Brie Fit

We are homeowners. Whoa.

My family comes in town to help tomorrow, Tim’s will be here Friday. Hopefully I’ll be back early next week!

This morning was another morning when the alarm went off at 5, I grumbled to Tim that I wasn’t getting up, re-set the alarm for 6:30, laid there for 5 minutes, couldn’t go back to sleep so I got my ass to CrossFit anyway.

Not going to lie, I wasn’t 100% there mentally today.  I hit it hard last week (5 days in a row), took Saturday off, and dicked around at open gym yesterday.  I think I need to rest a little more than I have been, but I’m enjoying myself.  I think I’ll rest this week by moving an entire houseful of furniture and boxes, huh?

Anyway.  I was actually able to to do today’s WOD as Rxed, which is always exciting.  We did 18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of: 

• Burpees 
• Abmat sit-ups
• Power cleans (42#)

So, 18 burpees, 18 sit-ups, 18 power cleans, 15 burpees, 15 sit-ups…and so on.

I finished in 15:02.  Not exactly breaking any records.  But I finished.  Which is better than staying in bed, right?

In other news today, I had a follow-up with the OB/GYN who performed my D&C today.  I am quitting the midwives and throwing my business his way for various reasons. The takeaways:

• The timing worked out that we were able to try this cycle after a three-week ban.  I’ll be testing later this week.  Fingers are crossed times ten million and my chart looks surprisingly pretty.  The doctor was all for this.
• From here on out, I’ll be supplementing with progesterone from 3 days post-ovulation to 14 days post-ovulation (or through the first trimester, if good things happen).  Doc thinks it’s a no-brainer given my history, and it certainly can’t hurt.
• The doctor is all for early viability ultrasounds.  With my low progesterone and vanishing symptoms, I WANTED one with the midwives, but they said I didn’t need one and said ultrasounds were “overdone” and that my bloodwork was all they needed to confirm a healthy pregnancy.  Instead…I thought I was pregnant for a month when there was no baby, which, needless to say, sucked a lot.  So, I feel immensely reassured knowing that I’ll be able to go in and hopefully see a heartbeat in those first early weeks next time.
• The doctor ended the appointment with, “I’m sorry.  This is just one of those crappy things that happens too often.  I know that doesn’t make this better.”  I liked that.

I’m generally feeling bitter towards the midwives for putting non-intervention over, you know, actual medical concerns and letting me go on being fake pregnant for an extra month.  I should also add that they didn’t return three messages I left and I haven’t heard from them since the miscarriage/D&C.  Fabulous, huh?  Nothing like making you feel worthless for not being pregnant.  So I am done with them, for real.

But I have a good feeling about this OB.  He’s a Mizzou fan.  And he Googled some stuff during the appointment, which I liked.

(Less than 48 hours until we’re homeowners.  ZOMG.)

Have you ever dealt with sub-par medical care?  What did you do, if anything?

Okay, so…I kind of had an inkling that today’s CrossFit session would be…punishing, since today was the day after a giant national eat-fest.

However.  I did not expect THIS.

If that’s unclear, the WOD included 660 total reps of:

• 200m run with med ball
• 110 single unders
• 100 abmat situps
• 90 air squats
• 80 box jumps
• 70 Russian kettlebell swings
• 60 barbell thrusters (25#)
• 50 barbell hang power cleans (25#)
• 40 jumping barbell squats
• 30 hand release burpees
• 20 med ball cleans
• 10 jumping lunges
• 200m run w/ kettlebell

(The note next to the 60/50/40 moves stipulates that you’re not allowed to put the bar down, with a 15 burpee penalty if you do.)

There was a 30 minute cap on it, but at the 30 minute mark I was working on the med ball cleans and really wanted to finish so I kept going.  (It frustrates me to leave a WOD unfinished.) I ended up finishing in 33:45. 

Anyway, this was one of the hardest WODs I’ve done simply because of the high number of reps.  My body feels pretty fried after five days of exercise in a row, so I think I’ll take tomorrow off!

In other news, we had a pretty low-key turkey dinner last night and have been doing lots of packing, Craigslisting of old furniture, bill transferring, mail forwarding and the line since.  I can’t believe we’ll be homeowners in just four days!  Holy cow. 

How was your Thanksgiving?

So, today was the first time I’ve run more than 400m since mid-September.  I was a wee bit nervous—running is tricky.  But ultimately I decided to trust my CrossFit training and just go for it.

Before the race, we picked up our bibs and I put the official Turkey Trot shirt on under my CFN shirt.  Since we were doing it as a group, we engaged in some team spirit.

Tim joined me for the race today.  He hasn’t done much running since he started his new job with longer hours, but we decided it would be fun to give it a shot anyway.

Anyway, we lined up and were off.

If there’s one word I can use for this race, it would be CROWDED.  It was on a very narrow trail near the Missouri River and it was muddy.  It was a 5K run combined with a two mile walk, which presented some challenges.  I had to slow to a near walk at two points on the course when we went over a narrow bridge.  I was kind of gunning for a PR, but with the crowds, it just wasn’t going to happen and I gave up on that goal early in the race.

The weather was gorgeous, and the sun was shining.  I took the whole thing at an easy pace (I didn’t really have much choice in that) and finished in 30:48.  The whole time, I just kept thinking, “Wow, this is both way easier and more boring than CrossFit.”  Heh.

Despite the crowds, it was a great way to start out our Thanksgiving day!  I think I might look for a less crowded 5K in a few months to try to PR again, but I’m fairly sure my long distance days are done for a long while.

We took a CFN photo post-race. 

(Tim finished a few minutes after I did, which is totally awesome for doing a 5K with no training!  Go Tim!)

In other news, Milhouse’s Christmas photo bowtie arrived yesterday.

(I tried it on Buckley, and he was less enthused.)

Anyway.  Here are just a few things I’m thankful for today:

• Tim.  It’s so nice to have someone who just gets me, and when he doesn’t, he’s mostly just amused by me.  I love having a drama-free marriage.
• My mom and sister, who I can’t wait to see next week for the first time since July!
• Having non-crazy in-laws.  They are pretty excellent.  I got lucky.
• Our (almost) house.  I can’t believe we’ll be homeowners in less than a week!
• Healing.  It’s been a rough month, but I feel like I’m in a good place again.  It’s nice to feel hopeful again and not sad.
• Hummus, cheese, Greek yogurt, and clementines.  Enough said.
• My job, and Tim’s new job.  It’s hard to not take these for granted sometimes, but I am so thrilled Tim has a position he loves with people he loves.
• CrossFit, and my excellent trainers who push me.  I’m so glad going to the gym is something I look forward to now, and not something I dread.
• My best friend who introduced me to CrossFit, and responds patiently to my crazy e-mails.  I’m so excited for her baby girl coming in February.
• The possibility of having a baby next Thanksgiving.  I hope, I hope, I hope.
• The Sing-Off.  Shut up.  I love it.
• Milhouse, Buckley, and Southie, who amuse me more than they probably should, and who cuddled me through the awful miscarriage last month.
• Tivo.
• YOU.  Having positive, supportive readers who come back day after day to give me the “attagirl” I sometimes need.  And who help do amazing things like the Blogs for Dogs registry for Joplin and The Great Fundraising Act.

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.  Enjoy the turkey.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me today—I am exhausted and it’s only 7:30!  I even fell asleep on the couch after work, something I haven’t done since I was pregnant. 

It was a cold, rainy morning at CFN.

The WOD was thus:

(Hi Dustin!)

Since that’s kind of messy, it was a three parter:

Part One

• Spend ten minutes finding your deadlift one rep max.  Mine was 165#, which I was excited about until I saw the guys lifting 300+.  Balls to them.

Part Dos

• 55 sit-ups
• 5 pull-ups
• 45 sit-ups
• 10 pull-ups
• 35 sit-ups
• 15 pull-ups
• 25 sit-ups
• 20 pull-ups
• 15 sit-ups
• 25 pull-ups

I finished this one in 12:30.  It was kind of a pain because my back hurt (in a good way) from the deadlifting.

Part Three

Work with a partner; AMRAP shoulder to overhead for 5 minutes.  (Shoulder to overhead just means that you can do a shoulder press, a push press, or any other means necessary to move the bar that way.)  Rx for women was 25#, which we did.  My awesome partner Shannon and I cranked out 166 reps, 96 of which I did.

There were a record-setting five ladies in the morning class today.  Me likey.  Usually it’s a big old sausage fest.

It was a long and boring day at work.  There’s very little going on this week.

After work I napped and had another paper-plate dinner:

Two eggs with some cheese, Canadian bacon, a slice and a half of wheat toast and some homemade cranberry applesauce.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a short day!  The last two years, we’ve been sent home early, and I’m seriously hoping the same happens again this year.

Do you work tomorrow?  What about on Friday?

AMRAP 11 minutes:

• 1 wall climb
• 3 hand release push-ups
• 5 thrusters (45#)
• 7 medicine ball cleans (10#)

AMRAP 8 minutes:

• 2 burpee broad jumps
• 4 Turkish get-ups
• 6 OH squats w/ PVC pipe

I did 7 rounds of the first set and 6 of the second.

Today I thought a lot about whether I’ll ever be a good athlete…at anything.  I have NEVER been athletic, ever.  I didn’t do sports as a kid; I was the class brainiac instead.  I dabbled, sure, but gym was the only subject I ever got less than an A in for my entire academic career.

(I was cute, though.)

When I decided to take control of my life and started the exercise thing, it was just a means to an end—the end being losing weight and not hating myself. 

And I achieved that!  Kind of.  I’m a little heavier than I’d like to be, but I certainly can find more positives than negatives when I look in the mirror these days.  I still weigh less than I did as a freshman in high school, which makes me happy.

But now, exercise isn’t just a necessary evil to lose weight.  It’s something I enjoy and consider a hobby.  But…it makes me sad that I don’t know if I’ll ever be GOOD at it.

When I was running, I wasn’t fast or particularly talented.  I was a solid ten minute miler.  Perfectly fine, a little slower than average.

And now I’m doing this CrossFit thing and I wonder if I’ll ever be good at it, too.  I would like to be awesome at it, and I see that I have potential in a lot of areas, but in others…I don’t know.  There’s a lot of stuff that seems so far off that I’ll never possibly be any good at it, and it seems to come so easily to others that it frustrates me.

I have this innate need to be good at everything, but this is one area where I’ve never excelled.  And it bothers me.  No matter how long I’ve been working out, I still feel a little bit like I don’t belong and I’m faking it.

What about you?  Are you a natural athlete?

In a little over 9 days, we will be homeowners. 

Currently, our house looks like this:

Since all our dishes are packed, it’s red cups and paper plates until the big day.

We’re even attempting to burn down all of our half-used candles so we don’t have to pack them.  Heh.

I’m getting pretty excited.  Also exciting: two short work weeks in a row.

We did have some fun this weekend, though.  On Saturday, I CrossFitted.

The WOD was:

• 100 air squats
• 10 box jumps
• 80 sit-ups
• 10 box jumps
• 60 push-ups
• 10 box jumps
• 40 kettlebell swings (35#)
• 10 box jumps
• 20 burpees
• 10 box jumps
• run 400m

Finished in 19:59, for the second day in a row.  Twas fun.

Then, we had lunch with my friend Mary and her husband Matt.  (Definitely check out Mary’s blog; she fosters kittens and they are adorable!)  We went to Seasons 52, which I’d heard a lot about before, and was as delicious as I’d hoped.  (And it’s healthy!  Love it.)

Today, we had brunch with Tim’s uncle and I won $50 at the casino!  Tim won $100, which was pretty awesome.  We spent the afternoon packing (again) and then I went to our CrossFit Paleo Potluck for dinner.  While I’m definitely not a Paleo eater, it was a fun event and it was good to see everybody out of their raggedy gym clothes for a change.

And now I’m giving myself a glittery manicure.

(OPI Rainbow Connection over OPI Alpine Snow.)

Any packing or moving tips you feel compelled to share?

I haven’t written much the last few days because I’ve been on kind of a downswing, emotionally.

The following things have made me sad:

• Seeing an adorable cooing baby in the Boise airport.
• Going to Target.  I swear to God it was pregnant lady day today.  It’s stupid, but I haven’t gone since we lost the baby because, well…I bought pregnancy tests there.  And the Mizzou onesie that’s now stuffed into the back of a drawer, and the maternity fat-pants band. 
• Hearing my hairdresser tell me that we’ll “have to fill our new house with kids!”
• Getting a fucking $11,000 bill from the hospital.  ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.  To lose our baby.  What an insult.  My favorite is how they framed it as “This is an $11,000 bill” with a tiny footnote on the bottom stating “this will be submitted to insurance.”  I have very good insurance, so I’m pretty sure we won’t have to pay more than a few hundred, but…oh my God.  The concept of paying $11,000 to have a miscarriage makes me want to throw up.
• The holidays.  I usually have a lot of holiday spirit and this year I’m kind of indifferent to it.  I imagined being pregnant for the holidays this year, and…I won’t be.  (Well, probably not.  Though I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle.)

So, I don’t know.  I’m doing well overall, but there are good days and bad days and the last two have been achier than most.

My flight got me home last night around 10:30.  I hit a deer with my car on the way home from the airport.  I’m fine, the car is fine, and I presume the deer is fine because she got up and ran away.  But scary nonetheless.

I fell asleep around midnight and still made it to CrossFit, which made me feel pretty excellent.

Today’s WOD was 7 rounds for time of…

• 10 front squats (45#)
• 10 push press (45#)
• 5 thrusters (45#)
• 30 abmat sit-ups 

I decided to forget about time and push the weights.  The 45# bar was challenging enough that I had to take it slow, but not impossible. I thought I’d have to go down in weight, but I didn’t!  I finished behind most of the class, in 19:58, but still feel great about it.

Busy weekend ahead: CrossFit in the morning, more packing, lunch with friends, brunch with Tim’s uncle, more packing…should be fun.

Greetings from Boise, Idaho, also known as my last scheduled trip, in which I gloriously cement my Marriott Elite status for another year.  Huzzah.

I didn’t have to be at the airport until 10 or so (meaning I didn’t need to be awake until 8 or 9), but I still got my butt out of bed for CrossFit.  I hit the snooze button and had a long internal conversation before I did, though.  Loving it makes getting out of bed at 5 am a little easier…but don’t get me wrong, it’s still not easy.

The first we did today was determine our two-rep max (2RM) on shoulder presses.  Mine was 55 pounds, which isn’t what I want it to be, but is a clear improvement from my old solo weight-slinging days.  I remember earlier this year not being able to push press two 20 pound dumbbells, and now I’m doing the 55 pounds without the “push” part!  I tried doing 60 and could get it up about halfway, so I have no doubt I’ll be improving that number soon.

Today’s WOD:

Since there are so many people in the class, half of us, myself included, started at the bottom and worked our way up so we weren’t all fighting for the same equipment at once.  So, I did:

• 10 pullups
• 20 push press (45 lbs)
• 30 box jumps
• 40 push-ups
• 400m run (it was cold as balls, FYI)
• 40 abmat situps
• 30 air squats
• 20 burpees (I. Hate. Burpees.)
• 10 deadlifts (75 pounds.  I had planned on doing 105 pounds but the bars were being used.)

Then, we did a “finisher,” which is why everything is crossed out on the board:

• 10 burpees (still hate burpees)
• 10 situps
• 10 squats
• 200m run (still cold as balls)
• 10 push-ups
• 10 box jumps
• 10 pull-ups

I have decided I have a CrossFit shit list that includes burpees, ring dips, and wall balls.  I used to have pushups and pull-ups on there, but they have gotten better as I’ve improved at them.

(If there is such a thing as an opposite-of-shit list, it would contain squats, situps, box jumps, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, and pretty much everything else.)

Results:

So, 14:07 for the WOD, 55# for the 2RM.  Not bad.

Oh, hey, and my official box photo went up today.  Don’t I look snazzy?

That’s what I look like after sweating my ass off for an hour before the sun has risen.  It’s pretty attractive.

And then I spent the rest of the day flying to Boise.  I don’t have a rental car, and it’s chilly and windy, so I plan to spend the rest of the evening ordering dinner in and watching a Toddlers & Tiaras marathon (and relishing the fact that I did get my butt up and don’t have to work out in a crappy hotel gym).

What exercises are on your personal shit list?

You know, I was always envious of those bloggers who really loved running (or cycling, or whatever, but mostly running) because they were excited to work out and got sad if they missed a day.

I never had that with running.  I lived for rest days, not running days.  Deep in my heart, I knew it was not something I could maintain the rest of my life because I didn’t love it.  I had to drag myself out the door to do it.

I’m so glad I had the proverbial balls to try CrossFit.  I feel like I’ve finally found something I’m excited about.  Am I super great at it?  No, not really.  But I miss it when I’m not doing it, and I feel like I have a lot of room for big gains in the future.  It forces me to work on my weaknesses and encourages me to grow in my strengths.  I love it.  All of it.

Today’s WOD:

• 15 hang cleans (45#)
• 10 pull-ups
• 200 meter run
• 30 hang cleans (45#)
• 15 pull-ups
• 400 meter run
• 15 hang cleans (45#)
• 10 pull-ups
• 200 meter run

Results?

13:40.  Not bad. 

I wish I’d gone a little heavier on the hang cleans, but I grabbed an Olympic bar and tried 65# and it was too much for 60 reps.  I feel like 55 would have been perfect.

After the WOD we did a sit-up/push-up split tabata.  I’m proud of myself for doing all the sets of push-ups on my toes.  It wasn’t pretty, but it’s a progression from being on my knees (that’s what she said) and those feel way too easy now.  I just have to keep doing the ugly toe ones until I get stronger, I guess.

I also got my official CrossFit photo taken for the wall today.  I’ll have to take a picture for you guys.  I’m sweaty and wearing hot pink.  Appropriate? 

Oh, and speaking of CrossFit and running…I’m running a Turkey Trot with my box on Thanksgiving morning.  It’s a 5K and I haven’t done any running that wasn’t more than a sprint since September.  I’m doing it mostly for fun, but also out of morbid curiosity to see a) if I still CAN run a 5K and, if so, b) if CrossFit has made me faster, slower, or about the same.  Should be a fun experiment!

Breakfast was some raisin bran, leftovers from when I was pregnant and wanted to eat cold cereal and milk (and nothing else) all the time:

For dinner I made some baked penne with chopped spinach.  Again with the “using things up” theme, tonight’s victim was a half-finished, slightly sketchy thing of ricotta in the fridge.

(Sorry so blurry!  I didn’t realize.)

I’m off to Boise, Idaho tomorrow afternoon.  Yee haw.

What do you LOVE to do for exercise?  Or are you still looking for it?