GBAAAST

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).

F Burpees

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.

Kettlebells 1, Chrissey 0

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!