010709 – 040709 : catch up post

So apparently I forgot about this again being back in DC and sans a lot of down time on my laptop.

July 1:
rest day – fixed fence and prepped for bachelorette party
zone- probably solid
sleep – probably awesome

July 2:
forced rest day – had to go into the bank to photograph structural problems and find them an engineer to deal with it. hosted bachelorette party on my parent’s back porch (which rocks my socks off)
food – surprisingly good, given the day. made a full grill out zone meal for 8 girls (chicken, sweet potatoes and zucchini, guacamole, and salad) and then a zone-ish chocolate fondue (coconut milk based with unsweetened chocolate, agave nectar, and whipping cream… we licked the pot after) with apples, orange slices, strawberries, bananas, and brazil nuts. Drinks were paleo-garitas (mostly tequila… win) or champagne (apparently not everyone likes straight tequila and lime juice). Good times, all were happy with their unbeknownst zone meal.
sleep – decent

July 3:
WOD:
Karen – 150 wall balls
6:10
only had a 5# ball, which hardly counted but still went in and did this pre church decorating. Used a 12′ target to make up for the light weight ball.
Zone – eh. did ok with the mexican for lunch, and then did barbecue and coleslaw at the rehersal dinner. Far too much beer that night to make this one ok though.
Sleep – about 5 hours

July 4:
rest day – wedding. mostly keeping the bride sane and trying to stay in my dress (thank you 10# weight gain while at home…). as a bridesmaid I tend to not so much care what I’m wearing, what they do with my hair. This ended up meaning I had fairly large 50s beehive hair and a purple chiffon dress that was made for my measurements in Nov. and not tried on until the day of the wedding. Oops. The other bridesmaids were… shall we say “less curvy” and so it was an interesting pick for me to wear in front of a crowd too conservative to serve alcohol, much less dance at the reception. Best comment was my brother in law after asking if I made a lot of money on the cover they must be charging at the door. Awesome. As soon as the reception duties were done, I ditched out with my sister and went to find beer and fireworks. Sat on the back porch with the first watching 3″ of rain fall in about an hour. One more dose of brisket and then it was time to pack up to come home.
Zone – um, wedding cake, beer, and brisket. lets call today a loss.
Sleep – 4 hours

linebacker much... love the beehive best.

300609 – back squats / tabata situps

Oh good. More back squats.

Back squat
5-5-5-5-5

Rest

Tabata Situps

Back squat: 10@45, 10@100, 5@155, 5@155, 5@155, 5@155, 5@155
Situps: 106

Squats were way better today having had a little coaching in okc (a few weeks is a long time to forget all those little cues…). Correcting the gaze to midway up the wall and raising the bar up to the next notch in that weird pullup bar/weight rack seems to have helped reduce the scrunched form / collapsed chest. Knees were really squeaking though, despite lots of foot position adjusting.

video of today’s

Drove back to Cheyenne first thing in the farm truck with an inability to idle. So that was fun… Got pulled over once and had to have the cop’s help getting the truck started again. But he was super nice about it at least. Worked at the mexican restaurant in town (its in a 1917 catholic church, worked there all through high school) for my brother, worked out, and then fixed a little fence before assembling bachelorette party favors and making sugar scrub with lavender blooms from the yard. Interesting mix of a day…

SLEEP
7 hours, (3)

ZONE:
7:00 – 2P / 2C / 2F
2 eggs, slice of local whole wheat/nut bread, butter

10:30 – 3P / 2C / 5F
cheese stick, 1 new batch of protein bar

2:30 – 4P / 4C / 4F
fajita meat, black beans, salad, grilled onions, sour cream, guac

6:00 – 2P / 2C / 2F
2 oz chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, walnuts

8:30 – 3P / 3C / 3F
3 oz chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, walnuts (leftover Moroccan chicken stew)

10:00 – 1P / 1C / 1F
1/8 of a cup of ben and jerry’s… it was all that was left in the container

TOTAL: 15P / 14C / 17F
Out of control…

sunset progression - tiny desert thunderstorm on the horizon

midpoint

finale

290609 – CFT / double unders-running

Worked out at Crossfit OKC with my friend Ed (who was doing crossfit on his own at OU’s gym before I knew what it was, and has since joined a box and started his MD/PhD program). Second time working out with CFOKC, second time doing CFT with them… but also second DL PR there, so call it a win. It was great working out with buddies again, although I was my usual graceful self (read: I knocked a bar off a rack and dented the floor. They were fairly laid back about it). Shared a bar with an ex-pro rower named Madi who could have been an east german women’s olympic lifter in a past life. Ferocious. She was warming up at my 1 rep max weights on everything.

BS was first and set me off on really the wrong foot. I thought my previous 1RM was 185… so I was shooting for 200. Nailed 185 with some form corrections from Madi and then failed to hit full squat depth at 200 (shallow by 3-4″). Then totally failed the second try. (Also, Sally reminded me later my 1RM is 205. Think that may have been mental?? Or it could be due to eating like shit and drinking a lot all week and not sleeping much the two nights before. Tom-ay-to, tah-mah-to)

Press was mildly better, but I was a little thrown off by the back squat failure. On my second try I hit 90 with decent form, the first PR on press in a loooooong time. I go up on my toes when I’m pressing super heavy weight though, why is that?

Deadlift was a nice solid end. My perennial favorite, I’d skipped the last DL workout in deference to my lower back, which had been sore for days. It was feeling good though, so I did 168 – 248 – 258 and then couldn’t stand calling a 3# increase a PR so I added weight and hit 263# with actual solid form (shoulders are usually rounded forward on PR weight here, but this one was solid).

After a breather, I convinced Ed to do PCF’s workout with me, slightly scaled down. So we did 3 rounds of
75 double unders
400 m run

Luckily we’d had a bit of a cool front come through. So it was only 98 outside doing the runs. After round 2, I literally thought I was going to die. But (!) the last round of double unders, I hit my last 50 in a solid row. Which gave me enough drive to beat him on the last run (he’d had a 20 second lead). Total time: 14:04

After regaining the ability to walk, we showered and hit up the stockyards for the best steak on the planet. Cattleman’s Steakhouse has been there since the 40s, and it’s the old school institution for perfection in the form of beef in Oklahoma City. 12 oz of perfectly seared center-cut sirloin later, we did some cowboy boot shopping and then headed home for a nap. Evening involved a backyard barbeque/fish fry at a friend’s house, and then drinking with college friends who now live in OKC. All in all, a super solid day.

SLEEP: 7 hours, (5)

ZONE:
ha… about that…
9:30 – 2P / 2C / 2F
2 eggs, 1 piece locally made whole wheat/nut bread, 1 t butter

12:30 – post work out limeade

2:00 – 7P / 4C / 6F
sirloin at cattleman’s, skin of the baked potato with butter/sour cream, small dinner salad

5:30 – 3P / 2C / 4F
leftover steak (I couldn’t abandon it…), 1 apple, almonds

9:00 – 8P / 10C / 6F
3 shortribs, 3 fish fillets (they caught it themselves!), spinach/apple/feta/walnut salad, corn meal on fish, bbq sauce on ribs

10:30 – 4C
2 beers

TOTAL: 18P / 24C / 18F
damned impressive to see that one all tallied up.

prickle poppy

270609 – back squats / KTE / dips

Low Bar Squat
5-5-5-5-5
Rest 3 minutes between each set

Rest 5 Minutes

3 Sets Max Knees to Elbow
Rest 2 minutes between each set

3 Sets Max Dips (no rings, did with feet and hands on even height benches, dipped to the ground)
Rest 2 minutes between each set

BS: 145 (5), 165 (5), 165 (5), 175 (3), 155 (5)
KTE: 17, 23, 21
Dips: 12, 13, 11

Looking back at the video, depth was just ok and I was 1. racking the bar too low, which was making my set up awkward and 2. looking at the ground which was further throwing off my form.

video

this needed sanding and repainting... both accomplished!

280609 – patience

Physical rest day, extreme patience work out. Three hour drive into the city to pick up the wedding dress / reception drinks (no alcohol mind you) / garter / bachelorette party favors with the bride and MY mom (her mother is inexplicably at a retreat in Virginia this week). Lots of tears (none of them mine), a lot of tulle, and a little lunch later she went back west and I stayed in OKC (referred to as “the city” by everyone who lives outside it). Met up with some college friends in Norman (20 minutes away) and went to a live show with them at one of our regular bars. Great show, good dancing, and nice end to the day!

ZONE:
omelet for breakfast, packed 2 block snack at 11, salad with chicken and corn at 1, another 2 block snack at 4, fish fry with my sister at 7, 2 beers and another snack at 11. Close to zone, but the salad and fish fry were relatively high carb and then there were those beers.

SLEEP:
6 hours, up late the night before, and on the road early

long morning shadows

260609 – push press / DB thrusters-pullups

Push Press
3-3-3-3-3

Rest

AMRAP in 10 minutes:
9 Dumbbell Thrusters
5 Pullups

press – 65, 75, 85, 95(pr), 75
metcon – 30# db in left hand, 25# in right hand, 5 kipping CTB pullups each round
6 rounds

Press went really well, first PR in months. I still have the upper body strength of a 12 year old, but glad for a small increase. My left arm is awkwardly weaker than my right though. Like tired push ups involve a locked out right arm and still half bent and struggling left. This phenomenon was especially pronounced on the presses today, so I added extra weight to my left dumbell to try and train it up a little. I’ll probably continue doing this with DB exercises as the weakling left arm is a little irritating. Output did not feel intense on this metcon, I felt like I rested too much but was just drained by both the thrusters and pullups. Not gassed, but close to muscle failure. That might mean the weight was a bit much for me, although heart rate was def up / I was gasping for air.

Also, the barbells available in the bomb shelter are amazing. And by amazing I mean ghetto. They’re designed like little baby barbells, you add weight plates on either end of them and clamp them. And my clamps are actually metal cuffs with threaded bolts to tighten. I posted a photo of these to fully share in their sweet, sweet retro beauty.

ZONE:
I don’t remember… I’m catching up on 6 days of blogging. Let’s say I did great but had ice cream and/or a beer at night. That’s realistic.

SLEEP:
Ha, so apparently our sleep quality scale is 1-5… I’ve been measuring 1-10. Hey, I need a more sensitive scale to capture the exact quality of my sleep, ok? I’ll get it right from now on…
9.5 hours (4)

how sweet are these kids?

250609 – rest day drinking

Haha, so I was planning to work out today… but the WOD is rowing sprints and box jumps. Since I have neither rower nor box, I considered doing running sprints and concrete landing jumps. But after the sprint debacle on Tuesday, that was hard to get excited about. So I’m going to sit on the back porch and drink beer and call it another rest day. I’m terribly happy with this decision.

SLEEP:
7 hours, 8Q. Up early to work on a trailer before it got hot.

ZONE
6:30 – 2P / 2C / 2F
cheddar cheese, apple, cashews

12:00 – 4P / 4C / 4F
4 oz brisket, 1T bbq sauce, 1/4 cup fried okra, general grease

3:00 – liiiiiiiimeade!

6:00 – 4P / 2C / 3F
4 oz hamburger, 1 bell pepper, corn tortilla, sour cream

TOTAL (- beer): 10 P / 8C / 9F

more little rain showers, over town