yesterday, I strung together a little at-home WOD in my guest room - 5 rounds of 5 jumping pull ups, 10 pushups, 60 second handstand hold.

This took me for-freaking-ever, and not just because Cosmo was concerned and had to scope out the situation.

He doesn't really like seeing his parents upside-down, I guess.

This morning I headed to CFCC for a very welcome class. Today was "Heavy Fran" - 15-12-9 of thrusters (135/95) and strict pull ups (+45 for men, deadhang for women). I can bear weight on my foot without an issue but still can't flex it, so I subbed 85lb push presses for the thrusters. God, this was still hard. 15:52, with light+mini bands.

PhillyGuy and I are planning to put our tree up this weekend, and unfortunately I've got to get into work one of these two days...but for now, I'm going to continue to laze around with my pups by my side and keep plugging away at the Marriage Plot while PhillyGuy and I watch football. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Chuck Roast Chili

2011-11-22T20:31:00.005-05:00

So, work has taken a turn for the dramatic lately. That means I've been billing an awful lot of hours and using up pretty much all of my mental energy at the office. I work, I crossfit, I sleep, and I repeat. It's not so much a BAD life, it's just exhausting, and it doesn't leave me much creativity for ye olde blogge.

This weekend was a really busy one for two reasons - one, I turned 30 (!!!), and two, I threw my mother a bridal shower (!!!). PhillyGirl'sMom gets married in a couple of weeks, and I wanted to get together with our close female family members to celebrate.

The inspiration for my menu was this recipe for short rib chili that I spotted weeks ago on Cooking in Stilettos. I found the recipe a couple of days before I got my cow share, and I was sure I'd have something great in my 50-ish pound of beef to form the basis for a nice upscale chili.

I ended up taking a large (grassfed, super-delicious) chuck roast and slicing it into pieces, which I coated with kosher salt and pepper.

I browned them in batches in coconut oil in my brand-new, gorgeous orange Le Creuset dutch oven.

I also browned up - and forgot to take a picture of - an osso bucco style soup bone. After the meat was browned, I put it aside to rest while I cooked one and a half chopped Vidalia onions and a few cloves of crushed garlic in the drippings with a little more coconut oil.

After that, the hard work was done - it was a matter of dumping in fabulous blend of spices, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of crushed tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, and a beer, and adding the meat back in.

I brought it to a boil and then popped the entire thing in the oven, where it simmered for about two and a half or three hours at 325. Once it was ready, I pulled the meat out and shredded it with two forks before adding it back in and giving it a good stir.

THIS IS SO GOOD. The recipe is a combination of the Cooking in Stilettos adaptation of Giada di Laurentiis's recipe and The Clothes Make The Girl's chili recipe. Here's my final sketched out list - the measurements are definitely not exact, since I never measure anything when I make chili, but the proportions are on.

Amazing Paleo Chili:

- 3-4lb chuck roast, sliced into pieces

- Soup bone, osso bucco style, with shank meat

- Kosher salt and pepper

- Fat of choice (I used coconut oil)

- 1.5 Vidalia onions, diced

- 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed, or 3~tablespoons of minced jarlic

- One 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes

- One 14.5 ounce can of crushed tomatoes

- One 6 ounce can of tomato paste

- One can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce

- One 12-ounce beer

- Beef broth, as necessary to thin out to your taste

Spices:

- 3 tablespoons chili powder

- 3 tablespoons ground cumin

- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon cinnamon

- 1 tablespoon oregano

- 1 tablespoon ground allspice, or 5-6 whole allspice berries

- Salt to taste

I love this combination of spices. The can of chipotle chiles gives this a nice kick, and the cinnamon and cocoa powder make it smooth and earthy. This makes a big pot of chili - for me, it served 12 as one of two entree options, with leftovers for a couple of days. In fact, I just finished the last of it tonight, garnished with full fat Fage Total, a handful or two of raw baby spinach, and crumbled bacon.

...so after I made chili, and after I went out with a bunch of friends to celebrate my birthday...

(god, i can't take a good picture...but the fabulous Kristastes does!)...and after I danced at Woody's until almost 2am...

I went to intro to oly on Sunday morning and, within the first 20 minutes, dumped an empty bar from the top of a snatch. Directly onto my right foot. Which was fine, at first, and then started to hurt about half an hour before class was over. And then started to hurt more once I got home. And then more.

Until I ended up spending my Sunday evening in the Penn ER, with a gimp foot and the Marriage Plot.

And then - miraculously out in two hours! - back home and on the couch with some ice. Verdict: bone contusion. Thankfully not broken, but I'm on crutches for a few days.

Needless to say, between the shower and the ER, I had no desire to cook. So I ended the weekend with my favorite takeout salad (Old Towne/Sanna's, right across the street. Lamb kebab salad...SO GOOD).

And that's my life. Last week, between work and running errands to get ready for the shower, I only made it to CFCC twice. This week, between work, my busted foot and the holiday, it's looking like more of the same. I'm starting to get super stir-crazy, not to mention feeling the stress a little more than usual without my normal outlet. I'm crossing my fingers that the stars align better so I can get to class tomorrow.

Hope everyone's doing well - oh, and MAKE THIS CHILI.

Why...

2011-11-12T21:07:00.005-05:00

...didn't I learn about this a long time ago?

I've been eating Paleo since sometime this summer. I used to have some form of gluten-based kip meal once or twice a week, and I used to drink gallons of diet soda. Since October 1, I haven't had so much as a sip of diet pepsi and haven't put anything even remotely sweet in my coffee. I've learned how to cook kale and collard greens. I average three-quarters of a pound of bacon a week, plus beef (ground beef, chili, steaks), chicken (though I'm admittedly kind of sick of chicken), and pork (chops for lunch, ribs from Phoebe's for dinner here and there), and eggs (between PhillyGuy and I, two dozen a week).

Everything I eat is delicious. Everything.

And I've gotten so much stronger. This cycle, I PR'ed my front squat by 25 pounds (!), from 115 to 140, and my back squat by 10 pounds, from 165 to 175. My pullups have improved significantly. I can kip with a mini band (and, if I start rested, can kip one unassisted, though I can't get my chin over the bar a second time without resting) and I can rep out five or more with a light band alone.

Since October 1, I've now lost a total of just over ten pounds. I had already lost some fat before that, though I don't know how much (if any) from a weight perspective since I hadn't weighed myself in months and months, but based on how my clothes are fitting (or, more to the point, NOT fitting), I'd guess that I'm down a total of 15 or 20 pounds, and definitely two sizes.

I feel good. I sleep well. I drink a buttload of water and eat a lot of fat and very little sugar. Since the challenge ended, I've been sticking with meat and greens, but have added cream back into my coffee (and oh, I am so glad I did) and have added dark chocolate (Chocolove 77% is my favorite, but Dagoba Beaucoup Berries - 74% with dried cherries and cranberries and vanilla - is a close second) back to my weekends.

The crazy thing about all of this is that I don't even WANT to eat like crap anymore. Now that the challenge is over and I don't have a competitive deadline to meet, I could eat, say, chips and dip if I felt like it. But I just don't. I love the food that I eat, I love how it makes me feel, and I love how it's making me look and perform.

And I love that it gave me a reason to hit the Theory and J.Crew outlets today and buy a new suit, new blazer and new pants. That too.

ABF Mud Run Recap

2011-11-05T17:20:00.004-04:00

Let me tell you a little story. When I was a little PhillyGirl, we lived in the middle of the woods in south Jersey. (Yes, PhillyGirl is really a JerseyGirl, but I've since transplanted.) In about 1992, my parents - at a loss for what to do with us during the summer, and probably out of a sense of mercy to my grandparents who watched us during the day - started sending my brother and I to day camp, also in the middle of the woods, at a fabulous place in Medford called Camp Ockanickon.

That became my favorite place in the world. I was a camper there through about 1995, and then became a CIT, a counselor and eventually the boating instructor (I can navigate a canoe like nobody's business). During the fall and winter, I volunteered at the camp's haunted hayrides and breakfast with santa. I stopped working there when I went to college, since it paid about $2 an hour, but that camp was everything to me - I made some of my closest friends there, developed some of my most important relationships there, and it gave me an amazing sense of identity as an awkward child.

(Seriously. I had a mole and a moustache, liked to read and wasn't particularly athletic. SOMETHING had to give.)

Anyway - this morning, I headed out to camp to participate in my first-ever mud run - the ABF 10k Mud Run. My cousin, one of my brothers, and a couple of their friends banded together with me to form team "I Thought They Said 'Rum'" (yes, I picked that up off of one of those shirts they sell at race expos. I'm not that creative).

Heading to packet pickup/sign in...still so dry and so clean and so warm. I didn't realize it then, but I was.

Camp's not super-conducive to lots of people arriving and leaving and parking, so we started our morning at Shawnee High school, where we met up, grabbed our race numbers and pinned them to our sweet day-glo green shirts. I downed ten grams of BCAA's while we waited for our bus to transport us to the start.

Quick aside: in the morning, I was really unsure of what to wear. Forecast was 40ish and sunny. If I was running in 40 degree weather, I would have worn a fairly light shirt. This black shirt that I ended up wearing is thicker and brushed/fleecy on the inside, which makes it a bit too warm for anything over 30 or 35 degrees. BUT...my runs don't usually involve a flippin' cold lake, and I knew I'd be wet and soggy. I figured that I'd bring both and make my call there. THIS WAS THE RIGHT CALL.

Pre-race, I gave a little love to CFCC with a one-armed handstand outside Stockwell Lodge.

PhillyGuy came to be our race photographer and our superfan. Unfortunately, the course wasn't set up and/or managed in a way particularly conducive to spectators, and he only got pictures of us at the start...

..and the finish.

In between these amazing shots, here's what happened (besides my shirt stretching out an extra foot in length).

We ran a short distance - less than a quarter mile - to the first obstacle, which they warned us was going to be brutal and involve very cold water over our heads. The actual phrase they used was "you are going to feel like you're going to die, but just keep moving." We slid through a ribbed plastic pipe directly into a fairly narrow portion of the lake, about 20 feet across, and made our way across to the other side, where we turned around and crossed the lake again, balancing between two ropes. THEN we hopped right back in the lake AGAIN, and had to crawl up another length of pipe to reach the top.

THAT was a hell of a way to start. That water was shockingly, shockingly cold. I hit the water and immediately lost all sense of communication with my body. I was trying to swim, but my limbs just wouldn't listen, and my normally-decent freestyle was awkward and splashing.

After that, we went for a fairly long stretch of running (about .75-1 mile, I'd estimate) before our next obstacle, which was...BACK IN THE WATER. This was a short swim, maybe 100 yards? We powered through, even though (i) it is NOT EASY to swim with shoes on, and (ii) IT WAS SO COLD.

We warmed up a bit over the next few obstacles, including a 10' flat wall, a shorter steep ramp backed with a cargo net, and a 10' ramp backed with a cargo net. This is where teamwork really came in.

We had another stretch of running, long enough to warm us up a little, when it was back into the water - this time to wade our way through waist-deep stagnant swampy water. The water was black with dirt, the bottom was mushy with decaying plants, and the entire length was scattered with hidden underwater branches, trunks, roots and logs. YOU SHOULD SEE MY SHINS.

After the swamp came another 10' wall, the "snake pit" with lots of under-log military crawls through the mud and over-chest-high-log clambers. After that, we were treated with a military crawl through mud under barbed wire, more high up-and-overs, and then a nice long stretch of running (about a mile) to our next destination, where we carried tires up and down a giant (for NJ) hill a few times. After the hills, we went for another nice chunk of running, over some submerged logs, balance beam style, and then a few more minutes of running.

Our final deep-water obstacle was another 50 to 100-yard stretch of swimming, this time with logs that we had to pull ourselves over. I had gotten pretty used to the temperature by that point, but found myself beached on one or two of the logs in what I assume was a less-than-flattering butt-up position.

The last couple of miles flew by, with more high walls and climbing obstacles. Our final obstacle was one last stretch of waist-high water, followed by a short (in hindsight) run back to Stockwell Lodge.

We were dirty and soaking wet, but smiling.

I tried to bust out another one-armed handstand, but just couldn't support myself, so I settled for a normal handstand instead.

I got changed (dry sweatpants have NEVER felt so amazing) and then chased my post-race BCAA's with a Sam Adams winter lager.

The sunshine and dry clothes were great, but I was still super-chilled.

I was also STARVING - I decided to run the race in a semi-fasted state, which meant starting my day with some coffee with grassfed cream around 7:30am, and then nothing ('cept BCAAs) until afterwards. Our heat started at 11 and we finished in just over 2 hours and 15 minutes, so by the time I was dried off and changed, I was definitely ready for some food.

Unfortunately, the options at the post-race "party" weren't so great.

With nothing even remotely paleo around, we headed back to the bus and then straight home, where PhillyGuy and I ordered $75 worth of BBQ takeout from Phoebe's (full rack of pork ribs, 1.5lbs of pulled pork, 20 rotisserie chicken wings, a big ass container of spicy collard greens for me and a couple other sides for him). A few ribs, some pork, a bunch of greens and some 77% dark chocolate later, I was ready for a shower and some rest.

This was SO MUCH FUN, guys. SO MUCH FUN. I'm a lot more tired now than I realized I was going to be - the run felt challenging but never too hard. My thighs and shins are COVERED in scrapes and bruises. While the run had a few little hiccups - you could tell this was their first time organizing an event - everything went smoothly and it was a great first mud run. I'm pumped for Tough Mudder in April.

And also for laying in my bed for the next several hours. Go team.

so that challenge

2011-11-04T16:10:00.004-04:00

yeah, so, I fell off the face of the earth for a little bit.

I really, really want to recap the fabulous experience that was the CFCC BCCC, but here's the cliff's notes version for now:

- Official stats still forthcoming, but I lost nine pounds during the challenge and inches everywhere - two inches off of my waist, an inch off of my hips, and leaned way out in my arms and legs.

- The challenge officially ended around noonish on October 30, after I was measured and weighed in. Immediately afterwards, I went to brunch with my husband, where I had an omelet (with CHEESE!) and some potatoes and we split a side of the most amazing fluffy pancakes ever. Later, I celebrated with a fantastic sampling of cookie sandwiches from Sweet Freedom Bakery (still pretty darn paleo-friendly, as baked goods go).

- Eating baked goods and syrup on Sunday completely reawakened my sugar cravings, which came back in SERIOUS force on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday I had chocolate. Tuesday I had half a Larabar. Wednesday I realized that if I didn't knock that shit off I was going to keep craving sugar, so I did, and now I'm mostly back to normal...buuuuut...totally going to have more Sweet Freedom goodness tonight at CFCC's Fall Ball (halloween WOD in costumes, followed by potluck).

- Since the challenge ended I've continued to eat mostly the same way as I did during the last ten days, in terms of keeping it to meat and greens only, with the exception of (i) adding small amounts of dairy, like a splash of cream in my coffee and a little full fat Greek yogurt on my chili, and (ii) aforementioned small-ish sugary snacks. According to my scale this morning, I'm now a full ten pounds down.

- I'm so much stronger. I'm front squatting 140 pounds easily (prior max 115), I back squatted 155 for a triple (prior max 165), I GOT MY FIRST PULLUP LAST NIGHT. Okay, so it was a chin up. And it was ugly and I had to kick my legs. BUT I GOT IT. And I'm going to do it again tonight.

In short, this was an incredible experience. I'm saving a buttload of money by not buying soda or lunches at work, and I've never felt better that I felt during the last 30 days, particularly the final week. I'm much leaner - wearing pants I haven't worn in years! - and I've got a great blueprint for leaning out even more.

I guess I'll never be done AW-ing, but that's ok.

Greens for Dummies, Part I

2011-10-24T19:20:00.005-04:00

There are oh so many trends in the blogworld that I jumped on and loved. Pumpkin baked goods, greek yogurt, almond butter, acorn squash...I joined some bandwagons later than others, but still, bloggers have really done a lot to expand my diet, and almost all in very, very good ways.

But there are some trends I just never caught on to.

Like kale.

Not for any specific reason, really. Mainly, it's just that I'm a habitual eater, and between broccoli, brussels sprouts, and green beans, I just didn't feel the need to extend my vegetable rotation. And I did have a raw kale salad one time when I was out (probably from Whole Foods), and I definitely did not care for it...so that was that.

But now that I'm banned from all cruciferous veggies for the rest of this month, I've been forced to expand into kale. (And collard greens, but that's for another post.) So, how to prepare it?

Easy. Melt a little butter (I used about a teaspoon for 5-6 leaves of kale). Add a dash or two of hot sauce to the melted butter. Tear your kale off of the big stems into smaller pieces and toss in the melted butter until coated...just use your hands for this. It's much easier. Spread on parchment paper on a baking sheet and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt.

Right before I melted the butter, I preheated my oven to 415 and put the kale in as soon as it was ready - my oven had reached about 115 degrees by then. Monitor your kale pretty closely, because the line between "baked and crispy" and "burnt and crumbling" is a pretty thin one. My kale is usually done about a minute or 90 seconds after the oven reaches 415.

Tasty. This reminds me of popcorn...and also makes me realize that the only thing that's good about popcorn is that it tastes like salt and butter.

As I suspected, after a few days of eating only meat and greens, my cravings started to come in pretty forcefully. I spent a nice fat chunk of Sunday fantasizing about all of the amazing delicious foods I'm going to eat come October 31...like chips and dip. And chocolate. And a pumpkin scone or a pumpkin cinnamon roll from my freezer (or both). Oh, and nachos. God, nachos would be great. And then I drank tea and did a puzzle and tried to stop thinking about tasty snacks.

In the meantime, though, I'm so happy with how things have gone. A long time ago - ugh - I wrote about how I had been battling with a particular case that is just a complete thorn in my side. Last June, when this case put me under the attack of the stupids, I coped by faceplanting into a veggie pizza. (Observation: that pizza that I ate last June definitely didn't kill me and didn't make me obese overnight. However, it has not made that case go away. It has not made their counsel any less frustrating to deal with, and it has not made their arguments and delay tactics any less frivolous, since here I am, about 16 months later, dealing with the exact.same.argument.) Today, preparing for tomorrow's hearing made me want to punch the world in the face, but the idea of drowning my sorrows in nutritionally-questionable food did not even cross my mind.

This, my friends, is progress.

(Also, an embarrassing and true story. In law school, I did very well in my school's internal moot court competition. As in, my partner and I won the entire competition, and I snagged the "Best Oralist" award during the final argument (LOL THATS WHAT SHE SAID). I would prepare for arguments by listening to that Eminem/Dre song "Shake That Ass" on my way there. It would get me all psyched up and get me in the mindset of how I was going to destroy my opponents...in a law school make-believe oral argument. I still sort of do this for real life arguments. Sigh.)

The Last Ten Days

2011-10-21T08:16:00.004-04:00

I suppose this will be more intense than the first 20, but let's see.

To recap: I started by cutting out all artificial sweeteners, eliminating fruit (I could have just cut back on it, but I tend to do better on an all-or-nothing basis), giving up my semi-weekly "kip meals" and adding a little dairy back into my life, in the form of swapping my coconut milk creamer for grass-fed half & half. As the challenge progressed, I limited my intake of chocolate from about half an ounce to an ounce of 77 or 85% about five times a week to Friday and Saturday nights only. I finished the last of my jar of almond butter and didn't buy more, and the only between-meals snack I eat is my precious, precious buffalo jerky. And, starting on October 15, I added in BCAAs pre and post-workout, and am starting to get accustomed to chugging glittery vodka.

I've seen fabulous results even in the short period from October 1 to October 19. I've dropped six or seven pounds and can feel a significant difference in my body composition, in really funny ways - like how my arms feel when I'm washing my hair, or how my lower back feels when I reach back to rub it at work (my desk chair has awful lumbar support), or what my thigh feels like when I brace my forearm against it when I'm putting the dogs' leashes on.

ANYWAY. So now we start the final ten-day stretch, and of course it's time to turn up the intensity.

Starting yesterday (October 20) and continuing through the end of the month, here's my life:

The keys here: meat and greens and animal based fats only. No cruciferous or starchy veggies, like carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts or beans. No sweet potatoes. No avocado. Continue to get tons of protein in, but instead of cooking with olive oil (which I occasionally do), use butter or animal fat. No more dairy in my coffee.

For a lot of my meals, this isn't a big change. Breakfast, for one.

Look familiar? Messy desk, smoked pulled pork, over-easy eggs. This time I've added a handful of raw spinach (greens). Recently, more out of sheer laziness than anything else, lunch has been almost exclusively protein - this week, for example, PhillyGuy grilled me a ton of pork chops on Sunday afternoon, and that's what I've been bringing to work for lunch. (Thank goodness I can close my office door. There's just something...not professional...about sawing through a fat pork chop with a plastic knife at your desk.) Most days I had been bringing a little bag of raw veggies of some kind (peppers or carrots or green beans), so that's out...but otherwise, minimal change.

Dinner is the big difference - about twice a week I'd have a sweet potato, so that's out. And I have to replace my usual suspects (brussels sprouts, beans) with greens, which of course I need to figure out how to cook properly. Last night I had two chicken sausages, two eggs and a gigantic pile of kale chips, which I tossed in butter, topped with kosher salt and baked for a few minutes until crispy. Not so bad. I'm less enthusiastic about my ability to cook the giant bunch of collard greens I picked up.

And...of course. My best friends. Black coffee and water. So. Much. Water.

Naturally, this stage is not intended to be permanent - this is a "turn-up-the-heat" stage to force my body to burn its own fat so that I can lean out as much as possible in a short period of time. So far, I don't have any issues, but so far, it's only been 24 hours of eating this way, so we'll see how I feel tomorrow or Sunday...when I'm sure my cravings will skyrocket, and everything I see will turn into a walking Chocolove 77% dark chocolate bar, a'la Tom and Jerry. Maybe this isn't the best weekend to start burning my new "salty caramel corn" scented candle.

But sweet jebus it's been worth it. I PR'ed my front squat the other day by 15 pounds, and I was so surprised at how smooth and how good that 130 pounds felt. I did a jumping pullup on my door-mounted bar at home. And every morning, when I put on pants that used to be snug, or - better yet - used to be completely off limits, it's just a fabulous feeling.

Workouts:
- Tuesday: gymnastics. Back extension rolls, bridge-ups with kickover, back limber. I killed the metcon - three rounds for time of 10' bridge walk, 10' forward rolls, 10' plank walk, 10' backward rolls. 6:00 exactly - the key is that I mastered the bridge walk almost immediately. That shit is disorienting.

- Wednesday: front squats, starting with triples and working up to a peak of 1. 65x3-85x3-105x1-120x1-130x1. Natural glute-ham raises. Metcon: AMRAP double-unders in 5:00, 73. My DU's are getting better but I was having trouble stringing more than three or four together.

OK, Maybe Not EVERYTHING

2011-10-18T08:19:00.003-04:00

One of my halfway-there-CFCC-BCCC-observations is that everything I eat now is delicious.

I mean...really.

I have steak almost every Friday night, with sweet potato rounds baked with cinnamon, paprika, chili powder and cayenne pepper. I call them "fries," but they're not - they're just fricking delicious.

And then the salmon wraps. This was a great discovery.

Smoked salmon, avocado, grape tomatoes and crumbled bacon. If you don't like this, you have no soul.

But...okay. Maybe not EVERYTHING is delicious.

Starting on Saturday - the halfway point - I added in a supplement. Erin made this recommendation at our first meeting, but I just didn't get around to picking them up until this past weekend.

BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) are, for chemistry and biology dummies like myself, three of the nine essential amino acids necessary for the body to function. They are metabolized in muscle, rather than the liver, and once broken down into their individual components (leucine, isoleucine and valine), are either burned as fuel by the body, or used by the body to build new proteins. BCAAs are a popular supplement in crossfit and in bodybuilding and olympic weightlifting in general for their ability not only to increase energy during a workout, but to assist in recovery. (Let's be clear: this is obviously not my independent scientific study, but just the understanding I've developed based on a whole lot of internet research. Take it with a grain of salt and do your own research, internet-based or otherwise.)

So, starting with Saturday's intro to oly, I've been taking 5 grams of BCAAs dissolved in about 6-8 ounces of water before and after each workout. Let me tell you something about BCAAs.

They taste awful.

A lot of articles describe it as a bitter taste, but I think it tastes exactly like that cheap-ass Barton's vodka we used in well drinks at TGIFriday's. People recommend adding citrus, but I'd rather just get used to the taste and deal with it, I think. Also, once they dissolve, you end up with something that looks like a bottle of water with glitter floating in it. It's far too early to make any real observations about what they actually DO, but I can say that - coincidentally or not - I'm not really that sore from the past three days of workouts.

Speaking of which:

- Friday. Some skillwork on the snatch, which is still not my best lift but is getting better. I need to just practice this a lot until muscle memory starts to kick in so I can get the form correct. Worked up to 65lbs, which isn't much, but it's something. Metcon: Jeremy. 21-15-9 of overhead squats (95-65) and burpees. I wanted to do it RX'd, but when your first three reps feel heavy, it's not good...so I dropped down to 55. Arms were like jelly by the end. 9:19.

- Saturday: intro to oly. Clean & jerk. I started with just the training bar to work on the form for the split jerk; tried the push jerk but that's just not me. 15-35-45-55-65-65-75-75-85, mostly doubling up the jerks with some singles towards the end. This is much, much stronger for me than the snatch.

- Sunday: gymnastics. Forward rolls (speed rolls with two connected, dive rolls) and handstand walking. Getting much better at shifting my weight and working towards the single-arm handstand, but haven't walked on my hands yet, despite many attempts. Metcon: death by handstand thigh slaps (handstand against the wall, shifting weight to one arm and bringing opposite arm off the floor to slap your thigh - one rep is both sides). One in the first minute, and then adding one more each consecutive minute until you can't finish the prescribed amount in the minute. 7 full rounds plus 6 thigh slaps.

- Monday: power cleans, starting with doubles and working up to a peak of one. 65x2-65x2-75x2-85x2-85x1-95x1-105x1. Metcon: death by thrusters (95/65). One thruster was OK; my shoulders were NOT having me rep them. Rather than aggravate my weaker rotator cuff muscles, I substituted front squats after the first minute. Starting with three thrusters in minute 1, 10 rounds + 8 front squats at RX'ed weight.

Halfway-There Musings

2011-10-15T08:24:00.001-04:00

October 15 marks the half-way point in the CFCC BCCC. Here's what I've done so far:

- Since Day 1 (October 1), I've eliminated all artificial sweeteners of any kind. For me, this included the packet of sweet & low I usually added to my morning (and afternoon) coffee, as well as the gallons (literally - this is not exaggeration) of diet soda I drank each week.

- Since Day 1 I've significantly reduced and nearly eliminated the amount of fruit I've eaten. I could have a moderate amount of fruit each week if I wanted (the example Erin gave at our first meeting was "buy three apples each week and when they're done, they're done") but I just haven't bought any.

- Related to the above - since Day 1, I haven't touched a single Larabar. Even the coconut cream pie one that's been in my desk drawer since September 28. Cruelly, the challenge started six days after I'd bought two cases of Larabars...coconut cream pie and gingersnap.

- Since Day 1, I've replaced my coconut milk creamer with grass-fed cream. I had originally brought in coconut milk creamer as a replacement for the regular, full-fat half & half I added to my coffee, because when I started eating paleo, I cut out all dairy products except for the occasional butter I've used in cooking.

- Finally, since Day 1, I haven't had a shred of gluten, a speck of added sugar, soy anything, or anything that remotely smacks of the foregoing [potential] allergens.

I've made a few further cuts since then:

- Starting with Week 2, around October 6, I limited my chocolate consumption from about half an ounce of dark chocolate (77% or 85%) about five times a week to weekends only - a total of twice over the course of Friday evening through Sunday evening. (I was SO looking forward to that chocolate last night after my steak.)

- Starting with Monday, October 10, I don't eat anything between "meals" except for my absolute favorite buffalo jerky - this just meant eliminating other options, like coconut water or almond butter.

- Also starting with the week of October 10, I'm being mindful of the idea that sometimes, it's OK to be a little hungry, and that when there's no good food available, it's better to fast for a few hours until something solid and real and quality is available.

With the exception of the artificial sweeteners, these cuts are not a drastic change from how I was eating before. The biggest difference is that I haven't taken a single "kip meal" (I really prefer that term to "cheat meal," which has such a negative connotation) since that blessed Last Supper at COOK on September 30 (and what a kip meal that was). This is probably why it's been so easy for me, relatively speaking, so far. Here are my midpoint observations:

- I drink more water than I did diet soda. Before, I basically drank no water whatsoever unless I was at the gym, during or after a workout. I just really like diet soda. It's fizzy and it's delicious, and water is not. I averaged anywhere from 60-100 ounces a day (two 20-ounce bottles at work, sometimes a third, and probably a liter or two over the course of my evening at home). I have a 26-ounce water bottle at work that I fill at least three times a day, if not four or five, and I'm continously draining a large glass at home. I don't track ounces but I'm estimating I'm closer to 130 a day, especially if you include my nightly cup of Sleepytime tea.

- I was (am?) not "addicted" to diet soda. I quit it cold turkey on October 1 and have only really craved it once or twice since then. Looking back, I feel kind of silly spending SO MUCH MONEY on diet soda every day at work. I have a feeling this is going to be an all-or-nothing thing for me, though - if, say, on November 4 we have a lunch meeting at work and I have a can of Coke Zero, I am NOT going to want to switch back to water when I get back to my office. We'll see.

- Overall, I have really had minimal cravings. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I'm not substituting any "paleo" facsimiles of the foods I've cut out. Example: when I was "on Atkins" in college, I still craved things like bread and potatoes and chips and BBQ sauce from time to time. I tried to satisfy those cravings by eating low-carb bread, "zero calorie" BBQ sauce (oh, god, WHY) and "chips" made from parmesan cheese piles. My friends and I would share bags of sugar-free chocolate and sugar-free peanut butter cups. Since I was still eating "Atkins versions" of the foods I was supposed to be eliminating, I still wanted the foods I was supposed to be eliminating. And seriously...no one should be sentenced to a life of calorie-free BBQ sauce. I cannot fathom how I convinced myself that was good.

- Everything I eat is delicious. I mean...SERIOUSLY. Sure, I've gotten a little bored with rotisserie chicken. But I don't eat anything that's "only OK."

- Notwithstanding the above, there are definitely moments - albeit few - where I would kill someone for chips and dip. Not gluten free chips and dip, either. Give me cheap, mass-produced, super-salty tostitos (the little bowl kind) with a vat of the chili cheese dip they make at Whole Foods, or that lobster spread they sell at Costco. It passes. Every time.

- My tastebuds have adjusted a bunch since I've eliminated so much sweet stuff - both artificial sweeteners and fructose. I had a container of grape tomatoes this week that I used in my breakfasts and dinners - holy crap, they tasted like candy. I mean, WOW sweet.

- I suck at peeling boiled eggs. Hard boiled eggs are not as disgusting as I imagined they would be, but they are not delicious at all and the yolk looks like a pencil eraser. Soft boiled eggs are much better.

- I can't speak for inches but I've lost some weight - about six pounds since the beginning of the challenge. Given that the changes I've made are relatively minor (no kip meals, no artificial sweeteners, eggs for breakfast instead of fruit), I think this speaks volumes about how much you can accomplish by really dialing in your nutrition and not being lazy about it.

Sadly, while I have made a bunch of progress on the body comp side, I haven't made as much progress on my goal of improving my pull ups. Shockingly, this is because I haven't practiced pull ups (though I did a bunch in this week's benchmark WODs).

Time to grab a quick breakfast. Intro to oly at 11 today and then hopefully a bunch of nothing for the rest of the day...wish me luck and happy weekend!

Paleo Breakfasts

2011-10-14T08:09:00.005-04:00

One of the notable changes I made with the CFCC BCCC was eliminating my usual breakfast of some kind of fruit and almond butter.

The "why" behind this is pretty simple: sugar and fat without any real protein is not a good way to start your day. Not only do you end up with a quick insulin spike, but - and this is anecdotal - it just doesn't keep you full. At all. There's not much to run on.

I needed protein-focused breakfast alternatives. And, since I'm kind of lazy and not at all interested in cooking every single weekday morning, I needed (or at least really wanted) stuff that could be made ahead of time, preferably the night before, with minimal work in the mornings.

Here's what's been in my rotation the past few weeks.

Option 1: go to DiBruno's in the Comcast Center and pick up a made-to-order omelet, usually with bacon, tomatoes and green pepper.

Pros: very tasty, and the least work possible, since someone else is doing the cooking. DiBruno's cooks with clarified butter, and the ingredients are decent quality. Cons: it's not cheap. An omelet is $4.99. And obviously, it's just not possible to get an omelet without coffee too (even if I've barely finished the first cup that I made at home), so it ends up being closer to $8 after tax and all that good stuff. Who needs to spend $40 a week for convenience?

Next: scrambled eggs with whatever's in the fridge. This is from this morning and included grape tomatoes, crumbled bacon (I bought a big bag of precooked bacon crumbles at Costco), and spinach.

Pros: much cheaper than an omelet from DiBruno's and just as tasty. I definitely know what's going into it since I made it myself. Cons: more time-consuming than buying pre-made breakfast and no make-ahead option (scrambled eggs do not reheat so well). Still, time commitment was moderate - about ten minutes total, including time to wash the pan and spatula.

Next: smoked pork topped with two over-easy eggs.

Pros: god, this is delicious. And it's easy. The pulled pork is Kirkland brand from Costco, with a surprisingly paleo-approved ingredients list. I had some for dinner one night, and then reheated the rest over the course of a few days for breakfasts (and leftover dinners). Cons: it's definitely fatty, which can leave me feeling a little sluggish if I'm too generous with the pork. I think next time I will add in some spinach or something a little more "fresh" tasting. This is also not a make-ahead deal, but cooking and cleanup time is minimal at six minutes total.

Finally: soft-boiled eggs, smoked salmon, spinach, grape tomatoes.

Pros: a complete make-ahead breakfast. I soft-boiled six eggs on Tuesday night and made two of these neat little containers with 4oz of smoked salmon each, a handful of tomatoes and a handful of spinach. It's lower in fat than some of my other breakfasts (cough, smoked pork, cough) and it doesn't need to be heated. Cons: smoked salmon can be kinda stinky. And it's pricey, which bumps the cost of this breakfast up a bunch. Also, I haven't mastered the soft boiled egg yet (that's not really a con, it's just me).

So...that's what I've been rotating through. So far, the salmon dish has been my favorite. It's cold and refreshing and not heavy but still unbelievably tasty. I'm going to try steaming my next batch of soft-boiled eggs, which promises to be simpler and also help the shells peel more completely, so I don't waste half an egg by picking the shell off bit by bit.

Lots of benchmark workouts this week, since we're between strength cycles:

Monday: A little snatching, followed by Crossfit Disco. 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of box jumps (24/20) and pull ups. Cap of 10:00, even if you're as RX'ed...which I was not. I used the average band for my first couple sets of pullups and then quickly realized I was failing every couple reps, so I added the mini band so I could finish within the cap. I fucking suck at pull ups. 9:57.

Wednesday: Some kettlebell snatch work, followed by Helen. 3 rounds for time of 400m run, 21 American KB swings (1.5/1pood), 12 pull ups. I used the RX'ed weight but did Russian swings as American were bugging my left shoulder, and average + mini bands. 11:51. In the third round, I was failing every third or fourth pull up. BAH.

Thursday: Elizabeth. 21-15-9 of power cleans (135/95) and ring dips. Last time we did Elizabeth was during the last week of September, when I didn't log a single workout. I know I used 65lbs and recalled it being relatively easy, and I know I'm not so hot at ring dips, so I estimated that it took me over 10 minutes to complete. This may not have been correct. Using the light band for my dips and 65lbs, I completed this in 8:41. Time to move up in weight. Not in dips (I did them 2-3 at a time and failed a few reps in the last two sets).

Tonight is Jeremy, which I haven't done since my very first on-ramp class. And, since that was with a PVC pipe and still kicked my ass, I'm pumped to see how today goes. Happy weekend!

Short & Sweet

2011-10-10T08:12:00.003-04:00

Making this a quick one - I'm trying to blow through a ton of work today in the hopes of getting out of here early enough to get home, walk my pups and get back to CFCC for some snatch action. (The jokes just write themselves.)

I sort of expected this weekend to be something of a challenge. PhillyGuy and I road tripped it up to visit his parents and grandparents, which - like any visit to an Italian family - typically involves food (and gluten, and sugar, and and and) in excess. Normally, for a weekend like this, while I don't just go balls to the wall and eat everything that's offered to me, I have no compunctions about eating a fresh cider donut or a couple pieces of toast with breakfast or a slice or two of sheet pizza. Not so much this time.

I prepared myself as best I could by packing some necessities into my purse:

Two bags of my favorite buffalo jerky (for snacks and, if necessary, emergency meal replacements...I asked PhillyGuy to get me four, but this is apparently all that was left in the store), jump rope (for travel WOD-ing on the in-laws' back porch), water bottle (for surgically attaching to my hand), food log (for, well, food logging).

Also, my nook (for reading lots of US Weekly and maybe some of the Impressionists). Which has nothing to do with this challenge.

Here are the challenges I expected: lots of donuts, pizza, bread and desserts being offered. Lots of pressure to change my mind after I politely declined said donuts, pizza, bread and/or desserts. Lots of scrutiny about what I was eating or not eating. Lots of questions about what I was doing and why.

Here is what actually happened: true to form, Mama PhillyGuy greeted us with a jug of fresh cider and a dozen or two warm, fresh cider donuts from the Cider Mill down the street. She offered both of us one (or two or ten), and asked me if I'd ever had one warm. Perhaps PhillyGuy gave his parents a heads up, or perhaps they gleaned some stuff from facebook or something, but she wasn't surprised when I told her that I wasn't going to have one.

There were some questions about what I was doing - "is it some kind of cleanse or something?" has been a common one, not just with my inlaws but with almost everyone who's caught wind of it - but thankfully, very little else. There was one point where she literally shoved some kind of caramel apple pie directly under my face, and one incident in the grocery store where she tried to convince me that I could have apple crisp, since she didn't add sugar to her apples, but all in all, it was really nothing.

Which I was completely grateful for. I really, really dislike being scrutinized about my eating, particularly WHILE I'm eating. They were very accommodating - when his dad grilled up some spiedies and locally-made sausages for lunch, Mama PhillyGuy helped me check all of the labels to make sure there was no added sugar or anything else funny in the ingredient lists, and made sure that she was OK to use her regular rice vinegar to dress the salad - but not at all intrusive, and no one tried to get into a debate with me about how whole grains are healthy or whatever.

All in all, the weekend was a non-issue, but it's eye-opening. My takeaways:

- It's amazing just how much ritual is built around food. PhillyGuy and I have discussed numerous times how it's a struggle, particularly for him, to eat well when we visit his parents. It's not just because there is, literally, ALWAYS food available - plates of candy and homemade cookies everywhere at Christmas, everyone you visit putting out a tray of snacks, ranging from antipasto and crackers to home-smoked prosciutto to candied nuts and cheese - when you come hang out with them. It's also because you associate so many things with "coming home" or "family time" or whatever. It's fall, so we always, ALWAYS have cider and cider donuts and usually an apple pie or apple crisp. His parents frequently pick up a sheet pizza to snack on when the kids come visit (like spiedies, it's a Binghamton thing - pizza baked in a sheet pan, topped with american cheese) that we inevitably graze on, hot or cold, for the duration of our stay. We'll go visit his uncle, who might make three varieties of homemade pizza or homemade pasta or both. You don't eat because you're hungry, you eat because it's ritual.

- Not partaking in the ritual feast doesn't stop you from partaking in the important part of the ritual - hanging out with people you love and catching up with them.

- The only time I was a little jealous of the "let's eat whatever" mentality was Saturday night. We were all stuffed from gorging ourselves on spiedies, salad and sausage around 2 or 3 that afternoon, so no one had dinner. Around 8 or 9, people started getting snacky, and one by one, my husband and his parents went into the kitchen and then returned to the living room with big plates of apple pie and whipped cream. I didn't want the actual pie (I'm not a pie fan in general), and I wasn't even hungry OR particularly snacky myself, but I felt a little left out that everyone else was eating and I wasn't. So silly, right?

- PhillyGuy had the bright idea that "he" (read: both of us) would make breakfast for nine people. While cooking this much food in someone else's kitchen is nerve-wracking, this was good because I got to control the menu enough to ensure that there was plenty of food for me. We made two pounds of Whole Foods fresh cut black forest bacon, twenty eggs (some fried, some over easy, the rest scrambled), a few links of kielbasa, and diced sweet potatoes pan-fried in bacon grease with an onion. I had three (small-ish) eggs, a little bit of potato, three slices of bacon and two small slices of kielbasa. Everyone else built out the breakfast with toast, pastries, a variety of cider donuts, juice and fruit - and no one commented on what I was or wasn't eating, which was a relief.

- There is a noticeable difference in the quality of the $5 jumprope I picked up at Target and the jumpropes at the gym. The workout I intended to do involved 50-40-30-20-10 double-unders alternated with overhead squats with the rope, but I couldn't get the rope to move fast enough to do more than one DU at a time. After it took the better part of 5-6 minutes to get to 25 DU's, I said "F this noise" and switched to twice as many singles. Total, this workout took me about 12 minutes, I worked up a nice dripping sweat, and got it all out of the way before my inlaws even woke up. There truly is NO excuse not to work out when you're traveling.

So now I'm back to work and experimenting with portable breakfasts with minimal AM prep time.

Repeat from Friday and one other day last week: shredded smoked pork (from Costco - surprisingly clean ingredients list and I think $8 for three or four pounds) topped with two over-easy eggs. Total prep time of six minutes, including a quick wash of the pan and spatula.

Rest of last week's workouts:

- Friday 10/7 - Lynne redux. 5 rounds of max bench presses and max pull ups. I hadn't done this workout since the first round four weeks ago, before I hurt my shoulder. We were instructed to use the same weight and (if applicable) same band, with the goal being to show progress in the number of reps you could complete. For me, this was 90lbs/average band. The weight felt a LOT heavier than it had the first time, which I chalked up to my shoulder - I was noticeably weaker on my left side, but I was eking out 5 or 6 reps in each round. And then, three rounds in, Liz noticed that I was actually lifting 95 pounds, not 90. So, you know, fail. Can't measure progress with this one, but my rounds were 6/11, 5/11, 4/10, 4/9 and 4/8.

- Sunday 10/9 - travel workout! I put together my own based on the suggested workouts available on the CFCC page. 50-40-30-20-10 DU's alternated with 25-20-15-10-5 OH squats with the rope...except I actually did 25DU's followed by 80-60-40-20 singles due to rope suckage. Still sweated my butt off.

OK, so...so much for a "short" and "quick" post. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Grilling Machine

2011-10-07T08:34:00.004-04:00

One of the things I'm most grateful for about the CFCC BCCC is that it won't interfere with my favorite night of the week:

STEAK NIGHT.

PhillyGuy and I are fortunate enough to have steak night about once a week, though some weeks it doesn't play out. It's pretty much replaced our previous tradition of a weekly (pricey and indulgent) meal out. True story? PhillyGuy's steak is just as good - if not better - than the steaks we used to shell out for at places like Butcher & Singer (which is still my favorite steakhouse in the city, I think), AND it's about 1/5 of the cost, AND I get to eat it in my sweatpants. Win.

PhillyGuy is in charge of the grill. I'm pretty sure I've only used the grill like...three or four times since we got it. It was life changing, though - no matter what anyone tells you, a George Foreman, while it has its place, is NOT the same.

Cosmo constantly supervises. (And also, LOOK AT THAT FAT BUTT. It's amazing...he was so emaciated when we got him, and now he's my little tank. Or sausage. Whatever.)

We get our ribeyes at Costco. Sometimes we change it up and get strips, but usually, it's ribeyes. They're USDA Prime and they're about $15/lb, anywhere from $50-70 for a pack of four. They're a couple bucks more per pound than the USDA Choice ribeyes there, but it's worth the investment. Not cheap, but they are substantially better than any other steak I've picked up anywhere, including much pricier grassfed ribeyes/delmonicos from Whole Food and DiBruno's. I'm not sure what it is.

So while he grills his steak (and sears mine - baby, I like it raw) (ugh sorry), I'm in charge of this.

And this.

The veggie varies between brussels sprouts, broccoli and green beans, but I always roast them with salt, pepper and olive oil. The sweet potatoes get a bath in olive oil, chili powder, paprika, cinnamon and cayenne pepper, and then dusted with kosher salt when they come out of the oven.

The only thing I need to eliminate with the BCCC is the beer. And that's not a big deal to me - I really don't drink much, maybe a glass or two of wine or a beer once or twice a month. In fact, PhillyGuy and I SPLIT these two beers on this particular steak night a few weeks ago. I love me an ice cold dirty martini with my steak when we're out, but I never bother with that at home.

So, yes. It's Friday and it's steak night in the PhillyGirlRuns household. And here is a quick recap of this week's workouts (kind of meh - it's been a busy week, I have a shoulder injury and I haven't had a ton of time to get to CFCC):

Saturday, 10/1: Before I got my bake on, I got my partner workout on. In teams of three, 20 minute AMRAP of 15 front squats (135/95) and 75 double-unders. My team went with 65lbs for the front squats - they were easy for me but I think RX'ed would have been REAL tough. The double unders were the suck factor, at least for me, though I was able to complete 10 or 15 at a time by connecting them with singles. We completed 4 rounds + 3 front squats...outside in the middle of 13th street.

(Picture credit to Kimberly, heisted from CFCC's blog. I'm in the unflattering squat in the pink.)

Wednesday: Sandbag shoulder turkish getups. 30-40-60-70-80 (right side only, ran out of time). Metcon: 8 minute AMRAP, 8 single-arm overhead squats strong side, 8 SAOHS weak side, 8 jumping goblet squats (1.5pood/1pood). I hurt (NOT tore, thank goodness) my left rotator cuff last week doing knees-to-elbows, so I didn't add weight on my left arm - instead I did squats with a 40lb sandbag over that shoulder for that side. Otherwise RX'ed at 1pood/16kg/35lbs - it was tough but felt good, and I am very glad I did the 16kg instead of 12kg. 4 rounds even.

Thursday: sumo deadlifts, peak of 1. I do not like sumo deadlifts - I always feel awkward, AND the bar scrapes up the top of my knees due to the wide stance (wah, wah, wah). Nonetheless - 115-155-175-205-225-235 (fail)-235 (ugly but up). My form on the last lift was horrendous - I was somewhat surprised to find the bar off of the ground, so the rest of me was like - LOL WUT - and there was a lot of side-to-side shifting. That would be a 5lb PR - WOOT. 15lbs left to get to my 2011 goal. Metcon: 5 rounds for time, 10 russian kettlebell swings (2pood/1.5pood), 20 double unders. My DU's have improved significantly in the last two weeks, and I'm now stringing 5-6 together unbroken pretty consistently, without the need to do singles in between. This was still the suck factor in this workout, though. 6:40 as RX'ed.

happy weekend all! And happy first-week-through-the CFCC BCCC. I feel good.
Soooo that's it this week.

Food Torture

2011-10-06T08:38:00.003-04:00

...aka, making pumpkin whoopie pies on the first day of a thirty-day nutrition cleanup.

So, Saturday - October 1 - marked the first day of the CFCC BCCC. Which is also the first day of my thirty days of no cheat meals (or, as Drywall would say, no kip meals). It was also the day that my friends and I had been planning for weeks to have dinner. I was put in charge of dessert, which, as a rule, makes me happy, since I love to bake. (Mostly for the batter, actually. I feel "meh" about actual baked goods, for the most part - with a few exceptions. But raw cookie dough or raw cake batter? Oh god, sign me up. And give me salmonella. Whatever.)

If I were a complete jerkface I'd have brought a bowl of mixed berries to my friend's house. But not so much. Instead, I did what I usually do when I can't decide what to bake - scour EatLiveRun's "recipes" page and find something fabulous.

PUMPKIN WHOOPIE PIES WHAT.

I know Jenna's a baking genius, but it's little things like this that make it clear. Along with the usual suspects in pumpkin baking (cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg), these whoopie pies had a little bit of white pepper. I assume it brings out the other flavors. Maybe I'll make these again in November and make sure.

So, we go from this

to this.

While they cooled, I got to work with this:

SO NOT PALEO. Or, well, I guess this part (where it's just a ton of softened butter all whipped up) is arguably paleo. In someone's world. If you wanted to lick whipped butter off of the beater. Which even I did not.

I particularly love making baked goods that include homemade frosting. I guess it's because something like a basic vanilla buttercream is so freaking easy, but it's one of those things that most people don't do, so they find it impressive. Like driving stick, or using chopsticks.

A little piece of me died inside when I couldn't taste this. Instead, I called PhillyGuy in from the living room, where he was parked watching football, to taste the buttercream for me. "Does it need more vanilla? What if I added some cinnamon and made half of them with cinnamon filling?" Poor guy's got it rough.

After the cakes (pies? cookies? whatever) were cooled, I piped in the frosting and assembled everything. Behold, the whoopie pie.

Once again, I had PhillyGuy sample the finished product to make sure it was OK. This was unnerving, because here I was, bringing eighteen homemade whoopie pies - something I'd never made before - to dinner with friends without having tasted them AT ALL to make sure they were okay. And trust me, I have screwed up some baked goods before. Like that time I tried to make candy cane Joe-Joe's. THAT was not pretty.

But he gave his seal of approval. And my friends all gave their seals of approval. I think between the seven-and-a-half (including my friend's 11-month-old daughter, who heartily approved of the whoopie pie) others who were at dinner, at least half of the whoopie pies went that night, and I distributed the rest of them to my friends to take home.

Perhaps a piece of me died a little inside, but I'm pretty proud to report that this food torture went down without my tasting so much as a single scrap of cake, drip of batter or speck of flour. One of my friends commented on my "amazing willpower." I definitely do NOT have amazing willpower. What I do have is the ability to flip a switch inside my brain once I decide I am on a structured plan of some kind.

And also it helps when you start your day with a good solid sweat, and then eat this before you bake.

(Three eggs over-easy, served over a handful of baby spinach, half a diced sweet potato cooked in a skillet with some chopped onion, and two beautiful slices of fresh cut black forest bacon from Whole Foods.)

VIVA LA CFCC BCCC. And...MAKE THESE WHOOPIE PIES. Thank you, Jenna.

So, About That Challenge

2011-10-02T21:29:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned last time, October 1 marked the beginning of a 30-day nutrition challenge at Crossfit Center City. I kicked off my challenge by meeting with a coach, where we took stats and reviewed a three-day food journal I kept last Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Here are my goals, for 30 days as well as for the rest of 2011:

In case you can't read - my primary goals for October 31 are to lose enough body fat to drop another clothing size (for anyone playing along at home, that should take me from a size 8 back into a size 6. It won't necessitate buying new clothes yet but will open up a whole slew of pants I haven't worn since late 2009) and to seriously improve my pull-ups. Right now, I can do about 4 or 5 with the "light" plus "mini" bands, and can do one very ugly pull up with the mini band alone. If we're doing pullups in a metcon, I have to use the "average" band. By the time 30 days is up, I would LOVE to be repping them with a light band or better. Truth be told, this would actually make me even happier than dropping a pants size.

By 12/31/2011, I want to improve all three lifts for the Crossfit Total, to go from a 230lb DL to 250, from a 165lb back squat to 185, and from a 75lb press to 80, and to do bodyweight pull ups. And not need to go to my knees for pushups.

I have a lot of work to do.

BUT ANYWAY. Starting this week, my major focus was something I knew was coming, but was dreading: cutting out the artificial sweeteners.

I don't care about the 3/4 packet of sweet & low I usually add to my morning coffee. But I freakin' care about my precious diet soda. Remember that time I tried to switch to drinking only water at work to save money? Yeah, clearly that didn't go too far. According to my blog, I lasted at least a week, but I can tell you - although there's no record of it - that it definitely didn't last much more than that.

So I spent a few minutes washing my pink water bottle on Friday afternoon, since god knows when the last time was that I used it. And now that will be my best friend at work. I've been carrying around a freebie North Face squeeze bottle at home - something I picked up at the Philly Half expo last year - and I'll throw this random metal bottle I have into my gym bag. For someone who doesn't like to drink water, I sure have a buttload of bottles.

Okay, so. I'm cutting out the artificial sweeteners, at least for now. Erin promises this will have a tremendously positive effect on my health, and will aid me in reaching my goals. I'm skeptical, but clearly I need to give this the whole 30 days before I can really judge, so here goes.

The other big focus was to not eat fruit for breakfast. See, I used to eat fruit and plain Greek yogurt every morning, with the occasional granola mixed in. When I cut out dairy back in July, I swapped my 4-6 ounces of yogurt for a couple tablespoons of almond butter, but kept the fruit. Even though I found that the almond butter had more staying power than the yogurt, I would still end up hungry by 10:30 or 11 most mornings. This doesn't happen when I have eggs. So, I've been googling "microwave omelet" for the last ten minutes or so, and we'll see how that goes this week.

All in all...the past two days have been a little challenging, but nothing awful. Yesterday I spent hours baking pumpkin whoopie pies, and then filling said whoopie pies with two flavors of homemade frosting. I managed not to taste the batter, the frosting, the finished product, or so much as lick my fingers. I had dinner at my friend's house without an issue (due in no small part to the fact that I ate about half a rotisserie chicken and some raw green beans before I left the house). Today, when walking through Costco to stock up for the week, I couldn't help but feel small pangs of jealousy for people who were spending the day watching the game while chowing down on chips and dip. And I pretty much would have killed someone for a cold Pepsi Max with my steak tonight.

But so far, two days of success, down. 28 more to go. Here's to bodyweight pull ups.

Last Supper

2011-10-01T15:11:00.002-04:00

Today starts CFCC's fall body composition challenge. For the next 30 days, I am focusing on keeping my nutrition super-clean, starting to experiment with supplements, and gettin' strong. Adios, gluten. Buh-bye, copious amounts of fruit and Larabars. And - this is the one I'm really going to be bummed about - see ya later, artificial sweeteners. (As of now, my precious aspartame is the one thing I do plan to reintroduce come October 31, but we'll see.)

However...the challenge started today. October 1. Yesterday was September 30. Which meant my last chance for some unrestricted eats.

And I was so, so grateful that I had booked a class at Audrey Claire COOK months ago.

What better way to spend my last supper than with burgers handmade by Rob Wasserman and Michael Yeamans of Rouge? (And also of 500 degrees, which I thought opened a few months ago. Um, apparently it's been open for a year and a half. Fail.)

You better believe I started out with some bread. This was nice and crusty, with a dusting of salt on the ends and some fennel seeds baked in that I actually kind of liked. (I usually despise fennel, since I cannot stand licorice.)

As you can see, the space is fabulous - very intimate. There are sixteen seats spread around the bar, and you're only a foot away from the action at most.

It had a distinctive dinner party feel. Mike (who looks a WHOLE lot like Cliff Lee) did almost all of the hands-on work, while Rob led the show by talking through the courses and entertaining us. (By the way, sorry for the iPhone pics, but I wasn't sure if photography was going to be allowed so I didn't bother bringing the DSLR.)

First course was a tuna tartare, diced from the biggest, freshest slab of tuna I've ever seen, and tossed with a chili/soy sauce/rice vinegar dressing. It was served with salted wonton chips, some seaweed salad and an extremely pungent wasabi mayo.

The first course was paired with a light, crisp white wine - whites aren't my favorite, but this was decent. I was much happier when they started pouring a shiraz - it meant that the big guns were coming out. And I was right - we took a break between these two courses so that Mike could get our dessert (a flourless chocolate cake) in the oven.

After the miniature cakes were in the oven, he came around the table and gave a dollop of leftover raw batter to anyone who was willing to admit they wanted it. You better believe I got some, and ho.lee.shit. Five ingredients (sugar, eggs, butter, dark chocolate, heavy whipping cream) - serious bliss. I regret not taking a picture of that.

I didn't have too much time to mourn, because before I knew it, the burgers were fryin'.

O.M.G. Naturally, they weren't about to reveal their proprietary blend of meats, but they did confirm that it was 80/20, with a mix of beef, short rib and brisket. BRISKET. Under that beautiful blanket of gruyere is a pile of perfectly caramelized onions.

I mean, COME ON.

Third course was a truffled gnocchi. Below is about $600 worth of food: three white truffles, sitting gracefully in a bowl of dry rice, and a gigantic pile of truffle butter.

Mike showed Rob how to shave those gorgeous, expensive fungi over the handmade gnocchi.

This was easily my favorite dish of the night, and I am a serious, serious fan of red meat. The gnocchi were soft and pillowy, and the garlic oil and truffle butter combined with the shaved truffle was almost cheesy. I could have eaten a bucket of this.

A few minutes later it was time for dessert. (Cooked this time - not like the raw batter palate cleanser we had earlier in the night.)

The flourless chocolate cake was good, but not mind blowing. It stood up well to the Barbera that was flowing, and it somehow managed to be dense and fluffy at the same time.

("I like soup. It's a chunky soup...it's a liquid soup...it's chunky and liquid at the same time. I don't get how they do that shit.")

All in all, it was a fabulous night, and the best "last supper" I could have asked for. If any of you are considering it, DEFINITELY grab a reservation at Cook. It was a great experience - definitely a little pricey ($250 for PhillyGuy and I), but we got four courses, three free-flowing wines, and an intimate, informative cooking demonstration, with recipes to bring home. Maybe not a once-a-month thing, but we'll definitely be back. AFTER the body composition challenge, anyway.

Plus, being able to indulge like that last night made it juuuuuuust a little less painful to spend most of today baking goddamn pumpkin whoopie pies. I can't eat 'em, but DAMN do they look beautiful - plenty of pictures and I'll share tomorrow.

Happy weekend!

Not Done AWing

2011-09-23T08:49:00.005-04:00

yeah, okay. totally not done with yesterday's session of attention whoring.

SO. Last night was sumo deadlifts for a peak of 3, followed by a heavy-deadlift-and-metcon burpee.

I'm not as strong with sumo deadlifts as I am with conventional deadlifts, and I could feel it in my form - back rounding some, letting the bar drift out, that kind of thing. That, plus I'm still feeling a little "meh" from being sick earlier this week. So - 135, 135, 155, 155, 175, 195, 205.

This is where having a coach really makes a difference. Erin had me repeat all kinds of sets that I otherwise would have considered too light and "fine" - and at the end, when it started to get pretty heavy and I thought I was done, she was the one who said "I think you have 205 in you." And duh, I did.

And then she said something crazy - that I should do the metcon RX'ed.

OK, look. My conventional DL max is 230. Doing five sets of five at 185 seemed a little daunting on its own, let alone alternating them with burpees with no rest. I was thinking I'd do it at 155 or 165, but RX'ed...so I said I'd think about it. And while I was busy "thinking about it" she had already put an asterisk next to my name on the whiteboard...so...yeah. Not going to say no now.

And WHAT THE FUCK HOLY SHIT I DID IT. It was really tough - after the first set of 5 I couldn't rep them anymore, so I was doing 1 or 2, then dropping the bar. And it took me 8 minutes even (most people, appropriately scaled, finished between 3:30 and 4:30ish). But...I was one of two women to do the metcon RX'ed the entire day. The other was Cassie, who is pretty much my lifting idol, has a max DL 110 pounds OVER mine, and killed my time by three freakin' minutes.

I'll take that ANY DAY. (Of course, I was so fried afterwards that gymnastics was a complete joke. I tried handstand walking and either couldn't get it up (heh) or would get up and then collapse. Rolling pistols weren't super-successful either. But I think metcons like today's are crucial to my short-term goal of hitting 250 for my max by the end of 2011.

And now it's Friday, which means it's steak night. AND it's a rare casual day at work, which means I'm in jeans. (I could add a little piece here about how I'm in jeans I haven't been able to fit into pretty much since I bought them in the fall of 2009, but that seems unnecessary. Oh well.) Happy weekend all!

PhillyGirlAWs

2011-09-22T13:03:00.004-04:00

Balance, yo.

Carrot sticks and 77% dark chocolate courtesy of Sook Hee's Produce in the Comcast Center. Side of to-do list courtesy of life.

I've had a really good couple of weeks, fitness-wise. First, let me start with an unapologetic, attention-whore, self-congratulating remark: I CAN TOTALLY TELL I'M LEANING OUT BECAUSE MY GODDAMN PANTS FIT BETTER.

And really, it's so much more obnoxious than that. Because today I am wearing a pair of chinos I bought late last spring, when I'd dropped some el bees doing P90X. I regained said el bees during a period of baking obsession last fall (which I am sure is a complete and total coincidence, and not in any way causally related). Thus, these chinos, while wearable, were definitely bordering on uncomfortably snug.

THEY ARE LOOSE. Not like, too big loose, but comfortably loose. And every time I put them on, I'm like "haha YAAAAY my pants are loose!" But that's not it. Legitimately, all day long, I think to myself "heh...heh...these pants fit AWESOME." When I stand up, when I sit back down, when I lean over to put shoes on, when I walk downstairs to buy carrot sticks and chocolate.

So, you know, that's good stuff. But I'm getting stronger, too. This week's recaps:

- Friday: Lynne. I benched for the first time since at least 2007 or 2008. Back then, I was doing (I think) 65 or 75lbs for sets of eight. Friday, I used 90lbs for the metcon, which was 5 rounds of max bench presses followed by max pull ups. I thought I took a picture of my sets, but I guess not - can't recall with total accuracy, but I did something like 7/11, 7/11, 7/10, 6/10 and 5/9 - with 90lbs and the average band.

- Sunday: gymnastics. Muscle-up work. Once I get a pull up, I think these will start to come together for me. Metcon was redonk.

I started getting sick this weekend, and I could really feel my weakness in the handstand holds. Normally I can do 60 seconds without too much of a problem, but after the first round on Sunday my shoulders started to collapse between 40 and 45 seconds each time. That meant 4 broken handstands, which meant a cashout of 40 burpees. I did them in sets of 10 and knocked them out in about 3 minutes, which is SIGNIFICANT improvement over that time I did 50 burpees in 4:05 and legitimately thought I was going to pass out afterwards.

(AW moment: post-metcon, while I was regaining my composure, Sammy told me she noticed how my body composition was changing. The words "your back looks ripped" may have come up. AW AW AW AW. )

I took Monday off from the gym and spent the night on the couch drinking broth and playing scrabble. It helped my recovery tremendously.

Tuesday - ring dips, peak set of 3. I'm still using bands to assist but am getting stronger. Light band - 1/2 light band (one strap only) - mini band - 1/2 mini (complete fail) - 1/2 mini (one rep, then fail). Metcon: 3 rounds of 1min max ring dips (LB), 1 min ring rows strong arm, 1 min ring rows weak arm, 1 min row for calories, 1 min rest. Score: 151 (total reps + total calories). Not too shabby. Stayed for gymnastics; worked on kipping pull ups and kipping for handstand pushups. Between the metcon and my cold, I was definitely feeling fatigued, but my kip is getting better. I will throw a goddamn party when I get my first bodyweight pull up.

Wednesday - sandbags, double-unders. Goal: get a sandbag off the ground and overhead any way you can. 40-50-60-70 (couple attempts). Sandbags are awkward to clean and not easy to control overhead - both times I did the 70lb bag, it fell backwards off my hands at the top, since I couldn't keep a grip on it when cleaning. Metcon was awesome: 5 rounds for time of 35 DU's (I scaled to 10) and short loop run. I finished in 14:59. Runs felt strong, and by the end I was stringing DU's together "unbroken" (meaning "without stomping on the rope or getting the rope stuck in my hair," not "DU after DU after DU without fail or interruption") with singles in between. Wish I'd thought of that in the beginning - I would have shaved off a BUNCH of time.

Um and also PhillyGuy got Sophie a new toy. It's a stuffed hedgehog.

Or her doppelganger. Whatever.

95% vs 100%

2011-09-16T08:44:00.006-04:00

(Credit to Crossfit 1Force for the awesome disclaimer.)

Recently, I read an article shared by a CFCC member about the "chronic almost-achiever." Short version: are you the type of person who constantly gives 95%, but almost never truly gives 100%?

It really struck a chord with me. Because, um, hi, that's me. Do you know why I prefer running mile repeats to racing a 5K? Because while it's pretty tough to run a fast mile, it's REALLY tough to run 3.1 fast miles without taking a lil' rest in the middle. I rarely do anything to the point of actual failure...whether it's pull ups or a metcon or whatever, I'd much rather take a quick rest when [my forearms start to give out, or my wrists start to get sore during bridge-ups, or box jumps start to get tough, or insert whatever other signal of discomfort is appropriate] and jump back in when I feel a bit recovered. And my diet. I mean, I JUST wrote a post about how I'm happy to be eating Paleo about 95% of the time - but seriously I eat fruit for breakfast EVERY DAY and and AND have a Larabar for "dessert" after lunch. I am not giving 100% when it comes to cutting out unnecessary sugars, even if they do come from peaches and dates.

But, really, am I ever going to get my body fat down where I'd like it to be, or get a bodyweight pull up, or have burpees not completely suck ass, if I keep at it like this? Using pull ups as an example - I've figured out that my weakness is in my forearms/grip. My back is sort of strong, and it's never THAT hard getting out of the bottom. If I'm going to fail in a pullup, it's when the bar is about eye level, when the work shifts from my lats and biceps to primarily my forearms (or at least that's what it feels like - perhaps there are other muscles at work in the last few inches of a pull up, but whatever). SOOOOO...I should be doing lots and lots of pull ups, since, well, that's the only thing that's going to make me better at pull ups. And I should be doing lots and lots of them WHEN IT GETS HARD. (TWSS.)

I am definitely a 95%-er. And this week I've tried to keep that in mind - am I really, REALLY giving this everything I have? Maybe it's helped, maybe it hasn't...but as long as I keep focusing this way, I'm hoping to narrow that suck list WAY down. (TWSS TWSS TWSS.)

And I had eggs for breakfast instead of fruit TWICE this week. I rule.

This week's workouts:

Monday - squat cleans, peak of 2. Learning a new movement was tougher than I expected that it would be. This will eventually be a strong lift for me, I think, because the movement is very, very similar to stunting in cheerleading, which I was good at. So far, it's a lil' ugly since I'm still figuring it all out. 45-65-65-54-54-64-64-74. I would like to up this to at least 100lbs by the end of this strength cycle. Metcon (which I was dreading, since Sunday's thruster/wallball duo left my quads screaming): 3 rounds for time of 50 air squats, short loop run. My quads were like jello at the beginning of every run, but it wasn't so bad. 9:34.

Wednesday - sandbag thrusters and a metcon I consider Sandy Fran's cracked-out cousin.

4 rounds for time of short loop run, 15 sandbag thrusters (80/50), 15 pull ups. Crossfit gods must have sensed my still-screaming quads and had mercy on me - we were able to do this as a partner workout. Talia and I killed it with a great strategy of each doing three reps at a time. We never got too tired and had plenty of short rests throughout.

16:46 with 40lb sandbag, average band for me and light+mini bands for her.

Thursday - missed out on sumo deadlifts (sad face). Gymnastics was AWESOME: back extension rolls, bridge ups to kickover, back limber. Sammy suggested that the next step might just be back handsprings, which would just make my little heart explode with happiness. Finally, FINALLY got a back extension roll where my arms cooperated in pushing up. Metcon: 7 rounds of 7 bridge-ups and 7 inverted burpees. Even ending my inverted burpees in a donkey kick (not even CLOSE to a handstand), this kicked my ass. 17:57. PhillyGuy asked me what a bridge-up looked like when I got home and my shoulders were so shredded I couldn't even do one.

Tonight is BENCH PRESSES (?!) and Lynne (5 rounds of max bench presses (RXed is bodyweight but I'm pretty sure I won't even be close) and max pull ups). This should be interesting.

GBAAAST

2011-09-12T08:41:00.004-04:00

Can you call this "fusion?"

Part imitation-PF Chang-lettuce wrap, part taco.

Chicken, corn, mushrooms, onions, and a whole lot of cumin and chili powder. With a salsa blanket, chillin' in little romaine lettuce boats. These were quite messy to eat, but tasty nonetheless.

With a side of Scrabble. PhillyGuy and I play at least a couple times a week. He always seems to get 7-letter words. I get GBAAAST. Quite unfair.

Yesterday, I went with a bunch of CFCC'ers to the grand opening of a new crossfit affiliate in south Jersey - Crossfit 1Force. They're down in Deptford, near where I went to college. Naturally, I took a bunch of pictures, and naturally, I put them all on my laptop and deleted them from my phone...BUT didn't upload them to picasa, so now that I'm posting from work, I'm SOL. Oh well.

Anyway - 1Force. is. AWESOME. The space is amazing - a high-ceiling warehouse/garage style setup with a massive floor. They have shiny new equipment, a pull up bar with varying heights, a buttload of bars and stacks and stacks and stacks of plates. AND they let us play around with everything and led us in a killer 9/11-themed metcon, AND then we got to watch our coaches and some incredibly strong members do the official 9/11 throwdown workout. AND AND AND we had a paleo feast afterwards, with ribs and chicken and pork and copious amounts of Frank's Red Hot.

As we used to say on the Knot (yes, I frequented that website when planning my wedding oh-so-long ago), TPIWWP (this post is worthless without pictures). I know, I know. So let's just recap the rest of my workouts from this week, huh?

After I left off the other day:

- Thursday - KB skillwork and front squats for a peak set of 3. My form is slowly improving, but I seriously need to focus on doing things RIGHT instead of just being like, "ok imma lift some weight now." 65-85-85-100-110 (!). For a set of three, 110 is a 5lb PR for me. I've done 115 for two but failed every time I've attempted it for three. Soooooo I'll take it. Metcon: Tabata american KB swings. Went RX'ed at 1 pood; 85. The high score of the day was 118 and I seriously do NOT get it.

Stayed for gymnastics. More muscle-up work - GOD this highlights how weak my upper body is compared to my lower body. I have got to work harder on this. I suppose I need to get pull ups first, huh? I did this metcon also, because it seemed fun AND to get the extra muscle-up practice. AMRAP in 15 minutes of 4 jumping muscle- ups, 5 tuck ups, 10 rocking hollows. I did 7 rounds even. I also learned that my body simply does not know how to do a tuck jump unless I do it cheerleading style with the arms and everything. I am sure I looked amazing and not like a jackass AT ALL.

Friday: some brief(ish) skillwork on the good morning and the ab wheel rollout. Which was just fantastic because my abs were quite sore from the 70 rocking hollows I did on Thursday night. Metcon: 3 rounds for time of 600m run (twice around the short loop), 50 good mornings (25lbs), 25 ab wheel rollouts. I scaled the rollouts with some band support, which made all the difference in the world, but sweet jebus did they hurt anyway. My goal was to finish in 21 minutes, but I made it in 21:24...which was sort of frustrating, because I had WAY too much gas left in my tank at the end of the third run. Bah.

Sunday: 9/11 tribute WOD at Crossfit 1Force. AMRAP in 9:11 of 9 DLs (225/155), 11 wallballs (20/14), 9 bar-facing burpees, 11 dumbbell thrusters (35/20), 9 wallball slams (20/14), 11 parallel jumps over bar (1 each side = 1 rep). I went RX'ed on all but the DL's, which I scaled to 135 at the advice of Erin. I completed 1 round + 40 reps, or through the thrusters in the second round. I was SHOCKED at how tough the thrusters were, and how many times I missed reps on the wallballs (by not hitting the wall at all - so, so embarassing).

Make This Chicken

2011-09-08T12:17:00.004-04:00

I know it's not really much to look at, but this chicken is fucking delicious.

And it's so, so simple.

Make this rub:

2.5-ish tsp. salt
4 tsp. paprika
1.5-ish tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. onion powder
2 tsp. thyme
1.5 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper

(adapted from this recipe. I decreased the salt and increased everything else to make a little less than double the amount in the original post. as with most rubs, you can screw around with the proportions to taste.)

(also, please note that I do not, in any way, endorse that forum's reference to "the Neanderthin diet." seriously??)

Pour the rub and a buttload of chicken thighs into a large ziplock bag. Mix it around to coat. I used about 15 chicken thighs and everything fit nicely into a gallon size freezer bag. Let the entire mess sit and marinate overnight.

In the morning, dump into a crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours (I think 6 would have been sufficient, but my crockpot is not flexible and forces me to choose between high for 6, which I think may have dried it out, and low for 8, which was completely fine). You don't need to add any liquid, since the thighs are much juicier than breasts and will produce more than enough in cooking to keep everything nice and moist.

Once this is cooked, give it a stir with a spoon and watch it shred to pieces. Per the original recipe inspiration, this rub would be amazing on a whole roast chicken, though I think I would steer clear of crockpotting a whole chicken (I like the skin to be a little crispy). I used boneless chicken thighs, but I bet bone-in would deepen the flavor. I would NOT substitute chicken breasts - if you are scared of the fattier cuts of chicken and insist on using breasts, grill them instead, or add some kind of liquid (orange juice maybe?).

To give you an idea of quantity, fifteen chicken thighs was about 4.5 pounds total, and yielded enough pulled chicken for PhillyGuy and I to have nice big bowls for dinner last night, PLUS leftovers for three days' worth of lunches for me.

I cannot say it enough. This chicken is fucking delicious.

Recent post-total Crossfit workouts:

- Monday: Sandy Fran. 21-15-9 of thrusters and pull ups. This is a classic Crossfit benchmark workout typically done with a barbell. Instead, we used giant canvas bags of sand. I used a 40lb sandbag and the "average" band. To say that it is awkward to clean a sandbag from the floor is a vast understatement. Also, to say I suck at pull ups is similarly a vast understatement. 13:40 (to give you perspective, a good Fran time is under 5:00. Plenty of people finished Sandy Fran in under 7-8 minutes on Monday). My thrusters were actually fine, once I got the bag up, but after my first five pull ups, I could not string together more than 2-3 at a time. My last three reps took me an entire minute. GAH.

- Wednesday: Christine. Another benchmark workout, and I could not be less thrilled to share my name with her. 3 rounds, for time, of 500m row, 10 deadlifts with 50% max (115), and 21 box jumps (20"). At 18:19, I was the last to finish in my heat by a good couple of minutes and I do not think I could have finished a second sooner. I hate Christine for the same reason I hate racing 5Ks: you need to sprint the ENTIRE time and you never get to hit your stride.

GOAL: SMOKED.

2011-09-04T12:53:00.004-04:00

I killed my goal for the total.

By 35 pounds. (And no, that's not my bar.)

Squat 165. Deadlift 230 (!!). Press 75.

And then I went to costco and restocked on protein and veggies, since I was down to about a quarter of Friday night's rotisserie chicken and a head of romaine.

Now that I have 9 pounds of chicken thighs, 4 pounds of steak and an entire smoked salmon, plus those 24 figs hiding in the back...I'm good for a couple days.

More on the total later. I need to do something about the tumbleweeds of dog fur that have gathered in my corners before they turn on me.

Prepping for the Total

2011-09-03T08:41:00.002-04:00

I am stupid excited - today is the Crossfit Total.

Essentially it's your chance both to find out your true max on three basic lifts (strict overhead press, back squat and deadlift), and to set up some baseline numbers. You have three attempts at each lift, with your heaviest completed lift in each combined to reveal your score.

I dig lifting. I dig finding out what I can do. I'm somewhat conservatively shooting for 435, basing this on a 225 deadlift, 75 press and 135 squat. I do not think 135 is my true max for a back squat, but my form has been awful this week with much lighter weight. Even with a piece of PVC, I find my chest sinking down as I squat. SO...while I think, from my prior squats, I could do more like 155, I'm not going to cry if today's not the day for that. I'd rather focus on doing it right and improving the weight later.

ANYWAY. While in the back of my mind I believe I should hit 450-460 today...I am focusing on making my press and my deadlift heavy, and my squat good. And I am stupid, STUPID excited to both do this myself, AND to watch everyone else kill theirs.

To prep for this, I spent last night hanging out with my dogs, watching Bradley Cooper run around Philadelphia-dressed-up-as-New-York in Limitless, and eating the majority of a rotisserie chicken.

Sophie acted coquettish in the hopes it would make some chicken come her way.

Cosmo reluctantly settled for a bully stick. Neither was impressed by Bradley. Whatever.

I got a buttload of sleep - I don't care if being in bed at 10pm on a Friday night makes me a loser. I only stayed up that late for the dogs' sake, to be honest - I could have crashed at 9 or 9:30. This was a brutal week.

After the pups and I took our usual Saturday morning jaunt, I decided to forego my normal routine of chilling in bed with my laptop in favor of getting down to business with breakfast.

I used kitchen shears to cut two strips of thick-cut bacon into small pieces, directly into the pan. After the bacon started to render, I added half a package of sliced mushrooms and, once the mushrooms were mostly cooked, tossed in a couple big handfuls of baby spinach.

I scrambled the entire mess up with three eggs, some salt and pepper, and called it good.

This paleo thing has been pretty good for me. I truly don't miss bread and dairy at all, though that may be because I give myself a couple of meals a week to eat whatever the F I want. Sometimes that means having Conn's potato chips for dinner.

(As far as I know, they only sell these in the Wheeling, WV/St. Clairsville, OH area. We always had them at my great-grandmother's house when I was a kid, and while I'm willing to bet they're not ACTUALLY that good, the fact that I only get them once a decade, when coupled with the nostalgia factor, makes them FUCKING AMAZING.)

Sometimes that means having a pizza for lunch with my boss. (We tried Serafina at 18th & Sansom this week. I had a pizza with prosciutto and an egg. It was underwhelming.) And pretty much every week, it means I slowly eat a bar of dark chocolate (either 70 or 85% cocoa content) a couple squares at a time over the course of the week.

But in general, I feel good and I am noticeably leaner. If I dialed it in a little more I bet I would shed this fat pretty fast, but I'm liking this whole "hey this takes no effort at all" business.

AND I CANNOT WAIT TO PICK UP SOME HEAVY SHIT TODAY.

How's your Labor Day weekend going? Picking up anything heavy? Performing any other feats of fitness?

that's what she said

2011-08-27T19:59:00.002-04:00

A little mid-Irene blogging.

The dogs don't like severe weather. When I got back from the gym this morning you'd have thought they hadn't seen me in months.

Speaking of which. Oh, crossfit: my suck list is long.

TWSS.

But seriously. I mentioned when I first started at CFCC that crossfit is humbling. Very, very humbling. There are a few things I'm decent at - deadlifts, handstands, some other gymnastics stuff. And there are a bunch of things I'm solid at - squatting (at least I think so - it's been a while since I've really squatted), turkish getups, most other basic lifts.

But the list of things that I'm just NOT good at - or at least not good at yet - is so, SO long.

Burpees (they kill me and they kill me FAST). ROWING (oh my GOD i am so inefficient and uncoordinated). Ring work. Pull ups (I can rep 5 unbroken with a light + mini band...only 3 or 4 without the mini band...and if we're doing them in a metcon I still use the average band). Broad jumps - oh god, these are awful for me. We had a metcon that involved 60' broad jumps and it seriously took me like, 20 jumps to get across each time. And pushups - PUSHUPS! I did like, 4 billion pushups every week for over a year. Little did I know that I was doing them way wrong. Now I do them right and I do them on my knees. And what the hell happened to my running? (Hint: since I started crossfitting I haven't run one time unless it was in a metcon. That is likely why the short run, which was so easy the first time I did it in the onramp, now whoops my ass.)

Le sigh.

As embarassing as it is to be at the bottom of the group - I told Liz on Friday that my only goal was to not have the shortest recorded broad jump of the day, and I BARELY made it - it's nice to have so many areas to improve in. My wrist and forearm strength has increased substantially since I started, which in turn has helped my pullups, other bar work and ring work.

But still. My suck list is long.

This week's workouts (which were designed to let us taper for the Crossfit Total, which has now been pushed forward a week due to hurricane):

Monday: conventional deadlift, very light peak of 1. 115-135-155-185-185. Metcon: for time - 100 meter row, 5 strict pullups, 10 american KB swings, 5 strict pullups, 10 american KBS, 5 strict pullups, 100meter row. 5:27 (1pood/average band).

Tuesday: back squat, v. light peak of 2. 65-85-95-95-95 (WOMP WOMP WOMP. my form sucked). Metcon: 60' burpee sprint ladder, up to 8 burpees. 2:46. Stuck around for gymnastics; worked on handstand walking, and added "rope climb" to my suck list.

Thursday: general work on press, sumo deadlift high pull and front squat, in preparation for the metcon: with about 75% of your max press, 5 rounds for time of 3 strict press, 5 sumo deadlift high pulls and 7 front squats. 6:07 with 60lbs - had to push press the last two rounds. Stayed for gymnastics. worked on rolls (front and back) and ring support.

Friday: broad jump, 4 attempts. 75" (I don't want to talk about it). Metcon: tabata wallball slams for power, 14lb.

Saturday: gymnastics. Bridge ups, kickovers and freestanding handstands. 5 attempts and all I could do was a 2 second hold - but the best time of the day was 5 seconds, so yeah. My bridges are good, but my shoulders are so weak I can't press up with my feet on a box - I need a ton of assistance. Metcon was brutal but fun: 5 rounds for time of 10 handstand kickups to the wall, 10 toes to bar, 10 bridgeups and 10 rocking hollows. This felt strong, even though my toes to bar were more like knees to chest - next time i'm going to try to actually get my toes to the bar, since so far I've just assumed that I can't. 17:21. shoulders fried.

my life, via iPhone

2011-08-22T20:14:00.006-04:00

coffee and dogs and laptop and bed...weekend mornings are the best. Sophie's getting scruffy again.

dogs do NOT appreciate being walked in the rain, but they love their sweet coats.

I LOVE DEADLIFTS.

I also love steak. Costco's prime ribeyes beat the CRAP out of DiBruno's though, and for a couple bucks less per pound. Bah.

This is the real reason I got a nook color: I subscribe to US Weekly, but if anyone comes by I can quickly minimize it and pull up, say, something by Jeannette Winterson and be all like "yeah, I read postmodern literature while getting a pedicure. I find that it relaxes me."

Last week's workouts:

Monday: turkish getups. 2-3 each side, 12kg kettlebell; 2-3 each side, 16kg kettlebell; 15lb bar, 2 each side just to see how it felt (TWSS). Metcon: AMRAP 12 minutes, 2 TGU (one on each side), 30ft overhead walking lunges left, 30ft overhead walking lunges right. 3+2TGU; 1 pood kettlebell.

Tuesday: DEADLIFTS!

Thursday: Gymnastics. Front lever and strict handstand pushups. WOW, these are hard. I did a bunch with the assistance of the "average" band and it whooped me. Metcon was like...four thousand handstand pushups and four thousand strict toes-to-bar, which for me are strict hanging leg extensions.

Saturday: more gymnastics. Brutal ring work, various pieces of a muscle-up - working on false grip, ring support, ring dips and the transition. Metcon was 20 rounds of 5 seconds ring support, ring dip, 5 seconds false grip hang. I had a crapload of trouble falling into a false grip to hang - every single time I thought I was going to get it right and every.single.time I looked up to see my hands gripping the rings normally. I used a mini band for assistance and my left thigh is covered in nasty black bruises from where it kept snapping up and hitting me...at least 17 out of 20 rounds.

I had big plans to do hot yoga on Sunday morning, but I was BEAT.UP from the ring work and ended up taking an extra rest day.

Somebody's Getting Stronger

2011-08-16T21:02:00.003-04:00

Forget what I said about gymnastics. Deadlifts are my favorite.

Miracle number one: I managed to find knee high socks that fit over my gargantuan calves.

(No, seriously. My calves are a good 16.5" around. Tall boots - much like front squats - are my nemesis, and I was concerned I would need to find plus size knee socks.)

I learned quickly to wear something that covers my legs when I do deadlifts, because otherwise you end up with banged up shins. Hence, the three-for-$20ish deal for colorful tube socks at American Apparel.

Miracle number two:

Oh, what's that? Oh, nothing. JUST A NUMBER IN THE 200'S NEXT TO MY NAME.

For the last handful of weeks, I end up running out of time before I get anywhere near my max, so I hadn't been sure exactly what I was capable of with deadlifts. I know they're my strongest lift, and I know my grip starts to get shaky around 160lbs, but that's it. Tonight, I lucked out. I started higher - 95lbs - and made bigger jumps, so I got up to 215 before I had to stop.

95, 125, 155, 195, 215. YES. 215lbs. I'm stupid excited about this.

(Check out Fran and Josh. Now THAT is some deadlifting.)

(Oh, and that 14? It's because I fell out of the same handstand TWICE in 20 seconds. Fail fail fail.)

gymnastics!

2011-08-13T08:41:00.005-04:00

I think I'm addicted to Crossfit gymnastics.

See, I was a cheerleader from middle school through high school. I wanted to keep cheering in college, but I also wanted to have a job (I KNOW RIGHT? WHAT THE FUCK), soooo that was out. (seriously...COME ON. I was so stupid. To anyone debating a similar decision: you have, quite literally, the ENTIRE REST OF YOUR LIFE to work. You do NOT have the entire rest of your life to participate in organized sports/athletics and worry about getting to practice instead of getting to the restaurant for the night shift.)

Senior year of high school:

Anyway. My squad was OK - not great, but we had a lot of fun and we did some decent stuff. Stunting was, hands down, my favorite - I had a pretty strong stunt group. Second to that was jumps and tumbling. Junior and senior year, it was mandatory for us to take tumbling classes. I never really got my back handspring - probably because my abs were less-than-stellar - but I came pretty damn close, and I loved the shit out of roundoffs and handstands and front handsprings and all kinds of stuff like that. I mean, jumping around on a springfloor? Amazing.

So, once you quit cheerleading and DEFINITELY once you get out of college, your opportunities to do things like handstands and roundoffs are infrequent, at best. In fact, if I just ran out in the backyard at my dad's house and started doing what little tumbling I was able to master, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be invited back, and my family would be making fun of me for years.

But then you do something like join crossfit, and you realize that they have gymnastics-focused classes. Some of them are scary and things I am NOT good at (like rope climbs, muscle-ups and other ring work), but some of them are more tumbling-focused.

And for once, I was among the best in the class. Thursday, when we did roundoffs, Sammy asked if I had been a gymnast. HA. No, not so much - but WOW. It was easily the first time in ten years I'd done that kind of thing. And I forgot just how much fun it is to do goofy things like that.

(and also how it uses muscles in ways that you don't typically use them. I was feelin' it in my back and abs yesterday.)

This week's recaps:

Monday: turkish getups. 12kgx2-3; 16kg...2-3 fails and one success on the right; 2-3 fails on the left. was able to complete a TGU on the left, but my arm kept collapsing before i could get back down. metcon: "Hobbit Hole." AMRAP in 10 minutes of 1 TGU (both sides), 5 strict chest-t0-bar pullups. I used the 12kg KB and "average" band; completed 4 rounds + 2TGU. THIS WAS SO FUCKING HARD.

Tuesday: sumo deadlift, sets of 3. 75, 105, 135, 165, 175. metcon: 5 rounds for time, 10 american KB swings/10 pushups. I used the 1 pood (16kg) KB but I think I could have gone RX'ed at 1.5pood (24kg). Time was just under (or just over?) 5 minutes.

Thursday: gymnastics! bridge-ups, cartwheels, roundoffs. metcon: 5 rounds of short run (about .2 miles)/5 roundoff tuck jumps. Roundoff tuck jumps were beautiful. Run was UUUUUUGLY. Dead last in the metcon by a good 2 minutes.

Friday: front squat. My nemesis. Sets of three. warmup w/bar (45x5); 65, 85, 85, 95, 105, 115 (x2, failed on third rep). Blah. Metcon: 3 rounds of short run, for time, with 1:00 rest between. I really thought I'd kill this metcon, since it's what I like - short fast intervals with recovery - but HOLY SHIT it was hard. time (including 2:00 total rest) was 5:09.

Wrestling

2011-08-07T08:33:00.003-04:00

This week's training was a nice balance of "shit I'm good at" and "shit I'm not that good at."

Monday: turkish getup (12kg kettlebell; meh), 50 burpees for time (4:05 - meh)

Tuesday: conventional deadlift, set of three (95, 115, 125, 145, 165, 165 - getting heavier!); tabata box jumps (20# box, not that many jumps - I think 58)

Wednesday: broad jump (77.5" - not so hot); AMRAP in 10 minutes of 60' broad jump, 30 second handstand hold (7 rounds exactly)

Friday: front squat, set of three (75, 95, 105, 115 (failed on third), 85, 85); tabata squats (139)

Things I am decent at: deadlifts, tabata squats, handstand holds. Things I am not great at: broad jump, doing lots of burpees without resting in between, front squat. I suspect I'll be OK at turkish getups next time. But holy shit - between the (really ugly) box jumps and the (less ugly but it takes a million of them to get me 60') broad jumps and the (much better but still brutal) tabata squats, my quads are raging this week.

I'm hitting up my first gymnastics class today. We're scheduled to work on "rolls" (forward? backward? who knows - either way I'm going to have to work my ass off to stand up at the end instead of getting stuck) and freestanding handstands. Which I think I'll be okay at. I'm looking forward to starting to work on handstand pushups, because that seems like a pretty sweet party trick.

Yesterday, PhillyGuy and I trashed our old, sorry-looking shag rug and replaced it with this gorgeous silk oriental-style rug my mom gave us. That involved a lot of rearranging of furniture, and a lot of vacuuming.

The dogs don't really like when we move furniture around, and they REALLY don't trust the vacuum.

But they do like the rug.

It's a great surface for wrestling.

And taking a break.

I know it may be lame, but I love my little dogs.

F Burpees

2011-08-01T20:18:00.004-04:00

I got to spend some quality time with my little girl this afternoon, since Sophie was due for her annual vet visit. We were both impressed with the summertime window display at the vet's office.

Which is nice, because today at CFCC was not pretty.

Skillwork: Turkish getups. 15 minutes to get to a peak of one.

This is a new move for me, so I focused mainly on form and didn't push the weight too much. I started with a shoe (ok, we ALL did), followed by a 10lb dumbbell, 20lb dumbbell and then a 12kg kettlebell (about 26.5 pounds). By the time I hit 12kg, my (weaker) left side started getting a little ugly, so I stayed there and did maybe 3 or 4 on each side. By the last set, I wasn't looking as bad. The surprisingly difficult part is keeping my arm straight and the bell overhead.

And then it was time for the metcon. 50 burpees for time. That sucked and I performed kind of lousy. I started out thinking I'd do 5 sets of 10. I did my first 12 in 33 seconds. I was at 20 within a minute. And then I started to really suffer, and I strung together five at a time...and rested WAY too long between sets. Total time was 4:05. Blah.

My quads were seizing up in the car (thank goodness PhillyGuy came to pick me up) and I felt like I was going to vomit. As soon as we got home I chugged a coconut water...and then chugged another. After about half an hour, I started to feel better.

All that from FOUR MINUTES of effort. And it wasn't even a particularly good effort, compared to the rest of the class - as you can see, only two people finished after me. Sometimes crossfit sucks. And sometimes I suck at crossfit. But it's going to feel damn good to get better.

Goal Setting and Constant PRs

2011-07-31T14:40:00.003-04:00

Today was a beautiful day for a partner metcon.

And a beautiful day to walk there.

One of the great things about starting something new is that you get a PR almost every time you work out. This week's crossfit skillwork:

- Tuesday: Overhead press, peak set of 2. I did 35-45-55-60-65-70. PR over last week's peak of 60 for three (with awful form). Metcon: 5 rounds, max reps of strict OH press (55lbs) followed by max reps of strict (i.e. dead hang, no kipping) pullups. Pull ups are getting a little better, but still not my best.

- Wednesday: Sumo deadlifts, easy peak of 1. I did 95-115-135-155-165. Having never done a sumo deadlift before, this was an automatic PR, and also 30 pounds over last week's peak of 135 for a standard deadlift. Metcon: 100m row, three attempts. My time improved from 26.8 seconds to 22.4 seconds over the three attempts. I SUCK AT ROWING.

- Friday: Back squats, peak set of 2. 45-65-85-95-105-115-125. PR over prior peak of 85 for 3 (with bad, but not awful, form). Metcon: tabata weighted planks. (Fuck that. 8 sets of 20 second planks, 10 seconds rest, with a 25lb plate on my back.)

- Sunday: team workout. Burpee sprints, tuck sits and rowing 10 minutes.

Sprinting is strong for me. Rowing is not.

Anyway. Every week so far I've been able to improve my peak set. This is due to two things: one, I don't know what I'm capable of, so I start low and run out of time before I can get really heavy. Two, I started with kind of lame form in most of the big lifts, so my strength is improving exponentially as my form improves.

Friday's back squats are a perfect example of this. Two weeks ago I did back squats for a peak (i.e., fast out of the bottom, not your max) of three. I started with the bar, but had to repeat weights a few times throughout the workout because I wasn't keeping my abs tight, or I wasn't going deep enough, so I didn't have time to get above 85lbs. Friday, with a somewhat smaller class and a much better sense of how the weight was going to feel, my form was much better and I had time to get in a ton of sets. I'm confident I could have done at least 135 or 145 without my speed suffering, but seven sets is a lot of sets, so Liz had me stop.

While it's lots of fun killing my prior weights every single time, it makes it a lot more difficult to set goals. I don't know what to focus on, what's reasonable or easy or arbitrary or foolish. I need to get some insight on this, because I'm really interested in what my potential is.

How do you set your first goals with something new?

Wherein I Admit to Eating Paleo

2011-07-30T21:05:00.004-04:00

It's been a decent week in my world.

Work has been manageable, my dogs have been well-behaved, and I've had...well, not VISUAL confirmation, but, say, pants-confirmation, that my cleaned-up diet and new crossfit addiction has been doing some good.

I haven't posted much in the way of meals lately, and I haven't really discussed my diet at all. Part of it is due to my general forgetfulness when it comes to taking pictures, but a great deal of it is due to my reluctance to publicly announce that I'm trying out something new in the nutrition world when I'm not sure I'm actually going to like it - or stick with it. I hate the idea of looking like a bandwagon-jumper, and I definitely hate the idea of having my failure to commit to something plastered all over teh internets.

But things have gone well, so here I am. Publicly admitting that I've been eating paleo.

As with Crossfit, I'm going to direct you to Fitbomb if you're interested in reading up on the what and - more importantly - why of Paleo. He has an excellent, excellent page which does a great job of boiling down the underlying science.

In short, I'm eating a lot of meat and veggies and probably more fruit than I should. I haven't eaten dairy for several weeks, and I've even cut out peanut butter. I do have one or two "cheat meals" each week where I eat whatever - that might mean a few chunks of bread or (god help me) some Oreos at my dad's house for Sunday dinner, or a huitlacoche quesadilla at El Rey on date night with PhillyGuy.

But typically? I buy a rotisserie chicken every weekend, wait for it to cool and then tear that sucker up. (I get far more meat off of it using my hands than a fork and knife - I'm classy like that, what can I say. And probably more historically accurate.) That chicken forms the basis for most of my lunches during the week. Breakfast is fruit (peaches, berries, whatever) and a big dollop of almond butter. I eat a lot of salads made with romaine, shredded chicken, tomatoes and guacamole. And I eat plenty of bacon and eggs on the weekends.

I knew I wouldn't miss grains and beans, but I thought it was going to be tough giving up dairy, for sure. I mean, I went through a costo-size container of Fage by myself every week, and I had acquired a taste for half n half in my coffee over the past year or so. And let's not get started on cheese. But - shockingly - this has been one of the easiest dietary changes I've ever made.

Take tonight's dinner for example.

I made stuffed peppers using ground turkey and beef (about 50/50 - 12 ounces of each), chopped onion, tomato paste, salt, pepper and some herbs (random mix of basil, parsley, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, and thyme).

I thought for sure this would be missing something without a pile of grated Locatelli on it. I even thought about putting some on there and calling it a "cheat meal," since we're skipping family dinner tomorrow night in favor of steaks at home. But I figured - nah, not going to be worth it - and went without. And I didn't miss it...at all.

Here's what I've observed since adapting my diet:

- I am, for sure, losing fat. I don't know how much, because I haven't taken measurements and I don't weigh myself. I know I'm still not at my law school weight or anything like that, but I FEEL different. And my clothes fit better. And I'm definitely seeing more definition in my arms.

- I do NOT miss dairy at all. I really thought I would.

- What I miss the most is hummus. Yeah, I know. I get over it pretty quickly since guacamole is also delicious on a salad (and on chicken and on pretty much everything else in the world), but...yup.

- Berries and almond butter keep me far more satisfied than berries and yogurt.

- I feel really good and almost never get cravings. I also don't feel the need to eat as frequently, which is a miracle in and of itself since I'm a constant snacker. I rarely feel my usual "OMGNEEDTOEAT" at 3pm.

- If you drink a beet juice, you will think you're peeing blood. But you're not. It's because you drank beet juice.

(Okay, that last one doesn't have much to do with paleo. But it's true.)

All in all, I like this enough to publicly commit to it. And I will be really farking embarassed in three months if I've abandoned it.

Barefoot Metcon

2011-07-24T15:06:00.004-04:00

Today was my first-ever team/partner metcon at CFCC. On the board:

In teams of 3, for time:

- 50 handstand pushups (if no HSPU, assisted HSPU or regular pushups)

- 100 deadlifts (225/135)

- 150 pullups

- 200 box jumps (24"/20")

Reps could be split up any way we wanted, but only one person could work at a time, and each exercise had to be completed before we moved on to the next task.

There was six teams. One went completely Rx'ed, four went "as Rx'ed as possible," and then my little beginner team went super-scaled. Regular pushups, 75lb deadlifts, and we used a band from the start to assist our pull ups.

I had started the day feeling awfully pleased with myself, because PhillyGuy and I managed to get up and out of the house with enough time to hit Costco, Target, Wegmans AND Starbucks and still have me at CFCC by 11:45. I felt slightly less self-congratulatory when I realized I forgot a headband.

I did the metcon barefoot, which actually wasn't that bad. I was a little wigged out at first doing barefoot box jumps, but I quickly got over it and got into a decent groove.

Since I'm strongest at deadlifting, I did 50 while my two teammates did 25 each. We started the pullups with the plan of doing splits of 10 each, but I quickly realized that was beyond my capabilities. Leila rocked the pullups, knocking out at least 10 at a time, while Tina and I kicked in 5-7 each for our turns. A little more than halfway through, we had to add a second resistance band, which made the last chunk of pull ups much easier.

All together, we did it in just over 23 minutes. Even with our crazy scaling, I was dripping with sweat by the end. My hair was soaked with sweat and probably spraying whoever was unfortunate enough to be nearby, since I had nothing to contain it. My forearms were seizing up. My shins are tender and will likely be bruised by the end of the day. And my feet - well, they're filthy.

But holy crap that was fun. I think I'll show up on Sundays more often.

When I got home, I wasn't starving, but I was very aware that it was almost 2pm and all I'd consumed all day was two iced coffees and a pecan pie larabar. I chugged a coconut water while making myself some bacon and eggs.

Three eggs, seasoned with Traders Joes 21 Seasoning Salute and scrambled, covered with salsa. Hard to see are the two slices of bacon I tore into pieces and tossed under the eggs. Not pictured is the last of my (very oxidized) guacamole that I mostly ate with a fork, but sort of topped my eggs with.

I just might spend the next 45 minutes or so joining Sophie in my bed.

...but before I do, quick recap of this week's workouts:

- Monday - front squats at CFCC. Peak set was 85lbs for three. Metcon: five sets, for time, of 5 front squats at 50% of weight from skillwork, followed by 100ft sprints. Time: 6:23, squatting 45lb bar.

- Tuesday - kettlebell swings and strict presses. 60lbs for three - nasty form. Skipped the metcon because I tweaked something in my left hip flexor between Sunday's hot yoga, Monday's squats and Tuesday's KB swings, so I took a lacrosse ball to it while I watched everyone else do three rounds of single-armed KB presses, american KB swings and double-unders.

- Wednesday - deadlifts and "neural recharge." Easy sets of 1 - I worked up to 135. I aspire to pull at LEAST 200lbs for my max by the end of the summer...let's see if I can get there in a month. Metcon - 6 sets of single-armed medball throws. 30 seconds weak arm, 30 seconds strong arm, 30 seconds rest. I used a 15-lb ball.

- Saturday - hot yoga. Tough and frustrating but still felt good afterwards.

- Sunday - partner workout at CFCC. 23:something, super-scaled, and we earned every second of it.

I'm really liking this whole CrossFit business. I picked up a jumprope for $5 at Target this morning to practice (read: attempt) double-unders.

ouch.

2011-07-17T23:13:00.003-04:00

i am SORE.

Friday was back squats - I didn't go over 85lbs, but, well, my form kind of sucked and since I had a light weight (i.e., just the bar) for the metcon, I did a bajillion of them. Over 60 during the metcon and probably 5-6 rounds of five during the class.

As a side effect, the back of my neck is bruised from the several sets I did with improper bar placement. AND the FRONT of my neck is sore - the muscles in my freaking neck are sore - which PhillyGuy speculates is an extension of my form. He's probably right.

Handstands yesterday went well. Forward rolls less so, sort of, since I got stuck at the bottom of nearly all of them during the metcon. So I have a bruised lower back from that.

And - I'm just freakin' sore. During yoga today, we had what felt like the longest warrior sequence imaginable. Warrior one to two to reverse warrior back to two, and then some extended side angle, and I think maybe some twists in there, though that might have been another sequence. While it probably took less than 120 seconds per side, holding my lunge felt impossible.

Tomorrow's skillwork is front squats. Metcon is going to involve sprints and squats. The idea of doing more work with my tender legs is beyond me...

...but I could learn to clean.

So.

Should I be patient - since I will clearly have many more opportunities to learn to clean - and not push my sore legs?

Or should I just suck it up, foam roll like a good girl, and figure that by the time 6:30 rolls around tomorrow, I'll have all of the strength I need to get this done?

(Patience is not my best virtue. And I'm never sure when I'm making an excuse [which, believe me, I make PLENTY of] or when I'm being appropriately cautious.)

in the meantime...ouch.

Steak Night

2011-07-16T09:06:00.002-04:00

Friday night in my house is frequently steak night.

And not just steak - it's the best night ever, because I get to sit on my couch in sweatpants, eat steak AND watch Ghost Adventures on the travel network.

(Side note: does anyone else watch that show? What is the DEAL with Zack Bagans? He looks like the skinny nerd from high school who read a book on how to be awesome, but can't quite get the execution right. He's kind of jacked, but he carries it awkwardly, and OMG OMG THOSE SHIRTS I CANNOT LIVE.)

I had a couple of sweet potatoes to use up, so I made some "fries." I sliced them up lazy-style, into rounds:

And gave them a bath in olive oil, chili powder, cinnamon, paprika, cayenne pepper and kosher salt.

I baked/roasted them for about 20 minutes at 425, along with some broccoli, while PhillyGuy manned the grill.

I LOVE STEAK NIGHT.

As a second bonus, PhillyGuy spent some time in Gettysburg yesterday, so he was able to replenish our (pathetic little) fruit supply. This week's treats included a buttload of cherries...

...some super-fat blackberries...

and a bunch of peaches.

All of which I dumped into a bowl for breakfast this morning along with a giant dollop of almond butter.

CrossFit Update:

So, I finished my six On-Ramp classes, and last night was my first "big girl" CrossFit session. Here's a recap of the skills I picked up in On-Ramp:

- Overhead squats (no weight yet) - metcon involved one-armed overhead squats and burpees

- Russian kettlebell swings - metcon involved KB swings and goblet squats

- One-armed KB press, double-unders (disclaimer: I have not actually 'picked up" this skill yet, and have yet to really do a double-under) - metcon involved presses and single-unders

- Pullups (WOMP WOMP WOMP) - metcon involved tabata pullups, pushups and air squats

- DEADLIFTS - metcon involved short runs and deadlifts

- more deadlifts (no weight) and broad jumps - metcon involved broad jumps and medball slams

Last night's session focused on the back squat. Since it was my first time squatting with anything besides, well, nothing or a broomstick, the focus was mainly on form. I did probably five or six sets of 5 squats, building up to 85 pounds. I could have gone heavier if I wasn't so sloppy...yet another reason to work on my abs.

Metcon was three sets of AMRAP in 60 seconds of back squats, pushups and knees to elbows. Squats were definitely my strength in this - I got to use only the bar, and was able to do close to 30 squats in the first round and still managed to do more than 20 squats each of in the second and third. Pushups were OK, but it should come as no surprise that my weak point was knees to elbows. MY GRIP STRENGTH BLOWS.

I'm probably going to hit up this morning's on ramp class - I'm not limited to onramps anymore, but they're working on handstand and handstand pushups, both of which I'm eager to learn. In the meantime, I've been googling "how to build grip strength" and let me tell you, I've found some fascinating contraptions out there.

Happy Saturday!

REDEMPTION

2011-07-10T10:33:00.002-04:00

thank god.

I was up early(ish) yesterday, and had plenty of time before crossfit to make breakfast. Of course, I didn't have much in the way of, you know, breakfast food. I knew I wanted eggs.

Delicious, over-easy eggs.

I improvised while the eggs were frying and ended up heating up the last of a rotisserie chicken I had pulled apart over the last week, dumping the eggs on top, pouring on a bunch of corn and black bean salsa, and mixing everything together.

At the last minute, I threw a handful of grape tomatoes on the side and called it good.

So, my fifth On Ramp class was at 11am yesterday. I was feeling a little disheartened after Thursday's pullup disaster, so I was happy to see that the WOD focused on a couple of (what I thought were) my strengths: short runs and deadlifts. My legs are definitely stronger than my upper body.

And halfway through the skillwork, I got to hear the eight most beautiful words in the english language:

"You're gonna be really good at this lift."

Skillwork was to build up to an easy set of three deadlifts, and then take it down by half for the WOD. We started to run out of time, but based on how my last three at 95lbs felt, I think I'd have been easily able to do 135lbs for the easy set of three. My form was good and I felt strong - which was so, SO refreshing after hanging there helplessly like a fish on the pullup bar the other day.

WOD was fabulous. Three rounds for time of "the short run" - a loop around the block that I estimate to be about .17~ish miles (not sure - definitely more than a tenth but less than a quarter mile) followed by 10 deadlifts. I lifted 95lbs for the WOD. Looking back, I could probably have pushed myself more on the runs - my hamstrings were burning on the last two - but I finished sweating and feeling good in 6:07.

Post-crossfit refreshment:

I felt completely redeemed in that class and I can't wait to go back. Yay crossfit.

Like the other night, I came home starving and craving something cool and refreshing. I threw together a quick salad with the last of what I had in the fridge - cucumber, tomatoes, olives and peppers, with some feta cheese.

Topped with my last two salmon burgers. Time to go back to Costco.

How's your weekend?

Humbling

2011-07-08T17:28:00.004-04:00

Let me tell you what I liked and hated most about Thursday's class at CFCC.

Ho.Lee.Shit. It was humbling.

See, I decided to check out crossfit because it seemed fun. Lots of emphasis on functional movements, heavy weights and short, intense spurts of hard freakin' work. And I felt like, hey, I'll be good at this! Maybe not number one immediately, but I'll be good at this - I'm naturally kinda strong and I'm in decent shape.

On Tuesday, our focus was on double-unders (which I knew I was not going to be good at - coordination, she is not my strong suit), and one-armed shoulder presses (which I know I am OK at). I felt strong through the shoulder presses in the WOD, and - blessedly - was able to jump rope - at least the single-unders - without looking like a complete moron. I was happy.

And then I saw that pull-ups were on the schedule for Thursday. And I'm like, PSHHH. I can't do a bodyweight pull-up (yet), but I've worked up to one or two in a row with only 20 or 30lbs counterweight on the assisted pullup machine in our gym, and I regularly do anywhere from 6-8 sets of 8-12 pullups each with a 50 or 60lb counterweight at least once a week. So I figured I'd be solid through this class, and I was excited.

And then it was time for class. And I couldn't even hang from the bar with my palms facing in - my grip strength sucks, and my wrists were killing me. So I had to "hang" with one foot on the box.

And then I did some pullups. And I had to use a resistance band to assist me, which was OK. I came pretty close to getting a solid pullup with a "mini" band, which made me pretty happy. And then it was time for the WOD.

We did tabata work. For the uninitiated (like me), that is interval work: twenty seconds of balls-to-the-wall work, followed by ten seconds of rest. We repeated eight times each for a total of three rounds of different moves. So, eight times twenty seconds of all of the pushups you can do. Eight times twenty seconds of all of the pullups you can do. And then eight times twenty seconds of all of the (unweighted) squats you can do.

For my first pullup interval, I was like - this is cake. I did, I don't know, maybe seven or eight pullups that round. And then my grip started to fail - REAL bad. I could barely eke out three pullups each round after that - not because my back couldn't handle it, but because my wrists and forearms were killing me. I failed halfway up for what feels like a thousand pullups each round.

And here's the thing - most of the other people in my class don't suck at pullups. And I didn't think I sucked at pullups. I expected to be right up in there with the rest of them. And I wasn't. I don't suck, but the way that I've been training so far has really hidden the extent of my weaknesses.

Thankfully, the next on-ramp class has us scheduled to work on deadlifts. I am hoping and praying that my legs are as strong as I think they are, and that I'm able to redeem myself a little bit.

All this to say - holy shit. Crossfit is awesome. I do like it and I'm glad I joined - both because it's straight up fun, and because it's bringing me down to earth in terms of what my actual abilities are.

That, and I can't wait to get a real pullup.

Kettlebells 1, Chrissey 0

2011-07-01T10:02:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I love my job is that, once in a while, when I've been busting my butt or have had a particularly brutal stretch, my boss insists that I take a day off.

So, here I am, sitting on my couch at 10am in my sweats with my dogs. I'm getting ready to get out and get my hair cut, nails done, and maybe pick up some stuff at the Fourth of July sales. This is totally worth the nuttiness of this month.

I got to make eggs this morning, since I didn't have anywhere to be:

Scrambled eggs with red/orange/yellow peppers, portobello mushrooms, grape tomatoes, turkey lunch meat, salsa and plain greek yogurt.

Last night's skill work at crossfit was Russian kettlebell swings. They're supposed to look like this:

When I got there, I was assigned a 12kg kettlebell. That's the smallest, lightest weight they have. All of the girls in the class got 12kg bells; the guys got 16kgs. I looked at that little thing on the ground and I was like "PSHHHH, that's going to be way too light. This is going to be easy."

False. I'm super uncoordinated, so it took most of the skillwork period and half the metcon to figure out exactly how to put together the swing and the hip thrust. I'm still not really sure what my legs are supposed to be doing in the bottom of the swing. And because my abs are pretty weak, I arch my back a TON at the top of the swing. Which means my lower back freakin' HURTS this morning.

Metcon was five rounds of as many reps as possible ("AMRAP") in 1 minute each of kettlebell swings, goblet squats, and then rest...blissful rest. So, swing like a mofo for 60 seconds, squat like a mofo for 60 seconds, and rest for 60 seconds...and then do it four more times.

My rep count was good (218 reps total, including both swings and squats, for all five rounds), but my form for the swings BLEW until the last couple of rounds. Which is probably why I was able to do so many. Squats were my stronger move - my legs are pretty diesel. But my grip strength SUCKS, and by the second or third round I had to put the kettlebell down a few times to shake out my wrists and hands.

Once again, 14 minutes of "real work," and I was pouring sweat and ready to collapse. This crossfit thing is no joke. I definitely need to work on my abs - my back strength is OK, but my abs are much, much weaker. Looks like I know what I'll be doing on my non-class days.

Time to get out and enjoy my day of freedom! Happy holiday weekend!

Camera Dump

2011-06-30T08:46:00.002-04:00

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

2011-06-28T21:38:00.003-04:00

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

2011-06-26T20:57:00.003-04:00

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

2011-06-18T09:21:00.004-04:00

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?

2011-06-05T09:24:00.002-04:00

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!")

Last-Minute Dinner

2011-05-07T13:34:00.003-04:00

On Friday of this week, I learned I'd be hosting Mother's Day dinner - my mom lives out of state and I found out at the last minute she'd be coming in.

I figured we'd grill steaks. There would be seven of us, and PhillyGuy makes a mean steak.

On Friday around noon, I learned that it would NOT be seven people. I learned that it would, indeed, be more like SIXTEEN people. Now, I like my family and everything, but I'm not doing steak for sixteen. Cost factor aside, I only have "grown up" seating for eight. Ten, if I drag the kitchen table in to hang out in the same vicinity as my (pub-height) dining room table...twelve if I borrow chairs from someone to add onto the kitchen table. And I only have eight steak knives. So, unless you can cut steak with a butter knife while sitting on the couch, steak is out for this crowd.

Instead, I figured we'd do burgers. I make a delicious hamburger (just soy sauce and brown sugar to season the meat - that's it, and it tastes AMAZING), and that's something you can eat on the couch without the aid of a grown-up knife. A more casual meal will let me keep my kitchen table in the kitchen, where I can use it the way I typically do when we have dinner parties - as a beverage station.

So now I need to fill out the rest of the menu. Here's what I'm thinking:

Appetizers:

Tortilla/pita chips with two kinds of dip (probably hummus and salsa)

Baby carrots and celery

OhSheGlows Canadian Beer Nuts (I make these almost every time we have people over or go somewhere)

Spiedies

Dinner:

Burgers

Hot dogs

Bacon mac & cheese (my mom is making this - I am assuming it's going to be unreal)

Salad (something simple - probably romaine, grape tomatoes, red onion and cucumber with oil, rice vinegar and garlic)

Dessert:

Fruit with homemade whipped cream

Something else (??????????)

Coffee

I'm not sure whether my brother's girlfriend will be bringing a dessert or an appetizer, but as of now I'm thinking I'll just make brownies or blondies quickly if no one brings a dessert. I have everything on hand and blondies, in particular, are really quick to mix up - I can even pull the butter straight from the freezer.

My family is big into appetizers and pre-dinner munching. With that in mind, plus such a heavy side (bacon mac & cheese!?!) with the burgers, I'm pretty sure a salad will be more than enough to fill everything out.

In the meantime, my house needs some real cleaning, and I need to squeeze in a run (or, more realistically, a fairly short but intense run followed by some time on the good ol' recumbent bike). Not to mention some dog park time so that crazy Sophie is less like this:

and more like this:

Happy Saturday everyone!

PhillyGirlNeverRuns

2011-04-30T21:06:00.003-04:00

that's what i should rename this blog. Or maybe "PhillyGirlNeverF!@kingRuns&isSuperBitterAboutIt."

It's been a nutty week. We road tripped it back home on Sunday and spent most of the evening getting everything in order to get back to the real world on Monday.

LOVE road trip snacks. I definitely had my fill of "junk food" on vacation, so I was ready to get back to eating normal stuff. And yes, beef jerky - in all of its sodium-laden beauty - is "normal" for me.

Between catching up on what went on while I was gone, addressing a couple of minor emergencies, managing a closing that I had hoped - foolishly - would happen while I was gone, and having one major crisis on Thursday (yes, I did actually cry at work. in my office. while my boss was there. don't worry, she offered me Crown Royal), this week was exhausting. I managed to work out pretty regularly, and the beautiful weather made my commute very calming - thank goodness.

Honestly, I think those two things - a gorgeous commute and regular sweat sessions - are the only two things that kept me from collapsing on Thursday. I was mentally and emotionally exhausted, and all I wanted was comfort food. So, I came home, put on my bedazzled Phillies sweatpants, and ordered my new favorite takeout - a chicken kabob salad with feta cheese from the pizza place across the street.

Not pictured is the enormous styrofoam vat of hummus I ordered with my salad. I mean, come on. I cried at work. Do you think I was really going to soothe that with lettuce? I ate just about the entire order of hummus, between dipping my chicken in it, dipping my veggies in it, and just flat out dipping my fork in it.

But hey - it wasn't an entire pizza.

All of this was further complicated by the fact that Broad Street was coming up. I've mentioned before that my knee started bothering me right around the time I registered. And true to form, I've been short-sighted and I've kept myself from healing by continuing to run a couple times a week, 3-4 miles at a shot, with plenty of intervals and speedwork. It's satisfying, in the short term. It gives me a good sweat, releases some endorphins, and helps me stay sane. But I never felt 100% and I never did long runs, since I'd inevitably start one and punk out at 4 or 5 miles, when my IT band or my patella started to hurt.

I didn't want to admit to myself that there was no way I could get in shape for this race. Could I have finished the ten miles? Probably. Would I have been risking a much more serious injury? Also probably. Would I have been hard on myself for running at a pace likely 90 seconds over my goal pace? Definitely. Am I going to be hard on myself tomorrow, when I'm down at Broad & South with my camera, looking for my friends? Well...I'm going to try not to be.

And maybe next time I won't be so shortsighted. In the meantime, I spent 20 sweaty minutes on the bike today, followed by a shoulder-and-arm-blasting session of P90X that left me totally smoked. And now it's time to settle in for some Ghost Adventures, a sleeping Sophie and a bowl of roasted veggies, chicken and marinara sauce.

Good luck tomorrow, Broad Streeters! Look for me at South Street!

More Grilling

2011-04-23T12:20:00.003-04:00

and a confession.

First the grilling. One of my favorite summertime meals - spiedies.

While PhillyGuy manned the grill, I chopped up a bunch of brussels sprouts and half a sweet onion, tossed with olive oil, kosher salt and pepper.

While those roasted up, I made myself a fairly simple salad.

Romaine, red pepper, cucumber, and some olives mixed with chunks of feta and an olive oil/vinegar mixture that I picked up at the grocery store. Since I didn't bring my favorite vinegar to make a salad dressing, I relied on the oil from the olive mix to flavor the salad - which it did just fine.

I topped my salad with a bunch of spiedies.

For those unfamiliar, these are an upstate New York (well, Binghamton area - which is really not at all "upstate") tradition. It's just marinated chunks of chicken breast, but I can't quite replicate the marinade at home, so we stock up like crazy whenever we visit PhillyGuy's parents.

And now the confession.

This entire vacation, I've been scared to run.

This is kind of embarrassing. I brought plenty of workout clothes. Duck has a great path running along the main drag which is perfectly shady in the mornings. I have my shoes. I have my industrial-strength sports bras. My knee hasn't been bothering me at all, and I've been routinely running a couple times a week - not much, maybe 3-4 miles of intervals or repeats at a pop, but still.

Every day on vacation, I've told myself that I am going to start the day with a run. A short one or a long one, it didn't matter - I intentionally left my Garmin at home, figuring it would be a nice break to just put on my shoes and GO without worrying about time or distance.

And every day, I get nervous and make an excuse as to why it's not a good day for a run. Why am I nervous? I honestly don't know. I usually don't feel like going right away when I wake up, and then later in the day, when I DO feel like going, I talk myself out of it, rationalizing that it's gotten sunny and hot(ter), or that my husband wants to hang out. As if I couldn't even do 30 minutes or so, or as if 75 degrees is unbearably hot for a run.

I don't get this at all. I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself, and hoping that I just snap out of it in a couple of hours or days or whatever. But I don't like this feeling, at ALL.

Whew. Got that out. Now to enjoy our last day of vacation.

Puppy Ice Cream

2011-04-21T13:54:00.002-04:00

We started this morning off with P90X yoga. As I mentioned before, I've been regularly going to hot yoga...not a ton, but I've managed to go once a week. Taking classes again has helped me tremendously - my form is much better, which means that, in turn, many of the poses are more difficult. I'm happy about it, because it means that I'm doing it right, but it's also freakin' BRUTAL when I'm in the middle of it.

P90X yoga is challenging in general - about 45 minutes of tough moving asanas, lots of warrior sequences and chest opening poses, followed by another 45 minutes of balance postures and abs (in Horton-speak, the "yoga belly 7"). I broke almost as much of a sweat moving through this in our OBX living room as I do in the 90-degree studio at Philly Power Yoga, and I got through the tough poses by reminding myself that the only way it would ever get easier is if I pushed through.

And then I made bacon for breakfast.

Delicious, expensive, Whole Foods bacon.

Around noon, I suggested to PhillyGuy that we take the pups for a nice long walk, since (not unlike us) they've been spending much of the vacation like this:

But, as luck would have it, as soon as we set foot out the front door, it started raining.

So instead of a nice long walk, we packed the dogs into the car and drove about a mile down the road to get some ice cream.

I had cookie dough.

(Side note: how is that a small? I could eat 47 conch fritters, but I couldn't even finish half of this ice cream. I hit my capacity with sweet stuff WAY faster than I do with salty/savory.) The pups got to share some plain vanilla.

Sophie loves ice cream, but (kind of like me) loses interest quickly.

Cosmo, on the other hand?

He never gets bored with it.

(Okay, Mom...one more little bite.)

We're back at the house, I'm snuggled in my sweats and we're getting ready to spend the rest of this rainy afternoon playing scrabble. Yeah, I'm that awesome.

Sunset Grille

2011-04-20T15:33:00.004-04:00

I can't say it enough - the Outer Banks were SUCH a great idea.

I've been waking up between 6:45 and 7:30 each morning - no alarm, just naturally - and taking the dogs for their morning constitutional. We're probably half a mile or so away from the beach, which is just fine with my pups - it probably won't shock you to hear that the same dog who is afraid of the backyard is also afraid of the ocean.

After our walk, I pour myself a giant glass of iced coffee - I made a pot our first night here and then chilled it in the fridge, rather than my usual method of relying on starbucks Via and cold water - and then hang in bed catching up on the internets indefinitely.

Tuesday, PhillyGuy and I started the morning off with some P90X Chest & Back. As a refresher, here's what that entails:

Standard Push-ups (for me - 12-15, on knees)

Wide Front Pull-ups (8-10 on the assisted pullup machine with a 70lb counterweight, OR 15 "pullups" using a resistance band stuck on the top of a doorframe)

Military Push-ups (12, on knees)

Reverse Grip Chin-ups (narrow grip, palms facing in - 8-10 on assisted pullup machine, 70lb counterweight, OR 15 "pulls" using the band)

Wide Fly Push-Ups (12-15, on knees)

Closed Grip Overhand Pull-ups (narrow grip, palms out - same as the others, 8-10 pullups or 15 "pulls" with the band)

Decline Push-ups (I still cannot do more than one of these, so I do what I can, followed by 8 "real" pushups here)

Heavy Pants (two-armed back rows - I do 10 with 20-lb dumbbells)

Diamond Push-ups (hands spread and close together with thumbs/forefingers forming a diamond under your chest - 12, on knees)

Lawnmower (single-armed back row in a side lunge - I do 10-12 on each side with a 25-lb dumbbell)

Dive Bomber Push-ups (downward dog to upward dog and back again - the booklet describes it best, "like going back and forth underneath a fence." this is murder on my shoulders. I do about 6 before failing and finishing with 8-10 standard pushups)

Back Flies (8-10 with 10lb dumbbells)

...then repeat the entire set. Since we're traveling, we don't have access to a gym, and brought our resistance band instead. I strongly prefer doing the back exercises with the pullup bar and dumbbells, but the band is better than nothing. We followed that up with the super-toolbox-titled Ab Ripper X DVD, which involves 15 minutes or so of ab and hip flexor burning in the form of 25 reps each of the following:

In & Outs (standard crunching movement, starting in a V with legs bent and back straight, then extending legs while leaning back)

Seated Bicycle (forward and reverse for about 30 seconds each)

Crunchy Frog (hate this name - it's basically In & Outs, but with arms up, extending to the sides while you extend your legs and wrapping around to the front when you bring your knees in)

Wide Leg Sit-ups (laid out flat with legs wide, full sit-up followed by a twist over to one foot, repeat)

Fifer Scissors (lay back, one leg straight up at 90 degrees, the other hovering over the group - switch every couple seconds)

Hip Rock n’ Raise (too stupid to describe, but it burns - see video here)

Pulse Ups (laid back, legs up at 90 degrees, raise hips straight up)

V-up Roll-up (blah blah blah - full situp followed by V-up, repeat)

Oblique V-ups (side crunches)

Leg Climbs (here's the hip rock & raise dude doing leg climbs)

Mason Twist (these make me really, really dizzy, so I replace with static oblique holds - laying flat on my back, with my legs held over to one side a foot or so off the ground. I switch every 10 "mason twists")

It felt really, really good to get a decent sweat in...before I proceeded to spend the next several hours napping and watching TV. Yup, that's right.

Later that evening, we headed down Route 12 to the Sunset Grille for a couple beers and some snacks.

The view truly can't be beat...

...but I wasn't expecting too much of the food.

And I wasn't let down.

I started off with a Fat Tire while we waited for our conch fritters and jerk wings to come out.

After that, I got excited about the prospect of some nice, simple steamed seafood, so I got a raw/steamer combo of crab legs, peel & eat shrimp, oysters and clams. The shrimp were really tasty and the crab legs were decent, but please explain to me WHAT I was thinking when I ordered raw oysters from a place that serves fruity rum drinks in plastic parrots.

Ew.

Thankfully, I'm none the worse for the wear. And really...the view WAS awesome.

Duck Continues

2011-04-20T15:26:00.003-04:00

Vacation is great.

I get to drink plenty of vino - a random $10 bottle recommended by the kid at the little wine shop down the street.

And - since wine isn't particularly good at quenching thirst - plenty of Pepsi Max on the side.

Bringing your own food means that you pare down to the very basics.

Beautiful weather means your husband grills (and reads a giant textbook while he's at it).

It means multiple levels of deck to sit out on - each one with its own type of furniture.

Steak and roasted green beans, mushrooms and onions?

Okay, fine.

Not a bad first night.

Duck

2011-04-18T14:24:00.002-04:00

Sophie doesn't like vacation.

We rented a house with a big, fenced-in backyard specifically so the dogs could run and run and run.

Preferably while PhillyGuy and I sat in the hot tub.

Turns out Sophie's scared of the Outer Banks. And this house. And the backyard. And the hot tub.

Let's hope she gets used to it.