onward

Like almost everyone on this last day of 2011, I am reviewing a little and looking forward a lot.  Most of 2011 was pretty freakin' good.  For that, I am thankful.

What I see as my biggest 'fail' in 2011 was there was too much waiting for other peoples' choices to determine my decisions on some things.  I could always justify why I was putting a decision on hold:
I owed it to so-and-so to hold off.
I think so-and-so might really mean it this time.
I want to wait until.....
yada, yada, yada
All it really means when we wait for someone or something outside ourselves to "align" is that we are nervous and afraid to take the next step that we KNOW would be good for us.   Doesn't matter if the decision is little or big, it can feel equally scary.

2012 is a year of moving onward, of knowing that an 'alignment' of my heart and head is the only factor I need to consider when making a decision.  I might still be nervous or afraid to make a needed choice, but I also know that all decisions can be amended and redirected to keep the heart/head alignment in check.  This is not a new concept. Apparently I just need to remind myself anew of this.....and often!

Cheers to remembering to get past the fear and move onward in 2012!
WaHOOOOOO!!

Oh, what a dream!

In CrossFit, a good air squat is greatly admired.  It translates into a success in so many other movements: many barbell movements, wallballs, dumbbell thrusters, etc.  We practice this seemingly straightforward movement a lot....A LOT!   And even if our own squat is not at its best, we readily slip into the role of Squat Police. :)

My squat is a work of art in progress, but at least it is continuing to progress. I'm trying to keep one step ahead of the Squat Police.  I get a lot of *warnings*!

Then last night I had a squat dream. (I admit that I love CrossFit dreams...all three I've had. :-) )  I was squatting with feet only about 6" apart, hips below knees, heels down!! SWEET!  Best thing about it, I was me now, not me as a two year old~~~you see, we are being told to "squat like a toddler" all the time.

Oh, what a dream it was.  I could feel the comfort in the squat, hanging out at bottom.  Too bad I had to wake up.  Back to the practice.  I'm hoping that dream is a precursor to better squats.  I'd love to feel less like a felon on the run at the CrossFit gym!



multiple successes

***this was yesterday's post, delayed by no internet*** 

This was my get-back-into-it CrossFit Driveway day.  In the cold days of Maine’s winter, that really means working out inside my garage.  It still feels like I’m outside on the driveway. Today, however, I ran my little heater for about 20 mins before I headed out there and it actually did help cut the bite of the cold.  I count that as my first success!

During the pre-heating of my garage, I figured out my WOD based on the fact that I hadn't done one in a week and I knew I wanted it to be a good metcon. I also got a 20" box for Christmas and wanted to use it. :) I came up with what I felt was a successful metcon.  More on that later...

Usually working out at home means I have to go through my warm up routine twice because I get distracted half way through the first warm up by some chore I see that needs doing.  Ha, not very badass of me!! Today, however, I set everything up I needed for my WOD, looked around me to make sure I could resist chore-temptation, and actually got through my warm up and continued right on into the WOD! This was a big success for me!

The WOD I did was as follows:

Alternating TABATA x 3:

1) KB swings (35#) + BJs (20") = 7+7

(I did the BJs full hip extension and alternated between stepping down and jumping down for the sake of practice.)

rest 1½ mins

2) air squats + DUs = 12 + 17

(I'm happy that on one of the DU 20 secs I got 32~~even though I knew it wouldn't count in my scoring. :) )

rest 1½ mins

3) sit ups + PP (25# plate) = 10 + 15 

(I realized after the first PP that I should have gone with the 45# bar for more of a challenge, but now I know!)

=total time of 15 mins

(next time I do something like this, I’ll only rest 1 min between each alternating TABATA)

This was just what I needed to get my heart rate up and get many different movements in.  Then after a bit of a rest, I played with some ring L sits.  Oh, they were successful in that I was laughing at myself trying to do them!  Laughter can always be counted as a success.  What they actually ended up being were 3 x 15 secs of 'knees bent' ring sits.  The third one was a semi-controlled mess! ;)

To top everything off, I found a quarter in the washing machine!

Yes, today was a successful day. ;)

holiday percentages

What a wonderful Christmas gathering!

The last of my visiting children left a couple of hours ago, as did the dogs that came with them.  My dog, Decker, displayed a love/annoyed percentage of about 30/70 toward his 'cousins', Sophie and Windsor.  The playful moments, however, were completely joyous!

There is another doggie cousin, Bruin, and a kitty cousin, Ted, both of whom would have loved to be here.  Another time!

Including Laurence and me, there were eight of our ten family members here, or 80%.  We missed the other 20%, but they were celebrating Christmas with their other family in England and I know they had a great time.  That makes me happy.

What proved to be extremely bad timing, I came down

with a cold on Friday, the day the kids arrived.  As I

write this, the cold is beginning to break.  Unfortunately,

that translates into being sick 100% of the time everyone

was here.  Wouldn't I just be the best mama EVER if I

sent them all home with a cold!! :)

In large part because of the cold and less because of the

Christmas frivolities, I have not had a proper CrossFit

workout since last Thurs., 12/22.  Today is Mon., 12/26.

Four days doesn't sound that long, but it sure feels long!

I am all for taking a chunk of time off now and then

because I know, for me, my body reacts well to those breaks. However, prior to these last four days, the breaks have always been of my choosing so I am 99% sure this break feels longer because it was forced upon me.  Even so, I will likely take another day or two off from anything more strenuous than a CrossFit Driveway (my home gym's name) modified WOD so that when I do get back to the gym I can give it my full effort.

As for the holiday grazing that went on for the four glorious days when everyone was here, I would say that my usual 90/10 No Bread (no grain) lifestyle took a right turn at the corner of Biscotti and MacNCheese! After that, my body felt so different that I lost track of all the small side roads I ventured down.  I'm guessing that my usual lifestyle ended up clocking in at about 65/35 over the course of four days.  CrossFit repercussions may be that I need the next one or two days to allow my body to rebalance itself from both the cold and the nutritional standpoint so either way, I'm taking them!  Honestly, I believe that being nutritionally off balance feels the same as being sick, so the fact that both converged on me at the same time has made me feel doubly sluggish.

The good thing is that I know I will rebalance quickly.  My cold

is definitely on its way out and within one day of returning to

my No Bread lifestyle, my body will be back on its favored

path.  Thankfully, I am not afraid to allow for that 10% in my

nutritional balance, so if I can resist the desire to devour this 

Christmas gift in one day, I'll maintain my afore mentioned

favored path without any trouble.

After this wonderful Christmas with lots of laughs and love,

I am looking forward to this last week of 2011.  I'll be

spending the week setting up some changes in my life

that will be beneficial to me even beyond 2012.  Of this,

I am 100% sure!

hangover...

I haven’t had a hangover in ages. However, I remember that tenuous feeling in one’s gut that accompanies it. That’s exactly what a lack of sleep feels like for me.  Not sure it’s very fair that I have to tiptoe around myself and feel uncertainty about what to eat when I didn’t even get to wear the lampshade and dance on the table the night before!  Oh, it’ll pass by mid morning as I focus on other people, other things, but in the meantime, I’m hungry and tired.

I have a rest day from the gym today as most of my children (and their spouses and a couple extra doggies) are rolling in for the holiday and there are things yet to be done for their arrival.  I realize I probably would have had to take the day off anyway.  Sleep is a necessary component of the totality of CrossFit. Unfortunately, it’s frowned upon to nap in the down position of a push-up, so if you’re really sleep deprived, don’t force a WOD out of your body.  Sometimes I *glaze over* when my body keeps trying to get my attention. But most often, I’ll back down from an all-out day, either taking a rest day or simply by scaling a WOD.  I’d rather rest or scale than take the chance of injury. 

 I’ll spend the day resting by finishing up my projects, delivering meals to my Meals on Wheels clients, taking some brief stretching breaks, and tiptoeing around what I can eat without making me feel nauseated.  I wonder how much better I'd feel if I did it all while wearing a lampshade?!

**later today: children and dogs arrived safely...

longevity

My son-in-law, John (crossfitcraic.com), pushed me ever so gently into CrossFit back in May, 2010.   (I know, I let a son-in-law push me around?)  Knowing I was working out to videos, jogging on the treadmill and playing lots of tennis, he was correct in suspecting I would take to CrossFit.

Not one to focus on my age, as we sat at the kitchen table talking about CrossFit (shocker), John looked at me and said, “No offense, mama, but I wonder if I’ll still be CrossFitting in thirty years.” To which I replied, “I wonder if I’ll be CrossFitting in thirty years!”

By my age, I have had multiple experiences in my life where I set out to do something for a long time only to decide shortly after starting that it wasn’t for me.  In reality, that usually meant it was too much work to continue.  Funny how a woman who is not afraid of hard work stopped short of full participation many times because of the lack of desire to commit to the work. 

CrossFit broke that cycle.  Initially, the progress at the gym and my physical changes were just too swift not to keep my motivation high.  Then the motivation changed from the flow of outside-in to inside-out.  Growing confidence in my abilities in all areas of my life was hard not to embrace.  It’s pretty tricky to explain to someone...especially someone in my age group...that picking up heavy barbells and tossing balls at the wall 9’ over your head can make you feel like a better person.  It even sounds a little suspect when I write it here! :)  Challenges will do that though.  And the beauty of CrossFit is its very nature encourages you to keep trying, keep working to get better, faster, stronger.  A bad day doesn’t want to make you give up. You acknowledge a bad day and move on, trying again. This is an important carry-over to the rest of my life.   My outlook, while never negative or defeatist, is both more focused and free at the same time.

Do I still plan on CrossFitting in thirty years?  I don’t need to ‘think’ I will be, I just ‘know’ I will be.  I do wonder, however, if I will still be letting John push me around in thirty years!

my bag is bigger than yours

My bag is bigger than yours.  But then, my bag is not just a gym bag, it’s  a bag full of experience.

Sometimes, like today, I take note of the younger people who walk through the gym door for class with their water bottle and keys in hand. They might even be carrying a jump rope. 

When I come in, I’m carrying my experience…my desire to ‘be on the ready’… in a bag just shy of carry-on luggage size.   I didn’t learn this from the girl scouts, because I wasn’t one.  I learned it from being a mama and, well, a more experienced woman!  I have my water bottle, my keys, and my jump rope.  I also have: my NB minimalist shoes, knee socks with the toes cut off so I can slip them over my shoes should we decide to climb a rope, sport tape and duct tape in two different designs because taped hands don’t have to look boring ;) , wrist wraps that give me assistance with my OHSs,  all three of my WOD log books because I never know when I’ll want to look back at a WOD or pr or just sit and read a good book ;), my WODs book for when I want to alter a day’s workout on the spot, a stop watch, extra little *thingies* that hold my jump rope handles onto the wire, gum, ibruprofen, floss ~~ yes, floss ~~ because I get distracted if I’ve eaten some almonds and they get  stuck in my teeth, a couple of personal items, and my wallet.  Sometimes there may even  be something visiting my bag that’s not usually there. 

I actually rarely use more than a few items in my bag, but they are there, waiting to be needed. I’m prepared to be a little comfortable in an environment that rewards being uncomfortable...the CrossFit gym. 

Sometimes I think I should pare down my bag, but then I realize that if I can carry it, I can bring it! The mama in me enjoys handing out assistance from my bag. The experienced woman in me likes having the ‘idea’ of comfort at my fingertips.  My bag is bigger for reasons bigger than my needs, and I think that’s a great reason for me to keep hauling it into the gym.

my dog is a genius...

...well, perhaps I'm stretching the truth a bit, but he did make me *think* this morning before I even had my coffee!

You see, my dog, Decker, wanted me to wake up this morning so first he licked my hand, then he nuzzled his nose under my hand so he could look at me with those flirty eyes of his. I realized that this is how CrossFit works its magic.

While I didn’t walk into the gym completely out of shape 1 1/2 years ago, I can say in hindsight that my body was asleep….my “metcon me” kept hitting the snooze button. The foundations classes hinted at the possibilities lurking, waiting for me to wake up.   The years of keeping somewhat active kept me from being comatose so I was able to see those possibilities.   CrossFit turned on its charms and flirted with me long enough for me to see results. I guess I was flattered that it cared...or I was just easily flattered. :)  Either way, I fell in love!

I see little difference in the reactions to CrossFit in the varied ages of people who try it.  The only difference I've seen is that some are more easily swayed by its flirtatious nudging than others.  Some don't fall for it at all.  Not their type so they move on and that's okay. 

Decker's nudging is much gentler than CrossFit's, but the results are the same.  Both have the ability to wake me up and feel happiness every day.  I just don't have to *walk* CrossFit!

get over myself!

Yeah, that's right...I just have to get over myself! 

I've been waffling about starting this *journal* for about two months now.  Why?  Because, while it's something I want to do for myself, I also hope that others who venture here find it encourages them to explore parts of their lives they never knew existed.  Translation, "crap, someone might actually read this"! 

If I had not 'gotten over myself' (my nervousness) enough to sign up for my CrossFit foundations course, my life would not be the same as it is now.  Incredible to think how often that happens in a life.  One little step or missed step and the path can change in ways that may be surprising.  The changes may not always be great at first glance, but my deep belief is that ~~silver linings are not fictitious~~!  Call me a PollyAnnie (teehee), but it's true. 

All my mutterings and musings tucked away in my documents page about CrossFit and life will make their way here eventually...

Yeah, that's right...I just have to get over myself!