Project Fear Less: Build A Couch

Ah, tri-fold mats.

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This guy - or at least a creature very closely related to it, as this one looks prettier - was, up until last week, all the couch I had.  And, up until last month, all the bed I had.  Surprisingly comfortable, in fact, and I swear my posture was better.  But I digress.

Normal people don't like to sit on the floor all the time.  And while I was perfectly ok with sprawling around and letting the kittens clamber over me, I realised that if I ever wanted to actually have friends over, I should probably have something a little more conventional, or at least a little more elevated.  Something like...

THIS

Project Fear Less: Artes Marciales, part 2

Alternate title: "I Was Told There Would Be Shovels"

So as I mentioned in the last post, I found a place that teaches ninjitsu (and also Brazilian jiu-jitsu) and loved it to death.  Oddly enough, I've since found out that this was the same place frequented by Colin's bestie Sean, who inadvertently inspired me to start this whole project way back when and is now gallivanting around Switzerland Europe in its entirety, eating all of its food and jumping on random things.  Small, small world.

But.  This same place is also the home to a group of friendly but insane shaven-headed men in BDUs and boots who are said to wield shovels with utter abandon.  In less cryptic terms, there is a Systema class that meets in the space, and I tried it out.  That's the first official scary thing in this post: Try A New (And Entirely Unfamiliar) Martial Art.

Project Fear Less: Artes Marciales, part 1

When you start coming into work with a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of random bruises, the sweet little Mexican grill cook ladies will worry about you very much, and ask who hurt you so they can hurt them.  And so you will have to find out how to say "martial arts" in Spanish, so they stop worrying, but then they will shake their heads and roll their eyes and cluck at you for being so loca.  Until the butcher makes a stupid joke to his wife and they all shriek and grab you to show them interesting ways to make him apologize.  (Don't worry, various senseis who might be reading this blog...or whatever the correct plural form of "sensei" is.  I didn't show them anything that'll leave lasting damage.  Just some bruises on the sternum at worst).

Project Fear Less: Go short. REALLY short.

This is how it ends:

This isn't the first time I've done this.  In fact, I think it was even shorter last time.  But this is the first time that I bawled like a baby in the hairdresser's chair.

Then and now

So today I spent an absolutely insane amount of time working on physics problems with my lab partner, John. John's a cool dude with a lot to say, so we get along pretty well despite the fact that he's a Republican (but a very good-natured one, if you can imagine such a thing!).  Amidst all the discussion on Kirchhoff's rules for circuits, the conversation drifted a bit, mostly so we wouldn't go insane.  One of the impetuses (not impeti, I looked it up) for a conversational tangent happened to be a girl with a shaved head who had just walked out of the room.  I told him "you know, my hair used to be nearly that short!" and he was all "um what, nuh-uh it wasn't!"  So of course I had to provide photographic evidence.  This was taken way back, about a year ago.

oh, R2-D2 phone.  how I miss you.

He saw this picture and did a double-take.  "Wow!  You weren't kidding, that's crazy short!"

"Yeah, the sides were buzzed but the top was long enough to spike up.  Man, I loved that cut..."

"You look like kind of a badass there!"

Fellas, take note.  If you know a lady who does lifting, parkour, rugby, martial arts or some other hobby or lifestyle that you find impressively hardcore, or if she just looks like a badass, tell her so!  It will win her heart, guaranteed.  Of course, the lion's share of my heart still belongs to The Man, but there's always room for people who think I'm a badass :)

Of course that made me perk right up.  I got to talk a little about my glory days last summer, lifting and hiking and swimming in the Eno and running barefoot and the not-then-totally-ridiculous idea of training to be a traceuse.  And then it was back to the Loop Rule and the Junction Rule and C=Q/V and all the various equations used to find power.  And TWO MORE HOURS ON A SINGLE PROBLEM.  Gah.

When I got back to the house, on a whim, I decided to take another picture in the same location and approximately the same pose, just for comparison's sake.  Here it is:

Here are the things I noticed, in order of the noticing:
1. My face and neck look thinner.
2. My hair is longer.
3. I'm paler.
4. I'm not smiling.
5.  The striped shirt lends a bit of a French air, but it's distinctly not the wicked cool nouveau homme des cavernes look.
6.  I am no longer a badass.

I just spent a long few minutes tugging on my hair and pondering all of this - the reasons why my badassery went out the window, the steps I can take to get it back, all the shit I still have to do that drains my time and my strength and my mental capacities.  The fact that my first thought was "Now I'm skinnier and therefore prettier!" despite the fact that my physical state is way, way below what it was and should be, regardless of what my neck looks like.  Other photos (not to be shared) reveal the fact that my abs do not match the trend of my face at ALL, anyways.

Right now I have to keep studying for a chemistry exam that I have tomorrow.  This post is mainly just to put a bug in my own ear about these ideas - what I had and was, what I lost, what I gained, what I can do now.  I'm going to have my first break from everything in a while early next week, so I'm hoping to get some pondering (and posting) done then. 

For now, what do you think?

-Nelly

How to heal

I got to stop by CFD yesterday, and it was so amazing!  I didn't stay for a very long time, just enough to say hi to a bunch of people and show off my shoulder and how it's hooked up to a bunch of electrodes, so I can make it twitch.

Seeing all the lovely active sweaty people made me realise I need to stop sulking about being a one-armed wonder and start living the "wonder" part while making the "one-armed" part as short and impermanent as possible.  So here's my game plan.  Some of these points I'm already following; others I'm going to start incorporating.  As always, any and all comments and suggestions are welcome!

DIET
With a few exceptions that I'll note below, I'm going strict paleo until I'm healed enough to use my arm again.  The reasoning is pretty simple: it promotes reduction/avoidance of inflammation, which in turn helps avoid infection and speeds healing.  I've also been using an ice pack and occasional doses of ibuprofen, as my shoulder still seems to me to be a little swollen (no redness, oozing or other signs of infection, though).

I've also been keeping half an eye on portions, though I'm not actually counting calories.  Reason is that I know my BMR is about 1500 cals/day when I don't factor in any activity, and I haven't been very active at all lately.  This isn't too much of an issue, since the sudden and dramatic decrease in exercise and activity means my appetite dropped to almost nil.  However, I do tend to binge-eat when I'm bored, and ennui has been the main emotion of late.  The times I have caved, I've kept it pretty paleo, though, so that's a semi-victory.  A better fix is finding something to erase the boredom, and I'm working on that.

My exceptions to the paleo rule are mostly driven by the fact that I'll be staying with my godparents for a couple weeks while my parents are on vaycay and I'm still pretty helpless.  They keep chickens in their backyard!  I'm also expecting to encounter

• delicious homemade fermented things (like sauerkraut, not beer), as well as
• happy milk!  that is, not all cooked and nastified, just as pure as Bessie intended (wink wink)

In addition, I'm fully planning to deviate from strictitude when I just want some goddammn chocolate already.

EXERCISE

So far, this has consisted of one leisurely two-mile stroll around the neighborhood a few days ago.  I attempted some squats and one-arm push-ups against the arm of the couch the same day, but I was still pretty shaky from the meds and it didn't work out very well.  Since then, however, I've focused on cutting down severely on the meds, and I think I'm finally close enough to myself again to attempt another try.  Besides walking, which I intend to do at least once a day, I've come up with

• squats
• pistols, once I'm up for it
• one-armed push-ups off the wall or the arm of the couch
• side plank holds
• front one-armed plank holds, once I'm up for it
• sit-ups
• one-armed kettlebell stuff

As soon as I can do more than just slow controlled movements (I don't know how long that'll be), I'll start working bouts of slow running into my walks, preferably barefoot, as well as jumps onto low objects, like stairs.  At the moment, any movement that causes me to tense up my body and thus my shoulder involuntarily or quickly is fairly painful.

For my right arm: officially I'm still not supposed to take it out of the sling unless I'm showering or doing the only prescribed exercises, which consist of straightening my elbow and bending my wrist, 20 reps at a time, 3 times a day.  I've been taking it out of the sling and letting it rest on  a pillow in my lap as much as I can, working my wrist and hand, as well as bending and straightening my arm when I'm standing with it hanging by my side.  There's little to no pain associated with these movements, or with slow isolated shrugs (of which I'm still doing VERY few, just to be safe), mostly just joint stiffness.  I'm pretty worried (read: totally paranoid) about losing muscle mass, though, so in my eyes it looks like my arm's already transformed into this shrunken blobby thing from a week of disuse.  Meh.

MEDICATION/MEDICAMENTS

Like I've mentioned before, I'm been prescribed some pretty serious meds for the pain, which all the doctors told me numerous times was going to be quite considerable.  The first several days it was bad enough that I was popping pills like a toddler eating jelly beans off the floor of a movie theater.  Side effects included being awake for like 4 hours a day, not wanting to eat anything at ALL and getting seriously backed up in the ol' GI department (tmi, sorry!  but something you should definitely be aware of if you ever have to take these), as well as being super shaky and out of it whenever I was awake.  Now the discomfort has shrunk to more manageable levels, so I'm trying to do without the scrips as much as possible, relying more on ibuprofen or my handy dandy shoulder electrifier during the day, then taking meds at night if I need the help to get comfortable enough to sleep.  

To help with the anti-inflammation, I'm taking between 6 and 9 capsules of fish oil every day.  I'm also drinking a couple glasses of Metamucil+water and at least 4 6-oz cups of fully caffeinated coffee every day to help combat the aforementioned particularly unfortunate side effect, and it is totally working.  The more you know...

REST

At this point I'm just trying to get back into a normal awake-during-daylight-hours schedule, and get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep at night.  But sometimes naps are an awesome way to pass the time.

So there you have it!  My genius plan to take over the world be a total badass again as soon as possible.  What do you guys think?  

PS:  Here's me being extremely pouty a day or two after the surgery:

...and here's me right after I was finally able to take a SHOWER!  And put on REAL CLOTHES!  And a BRA!  I tell ya, bathing never felt so good.

(btw yes I know my clothes don't match at all.  it was the first thing I could put on after over 72 straight hours of that damn hospital gown, and I wanted some COLOR!)

-Nelly

The Caveman Ninja Strikes Back

This is part two in a 3-post series on the Fifth Ape Fundamentals course I took with Colin.  Here's part one, and here's the write-up of the first class I took from him.

So I had this dream the other night.

You know how sometimes you'll have a "flying" dream?  Where suddenly, by some miraculous mechanism, you find yourself floating a few inches off the ground, then higher and higher and before you know it you're soaring, miles high.  And it always feels so incredibly effortless and natural - you were born to fly, it couldn't be any other way! - that when you first wake up, the action of remaining tethered to the earth is the one that seems more unnatural.

Well.  I had a parkour dream.

I can't remember all the details, but there was definitely some insane intrigue going on.  At some point I had to chase someone through an airport terminal that was also somehow a grocery store.  But that's not important.  The important part is, while chasing this unremembered foe, I had to get myself over a lowish obstacle (I think it was a turnstile.  yes I know there are not normally turnstiles in airports or grocery stores).  And I vaulted.

like this.  via

When I woke, everything else about the dream faded fairly quickly.  But that feeling - of effortless almost-flight through no miracle but the work of my own body - has stuck with me.  So it's in dedication to that awesomest of dreams (and in hopes of eventually making them reality) that I'm writing this now.

Here goes my dignity...

Alternate title for this post: The One Where Nelly Strips.  Just get it all out there.

First off, the method:  I'm doing this 21-day cleanse-y type dealio, coached through it by Stew, one of the dudes who teaches at CrossFit Durham.  On Monday he measured all the stats I'm about to share and gave me the wherewithal to do the diet.   There's a series of capsules to take along with a couple huge tubs of protein powder to replace what I'm no longer getting from bacon *tear*  It works like an elimination diet - get all the possible bad stuff out all at once, then slowly introduce it back and see how you feel.  Which means for the first week, I'm pretty much vegan.  The shakes* aren't too bad yet, but I honestly think I might murder someone for an omelette by Saturday.  For a steak...I don't even want to speculate.

Now, the stats.

Weight: 160.  Higher than I thought it would be, but not too bad.

BMI: 25.06.  This is classified as overweight.  I can lift over 200 pounds, jump over 30 inches and I did barefoot sprints on the road today.  'Nuff said.

Body Fat Percentage: 26.3.  This means I've got about 42 pounds of fat and 118 pounds of lean mass.  That's definitely a little higher than I'd like, which is one of the reasons I'm doing this.  The tricky part is getting the abs and keeping the T&A.

Total Body Water: 43.3L/59.7%.  Stew says this should be closer to 70%; I guess I'm a little dehydrated.

Basal Metabolic Rate: 1540 kCal/day.  One of the goals is to raise this, which is done by gaining muscle.  Yes please!

Daily Energy Expenditure: 2002 kCal.  I don't know what this one means.  Anyone?

Waist: 30.5 inches

Hips: 41 inches.  So I've got a waist-to-hip ratio of right about 0.75.  Which, biologically speaking, means I'm sexy.  Awesome.

And now the pics.  Warning: although Bea is the most amazing photographer ever, she couldn't disguise my post-WOD sans makeup glory.  View at your own risk.

To everyone who commented on my last post (updated 3Apr11)

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You guys are amazing.  Seriously.  I was all like "blog blag blarg bleah" and you were like "no but yay, see?"  And it helped a lot.

Phil: Thank you!  It's especially nice to be told by someone I consider a total badass that we're in the same boat/tent/other containment device.  If we're ever in the gym at the same time again, we need to have a WOD-off.  I bet you I'll be slower than you.  Loser (of the bet) buys the winner a burger at King's.  Sound cool?

John: Thank you! You can emulate me any day :)  And it really means a lot to be counted in that description, of "people who seemed to be having the most fun. The people who greeted me and the people who seemed get the most joy out of each WOD. Especially by those who seemed driven by love of exercise and not ego."  Awesome.  You always have the best things to say.  And you are a total badass.

Emily: Thank you!  That's so true about the quality of work being the most important - I need to remember that even though I might be slow, I look damn good.  I'm talking about my form, of course.  Also, Recovering-Fat-Kid powers, activate: form of a TOTAL BADASS!  Also, those bacon-wrapped almond-stuffed dates on your blog look kind of amazing.

Maggie (who emailed me): Thank you!  It's more myself and my silly thought process than "the CrossFit thing" that gets me down, but having wonderful people like you around to provide happy thoughts makes everything get whole lot better a whole lot faster.  And you are the baddest of all the asses because you are my seester and I love you.

Amy: If you suddenly appeared in my living room right after I read your comment, I would go in for a full-contact body-check-esque high five that would then turn into a hug.  Thank you!  You are an amazing athlete (without any quotation marks at all because it's TRUE, so fucking ACCEPT it already) and a total badass, and any admiration you have for me is returned tenfold.

Lindsay: I think all the self-proclaimed slowpokes need to have a WOD-off for reverse time.  For serious.  And then Dave can do a feature on the winner, something like "I'm the slowest person at CFD and I can still (deadlift 300 lbs/throw a 20lb wallball over the wall/scare small children with my shoes/blah de blah)."  Eh?  Eh?  Anyways, thank you!  I don't see you in the gym nearly as often as I'd like to, because you're kind of awesome (and also a total badass).  Also, I have no idea why you weren't in my bloglist before.  That has been remedied.

Joanne: You know, "Workout Of Death" is actually a MUCH better way of putting it.  I like your style.  And also, aw shucks I ain't all that *shuffles feet*...but thank you :)  As for being 30 minutes behind everyone else...I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that you're probably much more of a total badass than you think.  I know that was true for me.  And if you're ever down in NC, give me a holler and I'll give you a chance to realise that!

You guys make me smile like crazy.  Thank you all :)

-Nelly

Six inches can seem like a lot more than it is

...and I'm not even referring to the naughty context! 

Finally, a CrossFit Update!  I've been out of the gym with the flu of death for the last week and a half, so it was awesome to get back into the swing of things.  Here's what I've been doing:

Tuesday

Strength

• 50 strict GHD machine back/hip extensions (the third move shown in this video.  Turn your sound down before you hit the link; it's got loud screamy music).  These kind of terrify me - as does anything where I'm in an upside-down-ish position - especially as the machine has the tendency to wobble a lot.  Coach Peter Parker (aka Rich)  helped out by holding my ankles while I did the move.  Don't laugh.  It helped a lot.  Thanks, Rich :)

WOD: Birthday WOD for Coach Too-Cute-To-Hate (aka Mike).  Yay!
AMRAP for 9 minutes:

• 9 deadlifts
• 6 squat cleans
• 3 jerks (I did split jerks for the first round and then push jerks)

Got 5 full rounds and 5 more deadlifts out of that, with 65lbs on the bar.  Then, after 3 minutes rest:

• AMRAP burpees for 3 minutes.  I totally lost count here and have no idea what I did.

The "six inches" thing comes into play here: for each burpee, we had to jump at least 6 inches high.  After a dozen of these, you kinda start to feel it.

Wednesday

Strength: 20ish minutes of L-sit progressions/practice.  I can only get about 10 seconds, but it's pretty solid.

WOD: freaking insane, and I kind of sucked at it.
4 rounds for time of:

• 500m row
• 3 rounds of "Cindy:" 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats

So for every round there's a total of 500m row, 15 pull-ups, 30 push-ups and 45 air squats.  Monster bitch.  I had to sub out one-handed KB snatches for push-ups on the last round because my shoulder slipped, but other than that it was straight.  Took me 40:33, which is kind of ew.  Better next time!

Thursday (today!)

Endurance WOD

• Allison actually had us do barre exercises (sans barre; just held the wall).  Hold the leg for 10 seconds at waist height, followed by 10 grand battements (controlled straight-leg kicks to waist height or higher), doing each leg to the front, back and side.  We repeated the whole deal 3 times, although I only did it twice because I came in late.
• Rowing, rowing, rowing.  12 rounds of 1 minute on, 30 seconds rest, pacing to keep the speed as steady as possible all the way through.  I started out at a pace of 2:00/500m and kept pretty closely to that to the end.

Strength

• Warm-up: used a PVC pipe for shoulder pass-throughs and around-the-worlds, then worked on snatch progressions for about 10 minutes
• 5 sets of 5 snatches, as heavy as possible.  This is the hardest of the lifting moves for me because it's incredibly technical: you have to think about your feet coming out (but not too much) and your knees staying in and your hips being extended and your elbows coming up and about 50 other things all at once.  I'm starting to get a bit of a flow, though...and I no longer fall down EVERY time.  Made it with 33lbs for the first two sets, followed by 43, 53 and 63, which is a PR :D

WOD:

• Tabata sledgehammer swings, 20 seconds on/10 seconds off for 4 minutes.  My official score (lowest number of reps in any round) was 11; got up to 14 on a couple though.

Tomorrow we're doing deadlifts.  I'm ridiculously excited.

I also found out tonight that Coach Peter Parker has a motorcycle.  I seriously had no idea until I saw him all suited up and carrying his helmet.  He's all cool now!  You're a lucky lady, Bea ;)

-Nelly

CrossFit questions

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

And then, if the "problem" happens to be CrossFit, the second step seems to be buying shoes of questionable aesthetic appeal that come in many bright colors.  Cases in point, the Inov-8 shoes I'm seeing on everyone and their grandmother in the gym right now, as well as the already classic Vibram Five Fingers (the name of which, my sister thinks, sounds like it should belong to a product of slightly more personal use).

Note that I haven't actually bought a pair of either yet, I'm just lusting after them like yeah whoa.  Just something to go on the list of what to do with my tax refund...

But I digress.

I'm addicted, you guys.  I've swallowed the red pill; I've downed every last drop of the kool-aid (can you even make paleo kool-aid?).  I may have constant bruises and torn hands and even red, swollen whip marks from those damn double-under jump-ropes, but it's absolutely worth it to be able to do something that is slowly (but faster than I realise it) and surely turning me into a totally bad-ass goddess of CrazySexyFitness.

The question is, where do I go with it?

Part of that question is for you guys.  I know that not everyone who reads this blog is as head-over-heels gone as I am for CF, or has even tried it yet.  I'm assuming that the regular CFers would be at least marginally interested in me posting my stats for WODs and lifting, but what about the rest of you?  Would you prefer that I keep it in a different section or page, or just update once in a while?  I've also been toying with the idea of adding videos/pics of myself and other CFDurhamites (if they want) working out.  What do you think?  Let me know!

The other part of that question is a deeper and much more personal one.  As it stands, being fit and healthy is currently an almost entirely personal pursuit of mine, and the day job revolves around...well, to be honest, pretty unhealthy food.  It's started to nag at me rather a lot lately - I put so much emphasis on having the best health I can for myself, but my livelihood still consists of literally feeding people stuff that I won't even eat.  Now, don't get me wrong - I love working there, but it's mainly because of the people I work with.  The more I learn about true health and the more I apply that to my own life, the more it bothers me that I'm supporting myself by doing exactly the opposite for other people - it's kind of a "sleeping with the enemy" thing, only I get paid for it.  Which makes me a...well, you know.

So many things to ponder.  For now, what do you think?  I'd love to hear what you'd like to see on this blog, any ideas you have for what I should do with my life, what you had for lunch today, how much you are loving your new baby puppy (Haleigh, I'm totally calling you out here!) and anything else you feel like commenting on.

-Nelly

Money Monday 3/1 (now with awesomeness!)

...which is super, SUPER belated this week.  But I'm a sucker for alliteration, so the tag stays.

This past week has been pretty fantastic.  We started the new year off with a bang and a good deed: my friends and I went to Raleigh (our capital city) to dance our patooties off and had loads of fun, then on the way back to the car (amidst a whole lot of craziness) saw a girl sitting barefoot on the side of the sidewalk, sobbing.  Turned out that she and her boyfriend, both slightly sloshed, had a tiff which ended in him storming off into the wilds of downtown, which neither of them knew very well, and leaving her sans keys (with which she simply would have taken a cab home).  My wonderful friend Martha, who can be incredibly intimidating in the friendliest way ever, got on the phone with the girl's boy and persuaded him to come on back, giving him directions on how to do so, while I provided a sweater and hugs until he finally did, which took a good half-hour or so.  But they ended up safely together, and we got the warm fuzzies, and all was good.

I also had a couple fitness/weight related successes this week.  First, I measured my waist for the first time in years.  In high school, I was about 29-30 inches; in college, that jumped to 32 or so before I didn't want to see it keep growing anymore.  A week ago (before starting Whole30) I measured at 28 inches.  YES, Tony, WITHOUT "sucking it in!" :P  I also managed, just yesterday, to do TWO completely unaided pull-ups (still kipping, though).  I AM SUPERGIRL!

This week's questions (original post here whoops, looks like Miss MPP took a day off!  Good on her.  I'll just make up my own last question then):

1.  The most I’ve spent this last week was on the Whole30 Success Guide, $39.  It was a total impulse splurge, and while it's got a lot of good information on the little finicky parts of implementing Whole9 (detailed shopping lists, for one), I probably would not have paid that much for it if I'd gotten to flip through it first.  Maybe $15 or $20, keeping in mind that I'm normally pretty cheap.  But it's still quite useful.
2. Today I feel FREAKING AWESOME towards money.  Why is that, you ask?  Because I got a major, totally unexpected windfall in the form of a LOT of savings bonds that my grandparents got for me over the years and my mom just told me about.  How much is a lot?  Well, with all of those plus my latest paycheck and some Christmas money, I just about doubled my net worth.  It'll be into 5 figures by April, and that's thinking conservatively and taking into account my tax refund.  I've decided to use most of this to open an IRA (Roth, natch), drop a nice chunk on my student loan and then go shopping with my sister, who's promised to give me comprehensive wardrobe help.  Yay!
3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free/inexpensive thing I did last week that made me happy was TWO UNAIDED PULL-UPS IN A ROW!!!  That kept me grinning...well, I'm still grinning now :D.
4. I will consider this week a success if I do THREE unaided pull-ups in a row. 
5. One of my goals for the year ahead is to do 20 unaided dead-hang pull-ups in a row (no kipping!).

 Lurkers: Tell me something awesome.  Anything at all.  My definition of "awesome" is pretty broad.

-Nelly 

"My touring...what??"

Hey guys!  Just a quick note on something that is so random it'll make you all squint up your eyes and go "whuh?" as soon as you read it.  So apparently one of the search keywords used to reach this site in the past week was as follows:

"my touring wagon is badassery"

That's right.  All aboard, beeyatches!  We're going off the rails on the Crazy(SexyFit) Train to METALVILLE!!!

-N

PS: If the person who used this phrase to get here is reading this, you're the awesomest.  Please don't explain yourself.  I just love the mental image as is.

Back on the wagon (again)

...and that wagon looks a whole lot like a pull-up bar. I wasn't doing actual pull-ups, but knees-to-elbows (link is to a Youtube vid. Disclaimer: that chick is much fitter than I am but the general motion is the same). Those mixed with a lot of kettlebell work for last night's WOD left me with these lovelies:That's right! I tore my calluses for the very first time ever! It HURRRTS like a monster but I feel so incredibly badass! I've been keeping them covered in lavender-oil-soaked gauze most of the time, looking up hand-taping methods and ways to avoid this happening again (once is enough to certify me as totally beast, and all said it's really not that pleasant an experience :/)

Yesterday's workout:

• 15-20ish minutes of warming up: wrist-to-wrist random motion, randori with Colin in the middle chopping at us with a PVC pipe, plank-pose patty-cake. Comment if you want better descriptions of any of these.
• WOD: AMRAP of 20 sumo deadlift high pulls (24kg/53lb kettlebell) and 10 knees-to-elbows. I got in 5 complete rounds and 15 SDHPs; 5.375 rounds but Colin nicely counted it as 5.5. Yay for rounding!
• plank pose competition! I made it for 50 seconds but that was because my sock slipped off my foot. Probably could have made it past a minute sans chausettes. Next time...
  

However, the reason that I was off the wagon to start with is blurrily depicted below:I can write some of this off to the fact that when I was playing rugby in college, I sprained this same ankle really badly during a run (as in should have stayed on the crutches for at least a month), didn't give it nearly enough down time before I started playing on it again and subsequently made it permanently weaker than it should be. But that doesn't change the fact that this particular injury was due to...walking and texting. That's right. That's like one step below walking into a telephone pole and breaking your nose. In my defense it WAS at the Duke Wall, where the paths are all this very fine gravel that disintegrates into ruts and runnels all over the place every time it rains. But still. Not the coolest way to injure oneself. If I'm gonna be laid up for a week, I want a cool story to go with it!

For the lurkers (this means you, Alex P.!): Help me out, guys. What's a cooler story than texting while walking? Besides, you know, everything.

-N

I am Iron Woman

Breakfast: egg salad with mustard and cayenne on a Wasa, 1 tomato, 1 deliciously messy plum (you are spared the gory spectacle of me devouring it), coffee, cat and comics. Second day in a row that breakfast has been this leisurely, and I'm off work tomorrow so it will happen AGAIN! I am so spoiled.

Then work work work all day, with a salad for lunch and a Zone bar and a totally gross-looking and delicious green smoothie for pre-workout fueling.

Then...CROSSFIT! Dun dun dunnnnn! This was the last day of this session, so I knew it would have to be something horrendous. Little did I know...just how right I would be! Muahahahahaha!
Ahem.

So we got there as the last group, Dave included, was finishing their workout. I didn't think I'd ever seen Dave actually working out before, in a year and a half of going, and mentioned that to him...which may or may not have had anything to do with our WOD for the evening. Whoops! But at this point, all was light and happiness. The other girls and I went for a quick 400m to warm up, then gathered around the whiteboard, where our fates were being decided. We could hear Dave's evil chuckle even before he started writing. Our blood froze in our veins as he stepped aside, revealing the following list:

• 50 box jumps (20-inch)
  
• 50 jumping pull-ups
• 50 American KB swings (25-lb)
  
• 50 walking lunges
• 50 sit-ups
• 50 dumbbell push presses (2 12-lbs)
  
• 50 back extensions
• 50 wall balls (1 6-lb)
• 25 burpees (here he took pity on us)
  
• 100 jump ropes

That's right. We did the Filthy Fifty. And damn, but she was a monster bitch. I got cramps partway through the KB swings and had to step aside for a good minute, but that was the only time I really stopped for more than a few seconds, not counting water breaks and walking between stations. I definitely could have done a heavier wall ball, and was about to pick up the 10 but Dave told me to focus on keeping it short. Meh. I almost threw the damn 6-pounder over the wall several times, I'm so used to the 15lb. Next time...

Dinner was amam's coleslaw, a salmonburger, a big handful of strawberries and some milk. And some chocolate. My uterus made me do it.

So I looked at one of those healthy-weight charts and saw that I'm about 15 lbs higher than the "ideal" weight for my height. Given, I've got a bit more muscle than average, but that doesn't account for anywhere near all of that...and besides, it's all kind of swathed in pudge right now. So I'm reinstating the plan I had last summer: namely, doing semi-strict Zone 6 days a week, upping my weekly mileage (at one point last year I was at a solid 5k 3-4 times a week, working my way up) and switching to nettle tea instead of coffee. This last one I will ease into. Very slowly.

Bed time! Farmers' market day tomorrow!

-N