You've got to move it, move it!

I am shocked to admit I am taking blogging up again. Inspiration came in the form too many random things happening in my fitness life not to share, and a nudge from my good friends Jen and Steph.

I will also admit that I got hit in the head a few days ago. (Seriously, the bruise is yellow and the size of a tennis ball. No amount of make-up or strategic hair style has been able to cover it up.)

Regardless of the reason I started blogging again I wanted to share the link to my new blog Roads Traveled.

Follow me at: http://travelingroads.wordpress.com/

A Pollyanna Moment

Everyone copes with the stress the world seems bent on sending our way in a different manner. Mine is to find a lesson, or a positive side effect of whatever hailstorm I am in the middle of. My co-workers call these my "Merry Sunshine" or "Pollyanna" moments. I admit to having to look up the Pollyana reference, which has a history that back tracks to the 1913 or so but I am gonna focus on the Disney version. It's a movie about a girl that tries to find something positive in every situation she encounters, and has the normal orphan/stern adult archetypes that tag along happily. A co-worker of mine also passed along the Pollyanna quote, "but life is a wonderful and a precious gift to be shared by all!" That is a little more than I can stomach personally.

Anyway, I cope with stress with sunshine. Which if you spent any time around me and my very dry sense of humor you would probably find a little shocking. I accept the contradiction and I embrace it.

Point being is that I have poison ivy and it is nasty stuff. My work group volunteered at the local Boys and Girls Club and I spent the day whackin' and hackin' through brush that was at least four feet deep in areas. Unfortunately, from the activity description I thought I was going to be pulling weeds and maybe some raking. So I wore tennis shoes, capris, a t-shirt, and some gloves.

Did you know it takes 24-48 hours for this stuff to show up? And that it pops up in stages? AND that it gets worse over a weeks time before you finally peak???? Not to mention, it's another week to two weeks before it clears up completely.

Which means I have been nicknamed Itchy, I spend a signficant portion of my paycheck on calomine lotion, both arms are wrapped in gauze, and pants are a painful endeavor that I cope with to work in the office.

So wanna hear my upside?

1. I haven't worked out in almost three weeks. My lingering injuries are finally healing, and I can rotate my hip again. Best of all, no guilt.

2. I have been re-evaluting my work out goals. Actually I had a V8 moment when I good friend said something to me that made me want to hit myself in the forehead. "Why are you letting someone else dictate what success means to you?"

Ah, well that explains why CrossFit has been causing more and more anxiety. I forgot that I really do this workout thing for fun, community, and I really want sweet biceps. I have been way too focused on times, weights lifted, etc. Does that make me less hardcore? Maybe, but so be it.

3. I can now identify poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak. Thank you Google.

4. My coworkers who are also inflicted have found a certain bonding in our misery.

5. I had an absolute fantastic day at the Boys and Girls Club and I wouldn't trade it. Though, I would certainly ask more questions about what we are doing, cover myself from head to toe in fabric, and possibly consider dunking myself in Hydrocholoric Acid to stop the poisony ivy before it started.

See all kinds of lessons to be learned :)

Ego bustin', goal settin' mania

I promise that as a rule I am a pretty easy going kind of person. I feel really bad about posting another Debbie Downer kind of entry, but I value honesty. And honestly, I have been struggling the month of August. As a re-cap I have been doing CrossFit for two months now and I really like it. It is a mental and physical challenge, but August has been a beast in terms of motivation. Actually, I found some peace in a quote that Runners World sent to me:

"I often lose motivation, but that's something I accept as normal"
-Bill Rodgers, Olympic Marathoner

Which snapped me out of beating myself up constantly about how my workouts and nutrition which haven't been perfect. Is this a female thing? Constantly beating ourselves up because we don't reach superwoman status in all things, all the time. Seriously, I should have recognized that my body needed time to heal (Hello scratched cornea, and sharp pain in my hip that wouldn't go away), and my relentless drive (sounds positive, but is a happy way of saying neurotic).

So I took time off to really figure out where my head is at, and I came up with two main problems:

-Ego:

Goodness I know better than to bring it with me to the gym, but somehow it snuck in. Somehow it got past my internal bouncer and it has been tagging along with me like the irritating kid brother you can’t shake (I have a kid brother, I speak from experience).

Except I didn’t recognize it at first. It took the form of frustration when I didn’t work out to my (too high) expectations and I let it force me to work out when my body needed time to heal. The result? Mostly a downward spiral in performance and mental strength.

Ego is a sneaky bastard.

-Goals:

I haven’t had any all month. Well, I had some vague ones like get stronger, get faster…yada yada. Perfectly acceptable goals on the surface but they were missing critical elements. Every year in Corporate America (yay for cubes!) I have to set goals using the SMART acronym.
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Attainable
R: Realistic
T: Timely

I know people are out there rolling there eyes, trust me I hate this process as much as the next person. However, it forces you to create goals that work. Vague goals like “get stronger” don’t work because you don’t know when you crossed the finish line. How do you know when to celebrate success or learn from an experience when you don’t quite hit the mark? Instead, if you create a goal using SMART…well there is absolutely no doubt where the finish line is or the outcome.

And if you are worried your goal is going to sound so technical you will need an engineer to explain what the heck you are trying to achieve…fear not! I am working on picking an October 5K, and my run time goal is 30min or less.

See? Super easy.

The goal is specific (or will be once I pick a race), measurable (30 min run time)…umm I am pretty sure attainable and realistic (as long as I pick a late Oct. race), and timely (woo hoo a time frame!). Also, just for kicks, this particular goal is out of my comfort zone (best 5K race time, pre CrossFit, is 33ish minutes. Personally, I do better with longer distances, 5Ks and I have a history of mutual dislike)…which also makes it CrossFit worthy.

If I was really witty I would somehow add another letter to the SMART acronym that incorporated an aspect that made the goal CrossFit worthy. Alas, I have nothin’

(For the record, no one tell my boss I see value in SMART…he knows how much I drag my heels when it comes time to our set our goals for the year.)

Dead Squirrel Run

Fun CrossFit Fact: On people's b-days there are especially fun (read: crazy intense) workouts to be had.

In fact, I plan on being sick for my b-day...actually, I plan on being sick on everybody's b-day from now on. Whew!

The workout board was la bled "Dead Squirrel Run," which I thought was the name of the workout. I figured by the time we were done we were all going to look like roadkill. It felt appropriate, especially when I found out we were doing 35 (The age of the guy) one arm db presses, one arm lunges, situps, ring dips, wall balls, box jumps, and burpees.

What they actually meant is the wanted us to run to the dead squirrel in the road and back. Really, some poor mummified squirrel in the middle of the road.

And, yes, this gym is run by guys. I think they are contemplating making shirts...

Anyway, as a side note I am hoping someone finds a pair of errant arms hanging around the gym somewhere. They're mine, I lost them at some point during the wall balls. I am checking the lost and found next time I am at the gym, I need them for Monday's workout.

First Impressions

So, first impressions, as the title of this post implies are just a general idea of my first impressions of CrossFit and CrossFit Strong.  Now, I should caveat this post with the fact I have watched my fair share of YouTube videos, and perused the CrossFit.com site in an effort to better understand what this whole phenomenon is about.  To be totally honest, it looked crazy, intense...maybe insane is a good word?  Actually cultish seems like a fair description (and a word I saw all over CrossFit.com), so I figured I would feel right at home.  I went to Texas A&M, and I loved it, enough said.

In true form, I got lost on the way to the CrossFit Strong on Saturday...my GPS led me astray, that’s my story.  But when I finally found it I was completely shocked by what I saw.  Everyone who was working out looked like they had all jumped in a pool in the last 5 minutes...actually I started looking for a pool cause that sounded like a great idea.  Yes, hello, I was that silly person in jeans and a t-shirt at the gym (box? Hmmmm, I think I have to workout at least once before I start adopting the lingo) on Saturday.  I had already worked out that morning, and had errands to run later so I really was there to just get a feel for the place. It was for the best, I was dying to join the workout, but being in jeans kept me from doing something crazy like trying to fit in two workouts in a day.

What struck me second was that everyone single person in the whole place was smiling.

I swear its true.

I was honestly looking for one unhappy person and couldn't find them.  And as I was standing there (sweating there?  I really should stop with the puns.) several people came up to us and began introducing themselves and telling us how much they loved the workout.  The fact they were able to string together sentences after an intense workout I found impressive, but they were also friendly!  (I admit to checking the industrial fan at the back of the room to see if someone had secretly hooked up a nitrous oxide tank...they hadn't in case you were wondering)

And I was pretty much hooked from the beginning.  Everyone works out a little differently, me? I need a community.  Whether its a training group, run group, whatever, I do not work out well by myself.  The sheer energy of CrossFit Strong had me hooked, I love it when people are supporting one another through workouts.   Gale asked me how I liked it after the class ended at noon, I told him I would start Thursday :)

Oh...and my best advice?  Don't watch all those CrossFit videos if you are worried about being intimidated.  There are some really crazy fit people on there, but that doesn't mean you cant be part of the CrossFit community.  Everything is scalable, and even in that short introductory workout I saw people with all kinds of different fitness levels doing CrossFit. Besides, even those crazy fit people had to start somewhere.

Right? ;)

Oh, and just because I do find those crazy fit people inspiring, let me add a gratuitous crazy fit video.  Just remember what I said. And the music has some not so family friendly words in it…just doing my best to warn ya.

 

Oh gosh!

Oh goodness, I became one of those bloggers. You know the ones, they post grand ideas and then disappear for a month or two and are never heard from again.

Sigh.

Let me explain...yeah I know, they all say that. :)

Nothing really drives me more crazy than setting goals and then not following through. I thought once I finished my Half Marathon craziness I would be ready to launch into the triathlon world again. I mean, I was already strong in one sport (...hmmmmm not strong in the sense of elite athlete, but for an accidental athlete I felt pretty good about it.) And I was in desperate need of something different to do. Hence swimming and cycling felt like branching out. Until I began to train....and I hated it.

So I found myself at a crossroads (yay for cliches!) and I had to make a decision. By nature I can force myself to do things out of sheer stubbornness, but that can really only go on for so long. If you don't have the passion, you don't have the drive. Period. So here I was with all of the grand goals (Hotter than Hell anyone?) and absolutely no drive to get myself where I needed to be. What's a girl to do?

I also have to secretly admit to a deep dark part of myself...which is an....gosh I can hardly bring myself to say it...OVERACHIEVER. Which is shocking to people who have known me for the past few years, because I am generally pretty easy going these days. Just ask my family though...and my college roommates :)...they will tell you that I can go crazy like any other overachiever you know. And the honest truth was I wasn't getting any faster, stronger, etc. I was completely burnt out on endurance sports. The overachiever in me was not happy, ah heck, the easy going part of me wasn't happy either. So I have spent the months in between March and now trying to figure out a new goal, or at least something to aspire to work towards.

So I did the Fort Worth Mud Run! Which is basically an obstacle course through all kinds of mud (Think giant mud hills, pits, army crawling under wire, the works). I had a blast! My only frustration was my lack of upper body strength and confidence in my muscles to get me through a couple of the obstacles. I ran it through my mind a few times and I realized that I had a new goal, one that centered around building strength.

So I got a trainer, and I have begun to see the difference in my back and upper body. I can do decent girl push ups these days! I am hoping to graduate to military push ups in a month or so, but I am gonna love on my progress regardless. Unfortunately, as much as I love working out with Rob (Check out Fit214.com if you live in the Dallas area!) it costs more than I was able to keep up with for months on end.

So I found something new to tri (pun intended) and its name is Crossfit.

Dear Half Marathon...

Dear Half Marathon,

You and I have had some good times, lots of laughs, but it's time for me to say goodbye for a bit. It's not you, really it's me. Triathlon season is kicking in, and I need to spend some more time with my good friends cycling and swimming if I have a prayer of making some of my goal races this year. Don't worry though, I will be back! Marathon training begins in July, and I have no dobt there will be some HMs along the way.

Thanks,

Lanie D.

4 half marathons in 5 months, and every run has been a new PR. Yesterday I wiped off another 6 minutes from my previous Cowtown HM time, and it was also nearly 12 min faster than the last time I ran this same course. I went out with a bang, and I am proud to say everything got left on the course.

Having said that I am wobbling around like an old lady. I think I might have broken the muscles that attach my legs to my bum. :) Is that possible?