Brie Fit

You guys, I am so tired.  These 5:30 classes are amazing, but I’m beat by late afternoon.  It’s a little bit sad.

Anyway, continuing with the “it’s nice out so we will do lots of running” theme:

Running and overhead squats.  Easy, basic stuff I’ve been doing since day one. 

Except today was hard.  I’ve accepted that my “new normal” is just that CrossFit is harder than usual lately, but my hips and lower back really ached while running.  And on the overhead squats, I lost my balance and fell on one of them.  (NOT a hard fall or anything to worry about.  I “fell” about six inches and landed on my thigh.)  That particular move requires a lot of core strength and balance, and I have a counterweight I’m not used to strapped to my middle now.  Basically, at the bottom of the squat, the weight went one way, I went the other. 

More than anything, it just kind of shook my confidence and made me feel like sort of an asshole.  I’d even gone down to a lower weight, but it wasn’t enough.

So, I guess that’s the end of overhead squats for me for awhile.  I think I’ll probably modify with regular front or back squats or maybe thrusters instead.

Still, not a bad result, all things considered:

And since I haven’t posted food for awhile, check out my delicious lunch (that was half green!):

Roast beef and melty cheddar on a pretzel roll, with a side salad of spinach/almonds/balsamic/goat cheese/dried cranberries.  I’m craving beef and spinach this week.  Maybe my iron’s low?  Hmm.  But yes!  Working on the “more fruit and veggies” goal, clearly.

I’m going to Chicago this weekend to see my family and I can’t wait!  Eek.  Only two more days!

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that my least favorite CrossFit exercise is burpees. 

I hate them.  Do you want to know why?  Well, it started out with the fact that I am extremely uncoordinated.  It took me about three months to put everything together and do a burpee without saying, “Okay, down on the ground, feet out, chest to the floor, push up,  jump your feet up, stand up, jump, clap” over and over again.  It is not exactly an intuitive movement.

Once I started to be able to execute the burpees without too much thought, I just disliked them because they’re hard.  And all the up and down makes me sort of dizzy.

So, you can imagine my horror at today’s WOD:

Not. Thrilled.

But, you know, like all things CrossFit, I just did the damn thing at my own pace and determined that I wasn’t going to kill myself with the effort.  Burpees get my heart pumping quickly and I didn’t want to reach that uncomfortable point today.  So, I didn’t.

Today’s gasser was an 800m run for time. 

The slowdown is becoming more and more rapid these days.  I really feel the extra weight when I’m running these days, and I don’t really want to move as fast because I can feel the baby starting to put pressure on my bladder and it’s uncomfortable.  Apparently this is the point when he starts packing on the pounds, so it makes sense.

What’s your most hated exercise?

Fourth workout this week!  I’m killing my new goals.  Boom.

Saturdays at CrossFit are partner days. It’s kind of funny, because it’s always a little middle-school-like to be like, “Do you want to be my partner?” and such.  Plus, Saturdays are usually a different crowd than my 5:30 am crowd, so I don’t have my built-in pregnancy support system.

Anyway, today’s WOD was kind of scary looking.  Now that it’s warm out, we’re running a lot more! 

I found a partner who was new to CrossFit, so we didn’t mind taking it relatively easy.

So, basically we switched off doing 200m sprints, then did 3 rounds of the 20/40/60/80 thing, then finished up with more 200m sprints. 

The fun twist in this WOD is that the deadlifts were partnered—so we lifted the bar together.  We did 125# together.

My favorite part of Saturday workouts is that we run by a grocery store that cooks some sort of delicious brunch, so every time you do a sprint you smell bacon and fresh bread.  Drool.

Anyway, we finished last in the class, but everyone stayed to cheer us on until we were done. 

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, which I sorely needed after working so hard this morning!

We also have a start on our gallery wall for the nursery.  I found the frames today and framed a few things I’d collected—more are on the way.  I have to admit, I felt terrible cutting pictures out of books, even though they were destined for the trash pile at the library, saved only by my crafty mother-in-law.

(Arrangement will change.)

We just finished up dinner out (disappointing) and watching The Muppets Movie (delightful!).  The baby’s been quite squirmy and active today, which is bizarre but fun.  He barely moved yesterday!

Happy early Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!  I admit, I don’t feel quite like I can partake in the festivities yet, but have requested pancakes for breakfast from Tim anyway.  I hope that’s okay.

Three WODs this week!  I’m on a roll.  Which is great, since, you know, I publicly declared that as one of my goals yesterday.

Today was a fun day at CrossFit.  As part of the warm up, we played medicine ball musical chairs—if you’re not squatting over a med ball when the music stops, you’re out!

I have also begun using a two-step analysis at CrossFit to determine what I can and can’t do (also another part of my goal—to know my limits):

• Step one: Ask, “Can I physically do this?”  Some things, I just can’t physically do anymore, mostly ab work—sit-ups, supermans, et cetera.
• Step two: Ask, “SHOULD I physically do this?”  This is less clear, because often I WANT to do things, but it’s just probably not a great idea.  Like, doing handstand walks on concrete looked fun today (really!) but the risk of falling over was just not worth it.  And in today’s WOD, I looked at the Rxed weight, and knew I COULD do it Rxed, but probably SHOULDN’T. 

We had a choice today between Grace and Isabel—either 30 clean and jerks for time, or 30 snatches for time.  I, like most of the class, chose Grace, which was the clean and jerks.

So back to the limits thing.  Clean and jerks and snatches are both very technical lifts that require a lot of good mechanics, so to speak.  So yes.  I have no doubt that I physically CAN put up 30 85# clean and jerks, but my core strength is gone and I feel a little more loosey goosey on difficult lifts lately.  And if I can’t do a lift like that with good form, I’m not going to do it, because dropping that much weight with a protruding belly is bad news.

Anyway.  I did Grace with 62#, with good form, in 5 minutes and 8 seconds.  Not earth shattering, but a good little workout that I felt strong doing.

Anyway.  I’m thrilled it’s the weekend.  I have no plans aside from perhaps trying to find frames for our gallery wall in the nursery, and hey, maybe another CrossFit WOD since I’m feeling good.

I will leave you with this hilarious photo, showing you just how diligent our UPS man is:

That is a 40 pack of toilet paper from Amazon Prime, hidden carefully under our doormat in a special corner of our porch not visible from the street.  Someone’s getting a Christmas tip this year!

Back on Black Friday, I declared this WOD the hardest I’d ever done.

I’m not sure if it’s because it was a harder WOD altogether, or because I’m 21 weeks pregnant with asthma issues, but this morning’s gave it a run for its money.

Maybe it’s because I now hate running-heavy WODs (which, what?  I ran a marathon and five half mara thons), or maybe it’s because my run has turned into what I affectionately refer to as a “spirited waddle”, or maybe it’s because I can’t box jump anymore, or maybe it’s because I couldn’t even do a handstand push-up before I was pregnant.  But this was seriously, seriously hard.  Like, I doubted I’d finish at times, and was the last one working out of the whole class since I was in the second wave of starts.

It was hard.  But I finished. #storyofmylife

In other news, happy two year anniversary to us!

Tonight, we will celebrate with grilled cheese and our son kicking me in the lungs.  As Tim says, we are very lucky to have found each other. 

I did it!

My asthma is still bothering me, but I can’t let it scare me off from the gym.  Exercise isn’t a trigger, so I just kept repeating that today.

Also: “get your ass out of bed.”  That was helpful.  I’ve been more tired lately, and I have a feeling that’s been part of my motivation issue lately.

Today’s WOD was 10 rounds for time of 15 push-ups and 15 deadlifts.

Rx weight for women was 95#, which I can do, no problem, but for 150 reps I went down to 75#, a weight that’s challenging for me, but not to a point where I’m straining.  It’s harder to deadlift now since I can’t engage my core as well!

The push-ups are just increasingly weird.  I might start subbing something soon.

All in all, not a bad finish.

Hilariously, the gasser today was "how long can you hold a plank?”  which, I mean, I’ll let you figure out how that ended.  Imagine doing a plank after swallowing a five pound bag of angry squirrels.  Yeah. 

Soooo I stretched instead.

In other news, today I discovered the epic combination of peanut butter Cheerios + milk + chocolate protein powder.  Delightful AND filling, which is a good thing, because I had a hollow leg today!

Now.  Let’s see if I can keep this motivation train going, shall we?

This morning, we revisited Cindy!

As a refresher, Cindy is a very simple workout.  20 minutes, AMRAP:

• 5 pull-ups
• 10 push-ups
• 15 air squats

The first time I did Cindy, I got 16 and 2/3 rounds.

The second time I did Cindy, I got 14 rounds “and change”.

Today?

Sooo I feel pretty good about almost matching my best Cindy result at close to 20 weeks pregnant, while pushing less hard than I did pre-pregnancy.  Still not Rxed, but one of these days I will be! 

(I think my favorite part was that we had a different instructor than usual this morning, and he kept shouting, “Use the baby power!” at me.  Baby power, indeed.)

CrossFit mornings make for long days, though.  I think I’m just about ready for a snooze on the couch before dinner!

The moment I’ve been waiting for is finally here!

We are thrilled to announce that our baby…

…has ten little fingers, and ten little toes….

…a healthy heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, and a sweet little profile…

…and is ready for a nap.  (Me too, baby.  Me too.)

Oh.  And…

It’s a boy!

(And there’s no doubt about it.  I’d post the picture, but I think it’s weird to post a picture of your kid’s nether regions on the internet.  Lumpy was NOT shy.)  He spent the ultrasound trying to nurse on the placenta, giving us jazz hands, and eventually being VERY BORED with the whole thing and yawning.

We are so thrilled to be team blue.  I can’t stop smiling.  Once I do, though, I’m going to raid Baby Gap and buy a cloth diaper with robots on it.

Last week, I had two VERY VIVID dreams that our baby was a little boy.  I’d always had a hunch, but after that, I just knew we’d be saying hello to our son very soon (even though Tim tried to convince me it was a girl).

Names?  We have no idea.  Girl would have been ten times easier, but boy…it’s going to be awhile before we come to a decision here.  Oof.

Oh, and this morning’s WOD, while I’m at it:

It was a fun one, and several of the men in the class predicted that baby was a boy.  Tiny CrossFitter, coming right up!

I just keep telling myself, “we’re going to have a SON!” and I can hardly believe it.

Catching you up…I’m finally back to what I’d consider a regular CrossFit schedule. Hooray!

Last week I hit my goal of 3X/week for the first time in quite awhile, thanks to morning sickness, pelvic rest, two car accidents, and family in town.  It felt good.

Saturday’s WOD was something we’ve done before (and something you can do at home, too!).  Dustin shuffled a deck of cards.  Each suit had an exercise assigned to it (squats, push-ups, kettlebell swings, and sit-ups), and the number on the card represented how many of each exercise we’d do.  (I did planks instead of sit-ups, using the number on the card as the number of seconds I’d hold it.)  Face cards=10 reps, aces got us a 200m sprint, and jokers got us 30 seconds of rest.

Saturday was CRAZY humid, but it was still a fun time.  I was lagging behind the group a bit, but I got it done!

This morning’s WOD was called The Chief.  We did 5 rounds of 3 minutes work, 1 minute rest of:

• 3 power cleans (I did mine at 52#)
• 6 push-ups (knees)
• 9 air squats

I don’t remember my exact numbers, but I know my best round was the last one and I hung in there with the rest of the class.

Anyway.  It’s exciting to be doing real work again,

Tomorrow is the big day!  I am so nervous baby won’t give up the goods and we won’t be able to tell if it’s a he or a she.  (If that happens, I have a feeling we will spring for an elective ultrasound, and also I might cry.)  It will be so nice to see little Lumpy again, too, and to know he/she is healthy—I’ve been feeling him or her thump around lately, which is pretty cool.

Can’t wait!

Today’s WOD was mystifying.

I know, right?

Eventually, it was explained that we would be doing TWO WODs today.  Both girl WODs.  For the first, we picked a name out of a hat—either Grace, Fran, or Elizabeth—and for the second, we would all do a revised version of Annie together.

I drew Elizabeth, which is funny because that name always reminds me of a very sweet old lady calico cat I worked with at a shelter long ago.  But anyway.

Elizabeth is 21-15-9 of:

• Cleans
• Ring dips

I did the cleans at 52# and box dips instead of ring dips.  My triceps already feel all wobbly, so it was a good workout, for sure.

The version of Annie we did was called Pushing Annie.  Normally Annie is 50-40-30-20-10 of double unders and sit-ups, but today we subbed push-ups for double unders, and because I can’t do sit-ups anymore, the pregnant crowd did air squats.

So basically, this workout was not like actual Annie at all.  It was 50-40-30-20-10 push-ups and air squats for me.

(Push-ups feel SO WEIRD.  I feel like I’m landing on a balloon every time.  I know they’re okay to do during pregnancy, but I may have to sub soon because they just feel strange.)

Final roundup:

6:20 on Elizabeth, 12:05 on Annie.

I felt really strong today, despite the fact that my sciatic pain is through the roof lately.  I feel like I’m learning to work within my limitations a little better and have fun with it, rather than get frustrated.  It’s nice that there’s usually at least one or two other pregnant women in class with me—there’s total baby boom going on at the box and I like it!  We tend to take things a little less seriously together.

The major side effect of the double WOD was a double appetite today.  I’m starving!

Have a great weekend!