Okie dokie. So:

1.  Food Journal: So far (yeah, so it’s only 11 a.m….) I have logged my food (and workout) on JillianMichaels.com. I have recommitted to doing this. I really gotta get back in the game, food-wise.

2.  Today at Crossfit, because I have the marathon on Sunday, Anthony and I worked on form for 3 different exercises: Pull-ups, Deadlifts, and V-ups.

a. Pull-Ups: So, I did 4 sets of 10, using the black (85 lb. help) powerband. The band was so strong that I couldn’t “pull it down” far enough to get my foot into it, so I had to stand on the tall box, and basically lift my foot up into it, then “lower myself down” from there so that my legs were straight. The idea is to stand on the ground (one foot of course in the band), and then it “helps” you to get up in the pull-up. When I did this with the trainer I hired for a month at the other Crossfit box, this was a hot mess. 😉 He had me get into the bands by him pulling them down – then I was too far from the ground to actually reach the bar if I was standing on the ground, so I was always in fear of the band “shooting me up” so that it would make my grip falter. This worked out well – it was slow going, mind you, as after the first 10 (which I was able to do in sets of three) I had to do them 1 at at time. As Anthony had indicated, you need to really get the form down – and once you start to “get it” you….start to get it. Meaning – when I was doing them as I was before – which meant I was standing on a box, squatting down, and using my legs to help me get up to the bar” – it wasn’t the “real pullup movement.” This was the “real pullup movement” – my legs are straight, I’m pulling myself up from the floor – but I have 85 lbs. of help. (So, that means I’m lifting about 100 lbs.) Anthony originally told me to do 20 sets of 10 (ha ha ha), then 15, then 5 . . . I got to 4 sets of 10 before the “hard core crossfitters” (Sheri, Ashley, Rich, etc.) needed me to move because of what their workout was. (If I’d been doing regular pullups I wouldn’t have had to have moved, but because I had the box, the band, etc. all under the bar I just took up too much room.)

b.  V-Ups. So I think I’ve mentioned before that a V-Up is when you have your hands over your head and your legs straight out, and you “sit up” bringing your hands and your feet up at the same time so that you are in a “V”. I was doing 10 of these, then 10 of the pull-ups, etc. The thing  that I realized when I was on my 2nd set is that I can bring my hands forward and my legs up – but my back was staying on the ground, which is not the idea. So I wound up “scaling” this by keeping my feet up the whole time (so when they were “down” they were still an inch off the ground), then lifting them up, and at the same time using my hands behind my thighs, to get my body up/back off the ground. I can’t remember if I put my hands over my head, then brought them forward to my thighs, then used them to “help” my body up – I think so.

c.  Deadlifts. The deadlift is when the barbell is on the ground in front of your feet, and you pick it up (standing straight), then let it drop. The key here is NOT to do it with your back, you do it with your legs and your butt particularly at the top. Anthony had me do sets of 3. I started with the “orange” bar, plus 2 5 kg weights. That’s what I’ve done deadlifts with before. That was too light, really (fine if I’m doing a WOD that has like sets of 10, but not for form drills). So he had me go up to 10 kg on each side, then 15 kg each side (3 plates each side! – I know, I’m so excited and usually folks are doing this with 3 20-25 kg plates on each side, even girls – but hey it’s a PR for me!) He coached me to keep my feet a bit wider than my hips, and then my hands are outside of that – he said to “check” that I was in the right “position” to basically stick my thumbs out as I grabbed the bar, and they should brush my thighs. He also said to be SURE I keep my elbows in, because, with my bicep tendon/attachment issue, that folks who turn their elbows “out” are asking for a rip. Once I got up to the 30 kg. on the bar, I did 11 sets of 3 lifts each. With more weight you can REALLY tell how you have to be “in the right position.” Anthony has constantly been harping on me to get the weight close to my legs – with the extra weight, you can feel how if it’s not right up next to your legs, gravity pulls it down and out of your hands. So I “get it” – and I also “get” how some of the websites I have read talk about the fact that you really can’t “get a move” until you’re doing it under a fair amount of weight.

d.  Pushups. We also tried pushups, but I still really can’t do anything lower than that doggone red box that they use as a desk. That’s a bit lower than the parallel bars, at least, but not a chance I can do them on the highest box jump box. Frustrating. That right shoulder REALLY is messed up, and though it was compromised years ago in the Marines, I know that what really “did it in” was pole dancing. Because for all those years I did it they didn’t really make you do moves “on both sides,” I was CONSTANTLY swinging on my right arm. I absolutely and completely know that – and them not teaching “stability moves” for the shoulder – is what did it in.

3.  TAR Episode 3. I was SUPER BUMMED – my next favorite team – the NFL guys – got eliminated this round. The first round was the father/daughter team, and I didn’t really have any feelings one way or another with them. But the 2nd round was the Bingo Boys, and I was sad, because I wanted them to go a lot farther (I sort of thought of them as potential “contemporaries” to R and me). I just LOVED the NFL guys though – great attitudes, etc. And they wound up getting screwed by airplane delays – so came in last. SO SAD! (Now I hope the baseball wives don’t get gone next – they’re my next favorites.) Learnings:
a.  Language.  OK I know that this is petty, but EVERYONE got in the taxis in Portugal (the next country) and were speaking in SPANISH! Interestingly, they subtitled the Spanish, but they didn’t make a point in the subtitles (which I think they should have) that everyone was speaking SPANISH in a country that speaks PORTUGUESE. So today on the way to Crossfit, I listened to the Portuguese language CD I’d copied from the library. Now, granted, “va rapido!” is pretty much the same, most teams said “gracias” to the taxi drivers (“Thank you,” in Spanish) whereas in Portuguese, it’s “Obrigado.” Also – interestingly – Good bye is “Ciao.” I really have to make more of a point to listen to those CDs when I’m driving, folding laundry, etc. Even if I don’t remember a single thing, it will get my mind working.

b.  First Class Lounge. This was a super interesting thing – and I think it comes from “life experiences.” At one point, all the teams were “stuck” and needed to get put on “standby” on a flight. Two of the teams (the exes and the affianced couple) just waited at the ticket counter/gate, waiting for someone to “show up.” The baseball wives found the first class lounge, and got the gal there to book them on standby – so they were #1 in line. I think that this was a matter of experience – I would bet you the NFL players would have done the same thing. Because both teams would have had the life experience of knowing what first class lounges can do for you. Now, granted, if you’re a TAR aficionado, now you, too, know this (laugh) – but this is something I would have thought of as well. I remember when H and I were dead stuck in Vietnam because of getting “fogged in” down in Danang, and he had the lounge folks working overtime to help us get out of the country. It was crazy – we had to go get our bags, etc. (that’s a funny story for another day!) – but not only did they speak perfect English, but they had everything at their disposal AND told us where to go in Saigon, etc. Anyway – there’s just no way that the other two couples would have even thought of that, because I don’t think it’s in their life experience. That was a great learning. First class lounge folks rock!

c.  Flights. This was fascinating. The teams had to get from Chile to Portugal. There were a TON of options – a ton! The thing that was SO SAD was that the NFL guys literally made it to the Tour Agency FIRST, and then wound up getting screwed somehow because the gal was looking on the wrong day, etc. OMG! Then she put them on a flight with 2 stops, and they wound up getting socked in (they actually called her back, and she tried to help them, but … what a mess), THEN they went to Madrid and missed their plane so they had to go to London (which is where the Afghanimals and the “Ice Queens” went originally) – oh it was just SO SAD. They even said to their camera that the thing about what they did was that if you did the workouts, you practiced, etc. that you KNEW where you were/it was “all on you.” But this was totally out of their hands and immensely frustrating. The cool part (I really liked these guys!) was that they didn’t get mad, they didn’t cuss and stomp about, etc. – they were super philosophical about it. I’m not quite sure what the learning was – there were SO MANY different options to get out of Chile, that I guess the learning is to try to get the one with the fewest stop-overs…?? Interestingly, the NFL guys made the choice to do 2 stops, whereas the 2 teams that went to London were arriving “later” than they were by a few hours – and then of course wound up beating them, by virtue of the fact that they only had one plane change. So perhaps – if it’s just a matter of a few hours – to take the most direct flight/trip? Man, that’s a tough question. Because it could put you that many hours behind if “everything goes right” – perhaps to ask about the weather in the stop-over spot? Or how often flights are delayed out of it? Anyway – just something to ponder 😉

d.  Teaming Up. The ER doctors and the affianced couple wound up on the same flight, or somehow “together.” There was a choice where the teams either had to do “Miles or Tiles” – they chose “Miles” which meant taking a huge compass (as in a protractor/compass not a “magnetic” compass) out to a map and “measure” Magellan’s travels, then say how much it was in miles. What they did was work together – they guys carried the huge compass between the points, the gals did the math. That worked SUPER well – the interesting thing was that the Afghanimals and the Ice Queens had “paired up” and ALSO went to do that event, but the guys said “oh, we’ll take care of you” which was stupid, because they couldn’t figure out how to do it (and the girls couldn’t either). That’s a learning for basically “don’t let another team do things for you, they might be stupid.” 🙂 The gals – smartly – gave up and went to do the “Tiles” and said they’d “meet the guys there” – which they did. The “Tiles” was putting tiles together into a mosaic. Again, it was interesting to watch – the “exes” (who of course have an Express Pass still – AND the extra Express Pass) tried to put the mosaic up on the vertical as they were putting it together – stupid, because they kept dropping the tiles and BREAKING them. The Afghanimals did the same thing – but the gals who did it all laid it out on the floor FIRST then put it up on the vertical. Hello! Don’t mess with gravity! LOL.

e. STAY WITH THE PACK! In the case of the NFL guys, AND the Bingo Boys, they lost out because they went “a different direction” than the bulk of the pack. I think in each case they were trying to “get a jump on” the rest of the competitors, but if you’re not first (e.g., this time there have been a “first bus” and a “second bus,” a “first plane” and a “second plane” etc.) then just suck it up and stick with all the folks that are taking the second method. It seems that the potential of getting “a jump” on the folks in the second “transportation method” is FAR outweighed by the potential that you wind up getting screwed – as BOTH the Bingo Boys AND the NFL guys found out.

I think those were the main learnings – maybe R has some others. The Episode was basically to get out of Chile on a plane to Sao Paulo, Portugal, get on a numbered tram to a destination, pick up an oil painting of a carriage (then asking someone “what does this mean?” and the answer was to go to the Coach Museum), get a clue at the Coach Museum which was the “Miles or Tiles” event, then take a taxi to a Renaissance Faire-esque reenactment where one of the team had to shoot a stationary crossbow (with a wooden crank) at a shield and pierce it (the clue was on the back) – in full chainmail – then back in the taxi to a castle up on a cliff, where Phil was. Oh – I guess that’s another learning – the whole Taxi/Directions issue – the team that was in first had a taxi that EITHER went the wrong way OR they told the taxi to go a different way that was not the right way (it was unclear) – and so they wound up coming in 2nd. There were signs on signposts going up a mountain to where the castle was, and I couldn’t figure out if the taxi driver took a wrong turn, or if he was going the right way and they turned him around the “wrong” way. It was unclear – but it’s a learning – keep your eye out. OMG and also one of the teams, the taxi rear-ended another car – badly!!! – but for SOME reason the person who was rear-ended said they could keep going!! That was unbelievable!!!

From the clips that they show for Episode 4, the ER doc woman gets some sort of clue, and the pink-haired woman of the ex’s tries to get it from her, but the ER doc says that she’ll trade the info for the Express Pass that the ex’s have extra. Smart, smart, smart. I think R is right – these folks are SUPER smart, and they might actually win because of it. (Though I was mad at her because she was one of the “speaking Spanish to the Portuguese taxi driver” people.)

Now it’s noon – I’ve read through email (no work…) and if I do it, yoga is at 1:30, then I have work-study at the yoga studio (so I get the yoga for free) from 2:30-5:00. Mondays are sort of busted for that reason. I REALLY gotta get to yoga – I did go last week! – because otherwise I’m spending this time doing the work-study for nothing.

UPDATE: Did Yoga – for the work study/TAR “event” see tomorrow 😉

 

So – yesterday (Saturday) was a 40 minute run with Team In Training (Sendoff for the Nike Marathon), then more “working crossfit” building our patio area. Granted – H does a lot more of the lifting than I do – but I do enough! (You can see some of the photos of the quartzite “WOD” HERE on my Instagram feed.)

Today we’re going to theatre with my Mom and Dad (Berkeley Rep) – and then it’s Episode 3 of The Amazing Race.

I have the Nike Marathon a week from today – so next week I’m going to be working on stretching/etc. at Crossfit, plus one exercise. I think I talked about this before: I spoke with both Bo and Anthony, and they pointed out that there are SO many exercises in Crossfit that it’s best to pick one at a time and really “get” it, then move on to the next. I’ve decided to work on pull-ups, because it’s just upper body. This will keep my legs “free” and “resting” for a week before the marathon.

One of the things that I realized a few weeks back is that I seem to only be able to “hold onto” one big life change at a time. It’s like, if I’m doing one, I want to get my “treats” from the other. What does that mean? I was SUPER good with eating, especially when I was doing the DietBet with my friends. But I wasn’t so good with working out – I was way more of a couch potato in fact. Then, when I started doing the working out, I stopped paying attention to diet. No – worse – I got really bad with it! Of course it doesn’t help that my husband likes how I cook, and we have a big wine cellar 😉

So today, starting tomorrow, I’m recommitting to the food “thing.” When I saw my doctor (I have some health issues that have cropped up recently), he said in his typical New York Jewish way (said with great love), that “now that I’m over 50” I have to stop eating “like I’m 20” because I’ve “reached the time in my life when I can’t have babies, and so my metabolism has ratcheted way down so that the rest of the tribe doesn’t put me out on the ice floe.” Thanks, Doc (laugh) – but I know that’s true. Sad, but true.

I use Jillian Michael’s BodyBugg (I wear it 24/7) – and I was recording all my food on her website – and will be again, starting Monday.

SIGH! I hate doing that, but I really need to get a grip on this, and I also know it’s (those dreaded words!) “Good for me.”

Besides, who wants to be put out on the ice floe?!?

 

 

So this morning, H asked me to help him with our “front area” project. He THOUGHT that we could get going around 9:00 (so miss the morning Crossfit) but “definitely” be done, eat lunch, etc. and off to the 3:00pm WOD.

Um, yeah, so HERE is where we are at 3:17pm . . .

This is so frustrating and I really feel for H. We ordered all this quartzite, because we had figured that is what we would do the whole front area with. After 2 (maybe 3?) days with a contractor and a “helper” doing the majority of the laying out, it was WAY too “chaotic” for H, so he had to keep ripping it out every night and starting over (he hasn’t been to Crossfit all week). Finally yesterday he told the contractor just not to come back.

His feeling is that the quartzite really takes away from the “zen” feeling of the outdoor fireplace. So instead, the idea is now to make a path out of it (the photo above is taken from the stairs up to the house), that “spirals around” the fountain (that’s the hole in the middle), and make the rest a sort of “sandy gravel” – a la a Zen garden. As you can see, of course, we have about 2 tons (truth) of quartzite “extra” (there is a whole extra pallet that’s behind the fireplace, outside of this photograph).

So that’s about a $1,000 mistake (maybe more, not quite sure).

We’ve been doing “puzzle work” since 9:00 – H had a conference call at 3:00, and he’s now off getting something to eat (e.g., decompressing). It’s SO hard to do this silly job.

I am trying to see this with TAR eyes. First, I’m hauling these quartzite slabs around, so feeling rather proud of myself. (I did manage to gash the top of my foot with a sharp edge, but otherwise so far so good.) One thing that H showed me was how to take two sticks he’d put together with a bolt, and to measure the angle of the “hole” that we were trying to find a “triangle/point” to fit into – genius, but something I wouldn’t have thought of. (I was trying to eyeball it, which I’m VERY good at, but sometimes I’d be a degree or two off and hauling a slab of quartzite over to a spot just to find that it wasn’t “quite right” was a pain). By using the 2 sticks (like paint stir-sticks) and bolting them into the angle that I was looking for, I could go “measure it against” all the various slabs.

He also had a very cool contraption he’d made out of 4 sticks – but these had the “bolts” so that they slid down a “track” cut in the middle of each side. What that means is that you can make any sort of shape square/rectangle/parallelogram that you want. Especially when we were trying to find something that was basically “flat on one side but with this shape triangle on top,” it was genius.

Not sure that R and I are going to be laying out a plaza (in Italy?) – but these little gizmos were something I would not have even known existed and they’re great.

Now I have to go and make something for my own “lunch” (at 3:30) and get ready to go out for “Round 2.” Luckily (not sure if that’s so for my bank account, but so it goes) I went through my email and no work for today, so I’m able to do what H needs me to. Tomorrow I have the Send-Off for the LLS Run Team starting at (I think?) 8 a.m. in the city – then Sunday we have Berkeley Rep with Mom and Dad. I thought I was doing the charity auctioneering (I keep getting auctioneering gigs, funny) this Saturday, but it turns out it’s next Saturday. Which is good in that it gives me more “day” tomorrow, but bad in that it’s the day before the Nike Marathon so no wine for me! Shame – there’s always all sorts of great edibles at these things.

That’s all she wrote – time to go pull those gloves back on! 🙂

So the WOD for today is:

8 RFT
Run 200M
10 Goblet Squats 1.5/1 P kettlebell
10 KBS (Kettle Bell Swings)
10 Pushups

Not too sore from Crossfit yesterday – Trish and I basically sandbagged the last Wednesday LLS/TNT run, because the coach talked for so long that it was DARK before we headed off, and I was too scared to run! Seriously…it was “dusk” and my eyes just aren’t so good. If you’re going to ask for someone to go do something when it’s dusk (to dark), require a headlamp. I was kinda sad that we basically just walked – then we sat in Sports Basement because it was not only dark but COLD outside while they were doing their last rounds of Core – then came home.

H said he’s going to come to Crossfit tonight – he hasn’t been in a week, since he’s been working on our outdoor patio area. We have these HUGE slabs of quartzite that the contractor is supposed to be placing the way H wants them to – and we all know that if H wants something a certain way, in reality, he has to do it.

So a friend gave me a $100 Groupon certificate – and another friend (and law client) sent me a Groupon notification, that would cost $109 to get. (They were literally like a few hours from each other.) She had signed up for the classes, and I think wanted company.

So now – SHINY PENNY! – I have signed up to get an NAFC Certification.

You’d think I never have any work to do, wouldn’t you? Interestingly enough, I do – it’s just that my work is big bursts of time concentrating (at $300/hour) and then I have “breaks” that I do things like blog (smile), work out, shop, etc. It’s not like I “need” another certification (hardly), but since my friend is going to do it, and since this is all stuff I’m CRAZY interested in, I thought (given the timing – free certificate then BLAM a class just about that price) that I’d go for it.

I know, I said shiny penny already . . .

As a separate note, I have pretty much decided that next week I do want to start working on pullups. I’m going to check with Bo tonight to see what he thinks, but that’s my thought right now. Things like pushups are just a non-starter for me with the shoulder but (strength apart) so far I haven’t had issues with pullups in re my shoulder, so I think that’s a good place to begin.

Today at Crossfit, Anthony told me that I had “graduated” so I can do the Conditioning WOD or the “regular” Level WOD. I think I’ll stay in Conditioning for a while, thank you! (Until I can oh, say, do a pull up or something LOL).

Here’s the workout for today:

15 RFT
Run 100M
7 Deadlift 70/45KG
5 Burpee

I did the deadlifts with the orange bar and 10 kg – Traci did it with adding another 5 kg (two smaller 2.5s) and I think I might do that next time. Anthony “welcomed me to the club” upon seeing my sexy bruise from deadlifting into my knee last time around.

Did the burpees on the tallest box – took it outside. I’m not sure how long it all took me – I was second to the end before Marfer (Maria Fernanda) – Margo rocked it and was in first of all.

The warmup included donkey kicks (which I still can’t do), bear walks (which is basically walking forward and back with your arms/legs straight. Grrrrrr), “Good Mornings,” jumping squats (I did regular), shoulder rolls.

I mentioned to Anthony that next week I can’t really do the WOD because it’s the week before the marathon – he said he’d ask some folks who do endurance running that are members of the box what they’d suggest I do. What he said was that if I was still doing Conditioning, I should pick one thing and work on it, so that “ultimately” I can “really” do the regular WODs. I have to figure out what that thing will be. I want to say pullups. They suck, but I know there’s gotta be a trick. 😉 I mentioned to Anthony that it was frustrating my core was so weak – I can’t even do V-ups. He said that the thing is, that the squats, dead lifts, etc. ALL work the core, so you don’t just “need to do a billion situps” to get that together. Which makes sense. I certainly remember though too that the stronger my core was for example in biking, the easier the biking was and the easier on my shoulder. Without that ab strength, I would put more weight on my hands, and so after 100 miles or so my shoulder would ACHE (as in, I’d have to stop and really wiggle it around, etc.) The best abs I really had was before Lavaman, and WOW it made a difference in my overall performance. Even swimming – your abs are tight, you float better.

So this is the last Wednesday workout with LLS. The marathon came fast! I’ll be glad that it’s over though. Not that I’ve really done all that much as a mentor – leading some Saturday runs, going Wednesday, etc. – and I really honestly didn’t get “into” the training like I did all the other marathons this past year. I think it’s because I was really “done” when Trish asked me to be a co-mentor with her. I would have turned her down, but the email RIGHT after that was Brian telling me that Kimmi had passed away from cancer. So I realized that I “had to” do this one for her – she and I had actually joked not a year before that she “would be” doing Nike with me this year. Saw Brian last week – he’s SUCH a great guy – it was his anniversary on Sunday thought, and he was going to go to the big Golden Gate Park bluegrass shin-dig … he said last year, he and Kimmi went for their anniversary, and she was feeling “a little sick” from the cancer coming back but (dot dot dot). Wow.

And my last subject line thought has to do with Time. I just don’t seem to have any – ! I think that the Crossfit thing really does bite a big hunk out of the day. I actually do like the 6:30pm WOD better…because after, I just come home, have dinner, H and I hang, go to bed. But the 9:00am WOD, I’m done by somewhere around 10:30, then have to come home, do some email, post to the blog (smile), shower, then BLAM it’s already noon (like now). I have a thing with Francine at 3:00 in Mill Valley, then the last LLS workout is at 6:00 in the City. Day gone. Yeah, I know, I know, I’m lucky – I don’t have to “do the 9-5” and all that jazz. But I do have work I have to do – I’m just not getting to it in a timely fashion, because I’m so TIRED! That’s not good. I didn’t even go last Wednesday to the workout, because I realized when 5:00 rolled around that in reality, I didn’t want to get in my car – I wanted to go to bed. And so I did….

 

This morning I had to go to the Kaiser lab to get tests run – it’s a long story. Anyway – I got there right at 7:30 (because H had a conference call at 7:00 so we were up) and I was surprised to only have like 5 people in line in front of me. Usually at that “pre-work” time there are around 30.

They took – NO LIE – 9 VIALS of blood. OMG. I don’t think even when I was doing intake for the Marines I have had so much blood taken!

I”m back home now, and it just turned 9:00 a.m. I have to admit it really is nice to be up “early” – so much more “day” that way 😉

I have some law work to do, plus it’s That Day I get all the bills into Quicken/etc. I don’t particularly like doing it but I actually ~do~ really like it when it’s done (very satisfying). That reminds me of one Episode 2 thing that happened near the end – the Afghanimals didn’t pay their taxi driver enough money. They were super cavalier about it, and it cost them. They hit the mat and Phil made them go back.

Time and again, folks mess up the $ bit. I know that you’re given a certain amount of $ (in this case, the bills were actually in the first trip envelope), and that you have to “husband” (wife!) it – but you also have to be SUPER DUPER cognizant of actually PAYING your drivers. I am not sure if it was because they didn’t speak the language, didn’t understand, were being arrogant, or … ? The interesting thing is that the more “annoying” of the two (the one with the big hair) wound up blaming his cousin, who was “responsible for keeping track of the $” – immediately threw him under the bus, and told Phil that they were “enemies.” It seemed like that cousin actually could speak Spanish, and just got a little flustered and was being pushed to “hurry up hurry up” by the other guy.

I’m not quite sure how to forestall something like that. Perhaps ask the driver at the outset “about” how much the trip will cost – so that you have at least that amount of $ ready? I know that in for example Cambodia, you have to negotiate for the cost BEFORE you get in the cab (Vietnam and Thailand, too) – and that’s what it’s going to cost. Not sure how many countries do it that way, but my supposition would be that if you negotiated on the way “in” in ANY country, you would get there FASTER because the driver would want to get you out of the cab faster (since you had “fixed” the amount he would be getting, at the start). A thought.

So today’s Crossfit workout is:
CONDITIONING
For Time
Run 400M/40 Box Jump/ 20 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 30 Box Jump/ 15 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 20 Box Jump/ 10 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400M/ 10 Box Jump/ 5 Toes 2 Bar
Run 400m

Box jumping is not that bad – I’m doing it now on I want to say 2 of the big plates? (I remember it was 8″). Toes to bar I SUCK AT. It is just what you think it is – you hang from the bar with your feet off the ground, and “however you can,” you try to touch your toes to the bar that your hands are hanging from.

I guess I could try doing it with my hands in chin-up position and see if that makes any difference – in all honesty, I can just barely get my knees up bent at all, much less to even a “hanging sitting” position – WAY-HAY-HAY less toes forward! Bo is doing this training, and I know that he doesn’t have a “scale” for toes-to-bar. In looking at various videos, it looks like the ‘scale’ is to go for “knees to elbows” – which is what I’m going to try today.

I did go to yoga yesterday – YAY! I was very proud of myself. There were very few folks in the class and I just concentrated on not “going hard” (which sounds odd when applied to yoga…) but rather on really “stretching.” I was able to get my hand lower in triangle than I’ve ever been able to – not sure if that was just “that day” or if Crossfit is helping. My arms were really sore – it was hard to keep them up in the poses in the beginning set before Savasanna. I know that’s the Crossfit for sure. My arms are pretty much always sore!

I posted on Pinterest a photo of my knee from yesterday’s workout – Anthony kept emphasizing how important it was in the deadlifts to get the bar close to my legs – and so one time when I was putting the bar down I whacked my knee hard enough to bruise. So beautiful 😉 I did the orange bar with 2 5 kilo plates – did the parallel bar dips on the green band. I probably said that already.

R and I have been “Facebook Messenger-ing” today about various things for our “laundry list” – one of hers is to get her eye that got botched in the cataract surgery to get fixed. That was awful (a couple years ago, in my memory). Once I get the LASIK done (that’s on my list for today actually – I have to schedule it), I want to get a pair of “Clic-readers” like Steve C has. He is pretty “hard on” stuff so I know that these would be “rough and ready” – but I can’t get any now, because my prescription will change (sadly, for the worse – that’s the trade-off for seeing better far distance) after the surgery.

Okie dokie – time for bills…

POSTSCRIPT: I did the WOD in 18:58 – okay, sure, I was lifting my knees up as hard as I could (though the last 5 I did get them to the “I am sitting in a chair” position, AND I was able to swing back a little a la a kip) – and my box jump was up on 2 25 kg plates (Bo said next time to add a 5 in between the two – moving up…moving up…) – but I felt SUPER DUPER proud of myself – and I was the first one in! (The next guy was at like 19:50, then Jay – the big NFL guy – and his wife, and then another super fit blonde cutie grown-up-Barbie nurse who was really nice – were all after that. The nurse gal was about my age, I think her name was Susan. She’s done some form of Crossfit before I think – or something close – though none of them knew how to use the rower or do the toes-to-bar). Warmup was 1000m row, then 3x (10 lunges across the floor, 10 V-ups (I still can’t understand why I can’t do these?), walking the parallel bar across with your hands) then 50 double unders (I did 100 singles). As for the parallel bar – all I could do was boost myself up onto my hands, then basically rock back and forth like R2D2, without forward momentum. Another challenge….

OK so I’m going to start with Crossfit. Today Anthony told me how much better I was doing than when I started. Yeah so fine, I live for that stuff 😉 I also brought some of the coupons I’d gotten from a client and gave them out to the “gang” (Jimmy, Karen & Rich, Ashley – that’s the buff blonde’s name, I finally asked, Traci (the one I loaned Supple Leopard to, the runner), Anthony, and Margo. It was a little weird because there were other folks there when I handed them out, but basically I gave them to everyone who did the WOD with me except the 2 new girls, but they’d left already anyway).

I think Traci and I are pretty evenly paced. She smoked me in the run, but she and I did the deadlifts the same (the “orange” bar plus 2 5 kg plates – she added 2.5s on each end so she was at 15 to my 10, but that’s pretty close), plus she did the dips with the red band and I did it with the green. By the end she said she was super toasted on the red (it goes black – 75 lbs help, green 65, blue 55, red 45, then there might be another after that), so she was doing better than I was with the help on the dip, but she wondered if she should have done blue.

The WOD was 25 min AMRAP of 400m run, 10 deadlifts, 12 dips. We did 7 – she did the whole 400m of the next round, I finished my 7th FAST to get it in and then had just like 2 minutes left, so I did sprints up and down the meter markers so that I wouldn’t be around the back of the building when they called time (I got 125m in).

I learned during the warmup that an “L-sit” is literally sitting your body straight up with your legs out, like an “L”, so you are pushing with your hands to make your back as straight as possible. Part of the warmup was 30 seconds in that position – then there was a 30 second handstand, which I can’t do, so I did a 30 second plank. Anthony said to be sure that the “insides of my elbows” point “front” which puts my shoulder in the most stable position.

It was good music today too which helped – the whole Katy Perry “Roar,” “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger”-type music.

Sheri, Rich, and to some extent Ashley and I talked about high school reunions at the beginning -Sheri had just gotten back from hers, which was in Indiana this weekend. I was not feeling great when I went – stomach a little upset. I personally feel it’s because I drank Saturday during Mom and Dad’s anniversary, then 2 Vespers plus champagne yesterday after car shopping with H. I mentioned that, and Sheri said she felt like she was still a little drunk from the high school reunion “weekend” which made me laugh!

I also spoke with the gal in the office – her boyfriend J.B. does the Parkour classes – I really plan at about Day 200 (smile) to do a couple private lessons in Parkour. It’s SO COOL and I think it would be a helpful “skill set.” That’s why I like Crossfit though, too – the idea that it’s going to help you “push up and over a wall” versus your standard “Globo Gym” workout at a Nautilus machine or treadmill makes a LOT of sense to me. That’s also why I REALLY like The Cave – that it has not just Crossfit, but gymnastics and Parkour – is super duper I think. Interestingly, that’s why Kat tried to steer me away from The Cave (“Oh, it’s mainly really a Parkour gym and it isn’t really serious Crossfit”) – but the fact that our box took 3rd this past weekend in a competition (of course it was Amazing Karen and – can’t remember who did it with her – Andrew? Someone I haven’t met) and that everyone there in MY opinion is SUPER serious (in a fun way) seems to bely that. I also like the fact that, while I’m up there in the top of the ages, not many are really young. It makes me feel like I’m not an “old lady.” 🙂 I mean, except for the fact that I can’t lift anything that weighs more than a pencil…(joke! joke!)

OK, so on to TAR Episode 2. This time (spoiler alert) The Bingo Boys got eliminated. I’m trying to remember the sequence of things, but the first “task” was riding bikes out to the largest salt mining operation in the world (presumably this was still in Chile, I just can’t remember). The female ER doctor had BIG TIME issues with riding the bike – it seemed like she couldn’t shift gears, etc. R and I have had a little Facebook “convo” about this – the husband actually swapped bikes with her, and then she did okay – which basically means that he set up the gears for her on that bike. Then when they stopped, the weight of her backpack basically threw her off the bike – which was brutal. It was interesting that neither the baseball wives nor the “ice queens” (a/k/a the “race wives” of the Afghanimals) had much trouble with biking – I think honestly that it was just not a “skill” that the female ER doc had thought she’d have to “master” before coming on the program. (We’re making a list!)

The choice was to either mine the salt (picks and hammers) to find a clue “inside” a salt rock, or take 50 lb. bags of salt to big tanks of water, putting in enough salt so that you could float and read the newspaper. Interestingly, there has to be some sort of a math equation for this. That’s the first thing I thought of – especially when the “mean girl” and her ex were putting it in then not floating, and they hadn’t really “stirred it up” (the salt sank to the bottom). HERE is a little discussion about it…The thing that I personally know, however, from triathlon training is that I FLOAT LIKE A CHAMP. There are some people that are “sinkers” and some are “floaters.” To see which you are, you literally just lie in a pool with your face down and your arms/fingers/legs spread out “starfished” (because this displaces the most water).

I don’t have one bit of my body that sinks under the water. (For three different teams, I’ve been the “example” of a “SuperFloater” – usually, it’s a black guy who is a “SuperSinker” meaning that not one bit of his body stays UP above the water.) So the good part about that, is that I would actually personally know that if we had to “read the paper” in a “salted pond” as it were, that I would float WITHOUT much salt. (So that’s a good little bit of trivia to know. It also means that if, let’s say, a task is to get things off the floor of a pool or pond, it takes me a big effort to do it, because my body is to buoyant. I have a lot harder time than the “average neutrally buoyant person” in doing that.)

ANYWAY – the take-aways from that were:
1 Be able to ride a bike with a fully-loaded backpack on. I know I can “ride a bike” – the key is to understand the gearing of the bike that you’re going to be on. These were mountain bikes, looked like 3 rings in front – and they had click-shifting on the bar, very like the bikes we’ve rented in Sedona. My thought would be NOT to just “jump on the bike” immediately, but for like THREE minutes put the pack down and RIDE THE BIKE to get it into a comfortable gear, especially as it was VERY sandy/salty, and so that’s going to definitely affect shifting, especially the front gears. (I’m actually surprised no one’s chain dropped off.)
2. Know whether you’re buoyant or not. If R and I are both “SuperFloaters,” then it doesn’t make that much difference if there was a task that is for one person, and involves floating (or diving down). But if it turns out R is less of a floater than I am – once she’s lost weight of course – then that makes a difference. I’m probably even MORE of a floater now that I’m fatter than I was when doing tri team and Ironteam, but I know that when I’m “fit and trim” I’m still a “SuperFloater.” This is also why I can tread water for pretty much hours (literally) without even using my hands – because I am such a floater already, that it doesn’t take too much “kick” to keep me up. Good to know.
3. Have jogbras that can double as bathing suit tops – and PERHAPS undie/bottom combos. A couple of the girl “pairs” had to “change into” their bathing suits, whereas one pair (I think the baseball wives) were ready to just hop into action. They didn’t have “cute bikinis” like the Icequeens did, but they just stripped down and got to it. I think that wearing jogbras and then finding some sort of “bottom” that could double as a undie/bathing bottom would be the best bet. My supposition, frankly, was that the gals who didn’t have the ability to just “jump to it” never EVER thought that in the middle basically of a freakin’ salt desert that they’d need to be in their bathing suits. So – lesson learned. I personally love my Handfuls jogbras, they are SUPER comfortable ALL day long, don’t chafe, etc. They also have (and I have) tanks made similarly (just with a “tank” bottom) which I really like as well. I have a grey and a black of that – I have a number of the jogbras because I wear them EVERY day (pink, white, tan, black, purple, brown).
4. Have your “flip flops” ready. The “Ice Queens” were walking back and forth with the 50 lb. bags of salt in their bikini-ini-inis and – bare feet! This was insane. I still believe that Keen’s are the way to go – and they’d be floaty, too (extra bonus LOL).

I think that’s all my “learnings” from that exercise. 😉

Now, I might be mixing this up, but either then, or before (to get there), everyone had had to get a bus that was a 24 hour ride (!!!) – and the first/speediest bus could only take 1/2 of the group. The rest just asked to be put on “the next bus,” but the Bingo Boys were smarter – they were the last ones to get to the bus terminal, but after everyone had bought tickets to the next bus (which left in 1/2 hour), they asked which bus would get them to their destination the FASTEST. It turned out that a bus that left 4 hours later would get in 5 minutes after the one that the “2nd group” had taken – because that bus had a lot more stops. The first bus was a “direct” bus as was the third bus (that the Bingo Boys took) – but the 2nd was NOT. SO the question to ask is: When will this bus GET ME THERE – not When is the next bus?

Unfortunately, it LOOKED like the Bingo Boys were going to wind up 4 hours AHEAD of the 2nd bus of folks, but they (and we, as the audience) misunderstood what they were told (adrenaline…adrenaline…) – the heavier of the Bingo Boys had “misinterpreted” what was said, thinking that he had been told the 3rd bus would wind up 4 hours ahead – NOT that they had to WAIT 4 hours (there) and that it would get in just about the same time (5 minutes later) than the 2nd bus. It was a bummer because I was really congratulating them for their ingenuity – then it turned out that it wasn’t quite as good as “we” had thought. I suppose it depends on whether you’d rather spend the 4 hours on the bus, or in the bus terminal….probably on the bus, because you could sleep and not have to “worry” for those 4 hours whether or not you were going to sleep through and not make it ONTO your bus.

The last “task” that folks had to do was to meet up with a shoeshine person in a big plaza, shine the shoes for client, then take the shoeshine person’s “stand” and get it to the storage place that it was stowed overnight. The shoeshine “stands” fit together like a puzzle – everyone got their client’s shoes shined, then they just piled everything up on top of itself and went to the storage area, where they were basically told “uh, no.” SO they had to figure out then how to put it together the right way. One gal forgot the rug it was sitting on (stupid mistake), and I was curious whether the actual person who “owned” the shoeshine stand was standing there and whether one could have asked for help putting the thing together for storage. That was unclear. One thing though was that the clue was actually named something like “Putting a Puzzle Together” or something, and so if you were not amped up on adrenaline, and paid attention to the clue, you might be able to realize that there was a “trick” to “putting the shoe shine station together” (like a puzzle) to put it away.

So, this leads to where the Bingo Boys were disqualified. OMG. It was so so sad, funny, oh dear. The heavier of the Bingo Boys picked the task, and he just found a random shoeshine guy on the plaza, and conned him into teaching him how to shine the shoes for his client, and then he made the guy pack everything up and go with him to the storage area. O-M-G. It was SO SO SAD! The guy who he’d picked was saying things (in Spanish) like “Hello, this is my livelihood, what do you want me to do? You’re crazy…” – but you gotta figure that here he is, a SHOESHINE GUY, and a crazy gringo heavy American descends on him WITH A CAMERAMAN AND A SOUND GUY, and asks him to do this – Hell, that’s the story of the century for him to take home, right?

The take away though was that if you are given a task like this, LOOK FOR THE OBJECT THAT HAS TAR COLORS, that is where you have to go. I happen to remember in the back of my mind this happening a couple of times in past seasons. I seem to remember a couple who just went to a home somewhere in Asia, “surprising” the couple there, and had them “teach them” how to do an altar piece (something like that) – and another time something similar with just “showing up” at a place and learning how to cook something. The take-away here is LOOK FOR TAR COLORS or IT IS NOT THE RIGHT PLACE.

Because the baseball wife had forgotten the rug, she had to go back, and so in actuality, the Bingo Boys (once he actually got the correct “TAR-sponsored stand” and had shined the shoes and brought that to storage) were SO CLOSE. I also wondered (which is what makes me wonder whether there was a “person” that could have “helped” the other teams) whether – since he’d actually SEEN the “real” shoe shine guy put his whole station together – if he was able to put his together quicker because he’d seen that there was a “knack” to it. In writing this, I actually tend to think that the “customer” that was sitting at the TAR-sponsored shoe-shine stations WAS the owner of that station….so they probably would NOT have helped.

So that’s my Day 40 writeup! OH, I also discovered why I never, ever seem to be able to get to yoga, though I am still working work-study to get it for free. It’s because Crossfit Monday goes from 9:00-10:00 “or so” (depends on how long you stretch after), then I go from there to grocery shop, because I’m already out and it’s convenient. So when I get home, put the groceries away, etc. I wind up having like 2 hours before yoga. In writing this blog post and seeing if there was any work for me in email, it’s now 1:00pm (class is at 1:30pm). So I could make it today (and might!), but now I realize “what happens to my Mondays.” It’s the grocery shopping/picking up dry cleaning/etc. that I do “in between.” Also, if I were to take a shower now, then I wouldn’t “feel so much” like heading to hot yoga, where I have to take a shower AGAIN. I know, T.M.I., right? Stinky me, writing this blog. LOL!

I think that maybe every 10th day (gee that’d be today) I should do a “conglomeration of things learned” or something – like, tasks that we need to consider being able to do. Maybe I’ll let R come up with that 😉

Yesterday we took my Mom and Dad out for their 55th wedding anniversary (I think Mom said she calculated and when I’ve been married 55 years I’ll be 99 – !!!), and when we got home at 7:45 I was so wasted I just went to sleep!

The Friday workout at Crossfit didn’t really do H in, but it whacked me but good. It’s interesting what whacks him, what whacks me. This one, because it was mostly upper body strength (remember, it was burpees and pull-ups, plus the sprints) not only made me sore the next day, but just “exhausted.” I think that’s gotta be from my muscles ferociously tearing themselves down and building themselves up for the next onslaught 😉

Today we’re going to (I think) go and test-drive cars again again again (some day we really will get one), and go to my friend Dot’s 60th birthday. No gifts, please, but bring something “gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free” to share 😉 I got some hummus dips, plus some sweet-potato chips and some blue corn tortilla chips. I know corn isn’t “Paleo” but it IS gluten/soy/dairy free. At least, I think it is – ?!? (Corn is a grass…hm. I think gluten is only in wheat, etc. but – yeah, lettin’ my ignorance hang right on out here…) We’re also supposed to bring our “favorite green smoothie recipe” so I got her a big bunch of purslane and will wrap it up with a bow and give it to her. (They sell it at the Thursday Farmer’s Market – and it’s a miracle food.)

So I said I’d go and get the questions that are posted on The Amazing Race/Cast list. All the “Cast” answered them. I figured I would answer them here. Then R can do it too. 😉 Right R?

Name: Sandra “Sandy” Shepard
Age: 51
Hometown: San Rafael, CA
Connection to your teammate: We met over 20 years ago when we were interns at LucasFilm. We have kept in touch since, but have only really “seen each other in person” about 6 times. So I think that we’d style ourselves “cyber-BFFs.”
Current occupation:  Wife, lawyer, entrepreneur
Describe what you do: I support my husband in as many ways as I can think of (including coffee & breakfast in bed every morning – though he brings me “tea and truffles” (our name for my evening vitamins!) in the evening!); I am a lawyer for software/internet companies; I have a few other businesses that throw off passive income.
3 words to describe you: (1) What’s a word for the fact I can see the “funny side” of bad things and laugh at it and make others laugh? There’s gotta be a word for that. So that’s 1 word. (2) The next word would be a word for having “shiny penny” syndrome – meaning, I’m totally interested in things and dive for them, but I might get sidetracked by something else. I talk this way too. So you gotta keep up. Talking to me is sometimes like looking at a flow chart. I get tracked off in one direction but I can always leap back to the “Y” and go the other way. It’s probably exhausting to follow if, oh, you’re my husband ;-). (3) Um, the next word would be . . . I have a good attitude – I generally don’t let things get me down. But if they do – oh dear. I can get overwhelmed BIG TIME, so whoever I’m with has to know to basically tell me “it will be okay” and throw themselves into saving the situation. It happens so seldom that people don’t know that about me…though my husband does because we’re together so much, he knows that this can happen. How’s about them apples? About 900 words for the 3 words that describe me. Gotta hone that down LOL
Favorite hobbies: Being with my husband; cooking while watching old 80s shows (Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote); laughing (Pinterest; Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me; my husband’s jokes)
What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Probably my going from couch potato to Ironman in a year. I have a lot of things in my life that I should be super proud of, but that one is really one of the most amazing, still, to me.
What famous person reminds you of yourself? Lisa Kudrow. A LOT of people have told me I look like her – and her character “Phoebe” on Friends reminds me of me (I promise not to break out into a rendition of “Smelly Cat”). You’d never guess that “Phoebe” has a degree in Biology from Vassar, is Jewish, speaks French fluently, is an amazing director….”Smelly Cat….Smelly Cat….What are they feeding you?….Smelly Cat…Smelly Cat…It’s not your fault…” (Whoops, it just slipped out…)
What famous person reminds you of your teammate? Wow that’s a very good question. Right now – maybe because of the Star Wars connection – it would be C-3P0. He’d get others into a situation and then worry or “Eeyore.” Not meant in a bad way – just what comes to mind right now. He was smart, capable, but often would have things “happen to” him and then let them overwhelm him. Whereas R2D2 was sort of the “mighty might.”
What scares you most about traveling? Getting sick. R finding out I snore like a tractor-trailer 😉
What excites you most about traveling? I love seeing new things – whether man-made or nature-made. I also look forward to finding out what makes people in other cultures laugh (and know that a lot of it will be something that ~I~ do that they find hilarious because I don’t know how to do something “so simple” to them)
Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on The Race together: We have NO idea how we will work together. We have never done that. I think that’s why we will be an intriguing choice – because our friendship is basically based on liking one another “from afar.” Even when we were at Lucasfilm, R worked down at Kerner and I worked at The Ranch. I think we “bonded” because we were at least 10 years older than any of the other interns – then we just kept up the friendship.
Pet peeve about your teammate: Right this second, just that she got me excited about doing this about 5 years ago or so (I’d never seen TAR before she emailed me and said “We should TOTALLY do this!”) – and I am really really hoping that this 365-day thing will get her on the track of us really being able to feel confident enough to put in a video/application if not for the next season, then for the one after. (I think they do 2 a year, so the next one is going to be fairly soon – probably TOO soon – but the next after that should work.) We REALLY aren’t getting any younger – we’re already far and away older than the “average” racers. So NOW IS THE TIME – I feel that very, very strongly. And I don’t want to do this with another teammate, because we have a compelling “relationship story” that I really think could get us picked.
What country and place would you most like to visit and why? Country? Hm. I’d like to visit Egypt because H has been there already and doesn’t really want to go back. Or Tibet because we both got SO altitude sick up in Colca Canyon in Peru that H won’t do anything “high” again. But I would also like to visit Sumatra – because it sounds exotic and that’s where my coffee comes from 😉 The one thing I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to do REALLY (that TAR hasn’t done yet) is to dogsled to the Ice Hotel in Sweden and stay there overnight. I’m not sure WHY they haven’t done that, but I REALLY want to do that. HERE is a link to a trip doing this, sponsored by National Geographic. It has The Amazing Race written ALL OVER it…HERE is a link about “how to sleep in the Ice Hotel in minus 5 degrees [Celsius]” – my favorite part? “…Be sure to store your luggage in the locker when you go to bed. It and everythinng in it will freeze solid overnight.” LOL! This has TAR written ALL OVER it! (Some team doesn’t follow directions…goes to get up and…SURPRISE!)
What do you hope to accomplish by running The Race (other than winning one million bucks)? To have some ridiculous stories we can laugh about for years. To embody the motto “We don’t want to be first to the mat, we just don’t ever want to be last. 2nd-to-last is fine.” (That can get us all the way to the finish, of course…) And if, in reality, I suddenly had $ 1/2 million after taxes (so what would that be, about $250,000?), I’d go right back out and take my husband on some super-duper awesome trip to Greece/Turkey/Italy. We’ve always wanted to do that.

So having done that exercise, I know:

1.  I have to figure out what those three words are.

2.  I have to hear who R thinks she is like. And hope she doesn’t kill me at the reference that came to me – I’m perfectly willing to revise. 😉