CrossFit Golden Gate and the Start of the HeritageBBQ Tour

This past month has been a whirlwind. I left Atlanta on September 11 for the first stop of Cochon555's HeritageBBQ tour in San Francisco. Our event was held at Magnolia Brewing in Dogpatch and the light of my life Colton came to help us sell merchandise. 

I fucking love this kid.

We had incredible dinners at The Battery, Dirty Habit, and at our own event. By Tuesday I was dying to do a WOD and was able to drop in at CrossFit Golden Gate for the noon class before my redeye to Toronto for stop two.

Confidence, Humility, and Being a Girl

I was born in 1986, and as a girl born in the 80s, I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be and that I am just as good as any boy. But then I was also told that my teachers were more likely to call on boys than the girls in class, that I wasn't a good math student because girls were better at things like reading and writing, and that I needed to prove myself every day to be seen as smart.

Once out of school, I kept being told how women have to act confident and work to be taken seriously in a workplace full of men, especially white straight men. I think there were maybe 8 white straight men in all 53 offices over at TFA, but dammit, I needed to learn to hold my own and be taken seriously by them. Every other Facebook post is about leaning in, conveying confidence, and the double standard of women being seen as bitches at work while men get seen as bosses for the same behavior. I still long for the days when Facebook was full of pictures of you making duck faces with your sorority sisters while your boyfriend threw up in the lefthand corner in a delightfully fucked up photobomb. Now between engagement rings, sonograms, and new houses, I have to be told how to function in the workplace as a woman and in the world as a woman, and oh wait, now you think I've gotten too muscular and I no longer look like a woman.

So this morning my shrink informs me that his hypothesis on why I suck at dating is that my confidence is too threatening and I need to tone it down so others can feel more comfortable being themselves around me while they get to know me. 

I'm just going to let that marinate for a moment.

(My hypothesis is that I go on dates with people I meet on the internet and I sleep with my neighbors. Now who has that degree is psychology?)

Now I know he can't have possibly meant that I need to make myself less than so that a man will like me more. Apparently he thinks this will help women to like me more too. I politely told him what I think of his hypothesis and limited myself to two f-bombs and only one you've got to be kidding me.

I was ticked off but I'm usually good at receiving feedback, so I reached out to the person I guess I'm kind of dating to ask his opinion. Bless his heart, he answered candidly.

Bless your heart is fuck you in Southern.

Addicted to CrossFit

I really didn't think that I was going to make it to 5:30 AM CrossFit today.

But then I couldn't sleep.

5:30 Club - So Blessed

I was in class with Gina Gallo at Bikram Yoga Roslyn in June, and she closed out the 90 minutes by sharing a little wisdom about being busy. She told us that when our days are really full and we have so many things we need to do and want to do, we should be thankful to have such rich lives and feel grateful for the opportunities instead of stressed out or resentful. At that point I was being paid to not really have a job, no one was offering me a job I actually wanted, and I was so exhausted from not sleeping that I acted like a zombie with an exceptionally short fuse. I swore I would be so grateful the next time I had a rich full life.

Well guys, I am super fucking thankful.

So fucking thankful that I had to start working out at 5:30 in the morning.

Rivka and I so happy after 3 RFT 100 doubleunders, 20 sumo deadlift high pulls @65#

A Fantastic Week

So last Thursday I went on a date with this guy I met on Tinder. I'm terrible at dating because if given too much time (aka any more than 20 minutes from the start of the date), I start coming up with excuses not to go. It was raining, and I was tired from work, and I was hungry and we were supposed to have drinks and then I was trying to eat while simultaneously putting on makeup, and I was totally going to bail. I am so incredibly happy that I did not. We had the best time. And one week later, we've had six dates.

Pure Barre Bingo

Pure Barre Virginia Highland is playing bingo until August 16. Since we know that I am incredibly competitive, I am already strategizing how to win. Today we used a double-tube in Katy's class so that's one box down.

Functional Fitness

Last week I started my awesome new job at COCHON 555 and I flew out to Napa on Thursday for our Heritage Fire event. It was FANTASTIC! Honestly, I've never been to a cooler event. I'm extremely excited for the Heritage BBQ tour to start in September. If you're in San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, Austin, or D.C., you should buy tickets. I promise it will be a great time.

So a major component of event production is setting up for the events. Thank you Captain Obvious. Since we know I love lifting and carrying heavy things, setting up for events is kind of like a CrossFit Christmas for me. Clearly I am in the correct line of work.

I would like to report that my CrossFit membership totally paid off this weekend when my new bff Matt and I headed to the storage unit with the U-Haul van. We needed to pack up the rest of the items in storage so that they could be properly inventoried on site. This included a 23" Saffire kamado grill (think the red version of a Big Green Egg) and a gigantic plastic pallet.

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I almost lost an ear when I accidentally trapped my head between the egg and the back door latch on the van, BUT we didn't drop it.

I am extremely proud of figuring out how to get this pallet into the back of the van. It wouldn't fit into the side entrance and we couldn't get it high enough to clear the back. Then I realized that it would flip exactly like a tire, so we put it down on the ground and flipped it right into the truck. Strongman training for the win!

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Oversharing and Inspiring Others

Hyberbole and a Half

I'm sure some of you wonder why I write about my life and share it with whomever clicks on this blog. Some of you might call it oversharing. What started as an outlet for me to write when I was teaching 9-year-olds and convinced my brain cells were dying, has become a way for me to connect and reconnect with people. I value every message I have ever received regarding this blog. They're usually from acquaintances and start off with, "I know you don't know me very well, but..." and then go on to say how that person decided to take up CrossFit or run their first race or use MyFitnessPal or do something else they might not have had inclination to do otherwise. It makes me very happy.

I write about more than just my workouts because maybe you'll relate to something that I say or think, or you'll see yourself in me. You might just be like, this girl is batshit, but at least she's funny. I had hesitated to write about the demise of my swolemate relationship, but a few days ago I received another, "I know you don't know me very well" message from a friend (I considered him a friend since we met) who is going through his own breakup. Being able to be there for him in that moment makes telling the world that I failed at another relationship worth it.

You could get a lot more unbiased workout reviews from RateYourBurn, so thank you for reading In Shape Out of Mind. I appreciate your support.

Single Looks Good on You

I take books out of the local library to read as bedtime stories when I babysit for my boyfriend's ex-boyfriend's (got to remember that) nieces. And I was really excited to read The Rainbow Fish to them when I was supposed to babysit two weeks ago. I finally returned the book last night. It's been two weeks and this break up is beginning to feel real.

I haven't been moping around though. I've been going to Pure Barre, walking Frank around the neighborhood, and going out for meals and drinks with friends, and even kind of starting to date. I've lost four pounds from tracking my macros and that's including frozen margaritas. I've been reading Katiefitscript and I love her information on cutting and then reverse dieting.

And Life Goes On

I'm surviving being single. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I get angry, but mostly I enjoy not pretending to be happy. I watched seventeen episodes of Twin Peaks over the weekend and I'm okay with that. I'm also remembering the pros and cons of being me before I spent all of my time at home texting my boyfriend. I went to grill out at CrossFit on Friday afternoon and after drinking my way through most of the beers, I headed out for too many margaritas. Definitely woke up on my floor Saturday morning with Frank peering down at me from my bed. I believe my rationale was that my bed was nicely made and I was only going to ruin it. Can't argue with that.

I've been going to Pure Barre pretty regularly and I think I've gotten better at it. I didn't realize how strong my abs are until I was able to do a lot of the holds and tucks. I struggling with the planks because my feet keep slipping on the carpet with those not-so-sticky socks. I must be doing planks wrong (it wouldn't surprise me) since most other people there don't have this problem.