Double Under and Sit-ups

50-40-30-20-10

Double Unders

Sit-ups

13:38. This was pure crap.

21-15-9 Rower/Swings

21-15-9

52 # KB Swings

Calories on Rower

4:44

Love this one!

Create Away.

PM: Strength (Babysteps)

Deadlift, 6 x 6: 115, 115, 135, 135, 155, 155

Bench Press, 6 x 6: 85, 85, 95, 95, 100, 100

Split Squat, 6 x 6 (per leg): 0, 20, 40, 50, 50, 50

Pull-Ups: Played around with band assisted strict pull-ups. Nothing worth really recording.

AM: Jump Squats!

Did this with Bella, who did an awesome job pushing through even when she was tired and wanted to stop!

Modified from Josh Hillis' Fighter-style Workouts

Round 1

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 33

Ab Leg Raise with Twist, 1 min: 36

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 33

Sit-Ups, 1 minute: 25

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 33

Total: 160

Rest 3 minutes

Round 2

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 32

Ab Leg Raise with Twist, 1 min: 40

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 28

Sit-Ups, 1 minute: 27

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 31

Total: 158

Rest 3 minutes

Round 3

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 35

Ab Leg Raise with Twist, 1 min: 38

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 30

Sit-Ups, 1 minute: 26

Jump Squats, 1 minute: 35

Total: 164

Total: 482

Wake Up Workout: Bear Crawl, Bent Over Row, Jump Squats

Modified from Josh Hillis' Fighter-style Workouts

one "length" = ~36 feet

Round 1

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 6 lengths

Bent Over Rows, 15#/arm, 1 min: 28

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 6 lengths

Jump Squat, 1 minute: 22

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 4 lengths

Total: 66

Rest 3 minutes

Round 2

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 6

Bent Over Rows, 15#/arm, 1 min: 30

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 5

Jump Squat, 1 minute: 24

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 5

Total: 70

Rest 3 minutes

Round 3

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 6

Bent Over Rows, 15#/arm, 1 min: 30

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 6

Jump Squat, 1 minute: 23

Bear Crawl, 1 minute: 4

Total: 69

Total: 205

Wake Up Workout: Rows, Swings and Squats

At Home Wake-up Workout

Round 1, 1 minute per motion:

Renegade Rows (15#/side): 12

Squats: 42

Swings (15#, one armed, switch arms at 30 sec) : 38

Renegade Rows: 11

Squats: 39

Total: 142

3 min. rest

Round 2, 1 minute per motion:

Renegade Rows: 11

Squats: 43

Swings: 4o

Renegade Rows: 9

Squats: 41

Total: 144

3 min. rest

Round 3, 1 minute per motion:

Renegade Rows: 12

Squats: 46

Swings: 38

Renegade Rows: 11

Squats: 44

Total: 151

Total Score: 438

I wish I had weights that were heavier than 15# at home. The swings were basically a rest period at that weight. Still, I'm feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed for starting my morning like that!

Thrusters, Pull-ups, DU's

For Time:

15-12-9

Thrusters, 65#

Pull-ups

Double Unders

8:59

Death by 50

50 swings, 53#

50 Deadlifts, 135 #

50 Wall ball, 8 # to 12' mark

50 burpees

How long? Who knows...too damn long. Deadlifts were nuts. Did the last 10 on pride and nothing else.

First Swim!

I haven't been in the water since tri season ended last summer, so when my mom called me up qnd said, "hey, let's go swimming" I squeezed an hour out of my prep schedule and gt to the pool! The local pool is an outdoor seasonal pool and right now, early in the season, the water is super clean and feels great.

Swam a generous 1/2 mile...I wasn't counting laps but my mom went a 1/2 mile and I did several more lengths than her...so maybe around 900 meters?

I timed two 50-meter laps and was at 44 seconds including my touch-and-turn (not flip turn) at the mid-way point. I don't know how that is...I thought I was going pretty fast but a gal in the next lane was going a lot faster than me with what appeared to be little or no effort, so maybe it's not that fast. I'll have to look up how fast real swimmers are one of these days. ;)

Spin

Wednesday, standard spin class...I showed up late so it was a 45 minute class for me. :( I have a catering event this weekend, so I'm not going to be doing twice-a-day workouts for the next few days. Bummer! But it's probably good to take this week as a bit of an active recovery week.

PM: "Kelly"

As Rx:

Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
30 Box jump, 24 inch box
30 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball

Messed up the order, so this is As Completed:

Five rounds for time of:
30 Box jump, 18 inch box
Run 400 meters
30 Wall ball shots, 10 pound ball

25:54, I think??

I timed this on my watch, but I see now that somehow my watch got bumped and the timer function restarted, so I do not have my exact time. Curses! I know I was just under the 26 minute mark cause I threw myself into the final 15 wall balls like a crazy person to be sub-26.

I will say, this felt really hard. Like, after round three I looked around and said, "I could just stop now" and seriously thought about it for a good 10 seconds. Then I ponied up and started jumping. But I don't usually pause to think about quitting, so I know this was a hard one.

The wall balls weren't too bad, (but then I was using half the Rx weight, at 20# I'd probably be dead by now) but the box jumps just smoked me, even at 18". I think the box jumps immediately after the wall ball was pretty evil...not sure if the Rx order would be any easier, though.

It's also totally possible I am feeling the night 'o' indulgence and the afternoon of sampling baked goods. I can certainly tell I'm not fueled up the way I have been, which is an interesting observation and good modivation to get back to a comfortably dialed-in diet asap. A few days of indulgence are fine, but not at the cost of crappy WOD times, yo! :)

Ok, I just went and checked mainsite and actually around 26 minutes isn't that horrible for this WOD, so I feel better. Seems like I'm not the only person who thinks this workout was super hard.

Bella is a Badass

I am super proud of my daughter. Yet again, she has amazed me:

Age: 5
Weight: 49 pounds
First ever deadlift: 53 pounds


Check out this determination! She had already lifted the 24 kilo kettlebell 8 or 10 times when we thought to take a movie of it:

AM: Overhead Squat 5 x 5

Yup, pretty simple.

Overhead Squat 5 x 5. I love 5 x 5 strength workouts...feels like the perfect middle ground between max effort and "hey this is getting kinda boring."

Warmed up with the bar, then ran right up the weight stack, incrementing by 5 pounds:
75 - 80 - 85 - 90 - 95 - 100 - 105 (failed, twice)

So actually I did 6 rounds, and attempted a 7th, but couldn't hold on to 105 pounds overhead.

Wherein I spend 6 hours acting like a fitness model

So my 30th birthday present from my amazing and supportive husband was a photo session with the lovely and talented Amanda Waltman of Art of Subtlety Photography. Nick's idea was that I've worked so hard on my fitness that documenting it for the big 3-0 seemed appropriate. I have to admit that, though I am not a girly girl and have never in adult life had photos professionally taken, I approached this opportunity with my trademark obsessiveness and just went for it.

I have known Amanda for a while, so I was already excited about the shoot, but she far surpassed my wildest expectations in terms of creating a fun, supportive, creative and dynamic environment. This whole "posing for the camera" thing is pretty new to me, but Amanda gave awesome direction to help me look my best, and had great ideas for setting up a huge range of shots. We took catalog shots, we took high-art shots, we took muscle definition shots, we took "this one's for Nick" come hither shots...it was great.

So the whole experience started off at my house. My friend Shemai came over, did my hair and helped me with styling. She was invaluable...I am pretty hopeless with hair but Shemai managed to give me a soft, fun, tousled look that was really well-styled without looking overdone or making me feel like I was wearing someone else's hair.

Amanda arrived with a mobile studio. She had all kinds of lighting, backdrops and meters to get the full studio experience in my living room. It took her about 15 minutes to get everything set up and adjusted and then we started shooting.

After several hours and wardrobe changes, we took a break and packed everything up for a venue change. We headed down to a section of the Edmonds beach where there was sand, water, rocks and seawall to work with, and did another session that lasted 90 minutes or so. I was in the water, out of the water, doing yoga, swinging kettlebells, overhead squating driftwood, climbing up on rocks, hunching back against concrete...all while having a blast.

I think the single downside was that I got a bit of a burn over my fake-o tan. Not sure why I'm surprised...I was at the beach in the middle of the day in 80 degree weather wearing no sunscreen and covered in sweet almond oil to give my muscles a nice sheer...the only worse thing I might have done was lay down for a three or four hour nap on a reflective blanket.

I am super excited to see the proofs. Amanda took tons of shots, and she said it would take her a few days to get through all of them and get them posted to the client section of her website. I'm hoping in the next few days I'll get a preview of how everything turned out and can start finalizing my order.

I figure if a few of these pictures are as good as I hope, I'm going to send them in to Oxygen Magazines "fitness/body transformation" section. I think I would make a pretty darn good "fitness transformation" subject, if I do say so myself. I also figure it can't hurt to send the kettlebell stuff over to Crossfit.com, since they post pics up on the mainsite and I would consider it a tremendous honor to be Crossfit eyecandy for a day. If nothing comes of either I won't be too bummed, though...this photo thing was really for me.

The Rippetoe Four

As everyone who reads this blog (hi to both of you) knows, I've lost some weight since my strength building phase earlier this year. I'm down probably 6-8 pounds at this point, and am sitting around 150.

I can tell a lot of that was adipose, but it's hard to not lose any muscle when you're losing weight, and since I skipped out on the Crossfit Total the other day I've been feeling a bit guilty.

So, for no reason other than that it sounded fun, I did a little Tour de Strength ala Mark Rippetoe. In other words, some of everything we learned at the Barbell Cert in February (actually we also did Hang Cleans at the cert, which I skipped today).

First, 5 Rounds, alternating exercises, of:

Squat, 10 reps @ 135#
Deadlift, 10 reps @ 135#

Then, 5 Rounds, alternating exercises, of:

Bench Press, 10 reps @ 95#
Press, 10 reps @ 50#

Deadlift and Squat were challenging on the last few reps but no problem at all. Bench Press and Shoulder Press both got partitioned almost round 2 on, which really changes the nature of the workout. They broke down like this:

Bench Press: 10, 8+2, 8+2, 6+4, 5+5
Shoulder Press: 10, 7+3, 7+3, 7+3 (a little push-press happened here), 5+5

And that was that. Tomorrow shouldn't be a rest day, but I am taking it as a pure recovery day to be really rested for the photo session on Monday. I'm getting pretty excited, hoping to get some great arty fitness shots.

PM: Wall-ball + 400 meter + Burpees

Fridays are the best because I get to Crossfit in a group setting with Kevin acting as coach, which is a rare treat.

So this evening Kevin came up with a "Kelly"-esque WOD:

5 Rounds for time

21 Wall Ball Shots, (I used the soft 10# dynamax ball because I really didn't want to have one of the hard balls smack me in the face a few days before Amanda takes my pics.)
400 meter run
10 burpees


So I REALLY need to stop drinking tea right before a WOD. I had to stop after round 3 to go pee. Seriously, I stopped my workout to duck into the bathroom. Took 18 seconds and I will admit that I skipped handwashing just this once. I know, eeeeww, but I was on the freaking clock, and I washed immediately after I finished.

My time was a hair over 18, including the potty break. 18:08 I want to say. The runs were hard, but I tried not to run like a prancing deer (Kevin schooled me last week for...um...dorsiflexing, I think? Toe pointing down, basically) while still keeping a strong POSE leg pull. But probably I was just slogging through however I could by the end. The same folks showed up this week as last week, and it was nice to put up a good time (I came in first) in front of the group after getting my ass handed to me last week.

AM: 30 Muscle Ups for Time

WOD as Rx:

30 Muscle-ups for time

Post time to comments.

If you cannot do the muscle-ups do 120 pull-ups and 120 dips.

So as I cannot do a muscle-up, I did 120 pull-ups and 120 bar-dips (previously I have done this as bench dips, so bar dips was quite a jump). I partitioned into 20 sets of 6 each, starting with pull-ups. For the first 11 sets I was cruising. From 12 on my dips got ragged, and I resorted to jumping bar-dips as neccesary, which was quite a bit on the last 3 rounds or so.

Total time: 18:06

Rest Day: Walk Green lake with K-Lo

Today was a rest day, and I enjoyed some "active recovery" by walking (no running!) Greenlake with K-Lo.

It was good to see her, it's certainly been awhile, and since she was sick she was cool keeping it mellow too. K-Lo cracks me up. On one 40 minute walk we ran into 2 groups of people she knew...her old boss and his wife and one of her best friends, a singer and fellow graduate of the culinary program we all attended.

Other than the walk, my day was relatively devoid of fitness-stuff.

Coriander & Black Pepper Halibut Cheeks

Dinner tonight was Halibut Cheeks. I love cheeks...so good, like the flank steak of the sea, and surprisingly hard to overcook for seafood. I think most people who like scallops would love halibut cheeks. I coated these in a simple mix of cracked black pepper and cracked coriander seed, then pan seared them in a tiny bit of olive oil.

While the cheeks were cooking, I sauteed up a huge batch of warm Asain slaw. Basically this is a saute of shredded green cabbage and fine julienne carrots, tossed in a hot wok with a bit of olive oil. I cooked the cabbage and carrots until just crisp-tender and finished with a handful of cilantro and sliced green onions. I splashed in some fish sauce for salt and honestly that was all it needed. The cabbage was sweet and crunchy. I went back for thirds and so did Nick. So good.

I plated my just mounding the cabbage on a plate and arranging 4 or 5 cheeks on top of the cabbage. I drizzled mine all over with Siracha, but that's because I put Siracha on almost everything. Nice went sans-spicy and that was great too...the cheeks had plenty of flavor from the spice rub.

Simple, delicious and ready in less than 12 minutes.