I am officially official at Crossfit Total Control! I love it. I’m excited about it, and equally nervous too! I also hate (and love) that they post the WODs up on the site ahead of time.. I’d rather not know, but now that I just copied and pasted their URL into the link above, of course I glanced over the workout today..

Anyway, Monday was crazy! I did NOT look at the WOD ahead of time, thankfully, but my forearms still hurt from it!! We did the following:

Snatch work: I got up to 85lbs although I could probably do more, my form sucked and I was really unstable from it. So I stuck with 85lbs max. I was also using the mens bar at first, which is heavier (not the issue) but it IS thicker than the womens bar, and the grippy stuff hurt my hands. Also, Russell wanted us to use the hook grip, which is awkward for me, as well. I need to work on those! So yeah, 85 lbs for that right now.

Our WOD was:
4RFT
5 squat snatches (I started with 65 lbs and went to 55 lbs on the 3rd round)
10 box jumps
5 over head squats (same as above)

I finished in 14 min 29 seconds. Woot.

One great thing from Monday’s workout though.. another girl (Alyson) who was sharing the box for box jumps with me.. we were sort of in sync with our box jumps, so we had to take turns jumping up. I’d go, and then she’d go and so on.  If I had my own box, I would’ve taken more time in between jumps, but because I knew her time depended on me and my jumps, I pushed myself to go faster. It was a great motivator having her there.  She said later on that I had helped to motivate her, so.. awesome! Hopefully she’s there again today. I like having a buddy who I can work along with.

All in all, that was a HARD workout! Not as hard as the burpees and thrusters though.. 😀  Excited about today!

Okay, it’s not official yet because I didn’t sign the papers, but I DID verbally commit to joining Crossfit Total Control, in Jax Beach! I AM SO EXCITED! I really loved this place, and after two days in a row I just felt it. It’s going to be awesome. 🙂

Monday I’ll get all my stuff set up and probably for now, I’ll go ahead and do 4 days a week. I’ve felt so good the last few days, between spinning and crossfit, all meshed and jumbled in together, I feel like I’m really truly pushing myself now. It’s AWESOME. I even got in an extra CF workout when I wasn’t planning it! (yesterday..) It’s like things are falling into place, just as I had hoped they would. After I committed to leaving Inertia last week, my head was spinning, because I didn’t have a schedule, a routine, a plan, a PLACE, a group. I felt myself just growing anxious over not knowing what I was gonna do, and I felt like such an asshole for leaving my whole CF family behind. 🙁 With the new place and the new opportunities, I’m hoping to re-establish this, and to make new friends, and hopefully get to see some of my old ones too!

Anyway… today’s workout was great. I realllllyy liked this one! It was

4RFT
4 Turkish Get Ups (I started at 35lbs and dropped to 20lbs on the 3rd set)
12 sit ups
15 ball slams (20lb)
200m row

I finished first!!!!!!! At 16:49. Felt so good after the awfulness that was Kelso yesterday! Whew.

Lots of awesome things today!!! We celebrated 4 years of our business’ existence.. pretty cool! I also opted to completely overdo myself and go to both Crossfit AND spinning with Diana today.. I tried out another new place, Crossfit Total Control this morning at 10 am and LOVED it.. I’m gonna go back tomorrow and try it again. This place is right near the house, has a great group of people, is nice and structured and not so chaotic.

***** I went to sleep after this point. *****

The workout from yesterday was CRAZY. Not awful, but CRAZY. Russell, my new coach, was totally right when he said it was more mental than anything. You just had to get through it.

It was the following:
Each minute, you do 5 burpees, and after you’re done with those 5 burpees, then you do as many thrusters as you can for the remainder of the minute. Then when the new minute starts, you start all over again.  The goal is 100 thrusters total.

It took me 31 minutes, a 10 lb drop in weight on the bar (from 65 to 55lbs) and scaling back from 5 burpees to 2 burpees to finish, but I finished. 🙂 Called Kalsu, a hero WOD.

Anyway, all in all, it was a great day. Finished it off with a moderately awesome spin class, and then a celebration dinner for our business’ official 4 year anniversary and my day was officially perfect.

I hopped into Crossfit Duval today for a workout, and to check out their facilities. Definitely different from what I’m used to, but I’ll be going back for more on Friday. 🙂

Today, we didn’t have a warm up or anything, we just kind of jumped right into the workout.  We started with an 800m run, with 20 jumping squats at the halfway mark. 

Steve was our trainer today, and he had us working on hang power cleans for our metcon. I ended up PRing at 136 lbs (although I accidentally miscounted and thought it was 137, sorry!!) Apparently others weren’t expecting me to put up that kind of weight, (I got teased by a couple of the other girls for it, even!) but I went into it like I would’ve over at Inertia.. just worked as best I could with what I had, and tried my hardest. 136lbs was HARD, good lord, but I did it. Took me a couple tries, but I really just needed more of a rest period from the previous set. Pretty proud of myself! The last time I did a power clean, I think I did 110lbs, but that was just cause Erin was like, go ahead and clean that.. just to see if I could do it.

The WOD was interesting today.. it was all jump rope.. double unders if you can do them.

It was in increments of 5. You start at 5 jumps, and work your way up to 50, and then back down to 5. If you messed up, you had to start over. So, 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on.. I just did singles, because we’d still be there right now if I was attempting DUs. haha

No cool down or stretching period after, so I did my own.

Tomorrow will be an entirely different experience at another place, so I’m excited and nervous about that. Hopefully it goes well, wish me luck! Either way, one of these boxes will be my new home. 🙂 I just want to give both a fair shot before making my decision.

Yesterday’s spin class was AWESOME, as expected. And just what I needed. I was so excited to go back, and it seemed like everything just fell right into place! I’m hoping my new workout schedule works for me.. I’ve been trying to come up with a plan since last week, and I KNEW it would incorporate spinning somehow.

Right now, for this week, it is as follows:
Crossfit on Monday PM
Spinning on Tuesday PM
Crossfit on Wed PM
Crossfit Thursday AM and Spinning Thurs PM
Crossfit on Friday PM
Break on Saturday (Massage in the morning!!!!!!!!!)
Spinning on Sunday

so that gives me 4 days of crossfit, 3 days of spinning, and still one day for a break. Spinning days are recovery days for me, because it’s such a different type of workout. I can go to spin no matter what hurts from CF, pretty much. The only way I’d need to stop was if I actually injured something.. 

I’m more motivated now than ever before to make this work for me, though. My left arch has been really bothering me for months now, but I don’t care if my arch or heel hurts, it’s going to hurt no matter what I do, and I’m not quitting crossfit or spin for it again. I’ve tried staying off of it and resting, but the pain doesn’t go away. So F it.. my shit’s gonna hurt and that’s that. 🙂 With that attitude yesterday, getting through spinning was a breeze, and I gave it all I had.

Another cool thing.. I was relaxing last night (watching Tosh, if you must know), and I noticed that the bones and veins in my hands are starting to show so much more now. So are the muscles in my wrists and forearms. It’s crazy! On my left hand, my ring is getting too big for my finger now, and pretty soon I’ll need to take it in to have it sized down. I tried to get a good shot last night, but this is all I could come up with.

Yes, you read the title correctly. We have now opened up our very own crossfit facility.. in my driveway. There is one member currently signed up (so excited! Her name is Alicia) and with our one trainer (Erin M) we should have no problem with the student/teacher ratio around here..

We have very ambitious goals around here, in that I am the only student for now. Pretty awesome!  Well, it’s working out quite nicely, anyway. Erin’s going to come here and train me for the time being, until we decide what else to do.  For now, the plan is to do Crossfit 3 days a week with her coming here to coach me, and I’m GOING to resume my spin classes 2-3 times a week like I’ve been wanting to do for months now.  This will at least carry through the month of June, and then we’ll see how it goes.

I’m considering trying out a couple other crossfit places, there are two that are in really great and convenient locations for me, so naturally those will be the two places I try. I know I will miss the sense of community, and short of opening up our own facility (and NO, we’re not doing this, contrary to the rumors already going around!) the only way to build something like this is to either have Erin train a bunch of us (and by us I mean myself and some of our interested employees at Dali Decals) or to find another CF community to join. That’s where I’m at right now. But like I said, for now, Crossfit Marsh Landing, location: My driveway, will do!

Why did I leave Inertia? My trainer and friend, Erin, decided it was in her best interest to pursue other opportunities and sell her ownership shares in the business. I support her decisions, and I felt that I was better off continuing to work out with her, whether it be one on one, at our office, or at another CF facility. I chose not to stay at Inertia though.  That’s about all I’ll say about that, since the separation doesn’t involve me, I just chose to do what I felt was best for me and my own goals. I will really miss everyone there, though. 🙁  That is the worst part in leaving, by far!

So… what did we do today?

Lots of good warm ups. Rotating lunges, high knees, butt kicks, high kicks, good mornings with a 25lb weight, rowers, overhead presses, and overhead squats (all with the 25lb plate) and then some strict push ups.

My workout was:
3RFT
10 one armed clean and jerk KBs (35lbs, 5 on each side)
15 goblet squats with the KB
20 of these therapy ball rolling plank things (hurt my back more than anything)
run to the stop sign and back (maybe 125-150m?)

I finished in 17 minutes. And then I jumped in the pool!! By far, the best part of working out at home is the quick and easy access to the pool. And the shaded driveway was nice too.

(Not the most flattering picture, but.. whatever.. and yes I know, I have huge calves.)

Without going into too much detail here, out of respect for all involved, I have chosen to stop working out at my current box. Basically due to a chain of events that occurred (that had nothing to do with me…)  It is in my best interest to do this, although it’s going to suck big time to leave behind a community of people I have come to love and think of as a second family!  Hopefully we’ll still be able to remain friends, and as time goes on, I’ll feel more comfortable posting the details here.

I’m a little nervous about the future of my workouts, although I plan to still work out with my favorite trainer and friend, Erin M. I just don’t know when or where as of yet. We’ll be meeting tomorrow to come up with a game plan, so hopefully I’ll feel more settled after that. I’ve toyed with the idea of checking out other local Crossfit gyms, but I want to see where things go with Erin first. I want to make sure this is something I can do with her outside of a regular crossfit box. 

Aside from that, I decided today would be a great day to go back to the Y for spinning!! Bad idea.. Diana wasn’t teaching today (1st, 3rd, and 5th Sundays, and Tues/Thurs only).  Well, I went in with an open mind, but the girl who was there today looked like she had never taught a spin class ever in her life. (She looked nervous and terrified and intimidated by everyone who was there..) She was fumbling with equipment, the microphone, her ipod.. she had the music turned way down low, and had U2 playing for the warm up.  She didn’t even do a regular warm up, and then she moved right into her ‘routine’.  She played 3 AC/DC songs in a row, and on the 2nd one, I said to myself, “if the 3rd song is AC/DC, I’m leaving, because this shit’s terrible.” Sure enough, AC/DC again.. so I unclipped and left. I felt so badly for her, I really did! But, I just wanted to be like, here.. please plug my phone in and play my music.. and move over and let me teach this damn class. But, yeah I didn’t do that. Maybe I should have.

We’ll try again with spinning on Tuesday.. and I’ll be there extra early to make sure I get a bike for Diana’s class! 🙂

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to my one on one with Erin. Will be interesting to see how we work out at the house. 🙂

Since there aren’t any more Saturday workouts, I decided to do my own. I really want to push myself to do Crossfit 4-5 days a week, and 3 of those days this week as at the gym.. I got my 4th in today, so that leaves tomorrow to come up with something exciting to meet my 5th day. 🙂

I came in to the office because I didn’t want my neighborhood wondering wtf I was doing in the driveway and up and down the street.. and with nobody here, I had the business park to myself! (Except for the creepy guy wandering in the vacant lot across the street, but whatevs..) When I got here, I drove around, measuring what 200 meters and 300 meters would be, so that I could incorporate running into my workout.

I cranked up my Armin van Buuren on my comp, and blasted it through the front office for my warm ups.
High Knees
Butt Kicks
High Kicks
Figure Fours
Bear Crawls
Frog Hops
Rotating Lunges

Then I did 10 squats, 10 push ups, 10 squats, and 10 push ups.  Then I mustered up the courage to actually run for my workout. Because I hate running, I have to push myself to do it.. and I DID!

My little WOD was 4RFT
10 KB swings (I only have a 20lb kettlebell.. I need to get a bigger one)
300 m run

I of course didn’t set my timer, but I did remember the starting and stopping points of my music that was playing, so I ended up finishing in about 18 minutes.

I wrapped it up with three 30 second planks. My stomach muscles LOVE those.. and by LOVE I mean NEED..

Then my cool down stretches included touching toes, calf stretches in the downward dog position. Then I stretched each hip out on one knee, and then hamstring stretches.  Then, on my back, I stretched my quads and hips again (lay on back, lift one leg up and bend it so its bent 90 degrees, then put the opposite ankle on the bent knee and pull the bent leg forward. Like how a dude crosses his legs when sitting, only on your back. 😀 Then I twisted with my legs on one side, and my shoulders on the floor, and then switch!! Feels sooo good!!

Well, it was monsooning yesterday, so we kept the workout short and sweet! Only 3 of us showed, plus Erin M, my awesome coach, so we ran through it and got it done.

After warm ups, we did the following:

12 min AMRAP (goal of 6 rounds or more)
6 burpees
8 box jumps (20″)
10 wall balls (14 lb for me)

I finished 5 rounds plus 6 burpees. I was pretty proud of that! And then the rain outside felt sooo gooood!!

New picture of my butt and legs from last night too.. to keep it exciting around here.

We did Crossfit Total today!! Basically, you do 3 of the major movements, up to your 1 rep max, and see how far you can push it.

Today it was back squats, strict press, and deadlifts.

I PRed all 3!
Back Squats – 205 lbs
Strict Press – 100 lbs (hardest one for me..I just don’t have that strength to push it up! I even got up on my tip toes trying to push it higher.. Erin made fun of me for that..:D )
Dead Lifts – 225 lbs

YEAHHH!!!!  Lots of high fives today!

Total 530. Crossfit Total! Wonder where I’ll be with this in another 3 months?