Rambling

We finally got our ranking for the EFL team comp and I'm happy to say that we didn't come last!  I actually didn't have an issue with coming last to be honest ... someone has to be in that spot.  The results actually highlighted a couple of things.

• I shouldn't have rowed first as my split time was slower than everyone else's.
• I held the girls back in the swim WOD as I was so slow
• I'm still really proud of the chipper WOD.  We came last in this one but I'm so proud of the fact that we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone and did RXD.

I'm in no way disappointed in our efforts for this competition, in fact, I'm incredibly proud of us.

On Saturday we held a fundraiser for a young girl who is raising money for Spina Bifida.  She will be taking part in a 5 km run/wheel in a few weeks time and a couple of coaches wanted to help her get some more donations.  She and her mum joined the Ladies Class and she joined myself, Moo and Missy T to make up a team.  What an inspirational kid!  Obviously she had to modify the movements as she was unable to do things like squats but she still did ring rows (instead of pull ups), push ups instead of the squats, sit ups instead of v ups and shoulder press instead of swings.  It was a fabulous morning and I'm glad my girls were lucky to meet such an amazing kid.

Feeling Lucky

I know I've most probably said this a few times but there are times I truly feel blessed to have "met" some people over the course of my life.  Some of these people I have not met face to face but through blogging or the 12wbt.

I'm part of a FB group that have 12wbt alumni and a few of them also do Crossfit.  It's great as I can bang on about CF and not feel like I have to censor myself or worry about boring all my friends with my continual posts about WODs.  One of the girls is a weightlifter as well as a CF coach.

I decided to post a video of my overhead squat for their thoughts on my form and how to help me get to the correct depth.  J has suggested I work on shoulder stability as well as mid-body strength and has given me some exercises and mobility work to help in these areas.  Here's hoping they help.

Modified Cindy Take 3

Yesterday we did a modified Cindy.  I have done this one before and it consists of:

For Time:

-

1 Clean & Jerk

1 Round of Cindy

2 Clean & Jerk

1 Round of Cindy

3 Clean & Jerk

1 Round of Cindy

… continue until you reach …

10 Clean & Jerk

I have done this one a couple of times before so have some data on it.

Date	Time	Clean and Jerk	Pull ups	Push ups
26/10/2012	18:21:00	15	Jumping	Knee
3/06/2013	24:37:00	20	Orange band	Bench
17/02/2014	24:36:00	25	Orange band	Bench

I did some fiddling with the numbers and graphed it:

I was pretty happy yesterday that my time was much the same but I had increased my weight by 5 kg ... and I wasn't really feeling it yesterday either.  It is very humid here at the moment and I'm feeling quite tired.  Luckily today's workout was pretty low key and I got a chance to play around with my ring muscle up transitions.

I decided to graph my Cindy times and scaling as well. I find it quite interesting how my scaling effects my overall score; as my scaling gets harder my score drops.  Now that I have done the hardest option I hope to see an improvement in my overall score.

Date	Rounds	Pull ups	Push ups	Squats	Total Rounds	Pull up Scaling	Push up Scaling
3/07/2012	12	0	0	0	12 (15 min AMRAP)	Jumping	Knee
9/10/2012	16	0	0	0	16	Jumping	Knee
27/02/2013	14	4	0	0	14.1	Purple band	Bench
20/05/2013	13	0	0	0	13	Orange band	Bench
14/02/2014	10	5	4	0	10.3	RXD	RXD

We are doing a fundraiser at the moment for Walk In Her Shoes to support women and girls living in poverty.  We are attempting to walk 100 km in a week ... the catch is we are doing it carrying a sandbag.  Our sessions have finished a little early the last couple of days so a couple of us in the 6 am crew have done our bit by walking 1 km either as a team or singly. If we went out as a team it would still only count as 1 km so I chose to carry the sandbag myself the whole way.  To be honest it was really tough and my back and shoulders were screaming toward the end.  Today was a little easier as I think I had the bag across my shoulders slightly better but I was still glad to drop the bag after 1 km.  Doing something like this has made me grateful that I live in a country where I have water on tap and food that is plentiful.

Reflections

I have been thinking about the past year with regard to Crossfit and my fitness goals.  I had a looksie at my blog from January and here were my goals for the year:

1. Kipping pull ups. I have just started learning these and am currently getting assistance with the band. The goal is to do these without the band.
2. Double unders. I am improving but would like to do them unbroken.
3. Box jumps. The ultimate goal is onto a 20" box but a smaller goal is to jump onto the lowest one we have at the gym which is 12" and then the 16".
4. Do a workout as prescribed (RXd).

• I am still doing banded pull ups in WODs but I have progresses so much in this department.  I am so close to getting rid of the bands that I can taste it.
• I do double unders in WODs.  I'm not fantastic at them but I can string a few together.
• Box jumps.  Bloody box jumps!
• I have done a few WODs RXd over the year.

My new goals which are not New Year Resolutions but ongoing goals are:

1. Handstands and then progressing to handstand push ups.
2. 20" box jump
3. 110 kg deadlift which is 2 x my bodyweight.
4. RXd a benchmark WOD.  I think either Cindy or Helen would be good ones to attempt.
5. At an absolute stretch, a muscle up.

I have had plenty of ups and downs this year.  There were times when I was going to pack it all in as I felt like I was not improving at all.  I am not a very athletic person and there are times that that is very evident.  I have had tears and tantrums but I have also achieved so much.

I have put myself out there.  I signed up for the Open and through that discovered that I'm much more capable than I believe.  I competed in an in-house competition and got through to the first round of the finals.  I have made many friends this year. I have inspired my children and they now train with me when they can.  I am stronger than I have ever been both mentally and physically.

I am proud of what I have achieved this year.  I'm grateful to my coaches and teammates for encouraging me everyday I show up to the gym.  It has been a fantastic year :-)

Happy Monday!

Do you ever have those days when you wake up feeling lucky to be alive?  I seem to have shaken off my grumpiness of the last week or so and am feeling content with life.  As I drove to the box this morning I noticed how beautiful the sky looked.  The sun was just starting to rise with the glow just at the horizon (and it was the sun, not the lights from all the industry) and the moon and stars were still out.  It was gorgeous and I felt blessed that I was up that early to witness it.

Today was a strength day working on our front squats.  I set myself a goal of 45 kg thinking that my max was 42.5 kg.  In between our sets we had to do 10 pull ups and 50 double unders.  I decided to attempt unassisted pull ups as I need to practice them.  I get so frustrated that I'm able to do strict pull ups (and even weighted pull ups) but I can't get any more than 5 kipping pull ups in a row.  I will again sing the praises of my coaches and the fact that are so keen to help people reach their goals.  They are all so approachable and the coach today was more than happy to give me pointers on both my pull ups and double unders.  At the end of the day it's all about practice, practice, practice.

I felt quite comfortable with my 45 kg front squat today and when I logged my workout I realised that I had done 45 kg previously so, dammit, no PB today!  Mind you, the previous time I did 45 kg was 1 rep whereas today was 5 reps so I guess that means my 1RM has increased.  Gotta be happy with that :-)

Thank You

As I may have said before Mal bought me some PT sessions with Jardan, one of the coaches at CrossFit.  Today was my last session with her and as usual she didn't disappoint with yet another 'fun' workout planned.  What I have loved about training with her is that she knows my strengths and weaknesses and often incorporates them into the workout and because it is one-on-one there is nowhere for me to hide or slacken off.

With her help over the last couple of months I have built in confidence which has transferred over to my CrossFit workouts.  I am smashing PBs almost weekly and my technique has improved.  I have progressed from thinking that my only option was to do step ups as a scaling for box jumps to now jumping on a couple of 25 kg bumper plates.  Before Christmas I was terrified of jumping on a couple of 10 kg ones.  The best part is another girl who is also afraid of box jumps is now jumping onto plates as well (it's kind of cool that I started something there ;-)

Anyway, thanks Jardan for everything over the last couple of months ... it has been awesome :-)

Good Things For This Week

1. PB on my deadlifts
2. Doing unassisted kipping pullups and getting some pointers on how to make them better.
3. Increasing my plate height (box jumps here I come!)
4. Surviving a 2011 Games Open WOD
5. My freaky ab vein/artery making a comeback.  I haven't weighed myself in awhile but I must be getting leaner.
6. The community at the gym.  It's nice to have some people to talk 'shop' to because I think my family must be getting sick of me talking about what I achieved for the day.
7. Watching the girls practice their dances for the upcoming Dance Festival.  Moo's contemporary to 'Colors of the Wind' always makes me cry ... it's so beautiful.  And I love to see the joy on Missy T's face when she tap dances, she truly loves it.
8. Having a husband that puts up with my constant natter about WODs and lifting heavy shit and also doesn't mind a wife with calluses.

Feeling Blessed

I continue to be amazed by the people that have come into my life over the years and I guess I can thank social media for bringing them to me.  Without blogging, FB etc I wouldn't never have had the chance to meet such inspiring, beautiful people.

I was lucky on the weekend to make the trip to Sydney for the 12wbt Round 3 Finale.  Obviously I didn't do this round but I tagged along with some girls from my FB group.  It was fantastic to finally meet some of these people that I have been communicating with for the last year and a bit and what a lovely bunch of people they are too.  We spent the weekend chatting with a bit of shopping thrown in as well ... it was a shame that I didn't get to speak to some people for very long but I think we are already planning on meeting up again for the Brissy one in February.

Training is still on hold for me as my shoulder continues to recover from the removal of the BCC.  I am longing to get back into it and it's lucky that it is concert week for the girls and therefore don't have time for the gym.  Even though I'm out of action for a little while I'm grateful it was a basal cell carcinoma and the least dangerous of all skin cancers and I know it won't be long before I'm back throwing around the weights again.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I'm in serious need of some positivity after having my cranky pants on for over a week so I'm taking a leaf out of Liz's Book and show a bit of gratitude. I am grateful for:

• A body that is injury-free that allows me to give it all I have everyday.


• A work schedule that has a bit of flexibility so if I ever need to change my start and/or finish times to suit my family there is no issue.


• Awesome family and friends (that goes without saying)


• A dog that loves to run or walk at #crackofarse. I'm not sure if I would do it if I didn't have him.

Things I'm Grateful For ...

• Coffee with milk and sugar. Artificial sweeteners just don't cut it.
• Oats - is it wrong to want to eat porridge all day?
• Friday night drinks with friends
• Mal cutting up a heap of veg and getting hommus for me for nibblies for Friday night drinks
• Getting home on a Friday night to a cuppa and/or wine waiting for me - do I have the bestest hubby or what?
• Not having to weigh food
• My morning walks with Mossy - particularly now that it's warmer and light
• New fitness DVDs
• My brand new purple kettlebell
• A massage treatment bought by Mal for our anniversary - pure bliss
• Listening to Moo practice her violin. While it's not perfect (and occassionally a little scratchy), I'm contantly amazed by what she has learnt in her first year
• Watching the girls dance
• Our campervan
• Camping with friends
• Learning a new job at work. I'm filling in for someone while she is on holidays and I'm well and truly out of my comfort zone. While this terrifies me (I love my rut), I also love being tested.
• Being healthy and fit.

Thanks Liz

I made the incredibly tough decision to start training on my own again. There is a large part of me that is absolutely terrified but another part knows that I have learnt an enormous amount in the time I have worked with Liz and am confident that I can make it on my own. It will be hard to no longer have the daily emails and it always felt like Christmas as I waited for my weekly program (mind you it never felt like Christmas when I actually read the training :o)). Anyway, thanks Liz! You're an absolute legend!!