Becoming Crossfit

Shout-outs, props, kudos, snaps

2010-08-13T07:58:00.000-05:00

I meant to write this yesterday, but I want to throw major props to my 6:30 AM TTh Bootcamp! Yesterday we revisited our first workout EVER together and started our final week of bootcamp with our benchmark workouts. All of the bootcampers improved their time by at least a minute, and some even by three minutes! I'm super impressed because this group is already very fit and athletic, and it only gets better from here. Way to go NE Minneapolis Bootcamp!

If you want to try our first workout, here's what it was:

For time:
400m Run
15-12-9
Squats
Push-ups
Sit-ups
400m Run

Next Tuesday we'll do our second benchmark WOD. I'll be on vacation, but I can't wait to hear what Melanie says about their improvements!

Becoming CrossFIT

2010-08-11T22:31:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite benchmark WODs is Cindy because it looks and sounds so deceptively simple and then those darn push-ups get me every time! I just don't have the upper body strength I guess. Today we did Cindy and I felt a little down on myself afterward because I didn't perform as well as I had hoped, but then I had a great conversation with another member that really got me excited about CrossFit and performance again.

Anna is one of the newest members to CFSP and has been coming to classes about a month now. Prior to joining CF, she ran quite a bit. We were talking after class and she told me how lately she hasn't been running as much because she's so sore after CF she can hardly walk! I laughed, it's so true! Recently she went out of town for a conference and did some running at the hotel gym. Get this: she ran TWICE as far as she normally does and didn't get tired along the way. She was really amazed at that, since usually her knees start to give her trouble. We posited that all the squats she's been doing at CF has maybe helped with the knee issues. Gotta love them squats!

It's really neat to hear stories like Anna's, since it demonstrates how we can become fitter and more athletically capable without even realizing it. I think it also speaks to CrossFit's "general preparedness" outline of fitness: be prepared for anything, anywhere...even if it's treadmill running in a hotel gym! I will say that since joining CF, I'm better at dashing to catch a bus too...

Despite my somewhat lackluster performance today, I have to remember that I may be making gains in other areas that Cindy just didn't pick up on. Maybe I can't do that many push-ups, but I'm pretty sure my bear crawls are getting faster and my box jumps are more strung together. And even outside of CF, my fitness may be be improving.

With that in mind, I decided to return to a skill that I developed a long time ago that has since fallen by the wayside with school and getting older: dance! That's right, I signed up for hip-hop dance classes today, to start September 18. Stay tuned for more posts on that!

Total + Nutrition

2010-08-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

Today I had a meeting with a nutritionist at school and we did CrossFit Total at the gym, both good things to assess every once in a while.

So recently I've been kind of a hypochondriac with my health, going to the doctor for every minor little thing that seems to be "wrong." Last week I went into the health clinic, described my symptoms, and the nurse actually recommended that I speak with a nutritionist to see if there was anything important missing in my diet. In all honesty, I think she was concerned I might have an eating or body image disorder due to my fanatical descriptions of my constantly varied workouts and the regimen I keep with my food log.

I was a little hesitant to schedule the meeting at first - what's a nutritionist going to tell me that I don't already know because I read about it on Mark's Daily Apple or Whole Health Source? But, it was a completely free 1.5 hour consultation (ah, the perks of being a graduate student!), and I figured the least I could gain would be some insight into a nutrition research study I want to run in the fall.

I went into the meeting ready to be on the defensive: I eat leafy greens for calcium! I choose lean meats over other meats! Not everyone has evolved to eat dairy! I don't know why, maybe it stems from my fear that people regard the paleo diet as a little "out there." Quite silly really, considering that the logic of evolution provides some pretty good reasoning as to why this diet is beneficial. Anyway, into the consultation I went, equipped with my paleo challenge food log so I could show just how rounded out and balanced and sound my diet was.

The nutritionist had heard of the paleo diet before, but wasn't quite certain of all that it entailed. I briefly explained it to her, showed her my food log, and answered some of her questions about my family history. She took it all in and then said, "Sounds like a good diet to me." There you have it. A nutritionist's seal of approval. Her only concerns were about my calcium intake (but I take a Vitamin D3 supplement to aid with absorption) and also my saturated fat intake (from the coconut milk and animal products). But, with this in mind, I can easily tweak the paleo diet a little more to keep these intake levels, like don't drink a whole can of coconut milk in one sitting.

My appointment only lasted 30 minutes because it was just too clear cut that they way I'm eating rocks. And that's all there is to say about that.

Now onto Crossfit Total, which was BRUTAL in the Minnesota humidity. Blech, I sweat just standing in the gym. I had every intention of increasing my total score today, but that's not what my tired body had in the cards. Maybe I should start working more on strength training and lifts again....

I scored 424, down 6 pounds from my previous Total of 430 at the end of May. Both my press and my back squat decreased minimally, and my deadlift improved by 3 pounds, so at least there's that. Afterward, some gym buds and I joked around that it's possible my performance is due to my pie-eating and cheating with the paleo diet. Could be. But if it comes down to me beating my CF Total score by a few pounds OR enjoying a warm slice of Betty's Crunch Pie a la mode...I'm going with pie. Sometimes, we just have to face the trade-offs.

Bacon makes everything better

2010-08-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Today I updated my tomato-basil-mushroom frittata with a little bacon and it was MUCH better this time around. Just goes to show what you can do with a few leftover ingredients in your fridge, I just happened to have these things lying around...I recommend at least keeping onion and garlic in your pantry, as these will spice up ANY dish!

Bacon-Tomato-Basil Frittata
5 strips uncured bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
Half a medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped
Fresh basil, chopped (about 2 TB)
6 eggs
Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350'F. In a 10-inch skillet, cook the bacon. Remove with a slotted spoon to drain a paper-towel lined plate. Sop up a bit of the bacon fat, but leave a good amount in the pan to saute the onion and garlic for 5 minutes or so, until it gets caramelized. Reduce heat to low and toss in the tomato and cook another minute.

In a mixing bowl, mix the eggs, basil, salt and pepper. Add the bacon back into the skillet and then pour the egg mixture on top, filling in all the nooks and crannies. Let it settle and allow the bottom to cook through. In about 4-5 minutes, the top may start to bubble, which is your cue to pop the whole skillet in the oven. Cook for about 10 minutes until the top is set and cooked through.

Remove from oven, allow to cool, then cut into wedges and enjoy the fresh spice of basil! AND BACON!

2010-08-08T19:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a post of one of my favorite recipes, that also has some very fond memories attached: Vegetable Ratatouille. Make this one now, while all the vegetables are in season locally in Minnesota!

A little less than two years ago, I had my very first date with a very special person. Our relationship has revolved around good food, and it all started with this compromise from my carnivorous chef to make me a hearty vegetarian dish. All the ingredients in this dish are in season right now, so it's super cheap and sustainable to make!

Vegetable Ratatouille
1/3 cup + 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 pound small eggplant (about 2 small or 1 medium eggplant), cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound zucchini (about 2 zukes), cut cross-wise into 1-inch sections
2 onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil, coarsely chopped
4 sprigs fresh thyme
2 pints cherry tomatoes
1 dried ancho chile
Salt and fresh cracked pepper

Heat 1/3 cup of olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Throw in the eggplant and season generously with salt and pepper. Cook down for 10-12 minutes, stirring every so often until the eggplant is sort of soft and mushy. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a paper-towel lined plate to drain.

While the eggplant is cooking, you can save time by prepping the zukes, onion, garlic, and herbs. Once the eggplant is done cooking, add 1/4 cup of olive oil to the same skillet and cook the zucchini in the same method. Remove the zucchini, add another 1/4 cup of olive oil to the skillet and cook the onions, garlic, and herbs for 5-7 minutes, until the onions get nice and caramelized. Once cooked, add the cherry tomatoes and a bit more salt.

Cook the tomatoes down for 10-12 minutes until mushy. Add back in the eggplant and zucchini, crack open the chile and throw it into the skillet. Reduce heat to medium-low, stir and cook everything together for about 20 minutes - enough time to let all the flavors meld together.

Serve warm with some andouille chicken sausage or grilled chicken.

Draining eggplant and zucchini

Cook down the tomatoes until they get pulpy and mushy

Finished product - all local except for the chile!

Paleo in the wilderness: easy as pie

2010-08-08T17:56:00.000-05:00

I have just returned from a weekend in the wilderness (a.k.a. North Shore Lake Superior, camping out at Splitrock Lighthouse State Park)! It was loads of fun being in nature and living out of my backpack for a few days...and it was a fun challenge to stay paleo too!

For the most part, I stayed strict paleo, especially since I'm part of the gym's challenge. It was somewhat challenging because I could only fit so much in a cooler for 3 days, and also expect it to stay cold and fresh! I brought broccoli, carrots, a cucumber salad, lost of guacamole, lettuce, some buffalo bites/buffalo jerky, and deli turkey and ham. To satisfy my breakfast cravings and sweet tooth, I also had some Larabars and homemade nut granola. Definitely not the typical eggs and bacon paleo-style breakfast, but since I don't go camping that often, I haven't perfected the art of cooking a hearty morning breakfast (including coffee...ahhhhh).

My "unwich": turkey and ham sandwiched between two lettuce leaves

My co-camper and friend Rachel commended my ability to stay paleo in the wild, and I'd have to agree that I'm proud of my dedication to the challenge. I DID decide to eat a few s'mores around the campfire and a piece of pie with ice cream at world famous Betty's Pies on HWY 61 because, honestly, how often do those opportunities present themselves to me on a regular basis? Hardly ever. That's not a good "excuse" to stray from the path, and I'm not into making excuses either. But in my mind, eating should be an enjoyable experience, and I don't plan on missing out on what life offers because I've chosen to follow a certain diet or lifestyle. That would be like being a vegetarian (GASP!) Just kidding :)

What I took away from this camping trip experience was that eating clean paleo (most of the time, at least) is probably the easiest and best diet decision I've made. I know that I'm doing something good for my body because I feel great, have sustained energy, and don't have to obsess or worry about counting calories or weighing things out...can you imagine bringing a scale into the wilderness??? I just eat something good and nutritious when I feel hungry, how easy is that?

The other thing I like about the paleo way of eating is that, surprisingly, I don't feel like I've had to give up anything. That might sound strange, since there are a lot of things one cannot eat in the paleo diet (legumes, grains, dairy, simple sugars). But that's all stuff that I don't really miss now that it's out of my diet - very different from the days I was vegetarian and craved BBQ 24/7! I can't imagine what popcorn tastes like, and it honestly doesn't sound too appetizing anymore.

Pie still sounds good though...even if our caveman ancestors didn't eat it. Everything in moderation, right?

After a 10 mile hike, you gotta have a *little* slice of pie. A la mode of course.

Home is where the CrossFit gym is!

2010-08-03T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today at CFSP, we had the very rare occurrence in our 6:00 PM class to be graced by the WOD dominance of THREE (3!!!) visiting CrossFitters from different states. Usually we get a few people passing through our gym weekly who are visiting the Twin Cities for various reasons, but these three individuals are not only visitors, they're REPEAT visitors!

First off, major shout out to John of CrossFit Chicago, who once visited us when we were CrossFit Minneapolis and is back again with us in St. Paul. It's been a while since I've seen him, but he is just as enthusiastic and cheerful as ever. He probably gets it from his awesome coach, Rudy, who also happened to be at my Level 1 Cert back in April. If you are ever in the Chicago area, please go check them out. Just from meeting these two people alone, I am DYING to make a trek out to Chi-town to train with such positive and warm people.

Matt and Nicole were the other visitors, and I had never met them before, but had it on good word that they drop in every so often when they're in town. I think that's great! I'm glad that in a way CFSP kind of has it's own little "following" of out-of-staters. It says something about our gym, our space, our programming; but most of all, it speaks highly of our community of members that people keep coming back for more. You just can't get enough Bubbles I guess :)

Thanks for making CFSP your home away from home, and your box away from box!

On Preparation...for the WILD!

2010-08-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

So I'm really excited right now because I leave on Thursday to go camping with my favorite Canuck, Rachel! And although I've been "cheating" a little with this paleo challenge because I wanted to take advantage of Minneapolis/St. Paul Restaurant Week, I plan on keeping it very paleo out in the wild. Just like our caveman ancestors, right?

This past Saturday at our CFSP check-in meeting, Mike touched on the topic of preparing. I think this is a key success factor when deciding to go paleo. I spend about an hour a week just PLANNING out my meals for the week, then add to that shopping for ingredients and cooking. Yes, it takes a while, but with all the energy you'll have from eating good, clean, nutritious food, you won't even notice how long it takes! Sounds cheesy, but it's true.

Proper preparation goes beyond just planning what to cook and making sure you have enough meals to take to work. I extend my planning and preparation to include NOT keeping very many (or hopefully ANY!) non-paleo items in my apartment. If you don't have Wheat Thins to snack on, you're less likely to snack on them. Being prepared with healthy alternatives is also essential so that you stay on track with your diet and nutrition goals.

With that being said, I've had to prepare what I'm going to take on my camping adventure with Rachel. I hit up the local REI today and found these pretty decent buffalo jerky bites called Tanka Bites. The only negative is that they have cranberries and sugar, but I'm going to be moving around so much and constantly, that the carbs will do me some good. I also picked up a few Larabars (again, for the carbs) and I'm hitting up the grocery store tonight for deli meat, fresh veggies, and nuts to make my nut granola. I think that should have me pretty set for 2.5 days of hiking and camping out.

Just don't tell Mike I'm also getting S'Mores materials...cavemen ate those too, right?

Virtues and Vices

2010-08-01T23:54:00.001-05:00

Since I started eating more paleo a little less than a year ago, I've learned so much about cooking and experimenting in the kitchen because I have to prepare everything myself. One thing I like experimenting with most is "paleo-fying" non-paleo recipes (like pancakes, muffins, ice cream, etc.), which some may not consider true paleo. Even a paleofied muffin has sugar with the added amounts of honey. With this paleo challenge happening at the gym, it's harder than ever for me to limit the amount paleofied non-paleo goodies and eat more of the good stuff like proteins and green veggies. Still, today I want to highlight and share some of my more virtuous recipes and also a more vice-like dessert recipe.

First up, I made a delicious frittata this morning. Frittatas are nice because they're quick and easy and can be completed in just one pan. One usually lasts me about 4 meals. You can use any ingredients (any mix of veggies, meats, herbs), and for this particular frittata, I wanted to use some fresh basil that came with my CSA box last week. I honestly think I just typed in "basil eggs" to Google, and this recipe popped up.

Tomato, Mushroom, and Basil Frittata
1/2 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tb chicken broth (divided into 1 Tb each)
1 cup thinly sliced crimini mushrooms
1 medium tomato, seeded and diced
6 eggs
3 Tb chopped basil
salt and pepper to taste

I started by prepping the onions and garlic, then I preheated the oven to 350'F so it would be ready when needed. Finish slicing and dicing all the other veggies and also crack your eggs in a bowl and bring those to room temperature.

Heat 1 Tb of the chicken broth over medium heat in a nonstick ovenproof skillet. Saute the onion in the broth for about 5 minutes, or until the onion gets soft and translucent. Add in the garlic and mushrooms and saute for another 2 minutes. Last, add in the last of the chicken broth with the tomatoes and some salt and pepper. Saute everything together for about another minute.

Turn heat to LOW. Mix the basil, salt, and pepper with the eggs. Whisk together, then pour into the skillet with the veggies. Let the eggs "creep" into all the nooks and crannies, but DO NOT stir. You want the eggs to cook evenly on the bottom and solidify (kind of like an egg pancake). I let this cook on my stovetop for about 3 minutes until the eggs look almost cooked through.

By this time, your oven should be done preheating and you can pop the whole skillet in there for about 5 minutes, until the egg top is set. Voila! Breakfast or dinner is served! I ate this with a side of lamb sausage, but you could easily get some more protein in the frittata itself by adding ground beef, pork, or sausage into the veggies themselves. If so, I'd probably brown the meat first, then add the chicken broth and veggies after skimming off some of the fat the meat lets off. I could also see cubed ham or turkey working well with this frittata.

After my frittata and several hours watching the Food Network and salivating all day, I decided to prep my veggies for the week's side dishes. I prepared my green beans with bacon recipe and also found a beet and fennel recipe online so I could use the fennel bulbs my CSA sent me. To be honest, I really didn't like the recipe, but I did appreciate and enjoy how the beet part of the salad turned out.

Roasted Beets
1 bunch of golden (or red) beets, greens detached
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 Tb water
1 Tb olive oil

Preheat oven to 400'F. Throw the beets into a saucepan and fill the saucepan with water until the beets are almost covered. Bring to a boil on the stove, then reduce to a low simmer. Cook for approximately 5-8 minutes for small to medium beets (10 minutes for larger beets). Remove from water and let cool.

Peel the beets with a paring knife and cut into 1/2-inch wedges. Throw them into a baking dish with the water, olive oil, and thyme. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Toss out the thyme sprigs and enjoy warm!

And once you enjoy your frittata and some veggies, I think you deserve some just desserts. If you need a dark chocolate fix, these are the mini muffins for you!

Chocolate Berry Muffins
3 eggs
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
~ 1 tsp raw honey
Fresh or frozen mixed berries
Coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350'F. Mix the eggs with the cocoa powder and honey. Lightly grease a muffin tin with the coconut oil, then fill the muffin tins halfway with the egg-cocoa mixture. Plop some fresh or frozen berries on top, but they'll most likely sink into the batter since they're so heavy. No worries!

Pop in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture rises and "springs" back when touched. Turn off the oven and open the door to let the bottom of the muffins cook through while cooling. Once cool, remove the muffin pan from the oven and gently remove the muffins. They should be kind of sponge-cake feeling.

These are not very sweet at all, so I would recommend eating them COLD with a dollop of coconut cream and a honey drizzle on top. Or maybe even just the coconut cream....

Salmon Cake Recipe

2010-07-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

So I've been meaning to write a few more posts lately, but with the lazy days of summer, I just haven't gotten around to it. Also, since I'm changing the purpose of this blog to be less about my own workouts and more about the food I eat and my experiences with coaching, I've fallen out of the habit of posting regularly. To sort of in a way make up for it, I'm posting one of my more favorite recipes for salmon cakes!

I found this in my 30-Minute Meals with Rachael Ray cookbook. Loved that book in college, although I will say that RR loves to use a TON of ingredients. That's a little bit of a challenge for me since I don't particularly enjoy chopping up a ton of veggies every meal. That kind of defeats the purpose of "30 minutes," since she doesn't include prep time in her calculations. Tricky, tricky. Still, even with chopping, this recipe doesn't take too long and is well worth it. I like to snack on these puppies for a quick protein boost or put them on top of greens for lunch.

Salmon Cakes
18 oz cooked salmon OR 3 cans well-drained (I'm a cheapo so I buy the wild-caught canned stuff)
1 cup almond meal
2 eggs
2 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
20 blades fresh chives, snipped or chopped
2-3 Tb fresh dill, finely chopped (key ingredient for yumminess!)
1 tsp cayenne pepper sauce (I use Sriracha or even just a tsp of cayenne powder)

In a mixing bowl, flake the drained canned salmon with a fork. Add the almond meal and work together with your hands. Add the eggs, seasoning salt, pepper, chives, dill, and cayenne and blend well. If mixture is too wet, add more almond meal.

Heat a large nonstick skillet with an inch or so of frying oil (I use coconut oil) over medium heat. Form 3-inch patties that are about 1-inch thick. Fry patties in the oil until golden, about 3-5 minutes each side. Drain on a paper-towel lined plate.

Enjoy with lemon juice or more Sriracha on a bed of greens!

Last week of groceries

2010-07-25T22:30:00.000-05:00

There are only six more days left on my personal paleo cooking on a budget challenge, so most likely this weekend was my last trip to the grocery store and the farmer's market. I knew last week that I was going to go over my initial $250 budget, so I probably splurged a little bit more than I should have...hey, I'm from Texas: we go big, or we go home.

I only had to pick up a few things for dinner and some more creative options for breakfast since the gym's paleo challenge requires that I cut out dairy from my diet. THE HORROR of cutting out Greek yogurt, my go-to breakfast staple!!!!! I like sweet things at breakfast, so the eggs and bacon bit is going to get pretty old pretty fast. Anyway, here's what I shopped for:

1 lb. chicken (to go with the basil pesto I made last week)
3 cans salmon (for salmon cakes - stay tuned for recipe later this week!)
red pepper
salad mix
fresh dill
pecans
walnuts
sunflower seeds
dried coconut flakes
dried cherries
dried mango (my snacking weakness!)
frozen organic berries (cheaper than the fresh stuff and still great in smoothies)

The grand total from the Wedge came to $59. I also bought some fresh pastured eggs and beef bacon from Blue Gentian Farm at the Lyndale Farmer's Market, which set me back another $11. Ok, so that roughly brings my monthly grocery bill to $313. Quite a bit over budget, but still under my past grocery expenses. I will say that I still have some food leftover from last week, but it only lasts and tastes good so long. For next month, I'm going to continue cooking on a budget and try to re-meet what I feel is a very do-able goal, but I'll maybe halve the recipes so that I'm not stuck with too many leftovers...

So you may have noticed all the nuts and dried fruit in my grocery list...that's because without a quick yogurt breakfast, I had to make some homemade nut granola! I love this stuff either dry as a snack, but it also works well with a dollop of coconut cream on top (put your canned coconut milk in the fridge and then scoop out the cream that rises to the top), or a splash of almond milk to make it more like cereal.

Nut Granola
1/2 cup of each: raw almonds, walnuts, pecans
1/2 cup of each: raw pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds
1 Tb coconut oil, melted
1 Tb vanilla
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (I like it freshly grated)
~1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup small dried fruit of choice - look for stuff that doesn't have added sweeteners or oils like cherries, cranberries, blueberries, apricots

Preheat oven to 350'F. While oven is preheating, roughly chop the nuts in a food processor and mix with the seeds, coconut oil, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Evenly spread out the mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet or baking dish. Roast nuts in the oven about 2-5 minutes, rotating and stirring occasionally to toast evenly.

Remove from oven and drizzle the honey over the top. Mix the nuts around again and then pop back in the oven for another 4-5 minutes, checking frequently to make sure the nuts and seeds don't burn. Remove from oven and let cool in a bowl. Once cool, add the flaked coconut and fruits and mix. Store in a plastic container or bag.

Like I said, I eat this dry when I'm craving something slightly sweet. I also used to eat it on top of my yogurt and berry breakfast bowl to add some crunch.

Blog Category Update

2010-07-23T22:54:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the one year anniversary of CrossFit St. Paul being open, and it also just happens to be the night before our Paleo Challenge Kickoff for the next month - perfect reason to gather on a pub patio for a few brewskies! It was great catching up and mingling with everyone in one spot, and I learned that since Mike posted a link to this blog on the main CFSP site, a few more people have started reading this blog! Thanks!

In honor of having more readers and the CFSP challenge, I decided to do a little more organizing so things are easier to find. For now, I've tagged and labeled all the recipes and categorized them depending on their main ingredient (chicken, beef, vegetable, or breakfast...ok, there's also a few sweet desserts mixed in...). You'll also find labels that outline the challenges I've set for myself (with updates too!) and also some reflections I have on workouts and fitness.

As always, I love to hear what people think and what they'd like to see more of in this space, so please leave me a comment or shoot me an email!

"Paleo-fying" and Pot Roast

2010-07-21T20:40:00.001-05:00

I just signed up for CFSP's month-long paleo diet challenge, where I'll be encouraged to maintain a pretty strict paleo diet and check-in weekly with other challengers. This is the first time we're doing something like this at the gym, and it honestly could not come soon enough for me!

We did Barbara today at the gym, and it was brutal. More brutal than the WOD was the heavy feeling of the Vietnamese sandwich I had at lunch. While it was full of bright veggies and lean chicken, it was also wrapped in white bread. Bad move. I have to remember that my body is fueled by what I put in it, and when I eat something grainy and heavy, I usually feel pretty bad the rest of the day. I want to contrast this with eating for body composition. I think a lot of people may get confused and think that my paleo diet is a "true" diet in the common connotation of the word: that I eat the way I do because I'm trying to maintain a certain weight or get skinny. In reality, I eat the "crazy" way I do because it makes me feel good. And what's more, when I do cheat or fall off the paleo wagon every so often, I don't feel any guilt or remorse like other dieters. No, white bread at lunch isn't going to drastically change the way I look, it just changes my overall feeling and the way I perform at WODs. It's no biggie, but I like to stay on track as much as I can.

The first step to paleo eating for me is a process I call "paleo-fying" my pantry. I get rid and refuse to buy anything that may encourage me to "relapse" into the standard American diet of cereals and sugars. If I must buy sweets, I only buy the most pure and dark chocolate (and sometimes I don't even keep THAT in my house). Everything in my refrigerator or my pantry fits with the paleo plan: nuts, lean meats, fresh vegatables, cans of coconut milk. While getting in gear for the upcoming paleo challenge, the hardest part for me is going to be giving up my weekly Greek yogurt purchase. I've never stopped eating dairy before, but that will be my way of further "paleo-fying" my current diet. In it to win it!

Obviously, the next step after paleo-fying your local environment in your own kitchen is to paleo-fy any situations you might encounter. I know sometimes it's difficult - eating is pleasurable and is often social. Heck, I fell into it today when I had already brought my own chicken curry lunch to school, but then got a call from Janine asking to meet up for lunch. Sandwiches and fro-yo for dessert it is. I'm not saying that you should turn down these opportunities to be social and eat out (paleo IS part of an evolutionary nutrition model, and being social is also very important from an evolutionary perspective), but it's important to stay strong, stick to your guns, and keep your ultimate goals in mind.

I'm reminded of when I used to be vegetarian (don't laugh!). I didn't eat meat for two years, and I was super vigilant about checking ingredients or substituting things out at restaurants. Or take my roommate for example, who has an egg allergy - she's even more cautious than a vegetarian! Well, think of eating paleo as kind of like that: like you're taking a stand against eating grains or that you're allergic to sugar. That's how I do it at least.

Ok, enough with the ramblings and onto the real reason we're all here: food recipes! This week I'm living off the yellow chicken curry I made over the weekend as well as a pot roast I prepared during Degrassi the Boiling Point (EPIC highlight of my summer btw).

Roasts are great because you just need to cut up some veggies, sear some meat, layer it in a crock pot with some liquid and then leave for 7-8 hours. What more could a busy cook need? You can do any Google search for pot roast recipes, and I combined a few different ones to come up with this one that I really enjoyed. It might be a little on the salty side, so I might recommend using water or dry red wine as the liquid as opposed to the chicken broth I used. You could also lesson the amount of seasoning salt you use. I had to work with what the CSA box gave me this week, but be creative - any roast of beef and any combination of vegetables will work, so if you're on a budget, work with what's on sale!

Pot Roast
2.5 pounds chuck roast (round roast works too)
6 small carrots (or 3 medium-sized ones), sliced, chopped, however you like 'em
2 small sweet Spanish onions (or 1 medium), sliced
4-5 small red potatoes, quartered
1/4 head green cabbage, quartered or shredded
5 strips lean bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup chicken stock (red wine/water/any liquid)
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
Seasoning salt (see below) or pot roast spice blend, any seasoning for meat

Season the roast on all sides with the seasoning of your choice. I make my own seasoning salt and use it on everything, but you could also just mix different proportions of your favorite spices together in a bowl or buy a premade beef seasoning mix from a bulk section. Let the roast sit and warm up to room temperature while you cut up your vegetables and the bacon.

In a large skillet on medium-high, cook the bacon until done. Remove and drain on a paper-towel lined plate, leave the bacon grease in the skillet. In the skillet, sear the roast on all sides (about 4-5 minutes per side). Move roast to a plate. In the same skillet, saute the carrots and onions for about 2-3 minutes, just to meld all the flavors together. Throw the carrots, onions, and potatoes into the crock pot. Place the roast on top of the veggies. Cover it all with the chicken stock and the Worcestershire sauce.

Set your crock pot on low for 7 hours (mmmm, sleep!). After 7 hours, throw in the bacon bits and the cabbage shreds on top and cook for another hour. Enjoy!

Seasoning Salt
I got this recipe from my Seriously Simple cookbook, which I love even though it's not the most paleo cookbook. It's got a lot of great tidbits of information on time-saving in the kitchen and making cooking simple, and all the recipes are pretty easily paleo-fied. This salt goes on everything - seared steaks, grilled chicken, sauteed veggies. It makes about 4 cups, so either halve the recipe or get a good dry, dark space to store it in (can be stored for 6 months).

30 garlic cloves, peeled and ends cut off
1.5 cups kosher salt
1 Tb onion powder
2 Tb paprika
3 Tb chile powder
2 Tb ground white pepper
2 Tb celery seed
1 Tb ground ginger
1 Tb poulry seasoning
1 Tb dry mustard
1 Tb dried dill

Mince the garlic cloves in a food processor. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl and then add to the garlic. Pulse until mixed well and completely blended, using a rubber spatula every so often to move the ingredients around. Store in an airtight container.

Paleo Cooking Challenge Checkin

2010-07-18T22:17:00.001-05:00

Time for a check-in on my little personal paleo cooking challenge - where I stand on the grocery bill front, what I plan on cooking this week, and what's already prepped for the week ahead!

This week I got my CSA box full of vegetables and planned my two weeks of cooking around what I had in the box: lots of string beans and snap peas, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onions, zucchini and BASIL! More basil than I knew what to do with...guess that meant I made pesto (see below)!

Here's the menu for the next two weeks:
Yellow chicken curry
Pot roast
Pesto chicken
Sugar snap peas with bacon (AGAIN! soooooooo yummy)
Cucumber Asian Salad

To complement my CSA box, I bought the following items from the co-op grocery:
Chicken breast
Coconut oil (I was out...)
Thai Kitchen Yellow Simmer Sauce (2 bottles)
Lemon
Ginger root
Garlic

Not a whole lot of groceries this week, and I only spent $30. I also had to go pick up a chuck roast from the farmer's market from Darryl of Blue Gentian Farm - total for 2.45 lbs was $11. That brings my monthly grocery bill to about $243. Uh oh....looks like I may have a little trouble staying below my initial $250 budget for the month, but I still think it's going to be a major improvement from previous months' bills - it's amazing what you can accomplish if you just hold yourself accountable to a set goal!

Now for the good stuff: food recipes!

Basil Pesto
This pesto doesn't use cheese since that is technically not paleo. I LOVE this sauce as the basil I used was super fresh, so it tasted mildly spicy. I made it now so that the basil wouldn't go bad, but I don't plan on using it until next week on some chicken breast. I read online that pesto sauce freezes well and lasts for months, but can also last in a cold refrigerator for 2 weeks. Here's what you'll need:

3.5 cups fresh basil
1 cup walnuts
6 garlic cloves
1 cup olive oil
1 tsp sea salt (give or take)
1/2 lemon, juiced

In a food processor, combine the walnuts, garlic, olive oil and salt. Blend until smooth. Then add the leaves and the lemon juice and blend until smooth. Presto pesto!

Yellow Chicken Curry (makes about 6 servings)
Curry is the easiest thing to make in a pinch and is so versatile. In my year of living in Minneapolis so far, I've made it at LEAST six times...more than anything else I've ever cooked! You can add any vegetables you want, I usually deal with what's on hand. I use Thai Kitchen's Yellow Simmer Sauce, available in any Asian grocery aisle. It's got all the stuff pre-mixed in it, but if you're not as lazy as me, you can also buy the raw paste and mix it with coconut milk, some fish sauce, and some brown sugar (usually the proportions are on the back of the curry paste). Once you get the sauce simmering, here's how the curry is made:

2 bottles Simmer Sauce
1 pound chicken breast, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 cups chopped vegetables (I used zucchini, carrots, string beans, and onions)
1/2 cup sliced basil

Bring the sauce to a boil over high heat in a large pot. Add the chicken and cook until about halfway done (about 4-5 minutes). Add the vegetables and simmer together another 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in the basil.

I plan on making the pot roast tomorrow, so check back soon for more recipes!

Happy CF Birthday to ME!

2010-07-17T16:50:00.000-05:00

One year ago today (7/17/2009), I had my first workout at CrossFit Central in Austin, TX. No, I don't have the date written down in a calendar...I'm just neurotic enough to dig through my emails to find the confirmation date from when I signed up. To mark this very special occasion, I decided to revisit my very first WOD.

I only remember my very first WOD because it was one of the "Girl Workouts" that shared a name with a good friend of mine from college: "Diane." A year ago when I did it, I remember I had a 75# deadlift and used 2 AbMats for the handstand push-ups, and I think I finished in roughly 10 minutes. Let's see how far I've come in a year, shall we?

Diane
21-15-9
Deadlifts (RX: 155#)
Handstand push-ups

I used 123# for the deadlifts today because I am super sore from Wednesday and Friday's workouts. For a long time I've been using 1 AbMat for the HSPU, and I did that today as well. My time today was 10:03. So, I went up in weight, made the HSPUs harder and finished in about the same time! It's crazy to reflect on all the gains I've made in the past year since starting Crossfit, and many of them are beyond the physical realm. I've found a community of friends, a passion for coaching, and realized that I am capable of so much more than I give myself credit for...and all that is the best CF birthday present of all!

Coconut Flour Pancake Recipe

2010-07-15T08:41:00.001-05:00

We're starting a Paleo Challenge at CFSP this month, and Mike was kind enough to put my blog address on the website as a resource! What does that mean for this blog? Well, most likely I'm going to make a few revisions about what the purpose of this blog is and what I post on here - probably less about my own workouts and more recipes, more observations about fitness, and who knows, maybe some relevant evolutionary psychology research that I'm doing...

To kick things off in this more "recipe-heavy" direction, here's a recipe for coconut-flour pancakes! Ever since I've been paleo, I've made almond flour pancakes, but I actually like coconut flour more (this is the first time I made them and WOW!). Coconut flour wins out with me because it results in a fluffier pancake (more like the non-paleo buttermilk version), the batter is easier to spoon out, and coconut flour is MUCH cheaper than almond flour. And with my own personal paleo challenge of cooking on a budget, that's really important to me.

A tip for cooking with coconut flour: you must use eggs and you must let coconut flour "rest" and absorb wet ingredients before cooking with it. Coconut flour tends to be really dense and it soaks up wet ingredients very well. As I experiment more with coconut flour baking, I'll update on my experiences...

Coconut Flour Pancakes (makes about 15 small pancakes)
6 eggs
6 Tb coconut flour
6 Tb coconut milk (or regular milk if you can handle dairy)
Splash of vanilla extract
A drizzle of Grade B maple syrup (or honey...OPTIONAL)
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup melted coconut oil

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. I always mix everything first, then slowly drizzle in the coconut oil while whisking, since it will harden when it touches cold ingredients (like the eggs). The other option would be to warm up the eggs in a bowl of warm water before mixing things together...but I'm lazy. Set mixture aside and let the coconut flour absorb everything.

Warm up a nonstick skillet over low-medium heat (for me, setting 4 out of 9). Spoon the thick batter onto the pan and cook on both sides about 3-5 minutes. The first batch of pancakes will probably take a little longer (as the pan may not be fully warmed up), so watch the batter closely. It will start to bubble on the edges when the pancakes are ready to be flipped.

Serve with a little honey, Grade B maple syrup, homemade jam, berries, etc. I'm looking forward to maybe testing this out with some cocoa powder mixed in too!

Motivation from motivating

2010-07-13T19:42:00.000-05:00

This whole week is going to be pretty coach-heavy for me, as I wrap up the CFSP St. Paul Bootcamp with Melanie and start the Minneapolis Bootcamp all in the same week! I also subbed yesterday at Teddy Kim's gym, Twintown CrossFit. But rather than be tired from all the traveling around and hauling equipment, I have to say that coaching is such an enjoyable experience and it has really motivated me to train even harder in class.

First, let me just start off by saying that Twintown CrossFit is another excellent community of athletes. My two classes yesterday were really big, and I was pretty nervous about managing a real group class with technical lifts (we don't do those in bootcamp). However, I am so grateful to all the members who helped each other set-up weights, coach each other through the movements, and then cheer each other on during the WOD. I got a lot of great feedback from everyone there and I am so glad I had to opportunity to coach at a different facility with some new friends!

Today I started the Minneapolis bootcamp and they were AWESOME! No, I am NOT exaggerating. This group of people came early in the morning ready to sweat and work hard, and I am so proud of them for finishing their first benchmark/baseline WOD with excellent times! As they did their last 400m run and I was standing at the "finish line" getting ready to yell out their times, those who were finished gathered around me to encourage the last few runners. WOW! These people just met this morning, and already they've set up this positive, enthusiastic, and friendly tone and attitude for the class. I could not be happier!

Now onto my workout for the day. We had a smallish class at 4 PM, but it was a bunch of great new "regulars," so we really pushed each other. Strength component was back squat and I teamed up with Beth, who did WAY more weight than me (way to go!). My weights broke down:

103 / 113 / 118 / 123 / 123

I probably could have gone a bit more with the weight, but honestly having that much weight on my shoulders is what hurts more than the actual squatting! I was super-stoked for this WOD because I LOVE sumo-deadlift-high pulls. Burpees I can live without.

For time:
21-15-9
SDLHP (RX: 95#)
Burpees

I managed this one in 6:19 with 63#. I tried 73# at first, but after 4 or 5 I realized it would be too difficult to maintain for 21 reps in that first set. But then when I saw how quickly I did the workout, I realized I probably should have pushed my limits a little more. Still, I'm on such an adrenaline rush from coaching others that maybe 63# felt so light because I was motivated by all the great sweating I've been around lately!

Saturday WOD and Cooking Update

2010-07-12T22:16:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I need to play a little catch up here and update on a few things. Last week, I was out of commission for working out with this weird stomach weirdness, so I didn't work out until Saturday. But..I did do some cooking on the paleo challenge, so I need to update that (and also recap what I've been eating).

To start things off with Saturday's partner WOD. We formed teams of two, and I teamed up with Joyce, who always amazes me with her ability to lift crazy heavy weight! One of us had to run a 400m while the other did Tabata squats and then we switched. Each of us had to do 4x400m runs and then we added up our total squats. I managed 214 squats, but I don't know what Joyce got. I was SORE all weekend! My legs just burned.

Saturday I also bought a few things at the Lyndale Farmer's Market that I need to add to my paleo budget:

Eggs
Bacon
Beets
Broccoli

The total for the weekend came to roughly $14. Not too shabby. I was a little peeved about having to buy the broccoli because I actually got some in my CSA box last week, but it went bad before I could cook my beef and broccoli. Bummer. I really liked the beets though, so I went ahead and bought a second bunch to last me until my new box comes this Thursday. Can't wait!

Let's recap what I've been eating the past two weeks or so since I started this paleo cooking on a budget challenge.

Zucchini bread (breakfast)
Mixed berry cobbler (breakfast)
Flank steak (lunch/dinner)
Boiled chicken (lunch/dinner)
Sugar snap peas and bacon (lunch/dinner)
Beets 'n greens (lunch/dinner)

I also had made some chicken coleslaw, but I didn't really like it. I ended up using the boiled chicken just as a protein and eating it with other veggies. Also with the stomach issues, I couldn't muster up enough strength in the kitchen to cook, so I ended up cheating and ordering a pizza :( So if the above doesn't look like a lot of food to last 2 weeks, keep in mind I poorly "supplemented" with a baked potato Pizza Luce pizza...medium size...so sue me.

However, that did allow me to save my beef and broccoli recipe for this week. This is a great quick recipe that doesn't require too much prep or cook time. Perfect if you're in hurry and also if you're craving Chinese food, which is often covered in sauce and deep-fried. NOT paleo!

Beef and Broccoli
1 lb sirloin steak, cut into stir fry strips (I buy mine pre-cut)
1 lb broccoli florets
2 Tb coconut oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
MARINADE
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp dry sherry
black pepper
SAUCE
2 Tb fish sauce (or oyster)
1.5 tsp dry sherry
1.5 Tb tamari
1/3 cup chicken broth

First get your steak marinating in the marinade for at least 10 minutes, but the longer the better. I usually marinate my steak on the kitchen counter in my Pyrex dish while I'm prepping all the other ingredients - marinating and warming up to room temperature at the same time! Bring some lightly salted water to boil in a large pot. Cook the broccoli in the water for 2 minutes, until just crunchy tender.

Prepare your sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside. Heat the coconut oil in a large and/or deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add the beef to the skillet (it should *sizzle*) and try to get it in a single layer so it cooks evenly. Cook for one minute, and then flip as best you can. Add the garlic and "fry" for another minute or so before adding in the sauce and the broccoli. Bring to a simmer for a few minutes so all the flavors meld.

The sauce doesn't thicken because there's no thickening agent, but if you want a thick sauce, you can add a tsp of flour in with the sauce and broccoli (not paleo). I just spoon my beef n broc out with a slotted spoon and get a little juice. The rest I just toss because it tends to be a little too salty for my taste from the chicken stock.

Also up this week for meals, I made beets n greens again, and I also bought some fully cooked apricot-rosemary chicken sausage from the co-op. I'll be living off these two meals until Thursday when I get my veggie box - so check back this weekend for more recipe updates!

Visit to TwinTown CF!

2010-07-06T22:38:00.001-05:00

Next Monday, I have the honor of subbing for Teddy, owner of TwinTown Crossfit in Uptown Minneapolis, while he's out of town. So today, I went to check out his box and get the lay of the land and the vibe he creates for his clients.

Teddy has a martial arts background and it definitely shows through in his coaching style. He calmly approaches the workout ahead, warming up not only muscles, but tendons and breathing styles before diving in. And when I say dive in, I mean dive in! Today was a strength-focused day, and he had a more "hands-off" approach to coaching, just watching us do our thing from afar. But when it was time for movement correction or when he could tell someone was having difficulty completing the movement, his voice punctuated the air with such an enthusiasm that you couldn't HELP but shoot out of the bottom of your squat.

I was reminded of how we learned at our CF Kids cert that one of the best ways to teach kids how to squat is to have them sit at the bottom of the squat and then yell "GO!" so that the energy in your voice is mimicked in the energy popping them up. When I sub for Teddy next week, and in my own coaching in the future, I'll remember that the energy and enthusiasm that I bring to a class guides the energy and intensity of that class.

So onto the workout: 3 x 3 Front squats. I was able to do 93# / 103# / 108#. It felt good and I probably could have gone up in weight, but I was taking things easy and just trying to feel comfortable in the new space. We did a metcon after the front squats - just some medicine ball cleans and a 200m run AMRAP, but I don't know how much time we did it for (Teddy said it was a surprise). I managed 3.5 rounds in what felt like about 8 minutes.

I came home to make some steak with jalapeno butter (take about a stick of butter and mash a chopped jalapeno into it with a fork. Place in a ziploc bag and reshape into a usable stick). It went with a side of sugar snap peas and bacon - delicious! I also went ahead and made some fruit cobbler, since I realized the ingredients in it are very similar to what I eat in my yogurt breakfast - just fruit and nuts! The bonus is that I cook the fruit, so it doesn't sit in my fridge going bad. If you've got some extra fruit that you're not eating fast enough, this is a great recipe to use it up!

Fruit Cobbler
3 cups fruit (blackberries, raspberries, strawberries in any ratio you want or have. I'd go easiest on the raspberries, as they're the most tart)
1.5 cups almond flour (I process my own almonds into flour and actually add some pecans too)
1 egg
2 Tb coconut oil
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Freshly ground nutmeg
Drizzle of honey

Preheat oven to 350'F. Mix the berries in an 8x8 baking dish. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, egg, oil and spices together. I just toss a good bit of cinnamon on and just a little nutmeg for extra spice. The mixture should feel crumbly and thick. Drizzle some honey on top of the fruit, if you think you'll even need it for extra sweetness. Crumble the flour mixture on top to cover the fruit. Bake for 35 minutes.

Now in the morning, I'm going to reheat this cobbler and dollop on some Fage full-fat Greek yogurt and maybe a splash of coconut milk. The combination of warm fruit, crunchy topping, and cold yogurt and milk is delightful! Of course, you can also eat it warm on its own...

Cooking BONANZA!!!!

2010-07-05T16:41:00.001-05:00

Okay, here is my first installment in my cooking paleo on a budget challenge. I mainly cooked a lot of veggies today, since my veggie box arrived on Thursday and I don't want them to go bad before I can enjoy them. Also, (cooking tip here) veggies take me the longest to clean, prep, chop, and cook. I usually like to make vegetable and side dishes on the weekends or on nights when I have more time. Then, I can easily grill a chicken or a steak and jazz it up with some reheated veggie dish!

First up, we have roasted beets and greens. I started with this recipe today since it was going to take the longest.

Roasted Beets and Sauteed Greens Recipe (adapted from Harmony Valley Farm Newsletter)
1 bunch of beets with greens detached
4 Tb of olive oil (divided into 2 Tb)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cippolini onion (or roughly 2 Tb chopped onion)
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350' F. Wash the beet roots and toss with 2 tablespoons of oil in a small baking dish (I used my 8x8 Pyrex). Cover and bake (roast) in the oven for 45 minutes, or until a knife can easily cut through the largest beet. When the beets are almost done, start preparing the greens.

Heat the remaining 2 Tb of olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and garlic for about 1 minute until soft. Strip the washed beet greens into 2-3 inch pieces and add to the onion and garlic. Saute for another 2 minutes until the greens begin to wilt. Toss with sliced, roasted beets (you can peel the beets if you want).

Here's a picture! This was actually quite tasty, considering I don't usually eat a lot of beets, so I wasn't sure if I would like them. The greens are somewhat bitter, but the beets are smooth and sort of sweet-tasting, so it all evens out. I'm going to plate this dish with some steak tomorrow night.

Next up, since the oven was warm, I made some zucchini bread. I got some stuff that LOOKED like zucchini from my CSA, but I was also told there would be cucumbers...who knew cucumbers could be yellow? I cut up my "zucchini" only to find it was a masquerading cucumber!

Yellow zuke on the left, sneaky yellow cucumber on the right!

No biggie, I still had enough yellow and green zukes to make the bread.

Zucchini bread recipe
2-3 small zucchinis, grated
8 eggs
1 tsp cinammon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 coconut oil (or melted butter)
1 cup coconut flour (or almond flour)
1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat the oven to 350'F. Grate the zucchini (I use my Microplane coarse grater) and mix with eggs, spices, and oil. NOTE: if you are using melted coconut oil, it will harden the instant it gets cold, i.e., when it touches the egg batter! I mix my oil in last and very slowly, so that even if it hardens, the chunks are evenly dispersed. Once you get a good zuke batter, sift in the coconut flour and mix well. Then mix in the chopped nuts. TIP: you can easily chop nuts by putting them in a ziploc bag and then taking some frustration out on them. Just beat up the bag and go nuts, so to speak...

Pour the mixture into a loaf pan or baking dish and bake for one hour. Watch it closely and if you see the bread starting to burn on the top, reduce the oven temperature to 200'F and let the inside cook more slowly. Bread is done when a toothpick or a knife inserted comes out clean.

Here's what mine looked like. I ate a small slice with some raw Grade B maple syrup drizzled on top, and I also had a second slice with a little pat of butter on top. The maple syrup slice won hands down! This bread sort of tastes spicy from the nutmeg, but it's not overpowering. It easily can be made into a saltier/savory side bread or into a sweet dessert or breakfast goodie.

Last but not least, I made some sugar snap peas with bacon. I don't know when I last had snap peas, but it must have been a loooooooooooong time ago. While I was trimming the ends (more like snapping them off), I was reminded that I used to do that when I was a little girl helping my grandma prepare Chinese stirfrys. Ah, the memories...

Sugar snap peas and bacon recipe
5 strips of bacon, cut into inch-sized pieces
2 cippolini onions, chopped (or 1 small yellow onion)
1/2 cup water
1 lb. sugar snap peas, washed and ends trimmed.

In a large nonstick skillet, fry up the bacon until nice and brown. Remove and set aside the bacon with a slotted spoon. Saute the onions for 3 minutes in the bacon grease, then add the green beans and water to the skillet. Cover and cook for 5 minutes (I don't have a lid for my skillet, so I improvised and used some aluminum foil!). Remove the cover and cook uncovered until the liquid is almost gone (that took me about another 5 minutes). Toss with the bacon and enjoy!

I plan on eating this one with some chicken! Although, I'm guessing the bacon won't be as crispy then...

Happy July 4th!

2010-07-05T13:51:00.000-05:00

Quick post update and then I'm off to the kitchen for some fresh veggie adventures! Today we had one big combined class at 9 AM, since it was technically a federal holiday. It was great seeing everyone this morning and really feeling the energy in the room!

This morning's workout focused on three movements and was to be done for maximum weight:

Every minute on the minute for 12 minutes, do
3 Hang power cleans
3 Front squats
3 Push jerks

Since the class was so large today (more than 20 people I would guess!), we partnered up and did the WOD in heats. I partnered up with and coached our newest member, Charlotte, and she did an excellent job for her first class! When it was my heat, I loaded the bar up with 65#, thinking I would go up in weight as the rounds progressed. Apparently, that's not how the workout is supposed to be done. Rather, you should get a pretty good weight on the bar to begin with and just try to maintain that. For round 3, I was able to get 75# on the bar and I did that for a while, but my wrists started giving out. I dropped down to 70# for a round or two, but then finished at 65#.

Overall, it felt pretty good and surprisingly I think the hang power cleans were the movement that kept my weight low. Front squats and push jerks both felt really good. I've been feeling sick lately too, so I'm impressed with my performance as it was my first day back and I haven't been able to eat much.

First Challenge Recipe: Chicken Cole Slaw

2010-07-02T22:20:00.001-05:00

Here we go with the first recipe - fresh and fast, perfect for summer!

It was a very green-colored meal, and surprisingly filling. It's a nice spin on your typical salad if you tend to eat salads a lot and want a change of pace...this is the dish for you!

1 lb Chicken breast (about 2 breasts)
1 Green apple
1 Green cabbage
1 Shallot (or a clove of garlic and a small cippolini onion)
Olive oil
Lime
Salt and pepper

First things first, submerge the chicken breasts in cold water. Put the lid on it and bring the pot of water to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, go ahead and chop up the apple, cabbage, and the shallot. When the water starts to boil, lower the heat and let the chicken breasts simmer and cook for 8-10 minutes. Remove from water and make sure they're cooked all the way through.

Throw the cabbage, apple, shallot, and shredded chicken in a bowl. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and squirt on a lime wedge, add salt and pepper to taste. Voila! Dinner is served. I'm guessing that there's enough ingredients listed to make 3-4 servings, so I put all the ingredients in separate plastic containers for assembly as needed.

100th POST!!!! And...First grocery trip

2010-07-01T21:36:00.001-05:00

Yay! I've reached ONE HUNDRED posts! If this were anything like the movies, my 100th post would be commemorated with some special prize while I'm checking out at the grocery store...alas, I just got to go to the grocery store and pick up my first batch of groceries on my new paleo cooking challenge.

Here's what I've got cooking this week (recipes to be posted eventually):
Carrot chips (for the CFSP 4th of July potluck tomorrow)
Chicken cole slaw
Roasted beets and beet greens
Savory zucchini bread
Beef and broccoli stir fry
Sauteed amaranth greens
Peas and bacon

Most of what I cook is inspired by the CSA (community sustainable agriculture) box that I pick up every other week. I joined the CSA initially to encourage myself to eat more vegetables, although I have a feeling it's going to come in handy with this paleo challenge. My box costs me roughly $58/month, so that leaves me with $192 to spend on other food. I headed to the Wedge Co-Op after picking up my box to get meats and other packaged grocery, here's what I bought:

1 lb. Grass-fed beef stir fry
1 lb. Skinless, boneless chicken breast
Red wine vinegar
Chicken broth
4 cans Coconut milk
2 Green apples
1 Lime
Raspberries
Blackberries
Strawberries
Full fat Fage Greek yogurt

That was what I need mainly for my big meals this week. I also bought a few snacks:

Dry roasted salted cashews
Raw almonds (also good for making almond butter and flour)
Dried mango
4 Larabars (a weakness when they're on sale...)

I think I went a little overboard on the snacks, but hopefully I won't need to buy any for a while. My total grocery bill came to $75.12....yikes! I better rope it in for next week. In my defense, I bought more nuts and coconut milk than I needed, but the coconut milk was on sale, so I decided to stock up...

Just a small disclaimer here too: I've taken up ice cream making as a recent hobby, and it's a hobby that requires the mass purchasing of a lot of food ingredients (especially pricey chocolates, fruits, and dairy). However, since it's a hobby and I don't eat all the ice cream myself, I'm separating any ingredients purchased for ice cream from my regular food. I'm not going to make my roommate and friends suffer just because I'm on a challenge :)

Paleo Cooking CHALLENGE

2010-07-01T00:32:00.001-05:00

It's officially July...and that means its officially the start of a new challenge! This time, I'm "making over" my cooking and eating habits.

There's been a lot of talk at the gym lately about the "Paleo Diet." A lot of complaints I've been hearing from people are that it's too hard and/or too time-consuming to cook the food. Another complaint that doesn't apply to just the paleo diet, but to any healthy eating in general, is that it's EXPEN$IVE! Trust me, I feel ya. My grocery bill is BARELY below what I pay in rent...but I guess that just goes to show what I value and prioritize in my life: shelter and good food.

But hey, I'm still a graduate student, which means I'm living on a tight budget of both money AND time. So this month, I've decided to do something I've been meaning to do for a long while now: cook good clean food quickly and on a budget. What does this mean logistically?

1. Cut costs. I currently average about $400 per month in groceries. Yes, I know. That's A LOT for a single female. To be honest, I probably throw most of the actual food out (shame on me), and also some of that includes stuff like cleaning agents and paper towels that I share with my roommate. My challenge this month will involve cutting my food bill down to $250 - that's roughly $8 per day on cooked meals. Doable?

2. Cut time. I'm also going to get on a regimen for planning, shopping for, and actually cooking, just to show you (all 5 readers?) how easy it is to cook when crunched for time.

3. Ease of preparation. It wouldn't really be cooking on a budget if I used fancy tools, so I'm only going to use the most basic "college kitchen" utensils in preparing my meals: nonstick skillet, baking dish, baking sheet, cutting board, good knives. I'll cook as if I only had $100 to outfit a tiny kitchen.

The most measurable goal is cutting the food costs down, and if I meet that goal, I'm going to buy myself a nice food dehydrator :)

So follow along for these weekly kitchen adventures!

WoW, just wow!

2010-06-30T22:19:00.000-05:00

WoW, and I'm not talking "World of Warcraft," I'm talking "Week of Workouts!" It's been a while since my latest post. This time I'm blaming my absence on Teen Nick's "Every Degrassi Ever Marathon" that I run home to watch right after a WOD until 11 PM...and then I'm too tired from all the drama to write anything!

Monday
It appeared to be a seemingly easy workout because the rep scheme was so low, and it did turn out to be quick...easy, not so much.

5 Rounds for time:
5 Deadlifts (90% of 1 rep max)
5 Handstand push-ups

90% of my max would have been about 185#, but I wasn't feeling up to that today, so I dropped down to 163#. Managed the workout in 7:23 with the AbMat placed under my head for the HSPUs. I would have much preferred doing HSPUs assisted with a harness on the pull-up bar, but it's difficult to get into without a coach spotter. Next time!

Tuesday
I love the Girl WODs, and anything with KB swings is a natural favorite of mine, so I couldn't turn down Tuesday's Helen fun! Also, I'm excited that I'm able to start doing these WODs RX'd for a change. I may not be the fastest (yet...), but I'm well on my way now that I can actually do the prescribed weight and movements.

"Helen" (3 rounds for time):
400m Run
21 KB swings (RX: 1 pood, 35#)
12 Pull-ups

I finished in 13:08, pushed on by Jess, my main competition for the night. We had a great "firebreather" class and Jess and I were holding up the caboose end of the class. She got 13:02, so it was a tight race!

Wednesday
Typically, Wednesdays are my rest day, especially if I do two hard WODs at the beginning of the week (like I did this week). BUT...the Wednesday workout was sprints, my weak link. And that means I have to do more of them! Originally the WOD was 10x100m sprints with 90 seconds of rest in between. However, Chris changed it to "Death by 10 Meters," which I prefer much more since it's kind of like a kids' game (can you keep running for more minutes than all the other kids???). I was able to complete 16 minutes of running, and surprisingly my legs felt the burn more than my lungs this time.

That's it for now! I'll be back Friday after our Holiday Team WOD and BBQ. There's a lot cooking this weekend too, so stay tuned for ice cream recipes, beets, and zucchini bread!!!!

Saturday Partner WOD

2010-06-26T19:48:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to get more on track with my normal routine - Saturday farmer's markets, morning walk downtown, and of course, Saturday partner workouts.

Today I partnered up with Alison, who runs marathons...so this workout was "made" for her:

For time, in pairs:
800m Run
50 Tire flips
400m Run
50 Box jumps (20")
200m Run
50 Medball tosses (14#)
200m Run
50 Deadlifts (165#)
400m Run
50 Partner jumps
800m Run

Not surprisingly, this workout was really leg heavy, and I tired pretty early on. And 50 of each movement in between (about 25 each person) cycles pretty quickly, so I felt like I was constantly running! Woof. Alison and I actually finished first - 32:32. She was a great partner, cheering me on throughout and, because she was running faster than me, turning around, running back to meet me and run the last 100m in with me.

6/23 & 6/24

2010-06-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I feel the need to be creative with these WOD posts, but sometimes the "need" to be creative keeps me from actually writing anything. Thus, the lack of posting and the following two posts in one.

Let's start with Wednesday. In the morning, Melanie and I led boot camp together which went VERY well. We're on week 3 of the camp, and the people are really starting to warm up to us as coaches as well as each other. It makes coaching that much more fun. What's more, we did kettlebell sumo deadlift high pulls as part of the workout. Note to coaches out there: KB SDLHP are one of the easiest and quickest movements to teach new CFers! And there's very few things that actually need correcting, the move essentially corrects itself just after a few repetitions.

Later in the afternoon, I headed back over to St. Paul for a good ole chipper WOD.

For time:
100 Double unders
90 Mountain climbers
800m Run
70 Squats
60 Box jumps
50 KB swings (26#)
40 Push-ups
30 Pull-ups
20 Overhead barbell walking lunges
10 Ring dips

I knew this one was going to be a doozie in the middle because it was very front-loaded with heavy leg stuff. Surprisingly, things didn't really get bad until the middle of the squats to the box jumps and KB swings. The push-ups also slowed me down quite a bit because I got very sore very quickly after Monday's workout. I finished in 29:11, doing "almost RX'd" - I had to scale the push-ups (blue band across a weight rack) and the ring dips (from a box).

Now onto Thursday. We revisited a WOD that we did way back in March at CFMPLS.

For total meters:
10 rounds of 20 long, slow erg pulls

The key to this workout was to pull really really really (really) hard and then release very slowly while the computer logged all the meters. When I did this workout the first time, we also pulled very far back, so that we were almost completely laying down on the erg. I didn't do that this time, and I was impressed with how close I came to my old "record" even with a different stroke.

Old total: 3233 meters
New total: 3223 meters

A good first week back, hopefully my drive to write will return along with this increased energy from coaching and working out again!

Reset

2010-06-21T23:10:00.000-05:00

Alright, I'm finally back for good...or at least for a while now. I've spent most of June traveling and being "on vacation" in other cities, which translates to me eating out a lot and not getting to cook my own paleo version of foods. It's definitely a challenge to stick to healthy choices when I'm on the go and not in the kitchen myself, and making one slight transgression makes it all too easy to make more and bigger transgressions with effects that compound over the weeks.

Yikes! Enough feeling crappy about myself. The important thing is that now I'm back and ready to eat clean, work hard, and really help build the boot camp business at CFSP. Today was my first day back after the "holiday season" and featured one of my favorite rep schemes.

For time:
400m Run
10 Thrusters (RX: 65#)
1 Burpee
9 Thrusters
2 Burpees
8 Thrusters
3 Burpees
.
.
.
1 Thruster
10 Burpees
400m Run

I went ahead and did RX after much heckling from my classmates and Mike and Tyler. I fasted all day today (part of resetting after burgers, Dairy Queen, and fresh strawberry ice cream at the farm), but I didn't really notice throughout the workout. I finished in 19:10, slow but decent. I'll tell you what I DID notice: how HOT it is now! Reminds me of working out in Texas without A/C...brutal and nauseating.

Prior to the WOD, we did a strength component: 1x5 Deadlifts. I managed 168# and probably could have gone higher, but again, I didn't want to push myself too too hard today.

Note to self (and other CF entrepreneurs out there): met a lot of people this past weekend in Eugene at my Human Behavior and Evolution Society Conference who did CF and/or paleo/primal eating. It was amazing to see my "CF Family" extending across international borders, fields of research, and domains of study! Next year will definitely bring business cards or something to get the word out more!

Slow row of death

2010-06-15T23:45:00.000-05:00

A quick post to catch up on what's been going on, where I've been, and why I haven't been blogging in what feels like 2 weeks. Here's the short version: I went on vacation to Austin and Mexico to visit family, Ryon, and be in a wedding. Translation: I didn't work out, I ate ice cream with my dad, and pigged out on buffets at a beach resort. I've been feeling sluggish and gross lately, and it took all my willpower to convince myself to go to CrossFit today for a brutal workout...including rowing.

This workout was taken from the main site today. If you don't think it looks hard, let me just tell you that I puked after this workout. That's right. For the first time, I threw up (just a tiny bit, and I waited until I got home) after a workout...a little too much too soon maybe?

For time:
2000m Row
50 Wallball shots (RX: 14#)
1000m Row
35 Wallball shots
500m Row
20 Wallball shots

I finished in 30:33 RXd, a little slow in my opinion, but hey, it's my first day back in a week. I tried pacing myself on the rowing, but to be honest, I probably should have pushed myself to go a little faster. I remember my 2000m being 9:07, and I know I've gotten sub-9:00 before (although, we weren't doing more rowing or wallball shots afterward). There's a fine line I realized between pacing yourself and pushing yourself, and it's a delicate balance I'm trying to figure out for my body.

In other news, I coached my first boot camp class on Monday! It went pretty well and I'm anxious to get to know this group better and bring more energy to our early morning class. Mike and I will be scoping out new locations for additional summer boot camps in different areas around the Twin Cities when I get back from my evolutionary psychology conference, so stay tuned on that development!

Just Breathe

2010-06-02T23:34:00.000-05:00

Despite a late meeting on campus today, I was able to rush home via the bus and make it to St. Paul in time to watch the 6 PM class start the WOD. Fortunately, Jake was running class and he's pretty lenient - so I got to warm-up on my own and then join in. Today's workout was pretty basic, just running miles.

Today we ran a mile, rested five minutes, and then ran another mile. Easy stuff...except if you're not a runner, i.e., ME! I really don't like running, but today actually wasn't too bad. The weather was great because we've been having some rain up north, so it was that perfect coolness and fresh grass/rain smell in the air. Only problem is that I've been suffering from pretty bad allergies the past week, so I had a little trouble breathing. Fortunately, I've tried running while using my "power yoga" breathing technique which requires just breathing in and out of my nose. Weirdly enough, it does make me feel a little bit more controlled in my breathing and less tired during a run. My times broke down to 8:17 and 8:53 - faster than my "personal record" from middle school and the Presidential Fitness Test.

After the WOD, Jake led an Olympic lifting skills session. We've been working on snatches and clean and jerks, but this was his last week so we did something a little different and more "roundabout" to building strength. Snatch balance and front squats to jerks. On both of these lifts, I felt pretty solid and strong, mainly because I was focusing on breathing in at the top of the lift and holding my breath during. It really helps a lot and makes me think of tightening every muscle in my body - key component to heavy lifts. I was reminded of how in dance, the hardest thing for me to do was get a triple turn. My captain used to tell me to inhale on the preparation and then hold my breath for the turn or say a word with the same number of syllables as the turn (like "Ste-pha-nie") to control my exhale. And it worked, probably because it focused my core-tightening muscles. Same thing for lifting.

I haven't really been keeping track of PRs for snatches and C&Js, but tonight I got a 68# snatch balance EASY and a 93# front squat to jerk pretty easily. Going to keep working on those lifts and being more aggressive/explosive getting weight overhead.

CF Total...AGAIN

2010-06-01T20:36:00.000-05:00

I feel like it's been a while since my last post, and I don't really know why I've been neglecting this blog...could be all the traveling I'm slated to do this month. It's wedding season after all! That means it's crunch time for me since I need to get in all the CF workouts I can get while I'm town.

Today we did Crossfit Total. I recently just found my total for my Paleo Challenge, so I didn't think there would be much improvement on my lifts. Aaaaand...I was right. I actually took a few steps back!

Back squat: 160# (165# fail)
Press: 68#
Deadlift: 200#

So yeah...my press suffered a little today, but I'm going to blame it on the 2 crepes, turkey, cookies, and 3 slices of wedding cake I had this weekend. Blech. Overall though, the deadlift didn't feel too difficult, so I probably could have bumped that up, but class was over and we needed to hurry up. Tyler wanted to lift today too, which meant I got to supervise the 5:00 PM class! I led everyone through the warm-up and broke down the 3 lifts. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with my coaching abilities, which is positive....leading boot camps starts in just TWO weeks!

PUMP you up!

2010-05-26T00:32:00.000-05:00

I wish there were some way I could inflect the Arnold into that blog title, but I didn't know how to do it without completely misspelling words and confusing people. Tonight I went to BodyPUMP at the YWCA with my good colleague Rachel J. Burns, which marks the last of my trial workouts with my friends at school.

BodyPUMP is essentially low weight, high repetition weightlifting - squats, lunges, presses, shoulder work. It was cool to see how these movements could be strung together in circuits to music and how instructors teach the lifts in a large class setting that differs from Crossfit. I felt a decent burn from all the curls and extensions - again, like Yoga Sculpt, I was working a lot of smaller muscle groups that Crossfit doesn't target. Biceps were by and large the worst circuit of the evening, but all in all an enjoyable evening.

I learned a few things from BodyPUMP aside from just doing the workout. Mainly, despite the large class (25+ people), the instructors clearly knew who the regulars were. Rachel even introduced me to her instructors, who were expecting me that day (we'd been planning coming to the class together for about 2 weeks now). I instantly felt welcomed as they showed me where the weights were, how to set up my workout area, and gave me a quick run down of how the class would go. It's important to remember how crucial it is to make new people feel welcome to a gym, especially if they'll be doing something completely new and foreign to their normal regimen (like weightlifting is for most people).

After class, Rachel and I also discussed the importance of having a workout buddy. She mentioned that she used to have a few people back home that would go to the gym with her, but since moving to MN, she's been going to most classes alone. And working out alone is tough. It's always great to have a buddy to hold you accountable for your goals and help you reach them, be generally motivating and encouraging. It's been an incredible experience being that buddy the past month or so with all my girlfriends!

Heat Wave

2010-05-24T23:53:00.001-05:00

There was a record high set today in Minnesota, breaking the old 1875 88'F temperature by 7 degrees...that's right, 95'F in the frozen tundra today! "Perfect" weather for a good 5 round run!

Strength component of the day was 1-1-1-1-1 back squat. I teamed up with Jessica and practiced my high bar position at the suggestion of Jake (in preparation for the weightlifting competition). I squatted less today, maybe out of soreness or just the newness of the high bar squat:

125 / 135 / 145 / 150 / 155

Then we moved right on into the WOD. Mike set a 20-minute cap on this one today, first time we've ever done that CFSP. I like it because it pushes everyone and enforces a "forced scaling" so that we don't take forever doing a workout that's supposed to be brief and intense.

5 rounds for time:
5 Sumo deadlift high pulls (women's RX: 95#)
12 Pull-ups
400m Run

I attempted 83# for the SDLHP on the warm-up, but quickly realized I wouldn't be able to maintain that weight, so I bumped it down to 73# for the workout. We had a pull-up focus session on Saturday morning, and Mike gave me some good pointers on the kip (really using my shoulders to open and close, rather than swinging vigorously with my whole lower body) that I kept in mind for the pull-ups. Neither of those two movements was all that bad, even considering the huge rip I got on my palm during round four. BY FAR, the worst part of this WOD was the outdoor run in the HEAT! My legs just felt like complete jelly, from my quads to my calves to my ankles. Ick...it was more like swimming than running (through the humidity).

I managed a 20:07 time - didn't make the cutoff, but I was close :)

Paleo Challenge Results - Part Two

2010-05-23T01:24:00.001-05:00

During open gym today, I went to complete my Crossfit Total for my second goal in my paleo challenge. I wanted to best my previous Crossfit Total of 395 and try to reach 450. It pains me to say that I did not meet this goal, but I'm still proud of my accomplishments in just 4 months.

When I last did Crossfit Total in February, my PRs broke down like this:

155# Back squat
60# Press
180# Deadlift

I arbitrarily set new weight PRs for my paleo challenge without much thinking: 180# BS, 70# Press, 200# DL. When I talked these numbers over with Tyler, he noted that improving 10# on a press over a short period of time is usually pretty difficult. I should have thought about that, since it is true that doing strict press maxes are like going from 0 to 60 mph in terms of effort exerted. Oh well.

Imagine my surprise then when I was able to get a 68# press about two weeks ago during open gym just messing around. Maybe this goal would be achievable. Alas, I did not have enough time to work on my back squat as much, so I saw very minimal improvements in that arena and as a result did not meet my set goal. I managed a new total of 430:

160# Back squat
70# Press
200# Deadlift

Like I said, I'm pretty proud of these new maxes because I was mainly looking for improvements in the press and the deadlift, due to my lack of upper body strength (for the former) and the functionality (of the latter). Even though the paleo challenge is over, I'll still keep working on improving these numbers...I'll just be eating more ice cream now :)

Paleo Challenge Results - Part One

2010-05-20T21:48:00.003-05:00

I'm happy to report the first of my results for the paleo challenge I set for myself back in April. I suppose technically this is the second set of results, since I didn't exactly "pass" my 400m running test Tuesday, but I plan on having a rematch with a track this weekend.

The first goal I set for myself in the paleo challenge was to drop 2.6% body fat. My measurements from my January Bod Pod Assessment were:

22.6% Fat
77.4% Fat free mass
26.339 lb Fat
90.375 lb Fat free mass (including muscle and organs/bones/ligaments, which don't change, so this is essentially a baseline for how much muscle one can gain)

I'll admit that I was super nervous today as I headed back into the Bod Pod for my "after" measurements. Heather, my roommate, asked me about a week ago if I thought I was making progress with this goal, and I honestly had no idea. As much as I've been working out and trying to eat as healthy as possible, I've had my fair share of awful cheat days towards the end of this challenge. I just lost all self-control! But I still really want some new Lululemon gear...and it looks like I'm going to get some! Here are my current measurements:

18% Fat
82% Fat free mass
20.935 lb Fat
95.095 lb Fat free mass

OMG! I lost 4.6% body fat and GAINED about 5 lbs of muscle just by Crossfitting roughly 3-4x per week and eating clean paleo foods about 80% of the time (yes, I had the occasional chocolate bar or homemade coconut ice cream or yogurt with honey for dessert). But still! I don't know what more proof one needs to see that Crossfit WORKS. I went above and beyond meeting my goal in just 6 weeks.

Interestingly, I didn't gain or lose any weight between assessments, staying at a constant 116 lbs. Just goes to show you that health measurements that rely solely on weight might not be the best way to measure progress. Clearly, my body underwent significant changes, but you wouldn't know that just by hopping on a scale and weighing yourself.

Yoga and Balsamic Vinegar OVERLOAD

2010-05-19T23:29:00.001-05:00

Today's theme is taking some basic stuff and putting them in overdrive - my yoga class trial and a recipe!

Let's start off with what got thrown down in "Yoga Sculpt" today. I signed up for a free week at Corepower Yoga, where my colleague Maryhope takes classes. She warned me about the sculpt classes, but I thought she was exaggerating - NOT! Unfortunately, Maryhope had a doctor's appointment last minute, so I had to fly solo for this class. Everyone in the class seemed to know what was up and had done it several times before, and they were very nice about telling me how to set up before class.

So what is Yoga Sculpt? Basically, it's doing yoga poses but with weights. And the music is more upbeat. If I thought the intro yoga class yesterday wasn't calming, this was even LESS calming. This class was a mix of strength training, cardio, and core work. I had 2.5# dumbbells for each hand (I'm grimacing as I write this - 2.5#?!?!?), but I couldn't go any higher because we 50 reps of EVERYTHING. The movements were also things my body wasn't used to - bicep curls, flys, tricep extensions. All those small muscles that I never in heavy Olympic lifting. Also, everything was done in a 98'F room, which really just drained me.

So...what's the verdict on the sculpt class? Once I opened my mind more to different forms of activity (i.e., the bicep curls and tricep extensions), I actually thought it was a pretty decent workout. I definitely felt tired at the end of it all and more energized. I think it is a great class for people who want to do yoga for fitness, not simply stress-relief and relaxation. And that's just not me right now.

After the yoga, I came home to shower the stink off and then headed to CFSP for an Olympic lifting skills session with our month-long visitor, Jake. He's a fresh out of high school student from Georgia, but he comes up to visit his grandparents in Wisconsin over the summer. He's an excellent coach and athlete, and tonight we worked on the clean and jerk. I kept the weight low and just worked on honing the technique - gotta start prepping for the Olympic Open in October!

Now...I have to share my surprisingly wonderful chicken recipe! I think the chicken is excellent on it's own, but it's adapted from a salad recipe I got from Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals. Note: it's heavy on the balsamic vinegar, which tends to be pretty sweet. If you're sensitive to BV sweetness, use less than what the recipe calls for.

Grilled Balsamic Chicken over Spinach Salad with Warm Shallot Vinaigrette
Chicken
1 pound chicken breast
2 Tb balsamic vingar
3 Tb extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp (roughly) steak seasoning blend (aka McCormick; I used my homemade "seriously simple" seasoning salt...recipe to be posted eventually) OR salt and pepper to taste
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Spinach Salad
1 pound center-cut bacon, chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 pound fresh spinach leaves, trimmed and cleaned
*8 radishes, thinly sliced
*4 scallions, thinly sliced at an angle
*8 gourmet white stuffing mushrooms, thinly sliced
*the recipe called for these items, but I didn't have them so I didn't use them. I bet you could use any salad topping veggies here

Shallot Vinaigrette
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, minced
3 tsp dijon mustard
3 Tb balsamic vinegar

First, mix the chicken marinade ingredients (vinegar, oil, rosemary, salt) and then pour the marinade over the chicken breasts in a ziptop freezer bag. Let it sit on the counter to warm up while you prep everything else.

I cut the bacon first and threw it in the nonstick skillet over medium heat to get that cooking while I prepared everything else (like mincing shallot or measuring out the dressing in a bowl). Keep an eye on the bacon though, so it doesn't overcook. When it's done, drain it on a paper-towel-lined plate.

Heat a different nonstick skillet on medium heat. Cook the chicken roughly 4 minutes on each side. While that's going, get rid of the bacon fat that's in the first skillet (save for later or just toss it). Saute the shallot in the olive oil for about 3 minutes, essentially creating a shallot olive oil. To make the dressing, slowly combine the shallot oil with the balsamic vinegar and mustard. Whisk to emulsify.

Put spinach in bowl with salad toppings. Toss with warm salad dressing. Top with bacon and chicken. ENJOY!

Two A Days

2010-05-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

In preparation for my upcoming body fat assessment tomorrow (eek!), I'm doing two-a-days....just kidding. Well, at least about the preparation part, I actually DID a two-a-day yesterday, trying out Maryhope's yoga studio as well as doing a Crossfit WOD.

First, let's talk about my introductory yoga class at Corepower Yoga. I think all of the yoga classes are done in a "hot" environment, which means the room is heated up to about 98'F. Talk about feeling back at home - working out in the heat, yikes! I can't imagine what their actual hot yoga class must feel like (103'F room, I think?), because 98' was pretty unbearable. I did feel more limber and I sweated A LOT. Good thing I drank a lot of water. We moved through the poses very quickly and I found this class to be less relaxing than other yoga classes I've taken. I suppose, then, that Corepower's schtick is creating yoga fitness classes as opposed to calming classes. Sure, the instructor did the obligatory breathing cues and spiritual talking, but I just wasn't getting the same vibe. Maybe it was the heat.

In either case, I did learn this new breathing technique that's different from other breathing styles I've done in yoga, Pilates or kung fu. Typically, you breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, very controlled, slowly, and deeply. For this class, the instructor told us to breath in and out through our noses and keep our mouths sealed for the remainder of class. Supposedly it should feel more powerful, which I could sort of feel. I also have the tendency to clench my jaw while working out, though, and this more powerful breathing only exacerbated that problem. However, it did make it that much more enjoyable and tension-relieving when we could take those big "sighing" breaths out through our mouths towards the end of class.

Since Maryhope and I arrived kind of late, we had two spots at the very front of the room, right up on the mirrors. Now that I've taken to Crossfit, which is mirror-free, I've learned more about sensing where my body is in space and self-correcting based on how things feel, rather than look. Watching myself do yoga that up close and personal actually hurt my practice I feel. Rather than focusing on my breath, the movement, or the correct placement of my head, I was constantly tempted to check my posture in the mirror - which completely throws off everything, especially the balance needed in yoga! Note to self for potential future yoga classes: go to a class that does not have mirrors, or stand in the back.

I rushed home on the bus after the yoga class so that I could rehydrate before heading to CFSP in afternoon traffic. Today we did 400m running sprints, and I wanted to see if I had improved my time (it is one of my goals, after all). Sadly, I performed pretty poorly and I'm debating whether these runs should count as my benchmark for my paleo challenge, or if I get a redo this weekend (preferably on a standard 400m track).

5x400m runs, resting approximately 3 minutes in between:
1:43 / 1:41 / 1:48 / 1:41 / 1:41

Well, at least I was consistent...and I improved over my trial at the track a few weeks ago with Susanne. Still, I didn't break my 1:35 goal. Other than thinking about the burning in my legs from running, I also thought about breathing powerfully like I did in yoga. It seemed to help when I started it on my 4th run trial (notice the drop in time despite the fatigue). On the 5th run, I maintained the powerful breathing and also thought about chasing a bus. Silly, yes. But oh so true to life. In fact, yesterday morning I almost missed the bus TWICE, but was able to catch it because I could sprint to the next bus stop before the bus could reach it. Thank goodness it takes the bus about 2 minutes to go from stop to stop downtown and also that I can run about 2 blocks in less than that time...now imagine how many buses I could catch if I could break a 1:35 run!

Karen and Ice Cream!!!!!

2010-05-17T22:17:00.001-05:00

Lots of exciting stuff happening now that it's officially summer! My performance today at CF was less than stellar, but my performance in the kitchen more than made up for it - I made delicious, almost paleo, homemade ice cream!

To start, I went to Crossfit for a good workout - I'm doing my "weigh-in" for the paleo challenge on Thursday, time for my "after" Bod Pod results! Our skill today was weighted push-ups (5 sets of 5 reps), which are HARD if you don't have good pushing muscles. Deb and I paired up, and I fared MUCH worse than she did:

15 / 12.5 / 12.5 / 12.5 / 12.5

I don't think I was able to do 5 in a row at all during one set, but I usually got to 4 before my arms just totally gave out - ugh! Deb got all the way to 45# without barely breaking a sweat. Way to go! On to the WOD.

"Karen" for time:
150 wall ball shots (20# / 14#, 10 foot target)

The last time I did this workout in November, I technically made the "record" at CF Minneapolis using a "prescribed" 10# med ball and the 8 foot target - only took me 8:53. This time around, I used the prescribed 14# med ball and aimed for the 10 foot target. I didn't always hit that target (hey, it's 5 feet above my head and that's not exactly even playing field with the rest of the CFers), but as long as it hit above the blue marked line going around the gym (about 8.5 feet), I counted the rep. I finished in 15:04, the last person in class today. I will say that I was tempted to stop a few times at the 100 rep or 125 rep mark...but I remembered that by cheating, I'm only cheating myself.

This workout sucked not in my legs, but in my arms and wrists the most. I think the pressure and shock of catching the heavy ball really slowed me down. I had to take several breaks not because I was tired, but because I was getting sloppy with my ball catching and had difficulty re-launching it. Lame.

But it's ok because I made ice cream afterwards! Over the weekend I experimented with vanilla-honey-lavender ice cream in a coconut milk base. It turned out alright, but the coconut milk and water separated funny, making some parts more like sorbet and other parts more like ice cream. Also, the lavender was a little strong tasting and in hindsight, I probably should have strained out the buds. But here's a picture of it anyway:

Onto my better recipe for just plain vanilla bean-honey ice cream. The yield was pretty small on this, so next time I'll have to double it:

1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1 vanilla bean (12 inches)
2 TB raw honey

First, I froze the coconut milk in the can for about 2 hours to separate the cream from the water. I spooned out just the cream into a tupperware dish and popped it in the fridge for when I was going to use it later this afternoon. When I was ready to actually start cooking, I gently boiled some water in a skillet. While waiting for the water to bubble, I slit open the vanilla bean and scraped all the little black seeds into a heat-safe mixing bowl. Toss in the rest of the vanilla pod and add the cold coconut milk.

By now, the water was boiling, so I set the mixing bowl in the hot water so that it would heat coconut milk contents. This is better than just heating up the coconut milk directly in a saucepan (more control). I stirred everything together and let it "infuse" for about 8 minutes. Then I removed the bowl from the hot water and let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes. When the mixture was cool, I added the raw honey - you want to add the honey when it's cool because if you add the honey to the hot mix, it'll cook and not be raw anymore!

Once well-mixed, I popped the bowl in the freezer for about 30 minutes to chill it. Then it was time to churn it according to my ice cream maker's instructions. It was actually done in about 18 minutes and thickened much better than my first recipe (which still wasn't frozen after about 45 minutes - I think chilling the mixture prior to churning is a key step!). Here's the final (but measly) product:

How easy and simple was that? Pretty paleo too with the coconut milk base and minimal honey. My next adventure is going to be chocolate peanut butter ice cream! More on that this weekend.

In other news, Mike approached me today about competing in the USA Olympic Weightlifting Open that's being held in Minnesota in October. Heck, why not? I'm not all that great at the snatch, and my clean and jerk could definitely use some work, but it's always fun to have a goal to work towards. So we're putting a little training team together to send some people to that competition - stay tuned!

Saturday Team WOD

2010-05-15T14:46:00.000-05:00

We continue to do team workouts on Saturdays at the gym, and I went to the 8 AM workout today and was surprised to see so many people! There were 11 people in all, a pretty size-able class for an early weekend workout.

We did the workout in teams of 4, and I paired up with 3 other ladies who wanted to do it RX'd.

5 rounds:
28 Back squats (135# / 95#)
400m Run
(while waiting for your turn at the back squat, do 5 air squats)
**Cannot start the backsquats until all teammates are back from the run; the bar may not touch the rack or the ground when switching squatters**

We split up the squats equally and did 7 each each round. I practiced my low-bar back squat position, which actually felt pretty good by round 3 when I was warmed up. The first two rounds my legs still felt really tight from all the yoga (haha). Our team finished in 22:30 and I was surprisingly sweaty by the end of it - I guess 35 95# back squats will get you!

After class, Tyler led a muscle-up skills class since he just got back from the gymnastics certification last weekend (by the way, I'm TOTALLY going to the next one that's held in Texas or the Midwest - it sounds totally awesome). I did pretty well and got pretty far in the progressions, although i need to get a ring dip first to really start doing them. I was able to go from my knees into the muscle-up with just a little assist and spotting on the ring dip portion.

I also got to play around a bit with the handstand push-up modifications with the band. Essentially, you loop a band around the pull-up bar and then pull another band through the loop to make a kind of harness. Then you slip your arms in and have someone spot you into the handstand. It's tough because you're not up against the wall, so it's really easy to arch your back and be in the incorrect form...but it feels really different from doing HSPU with an AbMat and I mean different in a good way. I can tell the range of motion is deeper and better with the band assist.

After all the skill work, I still wanted to work on my strict press for the paleo challenge. I probably should have left it alone because 1) I ate like crap last night at our lab party, so there was no way my performance was going to be superb, and 2) I worked out twice on Friday and sort of twice today (team WOD and skills training). I didn't make any gains, in fact I went down in my PR:

53 / 63 / 63 / 68 / 63

Yeah, my old PR was 68# and I couldn't get it above my forehead today. I could also tell my back was arching a lot (what's up with that today??) and that I wasn't fully keeping my core locked and steady. I'll be fixing all that this week as I weigh in for the paleo challenge!

Open to Possibilities

2010-05-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

The theme of today's post is going to be the theme of my yoga workout today, and mainly just my new outlook on this "season" of my life...since it's summer and all, and I have to figure out what I'm going to do with my "free time" that is still research-related. So, theme of the day (TOD): "open to possibilities."

I'm still on the trying new workouts schtick, and because the recreational center at school is having free group fitness classes, I thought I'd try a few more out after my finals ended on Thursday. On Friday, there was a Pilates class and then an Advanced Yoga class back-to-back around the lunch hour, so I scheduled that in. As a dancer, I practiced Pilates for about 3 years and then I also did reformer bed classes in college. I also took yoga as a PE class in college, so these classes were not anything new to me, just stuff I haven't done in a while.

I enjoyed the Pilates class and got a pretty good sweat on from the ab work we did. It was relaxing too because the instructor left the lights off the whole time. Then came the yoga class. The guy who led it is very hard to describe, but I'll try my best. He definitely was a yoga teacher - really in tune with nature, the universe, his spiritual self; he just had this positive aura around him the instant he walked into the room. He was energetic and kooky, but not in an annoying way that seemed inappropriate for a yoga class. He was mellow and chill, but not so much that he put me to sleep. It was the perfect balance for someone like me doing yoga - high energy but low-key (paradox, yes I know).

So onto the actual class. We jumped right into poses, since it was advanced after all, and I'm glad that I'd taken a few yoga classes before in my life. We started in a seated position to set the tone for the class - apparently this instructor always has a theme for how he's going to lead class and the "cues" he's going to call out. He began by telling us about some yoga principle that translates literally to being "open to grace," but that he took to mean being open to possibility. Being open means recognizing when an opportunity presents itself to you and taking on the challenge. It means being an active participant in life, not simply just going with how fate rolls you along. And, once you actively recognize opportunities and possibilities, it means stepping head first to meet the challenge. I thought that was a pretty good outlook to have in life.

During class, he kept using the "cue" of "be open to the possibility of..." and then usually referring to being okay with falling out of a pose, or maybe realizing that the next progression was too difficult for you. So, being open to possibility also means recognizing when to push yourself, when to sit tight, and when to slow down a bit. I even took the phrase one step further to signify being open to new forms of movement and activity. Yes, yoga is not what we think of when we think of "high intensity," but it still kicked my butt and I was totally sore today from all the stretching and balancing!

I think next semester I'm going to balance out my CF training with a little yoga too. This instructor was just too chill and cool to pass up - I think something calming like yoga will definitely be a good way to de-stress during the week.

New Deadlift PR!

2010-05-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

I'm sticking with the "constantly varied," although I'm sticking to Crossfit today...just at 6 AM instead of my regular evening class! Talk about getting outside my "workout comfort zone!"

Mike lead our morning class today, and I actually was surprised at how much energy and enthusiasm everyone generated. We had a really great turnout - I think maybe 12 people total! Excellent stuff for a great day of deadlifts and rowing.

The strength component today was the deadlift, and I was determined to PR, maybe even reach my paleo challenge goal weight of 200#. This morning I worked with Anna, who plays hardcore rugby and is built like my ex-volleyball-playing roommate - tall and muscular! She really pushed me and cheered me on:

185 / 195 / 195 / ~~205~~ / 190

I wasn't able to pull the 205# off the ground, and after trying 195# again on the 5th set and still failing, I stripped the weight and successfully pulled off 190#. The fatigue clearly had set in and I'm hoping that I can still make the 200# goal in the next few weeks when I conclude my paleo challenge.

Onto the WOD, which still practiced the deadlift and some added rowing.

For time:
500m Row
10 Deadlifts (315# / 225#)
500m Row

I was determined to finish this one in less than 7:00, and after watching the first heat go (that's right, we had so many people today we had to go in TWO heat!), I felt like it was do-able with a little less weight. I opted for 155#, which was a smart choice since they started to feel like heavy singles after the row. My final time was 6:33. Leg burner for sure!

Belated WOD Post...

2010-05-12T19:27:00.001-05:00

Sorry I've been a little MIA lately, and unfortunately, this post will have to be on the shorter side. Graduate finals are such a time suck! But...everyone can use a study break now and then :)

Monday I continued with my "constantly varied workout" routine by joining a friend of mine at her Zumba class. It's essentially Latin Cardio Dance: dance and aerobic moves set to Latin music (reggaeton, salsa, mambo) for an hour-long class. I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about this one since it was supposed to be pretty heavy cardio and movement for an hour, something I haven't done in a long while since joining Crossfit and adopting that approach to working out.

But, there are definitely some positives to Zumba, despite the long cardio aspect (and the fact that I didn't really sweat or feel like I worked out afterwards). I especially liked what the instructor said at the beginning of class, something along the lines of "This is a place where we leave our inhibitions at the door...because there's a lot of butt-shaking and grooving, and we're just here to have fun!" So, I liked Zumba to the extent that it is a fun exercise outlet for people trying to get out of their shells and get comfortable with their bodies. It definitely helped that there were no mirrors in the room where we took the class - I felt really free to let loose and not give a crap about how dorky my arm placement looked.

Tuesday I was back at CFSP for my first workout since my "three-a-day" on Saturday. Our strength component was 2-rep front squats, 5 sets. I teamed up with Diana, who set the first record for the air squat challenge before I beat her. Her lower body is super strong, so I knew we would be challenging each other, our sets broke down:

85 / 105 / 115 / 115 / 120

We both agreed that 120# was tough, but do-able. We didn't fail or bottom out on any of the front squats, so we probably could have pushed ourselves a little more...next time!

The workout included some stuff we don't get to do very often: knees to elbows, lateral jumps, and my personal favorite, kettlebell swings!

For time:
20 Knees to elbows
40 Lateral jumps over the parallelette bar
60 KB swings (53# / 35#)
40 Lateral jumps
20 Knees to elbows

I got a 12" parallelette bar and kept it at that height, although some of my classmates put weight plates underneath to raise the bar. I wasn't quite sure if I was ready for that, but in hindsight I think I should have challenged myself more. I finished in 7:39 taking more breaks than I needed to (but mainly just during the KB swings). I had to drop from the bar on the knees to elbows a few times, but I didn't really stop to catch my breath - just enough time to jump right back on the bar! I wish I could say I did this "RXd," because I did use the prescribed KB weight, but I'm not sure if my jumping counted...

In the recipe corner this week, I've been messing with my CSA greens - spinach and field braising mix! It's been super simple braising this stuff and I've been experimenting with different combinations. Last night I sauteed a chopped shallot "clove" in some olive oil with some walnut bits and pieces. After about 3-5 minutes, I splashed in some apple juice (but I've used chicken stock in the past too) and 2 big handfuls of greens. Some salt and pepper on top and stir it all around until the leaves wilt. Voila! Dinner is served...with steak of course!

Three for One

2010-05-08T12:25:00.002-05:00

I have a theme for this post today, and I wasn't even trying! It's all about getting three for the price/effort of one.
First, let's start off with Crossfit this morning. This month's "challenge WOD" is max air squats in 2 minutes. Being that I'm short and don't have much distance to cover, I'm at an advantage for this one. There were no kids for the kids class at 9 AM, so I got some open gym time to do a test run on the challenge. Right now, my only competition was Diana, an Olympic speed skating hopeful (i.e., she's tough sh*t) and her max was 101 squats. Pretty tough to beat! I managed 107 squats this time around, but I took a lot of rest breaks. I'm hoping more people challenge themselves so that I have more fire under my pants to maybe break 115.

Then, it was off to do some strength work. Today I wanted to practice either deadlifts or back squats for my paleo challenge goal of getting new CF Total maxes. As I had already done 107 squats, I defaulted to doing deadlifts, even though we had just done some on Thursday. I went for 5x3 rep maxes:

153 / 163 / 173 / 178 / 183

Booyah. Just FYI, my old 1 rep max from late February was 185#. Bring it on deadlifts!

It was almost 10 AM by this point, and some people were going to come in for the free open house workout. I piddled around doing some handstand push-ups, still with the AbMat until they showed up to do "Cindy" for their intro workout. Only 3 people came, and since it might be a little intimidating to have 2 coaches for just 3 people, Mike suggested I "raise moral" by doing the workout with them. No way was I going to do more squats, so I subbed in sit-ups....rough! I managed 11 rounds "RXd" if you count doing sit-ups instead of squats :)

So there you have it! Three workouts for just one visit to CFSP! On my way home, I picked up a few things at the Co-op so I could cook some of my veggies before they went bad. I'm really bad at storing them and I can already tell the leaves on some of them are wilting. I gotta get cooking this weekend! My CSA (community sustained agriculture) that I joined fortunately prints a newsletter with every box delivery, so I had some idea of what I was going to make with my new veggies. One recipe even had three of the veggies in one dish - even better! I modified it a bit to get some more protein, but this is pretty much what the newsletter dished out.

Ramp Frittata
6 eggs
2 Tb Parmesan cheese (I got raw milk!), grated
Salt + Pepper
2 links lamb sausage, removed from casing (my idea :) )
1 bunch of ramps, separate bulbs and leaves, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 cup chopped asparagus
1/2 bunch French breakfast radishes, sliced

First, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the eggs, cheese, salt and pepper in a bowl. In a 12-inch oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, cook the sausage (ground it up in the pan). Lamb is a bit fattier than I expected, so I had to drain some of the fat off, but I left some in there so I could saute the ramp bulbs and asparagus for about 2-3 minutes. Then I threw in the ramp leaves and sauteed some more for 1-2 minutes, until the leaves wilted. Reduce heat to low and pour the egg mixture on top. Give it a slight stir to spread it around, then pop it in the over for 15-20 minutes, until the eggs are set.

Remove from pan, top with sliced radishes and enjoy!

Ramps and radishes!

Letting the eggs settle and cook

Ta-da!

Off Day?

2010-05-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

Crossfit today just felt a little off. I haven't been since the Saturday Murph Challenge, partly because this last week of school has been super hectic. I've also been carbing it up more than usual lately I think...probably because I'm nearing the end of my paleo challenge and the lustre of the first few weeks of the challenge has worn off. Must self-control!

Anyhoo, I wasn't exactly performing up to par today. Pull-ups are almost always in the warm-up and I could MAYBE do 2-3 together at a time. And I wasn't even stringing them together properly, it was more like 1 kipping pull-up, dead hang drop, then get back in the kipping motion for #2. Awful. Our strength component today was practicing the hang power clean. With the PVC pipe, I felt pretty good and I put 53# on the bar to start out and that felt too easy. Maybe I progressed too quickly to 83#, but I honestly thought it was do-able since my max clean is 103#. WRONG. I had some serious issues keeping the hook grip, getting my elbows up in the rack position, and possibly even catching the bar on my toes. Yikes!

We moved onto the WOD, and things got a little better.

12 minute AMRAP;
5 Deadlifts (275# / 185#)
15 Double-unders

I had originally wanted to go RXd on this one, but seeing as how 185# is my 1-rep deadlift max, I scaled back quite a bit...probably more than I initially wanted to, but it was still hard. I was able to do 133# and all double-unders. I'm getting much better at jumping right into the double-unders and not needing to do a few single skips to set a pace and rhythm, so that's promising! I managed 10 rounds + 2 deadlifts. I probably could have done more rounds, except that every time I had to switch to the deadlifts, I had to think about resetting, breathing, really gearing myself up for the lift.

That was definitely the hardest part about this WOD - switching from something that is more "static" like the deadlift to something that is faster and more dynamic like the double-unders. My body just was not comprehending the shift like it should have!

Variety is the spice of life!

2010-05-03T21:33:00.000-05:00

Recently, a colleague of mine in the psychology department sent out a mass email to all the ladies about adding some variety to our workouts. We all do different things - from running to yoga to cardio dance to CROSSFIT! - that we decided to try each others' workouts out these last few weeks before summer. There's been a big email chain going around and no one was really committing to anything, but I decided to just go out there and try one, be adventurous and all. Today was Susanne's Tri-team running meeting!

Susanne is on the triathlon team here at the U of M and has competed in a lot of different meets around the country. She was the first person on our workout email exchange to send out an offer to do a running workout with the triathlon team. Since a core tenet of Crossfit is constant variation, and we rarely do running sprints, I figured it would fit with my fitness philosophy. Even more, I'm TERRIBLE at running and you don't get better at something by avoiding it - you get better by DOING! So, it seemed like a good win-win situation.

We had a nice walk over to the track despite the rain and I immediately felt welcomed by the Tri community. They're a pretty diverse group of phenomenal athletes - I was a little intimidated and embarrassed of my inability to run. It was pretty informal and people just chose what they wanted to work on: one group of girls decided to do a 3-mile "tempo" run (I learned all kinds of new lingo at this meeting!) and a group of guys decided to do some 1200m runs with 800m runs in between.

Judging from my soreness post 2-mile "Murph" challenge, I wasn't really up for some distance running (yes, I know 3 miles isn't exactly a long distance...give me a break!). So, Susanne and I decided to do 6 rounds of 400m runs. We warmed-up with a good 1200m run at a decent pace and then dove right in. I brought my watch with me so I could time it...but now looking back at my times, maybe it would have been better if I didn't know!

Lap 1 - 1:41 (1:18 rest)
Lap 2 - 1:42 (1:55 rest)
Lap 3 - 1:42 (2:30 rest)
Lap 4 - 1:44 (2:46 rest)
Lap 5 - 1:44 (2:13 rest)
Lap 6 - 1:40

Well, at least my last time was faster than my first time, right? I was slightly disappointed because one of my paleo challenge goals is to do a 1:35 400m, which isn't even a GREAT time and I couldn't even meet that. I better step up my A-game these last few weeks of the challenge!

Overall, I'm really glad I tried out this workout. It was great seeing the community that the Tri team has created and I was reminded of my own Crossfit community and how ANY type of fitness can be a positive impact on someone just due to the friendship factor.

New PR + Murph Challenge + Cookout = FUN TIMES!

2010-05-01T14:30:00.000-05:00

Despite the crazy windy weather and threat of rain, today turned out to be a PHENOMENAL day at CFSP. I arrived early for the kids class, complete with my new CFKids T-shirt that arrived from headquarters last night, but no kids showed up. No worries, I have some paleo challenge benchmarks to meet!

One of my goals for my personal paleo challenge is to reach a new CF Total number, which includes getting a 70# strict press. Rough. My old max from February was 60#, and when I told Tyler my goal, he was a little skeptical of me making that big of a weight jump in just a few short months. HOWEVER, I did get a new PR of 63# at the beginning of April, and today just messing around during the 9 AM open gym, I went up a little more. Slowly but surely!

It was just me and Mike this morning, and I was just casually working on my strict press. I did a few warm-up rounds with the 33# BB, then started doing 3x5 at 53#. I didn't really have a set rep scheme going, I just wanted to get better at the strict press. I then did 3 reps at 58# and 3 more reps at 63#...what??? New 3 rep max? I bumped it up to 68#, but failed on one rep, so I got the 45# BB out and tried for 65#. I did 2x1, and I'm VERY happy about it!

Then it was 10 AM, and people started filing in for the open house community workout. We had two newbies, and I practiced my cheerleading and motivational coaching on their Murph challenge. Then, it was time for OUR Murph Challenge. There were a lot of people, which was nice when we all started the first mile out the door.

"Murph" for time:
1 mile run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Squats
1 mile run

YIKES! I didn't think I could pull this one off in less than an hour, but I set a cap for myself at 50 minutes. And off we went on our first mile. The last time I ran a mile - in 8th grade for the presidential fitness test - I think I did it in about 9:12. Today, after not having run a mile in a looooooooong while, I did 8:57 - improvement maybe? I know that's pretty slow by most standards, but I'm not a runner people!

Mike suggested partitioning the reps like Cindy: 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats, and just doing 20 rounds of that. Seemed like a good strategy, so I tried it. I've been having lots of issues with my kipping lately, but I wanted to do all the pull-ups RXd. The only thing I didn't do RXd was the push-ups (from my knees). The body weight stuff totally killed right around round 12 for me, and it was tough to keep going. Like I talked with some guys after the WOD, it wasn't a matter of endurance - I wasn't breathing too heavily or anything - it was just a matter of my little muscles not wanting to give anymore! The 2nd run was AWFUL because my legs were tired, and I could barely get my arms pumping to help me with gaining momentum. Yeesh. I finished in 51:09...not quite under my cap, but at least less than an hour.

After the brutal WOD, we had a little BBQ cookout on the "patio" and had a lot of fruit, since that's what most people brought. I brought guacamole :) It was great to hang out with some really great folks and relax after a good morning.

Cleans and Burpees

2010-04-29T22:33:00.000-05:00

After a long day at a diversity summit, I headed over for the early afternoon workout led by Chris, a CFSP original. It was a pretty low-key and small class, which I enjoyed. And I will say that I am LOVING the new box - bigger, easier to run in and out of for 400m sprints, and WAY more equipment to work with!

I feel like we've been doing some serious legwork lately, and today was no different.

5 rounds for time:
3 Cleans (M: 165# / W: 135#)
12 Burpees
200m Run

I set up my bar with 83#, since the last time we did cleans (one on the minute every minute for 15 minutes), I was able to get up to 103# successfully twice. I knew 93# would probably be pushing it, given the number too, and I sort of wanted to finish in under 10 minutes, just to push myself.

My legs had a different plan. They've just been feeling like lead, and after Tuesday's kettlebell and running workout, they're just shot. I managed to pull this one off in 13:48, still sub-15:00, but not my strongest effort. I DID work on the hook grip the whole time, which is a positive; and the weight didn't feel too heavy, so I was able to really focus on my form. I noticed that I run a lot faster than I initially thought and that I can push myself more in runs.

I'm going to take it easy until Saturday when we do the Murph Challenge. Murph is a hero WOD that involves two 1-mile runs with a lot of stuff sandwiched in between. Mike says we're going to scale it...but I don't exactly know what that entails...maybe less running???? I hope so...

Movin' on East

2010-04-27T19:49:00.000-05:00

Today was my first official workout in the NEW CF St. Paul facility! Tyler coached the classes and owner Mike joined in on the fun. It was a tough WOD, especially because I don't think I'm all rested up from the certification WODs this weekend, but I still finished in a decent time.

I came early to teach the Kids Class...but as usual, no one came. That's fine by me for now because I have to write a paper for school, but I hope word gets out eventually! I helped coach the 4 PM class for a bit, then did the WOD with the 5 PM class.

For time:
200m Run
40 KB swings (1 pood = 36 lbs = 16 kg)
400m Run
30 KB swings
800m Run
20 KB swings

Yikes! That last 800m run was rough! I thought it would never end and at one point my ankle started aching a bit - maybe I'm starting to run a little funny in my Vibrams? I finished this one in 12:08 and my new friend and coach Melanie from this weekend finished in 12:09. It was truly great to be working out with an athlete that's close to my level. It was competitive in a fun way!

Melanie and I also worked on our front squats today doing a little 3 set x 3 rep "warm-up." I got up to 115# on the last set, and felt like I could have done a little more, but I didn't want to kill my legs before all the running and KB swings!

Chicken Chimichurri Recipe

2010-04-26T22:30:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, my Seriously Simple cookbook finally came from Amazon. Ryon has a copy of this book and it contains one of my FAVORITE all-time recipes, island-braised short ribs. I have been meaning to buy a copy for ages, but never really got around to it. Well, I finally did buy it, only to find that not all the recipes are good paleo - canola oil, corn starch, and sugar in recipes??? WHAT???

So, I had to do a thorough scanning of the book to really find what I could cook from it and what I would need to substitute. The entire desserts chapter should just be ripped out (I think there's ONE recipe for creme fraiche and berries...everything else is some variation of chocolate cake). However, I happened upon this tasty and super easy chicken recipe.

Chicken Breasts in Chimichurri Sauce
The sauce:
10 garlic cloves, peeled
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, stemmed
3/4 c olive oil
1/4 c white wine vinegar (or white balsamic vinegar...more expensive at the co-op)
1/4 c chicken broth (or water)
3/4 tsp dried oregano
3/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Marinade:
3 Tb Chimichurri sauce (above)
2 Tb olive oil
3 chicken breasts

First, I made the sauce by pureeing the garlic in a food processor. Then I added in the parsley leaves and processed until finely chopped. Added in everything else and processed until it made this bright green sauce. I was amazed out how flavorful and spicy it was (do a taste test before proceeding...YUM!).

I took the 3 Tbs of the sauce and mixed it with the olive oil to make a marinade. Then I put the chicken breasts in a freezer bag and poured the marinade on top, shake well to coat and cover. Refrigerate for 2 hours (or up to 4 hours). Once that was all marinated, I oiled up my nonstick skillet and heated it up to medium heat. Grilled each chicken breast for 7-10 minutes on each side. It probably would have cooked through faster if I flattened the meat first. Next time!

I cut the chicken into little strips and then poured some more sauce on top. Great lunch to take to school with some asparagus!

Certified!

2010-04-25T20:01:00.001-05:00

Alright y'all, after skimming the Crossfit Training Manual for all of an hour last night, plus two full days jam-packed with information, I took the Level 1 Certification Test (VERY official) and passed with flying colors! I have a beautiful gold-leafed certificate to show for it, and I'm super excited to start officially coaching the Kids Program...maybe even assisting in a few adult classes every now and then :) There's really not much else to say that I didn't cover in my post yesterday, so I'll just post a picture from our wonderful group. I would HIGHLY recommend going to a certification, even if it's just to hone your skills and not eventually become a coach. You meet so many enthusiastic, energetic, and driven people - and we all know that's just contagious!

Half a Level 1 Coach!

2010-04-24T20:38:00.000-05:00

Today was Day One of my Level One Crossfit Certification. I'm halfway there, barring any issues with my test tomorrow!

It was a great day of learning and meeting a lot of nice, like-minded, motivated Crossfitters. Surprisingly (at least to me), there were a lot of people who do follow the main site WODs at their own gyms and don't belong to an affiliate. I thought it was really cool that they decided to come to a cert just to get the skills and basics. I also met a big crew from Crossfit Progression, my buddy Matt's box in Rochester. There were also two other people from CF St. Paul that I recognized and chatted with during our breaks.

The format of the cert is really similar to the kids cert: lecture, WOD, lecture, WOD...lather rinse repeat. Except that the WODs aren't really WODs, but mini-breakout sessions where we get to practice whatever movements we just heard a lecture on. There are 6 instructors and we're broken down into groups of 8-10 people, each with a different instructor. They break down the movement and watch us do it in a circle. Then a person gets called into the middle to demonstrate, and we all gather around to watch and correct the form. That way, it's a win-win situation where we get to practice looking for faults, figuring out what cue to give to correct it, and also get corrected on our own form.

Today, I got called into the middle for overhead squats. Rough because I have trouble keeping my chest up in an air squat, and holding a PVC pipe overhead doesn't make things easier. BUT...I also got called into the middle of the circle to execute my superb deadlift form!

We ended the day with a team WOD. Each team of 4-5 people had to do 50 reps (per person) of thrusters and push-ups. It wasn't that each person had to do 50 reps each, but rather that we had to complete 200 thrusters and 200 push-ups if we had 4 people cumulatively. I opted for the 25# dumbbells because a 33# barbell seemed too light, but 63# seemed like pushing it. I ended up only being able to get about 6-8 thrusters in a row, and I did the push-ups from my knees, but my team still finished in about 8:45. Afterward, I tried a few thrusters on the 63# barbell and had no issue with the squat, but definitely had some problems getting it pressed overhead...something to work on if I want to get to an RXd Fran!

I'm really glad I went to this cert and super excited to finish it up tomorrow. I realized today that Crossfit is a place that I finally feel free to be myself and where me being energetic, enthusiastic, and outgoing is not only appreciated, but is respected and viewed as a strength. Anyone who knows me knows that I struggle deeply with people not respecting me because I come off as dimwitted or bimbo-ish, in large part due to my extraversion. I get the feeling often in graduate school that professors or even other students don't give me enough credit because I'm loud and "crazy." But in Crossfit, that kind of attitude and personality is rewarded...and it's refreshing to be around people who value my positivity.

Triplet

2010-04-22T22:04:00.000-05:00

Today was my last day at our good ole' CF MPLS Northeast space. As of Monday, we will be in our new facility merged with CF St. Paul! And like my first CF WOD ever (Diane), I'll always remember my last CF MPLS WOD.

I'll admit that tonight was kind of an "off" day for me. I've been dealing with some personal family and school-related stuff that really came to a head today and nearly brought me to tears. But...there's nothing like a good workout to leave it all out on the mat!

For time:
21-15-9
Back squats (women's RX: 95#)
Wall balls (women's RX: 10#, 10-ft target)
Pull-ups

I was excited to complete this one, since I actually felt I could do the whole thing RXd! The back squats didn't feel so heavy and my form felt pretty good, even though I had to break up the set of 21. Wall balls were also actually easier than I remembered - I hit the 10-ft target a majority of the time without a struggle, compared to my previous attempts. And pull-ups are well...pull-ups.

I finished sub-10:00 in 9:57. Whew! That was a close one!

Cleaning Up My Form

2010-04-20T22:11:00.000-05:00

After yesterday's super tough rowing WOD, I asked Tyler to give us a strength day and he happily obliged today. Fortunately, the 6:30 PM class I usually go to is relatively small, and there were only three of us girls tonight. So, Tyler took the extra time to work on our form for the clean, tonight's lift of choice.

Prior to the actual WOD, we warmed-up with "tabata double unders." That was interesting. Eight rounds alternating 20 seconds of double-unders and 10 seconds of rest. I usually managed to get in about 8-10 double-unders before whipping myself with the rope. I might not have been getting better at stringing my double-unders together, but what I worked on tonight was getting right into them. Usually, I single-skip about 10 times to get a rhythm and speed going, but tonight I practiced just double-undering right away. Pretty successful attempts, although I couldn't string them together as well.

Now onto the workout, after we practiced our clean form for a good 10 minutes and really talked about accelerating through the pocket.

For max total load:
Do one clean every minute for 15 minutes

The idea was to activate that "strong man" metabolic pathway where you expend a lot of energy in a short amount of time. Sure, you could start out at your max load initially, but you'd gas out pretty quickly. But, you want to be able to do as many max load cleans for as many of those 15 rounds as possible, to get a total max out. I guessed my max load was about 93#, but I actually got up to 103#...TWICE!

83 / 83 / 88 / 88 / 93 / 93 / 98 / 98 / 98 / 103 / ~~103~~ 98 / 98 / 98 / 98 / 103

For a total of 1420#. Not too shabby. 103# was definitely very rough, and I had a lot of trouble getting my elbows up. I failed on my second attempt at 103# (after the first one), but I stripped the weight and went back to 98# and got one within the minute, which is why it counted. Furthermore, I did full cleans, landing in the squat every time, not a power clean. Yes, that meant I could probably get more weight up, but it also meant I essentially had to front squat that amount. I definitely feel much stronger on these lifts now!

Earning my Sea Legs!

2010-04-19T21:40:00.000-05:00

Today was brutal. Just brutal. We rowed, even though it was a gorgeous day outside. And rowing just blows.

I'll try not to bash as much on rowing as possible, but now that the weather has finally gotten nicer, I see no need to subject myself to that kind of torture. Today we did 500m rowing sprints...ugh!

Four rounds for time:
500m with 3 minutes of rest in between

Rowing is tough for me because I have the shortest little legs and a lot of distance has to be covered if you want to get done fast. I usually row about a 2:00-minute 500m, and today was no exception. My times broke down as follows:

1:59 (sub-2:00! YAY!) / 2:06 / 2:12 / 2:09

For a total time of 8:26. That third round I kind of slacked off, and I'm not proud of it. My legs and itty bitty little heart just couldn't take it anymore. I've been feeling kind of sick lately too and had to go to the doctor this morning for some tests, and I didn't want to push myself too too much. Nothing to worry about though, I was just trying to take it a little easier. Besides, apparently at the Level 1 Cert I'll be at THIS WEEKEND, they make you do Fran...better save up my strength!

Slight Change of Plans

2010-04-17T13:04:00.002-05:00

Today was supposed to be my first day teaching a Kids Class solo at Crossfit St. Paul. However, there was a slight change of plans, and I ended up doing a Team WOD at CF MPLS instead...

I was all excited to do my first kids class post-certification that I showed up 30 minutes early to the scheduled class time just to prep everything. Andrea, the co-owner of CF St. Paul, gave me a small whiteboard and told me where the markers were, and I immediately jumped to decorating it and writing the plan on it:

Warm-up game: Freeze tag!
Skill: Push-up
WOD: 5 rounds of {5 broad jumps, 5 push-ups, 5 broad jumps, 5 squats}
Game: CF Dodgeball

One kid showed up early with her mom (who did the adult 8 AM workout), so I included her in the lesson-making plan, trying to make it an authoritative instead of authoritarian process (hey, I didn't take developmental psychology for nothing!). She seemed pretty excited about class and I asked her about all the different sports she plays and we killed time by tossing one of those big stability balls around. But after about 10 minutes of that, it got boring and it also happened to be 9 AM - class time! Where were all the kids?

Turns out, the other 2 kids who were supposed to show up had gone to a sleepover the night before and didn't feel like coming in the morning (or so they texted us). I stayed positive and told the one kid withe me that we could still have a fun and challenging workout...but I think she was scared and decided to do yoga with her mom instead. I'm staying positive about the whole thing. I don't think it's that she didn't like me or didn't want to do the workout, I think it's a little intimidating and awkward to be the only student in a tough workout class. Better luck next time!

So I headed over to Minneapolis in time for the workout and we were going to have a group powwow afterward to discuss the merger, so I needed to be there eventually anyway. We did a team WOD with two teams competing against each other. It was like a "snake run," where you do something single file and the person at the front constantly changes (I can't really describe it well...sorry). The front person had to flip a tire forward, then everyone behind them had to do a burpee broad jump forward to the new tire position. While the rest of the team does the burpee broad jump, the tire flipper has to run back to the start line and then file into the end of the line. Now, the new front person flips the tire. Lather, rinse, repeat until we got down about 100 ft and then turn around and do it back!

Tires are heavy. Luckily, the girls in the class were allowed to have the guys help them flip. Honestly, the sprinting back to the start and then the end of the line was the worst part because it just got farther and farther as the tire advanced down the road.

I know today was supposed to be a rest day, and I probably shouldn't go do my strength workout tomorrow...but I'm going to anyway. I feel like I haven't been focusing as well on my strength goal (increasing Crossfit Total numbers), and I really need a day to work on some heavy lifting.

Hello Again, Air Force WOD!

2010-04-15T20:01:00.001-05:00

Tonight was the second time this week that no one else showed up for the 6:30 PM class I always go to - what's the deal CF MPLS??? Anyway, it kinda sucked because tonight was a really tough WOD, and it would have been nice to have some external motivation in the form of another sweating and panting gym buddy. Alas...

We revisited the Air Force WOD from Midwestern Sectionals tonight and I made some leaps and bounds in improvement!

For time:
20 Thrusters
20 Sumo deadlift high pulls
20 Push press
20 Overhead squats
20 Front squats
Men's RX: 95# Women's RX: 65#

This time around, we did not do the burpees on the minute every minute, which was a very much appreciated change. The last time I did this WOD, I suited up with a 45# bar and had to drop down to 33# just for the overhead squats. Still finished in 10:48 though, not too shabby. BUT...this time I did 53#. FOR THE WHOLE THING. That's right! I had a 45# next to me as a safety net for the OHS, but I didn't use it! Sure, it took me a really long time to get through the OHS, but I still finished sub-9:00 in 8:57. Pretty darn proud of myself!

I did 16 thrusters unbroken too and found the SDLHP to be easy (although I rested on the ground a little too much, methinks...). Push press killed and I had to break up the OHS into sets of 3 or 4 to get through them. But I got through, even it did have to be on my own.

7&7...&10

2010-04-13T23:59:00.000-05:00

Tonight we did a variation of one of Tyler's favorite "original" WODs, named after the alcoholic beverage "7&7." Even though I was the only Crossfitter at 6:30 PM tonight, it was still lots of fun...and a killer on the legs after my squat-off weekend and squat thrusts at CFSP yesterday.

I started off class with a 400m "cold" run. It was supposed to be my warm-up, but I ran it pretty fast because I wanted to see how fast I could go (since running a sub-1:35 400m is one of my paleo challenge goals). I beat it EASY: 1:29! I'll have to try again when I actually measure up for the end of my challenge, but as long as I don't get too lazy, I'm hoping to maintain this time. Yay! One goal pretty set!

I moved pretty quickly onto the WOD, so Tyler didn't have to stick around too long just for me.

AMRAP in 12 minutes:
7 Med ball cleans (10#)
7 Burpees

The original 7&7 calls for 7 Med ball cleans and 7 push-ups and is deceptively hard. This one was hard too, but more on my legs than anything else. I managed to get 10 rounds and ONE extra clean before time was called. Good quick fun workout.

Went out to The Bulldog NE for dinner afterward to enjoy a Kobe beef burger, no bun. Delish! I'd never been there before, but everyone has been telling me how good it is. They were right, and I think I might have found my new favorite post-WOD dinner treat, right up there with the gyros from Holy Land Bakery. Om nom nom!

To CFSP We Go!

2010-04-12T21:22:00.000-05:00

Today we had our WODs at Crossfit St. Paul, which was nice since we got to mingle and hang out with our soon-to-be new box members. Coach Mike does a really great job of running a full class in an orderly fashion: set warm-up at your own pace, skill work, strength/lift work, and then a WOD.

The lift for the day was the split jerk, which I got up to 63# on. It was super easy, but I was on a rack with two complete newbies and didn't want to up the weight too much for them. Next time, I'll push myself a little harder when there's more equipment and racks to go around. On we moved to the WOD.

AMRAP in 12 minutes:
3 Handstand push-ups
5 Squat thrusts (burpees without the push-up)
7 Pull-ups

I did everything RX'd except the HSPU, where I placed one ab mat below my head to hit. Going from the pull-ups back to the handstands was the toughest part for my shoulders, and a couple of times I got stuck at the bottom of the HSPU and had to try and kip back up. Definitely a good skill to be working on and I definitely want to work more on HSPU. I managed 8 rounds + 3 HSPU + 5 squat thrusts. That means I did 56 pull-ups, all without a band! Quite a mighty long way I've come, Mike even commented on my new capability.

Kids Cert: Day Two!

2010-04-11T20:21:00.000-05:00

Day Two of the Kids Cert was more of the same: lectures on teaching techniques, health issues and nutrition, teaching the fundamentals, and of course...GAMES!

What I got most out of the cert today was that Crossfit Kids is not just about increasing kids' general fitness and teaching healthy habits. Although that's what draws me into the CF methodology and the idea of teaching it to kids in the first place, I'm excited about the secondary prospect of CFK teaching kids core values that are translatable to the real world: hard work, perseverance, and self-confidence.

We talked a lot today about what kids are capable of and how we as coaches can bring out their best potential and prove to them that they are really capable of some amazing stuff. I joke a lot about people "not messing with me because I bet I can back squat you," which is funny because I'm tiny and sure, we can all laugh about the idea of me back squatting my professor. But there's something more to that statement than just the humor behind it. Since starting Crossfit, I am more self-confident about my abilities even beyond the physical domain, and I'm not going to let someone talk down to me or belittle me just because I'm a girl or because I'm relatively young. Becoming physically capable has made me more confident in the persona I project. That's the type of attitude I want kids to walk out of class with.

Beyond just being self-confident, I was amazed at how humble and down-to-earth these amazing kid athletes demo-ing at the cert were. They were accomplishing some pretty impressive stuff, and have been accomplishing this level of athleticism day in and day out for quite some time. But you would never know it just by listening to them talk or interacting with them. They're just normal kids who love to do Crossfit and are so open to answering questions, helping youger students, and encouraging each other. A great culture I hope to bring back to MN.

Ok, enough of the touchy-feely reflective stuff and on to the part of the day that mattered most: winning musical med balls! Haha. Basically, it's like musical chairs, except that we have to execute the perfect squat on the med ball when the music stops. And instead of just walking around in a circle, we have to do different exercises. First was lunges, then forward tuck rolls (which were the hardest because I got so dizzy and could barely stand up straight, much less regain my balance and squat!), followed by burpee broad jumps and lastly duck walks. It was down to me and one guy from CF Omaha and we squatted (horribly!) on the ball at the same time, so we had a 30-second tie-breaking squat off. I ended up doing 31 squats to his 27, but we both walked away with shot legs from the duck walk-squat off combo!

I'm really glad I came to this cert this weekend and would totally recommend it to anyone considering teaching Crossfit, especially in an area where people don't know a lot about the methodology. We learn a lot of easy fixes and cues to give kids, but I feel like they could work easily well on adults.

Kids Cert: Day One!

2010-04-10T22:18:00.001-05:00

It's been a long, but amazing 24 hours! What started out as a not-so-great Friday has turned into an excellent Saturday of learning all about the Crossfit Kids program...oh, and a few workouts too!

A brief recap of how things all started going down on Friday afternoon. We had a grad student happy hour after classes and went to a bar that has one of those fancy-schmancy ID swipers. Well, my driver's license is expired and I renewed it online...but I threw away the confirmation receipt/temporary license. This bar didn't accept passports, so the one I had on me didn't matter. I begged and pleaded to be let in, and the bouncer finally relented after 10 minutes of arguing. But then I realized: CRAP! I'm going to need a valid driver's license to rent my car in California! After the happy hour, my roommate and I headed over to the offices to try and reprint my temporary license, but I couldn't access the online system. Then Heather even drove me home so I could dig through my trash - no dice. I thought maybe the car rental place would take a bank statement saying I had renewed the license online, but I called them from the airport and they told me NO! I just about lost it....

I spent my next 30 minutes prior to boarding at the airport calling the hotel, taxi companies, shuttle services, trying to figure out how the heck I was going to get everywhere in California. I ultimately decided that I would have to taxi everywhere - costing about $120 roundtrip from my hotel to Crossfit Kids in Ramona! Blargh! I was so stressed on the flight I didn't sleep very well...which didn't matter all that much because I had the middle seat anyway and it was nearly impossible to get comfortable. Boo.

Fortunately, the hotel staffer was really nice (gave me a free breakfast buffet!) when I arrived and I happened to book a hotel that had a car rental service! Things started looking up! I decided I would book a cab for the morning, maybe try to rent a car (couldn't hurt, right?) and then worst case, also try to find a new friend at the cert who could drive me back to my hotel. I had my list of options all outlined and I woke up extra early today to get everything done.

So, at breakfast I ended up running into the Budget car rental manager and explained my situation to him - and we went right back to the office and he gave me a Camry with a full tank of gas right then and there! He didn't even charge me for being under 25. Lucky day! I drove to the cert, which was a beautiful drive and I started feeling better about this trip that started out so poorly and stressfully. I was determined to stay positive and enjoy my day of learning. When I arrived, I ended up sitting next to a fellow Texan and also two women from Crossfit Centurion in Killeen! And Teddy of Twin Town Crossfit was also there - talk about small world! Even if I hadn't initially met all these friendly folks, I still think I would have had luck finding a ride back to my hotel in Rancho Bernardo 20 miles away. You could feel the community and camaraderie the INSTANT you walked through the door.

The Crossfit Kids staff also really encourage the team-building environment and we would sit through 20-30 minutes of lecture (teaching the squat, maintaining a safe gym, learning and flexibility, etc) and then do a game or team WOD. It was great to see all the great athletes and also be encouraging everyone. We all had a great time, and I feel like I can't even express how invaluable this experience has been in this blog.

I observed a lot of great things that reminded me why I'm doing this in the first place. Of particular note, we got to observe a preschool (ages 3-5) and a kids (ages 5-12) class, and there was one girl in the preschool class who totally froze on the warm-up and did not participate in anything. She also had this complete look of fear and terror on her face. I watched as the head coach encouraged her without being too pushy, and by the end of class, this girl was smiling and laughing and running around with all her classmates. All in 20 minutes! It's that kind of positive change that Crossfit has on people's (and kids'!) lives that make me love what I do.

Another great part of the day that stood out was the lecture on kids' nutrition and the emphasis that we are teaching healthy habits and decision-making, not prescribing a set diet. The goal of talking about nutrition in CFKids is to get the kids to eat more proteins and healthy fats and turn down more gatorade and granola bars. And speaking of granola bars...it finally hit home on the plane how being strictly paleo has affected my life. I managed to fall asleep for about 10 minutes right before I was awakened to the sickeningly sweet smell of my seat neighbor's Quaker Oats bar. I got so nauseous just from one whiff of it - that's how much brown rice syrup or HCFS was in it!

We ended the day today by playing Crossfit Baseball: running around the warehouse building and stopping at the various corners to do 5 box jumps, 10 squats, 10 burpees, and 5 pull-ups. I don't know how long we did this WOD for, but I managed to get 5 rounds and then some. And I did all the pull-ups on the "big kid" bar (thicker than normal bars) without dropping down. It felt really good to be motivated by the competitiveness of the other future kids coaches around me!

Strength WOD + Eve of Kids Cert!

2010-04-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

This is going to have to be a quick 'n dirty post because I've got so much packing and stuff to put together before I leave for CA tomorrow for the Kids Cert! Couldn't be more excited and more ANXIOUS about going by myself to my first Crossfit Certification!

Today we did a little strength WOD as opposed to our usual met-cons, which I'm thankful for since tomorrow will be super stressful and I don't think I'll be able to get in my regular gym time. Here's what went down:

5 rounds:
1 Strict press
3 Push press
5 Push jerk

We had to increase loads each round and we weren't allowed to put the bar down. Simple enough. Last time I did Crossfit Total on 2/28, my strict press was 60#, and I remember it being HARD. Tonight I started out at 53# and progressed as follows:

53 / 58 / 63 / 68(F) / 73(F)

New PR for strict press at 63#, but I failed on the press for 68 and 73# (but I still did the push press and push jerk). I could definitely tell at 73# that the push jerk was super heavy. Still need to work on upper body strength.

Ok! Time to pack! Catch up with y'all on Monday once my brain decompresses from a weekend of learning...

Elizabeth...sort of...

2010-04-06T22:25:00.001-05:00

Tyler picked the absolute nastiest day to change a named WOD into a WOD that included a run. It rained all day today, and I usually hate running in my Vibrams because they get all muddy and soggy on our loop around the Grain Belt warehouse (where our box is). I was all fixated on doing a 400m row instead of the run, but I changed my tune once I got to the gym and everyone egged me on to run.

So the WOD was "Elizabeth," just with bouts of running in between.

For time:
400m Run
21 Cleans (95#) and ring dips
400m Run
15 Cleans and ring dips
400m Run
9 Cleans and ring dips

I wanted to do 65# for the weight, but my gal pal Ginger was doing 73# and said that I should stick with that. Ahhhhh!!! Peer pressure!!!! I was also pressured by Ian to do the run instead of my wimpy row, and I'm glad I did because I got to time myself on it (and since running a 400m faster is one of my goals, I now have new measurements of improvement). Last time I ran a 400m, albeit not very quickly, I did it in about 1:58. Today on my first round right out of the gate, running super fast, I got 1:44. On my last round, running at my slowest, I was about 2:10. Yikes! Maybe I should add some sprinting every so often.

I did the ring dips from a box, which felt easier than doing them with a band, but I feel like my depth was better. After the ring dips, my arms were so tired that it made it hard to run. Yes, I know that sounds kind of silly because you run with your legs, not your arms, but I pump a lot. Or as Ian likes to put it, I "get the chip out of my back pocket and eat it!" That's apparently the motion you're supposed to make with your arms. Anyhoo, I finished the WOD in 17:48. And it KILLED me. I felt like vomiting after...which I haven't felt in a while. So, that's a good thing?

I came home craving bacon. But I only had 3 eggs left since I made that choco-hazelnut mousse dessert and I didn't want to use all my eggs on an egg and bacon dinner. So I made muffins instead and they turned out awesomely!

Maple-Pecan Muffins
3 eggs
3 Tb melted coconut oil (the recipe actually called for 2 Tb, but I read it wrong...still tasted ok)
3 Tb Grade B maple syrup
2 Tb coconut milk
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/3 c coconut flour
1/3 c almond flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 c pecans

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

First I beat the eggs, maple syrup, coconut MILK, salt, vanilla, and almond extract together. Then I added in the coconut flour and almond flour. The "batter" became thick and more cookie-dough like, and it was tough to blend through with my immersion blender. I then melted the coconut oil in a separate bowl, and added it with the pecans to the batter. The last time I made these muffins, the coconut oil cooled down upon contact with the cold batter and congealed. It looked really nasty, but tasted fine, but I wanted to avoid that same mistake. So I mixed and mixed and mixed the coconut oil smoothly into the batter, last minute. Spooned the mixture into little muffin tins (again, it was very thick and doughy, not pourable like batter) and popped them in the oven for 15 minutes.

This batch tasted awesome and even better than the batch I made way back in October or so. I think 3 Tb of coconut oil was a little much, they do feel a little oily, so I'd recommend maybe 2 heaping tablespoons of coconut oil. But overall very good and a great way to enjoy my bacon!

Tabata THIS!

2010-04-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

Despite having a slight headache and queasy feeling before heading out the door for Crossfit tonight, I felt exceptionally great after the WOD: Tabata Something Else. I feel much stronger than I did when I started 10 months ago and I feel like I'm improving. Good stuff!

You can find a quick crash course about the Tabata protocol at their website, but the gist of it is that it builds aerobic and anaerobic capacity simultaneously. In Crossfit, Tabata Something Else is sort of a benchmark WOD where you do 8 rounds each of pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats using the 20 seconds on / 10 seconds of rest design. You score by totaling up your reps. Here's how my numbers broke down:

37 pull-ups
46 push-ups, light green band
85 sit-ups
108 squats

I did everything RXd except for the push-ups, which I probably could have swung and just not gotten as high of a number. My total was 276 reps. Not too shabby. I definitely made up for the pull-ups/push-ups/lack of upper body strength part in my squats and sit-ups.

Straightforward WOD, straightforward post! That's all folks!

Kitchen Messes..and meals!

2010-04-04T23:54:00.001-05:00

I pity da fool that is my roommate...because I totally made a monstrous mess in the kitchen today after 3 hours of prepping my meals for half the week. Sorry Heather! And alas, I have no "food porn" to share because I was too busy cooking 5 different things at once that I didn't have time to take any pictures. But just imagine how delicious it looks, ok :)

First up was my apple-tarragon turkey with braised spinach. Super simple and easy. I once made this turkey dish with a chicken breast instead, and I don't remember it having that much of a wow factor. This turkey didn't really wow me either, but it was better than the last time. I think I need remember to let meat get to room temperature first before cooking it because the turkey took a really long time to cook. Here's how it went down.

Apple-Tarragon Turkey
1 lb of turkey breast
1/4 cup 100% apple juice (I'm using the rest of my bottle to make hibiscus-apple tea later this week!)
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tb fresh tarragon, roughly chopped (I used dried last time...fresh is definitely better!)
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Mix the apple juice, chicken stock, garlic, tarragon, and ginger together to make the sauce. Salt and pepper the turkey, then heat some oil in a medium high skillet. Sear the turkey breast, 2 minutes each side; remove to rest. In the same skillet at reduced heat, pour in your sauce and bring it to a slight boil. Return the turkey to the skillet and cook the rest of the way through. Should have probably only taken about 10 more minutes, but it took much longer for me because I think the turkey was still a little frozen. Your sauce should start to thicken up, but if it gets too thick, add more chicken stock.

Braised Spinach, courtesy Jamie Oliver
1 bag of fresh spinach
olive oil
butter
fresh lemon juice
freshly grated nutmeg

So simple it kills me to even write up the recipe. Wash the spinach leaves (duh). I put some pats of butter in a frying pan on medium-low heat, then topped that with the spinach, drizzle a little olive oil on top, squeezed the juice of about 1/3 a lemon, and grated some fresh nutmeg on top. Tossed it all together and covered with a lid and let it steam for about 4 minutes. Nothing fancy, but it came out pretty tasty!

I also made some beef and broccoli, a la Mark's Daily Apple.

Beef and Broccoli
Beef and marinade:
1 lb beef sirloin, cut into strips
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp dry cooking sherry
(2 Tb of coconut oil for frying)

Actual sauce:
2 Tb fish sauce (or oyster sauce)
1.5 tsp dry cooking sherry
1.5 Tb tamari
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 bunch of broccoli, cut for florets
2 cloves of garlic, minced

First I set the beef to marinate in a Ziploc bag with the tamari and sherry. Then I mixed the sauce ingredients together in a bowl: fish sauce, sherry, tamari, chicken broth. I boiled some cups of salted water, threw in the broccoli for 2 minutes, then drained it. In a deep pan set to high heat, I melted the coconut oil and covered the pan. Then, threw in the beef and let it sizzle and sear for about a minute. Threw in the garlic and flipped the meat to cook the other side, about one minute. Then added the sauce and the broccoli to the pan, brought to a simmer. Done! I <3 easy Chinese food!

Last, but not least, I had to make dessert! I took this chocolate hazelnut mousse recipe from Cosmpolitan Primal Girl, but I threw it in the freezer to make a sort of ice creamy gelato!

Chocolate-Hazelnut Dessert
6 Tb hazelnut butter*
3 Tb honey
1/2 cup coconut milk
6 tsp cocoa
4 tsp vanilla
6 eggs, beaten

Mix the hazelnut butter, honey, coconut milk, cocoa and vanilla together. Heat on pretty low heat until it starts to simmer. Then slowly stir in the eggs, then beat for 2-3 more minutes on the low heat. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate for mousse or freeze for ice cream! If the mixture starts to get clumpy while you're mixing in the eggs, remove from heat immediately! It means things got to hot or you've been cooking the eggs for too long.

*I had a hard time finding hazelnut butter, so I just made my own. Six tablespoons is about 1/2 pound of raw hazelnuts. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and arrange your hazelnuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Toast in the oven 10-15 minutes until the nut shells start to "blister." Pour the nuts into a large enough cloth towel and let them cool for about 10 minutes. Then, fold up the towel and shake/rub/rattle/roll the nuts around in the bag until the skins all fall off! FUN!!!! Throw the de-skinned nuts into a food processor and process until you make a nut butter (about 2 minutes?). YUM!

Willpower!

2010-04-02T19:03:00.001-05:00

So I don't go to Crossfit anymore on Fridays, but I need to still write the post from yesterday. To be honest, I kind of put it off because yesterday was such a "terrible" day for me both diet and workout-wise - I totally caved, and on WEEK ONE of my paleo challenge. And, while I recognize that it's ok to give in and allow myself a cheat every so often (and not be hard on myself in the process), I'm a little disappointed that I didn't even last a week.

But...I got better at it today and exercised a little more self-constraint. I guess things began to unravel yesterday when I went to my regular weekly lunch meeting with Vlad (my advisor and professor I TA for) and Kristina. Usually we go to this place in the business school that always has some grass-fed beef option with carrots and potatoes as a side (actually it's really crappy cooking, but at least it's grass-fed, no sauce food). Yesterday was such a nice day out though, that we decided to venture out for lunch...to get Indian food. I LOOOOOOOOOVE spicy Indian food. And it would have been okay if we hadn't done the buffet option with the basmati rice and rice pudding for dessert. At least I didn't load up on my first trip through the line, and I didn't get seconds either...but still...

Then onto Crossfit that night. I was super intimidated by this WOD:

5 rounds for time:
5 Back squats (225# / 205#)
25 Box jumps (24" / 20")
12 Pull-ups

I'm usually intimidated by 5 rounds WODs because mentally they seem like so much longer. The back squats I wasn't really worried about, although I did scale them back to 95# so that I could share the limited weight racks and bars with another classmate (probably could have done 105# or maybe even 115#). Box jumps were a pain, and I was so hell-bent on getting through them that I actually forgot to open my hips up at the top. Usually I'm a big stickler for form, but I just wanted them to be over that I unconsciously did not uphold the standard. For shame!

Then onto the pull-ups. I set-up a thin green band "just in case," although Tyler gave me a lot of flack for it ("You're breaking my little coach heart, Steph"). I did the first 3 rounds without a band, breaking it up into 3 sets of 4 pull-ups each, although I was shooting for 5 pull-ups and occasionally hit that mark. As I was walking to the bar bell for the back squats to start round 4, I glanced at my hand to see if I needed more chalk. And that's when I saw BLOOD EVERYWHERE! I had a huge rip on both of my hands and my seeing them totally changed my performance. I'm convinced that they wouldn't have started hurting if I had just not looked at them. Note to self: no more looking at hands during workouts!

So rounds 4 and 5 I did fingertip pull-ups on the thin green band, but it was super uncomfortable and I was kind of being a big whiny baby about it all. I still managed to finish in 16:56, but not proudly or with a smile on my face. I don't know what my problem was...maybe it was all the white rice from lunch :(

Today I did a little better with the willpower. Someone left these delicious looking muffins in the graduate student breakroom, and usually I don't turn down free food. Graduate students are vultures like that around food. But I didn't eat a muffin. Food 0, Steph 1. Then I *almost* ate a cookie from my cookie jar: I actually opened the cookie jar and grabbed a cookie, put it to my mouth and was about to take a bite before the vision of my freshly manicured nails and me in new Lululemon gear flashed into my head...and the cookie went into the trashcan. Another point for Steph!

My roommate and I then had an interesting discussion about eating disorders after I told her this story. As someone who spent 4 years on a Texas drill team, I've seen my fair share of girls with eating disorders, and while my behavior of throwing away the cookie might seem extreme, I want to make clear that I came home and I ate a decent portion of Greek yogurt with nuts, cinnamon and a drizzling of honey. I'm not restricting calories, I'm just restricting the food the calories come from. It's a fine line to be walking. I am taking this personal challenge seriously, but not at the serious consequence of my health (both psychologically and physically).

Complex and SMARTer Goals

2010-03-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

So silly me, I set a challenge for myself, but I didn't set any measurable outcomes with it! I thought long and hard about it today and came up with what I want to accomplish fitness-wise these next 2 months...and also what I'm going to reward myself with if I meet my goals! But first, tonight's WOD.

Today we did "Bear Complex," which as a warm-up of only 2-3 rounds of 1-2 reps each I really like because you get to do a bunch of lifting. As a WOD, it's a different story. Here's what it looks like.

5 rounds of 7 reps each
Power clean
Front squat
Push press
Back squat
Push press

The idea being that one round counts when you go through each of those 5 movements 7 times without putting the bar down or resting at the bottom to regrip, just touch and go. You can rest as much as you want between the rounds, but you should get up to maximum weight by about round 4 or 5. My weight breakdown looked like this:

43 / 46 / 53 / 58 / 63

I was working with the 33# women's bar with 5# weights on each side, then I switched those for the "training plates" which are basically just 4# pieces of circular wood and some 2.5# plates. That's how I got the wacky 46#. Then I switched to the men's 45# bar with training plates and actual weight plates. By the last round, my shoulders were dead tired and I was dropping the bar from the push press onto my back for the back squat. Yowza! I probably could have done more weight because I felt like I was moving really quickly through all the movements and they weren't too challenging, but the sudden heat wave through Minneapolis has seriously sucked the life and energy out of me. Good thing tomorrow is my rest day!

Ok, now back to my paleo challenge and my goals and prizes. The key to setting and achieving your goals is to make them SMART:

Specific
Measurable
Action-based
Reasonable
Time limit

So the time part is already set - 2 months. The action-based part is pretty much set too since I've devised a plan to accomplish my goals (better eating, CF on specific days, adding strength training; although, what I do at strength training may get more specific based on my goals below). I had to think of stuff that is measurable and that can be improved from some baseline measurement that I'm already performing at, and they had to be reasonable improvements. Now for the specifics:

1. Drop 2.6% body fat and get down to 20% body fat, based on my Bod Pod measurements from late January. I don't want to be too lean, but I want some measurable outcome of muscle gain and fat loss. Added bonus if I gain some weight in the process.

2. New Crossfit Total of 450. Currently my Total is 395, and I want to improve it mainly by upping my deadlift and working on my strict press. I seriously have no upper body strength, and that's definitely an area of improvement for me. So, new personal records for Total would be 70# strict press (60# currently), 180# back squat (155# now), and 200# deadlift (185# now).

3. Run a 400m in 1:35. Yesterday we did "Nancy" and that had 400m in it. My first one took 1:58 and my last one took a little over 2:20ish. Runs always slow me down in WODs and I want to get faster and less tuckered out. I think this goal is going to be mental for me than anything else.

This is the importance/hierarchy of the goals I'm setting for myself. Now for the prizes, arranged in first, second, third based on how many of my goals I accomplish. I'm only competing against myself and my will power here!

1st Prize: New Lululemon workout outfit + one-night stay at some spa hotel. I have this awesome vision of just hanging out in a hotel robe, ordering room service and vegging in front of chick flicks after a "long day" of getting a manicure and pedicure.

2nd Prize: New Lululemon workout outfit. I mean the whole shebang: pants, tank top, maybe even a hoodie.

3rd Prize: Dinner at Solera Tapas Bar. I like this place, they serve really inventive Spanish tapas and GREAT wine!

Meeting challenges and "meating" MEATZA!

2010-03-29T22:20:00.001-05:00

Lots of good stuff to write about fitness-wise these days! I'm gearing up for my stint in Ramona for the Kids Cert, and then its not too much longer until Level 1. Obviously, I've shown my dedication to fitness by being enthusiastic and taking the initiative to get certified, but I still felt like there was something lacking...enter: my own personal Paleo Challenge! I think it's high time I buckled down and stuck to something so I can see those body composition numbers actually improve from January!

Ok, so first to describe my paleo challenge, which started today and will end in 8 weeks (May 31). I've changed around my workout schedule, which I've already kind of alluded to: Crossfit Monday/Tuesday/Thursday and strength training on Fridays. I'm sticking to it, no cheating (not that I did a whole lot of cheating on workouts to begin with - I just love the endorphin rush!).

Now to diet, which is the hardest part for me. I keep that stupid jar of cookies on my desk at school so that people come and visit me and distract me from my work, but it is just too tempting! I'm really going to be better about avoiding processed foods, simple sugars, and grains. It shouldn't be too hard since I normally don't crave a lot of those things (beans, corn, HFCS), but cookies and chocolate seem to be my weak point. However, I've "paleo-fied" my kitchen and gotten rid of a lot of non-nutritious crap and was really good today about turning down a cookie from Tony the Tech Guy/Birthday Boy for today. I also had been keeping a secret stash of chocolate that I found in the breakroom once in my drawer and I pulled it out today and put it in the cookie jar. I won't be going near that thing for the next 2 months!

So that's the long-term challenge I've set for myself. Now on to shorter-term challenges, like today's WOD, "Nancy."

5 rounds for time:
400m run
15 Overhead squats (95# / 65#)

Overhead squats are killer for me, so I scaled this one down to 45#. Pretty impressed with myself for sticking with that weight because of the high rep and round scheme. Honestly the squats were not that bad, if it weren't for my wrists crapping out on my by about rep 12. I usually could do 11-12 unbroken, but then my wrists would start to ache and wobble. By the 3rd or 4th round, I could tell my legs were tired; they felt like lead on the runs! But I managed and finished in 18:57. Probably could have finished sooner if my wrists held up for the last two OHS or I picked up the bar faster after complaining...I gotta stop doing that!

And now, for my Meatza recipe! There's been a lot of buzz recently about this in the paleo community, it's basically a pizza with a meat crust (although I love my cauliflower bases as well too!).

1 lb ground beef
1 lb hot Italian sausage
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp garlic powder
~1 cup pizza sauce
~ 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
Pizza toppings: I used prosciutto, chopped green olives, mushrooms, green peppers, and onions!

Step one was to preheat the oven to 450', since it takes a while to get up there in heat. Then I prepped the meat crust by mixing the Parmesan cheese, salt, oregano, caraway, black & red pepper, and garlic powder together in one bowl; the meat and eggs went into a separate bowl. I got my hands in there and mixed the meat, then added the dry ingredients.

Plopped the large mass into my 12x17 inch pan (I used a roasting pan without the rack) that was lined with parchment paper and then flattened it out to cover it in a pretty thin layer. Once the oven was ready, I popped the crust in for 10 minutes.

While the crust was cooking, I prepped my toppings. Chopped up the mushrooms, peppers, and onions and lightly sauteed them in some pastured butter. The crust was then ready, so I took it out and sopped up all the rendered fat with a paper towel (I supposed you could also pour it out and use it for something else...not really sure how mixed beef/pork fat would taste...).

Now the fun part that brought me back to my childhood "make your own pizza" parties. Slathered on my pizza sauce, layered some prosciutto, half of the mozzarella, then the veggies, more prosciutto and then the rest of the cheese. Popped it in the oven now on BROILER set to low setting for 5 minutes, until I saw the cheese bubble and turn brown.

Preliminary taste test says: YUM!

Before...

After!

Nicole

2010-03-25T21:50:00.000-05:00

It's gotten warmer outside, so we can finally run again (!!!), however a cold front blew in and today was the first really "cold" day in a while....so the running wasn't as enjoyable as it could have been. But it sure as heck beat rowing!

The WOD today was a benchmark girl: Nicole.

AMRAP 20 minutes -
400m Run
Max pull-ups

This workout is scored on how many pull-ups you can get total. I knew my numbers weren't going to be huge, since I just started kipping, but I still wanted to do them all without a band. My numbers broke down like so:

8 / 7 / 7 / 3 / 1 / FAIL = 26 total

Yeah, what happened in that 4th round, you might ask? Well...I got a little off-kilter in my kipping and actually kipped and flung myself OFF of the bar. In the process, I managed rip a sizeable chunk out of my skin and bled TERRIBLY. Funny thing is, it probably wouldn't have hurt if I just hadn't seen all the blood (funny thing about the brain and pain, but that's a biopsychology lesson for another day and another blog!). I ran outside and I usually "cup" my hands so that I don't get in the habit of having "T-Rex" arms while running (I read in a running magazine once that you should imagine holding a potato chip in each hand and try not to crush it). Bad move.

When I came back inside to do the pull-ups, the blood had dried around my rip and in the cupped hand position so that I couldn't open my hand up without screaming in pain! I managed to get it open enough to do the ONE fingertip pull-up before having to drop off the bar (and crying maybe a little). I still had 4 minutes on the clock and since I clearly wasn't going to get a ton more working out in because of the pull-ups, I decided to exert myself on the run. And I ran FAST. Came back inside with a little over 2 minutes left and tried for one more fingertip pull-up. Got about halfway and then just called it a day.

I came to the 4:30 class today, in hopes of getting home early and maybe knocking some work out. But things never go the way we plan: Tyler was actually super sick, so he let me lead the 4:30 class warm-up (I resorted to a CF Central style warm-up), then I decided to stick around and help out/get some coaching practice for the 5:30 and 6:30 PM classes. Tyler and I discussed that I need to work more on "commanding a room," because I tell people to do something and they just don't do it (like counting when you stand up during squats). Apparently I need to be a little more of an asshole. I told Tyler tough titty on me becoming an asshole - I've got too much sweet Southern charm for that :)

Why I do it

2010-03-25T01:16:00.000-05:00

I'm having one of those Jerry Maguire-esque moments where I can't help but write something, even if it's nearly 1 AM on a school night and I have to be up in five hours. But...here you have it, my manifesto, my goals, my passion, my purpose.

Sometimes I get a little down on myself because I see other people with such drive, ambition, aspiration and passion for something and I feel like I don't get that same way about stuff. Well, I guess I found my passion because here I am spending time reading about childhood obesity, the healthiest and unhealthiest states, and school nutrition programs across the country. For what? I wouldn't be doing this unless I cared so deeply and passionately about it...and I really do.

I've always wanted to educate people, not merely teach them. I laugh at this because honestly, when people ask me what I'm going to graduate school for, what my ultimate aim is, it's NOT to be a professor; I say that I want to be "an educator." There's so much more that goes into that profession of being an educator, beyond just teaching, just researching, and just serving on administrative panels. It's about changing the way people think about things.

When I was little, I religiously watched the Miss America Pageant on television because as a southern girl, I suppose that's what I always aspired to be. I had my talent picked out (piano and singing simultaneously, duh), what color gown I would wear (pink...again, duh!), and I even knew what my "platform" or cause would be. It always had something to do with kids and education. Initially it was for creative and art education reform in public schools, but now that I've found Crossfit, I've evolved into caring deeply about teaching...no, educating kids about healthy habits.

A CF St. Paul client asked me the other day who I thought the target audience for Crossfit Kids is: elite child athletes? kids bulking up for hockey season? overweight children? kids who just want a break from their parents? I think it's suitable for all of these needs. My goal is not to train the best soccer players or see a kid lose a lot of weight. My goal is to teach kids that fitness is fun, enjoyable and easily integrated into their lives.

It hurts me to hear that cardiovascular disease, something I've grown up watching my dad struggle with, is a disease that is largely prevented by making healthy lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise. As a Hispanic, it saddens me to hear that we have one of the largest rates of diabetes, and I hate that it is highly related to socieconomic status and access to healthy food sources and proper information.

So why do I do it? Because it's such a quick, easy, fun fix to target kids early on; or else we force them to pay the heavy price later in life. And I just won't be responsible for letting that happen!

Double Duty + Pot roast!

2010-03-23T20:47:00.001-05:00

So I headed over to Crossfit St. Paul today to watch the Kids Class, but it was canceled, so I stuck around to work on lifts with Mike, the owner. Back squats and push press. And hey, while I'm here, I might as well do the WOD prescribed for the day. Heck why not.

Mike and I started with the back squats, 3 rounds of 5 reps each. I broke mine down as such:

45 (warm-up round) / 95 / 105 / 105 / 110

Mike coached me on the low-bar position and also on keeping my wrists less tense and more straight. I also noticed a tendency in myself on the return to sort of pause in the middle, indicating a lack of explosiveness. 110# was definitely a little tough at 5 reps, usually my first rep was the best. Then on we moved to the strict press, my worst lift:

45 (warm-up) / 50 / 50 / 55

Seeing as how my 1 rep max is 60#, I wasn't planning on going too high for the press. 55# was definitely a struggle and I felt my back arching out a bit, which reminded me to keep my core tight. By the time we were done with the press, his 5:00 PM class started to show up and warm-up, so I just joined in the fun. We started with snatch work and overhead squats:

Snatch
15 (warm-up) / 33 / 43 / 43

Overhead Squat
33 (warm-up) / 43 / 48 / 53

Not too shabby, but my arms and shoulders were pretty shot from all the presses early on. The WOD was actually "just" a 1000m row. I say "just" because it was killer! I finished in 4:14. I was at about 3:50 with only 80 or so meters to go and I told myself "sub-4:00! sub-4:00!" I actually felt my strokes get stronger and my pace get faster. But when 4:00 minutes hit and I still had 3-4 strokes to go, I gassed out and tanked. Butt is super-sore from all the squatting and rowing.

BUT...I got to eat my yummy pot roast when I got home! Good news is that poultry seasoning actually doesn't taste too poorly on a beef roast! So, here's my recipe:

1.5# grass-fed beef roast
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 parsnips, chopped
1 package white mushrooms, sliced
3 stalks celery, cut length-wise and then chopped
5-6 WHOLE cloves of garlic
1 cup red wine
poultry seasoning (or pot roast seasoning, or any seasoning probably really!)
olive oil
salt/pepper

So step one was to bring the beef to room temperature by placing it on the table while I chopped all the veggies. This is usually a huge step I forget. Then I generously rubbed the beef with olive oil and rubbed my seasoning in. Threw the beef in my non-stick skillet at medium-high heat to sear the outside (about 3-5 minutes each side). Lovingly placed meat aside with my meat tongs.

Then I threw the onions, carrots, and parsnips into the same skillet (yum! meat drippings!) and sauteed until soft, sprinkling with salt and pepper every so often. One thing I learned from a cooking class that I took was that you should season THROUGHOUT the cooking process for the best flavor, not just at the beginning or end. The veggie sauteeing took about 5-8 minutes on medium heat.

I'm not really sure what order you're "supposed" to throw pot roast ingredients into the crock pot, but I threw in the meat first, then the hot veggies, then the rest of the veggies (mushroom, celery, garlic). Garlic should be left whole so you get the full flavor! I poured the cup of wine over the whole mixture, sort of stirred it up and left on LOW until 7:00 AM this morning (about 10 hours). Probably a little much for a roast, but I slept in :)

Back at CFMPLS, and cooking...

2010-03-22T23:01:00.001-05:00

Today was my first day back at CF Minneapolis, and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I kind of went "crazy" with not working out and eating everything in my path over spring break that it's starting to show in my performance.

Tonight's WOD didn't look all that bad on paper, and in all honesty it wasn't too difficult in actuality...but I'm still not entirely pleased with my output.

3 rounds for time:
10 Deadlifts (275# / 205#)
50 Double unders

Obviously, I wasn't going RX'd because 205# just MIGHT be my next deadlift PR, but I'll save that story for another day. I decided to go with 155# and try my best to count only double unders instead of mixing it up with singles like a usually do (counting a double-under as 3 single skips and then trying to get to 150 total). Tested out the weight and felt fine, but when I moved to the double-under trial run, I couldn't even get ONE! WHAT????

Yeah, so that kind of threw a wrench in my whole double-under plan, but I did my best. I finished in 7:36, mixing up singles with doubles when I could. I think my highest double-under streak tonight was 8 in a row; major slippage from my previous record of 31 or so in a row. Oh well, just gotta pick myself up and try something constantly varied and different tomorrow.

In other news, I've been prepping for some CFKids programming at St. Paul and am starting to lean towards this idea of fully integrating healthy eating and cooking habits into the programming. From the outset, I knew this would be a little difficult because CFSP is a gym, not a kitchen, so I'd have to find fun, easy, healthy recipes that don't require a lot of set-up. I did a lot of research last night on online kids' magazines and after-school programs to find a pretty sizeable batch of modifiable recipes. AND...that also means I get to "taste test" a few for convenience.

First up, I've been craving lots of salty foods again this week, but instead of resorting to my usual crackers and bread, I thought I'd do some lunch meat and cheese roll-ups. I found some decent, organic, free range deli meat at my co-op and this weird raw milk cheese spread. Actually wasn't too shabby - slice of turkey, slice of ham, cheese spread sandwiched in between the two and all wrapped up in a lettuce leaf. I would have taken a picture, but c'mon y'all...it's sandwich meat, not exactly the most intriguing meal to look at.

I've also been craving chicken salad, and found a healthy recipe on MDA for curried chicken salad. Made my own mayo and everything, which didn't turn out all that well, but according to Ryon it's because I used my immersion hand blender instead of a real manly man's blender. It still tasted alright, the celery and walnuts totally make up for the weird mayo flavor. Next time, I think I'm going to try this more kid-friendly pseudo-chicken salad with yogurt. Looks interesting...

And now to the grand finale: my pot roast in the crock pot that should be ready at 5:30 AM tomorrow morning! Smells delicious as the alcohol cooks off, and I'm hoping I didn't make a dreadful mistake when I was coating the pot roast with spices. You see, the recipe called for "pot roast seasoning packet" and I scoured the bulk spice aisle of my co-op looking for something along those lines to no avail. They had a lot of cajun or jerk spice blends, but I didn't think that sounded very pot-roasty...so I bought poultry seasoning instead. Hey, at least it had celery seed ground in, and that seemed more pot-roasty than cayenne pepper! I'll post the recipe for the pot roast when it's done tomorrow, if it's any good.

Strength Training II

2010-03-18T19:09:00.000-05:00

Went back to Pure Austin today to learn some more about strength training with Ryon. Today was my third day on, so I'm done with workouts until Monday...good, my muscles need a break!

We used the same 16 - 8 - 4 - 2 -1 rep scheme for all the movements and started with the pullover machine. A really great machine for all the back muscles and also the core (Hello bikini season!).

I'm not really sure how the numbers convert to pounds, but Ryon seemed to think it was in 10s (so 9 = 90#). In either case, my numbers looked like this:

9 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 13

Then we moved onto the incline bench press. WOOF. Worst machine ever, will most likely not use again. It involved holding the handles with your arms at a 90' angle, then you had to push the weight slightly in front of you AND together. I felt it most in my biceps, don't know if that's right or not. I could barely do any weight on the machine either:

50# / 50# / 55# / 55# / -- (screw that last 1 rep max - machine was poopy!)

Next was the lateral front lat pulldown. This machine was great, even if I had trouble reaching the handles :)

50# / 90# / 90# / 110# / --

I skipped the last rep because 110# was plenty hard for me, and also I really wanted to get some assisted dips in before showering and going out to lunch with Sarah! The assisted dip/pull-up machine is by far my favorite machine in the gym. Here's how much weight was taken off my own body weight of ~120#:

70# / 58# / 40# / 22# / 16#

The last round, I actually did 10 reps instead of 1 rep because it was the lowest assistance the machine could give me, but it wasn't hard enough for me. Who woulda thunk it? I never really consider myself that great at dips, but it's definitely an area I want to improve on and my performance on the machine is encouraging.

So much for a week off...

2010-03-18T18:40:00.000-05:00

I initially had planned for Spring Break to be just that: a break. From school. From grading papers. From Crossfit. Well, I think I got at least the break from school - I've slowly been chipping away at grading some business cases and figuring out the online grading system (it sucks!)...oh, and I went ot Crossfit Central last night. I just couldn't keep myself away from the dumbbell thrusters!

I went to CF Central to observe the CFKids and then the Teens class, to get a better idea of what to expect when I head to Ramona, CA for my certification. I stuck around for the workout too:

5 rounds for time:
21 Push-ups
15 Box jumps (24" / 20")
9 Dumbbell squat clean to thrusters (35# / 25#)

I went RX'd on the thrusters because I like them THAT much. Since the push-ups were high rep and there were a lot of rounds, I decided to go on my knees for those. Central also imposes a time limit and I wanted to finish. Originally, the time limit was 15 minutes, but when that hit and only one person had finished, Coach JDP raised it to 18 minutes. Whew! I finished in 15:35.

The worst part was definitely the clean/thruster to the push-ups because my arms just felt like jelly. I wished the box jumps were a break for me, but I went through them too quickly to really get any "rest." Stupid strong legs! Definitely a tough WOD, I felt like I was constantly gasping for air and taking a lot of breaks for water. Part of the problem with that is I normally drink lots of water during the day - through classes, sitting at my desk, analyzing data - but with all this running around Austin, I haven't been drinking as much water as I normally do. Definitely dehydrated!

Strength Training

2010-03-17T13:51:00.000-05:00

Hooray for being in Austin this week! I got in on Friday evening/Saturday morning, right at midnight. Boo for delayed flights. Had to get up early the next day for 2 wonderful days of Crossfit Southwestern Sectionals at Camp Mabry. It was waaaaaaaaaay cooler than the Midwestern sectionals where I just stood around doing nothing - this time I got to mark athletes with numbers as they prepared for the 2nd day of WODs!

After all the hullaballoo of sectionals, Ryon and I decided to hit up the Pure Austin gym by his house to get some strength training in. Luckily, it happens to be "bring a friend to Pure Austin" week, so I didn't have to use up a guest pass or pay for anything!

We started out with a 500m warm-up row, then moved onto machines for the leg press, shoulder press, bicep curl, decline bench press, and the assisted pull-up. The idea was to find our one-rep max of each by doing a rep scheme of 16 - 8 - 4 - 2 - 1, adding weight successively. Here's how my numbers shaped up:

Leg Press
90 - 180 - 270 - 360 - 450(F)

Shoulder Press
60 - 70 - 90 - 110 - 120

Bicep Curl
10 - 20 - 30(F)/25 - 25 - 30

Decline Bench Press
40 - 40 - 50 - 60(F) - X

Assisted Pull-ups (numbers represent how much weight was taken off my own weight of ~120#)
52 - 46 - 40 - 28 - 16

Obviously, upper body could use some more work, especially with the decline bench press. I had some serious issues with that machine, and I believe it was the same machine I used in my fitness assessment. I've decided that in order to build more strength, I'm going to cut back to 3x per week on the Crossfit classes (down from 5x/week...a lot!!!) and then add an early Friday morning strength routine. Nothing too major, but just keeping it constantly varied! Hopefully I'll see some more improvements for my next fitness assessment in early June!

Mental and Physical

2010-03-11T20:39:00.000-06:00

I think the theme of tonight's post will be on the mental and physical aspects of Crossfit, as demonstrated by class tonight.

So the last week or so, my mind just hasn't been "all there" with the workouts because I HAD been feeling kind of "blah," but now I'm back! While I was "blah," we did Crossfit Total, and it was a pretty poor showing on my part. My loads didn't go up by much, and I was sort of disappointed in myself only getting to deadlift 180# (I tried like 3 times at 185# and just couldn't get my head in the game!). Just goes to show how mind AND body are connected in Crossfit. Well, I sort of got a "redo" at my deadlifts in the warm-up tonight.

Warm-up:
1-1-1-1-1 Deadlift

I was able to do: 165 / 175 / 180 / 180 / 185, and 185# was actually "too easy" according to my peers. I definitely felt it working my legs, but I guess it looked like a barely broke a sweat and my buds kept urging me to do more - next time guys! On to the workout.

10 rounds for time:
15 Deadlifts (135# / 95#)
15 Push-ups

So I must have been a little slow on getting my weight set-up because I barely had a chance to breathe before Tyler called "hands on" and counted down the clock. ACK! I didn't get any practice rounds in to make sure the weight felt good - 95# it is then! It actually was super easy, at least for the few rounds, then I had to start working a little harder. I guess because I was still in "lift 185#" mode, I ripped the weight off the ground and kind of surprised myself. Also, I remember back in July 2009 when I did my first CF WOD with JDP at Central - "Diane" (21-15-9 Deadlifts / Handstand Push-ups) with just 75#. How far I've come since then!

I did the first 3 rounds RX'd, even on the push-ups (no knees, no band). I started struggling with the push-ups and my buddies started lapping me pretty quickly, so Tyler suggested I knock the push-ups down to 8 reps. Eh, I'll do 10, I said. I finished the last 7 rounds with a 15 / 10 scheme and got done in 16:14. Pretty decent score for almost RX'd.

After the WOD, we had a really great discussion about the "best" way to break up reps if you're struggling. Some people are pattern-seekers and like to do 5 / 5 / 5. I recommended that you try to "one up" yourself every round. So if you get in the habit of 5 /5 / 5, jump on the bar the next time around and go for 6 / 5 / 4. That didn't make a lot of logical sense to Ian (who's a "mathemagician" - he does actuarial science stuff); he said that if you started out breaking it up by doing just 1 rep before resting, that'd mean by your 10th round, you'd be doing 10 unbroken reps. And by the 10th round you're too tired and don't want to do 10 unbroken reps.

Ok, so I revised my strategy. I said I also like to "get over the hump" and do one more than halfway or third-of-the-way. In others words, don't break it up in logical numbers. Ian didn't like that either. Ultimately we agreed that whatever "pattern," logical or illogical you decide upon, you have to mentally urge yourself not to over-rest. So, if you have to break it up, don't just lolly-gag, strategically rest and mentally prepare yourself to get as many more unbroken reps in as you can.

Crossfit Mini

2010-03-10T08:18:00.002-06:00

The nice thing about doing Crossfit is that it is scalable to people of all shapes, ages, heights, and abilities. Yesterday was definitely a case in point about that, and I figured that instead of studying for my statistics midterm, I'd write a little about it.

So I've officially been offered the scholarship spot to the L1 Certification at St. Paul, and I'm getting ready to payoff the registration I have for the Kids Certification in Ramona! As of May 1st-ish, I'll be coaching the kids classes at Crossfit St. Paul, and to prepare myself for the cert and the class, I'm going to CFSP to observe and assist with Mike's kids class. Like I've mentioned before in posts about coaching, I'm really interested in learning more about what the "hierarchy" of important points are for each movement. There's so many things to remember about a good squat - weight on the heels, hip crease below the knee, chest up, knees tracking toes - and its difficult for some people (and especially kids) to keep track of it all! But, if I can only correct one thing each time about form, what's the most important thing to correct? What's the foundational element of each movement and what's the progression from there?

Watching the kids class, I'm already recognizing that coaching kids is going to be a challenge, but one that I am definitely going to be able to enjoy. Children tend to have a pretty short attention span and it's important to make them feel engaged at every point of the class. This experience is going to keep me on my toes!

After the kids class, I drove over the Minneapolis for my regularly scheduled 6:30 program.

For time:
50 Wall balls (20# / 10#)

Ever since the Midwestern Sectionals, Tyler has stressed the importance of upholding the standards and not counting crappy reps. So, I grabbed my 10# med ball and started aiming for the 10 foot target. Keep in mind, I'm just over 5 feet tall, by far the shortest person at our gym (one guy is 6'9"!) and probably within the whole state of Minnesota. Nordics.

I had a counter (Jenny, who's new to our gym and who I coached during our warm-up), and I explicitly told her to not count any reps that didn't hit the target or where I didn't reach the bottom of the squat. Well, I did about 12 reps and none of them counted. Eventually, I started hitting the target, but when I was exploding upward, I was essentially standing on my toes trying to reach it. Everyone was already done around minute 2 and I had only gotten to about 20 counted reps (in actuality, I was probably at about 40 or 45 total, but none of them hit that gosh darn target!). Tyler decided I should aim for the 10 ft target, but as long as I got between the 10 ft and 8 ft targets, the rep could count. Whoosh! I knocked out the last 30, tired, but without any major issues. Final time - 4:05.

So yeah, I was kind of disappointed because it seemed so slow. But recently a guy at our gym did the math to figure out how much power he generated doing a workout. He's a bigger guy, and he took about twice as long on a workout than other people at the gym, but when you boil it down to the formula, (force x distance / time), he actually generated the same amount of power as someone shorter and lighter who did the WOD in 8 minutes rather than 17. It's the same in my case because I have much more distance to cover in order to reach the same 10 ft target as everyone else!

Crossfit: for kids and short people alike!

Push Yourself!

2010-03-04T20:54:00.001-06:00

Yes, I know I fell off the blogging bandwagon for a bit again. I'm trying to get back on track, but this project at school is finally taking off and I've been super swamped directing my 18 research assistants around. Whoever said managing and delegating tasks made life easier obviously wasn't a Type A neurotic nutjob like yours truly. Anyway...on to today's WOD!

It's slowly getting warmer outside (above freezing!!! HOORAY!!!) and I'm thankful for this change because it means eventually we'll stop having to row. But for now, the WODs still all include rowing instead of running.

For time:
400m Row, then
21-15-9
Barbell lunge (135# / 95#)
Wall ball shots (20# / 10#)
400m Row

So I did 65# on the lunges, which were racked on the back. I was glad for that because when I first looked at the workout online, I thought Tyler might have us hold it overhead. My shoulders are still killing me from some snatch and overhead squat warm-ups we did on Tuesday. The wall balls I'm still pretty good at, even though Tyler makes us ALL shoot to the 10 ft mark, even us shorties! Something about "upholding the standards." I uphold the standards - I don't count reps that miss the mark, but that means doing a lot more reps. Gotta get better with my accuracy.

The lunges were really tough, and then the last row was the worst. I finished in 11:14. I was really disappointed in myself because at about 300m, I stopped rowing because my legs were so tired. BIG MISTAKE. Who stops when they only have 100m left? It totally ate up time and then it took me THAT much longer to get back up and started again. Next time, I need to push myself a harder, but I just wasn't feeling the intensity tonight for some reason.

UPDATE: I am officially signed up for my Level 1 Certification in St. Paul (scholarship spot!!!) and my Kids Certification in Ramona, CA! I'll be all done on April 25, when I start coaching kids classes at Crossfit St. Paul. It's an exciting time to get more involved in the Crossfit community!

Weekend Recap and Enchilada Recipe!

2010-02-28T20:49:00.001-06:00

This weekend we did a community WOD at Crossfit St. Paul, and all the Minneapolis metro area affiliates sent great people over! It was awesome to see how the Crossfit community is blossoming up north.

I woke up really really early on Saturday morning to head over to St. Paul to watch Mike teach his first Crossfit Kids class. He and his wife, Andrea, just got certified in Ramona and they're looking to bring on another coach to build the kids program - and it's possibly going to be yours truly! After the kids class, I rushed back to the farmer's market to pick up my eggs and some beef short ribs for later in the week. Then back to St. Paul for the community WOD.

The WOD was "Crossfit Baseball" and consisted of 3 different stations (bases) and a "home plate" exercise that you had to complete in order to get a run. We were divided into teams of four and had to divvy up the exercises however we wanted.

AMRunsAP in 20 minutes:
80 Jumping split lunges (1st base)
80 Push-ups (2nd base)
80 Squats (3rd base)
4 Med ball tosses into overturned plyo box (home run!)
*If you're not shooting a med ball, you must do burpees until a med ball becomes available

There were about 10 teams or so and only 8 med ball stations at the home plate, so you had to be strategic about getting to the home plate station. Otherwise, you'd be stuck doing burpees! Luckily, our team naturally staggered itself from the rest of the pack, so we never had a problem getting a med ball station for each of us - sweet, no burpees!

I was with Dick, from MPLS, and two ladies from The Athlete Lab in Little Canada. Our strategy for dividing up the reps was to try to get to 20 each at the same pace. We shouted out "10" when we hit that point and tried to make sure we all hit that mark around the same time. Then, if someone got to 20 before someone else, they compensated the other person by doing a few extra reps. We ended up getting 7 runs total and ended on 2nd base...I think we were 3rd place overall.

Now, for the recipe. I was a little nervous about this one, since I was kinda taking inspiration from a Son of Grok Primal Enchilada recipe, but wanted to change things up a bit. Mainly, I wanted chicken enchiladas instead of beef.

Ingredients:
Crust
1 cup finely ground unsweetened shredded coconut (food process some shredded coconut until you kind of get a flour)
2 eggs
splash of almond milk

Inside
2 chicken breasts - cooked spicy bronzed rub style and then shredded/chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 green chiles, chopped (I used anaheim chiles)
1 cup salsa or pico de gallo (I prefer the pico)
1 cup shredded cheese - cheddar, colby jack, Mexican blend, whatever

Preheat oven to 350'.

First, I made the coconut pancake crust. Mix the coconut "flour" with 1 egg and the splash of almond milk to make a batter. Fry in butter in a skillet, about 3-4 minutes each side. Line the bottom of an 8x8 baking dish with the coconut pancakes (my batter made about 5 pancakes). Fill the cracks and crevices with the other egg, scrambled.

Next, put a layer of the shredded chicken on the pancake crust. Top with a layer of onions, then a layer of the peppers, and finally a layer of salsa/pico. Top with the cheese to your liking and pop it in the oven for 30-45 minutes, until the cheese is gooey enough to your preference.

I was super nervous about this one, but my preliminary taste test revealed it was actually pretty good. I think next time I'll add some salt and pepper to my coconut batter to season things up a little bit more, but the spicy chicken actually does a pretty good job!

Getting back on track

2010-02-25T21:33:00.000-06:00

I feel like I haven't kept up with this blog in the past few weeks, and for that, I apologize. You're in luck, though, because in an effort to procrastinate even more from schoolwork (that I probably should have gotten done in my 8 hours of free time today), I'm writing a recap of the pretty laid back workout we did tonight.

Tyler has gotten in the habit of doing weightlifting and skills training as a warm-up, which I like. Today our chosen warm-up was front squats, 3 sets of 5 reps each. I tested out a 45# bar, then threw on 65# - 85# - 95#. The last set wasn't so bad, but I could definitely tell it was getting tougher. I might be bottoming out on the squats, and I can feel my muscles fatigue in about the middle of me standing up, which makes it not feel as fluid to me. Tyler still thinks that I could have thrown more weight on, but the form didn't feel perfect to me.

The WOD was "Death by Box Jumps":
With a continuously running clock, do one box jump the first minute, 2 box jumps the second minute, and so on, until you cannot fit the prescribed number of box jumps in the minute.

These types of WODs are deceptive because they start out so easy, and then you start to see how the exercise eats up all your resting time. Pretty soon, you're not doing 10 box jumps and then 11 box jumps, you're stringing together 21 box jumps (because you get no rest - does that make sense? I'm kind of delirious right now...). Anyway, I was jumping on a 24" box and I got up to 16 rounds, but barely (I might have snuck that 16th jump in when the clock hit 17:01...so sue me). It felt easy until about the 12th minute when I started getting only 30 seconds of rest instead of 45 seconds.

I've been kind of in a funk lately, which could also explain my lack of posting post-workout, but I'm trying to swing out of it. Part of the problem is that I've been slacking on my diet, but salty foods just taste so good right now (I won't go into the TMI of why). The other day, I just ate saltine crackers for dinner, leftover from when I had my stomach virus. Gross, I know. But that's how bad my body is craving salty carbs, even though I made all this excellent food for myself and have some great recipes planned for the weekend. This funk is just making me not enjoy good, healthy, nutritious food.

Where in the world...?

2010-02-21T20:23:00.001-06:00

Yes, I know, I haven't updated in a while. It's been a crazy week at school lately, and to top it off, I've been kind of blue lately. Nothing major, so no worries, just haven't felt up to writing about my experiences the past couple days. I can't remember, but I actually think I missed a few days of Crossfit... BUT, as it is Sunday and I DID work out yesterday, I'll start up again.

Saturday morning's are always great because it's always a surprise - Tyler RARELY posts the WODs beforehand. We did a great team workout yesterday, and although it wasn't the most intense and grueling workout individually, it was a lot of fun to bust it out with my team.

I was teamed up with Scott, John, Dick, and Ian - two relatively new people and two oldies. Here's what we had to accomplish for time:

2000m row
250 Wall balls (20# / 10#)
250 Pull-ups
150 Front squats (45# / 33#)
150 Push-ups
150 Box jumps (24" / 20")
50 Handstand push-ups
150 KB swings (1.5 pood / 1 pood)
2000m row
*Everyone must do at least 1 rep of each movement

Initially, the workout was supposed to be 50 reps of everything (except the HSPU, which was 10 reps) x Number of people on your team, which amounted to 250 reps (50 HSPU) for our team of 5. However, by the time we got to pull-ups, Tyler realized it was going to take us FOREVER, so he knocked the reps back down to 150. It still took us over 40 minutes, the point at which we maxed out the clock.

Tyler made me do all the pull-ups RXd, so I think that really slowed our team down. I could only do about 3-4 pull-ups at a time, so my teammates didn't get to rest as much. However, I made it up to them by knocking out the front squats and KB swings, and also did the HSPU really easily since I'm so tiny. Everyone had to do the HSPU RXd (no hip slaps or feet on box, etc.), but we were allowed to have our teammates lift us up by our ankles once we were down. Since I'm super light and tiny, my teammates pretty much lifted me off the floor every time!

I'm hoping to get some really good workouts in this week and get back on track with my diet. I don't know what it was about the past week and a half or so, but I've just been foraging through my pantry, carbing out, and loading up on sugars. Maybe that's what my less-than-bubbly mood can be attributed to...

To prep for the week, I made some big meals for today and also went grocery shopping yesterday to restock the fridge and pantry with paleo-only foods. I've got beef chili in the slow cooker still (potential recipe to follow!), spicy bronzed chicken with garlic mashed cauliflower, and some walleye in the freezer for pecan-crusting on Wednesday!

Sectionals WOD #2

2010-02-16T23:46:00.000-06:00

Today we continued with our post-sectionals workouts by completing the second workout of day one: clean and jerks for five minutes. A great day at CF MPLS overall!

First, there's the warm-up:

3 rounds of 5 reps of Deadlifts
10 Front Lever attempts

The deadlifts were no problem, my form felt really good and I went from 95# to 115#, increasing by 10# on each round. The front levers were another story. I had trouble inverting myself on the bar, but I think it was a mental thing more than anything else because I was "afraid" of falling over or something like that. I was able to attempt one front lever, with Tyler's help of getting my feet over head on the rings. Definitely something to be working on in the future.

Next, we continued with the sectionals WOD:

AMRepAP in 5 minutes - Clean and jerks

The women's prescribed weight on this one was 105#, but I've had trouble just cleaning 65# before, so I knew I'd have to scale this quite a bit. The goal was to try and get in at least 20 or reps, not attempt for one rep in the 5 minutes. I probably could have done 105#, but I would have failed several times first. So, instead I put 75# on the bar (a little step up from my 65# cleans) and actually completed 24 reps. My shoulders started to fatigue fairly quickly, and I feel like I put the bar down a lot and just rested quite a bit. Definitely a strength WOD for me. But my cleans felt extremely good in terms of techniques. The jerk I'm still working on because I tend to push press instead of jumping under the bar.

Then, we got the "icing on the cake" after we rested from the WOD for about 45 seconds:

AMRepAP in 3 minutes - Push press without putting the bar down (can rest in rack position)

Tyler said if we put the bar to the floor, we'd owe him 10 burpees. I hate burpees, so I rested in the rack, which is actually not resting at all since it still kind of engages your shoulders and puts a lot of strain on your wrists! I still managed 52 reps, but I will admit that I probably could have done more if I had pushed myself a little harder. That's one thing I'm trying to overcome - the mental barrier of "this is too hard for me! I'm tired!"

I kept working on my kipping pull-ups before and after class and got another 10 or so in today. Now that I've finally gotten the hang (pardon the pun!) of that, I've decided it's time to start working on a few other skills I'm lacking. Here are some of my ideas on lifts and skills that I want to improve:

*Ring dips - then eventually I can add this to the pull-up and maybe get a muscle-up! I also just really like ring dips, even though Tyler argues they're not all that widely used of a skill in WODs
*OHS - my wimpiest lift. Definitely want to work on midline stability and active shoulders
*Handstand push-ups - I'm really close to getting all the way down and up to full lockout, I just have to have about 2 inches of padding since I can't go all the way down to the floor. I think this in concert with the OHS will help me build shoulder strength

I noticed that these all have to do with upper body, and yes I realize that those are the "small muscles" that are secondary in Crossfit. But as a dancer of 15 years, I've built up a lot of leg strength and I really want to improve my upper body strength and definition. So there you have it - new Crossfit goals for 2010!

Start of something new...

2010-02-16T00:02:00.000-06:00

So, no posting has been going on for a week now because last week was so crazy busy and then I went to the Midwestern Sectionals to volunteer. Yeah, that's right, the good ole Midwest kicked off the 2010 Crossfit Games season in St. Charles, MO.

Tyler was competing, and we also buddied up with Crossfit Progression's owner, Matt Arnold, and a high school student from Crossfit Milwaukee, Alex Schuld ("guilty" in German!). We made the long drive down to Missouri on Thursday afternoon and settled in for a crazy weekend of competition. I volunteered in the morning shift for both Saturday and Sunday, and fortunately, there wasn't much for me to do - just checking spectator wristbands - which meant I got to watch some phenomenal athletes compete all day!

Just being in the environment revved me up and inspired to really start upping my game at Crossfit. Too often I find myself taking breaks, moving slowly, and not really giving a WOD 200%. Well, not anymore! I'm excited to take my training to the next level - maybe next year I'll be a competitor instead of a volunteer! You can read more about my personal experience at the sectionals by checking out my happiness blog, too!

To kick things off, Tyler "kindly" prescribed WOD #1 from the sectional qualifiers: The Air Force WOD.

For time:
20 Thrusters
20 SDLHP
20 Push Jerk
20 OHS
20 Front squat
*Every minute, on the minute, complete 4 burpees

Okay, so watching Tyler, Matt, and Alex strategize about this WOD all Friday and then watching them on Saturday, I was super pumped to try my hand at this workout. Women's RXd was 65#, which I knew would be a challenge especially with the overhead squats, so I bumped it down to 45#. It felt pretty good during the warm-up rounds, so I went with it.

My strategy was to do as many reps as I possibly could until 15 seconds remained until the next minute started, at which time I'd start the burpees. You have to do the burpees really fast so that you can get to whatever movement you're on, that's the key! I got through 18 thrusters on the first minute, which I was pretty pleased with. Another strategy I had was to split the push jerks into 9 - 9 - 2 reps, so that in that 3rd minute of push jerks, I could push the bar overhead and just jump right into the OHS.

WRONG! 45# was way too much for me to keep overhead for the squats, especially when my shoulders were so shot from everything else. My legs also burned. I switched down to 33# just for the OHS and then went back to the 45# for the front squats. All in all, finished in 10:48. In all honesty, I felt a little sluggish, especially during the front squats, but maybe I was just tired. Next time, I'm going to remember to do a few tuck jumps and maybe clapping push-ups to get my motor neurons firing and get my body ready to move really quickly.

I also did 4 kipping pull-ups in a row today, no sweat! I actually did 16 kipping pull-ups total tonight, even after that brutal WOD: 2 - 3 - 3 - 4 - 2. I was trying to go for 5 on that last set, but I was too tired. Bummer. Maybe Thursday!

Another year, another WOD...and another kipping pull-up!

2010-02-06T23:53:00.000-06:00

Today is my birthday! You might recall that back in October, Tyler made us do some "homework" and write down our five goals for the year. Naturally, my first goal was to do a kipping pull-up by my birthday, and while I may have sort of accomplished that goal back in December, no one really saw it and I couldn't repeat the event. Well, I woke up this morning thinking "Oh crap! I have to do a kipping pull-up today or else!" Nothing like turning another year older to motivate you!

Ok, so I got to the box today and the WOD was explained to us, we did bear complex as a warm-up (deadlift, hang power clean, front squat, push press, back squat, push press) and then while we were hanging around before getting started, I jumped on that pull-up bar to test the waters. Swing, swing, swing...and up I went! It was pretty easy too, and I had my chin well above the bar while I started screaming for everyone to look. I held it for a good 3 seconds up there, and that was with this huge cracked blister on my hand too (yeah, that's a downside to blisters in the winter - they crack open and hurt even more!). So yay! Kipping pull-up accomplished!

Today's WOD was "Jackie" - a toughie!

For time:
1000m row
50 Thrusters (45# / ???)
30 Pull-ups

So I did 33# thrusters because men's RX was 45# and I didn't know how that translated to women's RX, but we don't have anything lighter than 33#. The pull-ups were done with the light green band, since we had quite a few reps to complete. I finished in 11:03...sort of. I technically finished in 10:46, but Tyler didn't like my last pull-up and complained that my chin wasn't *quite* above the bar. So, I hopped down from my box and hopped right back up there just to do one pull-up - sad that it took me about 20 seconds to take care of all that.

If we look at how the workout was split up, the row is what probably took me the longest and tired me out the most. I finished the row in 4:30ish, split at 2:12 for my 500m portion. I started at a pretty good pace, about 36m/s, but quickly gassed out and dropped down to 25m/s by about meter 250. Yikes! Rowing has been really tiring on my legs and we've been doing a lot of it lately since we can't run. I honestly will be embracing the 400m once the snow melts! Never thought I'd be saying that.

Thrusters were not a problem for me in this workout, I was able to quickly knock them out. The pull-ups I broke up into sets of about 6-8 at a time, which worked out pretty well. Mainly, I had to just jump down every now and then because my hands were slipping, not necessarily because I was tired, so that's a good improvement. Overall, I greatly enjoyed this WOD and am looking forward to doing it again!

I was going to fast today, since I knew I'd be going out for a gluttonous birthday dinner with gal pals. HOWEVER, my mother sent me a birthday package filled with beef jerky and my favorite nuts - the pistachio. So, I ended up snacking on waaaaaaaaaaay too much jerky, pistachios, and chocolate. Then my roommate made "puppy chow" (rice chex, chocolate, peanut butter, powdered sugar), which left me in a sugar coma until we left for dinner. I also ate too much there - lamb meatballs, bleu cheese burger, bread pudding, and a kahlua coffee drink at Joe's Garage. My stomach is seriously about to burst from all the junk that's in there. I'd like to fast tomorrow, but we're hosting a Superbowl party with even more junk food! Some serious cleansing and recalibrating is going to have to happen later this week!

Baseline Measurements

2010-02-05T22:04:00.000-06:00

I may get paid very little as a graduate student, but being a student has its perks. For starters, I get to use the recreational gym center for free, which really makes no difference because I go to Crossfit anyway, but I also get to use all their fitness assessment services! I thought I'd take advantage of these services (and this blog) to get some baseline measurements and see where I'm at fitness-wise. I started Crossfit in July 2009, and unfortunately don't have measurements from that point, but I'm anxious to see how the numbers I received this go around will improve by April or May. So, without further ado, here are the numbers!

To begin, I'm 62. 5 inches tall (5'2.5" - which means I shrunk from the last time I was at the doctor's office!) and I weigh in at 119.5 lbs. Ok, that's all stuff you can get anywhere. Here's the new and interesting stuff I got from my Bod Pod body fat mass assessment on January 22, 2010:

22.6% Fat
77.4% Fat free mass
26.339 lb Fat mass
90.375 Fat free mass
2.957L Thoracic gas volume (I can't remember what this is really a measurement of, my lung size maybe?)

These numbers put me in the "moderately lean" category according to the ACSM guidelines. I was pretty pleased with those results, which suggest that I need about 1924 kCal/day to maintain an active lifestyle. I also completed some muscular endurance and muscular strength assessments on January 28, 2010 (with my percentile rankings when compared to a sample population of similar age and sex):

60 BPM Resting heart rate (90%)
41 reps Partial curl-ups (75%)
31 reps Push-ups, on knees (88%)
70 lbs Bench press (39%)
441 lbs Leg press, based on submax leg ratio to weight (90%)
41 cm Sit-reach hip flexion (90%)

So the main takeaway from this assessment was that I have NO upper body strength, as evidenced by the bench press. This is one area I plan on working more on in the future - strict presses, handstand push-ups, etc. On the plus side, you'll recall my post about my maxing out the leg press machine and the number I posted here is the hypothesized weight I'd be able to leg press based on that result. Another interesting note - I was happy with my body fat analysis before my assessor put the numbers into her fancy-dancy computer program and it spit out that I ranked in the 47th percentile compared to a sample population! That means I was slightly below average (which is 50th percentile) in terms of an appropriate body fat. What??? Not to sound like a "skinny b*tch," but do you know what I look like? I'm ASIAN! People could literally step on me and squash me I'm so tiny!

Ok, rant over. The reason I'm posting all this information today is because I finally completed the final portion of my assessment - the VO2 Max test of cardiovascular endurance. Results:

At peak -
47.6 mkm (87%)
178 BPM heart rate

Anaerobic threshold -
23.1 mkm
128 BPM heart rate

HR recovery
146 BPM, 1 minute
123 BPM, 2 minutes

Basically, they made me run on a treadmill at a 5 mph pace with a steep incline until I felt like I couldn't run anymore. To be honest, my legs gave out before my heart and lungs felt like they were going to give out, so I'm pretty confident that these results will improve next time (because I likely won't be doing KB swings at Crossfit St. Paul the day before!). Not that these are bad results, in fact I was kind of shocked at how high they were!

If I remember correctly, the anaerobic threshold point is when my body switches from using aerobic pathways to anaerobic pathways (in essence, it becomes more "inefficient" and likely to tire out). A higher anaerobic threshold signifies that your body is able to go harder for longer, and is a good place to start in order to improve overall VO2 Max. We'll see if I can train this aspect, I'm pretty pleased with the results as is...

Well, there you have it. My fitness in numbers. Now just to work on improving those numbers!

Constantly Varied

2010-02-04T20:52:00.000-06:00

Today I took the meaning "constantly varied" to a whole new level. I didn't just work out different muscles in a different way - I worked out at a different TIME in a different PLACE! Yeah - how's about some Crossfit St. Paul at 6:00 AM?

I went to St. Paul today to meet Mike Jones, the owner-coach of CFSP, and talk about my goals for the Level 1 Cert, see if there were still spots available (since it was sold out - boo!), and maybe if he'd consider me for a scholarship spot. And I got a great workout in and a friendly welcome, too!

First, we did a basic warm-up:
400m row, followed by two rounds of 10 reps squats, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups

Then, coach Mike said he likes to do a little lift skill work, and today happened to be push jerks, 5 sets of 2 reps. I started at 45# and moved up to 80#, and felt myself pressing more than using my legs. Something to keep an eye out for...

Now, on to the WOD!

Three rounds for time:
250m row (or indoor loop run)
30 Box jumps (women's RX = 20")
30 KB swings (women's RX = 1 pood)

I opted for the run because I honestly do miss running since it has gotten too cold out to do so. Plus, the row really wore me out in the warm-up! I ended up finishing this one in 13:18, a little slow for my taste. I felt myself taking a lot of breaks, especially on the box jumps. I don't know why it was so hard for me in the morning, but I honestly do chalk it up to my body just not being used to working out at that time (is that a cop-out?). My legs and butt also just felt shot from the get-go, and they got no reprieve in this workout. I think the combination of working out really hard after a brief hiatus, coupled with stress at school, has really tired my body out. Maybe I should take it a little easier the next few days and ease back into things.

We did some plank work afterward, and I held the plank for the full 2 minutes even though there were countless times where I just wanted to drop. Still, I felt the need to prove to myself that I could still finish strong, even in an early morning class!

Double Duty

2010-02-03T00:07:00.000-06:00

This is going to have to be a sweet and short post, even though I have so many great things to talk about Crossfit tonight! Alas, my commitments at the gym have put me behind in my school work, and I'm going to have to get up bright and early tomorrow to finish a few things...blech!

So first things first, let's talk about the WOD. We did a new and interesting, dare I say innovative, rep scheme that I actually really liked:

For time:
21 - 15 - 9
Deadlifts (225# / 185#)
Ring dips
*rest one minute*
12 - 9 - 6
Deadlifts
Ring dips

I only put on 103# since that's 72 reps total you're seeing up there! Sheesh, that's a lot! I finished the first set in 4:05 and finishing total in 8:19, using the blue band strapped across the rings and putting my knee in that for the ring dips. I prefer this method to putting my feet on a box in front of me because the weight is distributed more like it would be in a regular ring dip (i.e., directly below you). Whether this is harder or easier, better or worse, I don't know. I just feel like I'm working harder on keeping my core together when I do the dips with the band.

I could feel myself getting tired on the deadlifts by the first round of 9 reps. I actually did 8 deadlifts, then paused before doing the last one. I hate that. Just suck it up and do the last rep! I ended up doing that (resting right before the last rep) for the rest of the sets - what the heck is up with that?

Most everyone in class finished this WOD in less than 15 minutes, so it made it conducive to working out in heats. I liked working out in heats because 1) it allows for a smaller coach:student ratio (we had 10 people total, broken down into a heat of 6 and then of 4), and 2) I got to be someone else's cheerleader and assistant coach! That was probably the coolest part of all.

I cheered on/worked with two ladies who are relatively new to Crossfit, but they are both really hard workers and have jumped right into the "lifestyle" (can't think of a better word to call it - mentality? philosophy?). I gave out pointers during the first heat's workout, then did my workout with my heat, and was so thrilled to see that one of the ladies I gave some pointers to wanted to practice her deadlift form even after it was all said and done. We got the training plates out so the weight would be light and slowly walked through the different things to think about when executing the deadlift. I realized I know more than I initially thought, it's all just about my confidence in myself to communicate it clearly to someone else.

Tyler had a consult with FOUR (!!!) people after the class, and I stayed on to listen, learn more, and help people feel comfortable in their introductory workout. I think this coaching thing is really just going to come with exposure and practice, stuff that doesn't come with a certification. I'm glad I'm getting this time in now to work with people and semi-coach them, so that I can be prepared with questions if and when this certification actually happens in April.

And in food-related news, I'm still eating those meatloaf muffins because they're just so quick and easy to grab 'n go eat. And strangely enough, I'm not getting sick of them, even though it's the only thing I've eaten for the past 4 lunches and dinners...hmmmmmmm. Can't wait for this crazy busy week to be over so I can get back to experimenting with food and getting some more creative food in me!

Row row row your boat

2010-02-01T21:23:00.000-06:00

I always like the first of the month because it signals new beginnings. I think this "first of the month" is particularly wonderful because 1) it's the start of my birthday month (hooray!) and 2) I'm finally fully over that stomach bug and am getting serious about sticking to my paleo diet once again.

Today's WOD reminded me a little of Fight Gone Bad, so I think it was a great benchmark to start off this amazing month.

5 rounds
1 minute max row (count meters)
1 minute max rep push-ups
1 minute max rep squats
*NO REST IN BETWEEN!*

Yeah, that no rest part was kind of brutal, but eventually I got in the groove of things and the 15 minutes were over before I knew it. My score ended up breaking down like this:

325 + 251 + 254 + 238 + 261 = 1329 Total

I think the key to getting high numbers in this workout was to row really good and hard, and I tried to get at least 200m on each row. It didn't happen in that 4th round (hence the low score), and I was so tired of doing push-ups that I really had to push it on my squats. I was definitely VERY tired by the end of this workout and glad I was hovering in the 250ish range for the most part.

After the WOD, I went home to register for my Level 1 Certification (time to just do it already!) and was confident that it'd still be open, since I last checked on Thursday and things were looking good. ALAS, it's now sold out!!!! So, I'm not registered and I'm super bummed about it, but I'm trying to work some magic and sending emails like crazy to see if I can get in late...keep your fingers crossed!

Kitchen Adventures!

2010-01-31T23:06:00.002-06:00

This weekend was all about taking adventures in the kitchen! I had been wanting to roast a chicken because The Label Says Paleo says its easy. And, because I didn't get to go to Vegas, that meant I got to go to the farmer's market to see my meat seller (they're only open every other weekend due to the inclement cold weather)!

So, I picked up my Delaware roasting chicken and tested out my new cheap-o roasting pan from Target.

Roasted Chicken

Olive oil

1 package of herbs (I got the "Poultry Mix" - Oregano, Marjoram, Thyme, Rosemary)

1 orange, halved

1 onion, halved

4 strips of bacon

1 chicken

Salt and pepper

First, I had to take all the "goodies" out of the chicken, which my roommate greatly enjoyed watching. For those of you who are not aware, I was vegetarian for a good part of my high school and then a few college years, and only started eating meat again in November 2008 and then actually touching and cooking it this past August when I started living on my own (hey, that's what boyfriends are for - cooking!). Here are some humorous shots with my "WTF" face:

I'm very excited about the chicken having wings

I had to back away from the chicken when I realized the heart and stomach were still in there...and that I had to reach into the butt to get it out...

Yup, I'm about to reach in there

Once I got over my fear of pulling out all the innards (seriously, about 45 minutes later), I started prepping the chicken for roasting. Preheat oven to 425' F and place the chicken on my roasting pan. I loosened the chicken skin (not very well) by making a few cuts and then sticking my finger under the skin. I'll admit I didn't do it very evenly, but I had to stuff half of the herbs in the skin and I wanted them sort of spaced out. The other half of the herbs went in the cavity of the chicken along with the orange and onion. My chicken was a little too small to stuff the whole orange and onion in there, so I think I only ended up stuffing in half the orange and a quarter of the onion.

Then I rubbed olive oil all over the thing (probably my favorite part) and salted and peppered the top. Layered some bacon over the top and stuck it in the oven for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, I took out the chicken and removed the bacon (which I later fried in a skillet for breakfast tomorrow), basted the chicken with a spoon, and returned it to the oven for another 25 minutes. It ended up needing another 10 minutes even after that (for a total cooking time of one hour), and then I let it sit for 10 minutes to let the juices settle. Here's what the finished product looked like:

Pretty golden color, despite how smoky it made our apartment!

All the meat I got off the carcass - not a whole lot :(

So yeah, my only complaint about roasting the chicken is that the meat I was able to pick of the bones wasn't really worth the time, effort, and money it took to roast the chicken. It was a great kitchen experiment, and now at least I can say I roasted a chicken, but it's probably not something I'll be doing again in the near future. Whole Foods pre-made rotisserie chicken will do just fine for me for a while.

When I recognized that the roasted chicken wouldn't feed me for the rest of the week, I decided to whip up the meatloaf that I was going to save for later in the week. Only problem is that I don't have a loaf pan - so I made "meatloaf muffins" instead!

Meatloaf "Muffins" (Makes ~18 muffins)

1 lb ground beef

1 onion, chopped

2 apples, cored and chopped

1 clove garlic

1 tsp mustard powder

2 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 egg

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350' F. Mix all the ingredients together well and then stuff into an oiled muffin pan. They don't expand like bread muffins, so jam the meat all the way up to the brim of the muffin pan. Cook in oven for about 18 minutes.

I had a little bite of one once it came out of the oven and it was actually pretty tasty! I forgot to add the salt and pepper, so they may be a little on the bland side for some tastes, but surprisingly not as much as I thought they would be. The apples are a nice sweet touch. And I'll admit, they're kind of cute to look at:

My itty bitty meatloaf muffin!

Alright, well that about does it for me, I won't be cooking much the rest of the week!

Easing back into things

2010-01-31T22:35:00.001-06:00

I decided Saturday would be my first day back at the gym since the awful stomach virus (or food poisoning?) mishap that left me sick and weak the whole week. I was feeling a little iffy about the whole thing when I woke up in the morning, but I chalked my stomach pain up to hunger pains and decided to tough it out at the gym.

Tyler had posted the workout the night before, which was nice because I could mentally prepare myself for what was to come. Sometimes checking the website isn't a great idea beforehand because it's tempting to "cherry-pick" a workout that only caters to their strengths or weaknesses, but I just like to check so I can wear the right the clothes (i.e., pants when there's jump roping, no whip marks for me!). Here's what I had in store for my return:

For time:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 Sumo deadlift high pull (135# / 95#)
1 round of "Cindy" (5 Pull-ups, 10 Push-ups, 15 Squats) in between

I thought I'd be in pretty good shape if I could get past 7 rounds, which is initially what I aimed for with 63#. I managed a total of 8 rounds in 14:22 and then had to stop because my stomach just started to feel a little off and I didn't want to push it. Plus, I had this GINORMOUS blister that ripped on my hand. Seriously, it's the size of a dime!

Looking back, I think I should have tried for more weight on the SDLHP. Even as sick as I felt, my legs felt really strong on that movement. I also was doing really well with the light green pull-up band. I tested out the blue band at the beginning, you know, just going along with my theme of taking it easy, and I easily shot up to doing chest-to-bar pull-ups...too easy. So I may not have a real kipping pull-up yet, but the strength is definitely improving and coming along.

Siiiiiiiiiick :(

2010-01-27T22:38:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all! Sorry there probably won't be any posts here for a while. Yesterday (Tuesday) I was all excited to go to the gym because we were doing Fran and I told myself that THIS would be the day that I did 65# thrusters - one more step closer to doing Fran RX'd. Alas, I contracted a stomach virus some point in the afternoon and had to be transported to the hospital! I spent all day sleeping and even forewent going to Las Vegas for my psychology conference. I'm going to take it easy the rest of the week to let my body heal. Maybe Saturday I'll be back with an account of my cross-country skiing adventures - Susanne is here now making sure I get better so I can go!

Serious Leg Day

2010-01-25T21:18:00.001-06:00

Today was a serious leg day for me, and not just at Crossfit. I started off the day by doing a fitness assessment at the recreational sports center at school, to round out my Bod Pod assessment from last week. Basically, I just wanted to get a baseline measurement of where I'm at fitness-wise right now, and maybe revisit things in April or May.

My assessment included all the regular things that I'm sure we all remember from the Presidential Fitness Tests of our middle school days - push-ups, sit-ups, how far you can reach past your toes, etc. Then we moved on to the chest press and the leg press, supposedly measures of muscular endurance. Based on how many push-ups and sit-ups I was able to do, and my body weight and height (I'm guessing), my trainer was able to guesstimate what my leg press weight would be...she was waaaaaaaaaaaaay off. I think I was supposed to only be able to press about 250 lbs. I ended up maxing out the machine at 404 lbs...and I was able to do it 5 times.

But, I wasn't able to shine as much on the chest press - only 70 lbs. I'm actually ok with that since the legs are supposed to be big powerhouse muscles anyway. But it just goes to show you, too, that these press machines are not the most "logical" (in my mind, at least) way to measure muscular strength. Sure, I can press that much weight, but when would I EVER be sitting with my back straight up against something, with my knees at a 90' angle and needs to push 400+ lbs away from me? I'll take 100 squats in a minute over that, thanks.

The WOD for tonight was pretty leg heavy, so I guess I'll need to let the rec center know they should get a new leg press machine for my next assessment - maybe one that can go up to 700 lbs? Just kidding :)

For time:
10 Deadlifts (RX'd women = 165#)
25 KB swings (RX'd women = 1.5 pood = 54#)
8 Deadlifts
20 KB swings
6 Deadlifts
15 KB swings
4 Deadlifts
10 KB swings
2 Deadlifts
5 KB swings

This WOD was tough on my back (bad sign) and my legs. I started approaching the barbell every time for the deadlifts SHAKING. I managed to finish in 8:16 with 113# on the deadlift and 45# on the KB swings. I also started dropping the reps on the KB swings because the 45# was killing me, but there weren't any 40# KBs left. I ended up doing 25 / 20 / 12 / 9 / 6 on the KB swings, and it still took me a while! I think my problem was that I could get the KB up in the notch, but gravity just ran its course when the KB started swinging down, at which point I would let it pull me and hunch me over. Need to learn to have more rigid form on the KB swings, especially in my back.

In the warm-up today, I was working with a new female client who just joined and is making great progress. She mentioned she had never done an overhead squat (which is what we were warming up with, along with strict presses), so I was giving her some pointers. Man, was I nervous! I realized that while I may have great form and can think of all the little things that go into a movement when I do them, it's a much different story trying to explain that to someone else. Something to be aware of if this coaching certification works out. Having the label of "coach" appended to your name carries a lot of responsibility, and I'm starting to second guess whether I'm ready for that yet.

I was reminded of the movie CenterStage (yes, I am making this reference, and if you've never been a dancer, you might not get it, but just bear with me). On the first day of the dancers' training at THE American Ballet Academy, the director walks in and makes them raise their hand in response to the question: "Which one of you was the best dancer in the last class he or she took?" Naturally, they all raise their hands because they wouldn't be at the prestigious academy if they weren't the best. He continues, "It's an honor, isn't it. Being the best. Teachers dote on you, other students ask for your help. And then you get accepted to The American Ballet Academy..." He goes on to say that even being at the academy does not guarantee success as a famous dancer.

That's kind of the point I'm at now. I definitely don't think I'm the best, but I do have a passion to become a coach, and I feel like there are some people who look up to me and ask for my advice on movements and such. But is that enough to be a good coach? I think it takes a lot more.

In other great news: I found out a good friend of mine from high school joined Crossfit Central's RunTex program. She had it in her Twitter status and we started chatting about it. Crazy how social networking works like that! I hope she enjoys it and gets as much out of it as I have!

Slip, Rip, Mash, Steak

2010-01-23T15:50:00.001-06:00

Today was one of those nasty rainy cold Minneapolis days, and after a long night of girl talk last night with some friends, I had a little difficulty getting out of bed this morning for the WOD. But...I prevailed and managed to walk a whole 8 feet before slipping on a slab of ice and hitting my entire left side on the concrete outside the gym.
And that was just the beginning of my "great" morning! I have a good 4 blisters and bubbles on my hands that just kill when I have to grip a BB or the pull-up bar. And thanks to Tyler, we did both today - back squats and deadlifts for the warm-up and pull-ups for the WOD.

For time:
400m Row
6 Broad jumps
15 Burpees (scaled to 8)
21 Pull-ups (scaled to 15)
250m Row
21 Pull-ups(scaled to 15)
15 Burpees (scaled to 8)
6 Broad jumps
400m Row

After the warm-up, we were complaining so much about our sensitive hands that Tyler decided to scale the pull-ups down. It still hurt like a mother though! I finished in 10:40, I got really gassed on the last bit of rowing and didn't meet my goal of sub-10.

To treat myself after the pain I put my hands through, I went to Target to pick up a few things: toilet paper, toothpaste, the usual. I also got a roasting pan, meat tongs, and a really swanky pepper grinder! I'm planning on roasting a chicken next weekend after I get back from my annual psychology conference - kind of a trial run before I roast a whole chicken for our Superbowl party!

But for today, I had to just deal with cooking sirloin steak and finally making the carrot-parsnip mash that I've been wanting to try all week:

Carrot-parsnip mash
3 parsnips, cut into small chunks
4 carrots, cut into small chunks
3-4 Tbsp of butter
salt and freshly ground pepper

Boil some salted water, then throw in the parsnips and carrots. Cook parsnips and carrots until tender, about 15 minutes (although, mine came out a little too tough, so either cut the carrots smaller or boil for a little longer). Drain thoroughly and put into a bowl with the butter. Mash while adding salt and pepper to taste.

Voila! Super easy and pretty delicious - the parsnips are slightly sweeter than the carrots and cooking them takes away that super "carroty" taste. And the butter helped too. I also tried cooking my steak a little differently today. Typically, I use my Foreman grill, but the steak always comes out dry and tough so I took a tip from Cosmopolitan (if you want recipes from a girlie magazine, you have to wait until they do a feature on "How to Cook for Your Man," otherwise you just end up getting a bunch of low-cal salad and pizza and pasta options - ick!):

Steak without a Big Green Egg
Preheat oven to 375'. Season steak with a drizzle of olive oil or melted butter and spices/garlic/etc. Sear 2-3 minutes on high heat, each side (they recommend using a cast iron, which I don't have; stainless steel worked just fine). Finish cooking in the oven - 10 minutes each side for a two-inch steak medium rare.

The steak didn't come out perfect, but it was pinker inside than what comes off my Foreman. And juicier too! Definitely something I'll try to perfect. I think part of the problem is that I get a specialty beef from a meat seller at the farmer's market, and the beef is VERY easy to overcook. Looks like I'll be asking my farmer for some cooking tips!

BPBP - Belated Post & Bod Pod

2010-01-23T00:44:00.000-06:00

I'm technically two days behind on posts since it's already EARLY Saturday morning! A lots been going on at school this week, and frankly I've just been too tired after all that work, working out, and then cooking that I haven't had time to sit down and breathe, let alone write.

Here's a recap of what I've been up to at CFMPLS the past two days.

Thursday's WOD was ridiculously taxing on me as it included rowing and pull-ups. After the strict press and double under day (Tuesday), my shoulders, upper back, and lats were sore, and the pull-ups didn't help with that.

Thursday WOD - 7 rounds for time:
250m row
12 pull-ups

I've graduated now to the THIN green band, which is less resistant than the blue band. It feels very much like doing a pull-up without a band to me actually, so I just might get that kipping pull-up by my birthday like I was hoping! I managed this workout in 16:55. The rowing was actually what bottlenecked and gated my time. Oh, and the fact that I ripped open one blister, started opening another blister, and got a blood blister. Yeouch!!

Friday's WOD didn't have anymore pull-ups (THANK GOODNESS), but we were doing barbell work, and grasping the bar without wincing in pain was an issue for me.

Friday WOD - Clean & Jerk 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1

I used the method when getting my starting weight on this one where I envisioned what I wanted to reach by that last and seventh round and counting backwards. I thought I could maybe shoot for 95# or 105 pounds, so I planned on starting at 55#. There were a lot of people in class tonight, so unfortunately there were not enough 45# BB to use, so I grabbed a 33# women's bar, which actually probably worked better due to my ripped up hands.

My loads looked like this: 53 - 58 - 63 - 68 - 73 - 83 - 93 - 93

I ended up doing a bonus 93# round again because I thought the form on my first try was really crappy - too much pushing the bar overhead and not enough dropping my body and displacing it beneath the bar. So I tried it again and it was a little better, but the clean stunk. Oh well. In all honesty, I probably could have gone with a heavier weight, but my palms are actually what couldn't handle the weight. I just need a few days to heal and get back to normal.

In other news, I got body fat tested using the Bod Pod method today. The Bod Pod uses air displacement to measure volume and density, or some other physics like that. I was pretty happy to find myself at 22.6% body fat, considered on the low end of "moderately lean" for women (I mean, I still gotta have boobs and fat to protect my baby-making organs). I'd like to shoot for maybe about 18% - 19% body fat by the end of the semester, which I think is doable if I just keep my workout schedule and maybe eat less sugar like I keep promising myself!

Of course, the brownie cake Susanne made tonight at our apartment for her birthday didn't help...fourths and fifths anyone? Oh sure, I'll have some of that!

Double your fun + breakfast goodies

2010-01-20T00:17:00.000-06:00

After Friday's and Monday's "stanky leg," squat heavy workouts, our legs needed a break! So thank goodness today's WOD featured movements that focused more on our arms.

Today's workout was also focused on building skills, particularly the double-under.

For time:
21-15-9-9-15-21
Strict press
Double-unders

The lightest bar we have is the 33# barbell, so that's what I had to work with. Strict presses are tough since you can't use your legs at all. I figured I'd just go slowly on the presses and then rip through the double-unders, and that's exactly what happened.

I started out strong on the presses, busting out 11 or so in a row. The next few rounds I only managed 5-6 in a row, and had to drop the bar to the floor a lot more than simply resting it on my chest to take a break. Dropping it to the floor is more tiring because then you have to clean it back up to the rack position...but I guess that's just what happens when your arms just give out.

The double-unders went by quickly, despite how bad my shoulders were screaming. I set a new personal record today for unbroken double-unders: 19 in a row! Pretty impressive. I finished in 10:12, I think in part because I started rushing towards the end to get sub-10 and tripped up on my rope skills.

I sort of got my first taste of coaching today during the warm-up! We did 3 straight minutes of single skips and then had 7 minutes to work on double-unders. A new member that just joined around Christmas time had never done double-unders, so I gave her all the typical points: work on speed, minimal wrist and arm movement, try to to jump and tuck your legs, pike your feet instead, etc. And she actually got a double-under! How rewarding to see your tips and advice have results!

And in other good and yummy news: I made frittata this morning for breakfast with my brand new nonstick omlette skillets HOORAY! I'll try to post the recipe later this week with pictures, it was mighty tasty.

And I'm back!

2010-01-15T16:12:00.000-06:00

I flew into Minneapolis this morning at 10ish AM and after a quick catch-up session with the roommate, headed over to Crossfit MPLS to get back into the swing of things.

I love my Texas home (because Texas is the best state, let's be honest), but it was also very great to be back "home" in Minneapolis and see what's been progressing at the gym since I've been gone. For starters, we got 3 new rowers, 2 new squat racks, a "double-filtered" water cooler (had to throw that double-filtered nod in there for Tyler haha), AND a huge clock timer. Everything looks awesome and I'm excited to be "breaking it all in" these next few months.

Ok, enough catching up and on to the WOD.

Three rounds for time:
10 Bodyweight front squats
75 Air squats

I scaled down the front squats to 63#, which is just over half of my bodyweight. I did the full 75 air squats every round, which KILLED, but I did them. Finished in 10:37; a little bummed, since I probably could have done sub-10 if I didn't rest so gosh darn much! I noticed that it wasn't a matter of me breathing heavy and having difficulty completing the workout due to endurance, but my legs just didn't want to straighten anymore.

I supposed it's sort of a good thing that I'll be sitting on a plane later tonight on my way to Chicago...although I'll probably have a lot of difficulty getting off the plane!

Thrusting Ahead, Above and Beyond

2010-01-11T21:35:00.000-06:00

Last night I checked the Crossfit Central Twitter feed to find that my favorite movement would be featured in the next day's WOD: THRUSTERS!

The WOD was simple enough:

5 - 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 Thrusters

The goal being for us to find our 5-rep max on Thrusters. I checked my past blog posts and my posts to the CF MPLS blog to see what I normally can handle on thrusters. My most recent Fran was with a 45# BB and I last did a whole bunch of thrusters with a 33# BB. Fran RXd for women is 65#, and since that seemed a long way away from my measly 45#, I thought that might be my 5-rep max.

Wrong! I was with all the other ladies of the 5:15 class, and most of them wanted to start at 55#, unlike me starting out at 45#. So...here's what my loads ended up looking like:

55 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80

Wooty! I thought 75# was really tough and that I'd just repeat that weight for my last round, but my new friend Lydia (also from the Midwest, holla!) did 80# and suggested I just go for it, even if it meant failing. What a great mentality to approach a bar with - no fear of failing, which does not necessarily mean that I think I won't fail, only that I'm not afraid if I do.

It felt really great to get that much weight overhead and be complimented on my form. Ryon and I celebrated afterward by cooking yummy potatoes from the farmer's market with onion and rosemary from the backyard. Oh, and steak, of course - steak that had been marinating in the sous vide for FIVE days! Super tender, super delicious, super awesome.

Almost as super as my brand new Lululemon pants and top and new Crossfit Central hoodie! Not to brag or anything :)

See y'all back in Minnesota!

Shoulder work galore

2010-01-06T23:42:00.000-06:00

Ok, so not the most creative title, but at least it didn't have the words "Holiday," "WOD," or "Part" in it! I'm definitely feeling sore today from Monday's Angie and the shoulder-heavy WOD we did today only compounded the effects.

A lot of people often wonder why CF doesn't have more sit-ups or ab work in the workouts, to which I always respond that your abs and core should ALWAYS be working when doing a movement (mainly by keeping you balanced). The abs are especially engaged when moving or keeping weight overhead and when using dumbbells - which is what we did today.

Five rounds for time:
12 Dumbbell strict press (Women's RXd: 35#)
21 Dumbbell deadlifts
15 Ring dips

Weird rep scheme, but it helped in the end. You could only use one set of dumbbells for the strict press and the deadlifts, so it was "pick your poison" and then stick with it. I opted for a 20# set, since my CF Total strict press with a barbell is 55#. Dumbbells are harder to maneuver, so I scaled down the weight. It was still very difficult for me to push the weight overhead without wanting to do a little dip at the bottom, which is technically a push press. I concentrated really hard on pushing weight into my heels and generating energy from that, and also engaging my abs and closing my ribcage so I wouldn't be leaning back and pressing out (instead of up). But the soreness of my abs and shoulders from Monday kept me from pushing out anymore than 2-3 reps at a time. The strict press was definitely the "gating" movement (or "bottleneck" for all you supply chain management people out there) for me.

The reason I say the weird rep scheme helped in the end is because the deadlifts were definitely the easier part (for me, at least) and gave my shoulders a break. I'm glad there were a lot of them in between the presses and the ring dips so I could use my legs and give my arms a break.

On to the ring dips. I put my knee in a blue band to help, but again I had trouble busting out more than 5 reps at a time. My shoulders just couldn't take it! CF Central puts a time cutoff on WOD completion and I didn't finish in the 18 minutes allotted. I only got in 4 complete rounds plus 6 presses. On a positive note, though, I'm giving myself major props for sticking with my 20# weights and not scaling down any further in order to complete the WOD.

Holiday WOD, Part IV

2010-01-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

Ok, so these titles are getting a little old. I'll try to come up with something better for the next few Crossfit Central drop-in WODs...

Today I went back to the class that started it all - John's 5:15 CC class. It was great to see all the familiar faces and be welcomed back into the community! As it was the first WOD of the month, it was benchmark day. Today's benchmark was...

"Angie" for time
100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats

I was somewhat excited for this one since not too long ago we did a similar workout at CF Minneapolis and I blogged about my thoughts here. Since most of us did not work out over the 3-week holiday break (CC was closed aside from the free WODs), John scaled down the reps on the pull-ups and push-ups to 50. Sit-ups were butterfly-style with an Ab Mat (I STILL need to get one of those suckers!).

I got a blue band ready to go and busted out 22 or so pull-ups straight through. The rest was downhill from there and I finished in 14:33. An improvement from my "fake Angie" time at CF Minneapolis, but then again, I didn't do 100 reps of everything.

Cookies!!!!!

2010-01-04T16:07:00.004-06:00

When I went to lunch with my "bestie" Amy the other day, we stopped by Sur le Table in the Domain to check out all the goodies. They had cookie cutters on sale and I just couldn't resist getting a few shapes that represented my favorite things: the great state of Texas, cowboy boots, and of course, HIPPOS!

I've been dying to use these things all week, but I wanted to find a paleo cookie recipe first. So I hopped on paleofood.com. There were several cookie recipes to choose from, but I found one that didn't contain eggs (my roommate is allergic, so anything I can cook paleo that she can also enjoy, I'm all for!). It seemed super simple too.

Paleo Cookie Recipe (~ 2 dozen cookies)

1 cup raw honey

1 cup walnuts

2 cups almonds

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

The first step was to heat up the honey so it was a little bit more manageable. I did this over very low heat in a saucepan for about 4 minutes, until I could smoothly stir the honey and it would easily drip off the spoon. I didn't want to heat it too much because the appeal of raw honey is that it is unheated and unfiltered!

While the honey was heating, I chucked the nuts into the food processor to make a flour/meal. Most websites will tell you to carefully process the nuts into flour because you could over-do it and end up with a nut butter. This was not a concern of mine, since some other paleo cookie recipes called for nut butter (I'm assuming to help hold the cookie together). But I still wanted a flour-y consistency.

Then, I mixed in the spices (eyeballed it) and the coconut to the flour mixture. Drizzled the honey in small batches on top and mixed it all together. When using cookie cutters on normal, non-paleo sugar cookies, you're supposed to chill the dough, so I figured that'd be a good idea for paleo nut flour cookies too. I chilled it in the bowl for about an hour, until the dough got a little harder.

Now I was ready to use the cookie cutters! I preheated the oven to 350' F and got out some parchment paper on a cookie sheet. I rolled out the dough, which worked surprisingly well considering I didn't flour the rolling pin or the board (nothing stuck to either). Cut my cookies and placed them on the parchment paper-covered cookie sheet. Baked for 10 minutes.

So I thought that because the cookies didn't have traditional flour or eggs in them, they wouldn't bloat and get puffy. WRONG. Check out the before and after photos below (I'll post better ones soon, but these were taken with my camera phone).

Before...

...and after, completely baked and bloated :(

Please tell me you can still *kinda* make out the cowboy boot, hippo, and Texas down in the bottom right corner!

The cookies actually taste pretty good, a little on the chewier side, so be warned if you're a crispy cookie kind of person. I think the honey tastes a little too sweet, but that's just honey for you. I used raw Texas Wildflower honey, maybe there's a different variety that has a less sweet or noticeably overpowering taste. The original recipe also called for ginger (I'm assuming the spice powder, and not raw), which I didn't have and that may have counterbalanced the sweetness better.

Overall, a successful adventure with paleo baking!

Holiday WOD, Part III

2010-01-02T12:00:00.000-06:00

Today Ryon and I joined our friends Bryan and Victoria at Crossfit Cedar Park/Tillman Training (HEY Y'ALL if you're reading this :) ). Nothing beats a good workout on a sunny Saturday morning.

We started off with a warm-up similar to Crossfit Central - high knees, jumping jacks, squats, push-ups a few times through. Then onto the WOD!

3 rounds for time:
400m Run
21 Wall ball shots (14# women's RX)
12 Pull-ups

I ate like utter crap yesterday, so I moved pretty slowly through this one. Also, right out of the gate on the run, I pulled something in my inner thigh/groin region that killed every time I ran. Ick. I finished in 12:52 by some New Year miracle. The wallball shots were definitely difficult because I usually have to use a 10# medball for everything since that's all we've got at CF Minneapolis. I was able to rip through the pull-ups pretty quickly with a blue band, though, so that made up for my slowness in the other movements.

A few noteworthy props to CF Cedar Park that gave me ideas for things to implement back home. First, the gym doubles as a physical therapy center and I believe some of the CFCP coaches are certified physical therapists. You can definitely tell that it helps to have some in-depth knowledge about how the body works - muscles, joints, bones, tendons - to be a good coach. Before the WOD, Victoria had some pain in her shoulder and two coaches were able to give her some good stretching pointers and feel around for the inflammation. What a great added bonus to have in a coach.

Second, there were three coaches there for the eight of us that decided to show up. I liked the small, more personalized atmosphere and the fact that during the warm-up, the coaches went around and introduced themselves to all the newbies. And not just in the the "Hi, I'm David" way, but the "Hi, I'm David, who are you and where are you from" way. They also offered help to the newbies when we were trying to get equipment set up - they didn't just assume that we knew where things were or what the gym's etiquette rules were (Yes, I know that sounds kind of silly, but every gym has slightly different etiquette and protocol rules. That's what makes them all unique!). I liked the added care and attention that the owner-coaches paid to the small, personal details beyond just coaching and motivating. It was a whole package deal that made the WOD that much more enjoyable.