August 2016 Goals

Pure Barre Goal: I went to Pure Barre twice this month, which makes 51 classes this year.

CrossFit Goal: 97/200 WODs. I dropped in at CrossFit Hamilton and CrossFit Central LI.

Mileage: I ran 23.5 miles this month. It included a brutal 6.4 miles on the Beltline, the Area 13.1 Half Marathon, and a nice 4 miler through Oyster Bay.

New York State of Mind

I've been back up in New York since last Wednesday. My trip was very much planes, trains, and automobiles and I got to experience the joys of the New York Subway, the MTA Bus, and the Long Island Railroad. Oh the L train.

I spent time at my parents' in Oyster Bay. I spent time with some family in Queens. My boyfriend's exceptionally lovely roommate let me stay at their apartment in Williamsburg. Some wonderful friends hosted a wonderful holiday weekend in Southport. It's been great, but I am more than ready to get back to Atlanta.

We both owned those bathing suits and didn't plan this at all.

The boyfriend and I fit in a run while we were in Southport. It was really just an excuse to run to Spic and Span Market for sandwiches because it was cheat day.

CrossFit 1 Year Anniversary

Today is my CrossFit anniversary and it has been a great day. I wrote the post below on Facebook this morning.

Abby, Garland, me, and Svetlana the night of my last WOD (for a while) at CFHK

Today is my one year CrossFit anniversary and I could not be happier with the last 365 days of my life. By signing up for Essentials at CrossFit Hell's Kitchen, I started a journey that took me from a pretty dark place to one where I am filled with love for others and allow them to love me in return. I am a better friend, daughter, sister, and employee. I am also strong as fuck. Thank you Anthony Preischel for putting up with my shenanigans and always pushing me to be better. Getting my first rope climb with you was one of the greatest moments ever. Thank you Jim Cerqua for being a badass Essentials coach who made me psyched to show up the next week for the "scary and intimidating" WODs with everyone else. Thank you Danielle Eberhart, Hayden-William Courtland, Marc Giordano, Jason Fernandez, and Stephen for being great coaches with your own coaching styles - I'm so lucky to have trained with each of you.

I am blessed to have such a wonderful CrossFit family at CFHK and to have made friends across the NY CrossFit community. Matthew Bronson, James Quigley, and Blair regularly welcomed me to EVF. Chad Syniec, Alex Wong, PJ, and Chris made me consider moving back to Long Island so I could go to Crossfit Central LI more often. And without Team Dangerous and their prom, who knows if I would have stayed in NY long enough to make any of these friends?

While I miss every one of the amazing people I call my friends in NY, today I am excited to spend my anniversary at Crossfit Identity in Atlanta. As Frank Sinatra said, "It was a very good year."

Burpee Challenge

Full disclosure: I stole this idea from CrossFit Central LI

I am partaking in a burpee challenge. Each day for 100 days, I do the number of burpees as the number of days in the challenge. So 1 burpee on the 1st day, 2 burpees on the second day, and so on. I started on June 1 and I finish on September 8. And I'm actually holding myself accountable because I tend to start a lot of things and then don't bother to follow through.

Why have I voluntarily signed myself up to do a burpee challenge alone? I want to see if this small additional amount of work adds up to anything significant.

It hasn't been bad so far. I forgot to do them Saturday but we did 10 burpees as part of the warm-up. I don't believe in cheating so I did an additional 7 yesterday. From what I understand, the Central LI challenge allowed participants to make up missed days.

Check back in with me once we get over 20 a day and perhaps I'll be telling a different tale.

Running in Nanos

I don't recommend it.

After my midday track workout yesterday, I went back to work for the rest of the afternoon. Then I asked my mom to drop be off at CrossFit Central LI because my car was still in the shop. We had a bench press deload week followed by a nice 21-15-9 couplet.

My overhead squat is still pretty light. Back at Frostbite 2014, I PR'd with a 65# OHS and I was able to get 4 unbroken at that weight, barely. I managed 35# (15# training bar and 2 tens) but I certainly wasn't going unbroken.

2014 Regional Event 6 at Central LI

Today CrossFit Central LI's WOD was 2014 Regional Event 6 programming.

For time:
50-calorie row
50 box jump overs, 24/20 inch
50 deadlifts, 180/125 lb.
50 wall-ball shots, 20/14-lb. ball
50 ring dips
50 wall-ball shots, 20/14-lb. ball
50 deadlifts, 180/125 lb.
50 box jump overs, 24/20 inch
50-calorie row

It was a tough workout. It was the first time I had done wallballs since my nose surgery and I think I might have gotten worse at them. Box jump overs are no joke after a row - my legs felt as if they were independent from the rest of my body. I did the workout Rx except for the ring dips. I don't have dips on my own yet so I used a thin green band on the dip horn (it's a lot less dirty than it sounds) but my goal for 2014 is to dips on the rings and the horn WITHOUT a band.

And yeah, ONE HUNDRED deadlifts at 125# has been my great accomplishment of the week thus far.

Throwback Thursday: LifeTime Fitness Visit

Throwback to the time Christine brought me to Lifetime Fitness as her guest.

I met Christine in Yves Maco's kickboxing class at Equinox in the fall of 2010. She was one of the cool kids in the front of the class. I made it my goal to be one of the cool kids in the front of the class. Soon we were bitching about teaching in the locker room, sharing hair-ties, and kicking synchronized ass front and center. Life was good.

Then Yves left Equinox, I moved back to Manhattan, and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons have never been the same.

When Hell Freezes Over at Frostbite 2014

Team "When Hell Freezes Over" came in 9th place out of 21 scaled teams at Frostbit 2014. I love these guys and couldn't ask for better teammates!

Thank you to all the coaches at CFHK, especially to Anthony and Stephen for all the time you have spent working with me, and Danielle for being there today to encourage and sharing your expertise when I really needed it!

A very special thank you to Chad Syniec, an amazing CrossFit Central LI coach, who has welcomed me to Olympic Lifting Sunday and taught me so much about lifting, strength, and believing in my potential. I couldn't have made it through WODs 2 and 3 without you!

Wins and Weaknesses Within the Same WOD

There are days when I see wins and weaknesses within the same WOD, such as this morning at the 5:45 AM class at CrossFit Central LI. I get there just in time for the warm-up and I'm a little tired. Had some trouble falling asleep last night. I get through 50 jumping jacks and then I get the 50 double-unders UNBROKEN. This has never happened before and the highest I've ever strung together before was 31, so this is a definite win.

We gathered for a group stretch and I could feel that I have been ignoring mobility work. We had a 3 minute AMRAP of wallballs and I got 50. These were not unbroken but I didn't drop the ball and I only no-repped once. Again, this is a definite win.

I was really psyched for the metcon at Central LI today because I really thought I could Rx it and then I had my hubris handed to me.

84 Hang Cleans, 84 Push-Presses, and 84 GHD Sit-Ups

I made it to CrossFit Central LI for an awesome and challenging WOD. It was an opportunity to practice pacing myself and pushing through mental roadblocks. And since it was a triplet in multiples of 3, my number 3-obsessed pattern-loving mind had a wee of a time breaking down the movements. I did the first 21 hang cleans unbroken but figured out quickly that I wouldn't be able to keep that up. From there I worked with multiples of 3 on the push-presses (7-7-7, 6-6-6 and so on) and crushed the GHD sit-ups. Ever since Rachel's birthday WOD, my shoulders kill whenever I attempt toes to bar.

Weekend Windup with Some Oly Sunday Funday

All last week I was dying to get out to Long Island. I was in need of a Siberian Soul Reboot.

This is what you get if you Google image search Siberian Soul Reboot
source

I made the 4 PM WOD at CFHK on Friday. It was a special blend of awesome and fml. I PR'd my sumo deadlift at 203#. Here's the video of me completing 2 reps. My form goes to shit. I have to be more aware of rounding my back.

Fitting In as Much Fitness as Possible in 2013

It's recently come to my attention that some of my readers are not pleased with the focus on CrossFit and preferred the days when posts were almost exclusively about running. Well I went for a run today and my knees hurt so don't get your hopes up anytime soon. I went to my last WOD of 2013 this morning and then came home to find the cleaning couple cleaning my parents' house. I didn't want to get in their way so I changed and headed out for a run. It was probably about 3 miles but my phone died, which meant no GPS tracking and no music. I promptly turned around and was left with my own thoughts. And my own thoughts apparently go straight to imagining my future glory at a Team Dangerous team WOD with 30 of my closest CFHK friends.

it's 21 degrees out and this is my 44 oz iced coffee

Trust, Goals, and Growth

As I was gathering my thoughts for this year's XX Things I Learned in 20XX post, I started reflecting a lot on personal growth, setting goals, and trust.

I think I've grown a lot as a human being this year. I don't feel the need to hide behind the overly friendly, too loud, larger than life and always up for a party persona I created to basically just deal with people so many years ago. I feel more present, less manipulative, and I'm not going through the motions as a means to an end. As the Lumineers (anyone else secretly love their music but feel ashamed to admit it?) say, "It's better to feel pain than nothing at all." Feelings ain't so bad. They're actually kind of refreshing and break up the monotony of the day and week.

I had to set so many goals when I was teaching that the word actually makes me cringe a little bit. Backwards planning, benchmarks, progress to goal... These are things that I've applied to CrossFit. I told myself that I was going to have three consecutive pull-ups by Christmas Day and I figured out what I needed to learn to do to get that done, including accepting feedback about using my lats and reassessing my progress. I didn't have access to a pull-up bar until today but guess who has THREE CONSECUTIVE PULL-UPS? This girl. The first two I banged out but the third took a little extra effort, but at no point did my hands leave the bar nor did my feet make contact with the ground. Setting goals is a good thing because it makes me push myself to be better. My self-performance review at work always includes me admitting that I never believe my work is good enough for the next day because whatever is good today should be better tomorrow. Continuously improving and relentless pursuit of results.

Trust is a crazy thing when it comes to human relationships. I believe that you will act in a certain way so I allow you to get close to me and I confide in you? That sounds pretty risky to me. 

If you haven't seen the meme for this yet, let me pass off: 

“Friendship is weird. You pick a human you’ve met and you’re like, "yup I like this one," and you just do stuff with them," as my own.
(Source: MandySchmandy)

Home for the Holidays

I came back to Long Island last night and leave for Iowa in a few hours. I obviously couldn't leave without making it to CrossFit Central LI so I drove over this morning for the 5:45 AM WOD.

I was a little sleep deprived/hungover from my cough medicine, but felt pretty good going into it.

WOD
5 rounds
:
Deadlift 4 Reps @same weight as last week

30 Double Unders

5 rounds
:
5 Power Cleans @185/125

10 Burpees

Being a Big Girl

So this morning I woke up in a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and I have to say, I looked fucking awesome. Then I found a video of me ugly crying on my phone. If I sent that to you, I am so so sorry.

I woke up this morning feeling awesome because I went home alone last night at a reasonable hour like a big girl. And by reasonable hour, I believe it was 3 AM but at least I didn't shut down the bar. Anyway...

Sunday Funday: Let's Pack as Much Fun Into Today as Possible

This morning I was in my car by 7:45 AM on my way to the Greenbelt Trail to meet my running friend Michael for a quick run. We were supposed to do the full 15ish mile loop yesterday but there was a bit of a miscommunication. Since I absolutely refuse to miss Oly Sunday if I am on Long Island, I had exactly one hour to run and not a minute more.

It was a warm 36 degrees this morning so I wore compression calves sleeves and compression arm sleeves underneath leggings, a tech long-sleeved shirt, and my winter running jacket. I also wore gloves and a hat.

As you can see, I am thrilled to be freezing my ass off in my car. 

A Perfect Saturday

Today was a great day. I started my morning right at CrossFit Central LI. Because it is absolutely ridiculously cold out, I need to wear all of that to even drive to the box. Spandex, knee-socks, CFHK t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, CFHK hoodie, and sweatpants JUST TO GET TO THE BOX. Remind me why we didn't move to California again? The theme of today was patriotic.

The WOD was a doozy. Lance and I formed Team No Pants and turned it into a partner WOD. Some folks actually read the website and rested a minute in between rounds. Others folks, Lance and I included, used the 400m run as active recovery slash time to complain about how cold it was.

Sunday Funday: Oly Sunday 2

I had such a great time last week at Oly Sunday that I came back for more.

My legs have been getting banged up so I finally started wearing the knee high socks. Often mistaken for some cultish CrossFit fashion trend, they protect your shins from barbell scrapes and bruises. I'm wearing a pair of American Apparel knee high socks that I've had for years but have never really worn. I used to think they made my legs look fat but now I think they look pretty good.

Sunday Funday: Oly Sunday

This morning I awoke to a gluten-induced hangover and I took my sweet ass time getting out of bed. I finally got myself dressed and out the door to CrossFit Central LI.

my CrossFit Pittsburgh tank has finally arrived!

Saturday's WOD and Rowing

WOD in pink, warm-up is the black chicken scratch on the side

On Saturday I went to one of my favorite places - CrossFit Central LI. I didn't get there in time to do a full warm-up (actually, I probably did but I take a lot of time going to the bathroom and wandering around, and putting my hair clips in), but I did some stretching and a few squats. Not warming up definitely came back to bite me when the first 800m run felt like garbage. Lesson learned.