hmmmmmm.

Four day weekend?  Yes, I think I will.

Hoping for some of these:

over this

I LOVE SPIEDIES.

Been thinking hard about my training lately and where I want to take things.  I've made my back squat goal already - and I know I have more in me.  I pulled 265 for two deadlifts today and it felt decent - I'm hitting 300 next week.  I've brought my Fran time down substantially.  I can run much faster than I could when I was running all the time.  I look pretty damn good in little-ass shorts and knee socks.

(Not quite as good as Sly does though).

I feel happy and healthy and lean and focused.  So now what?  Get super-SKRONG?  Try to lean out and get super-fast?  Switch my focus to oly and maybe do a competition?  Run another half?  This whole "being athletic" thing is still relatively new to me, you know.  Aside from high school cheerleading, I haven't done any kind of competitive athletics since I was a kid - and when I was a kid, I was pretty slow and fat.  When I went to college and got in shape, it was very different - it was an hours-on-the-elliptical, eating-fat-free-cheese kind of "in shape."

So...food for thought on this long holiday weekend.

PhillyGuy and I had planned to go to the 8am session at CFCC this morning and then head to the new Green Eggs Cafe on 13th Street for breakfast afterwards.  But then I woke up, looked at my clock that said 7:19, and said "F this noise."  The pups and I went for a nice leisurely walk and I chilled in bed with my laptop and coffee for a couple hours, before we finally got moving and headed to breakfast around 9:45.

Beef bacon and blue cheese frittata:

PhillyGuy's steak and eggs and side of bacon in the background.  He had the far superior breakfast this morning.  The frittata was pretty disappointing - it wasn't bad, but it was very bland.  The blue cheese was very mild and had almost no tang, and the bacon-to-frittata ratio was unacceptably low.  Iced coffee was tasty, though, as were PG's rosemary potatoes (I stole one of those and a piece of his [meh] bacon).  I'd probably come here again on a gluten-binge to try their red velvet pancakes, but it's definitely not worth the crazy wait on the weekends for eggs.  Give me Mixto any day.

Log:

Thursday May 24: clean & jerk. 63x2-83x2-93x2-103x1-113x1-118F (uh why?)-118x1-123x1-128F-128F-128 clean only - failed the jerk twice, since I just couldn't seem to keep myself from trying to push press it, and, well, I can't push press almost 130lbs.  5lb PR for the clean and the jerk.  No metcon (yaaaaay).

Friday May 25: deadlift, peak of 2. 145-185-215-245-265.  posterior chain for days.

Fran - 21-15-9 thrusters (95/65), pull ups.

6:30, as RX'ed.  16-second PR.

Morgan and I battled that shit out - she is a squatting machine and absolutely beasted through the thrusters.  Glad she was there, honestly, because I probably would have been much slower without her in the corner of my eye.  I was COMPLETELY certain I was going to spew mediocre frittata everywhere mid-thruster, but I kept it down.  Note to self: at LEAST two hours from eggs to working out.

happy long weekend everyone.

OK, Maybe Not EVERYTHING

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.

Just in Case

...you were wondering... these bars are NOT good at all.