Day 47 – TAR Episode 3 learnings; weight PRs; food journal

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 ;-)