Archive for August, 2010

Day 4: The Much Needed Rest Day

Days to Colorado CrossFit Open: 16

restTHE WORKOUT: Day 4: NONE
I forced myself to take a full day off yesterday. All day I fought the urge to go for a run, do push ups, anything. But I made it through the day. No CrossFit, no volleyball, no mountain biking, nothing. I hated it. But I know it is necessary. I used to love rest days. Now a day off feels like a missed chance for a major breakthrough. I know I need them though so finally taking one was an accomplishment.

THE DIET: Day 4
I went to my cousin Andrea’s new apartment to have dinner with her, her roommate Brooke and their friend Kenny who turned out to be way more disciplined than I am with the health food stuff. The guy had lost over 70 pounds since high school! Always inspiring to hear a good success story. Since they were all eating healthy too it was easy to stick to the plan.

Our dinner: Rotisserie chicken and Mediterranean salad.

For this salad: Romaine lettuce, Broccoli,Tomatoes, Avocado, Olives Feta cheese (not allowed by Paleo so I just didn’t take any). I ate my salad with just salt and pepper. Plenty flavorful with all that stuff in it. For protein we ate rotisserie chicken (without the skin, of course). For dessert I ate a peach.

I had been missing the taste of ice cream all day but when we decided to go sit in the hot tub and I was able to borrow Andrea’s bikini (she’s 19) I suddenly I forgot all about the sweets. Bring on the salad!

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Day 3: No Repeats

Days to Colorado CrossFit Open: 17

cleannjerkTHE WORKOUT: Day 3
Clean and Jerk to find a 1 rep max
My lifts:  120  125  130  135  140   (failed at 145)

Workout of the Day (WOD)
5 rounds for time:
15 overhead plate lunges @ 25#
15 burpees
My time: 8:20

For the lift, 140 was a personal record! For the workout, my burpees are relatively slow so I really tried to book it on the lunges which worked well. The less time I spend with weight over my head the better off I am. I did not rest so I was happy with my time. But I let Rosanne know that I fully expected her go faster. Not only did she accept the challenge but she did it in under 7 minutes! What a stud!

THE DIET: Day 3

I have set a new goal for my 20 days of Paleo/Zone. No two dinners will be alike. This will force me to use a variety of healthy recipes to make sure I don’t get stuck in a rut of eating the same thing every night.

Tonight I made a bison burger and used portabella mushrooms as a bun. Mmmm.

1 lb grass=fed ground bison meat makes 2 or 3 large burgers

To that I added:
A large egg
Almond meal
Diced green chilies
Cumin
McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning
Kosher salt
Chili powder
Cayenne pepper (very tiny amount)
(Sorry, I didn’t measure anything. I just guessed).

I skimped on the toppings to better enjoy the flavor of the burger itself:
1/4 of a small avocado
Tomato slices
Slices of a Claussen dill pickle

You can warm up the mushroom “buns” on the grill, the stove, but they seem to come out best when you toast them in the convection oven. They get warm all the way through without getting soggy. The tops dry out so they are not too slippery to pick it up like a burger.

The salad:
Mixed greens
Granny smith apple
Dried cranberries
Pecans
(Avocado tastes good with this I put some on my burger so I left it out).

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Day 2: Nancy

Days to Colorado CrossFit Open: 18

overhead-squat A long list of benchmark workouts in CrossFit have been given short female names for ease of identification in much the same way the National Weather Service used to always name hurricanes after women. [Insert joke here].

Today’s workout was “Nancy”. It is kind of silly but I felt obligated to do well in this workout. My mom’s name was Nancy. Can’t really hear the name without thinking of her, obviously.

Ironically, the workout contained the exercise which has been my biggest weakness. The overhead squat. My former nemesis. At the beginning of this year I could back squat over 200 pounds but could barely overhead squat a 35 pound girl’s bar without falling over forward. Hope I made you proud today, Mom.

THE WORKOUT: Day 2
“Nancy”
5 rounds for time:
400m run
15 overhead squats @ 65#
My time: 13:12

THE DIET: Day 2 on the Paleo/Zone Diet went well. This was my breakfast today:

Beef cube steak (kosher salt, pepper, a little garlic salt)
1 hard boiled egg (Eggland’s Best)
1/4 small avocado
Cherub tomatoes
Baby spinach
1 cutie (clementine)

* The National Weather Service now alternates between female and male names for hurricanes.

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20 Days of Paleo-Zone

For the next 20 days counting down to the Colorado Open I have decided to follow the Paleo-Zone diet sworn by elite CrossFitters to be critical for peak athletic performance. To way over-simplified it, ‘Paleo’ has you eating mostly meat and vegetables with some fruit and nuts while ‘The Zone’ takes care of portion control. Yesterday was a success. 19 days to go.

For dinner last night I made pecan crusted pork and roasted butternut squash.

So good. Great recipes, Steve!

For more information on the diets:
The Zone
The Paleo Diet

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The Maiden Voyage

Today we took my new bike on its maiden voyage up Picture Rock, the other half of Heil Valley Ranch. This side of the trail is much nicer than the side we did last week.

It starts by gradually winding uphill through a very pretty valley. After a few very tight turns on steep drop offs are a few slightly technical sections. Great views.

I have been mountain biking dozens of times but I have never been clipped in before today. So far so good. I came back with all the skin on my knees.

Can’t say the same for my rear-end. I should have known there would be trouble when the salesman called the seat the “ass hatchet”. After the ride I picked up a seat that isn’t designed to skin a girl alive.

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My New Shoes

Check out my new shoes:

Don’t they go nicely with my new bike? Heh heh.

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So pretty. It still needs to be girled-out a little bit but even so. The pictures just don’t do it justice. I can’t wait to go for a ride!

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Competitive Dining

After a few hours of volleyball the girls and I (and Sam, of course) went out for Thai food. Christina and Miki who are both thin as rails played a game of who can order and eat the most food. It started with soup, salad, and a chicken appetizer. Then came full plate of tempura. By the time dinner came I was already full. Yet those two tiny girls continued to put it down. Look at the portions at this place. This is sold as one entree but could feed a family:

dinner_fixed Notice the spoon on the right. You could easily fit two of them end-to-end across the width of this plate. Next time you have dinner put your spoon across your plate and you will understand how huge these dinners are. That is not a plate it’s a platter. Christina (who ranks among the best women’s doubles beach volleyball players in Colorado) almost finished one of these gigantic plates covered edge to edge stacked two levels high with battered and fried strips of pork. Very impressive.

christinahides_fixed christina_fixed

When the fortune cookies came new games emerged. The first was to try to pronounce the “Learn Chinese” words on the back of our fortunes and have Christina, who speaks some Chinese, guess what we were trying to say. My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. We were terrible. At one point she said it sounded more like French.

When we were bored with that Sam started a game of basketball using pieces of the fortune cookies as the ball and our water glasses as the hoop. He is really good at it. Me… not so much. One of my shots almost landed in Christina’s purse.  I came closer when I started using orange peels but still no luck.

BTW – Don’t worry, we had our fun but the rest of the place was empty and we did not leave a huge mess for the waitress so we weren’t completely obnoxious.

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Mountain Biking: Heil Valley Ranch

Todd and I went Mountain Biking at Heil Valley Ranch with Neighbor Joe. The loop we did was only about 8 miles and not terribly difficult but it was great to get out.

Todd loves when I take pictures at 8:00 in the morning.

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The trail itself we found to be full of large loose rocks. Very bumpy.

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The payoff made it worth while though.

There is a smile.

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This is right before Joe accidentally tried to do a front flip on his bike on an almost flat part of the trail. With a great recovery he escaped without a scratch.

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The real payoff, of course, is going back downhill. I tried to stay off the brakes but with all those big loose rocks it was kinda rough riding on my donkey. The advice I got was to “man up”. He he he.

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On the way back to town we made a stop at Amante Coffee in North Boulder and sat on their patio. Very interesting. Dozens of customers and all of them had cycling gear. Boulder’s version of a “biker bar” as Joe said.

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Don’t get me wrong, my bike has been good to me. But right after this ride we spent a good part of the day at bike shops in Boulder finding me a new full suspension bike. It should be ready for me on Tuesday!

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