Today I was in my car at a red light thinking about my day when I was suddenly slammed into from behind by some dumb girl texting on her cell phone instead of watching the road. She motioned for me to pull into the gas station and when I did she took off. It happened so fast that I did not get the license plate or even the make and model of her car. For her it was a clever way to get out of having to be a halfway decent person. For me it was an afternoon of frustration, a headache, and phone calls with the police department trying to make a case with no information. The moral of the story is that if someone hits you don’t let them out of your site until you have their license plate number. And try not to text while you are driving.

After work yesterday, I played volleyball with a few of the girls. I have not played doubles in a few months and I missed my girls! The resolution on these pictures is pretty poor so I may try to take better pics next week.

Here is Tori back to serve.

Tori is not too much taller than I am yet is a way better blocker. She has Impeccable timing up at the net. She also has a mean cut shot.

People who don’t know Miki tend to serve her a lot because of her size. That usually ends up being a mistake. She is adorable. Always smiling and giggling as she inevitably digs your best hits and then puts the ball wherever you cannot get to it.

When she made it into the top 4 at one of the Queen of the Beach tournaments someone called her ‘the sweetest little thing to ever kick my butt’. Her defense is outstanding and it is impossible to read her shots.

Ashley is the tall athletic blondie of the group. For some reason when I play with Ashley we cannot stop laughing long enough to catch our breath. She just has that effect on people and it makes her fun to play with…
…that and the fact that she can beat the crap out of the ball. It is hard to get by her block and she also has a killer serve. Look how high her arm is over the net!

Speaking of laughing constantly, this is Liz blocking a ball that Ashley just hit. Liz is fearless and probably has more energy than anyone I know. Before I knew her last name I had her in my phone as Crazy Liz.

Get her in the right mood and she will crack jokes constantly. She has a great all around game and is a blast to play with.

The last few sessions of doubles before I took a break for CrossFit stuff I played with Michelle. We have great chemistry on the court and had a really fun time playing together. We will definitely play again.

Great hits, great sets, and an evil cross court shot that gets us every time.

Then, of course, there is me. Here I am serving, hitting, and going for a dig.

Tori won this joust against Ashley. Not an easy thing to do.

Michelle delivered a great set to me as usual.

Tori and Ashley posed for the camera.

It is really nice to play with a group of girls that are so fiercely competitive yet constantly crack me up. Anyway, right after our two hours of women’s doubles was up we raised the nets to men’s height and I played another 2 hours of co-ed 4s. It is good to be back.

The Aussies are leaving today. I never got a chance to take them tubing down Boulder Creek. Too bad. (I still plan like to find time to do that this summer though). Anyway, it is sad to see them go. They were a lot of fun to have around. With all the ATV’ing and camping and riding the alpine slides and all that stuff Jake said his favorite thing was doing demolition on Paul’s kitchen, Hahaha. Amy said her favorite was just spending time with the family in general. I think Riley liked the game with the sundaes and going to Lakeside. Yeah Lakeside. I didn’t even know that was still there. It opened in 1908!

The grocery store by my house just put in a trail mix bar. Great idea. It has everything from nuts and seeds to raisins and dried cranberries, M&Ms and mini chocolate chips to 8 different kinds of granola. It even has a bin for raw unsweetened coconut. Mmmm. For my first customized batch I pretty much added a little of all of the above. It looks like a mess but tastes fantastic.

It occurred to me that I can make my own trail mix bar much the same as when I turned my refrigerator into a salad bar awhile back. I can buy stuff separately and put it in storage containers and then throw together whatever I want. The upfront cost will be greater but in the long run I can certainly do better than six bucks for a 1/4 lb or whatever it is. I will probably start with a couple items like this:

Roasted Almonds
Raw Unsweetened Coconut
Raisins – I am going to try to make these in my dehydrator.
Apples – And other fruit dried in my dehydrator.
Extra dark chocolate
Jelly Bellies, Gummy Bears, Skittles, Runts… heh heh.

But seriously, feel free to suggest any other ideas you might have.

One of the best things about doing CrossFit is that you work extremely hard but rarely in exactly the same way. The workout yesterday was very creative, inspired by the wall and rope climbs in California.

The 6 ft wall and 20 ft rope climb for the individual competition in LA:

I want to learn how to dive over the wall head first. It looks way more fun:

Our inspired workout yesterday:

5 rounds for time of:
Run 200m
Wall climb plus 5 burpees **
Wall climb plus 5 burpees
Wall climb plus 3 heavy dead lifts
Wall climb plus 3 heavy dead lifts
1 rope climb

It took me just under 25 minutes, about the same amount of time as our last workout out on the track in California. I definitely need a few more of the longer ones. Getting used to the 5 minute workouts makes the 25 minute ones feel like they are never going to end.

** We climbed over the rail outside the building and drop down over the concrete wall. Then we had to hoist ourselves back up the wall and over the rail.

The workout on Wednesday was arms arms and more arms. My forearms are exhausted. So yesterday when I tried again to get a muscle up after the workout it was not a huge surprise that it wasn’t going to happen. But I worked on them anyway, practicing the transition from pull up to dip and trying to figure out the grip. It could be that I get a good rest on Sunday and get my first one on Monday. It could also be that I practice for weeks before I can finally do one. Either is fine with me. Every failed attempt still works the right muscles and helps with technique and therefore is one step closer to success. Every attempt will help me eventually get my first one. The trick is to be impatient enough for success that you are willing to try over and over but patient enough not to get frustrated give up on yourself.

My little bit extra yesterday was box jumps. In our workouts we typically use a 20” box and which has posed no trouble for me. I usually look forward to them. But during one of our team workouts this past weekend we were required to use a 24” box and I was unpleasantly surprised how much the added height affected me. Here is a demonstration by me of how never to do a box jump:

I barely even made it up there. As it turned out the 20” box had gotten so routine that I had pretty much stopped using my arms and was just bounding with my ankles and calves which did not work at all on the higher box. I wasn’t jumping upright either. Look how I landed on the box completely hunched over. Total mess. Way more work than if I had just stayed upright and swung my arms a little. So yesterday’s addition to the normal class was a few sets of 10 box jumps on the 24” box. The lesson here is that I need to be careful not to focus so much on my weaknesses that I neglect my strengths. Like all things I guess it is about finding a balance.

At the games, Rich Froning, Elizabeth and my pick from the first individual workout, was amazing all weekend but ended up 2nd place instead of 1st because he could only climb a rope with brute force arm strength instead of efficient technique. By the time he had suffered so many difficult workouts there was no way he could climb that 30 foot rope nine times with just his arms though he tried and tried. The fact that he could do it as many times as he did with only his arms was still freakishly superhuman but it must have been pretty frustrating knowing that if he knew the proper technique he would have finished them all. Watching this happen I made a decision that every day after class I would spend just a little bit of extra time on something that needs work.

So Tuesday I climbed the rope in our gym for the first time. I think I now have the placement of the rope right and I can let go and grip back on pretty well but the lock with my feet is still not quite right. It is a little loose for some reason. Also I need to figure out how to do it with out getting painful rope burns.

Yesterday I worked a little on some light overhead squats. My arms still bend when the weight feels a little heavier which is the opposite of what they should do. Need to get them to lock out completely. I also couldn’t resist the urge to try to do muscle ups on the rings a few times. Getting better but still a no go. Sid and Tim are going to help me get that one figured out over the next couple weeks.

In the evening Todd and our neighbor Joe and I tooled around Lafayette on our mountain bikes. It was Todd’s maiden voyage on his new bike. It was really nice riding up and down the hills with those great views of the mountains. We also made a new little friend along the way. Highly enjoyable.

Back from the CrossFit Games and I will have pictures to post soon. It has taken a couple days to recover from all the excitement. We had a total blast and performed well. It was very motivating to watch so many freakishly amazing athletes compete against each other. Now that I am home it is time to start training for the next event at the end of August. Lots of work to do if I want to avoid getting my butt completely kicked by all the talented Colorado women.

I played volleyball last night and it was pretty fun except for a minor distraction in the last match. One of the guys on the other team was throwing complete hissy fits every time things didn’t go his way. Slamming the ball into the ground, yelling at himself, dropping to his knees like the world was coming to an end. Amusing but also annoying. At one point a guy on my team smashed a ball and that guy yelled out ‘I HAD THAT!’ in a fit of rage. He was absolutely nowhere near the ball and if he had been it probably would have broken his face.

At the CrossFit Games this weekend I noticed how even at the top levels people seem to be really good sports. Some of these people trained all year long for this event and ended up having equipment failure in the middle of their workouts. Instead of having a breakdown and crying about it they remained calm and did what they needed to do to finish. Athletes supported each other and there was a spirit of being in it together that existed even between competitors. They take this sport very seriously… but not TOO seriously. When you do something like CrossFit you should ultimately do it because you enjoy it and not because it totally defines your worth as a human being. It makes it much easier to take challenges in stride – a better way to live life in general, in my opinion.

More on what the games were like tomorrow…

Days left to CrossFit Games: 2

Packing today. Leaving tomorrow. I don’t feel ready at all. I wish I had another month to train. In the end though, it is really just another workout, right?  More than one if things go well. I have a lot of work to get done today still before I will be ready to go. Better get at it.