crlgrl’s BodyBlog

Mother nature has finally seen fit to let the rain stop long enough for the trails to dry out and allow the heat index to be under 110 so that I was able to get my mountain bike out on an actual single track!! My husband, Martin and I set off early Saturday morning to do a 10 mile fun trail. It has some slightly technical areas but it’s mostly about speed and fun!! The scariest moment for me was seeing a snake laying on the trail. I HATE snakes, they are such sneaky, vile little creatures! I pulled my feet out of my pedals out of instinct only to realize I really can’t go anywhere with my feet out. (: It was, by far, the best I have ever felt on a trail. My conditioning has improved dramatically along with my core and hip strength. I felt like I could have ridden all day! The only thing I can contribute the improvement to is Crossfit. It has done so many great things for me. It has improved my strength, my endurance, my speed and the exercises have made my body; especially my core/hip flexor area, function as a unit. The WOD yesterday was run 400m rest 2 minutes for 4 rounds. I didn’t do it, of course, even though it sounds like a fun one and I will throw it in at some point. BUT, my friend Froggy did do it and her times were comprable to the times on the CF message board even AFTER she did her leg work out!! WTG IFP!! Todays WOD is weighted pull ups. Ha ha! my 125# is plenty of weight for me, but I do plan on doing some pull ups this evening and working on my kip. I can do 1 kip at time now but haven’t been able to get into a rhythm yet to do them continuously. I did run 2 miles this morning in 23 minutes which is an ok time but…I was supposed to be running at a 13:04 mile pace so it may not be good because I was going to fast. It did cause my to realize that running on a TM may not be all that much easier per se…it could be that the TM keeps me at a certain pace and I run faster when I don’t have that set pace. DUH!!

HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEKEND TO ALL!!!!!

Todays WOD is titled Nasty Girls….I’m sure there is a story behind it but I have no idea what it is.

50 squats

7 MU (the sub for muscle ups is 3 pull ups and 3 dips..which is what I have to do)

10 hang power cleans at 135 pounds (I don’t know what the scale is, I just do as much as I can)

3 rounds for time.

My son and I went to the BJJ/CF gym last night for his BJJ class and my CF class but no one ever showed up!! I had a super WOD to do and he was pumped as always so it was quite a let down for both of us. Oh well, maybe we really needed the rest. I ran 2 miles yesterday morning for the little running program that I’m trying to do. I’m supposed to be a  good 5K time IF I do the 16 week program.    

Today’s WOD was a "hero" workout. Crossfit honors the fallen members of the community with a named work out and todays is named after Navy Lt. Michael Murphy he was a 29 y/o killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan June 28, 2005.

Run 1 mile

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

Run 1 mile

My first mile was 9:32 and my last was 9:46. In between I did 10 pull ups, 20 push ups and 30 squats for 10 rounds. I have to admit that I wanted to quit on round 7, this is such a grueling work out. But I thought about Murph and wondered how many times he wanted to quit and didn’t, I just couldn’t bring myself to dishonor his memory in my air conditioned gym, with a full stomach and all the conviences I have. Thank you for your sacrifice Michael Murphy!!

Thursday’s WOD was Helen-Run 400m, 21 kettlebells (35# for the ladies) and 12 pull ups. 3 rounds for time. I got to do this one at the affiliate with the owner, it was really tough and a bit intimidating but also gave me a little push to be competitive. After I rested about 20 minutes or so, I rowed 2000m in 10:38. That is only my second time on a rower so I hope my form and time will improve! Friday was Angie-100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups and 100 squats for time. The pull ups and push ups still kill me but not as bad as they used to!! I went into work for several hours and then Martin and I rode a little over 11 miles on our mountain bikes. Saturday’s WOD=Run 800, 21 shoulder presses. Run 800,21 push press. Run 800, 21 jerk press. Today is a rest day for CF so I walk several miles up hill with my girlfriend. All total this week-I ran twice, biked 3 times, rowed one time and did 5 CF WOD’s!!! I think I’m going to try something a different with running. Instead of running 3 miles I’m going to run 3 times a week but do one tempo day, one interval day and one distance day. Gotta run it past the expert, IronFrogPrincess first!!

Michael Phelps is totally dope.. but I read an article on the internet a few days ago about MP using his ipod on deck and that some people thought it was a form of doping. The author quoted several medical journals that had done studies on athletes using music and athletes not using music. The findings suggested that music increased the SPO2 in the blood or the capability to carry more oxygen for a short period of time. I could have told them that  without the wasted money and effort of a scientific study!!! Music has always been a huge motivational tool for me. One of the worst work out killas is seeing that button go orange on my Ipod!!!!! And I had to pull out the bad @ss playlist for todays WOD!! 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals. 1st set=pull ups, 2nd set=push ups, 3rd set=sit ups and 4th set=squats. So you end up with a total of 32 working sets! Doesn’t look to bad on paper but it really does suck. I don’t have a pertner to time or count for me so I chose to keep up with time instead of my total count. The pull ups and push ups killed me, the 20 seconds of work just seemed to stretch out longer and longer and the 10 seconds of rest seemed to get shorter!! The sit ups weren’t too bad and I know I was getting 15-17 every 20 seconds, the squats weren’t too bad either and I was getting 17-23 of those. Bonus…they didn’t hurt my glute so I think I’m on the mend!! Spitfire is back!!! (:

Alot has happened from Sunday to Sunday. Last Sunday the WOD was run 5K but since I have started doing that several times a week I decided to sprint and I guess my @ss was too slow to keep up with the rest of me because I ended up pulling a muscle in my glute, which has kept me out of the gym most of the week. ): Monday, I helped my son move into his college dorm room, in the pouring rain! He seems to be doing really well and I’m not doing too bad with it either. I thought that I might be sad or worried about him. Tuesday and Wednesday I worked 12 hour shifts. School started for Landon on Thursday.Thursday evening, Landon and I went to the Crossfit affiliate. I rowed 500m but it was hurting my butt so I did an upper body work out and then watched the rest of Landon’s class. He is dying to do some MMA fighting. :O Friday, my little sister called in a panic. She went to Peurta Rico and got married while her second story was being remodeled. The contractors said it would be TOTALLY done the day before they got back which would have worked great with the wedding party the had on Saturday. I say would have, because on Friday they were still working on it. It all worked out OK and the party was alot of fun!! Today, I finally tried out biking and ended up riding 12 miles without too much pain. I may try to do the WOD tomorrow depending on how much glute it requires. I think sprinting is going to be out for awhile. It amazes me how much good exercise does not only for my physical health but for my mental health and stress level. Not the greatest week to not have a good outlet for stress but it definitely has made me appreciate the capabilities I have physically!! But it was a good time to tune into all the Olympic action!!! (:

The Olympics, of course, what did you think?? I love watching the Olympics! As my friend, Frogprincess72, put it "I will be an Olympic whore for the next 2 weeks".  I know that there are alot of people out there that don’t really care about how much they can lift or how fast or far or how flexible or how OSM their body can be as long as it looks good, but I really admire and seek to have the body of an athlete. For me, and it is just my personal opinion…there is such a thing as being "too big". I know, blasphemy for a bodybuilding website!! If a guy is so big that he can’t move or run or touch his toes; it just seems odd to me. I have always LOVED the look of an athletic, lean man in motion!!!! So, yes, my little Froggie, I am in heaven this week!! And don’t forget the chicas…Torres, OMG!! Not only competing but kicking butt at age 41!! USA USA USA USA!!

Tuesdays WOD was done at the CF affiliate and it was back squats 5 sets of 5 reps at max weight. I did close to the weight I did last time, not much improvement. But the exciting thing was getting on the rower!! Landon still had about an hour of class let so I tried out the rowing machine, which was new to me. I did a 500K/1 min. rest program. It got my heart rate up and I liked the fact that I used so many muscles!

Wednesday I had to work and a 12 hour shift turned into a 15 hour shift. I did a bad thing and went 9 hours without eating and when I did eat standing up in intervals..it wasn’t good food. Some days are just like that in the ER..kind of hard to say, "Look I know you are having a heart attack but I gotta eat every 2-3 hours." (: I couldn’t have done the WOD anyway, it was a bunch of 1 handed snatches which I haven’t learned yet and pull ups.

Thursday was a goody, 150 wall ball squats with 20# medicine ball thrown 10 ft. I didn’t have a medicine ball but I did have instructions on the Crossfit web site on how to make one. Since I LOVE to play basketball, I have about 10 balls here and there. I took an old womens ball cut a slit in the top, funneled 20# of sand in the hole and taped it up!! Medicine ball for less than 5 dollars!! Much easier than the actual work out!! I did 38 without stopping..the rest of the time I just broke it down until I got to 150….9:12 later. This was a GREAT total body work out!!

Friday was a rest day so I just ran at the golf course!! Saturday was 5 rounds of hang squat cleans rope climbs. My gym doesn’t have a rope to climb and the wrestling room (where I normally do rope climbs) wasn’t open, so I just did pull ups. Climbing rope is really fun and very effective. If your gym has one def. give it a try!

The WOD of the day is run 5K but my girlfriend and I are going to a gym in the big city, just a change of pace so who knows what I’ll end up doing…mastoid for sure! (:

Friday’s WOD was 30 muscle-ups for time OR if you can’t do a muscle up, which I can’t, you could do 120 pullups and 120 dips. My time was 4:ever!!! I did over hand, under hand assisted and finally, the last 20 were jumping pull ups!! It was ugly but I got it done. The dips weren’t too hard. Then I ran 3 miles on the TM.

Saturday was a rowing WOD and the gym I go to doesn’t have a rower, so I got to do SDHP’s.

Round 1=Row 1000 K or do 100 SDHP (sumo deadlift high pulls). 21 DB thrusters (I think lady wt. was 65#) I used 45#. 15 pull ups. Time was 7:39

Round 2=Row 750 K or 75 SDHP’s. 18 thrusters. 12 pull ups. Time was 7:12

Round 3= Row 500 K or 50 SDHP’s. 15 thruster. 9 pull ups. Time was 6:00

This is one of those work outs that I see on the screen and say "No way can I do that" but I just did it anyway and surprise myself with decent times and weight.

Sunday’s work out was a running WOD, which I didn’t get to do because my gym is closed on Sunday and the temp. was 105 here. I rode my spinning bike for about 45 minutes instead. Today I went to the gym and ran 3 miles. Tomorrow I’ll do my WOD at the affiliate so I hope it’s a good one!!

I’ve been trying for about a month or so now to get to the CF affiliate to find some other work out minded people like me. I made an appointment with, Mark, the owner and went in last Tuesday. I decided I wanted to start with the olympic and power lifts since I was so unfamiliar with them and they are a fundamental part of many of the WOD’s (workout of the day). Mark also owns a Brazilian Jujitsu place and the CF stuff is all together. So a lady that comes every Tuesday and Thursday decided she would try some CF too! We worked on squats first and didn’t really have any problem there so we moved on to deadlifts. During all my years of lifting, I have never really done a regular dead…always used stiff-legged. With a little tweaking, getting my shoulders more over the bar and lifting my rear a little, I got my deadlift form down. On to medicine ball cleans. We started with the begining motion, which I never could get down. Finally we took a break and I showed him the hang clean squat presses with the barbell that I’ve been doing…so we skipped the medicine ball, thank goodness!! It was a great time and I can’t wait to go back this week and hopefully learn how to kip!!