Sleep

I think the CrossFit folks who preach 8 hours of sleep along with a healthy diet, whether it's paleo or zone or just cutting out processed foods and high fructose corn syrup. I know I'm definitely more likely to give in to a desire for pumpkin bread with my coffee if I haven't been getting enough sleep. But more than that, even eating right doesn't necessarily make a difference. Good article from Health Magazine for more info.

And as a side note, the president ought to be allowed to think someone is a jackass. Especially when the person in question has proved this point multiple times.

Summer

Too busy living this summer to blog. But the Mockingbirds had a great time Playing Hard, Drinking Beer, and Breaking Hearts.

I kicked the 300 workout's ass in the final. Went to Baton Rouge, Chattanooga, and Dallas (multiple times). Attempted to waterski for the first time (unsuccessfully). Dealt with or avoided the heat. Drank plenty of Sweet Tea Vodkas. Still teaching myself my way around the kitchen, but my baking is coming along well. My favorite this I made this summer were Car Bomb Cupcakes. Those turned out beautifully. Tasty, too.

Above Average

Normal people sleep in on the weekends. Get up late, go to breakfast or bum around the house in their pajamas drinking coffee. While I'm not sure exactly how it happened, I am no longer one of those people. I am now one of these people. The ones who are up early in sneakers and gym shorts, torturing themselves with an AMRAP on a perfectly good lazy, very hot Saturday morning.




Fifteen minutes of pain in the form of 12 American swings, 6 sprawl/high pulls, 12 lunge passes and a 50 meter run. I almost didn't show up, but I went. Then during the workout I wanted to die, but I finished. Not too bad, all told.

And afterwords when I had gotten some energy back I hopped up to the bar and busted out four kipping pullups, chin over bar, in a row! Just four days after my first pullup ever. I'm terribly proud of this accomplishment. And just think, if I had given into temptation and stayed in bed I wouldn't have passed that milestone.

Sweet Tea Vodka

My discovery of the summer thus far. Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, which I had last night at The Lustre Pearl (another fantastic discovery). Half firefly, half water on the rocks with a lemon twist. Summer.

It's made in South Carolina by infusing the vodka with tea leaves and sweetened with cane sugar and it tastes exactly like sweet tea. Exactly like watching a summer sunset from the front porch of my childhood, exactly like a long dusk spent on said porch watching the fireflies come out while the smell of freshly mowed grass lingers in the air.

And according to the internets Spec's carries several varieties, including peach and mint tea.

Mockingbirds

The Mockingbirds went undefeated at Bloodfest, winning our three matches of the day and completely annihilating the opposition in the 3rd v 4th place establishing boat race. Major props to the Baton Rouge ladies who traveled down for the weekend and were a blast to play and party with. What a fantastic weekend of CrossFit (finishing the Spartan before a full day at the tourney), rugby, friends and fun.

Ouch

Immensely proud of myself for finishing this workout, which is pictured today on the kettlebell blog. My hands were tearing open and the snatches were laddering up to 10 per side (I think this might have been the round of 8 or 9), but I finished without stopping!

One week left in the Spartan and I can feel my resolve flagging. This week I've eaten out, and badly, a number of times and Saturday night I fell off the wagon with a few beers at the post-tournament social. Then yesterday I had a milkshake and french fries, but this was a planned falling off the wagon. Getting two fillings, both in rear molars, on opposite sides of my mouth makes for a grumpy Amy. The milkshake assuages that. And the fries cut the sweetness some after five weeks without sugar. That being said, I'm looking forward to the occasional mornings I can choose to have pumpkin bread with my coffee instead of deli meat - again.

Debutante Ball

In recent years the Dallas 7s tournament has hosted one of the most entertaining events of the summer rugby season. The Debutante Ball. A group of us rugby girls come up with the worst dresses we can find, dress up, and play goofy-rules rugby.

Aubri's dress looked like something Mrs. Brady might have worn for date night. Mine was straight out of disco, with gold boobs and everything. There was a mermaid, several dresses that might have been worn by an extra during the prom scene in Pretty in Pink, and Lauren looked like she could have been waiting on Prince Charming to show up at the Ball...

This year's Ball involved skipping. And dress tearing and a fun little cat fight that I think involved some hair pulling (for fun, of course).

And lots and lots of giggling.


(Thanks to Carrey for providing photos and Traci for being a great ref!)

Blocked

AMRAP 15 Minutes:
15 walking russian swings
10 front squats

16 kg KB, Finished 8 rounds + 10 steps.

Today's WOD was rough. Rough in the I didn't do nearly as well as I hoped or hit it as hard as I would have liked kind of way. A few rounds in I could feel my lower back and hips reacting. Not painful, but definitely carrying all the work, which made me nervous. And made me slow down. I can still feel it in my hips two hours later.

Lately I've been fighting to get over a hump in my workouts. It's completely a mental block and I just can't seem to push through. My progress in every area is fantastic. Getting a pull up is closer with every attempt. Eating Zone has body fat percentage falling and pounds are just dropping off me. (I stepped on the scale on Monday night. 158.6#, the lowest I've been since probably early high school.) But I just can't seem to push myself to my own satisfaction in the workouts.

The More I Live

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live." ~George Bernard Shaw

I stole this from the post Randall published this morning. It made me stop and think, ask myself how am I giving to my community? Not just living a life of self interest, but rather investing in the good of those around me. Now that I'm back on my feet post-grad school it's time to start making this a part of my life again.

Before grad school I spent a crazy amount of my energy in 'giving back' in a myriad of ways, but significantly through the junior board, which was the most satisfying, most exhausting thing I have ever had the opportunity to be a part of. Service and leadership were simply a part of who I was, it flowed naturally. Committees and officers positions, constantly planning and doing and moving. Then I started grad school. Which began a five year (can it possibly have been five years?) process of being knocked down lower than my 21 year old self thought possible and eventually coming back from rock bottom. My life is completely different now and I find I have to be mindful and actually seek out the opportunities.

Overheard at work

Female coworker: "I wanna work out my aaabs and I wanna work out my butt. Nothing else."

Physical fitness. Ur doin' it wrong.

Now, not everyone is cut out for the mental and physical toughness that is CrossFit. However, there is a right and a wrong way to go about fitness. Unfortunately this is a pretty succinct description of all that I see to be wrong with the typical "big box" gym mentality. Aesthetics over function.

This weekend's Spartan goal: stay on the wagon. Keep Zoning. No sweets, no alcohol. We're halfway through and it'd be a shame to give up now.

Garlic

Nutrition realization for today: Garlic salt and basil make veggies so much more palatable. Don't get me wrong, I've always liked broccoli, but I've eaten so much lately it's getting old. Also helpful is Old Bay seasoning, but that's because I'm from Maryland and we're practically weaned on the stuff.

Cole Slaw

The Farm to Work program my state agency offers is one the most fantastic things ever. Each week baskets of fresh vegetables are delivered from the family farm, just south of San Antonio, to our doorstep. For just $25 you can get a huge basket of fresh fruit and vegetables. However, often the variety of vegetables includes things some might consider obscure.



Take kale. Before a couple of weeks ago I had never seen the stuff, much less eaten it. But there it was, sitting in my basket and begging to be used. Fortunately recipes abound online, however, and I found my answer in a vinegar based coleslaw, which I modified to fit the Zone.

1.25 cup kale, chopped finely
2 cup red cabbage, chopped
1.5 cup green cabbage, chopped
1 cup carrots, shredded
1/3 cup red onion, diced
1 Tbsp lime juice
1.5 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
pinch salt
pinch pepper

Add all vegetables to a very large bowl, mix thoroughly. In a small bowl whisk lime juice, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper together. Pour over vegetables and mix together, making sure the vegetables are coated well. Refridgerate for at least two hours before serving.
If split into five equal servings, each consists of 2 blocks fat, 1 block carbohydrate.

bars

Today is what Mel might call a bad day being a girl. There are a couple of mini Zone Perfect bars sitting in my cupboard, freebies left over from SXSW. Despite the fact that I know there's sugar in them I was considering giving in and eating them. After all today is a crappy kind of day, and well, they're good for you, right?

Nope. This article stopped me in my tracks. Because if I had stopped to think about what was probably in one of those bars all the highly processed crap would have come to mind. So, nevermind. I'll just keep clutching my Nalgene and telling myself I don't need the chocolate until I head off to kettlebells for a workout that I'm pretty sure will turn out to be an "at least I showed up" day.

goals

Yesterday a teammate and I were chatting and the conversation came around to being a baby rugby player, brand new to the game and simply terrible. The conversation also came around to how bad of a rugby player I was at first. I really was terrible. That first season involved lots of enthusiasm, but not much else. And I stayed terrible for a good long while with the original enthusiasm fluctuating in a reverse correlation with my frustration. It wasn't until the rest of my life was on solid ground that I started to really improve. Unsuprisingly (in retrospect) a huge part of what allowed for the improvement was fitness.

The difference between me now and me five years ago, or even two years ago still sneaks up and shocks me regularly. If I talk about my workouts or my performance in a match enough to annoy people it's not because I'm completely self-centered. (Really.) It's because in my head I still think of myself as completely nonathletic and am still absolutely amazed to discover these capabilities within myself.

For example, Monday night was our first 7s sprint workout. Bags ran up through a short warm up and got the fifteen of us started on sprints pretty quickly. She announced the first set and without even thinking about it I placed myself in the first group on the line. Next to three of my fittest teammates. Something completely out of character for the baby rugby player I was. Two years ago I might not have shown up for fitness training, choosing to wait for "real practices" to begin. Five years ago I'd have asked if you were crazy for suggesting that I even run sprints at all.

I can't pinpoint what changed. What exactly caused me to go from "I only run if something is chasing me" to "I can't have a pint even though one my favorite beers is tonight's fire sale because I'm doing the Spartan Challenge at CrossFit." Maybe it's simply that I fell in love with a sport. Maybe it's been there all along and was just waiting to come out. In any case, I know that if I of all people can do it anyone can. You get your feet wet, then before you know it you like the water so much you're up to your knees. Turn around again and you're swimming with the goal of keeping up with the big kids.

And swearing off some of your favorite guilty pleasures. I've told a few people, including a couple CrossFit coaches at last night's 'nutrition workshop.' Still, I want to put it in writing. On the internet where everyone knows and can make fun of me if I fail. Over the past four and a half months I've had pretty good results with a mostly-Zone, lots of cheating eating pattern. I want to see what I can do eating like an athlete in training.

Primarily:
1. NO sweets (including no sugar in my coffee) and
2. NO alcohol

Work in progress:
3. Eat at least as many servings of vegetables as fruit a day.
4. Decrease cheese to two servings a day.

Between unlimited kettlebells and 7s sprints the workouts will take care of themselves. However, six weeks without a cookie or a margarita will be a challenge. During the first part of 7s season. This will test my self-control and how far I've really come in the past few years...

Food

Back on The Zone. None of the wishy-washy kinda zoning stuff I've been doing since the end of I Am Crossfit. Except that this afternoon I totally fell off the wagon at the grocery store, hungry and in the chips/pretzels aisle. I ate a quarter of a bag of pretzels between that aisle and the checkout...

But, choosing not to dwell on my mistakes, I took inspiration from Mel (who is a total badass and I meant to introduce myself to yesterday, seeing as I've been reading her blog for months) and her cabbage and eggs concoction for my dinner. I sprayed a sauce pan down with Pam and sauteed raw cabbage over medium heat. (Note to self, cabbage does not shrink nearly as much as spinach, use the big pan next time.) Once the cabbage started to brown I pushed it over to the side of the pan and poured in a couple of scrambled eggs, mixing the eggs and cabbage together as the eggs started cook. Then I dumped it all in a bowl, doused liberally with Old Bay and enjoyed. About half way through I realized I was a carb short and added cottage cheese. It didn't do much for the texture, though, so next time I'll just have yogurt with my fruit.

Two cups raw cabbage
Two eggs
Old Bay seasoning
1/4 cup lowfat cottage cheese

Dessert:
1/2 cup strawberries
1/2 cup blackberries
1/2 cup grapes

9 almonds

Perservere. Overcome. Conquer.

This morning I hit the snooze at least twice laying in bed and contemplating completely skipping out on the 300 workout. Then I remember that I'd already shelled out the money for the program and I might as well just do it. Which in turn made me wonder why I pay to torture myself this way. Once at the gym I continued to wonder as my apprehension grew through the body comps (though that was better than expected) and warm up and intro. But finally my hands were on the pullup bar and we were off.

Not only did I manage to survive the Spartan workout, but I also finished within the allotted twenty minute time. The dead lifts and kettlebell clean and presses I totally knocked out, absolutely no problems. A 10 kilo kettlebell? Please. I eat those for breakfast.

Even the jumping pullups, even the final 25 reps of the day, didn't give me much of an issue, proving to myself that most of my issue there is mental. I chose to step up for the box jumps, which turned out to be a wise decision because at about 2o in my legs started getting shaky and somewhere after 30 I actually caught the edge of the box with my foot. My pushups need work, but it was the floor wipers that made me want to cry. Randall and my spotter (whose name I have forgotten...) got me through them in sets of five or four or three at a time.

Then, before I knew it Mike was calling the four minute mark, I was up and on the bar for pullups and then I was done. At 17:24.

And after a half an hour and a liter of water I was back to making silly faces.

Anticipation

It's just a workout, right? Nothing to be scared of. Twenty minutes of pain is no big deal. After all, if I can do this (multiple times) without falling on my face a few deadlifts and kettlebell presses are nothing. Right?

(Photo stolen from the fabulous and talented Randall Setzler.)

power tools

Tonight's discovery: Projects involving power tools work out best when done while wearing a tiara. (Reading the directions probably helps, too.)

I now have curtains hanging in my apartment! YAY!

300

Finding 300 reasons that my doing the Spartan Challenge, which starts in just over a week, is absolutely insane would not be particularly difficult. Much less difficult than actually completing it. This thing terrifies me, specifically the benchmark workout. Last year's video. Feel free to pause that at 34 seconds in where it lists the workout. This, my friend, makes the I Am Crossfit workout look like a short stroll to the gelato shop.

BUT I am not focusing on this. I am not focusing on the fact that I still can't do a pullup, that I hate box jumps or that just watching those floor wipers makes we want to cry. Instead I'm focusing on the fact that while it will kick my ass it can only make me better. Stronger. And hey, look, a kettlebell portion! I can do that...hell, if I can keep running and rucking and tackling during the 79th minute of a rugby match, I can do all of this. Because I Am CrossFit.

Baby Calves

Okay, I promised Mrs. Juicebox a blog post, and a blog post she will get. A promise of this nature, especially one made while at a Dooce book signing, is not something one can default on.


These are baby calves, just a few weeks old, born on my family's farm. They frolic. They nurse. They huddle down in the grass to hide and when the flies are bothering them they flap their ears in the most floppy and adorable way possible. Baby calves do not indulge in self pity. Unlike me. Over the past weeks I've been indulging in more than my fair. Long, dramatic, ridiculous story short: I got dumped. The guy I was crazy about decided he didn't want to play anymore and knocked over the lego castle he'd built up under me.
Broken hearts happen. They happen to lots of people all the time. It sucks, but the world keeps moving, and it certainly doesn't make me special. But I did find that letting myself be not okay for a while helped and now I am better. Not 100% better, but still better. At my parent's this weekend I remembered that I am strong enough to be on my own. For a few weeks I forgot that. And while the rejection still stings and I still miss him, I know I don't need him. For now, that's pretty good.

This Made Me Smile

Bored at work I started browsing through the craigslist.org missed connections. After a while sorting through the stupid ones gets tedious, so I start searching places I frequent. This came up:

To all the girls in my Crossfit class - m4w (Crossfit Central!)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: Date: 2009-02-11, 4:28PM CST


Keep it up! You all look
great! Thanks for making it the best 45 minutes of my day!

Obviously I have no idea who this is or even which class it may refer to, the truth is it's true about all of us. And made me smile.

Hey, that's me!

Crossfit Central filmed our kettlebell class last week and interviewed a few of us. My entire interview was the vocal intro to the video, which is very cool. I always feel awkward with a camera around - I know what kind of faces I make when I work out. That makes being a CrossFitter interesting, as there are quite often cameras around. The video workout, by the by, totally kicked my ass.


Old School Training from CrossFit Central on Vimeo.

Lego Brilliance

I didn't think Eddie Izzard could possibly get any funnier, but someone has managed it brilliantly. No flag, No Country!

Just a Note

I got nothing these days, except to say,"Damn, I hope I look this good if I ever get myself knocked up."

Way to go, Heather.

stickers

Today I clicked on the red link at the top of the page of my Gmail account. You know, the one which so often leads to fun and exciting news? Well today's, in addition to the new functions of labels (which is cool enough on it's own) was an announcement about stickers. Free stickers! How cool can Google get? All you have to do is send them a self addressed, stamped envelope via snail mail and you'll get some shiny stickers in the mail. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find a couple of envelopes...

Ecstatic

Just home from our first rugby practice of the season. After a dynamic warm up we basically spent over an hour and a half sprinting, interspersed with core exercises in payment for dropped balls and short lectures about the drills. My hip flexors HATE me right now, but I am absolutely ecstatic to be playing rugby again. We all are. You could absolutely feel it, especially after practice as we all dispersed. Tonight promised to be cold and wet, but turned out to be just cool enough with nice soft ground. Rare conditions for Texas.

And it's crazy, but I can tell my fitness has improved since November. Or maybe it's my motivation and core strength that are better. And maybe the dieting is helping, or maybe it's just got me eating better. Who knows, but I'm totally excited for the 2009 season!

Sore

Yesterday's workout was tough.

AMRAP, 20 Minutes, 16 kg KB:

kettlebell clean and press 6 right/6 left
40 yard sprint x2
kettlebell snatch into an overhead squat 5R/5L
American swing with a lateral step 10R/10L

I finished four rounds in just over the 20 minutes. I felt like I'd really accomplished something after finishing, but it was definitely tough. And my body is telling me ALL about it today. My shoulders, my quads, my thighs... Chris, my coach, commented that he could tell the Zone dieting was making a difference, which was cool to hear especially since my attempt fails as much as it succeeds.

food and fitness

The Zone has its ups and downs. Weekends are when I'm the worst at sticking to it. And most days I only manage to get three or four meals Zoned. But I keep telling myself that it's a start. Better than nothing. Today for a very late breakfast I had eggs scrambled with feta, spinach, and avacado. Quite tasty. And I've found that roast beef and provolone with fruit and almonds is my favorite lunch. Greek yogurt is too expensive, but it's sooo good.

Rugby practices start a week from Monday. My activity levels will go way up as our coach has been reported to be gleefully thinking of inventive fitness torture. And I'll be thanking Crossfit.

40/30/30

Just under a year ago when I started the kettlebell class at CrossFit Central Jeremy, who was my coach at the time, tried to convince me to start Zone dieting. No way was I ready to be that serious about things. I was just there to get in better shape for rugby, not to win a triathlon or even lose weight, as I told him vehemently. (I tend to push back when people try to push me into things.) Over the summer I started to consider zoning, even more once rugby season began and I could physically tell my nutrition wasn't up to par with what I was putting my body through.

Still, even that feeling wasn't enough to get me over the hump of actually bothering to measure my food and worry about conforming to the zone-prescribed macro-nutrient proportions. Tonight I'm still not sure about it. Food shouldn't require a calculator. Nor should it take over half an hour to make a salad. But, I decided if I'm going to do this I Am Crossfit thing I'm going to do it right. And, like any lab procedure or fitness movement, though, I assume one gets better with experience.


3 Block Dinner:

• Salad (2.65 oz spinach, 0.5 cucumber, 2 slices ham, 1.5 oz feta cheese, 2 T (1 ounce) avacado)
• 2 Triscuits
• 3 cashews
• 1 cup milk

What I learned:

• It takes a heck of a lot of spinach to get to 5.333 ounces (1.333 cups) worth.
• Food shouldn't require a calculator.
• The right amount of spinach is way more filling than the zone equivalent of Triscuits.
• This is going to take some will-power and time and mindfulness.
• That left over pumpkin bread is looking really tasty, even after a delicious salad.

I am Crossfit part I

Crossfit Central is doing the "I Am Crossfit" program to kick off 2009 - intense workouts outside of class in addition to the usual and zone dieting, keeping a food journal, before and after measurements, the whole bit.

Benchmark workout is 3 rounds of:
400m run
15 pullups
7 hanging cleans

I chose the 65 lb weight and attempted pull ups with a band and today I didn't finish in the given 12 minutes. Disappointing, but there's nowhere to go but up. And, not doing olympic lifts very often or being able to do even a single real pull up I knew I was really challenging myself. So, here's to 2009. Fitter, faster, and more of a bad ass on the rugby pitch.