Cheater cheater pumpkin eater

Honestly if we didn't do one cheat meal a week I might go a little crazy. After sunday morning's wod, we did some family errands and then headed to the most glorious place ever...IN-N-OUT. It was delicious and I'm not ashamed of the way I shoved that burger in my face LOL! Paleo is all fine and dandy but this is the real world people, I'm no hunter gatherer, and I busted my ass this week so I'm not gonna feel bad for a less than healthy lunch.
So last week in one of our wod's (DT) we had to do hang cleans and jerks, the RX weight for women was 105lbs, I scaled it way down and did 45lbs. Yesterday's wod included 400m runs and clean & jerks, I decided to not be a wimpy baby and push myself past what I lifted the week before. So 10 reps, 3 rounds I did 55lbs yay! It's not a whole lot, but what I'm happy about is that I pushed myself. Even when we were warming up with our weight I was nervous about making it through 3 rounds. But I'm not going to get stronger if I just stay where I'm comfortable. Think I finished the workout in a little over 12 minutes, not too shabby.

Doubting myself is something I definitely need to work on, I psych myself out all the time but when I actually relax and focus I can usually knock something out. Like this morning wall balls were in the warm up (ugh). So in my "I'm not gonna be a wimp" fashion I grabbed the 10lb ball instead of the 6 and just did it. And you know what, I didn't take any balls to the face and I hit that stupid blue line every time. The more we jump rope and do box jumps the more comfortable I feel with those also.
But I discovered my new "goat", handstands. Holy moly who knew that it was so scary to be upside down. It requires some upper body strength for sure, and balance!  My walls are about to take a beating because I am determined to be able to hold myself up!



This is what happens when you can't do a hand stand push up. You put your legs up on a box instead and when you're trying to complete as many rounds as possible, you don't care about the bruises.



Saturday was a rest day from crossfit, so I headed to Pena Adobe to run to the tower. My 1/2 marathon in June is a trail run so while running on flat surface during the week may help a little, my weekends HAVE to include a run with hills or else I'm gonna die. I haven't been to that stupid tower in a year and I totally forgot how steep of a run that is, and when I say run I mean shuffle.

Aside from going 10 lbs heavier in my workout, this weekend also had another great accomplishment. I finally baked something paleo that turned out AMAZING, and I finally used that almond butter. I made banana almond muffins and could have probably eaten them all in one sitting last night, they're that good. I have attempted other paleo baked goods and failed so it was nice to finally not throw everything away after it came out of the oven.

Overall everything is going well. Paleo isn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and i'm still oh so in love with CFS. It's not just crossfit in general that I love but also the box that I workout at. In a traditional gym if you're doing an exercise totally wrong and a trainer walks by, they won't say a word to you. There's no one to encourage you, correct you, cheer you on. At CFS there is an entire community of people there to struggle along side you, lift you up, and push you to go harder and do better.

Get Outta Your Mind

"Get outta your mind, get outta your mind" Haha that damn Lil Jon song is forever in my head, It always comes on during workouts. Yesterday was a "rest" day, so I went and ran for an hour. I really did just want to sleep, but I also really don't want to come in dead last at the half marathon I'm running. I even ran today after our 5am WOD. I'm really beginning to wonder if there will ever come a day that I'm NOT going to be sore. The bruises are awesome, I love battle wounds, but the tight achy muscles make me feel old. 

This is me, running with 35lb bar (gave me a nice bruise). First "real" WOD.

My first few "real" WOD's have been humbling. Here I am thinking, I won't really have to scale down much, I'm strong. HA! Today I had to lift the lightest out of everyone in class for the sake of being able to not only make it through the workout but to be able to just get the hang of things. Hopefully Steve doesn't kill me for talking about him for a second. He wanted to RX the weight so he went for it, he killed it for a few rounds but eventually had to take weight off to make it through the full workout. There's no shame it what he did, he went for it. He however is the brave one of the two of us, and timid me just wasn't prepared to kill myself they way he was lol. Even with my measly  45lbs I still was FEELING it. Who am I kidding, once again the warm up had me sweating.

Another thing I've learned is that I SUCK at jumping rope. Wall balls are not my friend, and I'm really not too fond of box jumps either, but jumping rope makes me cringe. So now I need to go out and buy a jump rope and practice so I don't look like such an idiot.

It sort of sounds like I'm complaining and you are probably wondering what the heck is wrong with me. Before I joined crossfit I went through various stages of how I felt about it. 1.) That seems badass, I wanna try. 2.) Snoody crossfitters 3.) I wanna check it out. 4.) Too damn expensive. 5.) Ok, we're gonna do this! 6.) I drank the kool-aid and I feakin LOVE it. 

I love everything about it, I love that it's hard, it's new, workouts make me nervous, jump rope makes me angry, burpees kill me, but the people are awesome, the trainers are awesome, and knowing that the longer I do it the BETTER I'll become is awesome. I honestly don't think you can grasp, understand, really know what crossfit is about until you try it. And I don't see how anyone could try it, and not love it.

Paleo is going surprisingly well. I'm trying to get as creative as possible so I'm not getting bored with what I eat and so far it's all been good. I may just keep rolling with it for longer than the 30 days. Especially now that I've found so many awesome recipe sites. I bought almond butter the other day but have yet to try it because I have no idea what to do with it lol. Maybe I'll just eat a spoonful out of the jar, why not?

For those of you who may be new to my blog or reading for the first time (who am I kidding, no one reads this) check out my first few posts from last year. I've come a long way, proof that it's possible to change your life without the help of a magic pill or crazy fad diet.

Fight Gone Bad

Today's WOD (workout of the day) was named "Fight Gone Bad." It literally went bad for me during my second round of wall balls when my tired arms decided to let my face catch the medicine ball...FAIL. No worries, I kept going, but it was painful and there was swearing. The WOD was a total of 15 min of work broken down like this:
3 rounds, 1 minute at each station.
1. Wall balls 20lbs for guys 14lbs for girls (my weak ass did 6lbs)
2. Sumo deadlift high pull 75lbs for guys, 55lbs for girls (I did 55 for this one. woot woot!)
3. Box Jumps 20 inch box
4. Push Press 75lbs for  guys, 55lbs for girls (I did 35lbs)
5. Row for calories
6. Rest
Repeat

What's hardest for me is seeing the other females in class able to do the rx weight and I have to scale it down. I know I'm new to all of this and I have to build up to heavier weights but it's still frusterating for me. I'm hoping to not be as dead sore anymore now that I'm getting into the swing of things because I really need to start running to be ready for my half marathon. I'm really excited about it, and about crossfit. And all the people that tell me I can't do this or that or that it sounds too hard just motivate me even more to push myself.

"You carry a can of almonds in your purse?"

Haha yes I do! I've said it a million times, you have to be prepared throughout the day to avoid making bad food choices.
So today was our last onramp class at Crossfit Solano, we are official! Tomorrow we get to participate in a regular WOD. I'm excited and a little nervous because I'm still feeling a little intimidated by the workouts and other crossfitters. This morning we did deadlifts and burpees for our workout and as usual I was smoked when we were done. Learned front squats and attempted double unders today, but I'm clearly not coordinated enough to jump rope haha! For those of you who are still wondering what the heck I'm talking about check out the Crossfit Solano website.
The past few mornings of 4:15 wake up calls have defininatly hit me today, plus I'm feeling a little sluggish with not eating any grains, but knowing that tomorrows workout isn't until 9am makes me so very happy. I'm tired and I'm sore, but I want more.

Here we go!

I've been wanting to do crossfit for a while now, but the cost has kept me at 24hr fitness. But I've really been struggling with my workouts lately, finding new plans to follow and I'm feeling like I've platued and need an extra push. After my workout yesterday I decided that Steve and I should do a 30 paleo challenge again, sort of a way to get ready for summer and hopefully lean out. Well as I was trying to come up with a way to get us both out of our slumps so was he. He texted me and asked if I wanted to do crossfit this week. Lucky for us we know some great people who are very involved at Crossfit Solano and they are helping us out mornings this week since I can't make it to the beginners onramp class that beings next week.

Today was our first day and it was pretty awesome. We've got tomorrow and friday to continue to learn lifts and technique and then we'll be "official." Not only is it exciting to be doing something new, but it's pretty great to have Steve by my side and be doing this together. We even took before pictures this morning (which I will NOT be posting any time soon, ugh). But I know these pictures will keep us motivated and will help us to see the changes that will occur. We're striving to be mostly paleo these next 30 days also, so we're in for quite a ride but I'm pretty siked.
I'll keep you posted, hopefully these first few workouts won't kill me ;-)