Poconos Weekend

i spent this past weekend here:

doing a lot of sitting and relaxing and hanging out in the hot tub and watching the boys grill lots of meat.

It was awesome.

I really needed it - I've been super burnt out lately and my work was starting to show it. So, four days off - it's not quite as good as a "real" vacation, but it sure did the trick. We got a four-bedroom cabin in the Poconos and had a few friends come and hang out with us. Even though Mike had to work Thursday, I booked it for the extra night, and spent the day catching up on some errands.

Like taking Cosmo to the vet. Not even the fabulous seasonal window display could distract him.

Poor dude hates the vet.

But anyway - I highly, highly recommend the random long weekend. I actually felt recharged when I got back in on Monday. Fancy that.

Training log - lots to catch up on here:

Friday March 9: sumo deadlift, peak of 2. 135-165-195-225-245. Metcon: ten minute partner row for calories, alternating on the minute. Total calories - 159.

Saturday March 10: CrossFit Games open WOD 12.3. 18-minute AMRAP of 15 box jumps (20"), 12 push press (75lbs), 9 toes to bar. 4 rounds + 3 toes to bar. Fuck me, that was rough. Toes to bar destroyed my forearms.

Sunday March 11: intro to oly. Snatched up to 73lbs - I'm getting much better but still so far from being good. Clean & jerked up to 113lbs. Jerk is getting really strong.

Monday March 12: Overhead squat, peak of 1. 45x5-65x4-80x3-90x1-100x1-100x1-105x1-115x1. Having never worked up to a max on my overhead squat before, this was an automatic PR. Metcon: grip destruction. 4 rounds of 60 seconds each barbell overhead (135/95), farmers' carry with kettlebells (2/1.5p), plank. Score is one point for each time you dropped whatever you were holding, and NO CHALK ALLOWED. 1 point, as RXed (dropped the kettlebells with less than 10 seconds left in the last round...womp womp womp).

Tuesday, March 13: strict band-assisted handstand pushups. These were TOUGH this week - I worked up to a couple with light bands and one with light + mini band, with plenty of fails in there. Metcon: Nate.

20 minute AMRAP of 2 muscle ups, 4 handstand pushups, 8 American kettlebell swings (2/1.5p).

Scaled with strict pullups instead of muscleups and average & light band assisted HSPU's - 10 rounds + 2 pull ups.

Thursday, March 15: CrossFit Games Open WOD 12.4. Fuck this WOD. AMRAP 12 minutes, 150 wallballs (14lbs, 9' target), 90 double unders, 30 muscleups. I mean, FUCK. I hate wallballs but plugged through these OK - after about 30, I started breaking them into sets of 5 and just chipped away. I finished the wallballs with about 4 seconds left and couldn't make it to my jumprope in time. Also, I could barely walk for three days afterwards.

Tuesday, March 20: muscle-up transition work - I did four or five with a mini band. Metcon: 21-15-9 front squat (75lbs)/pull ups. As RX'ed, 8:53. Happy with that - front squats were easy and I only failed one pull up, right at the very end. Time for me to work on stringing more than 2-3 together - I'm going to get much faster at these.

Wednesday, March 21: intro to oly. Snatched up to 79.6lbs (weird mix of pound and kilogram plates); failed at 81.8. regardless...PR! Clean & jerked up to 51kg (about 112lbs); failed three times at 53kg (about 116lbs). One day, these lifts are just going to come together for me, I'm going to keep my chest up and not pull with my arms and drop under the bar...and I will do a bodyweight snatch and PR my clean by like 50lbs.

Crack Veggies

so, these?

they're like crack. I found them in a little store in the sketchier portion of Suburban Station (per the label..."Nutty World") that sells, well, mostly nuts. And dried fruit, and other snacky things. And these? Like crack. I'm worried that they're soaked in sugar or something, but whatever.

Good training week for me.

Saturday, 3/3. Crossfit Games Open WOD 12.2, attempt number 2. 7-minute AMRAP of 30 snatches at 46lbs, 30 snatches at 75lbs, 30 snatches at 100lbs and max snatches at 120lbs. First attempt, I got 44 reps total. This time, I blasted that away with a total of 55 reps. If you're keeping track (and I clearly am), I did my max snatch 25 times. Baller. And then I got a massage. REAL baller.

Sunday 3/4 - intro to oly. Not much snatching - just up to 63lbs and mostly from boxes. Clean & jerk up to 103lbs for a double, and then backed down and did a whole bunch of hang cleans at 73, 83 and 88lbs to work on my form.

Tuesday 3/6 - strict band-assisted handstand pushup work. Did a set of 3 with an average + light band, then a few sets of two with two light bands. Probably could have managed one with light + mini but I just...didn't try. Next week, I guess. Metcon: 20-minute AMRAP 1 strict muscle up + 1 extra ring dip, 2 skin-the-cats, 40 double-unders. Scaled the muscle-up/dip to a bodyweight pronated grip pullup + dip with mini band. Pull ups got REAL hard. 5 rounds (I think) + 5 double-unders.

Wednesday 3/7 - intro to oly. Snatched mostly from boxes again, up to 67.5lbs. More form work on the clean & jerk - doubles at 35kg (77ish lbs)-40kg (88lbs)-45kg (about 100lbs), then failed 50kg (about 110lbs) three times and backed down to a bazillion hang cleans and 55/65lbs, followed by a few hang cleans and full cleans from the floor at 35kg.

Friday 3/9 - sumo deadlifts, peak of 2. 135-165-195-225-245. Felt good. Far better than 245 felt at the Total in January. Feeling good about PRing during peak week, and hoping that we do conventional deadlifts next cycle.

I WON!

(clearly we're not talking about the Hybrid Strongman competition here.)

no - for my second stint at the BCCC, I came in third place. While I'm very, very happy with my prize (which included tiger-print socks, a whole mess of Primal Pacs, and a $25 lululemon gift card), I'm much happier with THIS...

So a long time ago, I started P90X with PhillyGuy. We both loved it and saw some results, but I never really got my nutrition in check, so I didn't see the super-intense results I was hoping for. Hence, I never took "after" pictures with P90X. But...I sure did take before pictures.

That's me - in March 2010, just about two years ago. While I lost about 7 pounds, I put them all back on during the fall of 2010, so this is roughly what I looked like when I joined CFCC in late June 2011, and when I started eating paleo in July.

Now, after (i) starting to eat paleo, initially about 90% of the time; (ii) going through a BCCC in October 2011 where I really got consistent, gave up artificial sweeteners, and stopped eating fruit, almond butter and Larabars every day; and (iii) going through another BCCC in January 2012, where I really worked on being strict, by omitting all chocolate, nuts, cream in my coffee, and even limiting fat and fibrous/cruciferous vegetables, here's where I am now (or, where I was in early February).

Um...BAM. That's 18-ish pounds down, four inches off of my waist, a couple inches off of my hips, and so, so much healthier.

And the reality is that today, as I sit here in my bed typing this up, I'm down another couple of pounds from THAT picture, even having loosened my restrictions a bit (hello, daily coffee with heavy cream, and weekly bar of chocolate).

I kind of struggled with putting these pictures out there, since this blog isn't exactly super-anonymous, but the fact is...I'm proud of this shit. I'm REALLY proud of discovering what works for me and being consistent with it, and I'm REALLY proud that I've become so strong and kind of jacked.

So I used my $25 gift card to put towards some real colorful Wunder Unders...

...which I wore last night to work towards my goal of pulling 300lbs by June. We're getting there.

Last night involved a lot of steak, a lot of scrabble, and a lot of this:

SO GOOD.

Workout log for my post-Hybrid week:

Monday, 2/27: overhead squats, peak set of three. After a set of 5 to warm up with an empty bar - 65-75-85-95-100. 100 felt pretty good and solid, so I'm happy with that - I haven't done an overhead squatting cycle yet, so I have no idea what my max might be. Metcon: tabata ab wheel rollouts followed by tabata hollow rocks. Score is your lowest number of reps of each workout - 6 rollouts + 8 rocks = 14. MEH.

Wednesday, 2/29: oly. Snatched to 63lbs, mostly off of blocks to work on the second and third pulls. Clean & jerk to 115 - felt REAL GOOD on this. I got some new cues from Jim, the olympic lifting coach, at Sunday's lighter session, regarding keeping my arms straight and "snapping the bar like a pencil," which have helped me get my elbows around faster.

Thursday, March 1: two-a-day. I went to the gym at 7am to do the second Crossfit Games Open WOD, which was a snatch ladder of sorts. AMRAP in ten minutes, 30 snatches at 45lbs - 30 at 75lbs - 30 at 100lbs - max at 120lbs. Since my max was 73lbs, I was just hoping to get one or two at 75. Killed it - 44 total, 30 at 46lbs and 14 at 76lbs (weird loads due to working with the ladies' bar). Repeating this one today now that I know I can move the weight for so many reps, and shooting to bring my score up to 50.

Second workout: regular CFCC session. WAY more fatigued from 12.2 than I realized. Hang squat cleans, 2 on the minute each minute for 10 minutes. Started with 83lbs for the first 3 or 4 rounds, up to 93 for the rest. I could have gone up but didn't want to - holy hell was I tired. Front squat, peak of three. 103-123-143x1, failed on the second. WAY TIRED. Metcon - three rounds for time, short loop run, 25 box jumps (20"), 50 doubleunders. I scaled this to 100 singles and used the jump rope time as my recovery, since I just wanted to finish this. 12:20.

Friday 3/2: DEADLIFFIN! sumo deadlift, peak of 3. Sumo deadlifts are more difficult for me than conventional, but this day felt strong. 135-165-195-205-215-235. Happy with pulling 235 for 3 - I'm feeling better about my goal of pulling 300 (conventional) by June. (Also, my other goal of pulling 2x bodyweight is now down to 296. Woot.) Metcon: tabata row for calories. I want to punch rowing in the face, even when I'm only doing it for 20 seconds at a time. Score: 53.

happy Saturday!

NO I WILL NOT BE SICK

this morning, I did something I've never done before and may never do again.



Attended a 6am session at CFCC.

So, here's the thing. This week I'm tapering for tomorrow's Hybrid competition. Last week, I worked out six days, and between messing with strongman stuff and the fact that I've been fighting off a cold (GODDAMMIT), I was absolutely exhausted come Monday. So, I took Monday off. I was planning to go Tuesday, but had to stay home and prep for a deposition that night. And then I went Wednesday and planned to go last night, but - thanks to a text message from my brother at 5:30 - remembered that I needed to meet my future sister-in-law at 7 to try on bridesmaids dresses. So...last night was out.

That would have left me with one workout this week, and even for a taper, that's just not going to do it. So, since I'm leaving for Stamford tonight, and since the competition starts bright and early tomorrow morning, it left me with no choice but to wake up at butt o'clock and get to the gym for the 6am session.

Honestly, it wasn't that bad - but not something I'd want to do regularly. Now it's 7:30 and I'm in the office, eating an omelet, nice and awake, having done a bunch of deadlifts already. Meh.

This cold, though. This is some bullshit. It probably explains a lot about my lackluster performances at oly on Sunday and Wednesday, but, you know...probably also suggests I'm in for a lackluster performance tomorrow morning. Which I'm not having. As soon as I started feeling the cold coming on earlier this week, I chugged water with oil of oregano, made it a point to be in bed real early, made sure to eat well, and generally did everything I could to stave this shit off. Like staying hydrated and drinking my veggies.



That brown concoction includes kale, celery, parsley, carrots, beet and (I think) an apple - which was the first fruit I've had in a while.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I'm coughing and I have some congestion in my throat and swelling in my sinuses, but I don't FEEL shitty...so there's that. The tapering is fucking with me, though - I went from feeling really strong and really happy with my body composition to feeling like "AH! you're not ready! you cut too much weight last month and haven't trained hard enough to recover your strength! you're not going to be able to move anything! you had chocolate three times this week and should have had chocolate ZERO times this week and you're going to end up gaining ten pounds and having to move up a weight class!" Mentally, I know it's how these things go - I had the same struggles before every double-digit race I trained for - but it's still hard not to let that shit take over. So...WISH ME LUCK! And strength enough to lift that atlas stone.

Logging:

Saturday 2/18 - strongman stuff. Unloaded yoke walk (~175lbs), yoke walk attempts at ~355 or 365 - couple steps. 125lb farmer's carry, felt good once I got stabilized. Atlas stones - 43-63-93-115 up easy, several fails with 135. Later that night, about 30min of dumbbell clean and push press with a pair of dumbbells - apparently, the dumbbell ground to overhead at Hybrid will only be a single, so I feel good about that. 30-35-40-45F, followed by 4 or 5 successful cleans and failed presses with the 45s. I got them overhead but couldn't lock out both arms at the same time.

Sunday 2/19 - intro to oly. Snatch, warmup with 53; 53x2, 58x2,63x1, 68x1, 68F, 68x1. Felt OK - tired. Clean and jerk - 73(1C, 2J) - 83(1C2J)x3 - 93(1C2J) - 103(1C2J) - 103(1C2J) - 108x1 - 113F (didn't commit at all - for some reason I went into this assuming it was a given, which is silly since it's 5lbs under my max) - 113x1 (real ugly. ELBOWS DAMMIT. jerk was fine). I was very tired after this and my elbows were unusually sore, so I iced them when I got home.

Wednesday 2/22 - intro to oly. Snatched 53x2 warmup, 53x2 loose/sloppy, 53x2 high but better, 53x2 F, then high; 63x2, 68x1, 73x1F, 73x1 (pressed out), 73x1 (pressed out - HEAD THROUGH!) - 73F. Clean & jerk: 73C&2J, then switched to kilograms. All sets of one clean, two jerks: 42kg-45kg-49kgF/49F/49F/49 (YAY) -57kgF (OOOPS)-47kg-47kg. So, funny story - after several fails at 49kg (about 108lbs - so ten pounds UNDER my max), erin told me to back down to 47kg (about 103). I loaded up the bar and then went to clean, and was absolutely shocked at how heavy it felt - I pulled it fairly high but was so surprised at the weight that I didn't even try to get under it. Um...I accidentally loaded it with 57kg, not 47kg. That's about 125lbs instead of 103lbs. Uh, yeah. This was an ugly night.

Friday 2/24 - sumo deadlifts, fast peak of 5 - required to rep every set out, no dropping from the top. 95-115-135-155-175. My last set didn't really feel heavy, but I did feel myself rounding a bit, which Tim confirmed. I feel it in my upper back now as I sit here in my office. Meh. Skipped the metcon, which involved a lot of rowing.

Grilling Machine

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.