Five Things Friday – Oct 24, 2013

I don’t know what it is, but today is a GOOD day! 

Could be that’s it’s simply Friday and I have an entire weekend with no work (hubby has no work either) and it might be the first time in months that I’ll make it out for a Saturday morning WOD! And it could be due to the fact that I rolled myself out of bed for a 6:30am WOD.  It’s tough but definitely a great way to start my day.

WOO HOO!

On to Five Things Friday…

1. Crossfit:  Olympic lifts are getting a little easier… still struggling with more hips, less arms but considering I only started Olympic lifts last week, I’m doing pretty good.  The coaches were waiting for all results to come in from our round of testing last month and now that they have the results, we’ll be starting a new programming cycle on Monday.  Can’t wait!
2. Crossfit:  Getting stronger! Yay!!  This week we had a couple WODs with back squats and I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to go heavy due to the tightness in my hips.  On Tuesday I managed to do 5 reps @ 115lbs and today I did 3 reps @ 120lbs.  My 1RM is 125lbs, so I think I’m getting stronger. 
3. Crossfit:  Okay, one more Crossfit related thing… I definitely need to get more aggressive.  I’m finding that I’m pulling back a little from the heavier weights and I really need to just giv’er… go all out.  I need to step up to the bar and just own it!  I need to pump myself up and go heavy.  And I need to keep pushing for that last rep.  This morning we were doing pull ups and on my 3rd set, I managed to get 4 pull ups in a row.  I should have gone for that 5th rep, even if I had to wiggle my chin above the bar, instead I let go of the bar and decided, Ok.. I’m done.. that was good enough.  Must push harder.
4. I must also be in a super good mood because I think I may have found the perfect winter boot.  For the past 3-4 years I’ve been wearing UGG boots.  These boots, although super warm and comfy, simply do not look good with my work attire and not like anyone’s checking out my footwear, I’m always a little embarrassed to be wearing dress pants with a pair of UGGs.  I definitely need a pair of warm boots, temperatures here can go as low as -40 in the winter time.  But I also want something fashionable.  I went boot shopping a couple days ago and when I asked the salesperson for their most fashionable but super warm pair of boots, he indicated that fashionable warm boots didn’t really exist 😦  But I wasn’t giving up and started shopping online and found the perfect pair of boots.  They’re actually still UGG boots, so they come with the super warm lining but they’re a leather tall boot with a heel! OMG! so perfect!  Price tag: $400.  That’s bringing down my happiness level a bit, but I’ll figure something out to justify the cost. hehe…
5. Meal planning… I prepared dinner/lunch.. TWICE this week! eek.. not good.. we had a team luncheon on Wednesday so I was covered for lunch but had to pick up yesterday and will pick up lunch today.  There’s food in the fridge to cook, I just gotta cook it.  Was really hoping to cook last night but I worked overtime until 8:30pm and then it was time to get the kids ready for bed.  Of course after they went to bed I could’ve cooked something.  But I found myself watching The Vampire Diaries.. hehe..  that might be the one series I follow this season.

Yesterday’s WOD was a good one and I actually found myself pushing harder.  We worked on our snatch and hand stand push ups.  I did negatives.  I’m sure the day I do a hand stand push up, will have me feeling like I’m on top of the world.  Can’t wait!  Second portion of the WOD had us doing:

5 rounds:

• heavy sled push (I did 90lbs on top)
• 10 box jumps (20″)
• 10 burpees

My sled pushes definitely slowed down for the last couple rounds but I pushed through every round.  It was awesome!

Tomorrow morning’s WOD will be more of an aerobic workout, can’t wait!

Hope you’re all having a great Friday!

Five Things Friday… Crossfit Edition

** I started this post first thing yesterday, but never managed to finish it, so I’m posting it a day late **

It’s been a few weeks since I did a Five Things Friday.  Today I want to do a Five Things Friday post related to Crossfit.

1. I’ve now been doing Crossfit for 4 months.  The past few weeks I have only been making it to 3 classes/week, but I’m really hoping to make it back to 4-5 classes/week.  I no longer feel the anxiety and nervousness I used to feel before each class.  I do get a little nervous when I see back squats listed in the WOD but I’m sure that will ease in time.
2. I can now do 6 pull/chin ups in a row.  Ultimate goal would be 10 in a row, so I’m half way there.  I do have a muscle-up goal, but we’re not allowed to go on the rings until we meet the pre-requisite of doing 20 perfect form push ups.
3. The past couple months, I had my coworker join me at Sublime crossfit.  Unfortunately she had to cancel her membership 😦  It was so great to go to classes with her and to be able to talk to her about crossfit every now and then at work.  We’ve been coworkers/friends for a long time now so it was nice to have her there with me.  Every now and then our coach Kyle would try to get us to compete against each other, but I’m not big into competing with others, I’m always focused on competing against myself.
4. The next couple weeks will involve fitness testing as part of our WODs.  The coaches want to check how individuals have progressed since joining, how strong we’ve all gotten. I’m nervous!  I don’t think I will hit any new PRs, but I’ll definitely give it a try.  I am excited to see how strong I’ve gotten overall.
5. Then following the 2 weeks of fitness testing, that’s where I have to make a big decision.  Remain in foundation or move into building.. where I will start learning Olympic lifting.  EEK! I really want to do olympic lifting but I know there’s so much technique involved, it makes me nervous.  Although the coaches have been so good at reassuring me that I’ll be starting with the very basics and there’s no expectation that I would be doing heavy olympic lifts from the start.

There will also be a discussion next Saturday to see how many individuals at our box are serious about competing.  I’m definitely interested, don’t think I’m close to being in a position to compete, but I’ll be joining the discussion to find out more details.  Can’t wait!!

I’ve also found that in terms of goals, they’ve changed quite a bit.  Overall goals are to get stronger and remain healthy, but I haven’t had any thoughts lately of needing to lose weight or of the way my body looks.  Lately it’s all been about getting stronger, goals of exceeding my last PR, adding more weight, getting faster.  I love how my focus is feeling strong and healthy.  I still want to eat cleaner, but I’m not as stressed about it right now.

Here’s a pic I took last week.  Can definitely see the growth in my legs 🙂

Five Things Friday

Sorry for the lack of posts.. work has been kicking my butt!!

Here’s this weeks Five Things:

1. Clean eating update – it’s slightly better, I’m making more effort to stay on track, but I’m still not where I want to be.  This week I only cooked one meal, so lunches haven’t been great, actually same with dinners too.  As soon as I’m done writing this post, I’m writing up a meal plan for next week, along with a grocery list.
2. You know the person that falls asleep on the bus?  Yeah, that was me on Wednesday.  My coworker has been teasing me, telling me that a fellow bus passenger most likely took my picture and my picture can be found online.. hehe.. hoping my mouth wasn’t wide open! eek!!
3. Work is kicking my butt.  And there really is no sign of slowing down until the end of August 😦  I’m pretty much working overtime every weekend and suspect that I will be working from home during the week as well.
4. With all the work that is coming up and the likelihood of working extra hours in the evenings, I’m going to have to figure out what to do about my Crossfit classes.  I’m hoping I can sign up for some 6am classes, just so that I can work in the evenings and still have time for the kids and other household items on my to-do list.
5. Crossfit is going really well, getting stronger each class and learning to not be so afraid of failure.  It’s actually a really good feeling to try a weight so heavy that you need to drop it.  At least I tried right?

The kiddies are itching to go out today but unfortunately I’m doing a bit of work right now. Thought I would squeeze in a post as well.  Summer weather is nice and hot.. some really humid days but I’m enjoying every day… in a few months, weather will start to cool down.  then.. you know.. winter 😦

Five Things Friday

It’s hard to believe it’s already Friday.  Didn’t look forward as much to this Friday though, due to the fact that I’ll be working a bit on Saturday and Sunday morning.  So what’s up for today’s Five Things Friday?

1. I reached my goal of squatting (back squat) my body weight.  Today I hit my PR of 115lbs (3 reps).  It’s such a great feeling, considering last week when we did back squats I wasn’t feel well and managed to do 100lbs.  Even though I wasn’t feeling 100% I was still disappointed that I couldn’t increase in weight.  But YAY for today!
2. My shoulder/neck is still causing a bit of pain.  I went for a massage this morning and she really worked on my back/shoulders and I do feel like she loosened up my muscles, but I still couldn’t do any pullups at Crossfit 😦
3. My eating this week has been pretty good.  That is until lunch time today 😦  I love going out for lunch, especially on a Friday.  Today I decided to join my coworkers for lunch.  I had already eaten my lunch at my desk (quinoa, beans and grilled beef) and was feeling like having a bit more protein.  The guys decided to go to Shannon’s Irish Pub, which meant whatever I did end up having wasn’t going to be very “clean”.  It was SO tempting to order the fish and chips, but I knew I would have felt very bad afterwards.  I decided on the chicken fingers and fries.  I ate all 3 chicken fingers and munched on a small portion of fries.  Definitely not a wise-decision but I just didn’t want to feel left out at the lunch table.  Bad bad Jocelyn!  giving into social eating… must get better at that.
4. Weather is scorching hot over here.  We’ve been hovering in the high 20s for the past couple of weeks.  Everyone at Crossfit is dripped in sweat with the high humidity.  We really need it to rain to get rid of the humidity in the air.
5. I’ve enjoyed getting into shape and changing my physique. Even though I haven’t been watching my meals closely, I found my pants a bit on the looser side today.  A good thing and a bad thing actually.  Bad only because now I need to go shop (and spend $$) on new dress pants.  And actually I did try to shop for new pants while in Minneapolis last week, but actually found it very frustrating because alot of the stores carry size 2 as their smallest size, but even that was too loose for me.  I know.. not a problem I should be complaining about.  I’ll stop now.

After Crossfit, I pulled the kiddies in the wagon to the ice cream shop (15 min walk) and back.  So tired now.  Must get to bed so that I have energy for tomorrow’s 9am WOD.