Friday's WOD

On Friday I counted the minutes until I could go to 4:45 PM CrossFit. I thought I was pulling a fast one until I realized that I had already worked 8.5 hours. Regardless, the convenience of 8 floors separating me from my workout cannot be beat.

The founder of my organization looked less than pleased with my jorts so I felt a little uncomfortable about changing into my workout clothes before my 4 PM call. Obviously it didn't stop me from doing it though.

risked being spotted by the boss lady to scurry back to the bathroom for a selfie

Friday's WOD was hard. All that deload business doesn't apply to me because I don't have anything to deload. I started with a lady bar and then added 5 lbs plates to either side.

I picked a 14kg kettlebell for my swings but I could tell pretty quickly that it was too heavy. I didn't want to admit defeat but I was thrilled when Anthony handed me a lighter one after my second round. I was really fortunate to get a lot of one-on-one instruction from Anthony. Not only did it make me feel baller, but I now have a better understanding of how to scale the workouts for my current ability.

I had spent a good portion of my lunchtime watching videos on double-unders. I opted for the 200 single-unders, but have plans to practice double-unders in the privacy of my parents' backyard. I'm actually pretty decent at jumping rope. Thanks Bonne Marano for making me learn this important skill (and for not laughing every time I hit myself in the head)!

I finally took a shower at CrossFit. The showers are perfectly nice, but it was so humid that I felt like I was sweating through my clothes the minute I got changed into them. 

post-shower. might be sweatier than before.

I'm very proud to be covered in bruises that I didn't get from drinking. I've been showing them off to everyone.

Shake Out Run

Today I woke up feeling really good but definitely pretty sore. I managed to sleep for almost seven hours, which is a huge improvement over any other night this week.

I decided to go for a slow run to shake out the soreness in my muscles. My back and legs feel pretty tight still but it was good to get the blood flowing. I went around the cul-de-sac a few times and then called it a day at 5 miles.

If you want to stalk me...

Speaking of 5 miles, look at Lap 5. That's some bullshit. 

I've gotten into running with music lately. Remember the backgammon partner from January 2012? Well, he now goes by DJ Alex Cecil and he's pretty good. (Full disclosure: I in no way supported his DJ dreams and thought it was a ridiculous idea. Well, this is crow and I'm eating it.) 

I use Soundcloud to pull up his mixes on my phone and run to them. I love not having to make my own playlists or fiddling around with Spotify to find a song I'm in the mood to hear. Check him out here. I recommend the "Pardon me for asking" mix for slow long runs, especially if you like Biggie.

Just enjoying some sweet tunes/using a photo op as an excuse to rest.

I also saw a snake on my run! It's body was probably as thick as a pencil but I edited the photo below to look badass. You mean you don't crop out everything that can be used as a frame of reference?

Guess who fits into the running outfit she got from the Professor and the Professor's Wife for her birthday 2 years ago? I'm looking good if I do say so myself.

Weight, Muscle, and Fat

This morning I hopped on the scale just to check in with myself. I am still 137.6 lbs - a number with which I am pleased. I've gotten caught up with the numbers on the scale many times in the past and it can truly drive you crazy. Miso soup at dinner (high in sodium) can spike your weight the next morning, leaving you discouraged and frustrated. Eating dinner closer to bedtime than you normally do changes the number you see the next morning. Staying hydrated can jack those numbers up as well.

June 28, 2013

Now that I'm back into most of my clothes, I'm less concerned about my actual weight and more focused on my body composition. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone says muscles weighs more than fat. No, a pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat; they both weigh one pound. Muscle is denser than fat. What that means is that two women can own and fit into the same size 4 pair of pants. If they have different amounts of muscle mass, one woman could weigh significantly more than the other, but still fit into the same size clothing. This also means that a person can remain the same weight on the scale but drop a few dress sizes through diet and exercise. At one point in college, I actually lost weight but wore a larger size because I had stopped lifting.

My goal is to remain between 135 and 137 lbs, but to lower my body fat and build muscle. According to my fancy scale, today my body fat percentage is 25.8. This is too high. I plan to lower it with my improved eating habits, regular CrossFit attendance, and weekly runs. Instead of a number on the scale, my ultimate goal is to fit into my size 26 inch waist Citizen jeans. Those things are tiny.

And now for your viewing entertainment...

3.5 hours of sleep plus 96 oz of coffee equals this chick:

look at that calf definition!

I made the executive decision to cancel CrossFit and go home when I found myself doing this in the office:

it's a unicorn mask

I asked Facebook how ballsy it would be to wear jorts to work today. The consensus was DO IT.

So I did.

Kettlebell Snatch Test

I went to CrossFit last night before soccer. Yes, I know, I am badass. I put a lot of thought into my outfit because I wanted something that I could wear to both the game and the WOD. I went with a pair of Nike Just Do It shorts, a white sports bra, and navy tank that match the undershorts. I am fully dedicated to color-coordination in my workout gear, even though I only wear dresses to work because I cannot be bothered to put separates together.

Those cracked out eyes are the result of 4 or less hours of sleep each night this week.
Why can't I fall asleep???

The strength portion of the WOD was snatch grip behind the neck press. Since I'm new and uncoordinated, the coach and I decided I would use the bar without plates and work on my form. Apparently I have forgotten everything I learned about the snatch last Friday. I clearly needed more practice time with the broom. I really wish the coaches would introduce themselves (or wear name tags!) because I really liked this girl but now she is just "Blonde Coach with Sick Quads" to me and unfortunately that name isn't listed on the schedule.

The conditioning portion was 5 minutes of unbroken kettlebell snatches. We partnered up and whoever wasn't snatching was counting. I liked my partner so much I asked for her number so we could coordinate our schedules. Her name is Amanda. Anyway, we decided to use a 10kg (22 lbs) kettlebell although 16kg (35 lbs) was the women's weight. I tried using the 12kg (26 lbs) kettlebell for practice but was just too heavy. I managed 127 snatches in the 5 minutes. This means the weight was too light for me because Anthony said ideally we'd be able to perform 20 snatches a minute. I think an 11kg (24lbs) kettlebell would have been just right but alas, there were none.

Summer Soccer League

I have joined a soccer team and I love it. After realizing that I hate kickball and that I think volleyball is stupid, I was ready to give up on the whole club team sports thing. But then I met Lauren from my office and she invited me to sign up for NYC Soccer. This is not regular Lauren who I have a borderline unhealthy relationship with, but rather the girl in the photo.

Tonight was our first game. I hadn't played soccer since I was 14, but I think I was able to get back into the swing of things pretty quickly. The rule is that two women must be on the field at all times so Lauren and I played the entire game with no subs. Good thing we're both long distance runners.

 I played right fullback because that's what I played in middle school. I'm actually not very good at soccer, but I'm fast and I have no problem using my body to block the ball or the opposing team. I took the ball straight to the chest (which made an awesome sound by the way) and it knocked the wind right out of me. I guess I didn't tighten my muscles before it made contact and then I thought I was going to hurl and it felt like I might have swallowed my tongue. I was able to walk it off and I believe that the play ended in a goal for us.

I'm going to buy a pair of cleats (there was some miscommunication around if we were allowed to wear them or not) because I'd prefer the traction over crosstrainers. I also found blood blisters on my feet after the game.

I really like my teammates, even thought I can't remember all of their names right now. Our team name is Just For Kicks - clever huh?

Our game tonight was at 9:45 PM in Williamsburg, effectively putting a damper on any postgame celebrations. We're going to go out for drinks after the earlier games but I hope it doesn't turn into NYC Social level of celebration. I was so hungover the morning after volleyball every week. I'm really psyched for this summer and looking forward to our next game.

Now if I can only avoid sleeping with the goalie.

Random Photos from June 2013

This morning I was WIDE AWAKE at 5:37 AM. So I did my hair, put on make-up, read Run Eat Repeat, cleaned my toilet, and went through my June Photostream. Here are some photos I found that are interesting but haven't really applied to any other post.

Earlier this month I was in San Diego and we went to a Padres game. Yup, I got paid to go to a Padres game. Life hasn't been this good since I was paid to take children to see Madagascar 2.

Padres vs. the Braves
The Padres won but I was torn between rooting for the home team or the team of my future home.
Atlanta May 2014 or bust.

a Starbucks gold card
I think Starbucks is pretty gross but I am impressed that my colleague Andrew has one.

I explicitly said I was uncomfortable with driving the new teachers around San Diego because I was completely unfamiliar with the city's roads and highways. I thought this meant I could avoid driving in California entirely. But then we, and by we I mean everyone besides me, decided we needed to return the rental cars at midnight. Since I never switched time zones, it felt like 3 AM. I was terrified and didn't know the speed limit so I drove a New York-approved 55 miles per hour on the freeway. Other drivers hated me so much that they got into the breakdown lane to cut me off.

No, that's cool. I'm exhausted, terrified, and potentially still a little tipsy from Fireball shots on the beach.
(I actually was completely sober to drive as it had been over 5 hours since I enjoyed the delicious cinnamon treat.)

My coworker and I decided to get after it in the airport bar the next day. Hoorah for Bloody Mary's. Katie had a different flight to NY than me so I found a new friend to drink with. If there is a Marine, I will find him.

Maybe it's the haircut I am attracted to?

Obviously my connecting flight was delayed and to add insult to injury, my plane was not departing from the mecca of awesomeness known as Delta Gate G (iPads, drink service, outlets galore), but rather from the unwanted stepchild of the airport, Gate C. The nearest bar was so far away from my gate that I was warned I wouldn't hear announcements. This significantly curtailed my alcohol intake... until my flight.

I was seated with a Stamford MBA candidate who asked about the logo on my t-shirt. Turns out someone I used to work with is in his cohort. Bobby is in NY for the summer working at a start-up. After the most entertaining 2 hour flight ever, I asked him to be my summer best friend.

He's 6'4.5" so he had to crouch down to get us into the same frame.

I celebrated my return to NY pretty hard that night. When I arrived at my apartment the next morning, a dead rat was outside in the street. This is what happens when your super dies.

I started sending this photo to unwanted booty texts.

I kept wondering why my pocketbook was so heavy.
Turns out I carried around an apple from San Diego for over a week.

I keep telling myself it's time to start cooking dinner again.

I recently had the exterminator come to my apartment. For some reason I thought this would kill the cockroaches in the wall (WHERE THEY BELONG!) but oh no. I came home to find a semi-alive cockroach dying in the middle of my kitchen. Every time someone moves out of one of the apartments upstairs, these nasty creatures make an appearance. I screamed, I took this photo, I texted it to every guy I know that lives within a block of my apartment begging for help. One was at dinner (dick), one was speaking to his heterosexual life partner about business on the phone (isn't he a writer?), and the other's phone was busy when I tried repeatedly calling it. What good are all of you if you're not available to kill and dispose of cockroaches?!

God hates me.

I try not to drink juice but sometimes I just love green juice. I woke up on Saturday in dire need of the stuff and remembered Green Wagon Market has a juice bar. I ordered a green mix (all veggies) and asked to add a green apple so it would be a little tart. It was delicious.

I've never hopped on the Blueprint Cleanse bandwagon, but I bought this other day at Fairway and it was pretty tasty. An unnecessary source of calories so I don't plan on adding it to my regular diet.

I tend to get a lot of questions about why I go to my parents' so much. Beautiful home with a beautiful yard near a beach vs. 240 sq. ft. studio on the UES with no roof or deck access. Is this even a competition?

jorts, seltzer, golf on tv #winning weekend

The other night I went back to my office for a little bit after CrossFit. Since it's in the same building, it's really no skin off my nose to check my email and close out on California work before I go home for the night. Unfortunately this completely dicked over my commute home - no C train or M79 in sight.

This woman was in a terry cloth robe dress, legit gardening clogs, and dragging around the bags that scream HOMELESS. Every homeless person in this city who doesn't have a shopping cart or a collection of garbage bags uses these totes. You know who else owns a bunch of them? My father, who thinks they are the best beach bags ever. After some intense thought on the matter, I decided that this woman was awfully tan and looked and smelled rather clean, so she was probably coming back from the beach. Or she was homeless. Hard to tell.

No one is safe when I have my iPhone.

Lauren and I went for a walk when I finally got home and then we went grocery shopping. I am such a real person these days. I didn't get into the shower until close to midnight and as I was getting out, I heard a loud crash. I braced myself, knowing that this was the day someone finally threw a brick through my window and had climbed into my apartment intent on dismembering me, but when I opened the bathroom door, no one was there.

The light fixture, however, was on my kitchen floor. (What the hell is with all of these unwanted things appearing in the kitchen?!)

I leave my sweaty clothes to dry out while I shower and then  put them in the hamper.

Obviously my immediate response was to call my best friend and tell her about the paranormal activity taking place in my apartment. My dead super's spirit was communicating with me and I needed her advice on who to contact. I mean, I would love to have the Long Island Medium come and communicate with Alex's spirit, but I'm sure she's pretty booked.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the ceramic piece that held the light fixture in place had melted but I'm sure that was Alex's intention all along.

Running Out the Happy Hour

Today my team had day 1 of a two day stepback. I believe "stepback" is newspeak for "time when team gathers to reflect on wins, losses, and lessons learned to inform future actions" or what everyone else calls a "meeting." Stepback apparently also means celebration so the company paid for us to eat Chinese food for lunch and then we collectively decided to enjoy margaritas after work (on our own dime because non-profits don't pay for alcohol - I am in the wrong industry.)

some of the best young chow fried rice I've ever had
Chef Yu

I've been on a roll with exercise, weight loss, and generally being awesome, so even though I hit up happy hour after work, I made myself leave after two margaritas and then go running when I got home as I had previously planned.

Did you enjoy those $5 margaritas?
You'll like them even more the second time you taste them. fml

Because this was kind of a punishment run, I threw on what might be my least cute running outfit and decided to pound out 5 miles as quickly as I could. The heat plus the booze plus the wind were all obstacles that I forced myself to overcome. Forty-three minutes (and nine seconds) and 5 miles later, I was disgustingly sweaty and dead sober. I should copyright this as an official diet and exercise plan.

Oh look! The route I always run!

The negative split is an elusive concept to me.

I paused that shit at exactly five miles and started to swagger strut home. Honestly, that is the only way I can describe the way that I walk. To add to the sheer audacity of my natural method of movement, I put on Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and started shrieking singing along. When one runs the tipsy out, the subsequent feeling of delirium tends to mimic drunken behavior.

On a related note, I've realized that when I've been drinking my mannerisms begin to closely resemble the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

Post run photos were mildly painful but the shower was magnificent.

My First WOD

Last night I went to my very first real WOD, or Work-Out of the Day. I was super excited to be able to sign up on the website but then I was anxious about going all day. I have spent my entire life avoiding things I'm not good at. Ice skating lessons? My four-year-old self used my exceptional grasp of the English language to distract the instructor. Rope climbing in gym class? Oh wait, I think the awkward kid fell and hurt himself and needs someone to accompany him to the nurse. And I absolutely refused to drop-in at CrossFit 5th Ave with the 23-year-old no matter how many times he casually mentioned it in an email because there was no way in hell he was going to see me flounder around trying to follow along. (We think he's alive by the way, but he wants nothing to do with me and I finally figured out that he is less than a year older than my little sister and I am disgusted by this realization.) It's only been in the last few years that I've learned to put myself out there and it's never in front of anyone who is going to see me naked.

I signed up for 7:45 PM class because it's less packed than the 5 - 7 classes. This has been great for keeping  me in the office to follow up with folks in San Diego on teacher credentialing. 

Brushing my teeth to hide the fact that I spent the day
mainlining coffee and inhaling a pack of cigarettes.

I've finally found a purpose for the Nike Frees I hated running in. I like how my feet feel like they are gripping the ground in them. I'm really just waiting until I can get a pair of these but I want them customized in American flag print. #Murica.

I checked out the WODs for the week in the morning and was comforted that Monday's would be my first WOD. I know I can do a front squat so what could go wrong?

Since I actually don't know what the text below means, I had no idea what was expected of me. Turns out its based on your one rep max high bar back squat (HBBS). My organization LOVES acronyms so I'm all for abbreviating the shit out of things. Unfortunately that means I can't read that damn whiteboard. Where is my onboarding terminology one-pager?

The coach was really great about explaining what I should do since I don't have a one rep max HBBS, which was figure out what I can front squat. Unfortunately I didn't catch his name at the beginning of class, but hopefully he teaches another 7:45 PM.

I partnered with a girl named Molly and we decided to do 10 reps of each weight. We started with just the lady bar, which is 33 lbs. Then we tried 5 lbs plates on either side. That was pretty easy too so we tried 10 lbs plates. We went up to 15 lbs, which is 63 lbs total, and I'm pretty sure I could have gone heavier but we ran out of time. Molly's wrists are a hell of a lot more flexible than mine and she was able to keep a loose finger grip on the barbell. I need to work on my flexibility so that I can do the same and make right angles with my elbows.

We then split into two groups and got on the rowing machines. I managed to fall off of mine. The WOD was switched to row for meters and I had 1216 meters when I was finished. I think that was pretty decent.

By the end of this summer, I am going to have ugly callouses on my hands.
I will be so proud.

Unfortunately my check in was not properly recorded yesterday and I received an email about my being absent this morning. Because I am neurotic, this discrepancy in my attendance has bothered me ALL DAY. I cannot begin to tell you how badly I need the MINDBODY website updated to reflect my participation.

Darryl Gaines Has Decided to Fly

This may be the most incredible use of KidPix I have ever seen.
source

After two months of obsessively Googling, "Where does Darryl Gaines teach spin?", the Internet gods have answered my prayers. Darryl will be teaching at Flywheel starting this week. I am a big fan of Flywheel. I am a big fan of Darryl Gaines. Win win.

The interview with Darryl about what he has been up to for the past two months can be found on RateYourBurn's blog. He is already on the schedule to teach at the Upper West Side and Flatiron locations, but based on this interview, we can expect Darryl to be teaching all over Manhattan. Let us rejoice.

Sunday Funday: Burpee Edition

Today I got up when the alarm went off for the third time, put on my workout clothes, and headed to the track. For those of you whose property values aren't being lowered by the proximity of an eyesore of a middle school, finding a track may be more difficult but there's usually at least one in a town. For my Manhattanite readers, there's a really nice track up at Riverbank State Park in Hamilton Heights.

looking fierce with my medicine ball

the eyesore of a middle school

I decided to do a workout modified from a WOD I saw on the CrossFit Hell's Kitchen website. I briefly entertained the idea of doing pull-ups from the jungle gym until I saw that the school replaced the old set that I was thinking of and there's not really a place to do them on the new one. Excuses excuses.

So I mosied on over to the track on the other side of the school with my 8 lbs medicine ball and liter of water to start my workout.

Workout:

run 1 mile with 8 lbs medicine ball

60 burpees

run 800m with 8 lbs medicine ball

30 burpees

run 400m with 8 lbs medicine ball

15 burpees

Lie in the grass and die

Running with an 8 lbs medicine ball is not easy. The actual WOD had women using a 14 lbs medicine ball, but I don't own one of those so tough luck. I alternated arms each lap around the track and held my iPhone in the other. I'm glad I had my workout playlist to keep me going because it was hot and tiring.

Sixty burpees is harder than running an ultramarathon. That's all I have to say about that.

after the last burpee

that's cool. just leave me for dead.

A soccer team gathered to practice this morning. I think they were a little put off by all the grunting and groaning coming from my side of the field.

yes, I took this from my prostrate position in the grass

Burpees in the grass is a messy business and my shower was covered in clover leaves.

I'm feeling very accomplished for a Sunday morning. Since I'm normally still in bed trying to determine who is lying next to me without waking him up, pretty much anything I do on a Sunday morning is an improvement, but this was a difficult workout and I'm impressed with myself.