{a weekend with the v’s}

What a wonderful weekend!  It started out in the gym.  You are starting to realize, if you haven’t already, that I talk about the gym A LOT.  The gym is a very important place to me.  My family goes there together, Tony and I get to workout together from time-to-time, I get stronger, sometimes I get to step in and help people get stronger, I learn more each day and I am learning how to teach in the gym.  We have great coaches that keep us motivated everyday.  Throughout the year we have potlucks at the gym to enjoy our community outside of workouts.  This time we had a Pink Party.  Eat pink, find something pink to bring to the potluck.  Wear pink, find something pink to show your support for breast cancer awareness.  It was so fun seeing everybody in their pink and what they found to prepare for the potluck.  We found there was a lot of salmon. :)  Yum!!  Everybody looked great in their pink, but I think the Hearn family may have won the prize.  The guys all sported huge pink ribbons around their neck like a huge scarf and the ladies revamped their “Tuff Enough” t-shirts to make them a little more girly and added a little bling that made my laugh and a little teary all at once.

I was blessed with many hugs, words of support, a new stainless steel water bottle (because plastic is evil) and a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.  After much grazing of good food and visiting with great friends, Coach B got everybody’s attention and said a few words.  When he was finished he broke out some new CrossFit stocking caps available for sale that Miss P ordered.  Check these out!  How awesome are these?  We bought four total for our family, I bought one for my girlfriend in Denver and my siblings ordered six all together!  Fantastic!

After Coach B finished saying a few words it was my turn.  I didn’t have anything planned out to say and I was starting to cry before I even had one sentence out.  I hope I said enough to convey my gratitude and love for our gym community.  Afterwards I kept thinking of things I wish I would have said.   One thing, I wish I would have specifically acknowledged our coach and his wife.  They have done so much for us in terms of support and organizing great things to show that support from them and the gym as a whole.  Thank you, Buf and Penny!  I love you guys.  It was a great evening of friends.  You can’t beat that. 

Later that night when Tony and I were talking about the evening I told him that one thing I haven’t done enough is thank him for his love and support.  I started crying immediately when I started to tell him this.  I could not have made it through all of this without my dear husband.  This was hard on him.  I think as a spouse you would feel helpless.  You can’t take the pain away or make things better.  He had a hard time telling people that his wife had cancer.  When he called his dad to tell him he told his dad while choking up that he had bad news and then couldn’t speak.  He was overwhelmed with worry leading up to my surgery worrying that something would happen to me.  He was stressed at the thought of taking care of everything and getting the work done that he needed to for work.  After surgery he took care of me.  He brought me food, he got me my meds during the day and in the middle of the night.  He changed the dressings on my incisions, he emptied my drains,  he dressed me, he washed my hair and soaped me up in the shower.  He took care of the kids, he loved up on them, he drove me around, he went to every appointment with me, he held onto me when I cried and stroked my hair when I sobbed.  He held my hand and handed me kleenex when I cried.  He looked at my body after surgery like nothing had changed. . . like nothing had changed when everything had.  I could go on and on, but that last thing is the one thing I needed most.

So our wonderful weekend continues.  Friday night at the gym wore me out and left me pretty sore.  Just being up and about, even if I’m not doing a whole lot does this to me.  So Saturday morning Tony let Tyler and me sleep in (Tyler was recovering from a stomach bug) and he packed Kenna up for her first wrestling tournament.  A Blue/Red Takedown Tournament.  I had no idea what this was so had to ask.  It’s a nice short tournament.  A great way to break newbies into a wrestling tournament.  You win a match by scoring two takedowns.  My girl kicked some butt! :-)  She lost her first one and won the next two. 

She didn’t want to go at all and was very nervous her first match.  She had no idea what to expect, but quickly figured it out.  In a text I asked Tony if she was enjoying it after she had a chance to wrestle.  He said she had just told him with a huge smile on her face, “I’m so proud of me!”  Oh, honey, you should be!  When she got home she told me, “I was so scared.”  I said, “That’s okay.  If you don’t do things that scare you, you won’t know what you can do.”

Later that night we had friends over for drinks and munchies.  We chatted, ate, had drinks, ate, laughed, laughed some more, ate, visited and laughed some more.  Great times.  I broke out a great “game” that Tony and discovered a few years ago when we spent our 15th anniversary at some cottages on Lake Superior.  It is called “Table Topics”. 

It is a box of cards with “questions to start great conversations”.  Just like the box says, it did just that!  Good times! 

You can get a family one, Girl’s Night Out, etc.  I picked up, “Not Your Mom’s Dinner Party”.  Pick up a box for your family or a fun night with friends.  I plan to get a family one next.  The kids will love it!

Sunday!  Today was a good, good day.  Our coach and his wife invited us to their awesome log home for brunch.  They live about 30 minutes from us and it was a beautiful sunny day for a drive.  The sun was shining on our winter wonderland.

  We spent about three hours with them visiting and enjoying a wonderful meal.  We were treated to mimosas, stuffed french toast with huckleberry sauce and fresh whipped cream (I’m pretty sure this didn’t make the Paleo list, but it was amazing!) and cheesy scrambled eggs topped with a mixture of sausage and a bunch of yummy veggies.  It was wonderful.  After breakfast the kids went outside and enjoyed a fantastic sledding hill and roaming the mountainside.  We finished up our visit with the kids warming up and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate.  What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Next we headed out for a little drive that would end up being the kids favorite part of the day. :)  Earlier in the day, for some reason unbeknownst to me, Tony started searching for dogs in the ads online.  In his search he came across an ad for a female and male purebred Welsh Corgis for sale for $100 each.  Soooo, Tony called on them and we headed out for a little drive to check out the dogs.  We found out that the female was no longer available because the owner thought she might be pregnant.  Oops!  We were interested in the male anyways so that worked okay.  So when we got there we walked back out to the car with Dewey (I would have named him Jesse) and asked the kids what they thought. “What?!” “Is it ours?” “Are you serious?” :)  So we are now the proud owners of a 3-year-old Welsh Corgi.  So far he seems like a great, mellow dog.  He loves the kids, hasn’t barked once and is about as active as a cat in a sunbeam.  He made himself right at home and found a great spot to sleep on the floor right beside the dog bed we bought him. Go figure!  I can’t wait to get him in for a good grooming.  He actually looks really great, but I want him cleaned to my liking.  Tony and the kids brushed him which worked for me because brushing dogs gives me the heebie-jeebies.  Weird, I know, but it gets me out of brushing the dog. lol

Introducing, Dewey!  Tony said he is a little dog and a big dog all rolled up in one! lol  He loves being outside and rolling around in the snow.  So far the honeymoon is still in effect because the kids love taking him outside, even in the cold.  We have also found that he likes to sleep on the couch when everybody has gone to bed.  We will be working on that.  That gives me the heebie-jeebies, too.  He got scolded three times last night for being on the couch.  The first couple times gently, the third time was a bit more stern.  Tony and I cracked up because the third time he walked just past us and sat down with his back to us and totally ignored us.  Too funny!  The kids love him and Tony loves having a dog in the house again.  I’m still not sure what to think.  But, I do feel that we gave him a better home than what he had and that makes me feel good.  He made himself at home and you would think he has lived here his entire life. 

We had a full, fun weekend and I love weekends like that.  I hope yours was just as wonderful!  Even better is okay, too!

{it’s hard work}

I’ve decided trying to be stong and positive is hard work.  I am finding that I am weary all the time and feel heavy.  I’m tired and just want to sleep in every morning.  I don’t want to stay in bed all day, but I want to delay the start of my days.  I didn’t feel like going to the gym today, but I went because I knew I had to.  I need to keep my body strong to speed up my recovery.  So to the gym I went.  We were loading up our bars for some heavy deadlifts when Coach gave out a shout, “now we are going to load up some weight!”  I instantly thought, what if you are already carrying a bunch of weight.  Right smack, dab on your shoulders.  My workouts have gotten so slow, I’ve added minutes to my time on short workouts. I feel like I can’t move, like my limbs weigh a ton.  I can’t catch my breath (more than usual), like a panic type “can’t catch my breath”.  I feel like I am trying to move through deep mud.  I broke down crying in the middle of a set of deadlifts today (more on that later) and not sure I would have picked it back up had Coach not walked over to push me to keep going.  I finished my set with tears streaming down my face. 

When I first found the lumps in my breast I could go to the gym and get away from my worries for at least one hour in the day.  Because during a CrossFit workout it is pretty near impossible to think about anything else except getting done with the workout.  Our workouts don’t give me that one hour of reprieve from my head anymore.  It’s always there, I always feel it.  A friend asked me today if I can ever forget about it during my day.  I can’t.  I try quite often not to dwell on it, but it is always there. 

So I will keep doing my best to be strong and positive, but mind you it is hard work.  But, I am used to working hard and pulling a lot of weight when it seems like I can’t pull anymore.  I can’t promise I will do it without those damn tears, but I will keep pulling that weight even when more plates are thrown on.  Like Coach’s sound words of encouragement today after I noted that the weight was heavy today after pulling a couple warmup reps.  Without missing a beat he said, “For somebody else it is!”  So I guess the weight isn’t more than I can handle. I just have to load up, set my back and pull.  Somehow you can always stand up with more weight than you ever thought you could.  So, cancer, throw as many plates on as you want.  I can still stand up with it!

{my fight gone bad}

A few days ago after telling a friend that I was diagnosed with breast cancer I received a message from him on Facebook.  Let me say that I have received MANY amazing messages filled with words of encouragement and support from so many people.  I (we) greatly appreciate each and every one of them.  I can’t even begin to express how much they mean to me.  I have been cutting and pasting them into a Word document so I can read and reread them as needed.  That could be daily as far as I know.

So back to this message I started to tell you about.  This friend doesn’t CrossFit with us, but he has researched it quite a bit, listens to us talk about it and knows several members of our gym.  We even finally got him to come down to the gym on a Saturday morning to watch a workout and see what we do.  He may not have picked the right Saturday morning to observe, though.  “War Frank” was on the board.  Ouch!  He said he was sore for three days afterwards just from watching. :-)  So, anyhoo,  this friend sends me the following message . . .

I have been thinking of you since talking to you yesterday. I think you were called to your crossfit family for a reason. To prepare you for times like these. Without crossfit you would not be in as good of shape as you are and would not have the nutrition that you do, nor the strength and power it takes to fight something like this. In our lives we are faced with “Amandas”, “Jennifers” or whatever you may call them. But at least once in our lives we are faced with a “Fight Gone Bad”. This is your FGB! You have conquered it in the gym and you will conquer it in life. The best part is that you have so many around you to spot you. So, when it gets bad, remember, we are here to help you pull up your boot straps, buckle your chin strap and make sure you never drop the bar.

I believe everything happens for a reason.  Joining CrossFit Flathead has changed my life in so many ways.  Personally, I am stronger, more aware of my body and more confident.  I always say our gym is 90% the people and 10% the workouts.  Our community of people is like a second family.  They care for you, worry about you, celebrate with you, laugh with you, sweat with you, feel workout pain with you and pray for you.  I think my friend is right.  CrossFit changed my life, but I think this is the reason I joined CrossFit almost two years ago.  I needed the past couple years to prepare my body for this battle, MY “Fight Gone Bad”.  I needed to meet all these wonderful people to give me additional strength. . . a hug on a daily basis, a hug for my kids, a prayer for my health and even homemade chicken soup! :) 

This is the reason I found CrossFit.  To give me the mental and physical strength to make it through my personal “Fight Gone Bad”  It may be longer than 17 minutes to get through it, but in the end I will have a similar sense of relief to be done and I’ll probably feel like falling on the ground and thank the good Lord to be done with the final step.  Many times I’ve thought of Amanda Miller.  A CrossFit athlete that was taken way to early from skin cancer.  My fight isn’t going to be near the battle she had, but I hope I can do a fallen CrossFit athlete proud and fight my fight with strength, dignity and grace (thank you, Robin!).  A friend at CrossFit asked me if I would still be at the gym.  I told her I would be there everyday humanly possible even if I could only do the warm up and it took me the full hour to do it.  Sometimes walking into the gym is what soothes my soul and makes my day better. 

So with the some of the same anxiety and sick feeling in my stomach that I have when I am waiting for “Fight Gone Bad” to begin I continue to prepare for our next step.  Just like at the gym there is nothing you can do but pick away at the task at hand until you finish.  If you miss the box you stand up and keep going.  If you drop the bar you pick it up & keep going.  If you can’t catch your breath you take a quick break, but you keep going.  You just dig deep & keep going!

3-2-1 GO!

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as the expectation of something better tomorrow.”

{honoring those fallen}

What an amazing day at the gym!!!  Yesterday I skipped the gym & I finally gave into my 4-weeks of a cold and went to have it checked out.  Come to find out I have a sinus infection & broncitis. Yippee!  So hello Z-Pac and hopefully hello to feeling better soon.  I had decided to take most of the week off from the gym until my hubby came home and said we were doing “Amanda” Tuesday morning. Before he finished his sentence I knew I would not be resting and I would be working out in the a.m.

“Amanda”~ Muscle Ups ~ Squat Snatch 135/95 ~ 9-7-5

At CrossFit we have two different kinds of benchmark workouts.  We have “The Girls”, tough workouts named after girls like hurricanes used to be named.  Then we  have our Hero WODs, TOUGH workouts named after fallen soldiers, highway patrolmen and firefighters.  Hero WODs are a time to push yourself harder than usual in honor of these men that have died protecting us.  These WODs come around randomly and are a great way to measure your progress over time.  So today was “Amanda”, a “girl” workout on the girl board, not the hero board.  But, knowing the story behind “Amanda” it is hard not to treat this workout as a hero.

Read about Amanda Miller in this tribute  to an amazing CrossFit athlete.  A little over a month before Amanda Miller passed away of recurring melanoma cancer that spread to her lymph nodes she wrote on her blog, “I just competed in the CF Games less than a year ago and now I’m dying.” – Amanda Miller, March 9, 2010.  This is the first WOD dedicated to a fallen CrossFit athlete.  I read somewhere to the effect that her doctors criticized her for continuing to CrossFit while undergoing treatment for her cancer saying it was to hard and wearing on her body. She refused to listen to them knowing she had to keep her body strong and it was something she loved.  I admire her fight and strength all the way until the end of her too short life. 

So today with “Amanda” on our whiteboard I sucked it up even though I didn’t feel well and tried to do as much of the workout Rx’d as I could no matter how long it took me.  I tried the Rx’d weight of 95# several times with no success.  I wasn’t able to get under the bar fast enough.  My only excuse is I have always been slow at this point of the snatch and I was running from the pain I was afraid I would feel in my pelvis and shoulder.  Coach B told me to do 65# so I did 75# :-) and I did as many muscle ups as I could eek out and finished the remainder with our scaled version for the day, two chest to bar pullups + two ring dips/muscle up.  I was able to do four the first round, one the second and all five in the final round.  Everytime I got on the rings the last round I told myself to do it for Amanda.  I did 10 of the 21 muscle ups in the workout.  I am happy with that.  I think this was the most enjoyable WOD I have done in a long time and it was a great way to honor a strong, amazing woman. 

We should all push ourselves physically a little further than we think we can.  I think we are all capable of doing more than we think we can.  We hold ourselves back mentally, when physically we can reach a new level.  You have to believe in yourself.  Know your body can do it, know your body is capable, commit to reaching that next level.  Remember there are people out there pushing themselves to new limits when physically and/or mentally you would expect they couldn’t.   These people believe there is nothing that can hold them back.  Don’t let anything hold you back. Make the most of your life. Reach that new level.

{dial it in and tighten it up}

Today it REALLY begins and what a rotten week for it to begin.  Thanksgiving.  Food, food, food and a short week at the gym.  Yikes!  Today my coach says to me, “It’s a big week.  We have to lose one pound!” Coach B is “going against the grain” with me and losing weight this holiday season instead of gaining.  It is so great to have somebody to be accountable to.  Posting my intentions and my progess here for all to read is also great motivation.  If I can do this during the holidays it should be a piece of cake to stay on track when it comes to nutrition the other eleven months of the year.

So, I checked my calendar to take a peek at the week and see what I have to work around and when I will fit my cheats in.  My plan was 2-3 cheats/week, but this week is going to be a little different considering Turkey Day.  I think it is obvious that my cheat is going to be on Thursday and I am laying off the lattes and saving up to have one Friday morning when my sister and I brave the craziness of Black Friday.  Tangent . . . yes, I am one of those crazy people that gets up in the middle of the night to brave the cold and the stupid crowds of people.  But, I really don’t go for the deals, I don’t arrive at stores an hour before they open, I don’t turn my shopping trips into a CrossFit sprint workout with a steel cart, leaping over small children and narrowly missing elderly women in the waffle iron aisle.  I go because my sisters and I have been doing it almost every year since I moved back to Montana and it is fun, silly time with my sisters.  (The best part about the following pic is the lady sprouting out of my sister’s head.) 

Black Friday 2009 . . . the alarm went off at 3:20 a.m.

Anyhoo, I digress!  So, back to what I was saying, my cheat is mostly reserved for Thanksgiving Day and I’m going to have a latte Friday morning.  Now even though Thanksgiving is considered my cheat I’m going to be trying some Paleo recipes to go along with Thanksgiving dinner.  I don’t think my dad will buy into it so I will still be doing most of the traditional stuff, too, but I am pretty excited about this.  I am going to make some mock mashed potatoes from cauliflower (we do this occasionally and they are YU-MMY!), green beans sauteed with garlic and bacon in leu of green bean casserole and I’m trying a Paleo stuffing recipe (this is a leap for me because it has bacon and sausage in it & pork mostly gives me the heebie-jeebies) I recently found on a blog.  Don’t worry I will be sharing these recipes in a future post as well as the recipes for the two things I am not even going to try to find a Paleo replacement for.  My Dad’s recipe for Sweet Potato Balls and French Silk Pie.  Sometimes you just have to go with the bad stuff.

Enough with my plan for the week and onto my lunch for today.  I am going to confess that I DO NOT like to cook, I am a baker at heart.  My husband does most of the cooking and has been pretty much feeding me since we joined CrossFit Flathead about 18 months ago.  But, in my effort to eat better, more consistently I am making an effort to do my share of the cooking.  So today in between my workout and picking up at pre-school I made a mad dash to the grocery store to pick up some veggies.  I didn’t have much time, but grabbed some yellow squash, zuchinni, bok choy, baby bok choy (simply because they were so cute) and mushrooms.  After I fed my son and his friend a less friendly heart-healthy lunch (you gotta do that when they have a friend over!) I got to work on my lunch and below is what I came up with. 

 

Lunch ala Trina

(I’m guessing this may be the name of many of my lunches.)

Simple really and not even worthy of being called a recipe.  I sauteed and then slightly steamed broccoli in some olive oil and chicken broth.  Next, I added red peppers and garlic, tossed in the crispy parts of the baby bok choy (really, so cute!) and the mushrooms, added a splash of low-sodium soy sauce (Gasp!  Soy sauce?!  Get over it.  I’m more primal than paleo. That’s in my 20%) and then add the bok choy leaves.  I slid all that yumminess onto my plate and cooked up my chicken in some olive oil and the goodies in the bottom of the pan from the veggies.  I then weighed out 3 oz. of chicken and put it on top of my veggies, sliced up an apple (because I can’t seem to eat a garden of veggies in one meal to get all my Zone blocks in so sometimes I have to add some fruit earlier in the day) and presto!  I made my own lunch!  I’m such a big girl.

So, that’s what I’ve done so far today.  Planned my week, actually cooked a meal and stayed mostly warm (it is 8 degrees).  I hope all your goals are moving forward how you would like them to.  Only you can make them move in that direction!  Have fun preparing for Thanksgiving!

Progress report:  Diet is going pretty well today and I had a great workout this morning.  Cleans . . . I really want to work on my technique in this lift so today was perfect.  95# Cleans and Chest-to-Bar pullups, 15-12-9.  I stayed pretty steady, the weight didn’t feel terribly heavy and I could feel when the lift was decent.  Learning to recognize when something is right in my own lifts has been a long, ongoing process for me.  I’m learning to pay closer attention and that makes my effort in the gym more productive.  Now if I could quit being so hard on myself the rest of the time. ;)  Quiet in the peanut gallery! :D

{going against the grain}

While doing a little search on the good ‘ole Google machine today I was surprised to see that research has shown that the average person gains only about one pound during the holidays.  This is contrary to popular belief that a person will gain 5-10 pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  One pound is far better than 5-10, but really no weight gain is even better.  One pound isn’t much, but this becomes a problem when this pound is never taken off and these “one pound” holidays start to add up.

I workout very consistently and hard and I try to eat well at least 80% of the time.  But, I am going to confess that I have had a bad food attitude as of late and I haven’t been eating all that well.  (Damn those Boy Scouts and their Chocolate Covered Caramel Corn!)  So, in true Trina form, this holiday season I am going to go against the grain of holiday weight gain and lose a couple of pounds before the New Year.  I know I am going to get some of the same remarks I always get when I say I want to lose a couple of pounds, “You don’t need to lose weight!”  I do when the weight is body fat and not muscle and I know where I want my body fat percentage to lie.  I consider myself a CrossFit athlete like everybody else in our gym.  I want my body fat to represent the athlete I strive to be in the gym.  Body fat percentage for an athlete is 14-20%.  I am on the high-end of this, possibly one percentage off.  It isn’t about losing weight because I think I am overweight, it is about losing body fat that is keeping me from performing at my best in the gym and it is losing body fat as a result of eating food that is healthy and good for my body.  I am the only one that can take care of my body and make sure it lives a long life free of disease.   This doesn’t mean I probably won’t enjoy some holiday treats, because a healthy lifestyle is about enjoying life, as well.  I strive for about an 80% Paleo/Zone diet.  I’m working on eliminating dairy, but that has been a struggle as it is perfect latte season with Winter descending upon Montana.  So that will have to remain part of the 20% of my diet.

So tomorrow I “go against the grain” and will work hard to go against what the general population does.  I will lose while they gain and in being a loser I will win! :-)

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast. Five or six days per week mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.
~Greg Glassman

{sectionals 2011}

Eleven months until the CrossFit North Central Sectionals. This time I have nearly a year to train instead of cramming it into five months. I feel like I am in a good place in my strength and conditioning heading into this year training. I am going to try to stay current on this blog and document my journey through this year. I am going to try to do well with my training diet (I do a Zoned Paleo of sorts. I am not strict with this because #1 I have a life & I‘m a busy mom of three #2 I enjoy some of my favorite foods every now and then, and #3 I have a life & I‘m a busy mom of three), I am going to cook more, try more Paleo recipes and share them on here, train hard everyday I am in the gym, I’m going to tighten up my Olympic lifting technique, I am going to read more about my sport and articles that support what I am doing, I’m going to rest and breathe later during workouts and I’m going to push past that last rep that I squeeze out and do two more.

I will probably vent and gripe on here at times, I will sing my praises at times, I will encourage all my likeminded readers to continue on their healthy eating/CrossFit path, I will moan about my soar muscles, etc., etc. Here is where I will lay it all out. If you choose to follow my journey I thank you for taking the time to peek into my world. I am very excited about what these next eleven months have in store for me.  P.S.  For this new year of adventures I changed my blog design . . . simple pleasures! :)

“Strength is Beauty”

 

{like no other}

 

Last weekend I had the amazing privilege to compete in the CrossFit North Central Regional Qualifier. In late March I placed 20^th at sectionals allowing me to move on to compete at Regionals. So for the next five weeks, with the meticulous and genius programming by Coach B, I trained and trained hard for the next step. (Okay, let me just say that there was one Saturday that I just couldn’t give it my all in my first workout. After, I apologized to my coach and told him that I just didn’t care today. Hahaha! He gave me a smile and a nod and said, “That’s okay.” J ) That next step seemed to come pretty quickly! So Tony and I made arrangements for childcare, Tony got up-to-speed on coaching me, workouts were strategized (is that a word?), travel arrangements were made and we were off to Regionals in Castle Rock, CO.

We started our competition experience by cheering on friends in the team competition on Friday. Everybody did great and it is so wonderful to watch everybody working so hard and putting to use the hard training they had been putting in. I started my competition at 8:00 Saturday morning, WOD #1 “The Lift” max floor to overhead, however you wanted to get it there. It didn’t have to be pretty (which is good, because my technique on Oly lifts is mostly not pretty!), it just had to get there. Four ladies on one platform with 25 minutes to get your max. I got a PR of 15# and clean and jerked 130#!!!!! Holy crap! That is a lot of weight to hold over your head. WooooooHoooooo! What a great start to the day! WOD #2 “The Run“. 1400m, not a sprint, not endurance. Chose your pace wisely and give it your all . . . AND don’t get passed by the person that started one minute after you! At 10:11 am I was given the “3-2-1-Go!” I had two songs on my iPod to run to. I knew I wouldn’t need the full two songs so I chose two that make me want to work hard and fast, “Riot” and “Slow Drain”. Off I go! Slow down right away so I don’t bite it on the slight grassy/rocky downhill and take off on the paved path. I finished with a strong sprint in 5:41. Awesome! I’ll take it. That is a 6:21 per/mile pace. I’m guessing I could have kept up that pace for one mile and one mile only! Lol WOD #3 “The Triplet” 500m row- 12 OHS w/ 75# – 50 Double Unders – 3 rounds for time, 15 minute cap. When they released this WOD I thought, that is pretty doable. A friend sent me a message that simply said, “Famous last words!” You know what? He was absolutely right! This workout was brutal. Not just to myself, but to the masses. This workout alone eliminated 22 out of 51 women! Every workout is evil in it’s own way, for me that “way” was the row. I fell apart on the row. However, I battled through and finished in 14:55!!!! Just barely under the timecap, but that is plenty of time for me to move onto the final WOD on Sunday!

Sunday, new day, new competition. Going into Sunday I was in 28^th place. I’m going be honest withl all my readers, I had a meltdown Saturday night. I was tired (I turn into a 3-year-old when I am tired), weary, the discovery of a lump on the back of my knee had me freaked out (don’t worry, I found out it isn’t serious) and the final WOD freaked me out. WOD #4 (I’ll call it The Chipper) had a 20 minute timecap. 10 Snatches @ 95# (5# under my 1 RM) – 20 Chest-to-Bar Pullups – 30 stick jumps, 20” – 40 Ball Slams, 30# (never done those before!), 30 stick jumps – 20 Chest-to-Bar Pullups – 10 Snatches @ 95#. OM-freakin’-G! So this WOD made me cry Saturday night. I went to bed and woke up doing the Snatch in my head and I still couldn’t make it look right. By the time I crawled out of bed I decided all I could do was plug away at each and every rep and laugh at myself when it got ugly. . . And “got ugly” it did! I missed many of the first 10 reps and took over five minutes to finish them. By the time I got to the pullup bar I was the ONLY one on there and one gal even hopped up for her SECOND set of pullups while I was plugging away at my first. All I could do is smile and shake my head. I have to say I rocked the stick jumps and for never doing ball slams I did well on those. I eventually made it back to the Snatches. Whew! Big deep breath, pick up the bar and GO! GO! GO! GO! GO Holy crap! I’m not missing any! Oops! Missed that one! Breathe . . . GO! GO! GO! GO! TIME! Damn! Well, if you counted correctly you will see that time was called with only one snatch left!!!! I battled it to the end and came one rep short of posting a place at the North Central Regionals. You know what? I have only been with CrossFit for 13 ½ months. I will take that!!! Had I got that one snatch I would have placed 24^th!! That is only four places lower than I placed at sectionals. I’m proud of that.

Here are my three favorite things of the weekend: 

• My husband. Tony came with me to watch me do my thing, be my number one supporter and to coach me and he performed amazingly wearing each of those hats. He got choked up after my third WOD when he looked around at the crowd cheering for me when I busted through my final skills to barely move onto day two. He stepped out of husband role and coached me perfectly. So perfectly that we have very few pictures because he was to nervous and anxious to remember to pass my camera to a friend or take any pics himself. Thank you, babe, I love you! 
•  My coach and dear friend, Buf. Buf coached me over the phone every morning, before, right before and right after every WOD. Words of encouragement, words of praise, words of pure strategy for every workout. He knows exactly how I workout and what I can do even when I don’t. I posted a Facebook status that said it all, “With your coach’s confidence you can move mountains.” I didn’t quite move the mountain I had hoped, but I did indeed move a big mountain! I would NOT be where I am today in the gym and personally if it wasn’t for Buf. Thank you! 
• My support network. This included friends and family via text, FB, phone, etc, friends from the Denver area (friends that I might add I never would have met had it not been for CrossFit) & my fellow CrossFit Flathead competitor that cheered me on during every WOD, friends and family back home in the gym that did the regionals workouts right along with me throughout the day and cheered for me when we would call with updates and friends and family that were so gracious to help us out watching our kids back home so Tony could travel with me . . . Colette, Greg and Cammi and my dad. To all these people that supported me in some way, shape or form. Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are all amazing people and so dear to me!

If you CrossFit and ever have the chance sign up and compete in some sort of CrossFit competition, do it! I have competed in quite a few physical competitions of sorts and there is NOTHING more amazing and inspiring than a CrossFit competition. The CrossFit community is like no other. The support and encouragement is like no other. The personal accomplishments are like no other. The friends you make through CrossFit are like other.

CrossFit is like NO other.

{paleo shmaleo}

Damn.  I’m eating Paleo with some Zone thrown in for good measure.  I didn’t want to be one of those people, but here I am.  It really isn’t a far cry from how we ate before, but it does require a little more diligence, prep, and cutting out of a few more food items.  I’m okay with that.  After a few weeks of tightening up my diet (still not perfect) I can tell a difference in the gym and THAT, my friends, I like!  I am not going to preach the wonders of the food I eat or push it on you.  This is just how I choose to fuel my body. . . for the most part.  I still enjoy my favorite things.  I just have to plan for them now, though, sometimes I have to admit I don’t even do that.  Okay, enough of that.  Now onto the real reason I sat down to write this post . . . an amazing Paleo meal!

So, a few weeks ago I started following an amazing blog by a likeminded CrossFitter, Primal Mama Cooks.  Her blog has great recipes with pictures, is written by a very down-to-earth busy mom (busy I understand) and is very entertaining to boot.   Many times I read her posts and do, in fact, laugh out loud and then read it to my hubby so I can giggle somemore.  For Valentine’s Day we chose one of her recipes and cooked it together in the kitchen (duh, huh.  Of course, the kitchen).  It was a-maaaaaa-zing!  Wow!  Lemon Chicken on Cauliflower Mash. M-m-m-m-m!  Not only was it delicious when done cooking it was gorgeous marinading.  When does that happen?!  Standing in your kitchen drooling over raw chicken in a gallon zip-lock?  You know you are in for a treat when that happens!  Witness the drool-fest below.  How gorgeous is that?

Marinating Beauty

Onto the cauliflower mash.  I have seen this suggested as a replacement for mashed potatoes many times, but never took the time to try it.  Not because I don’t like cauliflower, probably because I was just too lazy to try something new.  But, tonight I set lazy aside and we tried it.  What a treat and the best part, the kids ate it!  Okay, the girls loved it, Tyler not so much.  (80% of our household gave a new recipe a thumbs up?  I call that a success!)  Mashed cauliflower, carmelized onions (I think we will cut way back on the onions next time), garlic. Oh, what isn’t to love?  And the chicken, I can’t say enough about how easy it was and oh so good.  You can get this chicken ready in the marinade in minutes in the morning and be ready to cook come dinner time.  Open your ziplock, dump in olive oil, cut two lemons in half, squeeze the juice in (Don’t bother throwing the lemons away, toss them in, too!), chop up parsley, mince up garlic, throw in the chicken, seal ‘er up and your dinner is on it’s way to yummy!

Paleoliciousness

We will definitely be making this again.  We decided the marinade would probably be good with fish, also.  That may be next on our experiment list.  I’m not much of a cook in the kitchen, but I’ve found that I need to become one if I am going to make eating Paleo a part of our lives.  It has to taste good to stick with it.  I don’t think I will get too competent in the kitchen though because Tony is pretty good at it and I would hate to take away the breakfast he makes me every morning or the dinners that he prepares because I didn’t quite get to it. :)   That is just smart thinkin’ ladies!

{rest when you are done}

There are about seven weeks left until Sectionals in Golden, CO.  My training started with a couple months of sheer anxiety.  What the hell was I thinking?  I can’t compete like this, the unknown, the strength required, I can’t compete with the women that will be there.   I’ve competed in other fitness endeavors.  Several half-marathons and a figure competition.  No problem I knew what to expect when I got there.  Run 13.1 miles.  Stand on stage in a bikini and pose.  But the games?  Yikes.  Not knowing what I will have to do until the night before terrifies me.  What if I’m not strong enough?  What if it is one of the couple skills I can’t do yet?  What if it is a weight I am just short of moving?  What if it is a skill that I am not quite as skilled at?  I have decided for all of those concerns all I can do is continue to train, eat well and do my best.  Instead, my coach has me working on the weakest part of my game.  It isn’t the strength, that is coming along nicely.  It isn’t the mastery of skills.  That is repetition and I still have time to improve.  What is holding me back from my potential?  My mental game.  I have to strengthen my mental game.  When the lactic acid has built up in my quads and shoulders and I can’t do one more  thruster I have to do five more.  When I can’t breathe because I feel like my body is going at my body’s version of the speed of light, I push through it and keep going.  Oxygen is overrated.  I have figured out that as bad as it feels when you are on your 13th rep and you can’t breathe it feels worse when you stop and it is harder to start again than it is to keep going.  I just now realized that is what I always say about running.  I never stop in the middle of a run because it hurts worse to stop and start than to just keep going.  A slow jog, or slog, is faster than walking.  A slow squat is faster than stopping to catch your breath.  So I am learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable.  I try to imagine my coach or my husband in my ear telling me not to stop.  I try to remember that the fewer times I stop to rest the sooner I will finish and get to rest.  So I try to live by the words of a very wise man . . .

“YOU CAN REST WHEN YOU ARE DONE!”

~Coach Buf