CONDITIONING
For Time
Run 1 Mile
100 Squats
50 Push Up
25 Ring Row
50 Push Up
100 Squat
Run 1 Mile

Oh, Herbert is going to be SO HAPPY that he picked today to return to Crossfit (not!)

Yesterday on the way to my class (I’m taking a 6 week course on Ethics that gets me CLE – I’m up in January, and of course have done NONE and it’s November!) I practiced French, though afterwards my brain was buzzing so much from the class that I had to just drive home in quiet! LOL.

I’ve watched our video like a dozen times. I’m pathetic 😉 I think we have a shot. The most interesting thing is really how it happened. I was totally fine with not applying once R put the brakes on it. Then Moddie and I were lolling on the couch – HOLY CRAP was that really only Sunday?? – shooting the sh*t about funding non-profits for kids, and then I realized DING DING DING – ~we~ should apply together. When I broached the subject, she was ALL over it. I can’t believe what we got done, then undone, then done again – before the deadline on the 5th. Well, technically, the deadline is TODAY, but the TAR website states that they will “start callbacks on November 5th” – so it was my opinion we had to get our application in by then. But after today, that’s “it” . . . apparently they do in-person auditions too – where they come to your town and you go and talk to the casting director and pitch your story – but today’s the last day for folks who send it in online.

Turns out my cousins Christopher and James did one of those “in person” auditions – my cousin Robin told me about it, saying she “couldn’t believe they wouldn’t be picked,” but when I texted James about it, he said that really they did it more half-*ssed and there just wasn’t a chance from the start. Folks showed up with everything filled out, their story practiced, etc. – whereas they just sort of went in blind. Then again, to some extent that’s the “Shepard way” LOL.

Have a client meeting at 9:00 a.m. at their offices, then farmer’s market, an acupuncture “flu immune booster” appointment, and Crossfit this evening. What a Marin day. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t know where the next dime is coming from, it would be lovely and relaxing 😉

Have to get back to making my bone broth then dress to see the client . . . yes, bone broth. Yes, SO Paleo, I know 😉 I have some poundage to lose. My doctor says that my hormones are basically non-existent – thyroid screwed up, no estrogen/testosterone/etc. – and we’re trying to deal with that – but this ‘splains’ why even when I’m GOOD I seem to be creeping up the scale. It totally sucks. Pout.

Crossfit workout today:

CONDITIONING
25 Min AMRAP
10 Wall Ball
5 Toes 2 Bar
100M Run

I still can’t do Toes 2 Bar, but I can definitely get my knees up to “sitting” position while hanging from the bar. I could also swing back a bit today. 5 isn’t so bad – it’s just the perfect amount to do your best without having to drop off.

The Warmup included “Rowling” which is a new Crossfit ‘game’ combining rowing and bowling. The idea is that you sit on the rower, and you have 10 rounds trying to get the score to stop exactly at 100 meters. If let’s say it stops at 97, you get 3 points (100-97), if it stops at 120, you get 20 points (120 – 100). Obviously, lowest score “wins” (just like bowling). Getting it right on 100 gets you a “strike.”

Turns out if I row to about 80 meters then give one tiny “tug” more, I get it to like 97. I think if I could row evenly to 82 meters it would be about perfect. I did fairly well – I only got an 18 – and a few strikes in there. I did have a 96 which blew it for me – didn’t go over though. I can TOTALLY see that being a TAR event!

I did 11 reps in the 25 minutes, plus the wall balls, toes to bar (well, for me, “knees up”), and 50 meters of the run before Anthony called “time.” I wasn’t going to go out and bust it for the run, but I keep thinking “I HAVE to push harder than I think I can.” TAR training, bay-bee! When he called time I was at the 50 meter mark.

Now, we just wait. I’m not exactly sure what will happen – it makes it very clear on the “intake” form that you may not hear anything at all. Interestingly, the choice of law on the Arbitration clause for the Terms of Use was San Francisco, so I did a little more “digging” and found out that the address that’s listed is the CBS address downtown in the City! I think it’s right next door to the ABC studios where I used to go to do the View From The Bay tapings. That would be SWEET if the 2nd round would be here . . . I just imagined it would be in L.A. In my daydreams, they call us because what the Heck, we’re local (smile).

I went onto YouTube and there are a number of videos – GOOD ones – that come up with the link “The Amazing Race Application 2014.” Similar to what we would have had, they have a lot of “cool video” going on. In their Terms and Conditions, they state that the video belongs to them, though the photos, etc. in the video continue to belong to us. So “legally” from an intellectual property perspective, we can’t actually post something in a public forum because they “own” it. I’m quite sure of course that no one has read the Terms and Conditions (laugh) – they must not have, of course, because most of them use music that I’m sure they don’t have a license to, etc.! (Yeah yeah, I’m SUCH the lawyer!)

There is one part in the Terms though that states that they “may make us” post it – which was one of my thoughts when I saw a lot of Applications from previous years. I can see them asking potential contestants to post their videos, then “ranking” them in accordance with how many “Likes” or “Comments” they get. That would be super smart – in other words, if you get like 400 likes, versus getting 400,000 likes, TAR might believe that you would get fewer folks to watch the show than the 400,000 likes person could deliver. Heck, I’d stand on a corner or make a QR Code and make people scan it and just press LIKE if that’s what it would take…seriously! I actually figure if you take all the Teams we’ve been on and their Facebook pages, my Facebook pages, the SendOutCards pages, Moddie’s softball groups, etc. etc., plus telling everyone we know to SHARE it, that we could (hopefully!) get something to go viral. (Okay, at least like “catch a cold”… <wink>)

I think that I’d go through all my files, especially for clients I have done a ton of work gratis for. And I would send out a personal email saying – “Look, you and I both know I’ve done a ton of work for you for free. Now’s the time to pay the piper. I need you to spend at least the amount of time I’ve given you for free hawking our YouTube video to everyone you know. This is not a time to be embarrassed. You have an all-company e-bulletin board? Please post it. Have a morning meeting? Please mention it. I’ll give you the link, I’ll make you a QR Code, I’ll do whatever you want. But you’ve received a lot of free law help – here’s your time to pay it back.”

Luckily I don’t have anything on the calendar today until tonight when I’m starting a Legal Education 6 week seminar – at the Chabad House, of all places – it’s on Ethics which I actually think will be really interesting. I couldn’t do it at the Chabad House that’s near me because that one is on Tuesdays, when I have Crossfit. But this one is on Wednesday. It’s actually at the “big uber rabbi”‘s house for Marin – my rabbi said to tell him that he sent me so he gets some cred. (That made me laugh.) I really like the “uber rabbi” – I sat near him at a dinner once, and have seen him a number of times – he has an “Ask The Rabbi” booth at the Farmer’s Market! He’s super nice and I’d always get him some coffee. I’m a little leery only because he isn’t married (recently divorced) and in the Chabad space (which is fairly Orthodox) I’m always afraid of doing something stupid (touching a man, for example <smile>) and when there’s a wife there usually I just do what she does. But this will be a good training for me – doing something new and a little risky 😉

Moddie and I were talking about languages the other day. I want to start re-listening to the CDs I burned onto my iTunes from the Tiburon Library. As I think I detailed before, I just took my laptop there and sat there for hours, burning each one. I have at least a dozen languages in my library! I don’t think Moddie has a laptop so I’m not exactly sure how to get her the Spanish recordings (she said she wants to start with Spanish, which will be great – I will concentrate on French and German for now). I wonder if I can email them?

OK yeah I should go and see if there is any work in my email but I’m going to go try that first. Bad me. Obsessed, obviously.

I might post our video here, if Moddie says it’s okay. I need to ask her.

POSTSCRIPT: Just joined the “21 day Superhero challenge”: http://superherounleashedchallenge.com/learn-more/ – so did ANOTHER workout, this one the “Hot Potato” which was 10 thrusters/10 walking lunges with weight, 5 RFT. I did it in 3:something (I forget) but did it with VERY low weights (3 lbs) because I already did Crossfit today.

Yeah time for a shower 😉

So I’m just going to type a little here.

Last night, Moddie came over, we did our video, she stayed up ’til 2 a.m. to match her photos to her narration and our “team” narration, I got the script together with all the “keys” tied into everything…

and then we got an email from my video editor, telling us that his mother-in-law was in the hospital – and so there was no way he could do it.

!!!!

Moddie tried, this morning, to put the photos into a “quick video” format, so that we could still go with the narrations and such that we’d already filmed. Especially because she has a KILLER day at work today. I timed everything out that we’d done, and it was way over the 3 minutes – closer to 3:40. I had had in the back of my mind to tell my video guy where to cut and shave things – but that’s just too hard if you’re not a “dyed in the wool” video editor, AND trying to keep up at a crazy day, to boot. So, kudos to Moddie for jumping in, but I think it all has to go another way.

So I cancelled everything today (probably including Crossfit tonight) from 5:00 this morning, and re-did the script. In a way, I think this one is better. Moddie is going to have to come back over, but we can re-video us, and tell the story. We did everything, we were set, we had an unforeseen BIG issue. (Someone stealing our taxi, perchance?? Quoting from Sunday’s episode!)

I re-did the photo “slide show” but had to send it to Moddie, because she DOES know what she’s doing photo/video-wise. I need her to take the photos that I culled from the “hers, mine and ours” shots, and put them with a few per “page.” I wrote a script around them, and a script to introduce them, plus an “outro” afterwards. If she can get the photos into a slideshow with 4 seconds per slide, the whole thing should time out a shade shy of 3 minutes.

AND we can upload it together, TONIGHT.

We discovered when we were video taping last night that my little hand-held red waterproof camera (the one I did the manta rays on) is THE BOMB when it comes even to audio! That is the best little video camera EVER. It was a good 6-8 feet away from where we were sitting, and you could still hear us clear as a bell.

The way that I’ve re-written our “Emergency” script, we just have to remember “subjects” to address. I think we are going to have to put a timer on my tablet, so that we can SEE the 3 minute count down.

I also realized (as I was filling out the Application online) that we had to have a “fewer than 70 word” bio. So I wrote that, too. This is what it says:

“We come from VERY different backgrounds. As a kid, Moddie was sometimes unsure where the next meal or bed would be. Sandy lived comfortably in middle-American suburbia. Moddie’s entrepreneurial, mercurial but professional; Sandy’s a thinker, planner & quirkier. Sandy loves making Moddie laugh. Short versus tall, physical versus brainy, the mocha and the milk. But both are outgoing TAR lovers and Ironman athletes, after raising $10,000s to combat blood cancer!”

Moddie noted that their website states that the application deadline actually is on November 7th – so we “really” have 2 days…but the thing is, their website also states that they will “start calling teams in for callbacks” on November 5th. I think we will be a GREAT team. I just don’t want some “less-great” dual-female, “mocha and milk” team to get picked because the pickers don’t know our video is coming!!!!

OK, that’s enough for now. It’s 3:30 p.m., and I’ve been up since 5:00 a.m. (Moddie went to bed at 2 a.m. and I woke her up at like 7:30, so we’re a little grumpy right now).

I’m actually going to go check the feng shui calendar, to see what is the “best time” tonight to send this doggone thing through the ether to The Amazing Race. If there is a super-duper better time way tonight or tomorrow I will do it – I see that both days are green – but I have to look at the hourly binder to see the EXACT best time. I mean -what the heck, right? I might as well do everything I possibly can to put this baby on the top of the heap!

(All we have left is the video, though it’s written, and I’m sitting here right now on the couch staring at the video camera on the tripod, waiting. We’re SO almost done.)

Postscript: I looked – optimal time would be 9:00 p.m. tonight. So that’s what I’m’a’aimin’ for…

This morning I got up at 5:30 – I couldn’t sleep any more. Moddie will be coming over today to do the video for the TAR entry. So I had to charge my little hand-held video camera, and am working on getting my “story” down to a minute.

We have both uploaded WAY WAY WAY too many photos into Dropbox, so we’re going to have to go over those as well (once we get the video knocked out), to very specifically detail what goes where.

The idea would be to have Prashant do the video somewhat like a “scrapbook” or a “storybook” where the photos are 2-4 per page, and have something “written under” them (like they would be in a scrapbook) – in a script that would be easy for the producers to read. It can tell the story “under” what we are saying in the voiceover.

Now I’m timing out my voiceover – I’ve changed the wording a number of times, and I know what I have right now is about 300% too long! So time for paring….

I’ll go to Crossfit today at 9:00 a.m. (NOTE: I did not say 9:30 LOL!) As I pointed out to Moddie via text last night, THIS will get us to tone up and do our strength and flexibility training!

Crossfit today:

CONDITIONING
6 RFT
15 Squat Cleans 43/30KG
15 Pull Up
400M Run

I can’t remember what a “squat clean” is – I think that’s bringing the barbell from the floor up under your chin – on the pullups, I think I will still do them from the box, but I will work on them after using the band. There’s no way that I can use that much “real estate” (a band plus a box) to do the “step off the box, using the band” method.

Then I will come home and straighten my hair for our video LOL.

=============================THIS IS HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 MINUTES IS NOTHING!==================

THIS IS ONE MINUTE LONG, I TIMED IT:

Hey! I’m Sandy. I grew up a cautious, rule-abiding kid in standard American suburbia. Though my folks were adventurous, I found my adventures  in books. As I grew older, what’s a bookworm to do? So I got degree

after degree

after degree

after degree!

After a bad romantic breakup, I decided to “heal myself” as the saying goes, keeping a blog as I went. I used the Bond Girl as my muse… a publisher found me… and the rest is history. Okay, I did go back and get another degree, this time in Sexology! It being Bond Girls and all!

But let me back up. On New Year’s in 1987, I entered a training program that promised to turn Couch Potatoes into Triathletes by Thanksgiving. It did.

I vowed then to do the Ironman before I was 50. That seemed a long way off – until my 48th birthday a couple years ago! So I got up off the couch again, and joined the Leukemia Society’s Team In Training. Even when training sucked, I remembered that chemo sucks more. I finished the Ironman – last woman over the line, but happy.

I’ve continued to raise tens of thousands to fight blood cancer. And that’s where I met Moddie.

=========================================================

OURS TOGETHER – ONE MINUTE if MODDIE CAN TALK CLEARLY AND AS FAST AS I DID ON THE TEST:

Sandy: I loved Moddie from the moment I met her. She has these little hiccups that sound like a tree frog. You’ll hear them when we’re Racing.

Moddie: <laughing> Okay, now that my big secret is out…Sandy keeps me in good spirits – even on 100 mile bike rides or two mile icy swims in the San Francisco Bay. When my temper flares, she always has a way to make me laugh.

Sandy: Yeah, I finally embraced my ungainly 6’2″ white-girl-can’t-jump-ness when I turned 50, and I must admit, it’s a lot more fun to live life in 3D than between the pages. I have a quirky sense of humor.

Moddie: Uh, very! So, we both want to start non-profits. Mine would benefit kids like me, who have it in them to succeed, but come from a hard-knocks background.

Sandy: Mine would benefit kids like my adopted grandboy Caleb, who’s been stoically fighting intense pain that doctors can’t figure out.

Moddie: On November 4th, we were talking about how to do this, and how much we loved The Amazing Race. Then we had an epiphany….

[FADE INTO VIDEO ON COUCH]

Sandy:…you know, we could always apply to The Race.

Moddie: There’s no way. We’d have like a day to do a video.

Sandy: Oh come on (kick). Would you at least think about it?

Moddie: Um, think it over? That would be so unlike me (both laugh) – no, let’s do it.

Sandy: Now?

Moddie: Now.

Sandy: Did you see it last night? Do you sing? Oh my God, you’re going to realize all the things I’m afraid to do.

Moddie: (laugh) Well, I’ll climb the cliffs if you’ll eat the bugs.

Sandy: Wait a sec-ond…

New photo fades in of us in the water after Lavaman:

Moddie Stone, 40, moddies@hotmail.com, 415. xxx.xxxx
Sandy Shepard, 51, goodsolutions1@yahoo.com, 415.xxx.xxxx

She’ll climb the cliffs . . . I’ll eat the bugs.

===========================

Now Moddie has to get hers to a minute or less. I know, I’m a piggie, I am taking up a TON of the 3 minutes. I’m HOPING that my first minute “tees up” Moddies’ story as the “antithesis” of how I grew up, so she can tell hers in a minute or less in “counterpoint.” When I was scripting for Robbie and me, I had our stories down to 30 seconds, but that was because I didn’t talk about as much (the training stuff takes a lot of seconds in Moddie and my story).

So if Moddie can talk about her “not so much standard suburbia” background, being active, “trying on different personalities for real more than in books,” etc., she doesn’t have to talk about TNT because I’ve done that part (e.g. she can just say “Team In Training” not “The Leukemia Society’s Team In Training” – that’s a couple seconds less right there) – she doesn’t have to talk about coming from a “couch potato” background, instead could be more like: “I’ve been on Iron, triathlon, and marathon teams with TNT and with Sandy..” – fingers crossed we can make this work!

OK time to go wake up the hubby….

Went to Crossfit last night – it was only Jay and me (and Bo of course). We did the WOD, no fuss no muss. I did the back squats with the orange bar – but no rack because Jay had the one rack, and I’m not sure where the others were (it was weird – maybe they were being used for some Halloween thing over in the gymnastics or the parcour gyms?) Anyway – so I could have squatted more, but I couldn’t get the bar OFF my shoulders at a higher weight. I did a fancy little number where I grabbed the bar with my right hand on my left shoulder (right shoulder is the  bad one) and then “spun around” under the bar, so now I was facing backwards but holding the bar in my hands to put it down on a stack of boxes (slick!)

I beat Jay but only because he’s pretty slow on the run. He’s the big football player guy. His wife is having some sciatica problems, and H didn’t feel well enough to go.

Today I was on the computer piddling around when I realized that the WOD started at 9:00 not 9:30 (duh!) – it was about 8:50 when I realized this. I SPRANG out of bed (yes, shades of “The Night Before Christmas”) and into my clothes and out the door – luckily I’d already had my Bulletproof Coffee so I was “fed” – I’d even put Collagen Protein in it because of planning to go to Crossfit, just – duh – blew the time.

Everyone was warmed up by the time I got there so I did a very VERY quick warmup and then we had at it. The 9:00 WOD is the gang who all can do everything – except Marfur (the new girl, but she’s like 20 and super fit) and moi.

The WOD was:

CONDITIONING
20 Min AMRAP
10 Wall Ball
7 Toes 2 Bar
5 Burpee

I did the wall balls with the 10 pound ball. It’s very VERY weird, I have this odd sense I might have done 20 on some of my reps. (I’m not sure about that, maybe I”m mixing it up with yesterday). No – probably not – because I did 8 full reps then 17 (meaning I did the wall balls (1o) and the scaled Toes 2 Bar (7) which means, for me, bringing my knees up as if I’m sitting in a chair, hanging from the pullup bar). Marfur did 9 and change, most everyone else was in the 12-14 range (Rx).

The BIG thing though was that I actually DID the Burpees – as I mentioned about 3 blogs ago. I basically did a “flop down, upward-dog up” version, but that’s OK, it counts. It sucked. Around rep. 6 or 7, I was on like #3 and I realized I was down and couldn’t get up. My head was POURING with sweat (I was leaving a puddle on the ground, and I was sweating so hard that there was a “Team In Training” logo actually in the mat under my shirt – I’m not sure how THAT happened, maybe somehow heat imprinted in the black mats???). Bo said “Come on Sandy!” and I was able to get the next 2 done. As the saying goes from something I posted a week or so ago: “Yeah, burpees hate you, too.” LOL!

Turns out Bo and Amanda (“Team BoManda”) are going to be down doing Rebel Rising in Huntington Beach tomorrow. I FB’d Joy from Girls Gone WOD to see if she could go cheer them on – she’s in So Cal on business, from Denver – but she has to work all Saturday. BUMMER!

My shoulder feels totally fine. I have a “stitch” under my right glute from I think (believe it or not) the situps last night. I used to be the situp QUEEN and I really suck. I have 3 rolls to “sit up and over.”

My November goals: (1) do burpees full when in the WOD (yay! done!) (2) do something stomach/core-related EVERY day – whatever it is, from a candlestick situp to rockers to situps to knee ups hanging from the bar (we did that yesterday and today) (3) work on pullups 2x/week minimum.

OH AND – so when I got home, I discovered that the WonderUnders I was wearing both today and yesterday (which I had gotten from Jane – she had BETTER not have given these to me because she KNEW this!) had a big hole in the seam right along the butt crack!) OMG! I started thinking about what we did yesterday and today – and whether I might have done any Squats Of Shame (laugh)…I know that the back squats I did yesterday I did facing the wall, then we had running, pushups and situps. Can’t remember the warmup so maybe I shouldn’t LOL. Today we had squats in the warmup but no one was watching, wall balls, the hanging knees up (Rx: toes to bar) and burpees. I THINK I might have been okay. It’s a real shame because those doggone things are expensive and there’s no way to fix this hole. I did wonder why Jane was giving them up frankly – especially as they were just the right size for me. I have worn them a few times before but I would have seen that sort of a hole – so I think actually the squats last night and today just “did” it (or “expanded” it). I would believe that at LEAST Michael or Margo (maybe Karen) would TELL me if I was having a Squat of Shame (Laugh) – so I have to believe that no one noticed, if it DID “crack open” Aaaaaaaaugh!!!!!!!!!! Yes it would be better if I had been wearing oh say black undies but you know how tight those things are so I was in a thong, so no joy there.

So that’s my checkin! LOL!