I heard a rumor that my gym might have a No Sugar challenge in January. I hope so. I would definitely get in on that. I can barely make it one week much less a month. Sometimes I can barely make it through one day. I wish I could blame it on the holidays but it is equally bad year round. My family had “cookie day” on Sunday. It was so much fun to make cookies and give them out to the neighbors. But I couldn’t bring myself to give them ALL to the neighbors. (One for me… one for them, two for me… one for them). Tastes so good. A few hours of being really hyper followed by a two day cookie hangover. I used to think it was totally worth it. Now I think it would make more sense to choose feeling good for the two days than the couple hours.

I just submitted an 8 month update to the Body-for-LIFE challenge so they don’t forget about me. Now it is out of my hands. A year after making the commitment to live healthier I am proud to report I didn’t do so bad. They announce the winners in January. One female winner in my age group and one female winner overall. I want to say something meaningful about the experience like ‘I feel like I already won’ but I will have to do that later. Right now I still kind of want to win something. I think sometimes I am afraid to admit what I really want out loud because I can’t stand the possibility of disappointment. But I think if you state your goals clearly and regularly you are more likely to give them your best efforts. Sometimes the hardest thing about achieving a goal is conquering your own fear of failure. So I think the more practice I get facing those fears head on the better off I will be.

After eating a half bag of tortilla chips for lunch my first CrossFit workout after vacation was as many rounds of 7 knee-to-elbows, 11 box jumps, and 21 double unders in 20 minutes. A harsh reminder of the importance of eating right. I think I am gonna go to bed now.

For 9 days the closest I got to a workout was walking to town to get dinner. Volleyball was a little rough last night. We only had 3 people in a 4s league so I even had extra work to do. CrossFit today should be… interesting.

Yesterday morning I put on boardshorts and a t-shirt and ate breakfast by the beach overlooking the ocean and the boat dock… Right now I am at home in a ratty sweatshirt and sweatpants with a blanket over me about to start work. Sigh…

Part of what motivates me to continue pushing myself and working on healthier living is that I am able to. What a luxury it is to worry about whether I will eat too much today when so many people in the world are wondering if they will get to eat at all. How fortunate to be deciding whether to go for a run this morning when so many people are too injured, sick, or malnourished to even get out of bed. I was only sick for 24 hours and I was already irritated that I could only lay around. So when I am healthy I feel like it is my responsibility to take advantage of it.

I used to go to a yoga class where the instructors would always say “if you can, you must”. During class thoughts would always pop into my head like ‘i can also sleep in and eat cake for breakfast’ but I got the message. If you have your health you have an amazing gift that others in this world would do anything for. If you have the ability and the means to take care of it and especially to enjoy it, don’t let the opportunity to do so pass you by. Happy Thanksgiving!

It is easy to be motivated to take care of your health right before a competition. But I just suffered a serious reminder of the importance of taking care of yourself AFTER a competition too. The day after spending 12 hours competing, freezing cold, probably not drinking enough water, and then being too hyper to sleep I ate way too much pizza and chocolate for dinner. Monday I didn’t feel right when I woke up and it got progressively worse during the day. I thought it was just from being tired and eating crappy but by bedtime I felt like I had food poisoning. Extreme fatigue and a temperature of up to 101, I barely had enough strength to get myself from my bed to the bathroom and back… every hour on the hour all night long. Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming the pizza. I love pizza. That’s why I ate it. But when your body is trying to repair itself or trying to fight off sickness and all it has to work with is junk food it can’t possibly help.

Anyway, I am fine now, just in time to do “Angie” today. (That’s 100 pull ups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats for time.) I still have some CrossFit goals to reach with only one month left. Then in January I am attending the Front Range Winter Training Camp which sounds like four days of complete torture. Really looking forward to that.

Muscle Up –> Still can’t do one
Pistols –> Don’t yet have the full range of motion but getting there. 
Handstand Push Ups –> Can now do 3 with a kip. 
Chest-To-Bar Pull Ups –> Did a workout with all chest to bar pull ups about 3 at a time.
Toes-To-Bar –> I can now do a set of 10 but have not yet tried 3 sets.

It was freezing cold yesterday and I ran most of the 5k race with both shoelaces untied. I still somehow managed to beat my fastest time ever AND get under my goal of 7:30 per mile with a time of 22:59. 6th place in the open division for the first event.

Worried the run would affect my depth, I did not go for a personal record on squat. I made all three lifts but ended up with a max of 225 instead of going for 235. When I realized the adrenaline was giving me extra power I went for more on the other lifts and scored a personal record of 95 pounds on overhead press and a personal record of 275 on deadlift. A CrossFit Total of 595 landed me in 2nd place in that event. I have to say, the girl who took 1st in this event beat my by 70 pounds!

After the CrossFit Total we waited patiently for the timed workout to be announced. They raised the hangar door to reveal that they had built a 5 foot wall the length of the entire gym similar to the ones at the Games in California.  The workout was:

15 reps ground to overhead @ 65#
10 times over the wall plus a burpee
3 times climbing up a 15 foot rope
10 times over the wall plus a burpee
15 reps ground to overhead @ 65#

My main goal was not let my nerves give me a heart attack in front of everybody. In my heat I was nearly the last person to finish those first 15 reps. I gained almost no ground on the wall/burpees. But having paced myself a little I was able to fly through the 3 rope climbs and pass the lot for a 1st place finish in the final event.

Third and final rope climb:

Finally, it was an honor and a privilege to be awarded 1st overall for the three events combined. I competed with a great group of hardworking girls and had a total blast. And by the way, many apologies to whoever i kicked when i was flinging my legs over that wall! Here is me and my MBS buddy Samantha up on the podium at 1st and 2nd place:

One more day. Yesterday and today are rest days. Really hate resting Hate it. Yeah, I know it is necessary. My hamstrings were pretty sore from all the squats on Tuesday. Sadly, I found out that when I ran the 5k before I may have cut off part of the course. So it may be more of a struggle than I thought to get under 24:00 tomorrow morning. Don’t care! It is going to be so fun! Wish me luck!

Goal 3: The WOD

We don’t get to find out what the workout will be until after the run so I am not sure what the goal will be for this. I guess to push and push until I either die or finish. A failure would be to get to the end and know I could have done more.