So… I have a problem with taking pictures of myself.. mainly ones like these, particularly after a workout..

Trap Citaaaaay.

Right? Yeah.. I’ve taken lots of them. WELL. I knew I had a cover photo of a similar shot from last year that I decided to do a little comparing with. HOLY SHIT.. So you can’t really see that much of a difference.. except that my necklace hangs a little lower (smaller neck now!) AND.. the definition maybe in my shoulders has improved a bit.. BUT.. check out the crinkle of arm fat on the right side of the photo below. That big crease on the top photo (my left, your right.)

Difference between arm fat; before and after

On the top photo, it’s there and it’s very obvious.. on the BOTTOM photo, my arm flab is gone.. it’s not there! I even tried taking a few more pictures of myself holding my phone differently, thinking that maybe it was how I was holding the camera, the angle of my arms, but nope. I couldn’t duplicate that squishy front arm crease. Here I am, all mopey and whatever about my stall in motivation and progress, and then I see this. THIS IS AWESOME.

You can kinda see how the ‘fat’ on my chest has gone down too.. aka my cleavage. Which is fine, I don’t nee false cleavage anyway! Totally excited about this.  And seriously, look how happy I was in August 2012?? I had no idea what the next 14 months would bring, either. My unknowing self. No idea about the PRs I’d hit, the accomplishments I’d make, the competitions I’d participate in. The move to the new gym, the shifts in our business, our lives. Pretty cool. This makes me happy. 🙂 THIS is why measurements are important, and the scales really, not so much.

I love Crossfit.

Behind the Neck Split Jerk just sounds dangerous.. I’m glad it’s not something we practice often, cause it’s weird and doesn’t seem so practical.

I PRed it though! Got 165 lbs. Barely, but I got it!

Our WOD was:

100-Double Unders

20-Push press 115/75

80-Double Unders

15-push jerks 135/95

60-Double Unders

10- split jerks 155/115

40 DUs

My friend Chuck came in with me, too, which is pretty cool, cause he’s been wanting to see the new gym and all. The 7:30p class was perfect. Not too busy, nice and cool, etc.  

Finished in 16:24 or something. I would’ve finished sooner, but I dropped to the floor after my last set of jerks thinking I was done, but I had forgotten about my last set of jump ropes. sigh.. so I jumped back up after Chuck asked if I was okay and I was like, uh yeah why?? And he said, you didn’t do your last set of  jump ropes! EEEK. Whoops.

I opted for triple singles instead of DUs, even though Derek walked me through actual DU steps, and I DID them for the first time ever!!! Without doing the donkey kicking thing. Was so awesome! BUT.. not good enough to last through the WOD. Oh well.

Holy hell. I didn’t expect a chipper on Saturday! I knew it would be something hard, as most Saturdays are pretty challenging, but I’m still sore from it!

400m run warm up. Followed by lots of little blue ankle band hip stretches, back and forth across the gym. Awful. But fun. We all laughed and cried and moaned our way through them.

Chipper WOD:

400m run
100 squats
80 push ups
60 T2B
40 HSPU
20 Burpee Broad Jumps
100 DU

I did my 400m and 100 squats, and then 40 push ups in and said fuck this, I’m cutting these in half. I got 7 legit T2B in, but I could already see the skin getting ready to rip on my palms. Derek said to switch to T2R (rings) instead to save my hands. WHEW.

I decided that moment forward that I felt no shame in modifying a hard chipper like that, AND I did 50 DUs!!  Usually when I’m exhausted and spent like that, I resort to singles, but I really wanted to push for the DUs instead, and I got them. 🙂

Proof that I worked hard, even though I halved most of the workout, is that I’m still ridiculously sore, especially my quads. I felt so good after we had finished. Instead of feeling like I wanted to die, I felt good, refreshed, like I got a good workout in.Kind of a turning point. I’m hoping I can keep improving things like my grip and my endurance for my hands. Not sure how to make my hands tougher without hurting them first though. 🙁

After all that, I told Dave I’d go play with him and we finished up the day with a quick 9 holes. I made a few grip changes and actually hit the ball remarkably well. I was so excited!!!

I’m not sure how, but I convinced my yogi friend Anna to finally come with me to Bring a Friend Day yesterday, which was awesome and yet.. I’m not so sure she’s thinking the same thing today, but, we DID have fun.

The WOD…

10 Minute EMOM:
10 Wall Balls (20/16#)(10/9′) – ME Ring Rows in Remaining Time each Minute

1 Minute Rest – Then –

10 Minute EMOM:
10 Burpees – ME Slam Balls (30/20#) in Remaining Time Each Minute

**Score is total number of Ring Rows and Slam Balls

**To RX you must finish all 100 Wall Balls and 100 Burpees

I definitely did all 100 wall balls, but I did NOT do all 100 burpees. There were a couple of burpee rounds that I sat out, just to catch my breath, but this allowed me to go harder on the next round.

I ended up scoring 114, which I was pretty pleased with! Anna gave me the finger a few times, and did NOT look so pleased. But she finished!

She had this incredible idea to go to Yoga Slow Flow whatever, 75 minutes’ worth, immediately following Crossfit. I agreed, and we went.

The first half was spent giggling and acting stupid, and I’m sure the rest of the people around us did NOT appreciate this.. definitely acting stupid. I just can’t take it seriously all the time. Unless it’s Power Yoga, then I have no choice, or I’ll fall over.

The other half was spent focusing and being thankful we were on the floor. Anna realized that maybe Yoga after Crossfit wasn’t the best idea, but I’m sure it helped with her soreness today! 

I felt really good today, minus some shoulder and lat soreness from my killer pull ups on Monday night (followed by wall balls and ring rows and ball slams and burpees last night, wtf) I’m sure that had something to do with it!

My quads feel awesome. They’re sore, but they’re like sore with a purpose. I don’t know, it’s just kind of awesome how they feel. Sorry for the redundancy right there. Like, when I walk now, I feel like I have to walk with my legs a little further apart because my muscles have gotten so big, it’s pretty cool. I feel like Katie Hogan or Lindsey Valenzuela must feel with their amazing legs. I just need to get used to showing them off outside of my Lululemon crops and pants, heh.

I love this girl! One of my crossfit idols. Lindsey Valenzeula

Lindsey’s a badass.

Nothing to really report on this one, although I did walk in and do a crapload of double unders, with no warm up. Like a set of 20 and then a set of 30. People were just watching in awe as I did them, which I was both like “eeeek!” with excitement and “hey.. why are you surprised that I can do this?” haha..

Anyway, the WOD.

100 – Double Under Buy In

Then 3 Rounds
30-KB Snatches (55/35) (15L/15R)
30-Pistols (Alternating Legs) (I did goblet squats with the KB, pistols suck for me)
400m Run

100 – Double Under Buy out

I did singles for the majority of the WOD but when I felt spunky I threw in a few DUs.

Finished in 31:18. Bleh.

I signed up for this competition back in July of 2013, and I signed up for it as soon as I found out about it! Russell, my coach, tagged me in this photo on Facebook:

I’m in the top right corner. I was thrilled to make the ad that Caution Crossfit sent out!

and this is what sparked it. Turns out, Caution Crossfit in Hialeah Gardens (where Russell and I had done my CF Strongman Cert) had created the graphic and posted it to advertise for the upcoming event. Jacksonville, where our event tonight, was actually the first stop of the tour in the US!

When we had done the Strongman Cert last November, I was instantly impressed by how Rob O. had conducted himself, and taught the class. He spoke to us in plain English, and in a way we could all understand. The demonstrations were great, and best of all, they were hands-on. Which for me, is how I learn most effectively.

Basically, I was really looking forward to the competition. I wasn’t sure where Crossfit Ragnarok was, which is where the competition was being held, what time we should be there, etc so earlier that afternoon I took a drive over there, as it was right around the corner from the office, just to double check.  When I walked in, I saw the Ingham Twins who are seemingly famous all alone within the CrossFit community, and looked to the right, and there was Rob Orlando. Oh HI!

Rob Orlando and me at Crossfit Ragnarok

We talked for a few minutes, I re-introduced myself to him, as well as to Jason, and then I handed Jason my phone and said, “do you mind taking a picture? I might as well get this part out of the way.”

Because I had gone by Ragnarok early on, I was much more comfortable knowing where I was going, what time I needed to be there, and what the WODs were. So per the instructions, I showed up at 4:30, got settled, did some stretching, met some cool people, and got ready for the competition.

The first WOD was

 6-4-2 stone thrusters
18-12-6 pull ups
5 min time cap

I used the scaled weight of 35lbs for the stones, and then a green band for my pull ups. I did them all unbroken, which I was excited about! I don’t think I’ve ever done that many pull ups (even banded) unbroken. When I finished, I got the high five from Rob and a “Good job! Way to be strong!” and a pat on the back. I was beaming because I had finished, and it was a quick workout, it did the trick, and yeah! I was allowed to do banded pullups! Why not allow athletes to do banded pull ups?? Seriously, when I found out I could do banded pull ups, it became ‘doable’ in my mind, and I was able to keep up with everyone else, and not worry about being stared at or judged.

A little sequence of my banded pull ups. Check out my braid!

Second WOD was:

Grace with a Log, 6 min time cap
(30 clean and jerks for time, so log from the ground, to the shoulders, to overhead)
Girls RX weight was 95lbs and scaled was 65. I went with scaled weight because the logs are so bulky and awkward. So glad I did!

Grace with a Log

The final WOD was:

Stone over Bar/Burpee Ladder; 4 min time cap
1 stone over bar/1 burpee
2 stones over bar/2 burpees
etc

This one was the kicker. Scaled weight was 95lbs, which I was planning on doing the entire time. As I went to get my 95 pounder, Rob himself came over and said, “ehhh the other two girls are going with the 115, why don’t you just do the RX weight?”

Holy shit, who am I to say no to this guy? Am I going to let him down? He knows I’m strong now, he knows I’m capable, and I definitely can’t tell him no NOW.. the WOD’s starting in 20 seconds, I had no time to change my mind.. Okay! Fine.. I’ll do the RX weight.. holy shit…

I had only done 115 once I think. 135 I had tried and failed, but that was last year. So here I was, about to do an Atlas Stone WOD with a weight I had never really worked with before. Awesome. I joked with the camera guy who was standing with the camera in my face, that he could film someone else instead, and please.. and he said something along the lines of, “don’t worry, girl.. I’ve got a lot of footage of you!” oh great. haaa.. no pressure.

The first one I did no problem. And then 1 burpee. Easy peasy. Then I felt the rash start after the next few.. All I could do was brush off my arms and kept going. I couldn’t believe I was doing this with the 115lb stone!

At one point, towards the beginning of the WOD, as I was getting ready to scoop up the stone, I realized Rob Orlando was standing right next to me, cheering ME on, encouraging me to keep going.
He commented that my form was “perfect, PERFECT! Just keep doing it EXACTLY like that!!” I could hear him yelling this at me and it was surreal. I can’t let him down. I can’t believe that this guy, who is so widely known in the Crossfit world, is standing next to ME, telling me my form was perfect and pushing me to keep going. And then I thought, “Well shit, dude.. it’s cause I took your cert last year and you taught me how to do this!” Basically, I was doing everything I could to not to focus on how fucked up my arms were going to be afterwards. 

And then everything went in slow motion. Each hurl of the stone over the bar, and everyone cheered me on. I could hear myself yelling as I heaved the stone over the bar each time. And more cheers, more encouragement. And this man was standing next to me focusing on me. He noticed I was looking at the clock every now and then, so he started calling out how much time I had left, helping me stay focused on what I was doing, and not the clock. Wow. I feel like I keep saying this shit over and over.

The last set.. my time was running out! I finished my 5 stones, and then dropped to the floor. Had 9 or so seconds and banged out 4 burpees as fast as I could. I landed on the ground for my 5th burpee as time was called. DAMN. But I was done. And when I got up off the floor, he was still standing there, BEAMING at me. He reached his hand out to give me a high five and then pulled me in for a hug. (OMG I’M SO GROSS, NO!!)

A happy hug! So glad I used the RX weight Atlas Stone!

Finishing that WOD was such an accomplished feeling. I don’t even know how the other girls did, and I don’t really care. I’m sure they beat me, but whatever. Those girls are Regionals material, something I don’t really aspire to be (and not to sound negative, but I just don’t ever see myself ever being THAT good…)

He was right there next to me the entire time.

I was driving earlier today, and thinking about my experience. Everyone was texting me and congratulating me and whatever, which always throws me off; I’m terrible with compliments and stuff like that. But I was thinking, holy shit.. Rob O took his time to stand there with me and keep me going. How fucking cool is that? I think about how busy I’ve been lately at the office, and how I struggle just to make time to get my workouts in, and even so, I haven’t really felt like going because I’ve been so tired. And here he is, married, two kids, maintaining a Strongman site with daily WODs, owns a CF business, teaching certs all over the world, organizing and hosting strongman competitions, has a film crew following him around. Mr. Awesomely Strong and Famous Crossfitter who’s been around in the Games since the beginning, and he made time for me last night.

 I don’t know how else to describe it, I still feel like I’m not using the right words. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. The support and love and encouragement from this incredible CrossFit Community, no matter who you are, is just so fucking cool.  I am SO GRATEFUL to be a part of this. I am so thankful that I made the decision to try Crossfit way back when (Jan 24th, 2012, right after my 31st birthday) and even more importantly, that I stuck with it.  I have never been so healthy, happy, and it sounds weird, but mentally stable and sound. I’ve never had such a healthy outlet to relieve stress. I’ve never had something so hard to work and focus on. I have never had such an awesome group of people to surround myself with, never experienced a community where I felt so welcomed. It’s so awesome. It’s just SO AWESOME! 

The “After” Picture. 🙂

Another big thanks to Dom at Caution Crossfit, to my friend Shannon at www.flyczekwraps.com, who stuck around the entire competition to cheer me on, and to take pictures! To Jared, Gina and Dave for coming out and supporting us. To Jacob, who’s like a little brother to me. and to Rob Orlando, for helping to make Crossfit more fun and doable for us ‘quad-dominant’ people. 🙂

For anyone who’s considering doing this, I totally recommend it!! It’s nothing but fun and sweat and friends. At least go and support the community and have a good time. You can find out the tour dates here: http://hybridathletics.net/crossfit-strongman-florida-competition-tour/ 🙂 (and nobody paid me to write this!)

I need sleeves.

Sounds so easy.. this Amanda WOD. Apparently I did it on 1/15/13 but I don’t remember.. Back then, I finished in 14:23, but this time around, I finished in 13:23. A one minute PR? I’ll take it!! I didn’t even realize I had PRed it until just now. AWESOME.

Anyway, Amanda is
9-7-5

Squat Snatch (135/95)

Muscle Ups

I did power snatches both times, and I did the 3 ring rows/3 ring dips per rep as a substitution of muscle ups. Sweet!

It was much harder than it sounds! My mom even did it with me last time, awwww!!

and Wednesdays, and Fridays… and whenever else I can justify going. 🙂

I was determined to prove to myself that my unusual soreness was not from Power Yoga last Thursday, but instead just a fluke.

What soreness? How does yoga possibly make you sore?! My sides, obliques, my CORE.. were all sore. I had no idea the day of, but the next day, and the next day.. sore. And again today. I went again yesterday afternoon, to what was an even more challenging class than the Thursday one, and it was AMAZING. It was really hard and I left drenched.. soaking wet and totally red in the face.

Now.. while I’m in there, I can’t tell you that I’m truly enjoying what I’m doing. In fact, I wish there was a clock so I could see how much longer I had to endure the difficult shit we do in there, but, there isn’t, and it would be totally obvious if I had one with me, cause I’d be checking it constantly. BUT.. when we are done, it is the finest moment. Kind of like finishing Murph, or Kelsu, or Holleyman, or any of the crazy Hero WODs. My heart is pounding, I’m soaked in my own sweat, and I’m laying on a floor in a hot room. Except I was doing freaking YOGA.

I am signing up for my $30 for 30 on Wednesday, which is the next day that I have scheduled to go back. Yes, I’ve scheduled it. I told Dave tonight that I was going to put my workouts into a calendar, because I’d be more apt to go if I had them scheduled. So… the rest of my week is scheduled with my workouts, tomorrow Crossfit, and then each day alternates. So tomorrow is CF, Wed is PY, Thurs is CF, Fri is PY, etc.. (PY=Power Yoga.. tired of typing it out, and it sounds snotty when I say Power Yoga, I think…)

Maybe I should just be ULTRA snotty and call it Vinyasa, which apparently is its technical name, or even worse, Power Vinyasa. There we go. I have Power Vinyasa scheduled Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Bitches.

I’m really hoping this whole core soreness persists, because damn it, this is what I’ve been missing out on with CF. My legs are strong, my back is strong, my arms, neck, calves.. but my core always feels neglected. I’m always able to compensate with my back muscles instead, well.. not with Power Vinyasa! Hah.. PY, sorry.

Anyway, I’m excited. I’m excited to get a schedule going again. I’m happy to start seeing results again. 🙂 Crazy that I’ve done so much CF that I stopped seeing results, and since I’ve scaled back on the quantity of days that I go, improvement and progress are slower to see. I’m thinking this will be an amazing mix.

I wanted to work out, but I didn’t want to overdo it at Crossfit. Last minute, I was like, shit.. I should go to Power Yoga! It was an AWESOME idea. It felt SO GOOD.

Not only that, but.. my obliques were sore for 3 days afterward. WHAT? My SIDES? The things I keep saying have been the only thing to not really change much from CF.. My mid section was actually sore and the muscles were worked. The only way I feel my stomach muscles from CF is if I go in and do a bunch of GHD sit ups (50+) and well, I was completely impressed.

It was a great class, and I left drenched. I’m still always shocked that I can go into a Power Yoga class and for the most part, hold all of the poses. The stuff that requires strength and balance, I can actually do! This is totally because of Crossfit, because before, I never would’ve been able to do that.

Not only that… but I was having a SHIT day on Thursday.. one of those days where you question everything and then wonder WTF is wrong with you.. that was me. Negative Nancy. Terrible mood, cranky, on the verge of tears all day long.. THAT’S why I didn’t go to CF! I remember now.. we had rope climbs that day, and whenever I’m in a bad mood and throw in rope climbs, I cry. It’s almost guaranteed. Yesss.. I remember now.

So I went to yoga. Just, went in and did it. By the end of my hour there, I had forgotten I was having a shitty day, and I left drenched and feeling completely awesome. WOW.. Later on, I realized I was no longer having a bad day and it was just one of the most remarkable feelings. And an epiphany. “I need to do that more often.”.

I’ve said it before, that I’d like to incorporate more yoga into my CF routine. Like 3-4 days a week of CF and 2-3 days a week of Power Yoga. I need to make this happen, I need to find the time. It was heaven, and it will definitely improve me in ways I can’t do with crossfit alone.

In fact.. I just registered for my class today at 4p. So now I HAVE to go. Thank you blog, for keeping me accountable. 🙂

It was raining. We were supposed to do a 10 min EMOM with 100m sprints. If you didn’t complete each 100m in less than a min, you had burpee penalties.

Because of the rain, they changed it up to rowing 200m every minute. WTF.

I also went in early to work on my pull ups with Tom. My hands started hurting right away, of course. This part sucked big time. When my hands hurt, I don’t want to do anything. Especially since I kind of use my hands for everything all week long, and not just CF.

SO… I did my pull up work with Tom, and then finally agreed to do the rowing EMOM. Awful. AWFUL. Pretty rough, but it’s amazing what people will do to NOT do burpees. Hahaha

I finished every 200m row within 35-45 seconds, which gave me the remainder of the min to rest. 10min EMOM. I thought it would never end.

I don’t know how but I somehow unstrapped my feet at the end and fell off the rower. My hands hurt so badly, and then we had to do 3 position cleans. 🙁 I only got up to 115, because just holding on to the bar hurt. So frustrating, oh well. I was glad I went. And then my shoulders were sore for DAYS afterwards…